rickvs

I got through as the ninth caller, to be told that I had won $250 credit at a local steakhouse, plus tickets to see the Russian Ballet's presentation of "The Nutcracker". Then the call screener asked me to wait a moment, and before she took my name and contact info ...we were disconnected.

Occupational hazard. I'm sure she took the next caller as a matter of policy, but that didn't stop me from trying to get back through for nearly an hour. Growf.

Otherwise, my day was rather pleasant. We visited friends in Fort Worth, went geocaching ...and I found a tool bag in a culvert, for which I've been trying to track down the owner. If I can't, I'm now the proud owner of some middling expensive tools, most of which I have no use for.

All-in-all, an odd day, but better than most.

Rachal's still recovering from pneumonia; she says her lungs hurt worse than they did at Thanksgiving. But she had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and they started her on some new antibiotics.

She basically lost a day over the weekend; she's been sleeping a *lot* the last week or so, and when her roomate woke her up on Sunday, she thought it might still be Saturday. Hope she's feeling better soon, but I'll cuddle her silly when I see her in a couple of weeks regardless.

In other news, I'm looking forward to helping valkyrwench and twfarlan move some of their stuff this weekend, with a break to go see my father at the airport. I'll be moving in m'self a couple of weeks later, and then we'll see how the roomate thing goes. We've already done some preliminary negotiation regarding chores and such, which I find a much preferable approach to just diving in headlong.

I got back recently from the wedding of Reed Byers (aka Unbeliever), who used to post in alt.callahans a few years back, and who I lived with for a few years before that.

Here follows the saga:

( Read more... )

Overall, a good time - as I told Reed, it was pleasant to only be a witness at someone else's chaos.

Some of my (low-quality, taken with a disposable camera) pictures are available here:
http://www.concentric.net/~erick/byers/

Higher quality versions are available courtesy of the bride, here:
http://www.visitations.com/wedding/wedding/

I posted recently about my cat with liver problems, currently residing in Nashville. An ultrasound was done a couple of weeks ago, and we found the source of the appetite loss that caused his liver dysfunction. Ratlet had stomach cancer.

It was too far along to really do anything about. They sent my wife home with enough narcotics to keep him comfortable until she was ready to take him back for his big sendoff ...which, as it turned out, happened this afternoon. (I'm not a big one for death euphemisms; I won't get in the habit of saying that Rat's "passed on". He was taken to the vet to be killed, and I maintain that we did him a favor).

Ratlet had a long life -- over twelve years -- and a good one. I find I'm worried about my wife -- it doesn't look like I'll be able to leave Dallas any time soon, and I wish she hadn't drawn the short straw on this one.

We'd had this cat since before we got married, when we were still rooming with Unbeliever and Phaedrus. They're actually the ones that found him, huddled in the middle of the street and waiting to get hit by a car. Dunno where he came from, but this gray kitten was starving: he was much smaller than his age indicated, and never really attained grown-cat size. For many months after we took him in, he guarded his food jealously, going so far is to *sit* in the middle of his plate, growling around mouthfuls as he shoveled it in with one paw.

When I'd drive to Nashville to visit my wife (and months would sometimes pass between visits), Ratlet would still recognize the sound of my engine, and trot out to greet me. He'd hop up on my shoulder, and walk from there to my wife's shoulder -- at which point I'd have to run around to her other side so I could provide him the next section of "track".

On rare occasions, we could convince him to sleep in bed with us. This usually required a pretty careful beguilement involving a towel on top of a pillow, and if we bounced the waterbed too much, he'd bolt. But if we succeeded, we were sometimes rewarded by waking up with him curled up into a ball, leaning against one of our heads like a sort of feline yarmulke.

Ratlet always alternated between being a cranky little bastard and a buzzing little love machine, and I'm never gonna see him again.

Damn, and double damn.