The Rest Is...

Happy Halloween! I'm about to head off to a Halloween party soon. Having zero time or energy to devote to coming up with a costume, I decided to go with the lazy Doctor Who fan's solution:




All the points to you if you get the reference!

(But, man, I had not realized quite how difficult it is to take a picture of one's own arm.)

Clearly This Is Just What I Needed For My Stress

(Seriously, what does it say about me that I actually did sort of feel more relaxed after watching that?)

Skinny Kitty Update

Just got Nova back from the vet after having him checked out for his weight loss (as mentioned last time in the currently meme), and... they basically couldn't find anything wrong with him. His thyroid levels were good (which reminds me, I'm overdue to have mine checked). His creatinine levels and white cell counts were outside normal range, but only the eensy-weensiest smidge, so the vet thinks that's probably noise rather than signal, meaning his kidneys are probably fine and he probably doesn't have an infection. They also x-rayed him and didn't see any tumors. Which doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any cleverly hidden ones, but, OK, he probably doesn't have cancer, either. The vet thinks mostly likely it's a gastrointestinal problem, and he's not getting full value out of his food. So they just gave him a vitamin B shot and switched him over to a higher-calorie food. I'm going to keep an eye on his weight -- I actually own a pet scale I originally bought to monitor the fat cat -- and take him back in in a few weeks if he keeps losing weight.

So, for the moment... No news is good news, I guess?

No, I Didn't Forget.

It's much later in the month than usual, thanks to all that vacationy stuff, but, no, I didn't forget the usual state-of-me "currently" meme.

Current clothes: Red sweatpants. Doctor Who t-shirt. White socks.

Current mood: Still kind of tired. Still a bit overwhelmed by the to-do list.

Current music: Nothing at the moment. I'm working on catching up on all the podcasts I didn't listen to while I was traipsing around New Mexico.

Current annoyance: The way taking a break makes you feel so behind on everything once it's over.

Current thing: Books, Doctor Who, the usual. (Man, this is making for a very boring iteration of this meme, isn't it? Sorry about that. Maybe I should have waited until I was more capable of coherent thought.)

Current desktop picture: Still this one.

Current book: I'm almost finished with Firestarter by Stephen King. Apparently I've decided that Stephen King is my default vacation reading now.

Current song in head: Given my current book, what else could it possibly be?

Current refreshment: Nothing, but I'm hungry. I should maybe go and eat one of those zillion snacks my mother brought with her and then left here.

Current DVD in player: Once again: nothing. I'm busy catching up on all the stuff that's accumulated on my DVR in the past couple of weeks. (Note to self: never take vacation at the start of the TV season again.)

Current worry: Nova kitty. He's lost quite a bit of weight over the last several months, so I took him into the vet today to have him checked out. They're going to do some blood tests to check his thyroid and his kidneys, but they wanted him to be fasting overnight to do it, so I'm going to have to take him back in in the morning. He seems mostly OK, otherwise, so here's hoping there's nothing too awful wrong with him, but I am a bit worried.

Current thought: Man, I am hungry. Which is not helped by the fact that I have a pot roast cooking in the crock pot, and it's starting to smell really, really good.

What I Did On My Vacation

Well, the houseguests I mentioned in my last post here, what seems like forever ago, have now departed back to their homes. It was fun showing them around New Mexico, but, man, I now feel kind of exhausted. I blame the lingering effects of getting up at 3 AM, not once but twice, to make it up to the Balloon Fiesta before dawn. It was very cool to finally go, though. Despite having lived in NM for 25 years, this is the first time I've attended. Well, unless you count that one time in college when we drove up, stood outside the fence, and watched the balloons overhead, but didn't actually go into the park because we were too broke even to want to pay the minimal entrance fee. I will say, though, that while I might just possibly be persuaded to get up in the middle of the night and do it again sometime, I am never, ever going on opening day again. The balloons were great. The crowds were nightmarish. Fortunately, Thursday was much better, and well worth it, even if the Thursday night Glowdeo was cancelled due to winds.

We also, among other places, drove down to Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands. White Sands was a little disappointing this time, I fear, as it was very cloudy, and I hadn't realized just how much a lack of sunlight changes the landscape from blinding otherworldly whiteness to, well, big piles of light-colored sand. Carlsbad, on the other hand, astonishes me every time I go there. This time I was thinking, y'know, maybe I've seen it often enough, maybe it's going to start losing some of its appeal with familiarity. But, nope. It's still just as awe-inspiring the fourth or fifth time, or whatever it is for me now. I suspect I could visit it every day and never get tired of it.