Last week, to follow on from the discussion of atemporality, I started sort of an essay/rant about the future being a fictional construct, the non-linear nature of “progress”, and how making and remixing intersect. I haven’t felt inspired to shape it into something actually readable, so instead, how about some music and photos?
Above is a song I wrote with the KORG DS-10 cartridge on my Nintendo DS (RSS reader folks, click through to see it).
I also made something I’m calling an atemporal dance mix (my mom says it’s good for cheering yourself up, too).
I finally finished the Sputnik vs. Roomba video I started last year when we got our robotic vacuum. Sputnik doesn’t try to attack it quite as ferociously now, but he will chase it around if he’s bored. I did the clips from the Roomba POV by taping the camera to the top of it. I think there’s a potential to make some funny monster movies this way: cover the top of the Roomba with a costume of some sort, tape the camera on, and set it loose in a city of cardboard skyscrapers. Cats and giant people feet optional.
I also made another mobile magazine to follow the Dinosaur one. This time it’s a short story about cats. There’s a mobile pdf and a printable-foldable copy like before.
I’m lounging around at home for a couple of days, drinking tea, playing with wool, picking up after the kitten… because I quit my job. I start a new one on Wednesday. Yay!
Somehow I feel like doing anything but work on my Halloween costume, which is of course the only project with a deadline right now. I went fabric shopping, I played video games, I spun several skeins of yarn, I bought underwear, and signed up for a flat rate text messaging plan. I’m a very productive procrastinator.
The kitten has managed to knock over an unbelievable number of things the last few days. It looks like he went through another growth spurt, and I think he’s realized that himself, because things that seemed too high up to jump on are suddenly attracting his attention. The place he’s most interested in is the shelf above the litterboxes (they’re in the office closet), so some of the cleaning up has involved sanitizing things that ended up in the kitty litter. Like half my knitting needles (those were on a bookcase just outside the closet). And a couple of boxes. And the bathroom mats, which were used as a backup potty area after Sputnik blocked access to the actual litter boxes with a large piece of styrofoam board.
The kitten (top) has been named Sputnik. The 1 year old (bottom) still doesn’t officially have a name. I’m leaning toward Yuri, but we’ll see.
They don’t like each other very much yet. The kitten is oblivious, but the older cat hisses and growls if he gets too close. I can’t find any advice on introducing two cats that accounts for both being new to the home, and both meowing their heads off if kept in a closed room. Right now I’m letting them take turns roaming the apartment, and reopening the doors when I’m tired of the mewing. The kitten will probably spend the night in the bathroom until they’re settled in more. Which I hope will happen soon, because I want to play with both of them, and the separate rooms thing makes that hard. Also, Sputnik has already figured out how to knock the soap dish into the sink.
Both have really playful personalities, so I hope this works out. I have a squirt gun to break up fights. I’m kind of worried about the older one staying grouchy, though. He’ll calm down, right?
I knew something was wrong when I opened the bedroom door this morning. Frances is almost always waiting in the hall, anticipating breakfast, and on the rare occasion that she isn’t, she reappears within a few minutes. I didn’t want to panic. I checked in the bathroom. I looked for her under the computer desk before glancing at my email. No cat, but my inbox had a forwarded obituary from my mom, about the mother of one of my favorite people from high school. And I thought, “this is going to be the day my cat dies too.”
I found Frances behind a chair in the living room, barely able to lift her head.
We took her to Dove Lewis, and almost immediately the vet fetched us to say her temperature was way too low, her body giving out, were we aware of any kidney disease?
It shouldn’t feel like such a shock. I knew this was coming, as she got thinner and quieter over the last several months. It’s still very hard to arrive at the end, to have her put to sleep.
Frances has been part of my life for ten years. For me that’s the last year of high school, college, several residences, my entire adult existence.
If I don’t answer my email for a couple of days, it’s not personal. I can barely write two sentences in a row without taking a break. I really miss her.
In order to fully document my upcoming travel, I bought myself a new camera (Canon Powershot 450) and a digital voice recorder (Olympus something-or-other). Both have been tested and work beautifully.
The digital recorder saves its files in WMA format, which is a pain because then I have to convert them to something more useful, but I think it will be just fine for capturing the shouting and singing of choirs of soccer fans. The camera kicks ass. I even made a little movie of my cat with the video setting (did you know it only takes 7 seconds to fill a 16 MB card?), but Speakeasy doesn’t seem friendly to letting people download such things from my website, so you’ll have to email me if you want a copy, unless someone can suggest a place to host it (I’m too tired/lazy to sign up with something like YouTube right now).
You should email me about the video. It’s really funny.
Edit: I uploaded the video to the Internet Archive and you can access it here.
My fears about being able to knit a sweater in 16 days appear to be unfounded. Here’s where I was after the first night:
And here’s the state of the sweater now:
The other update you’ll be eager to hear is that I now have confirmation that Frances is not sick, just picky:
It was nothing a jar of lamb baby food couldn’t fix. I’m sure she’s having trouble with her sense of smell and ability to chew as she gets older, but I was surprised that she suddenly decided dry food was inedible. I’ll try putting wet food on top for a couple of days to see if she’ll eat them mixed together.
I think my cat is on a hunger strike. The last few days I’ve noticed that when I pour her dry food back into the cup to measure out how much more she needs (it helps encourage her to eat the stale stuff if I mix in some fresh food every morning) the amount appears to be the same as when I put it in the dish the day before. She’s not acting sick or lethargic, but I’m still a little concerned. I hope this isn’t an attempt to get me to buy more wet food. She acts like a junkie toward that stuff.
