Urgh. Many thing and many non-things have happened, and it’s time to start documenting them. Yeah, I’ve been lame at updating – again – sorry about that. :)

Let’s see, what’s been going on? Well, I took Thena to get spayed on Friday morning. I caught a cab out to the pet hospital, dropped her off, then slowly wandered back towards my apartment, alternately not thinking about everything and feeling somewhat teary about the whole event. Logically, I knew she’d be fine, I knew it was a routine procedure, I knew I knew I knew... but she’s the first warm, demanding little body that I’ve had that’s utterly dependent on no one but me, and I couldn’t help but think that something would go wrong as a result.

So I wandered back slowly, not in any big rush and enjoying the morning. I stopped in at a diner for some breakfast, then kept wandering back towards Chapters. I spent a bit of time in there, trying to find *something* that I really wanted (I picked up a few books, but nothing I was dying to buy), before heading over for my hair appointment. Got my hair all dyed crazy-like, then it was time to grab some lunch.

This whole time I was trying to avoid going to my apartment, partly because I felt like if I was there I should be cleaning it or something. However, in my travels, while I was thinking of what I wanted to be next doing, I kept thinking, ‘I could go back to my apartment and hang out with my kitten!’ before realizing that I couldn’t do that, my kitten was presently having her little girl parts removed and being microchipped.

So I got to the mall and gave Ben a call, but he’d already had lunch (since it was 1:30 at this point, I wasn’t terribly surprised). Instead, I ran into Gord and his friend Eric, and I persuaded them to hit up a nearby Chinese food place that had always struck me as sketchy, but had received the Ben seal of approval. We chatted while I ate, then it was time to drop in on Ben and give him my leftovers. :) The bunch of us wound up at a nearby Starbucks, and I booked it to go and get my kitten from the pet hospital – they’d called while my hair was getting finished up and told me she’d been a darling for them and was recovering nicely. Damn cat, being selectively well-behaved.

When the tech told me about after-care and so on, she said that Thena was feeling the effects of the various painkillers and so on and was “a little upset with them trying to take the IV out.” Now, having worked at an animal hospital myself and briefed many an owner on taking their post-surgery/post-procedure pets home, I knew how to parse this sentence. It translates to something as, “Thena’s tried to chew someone’s face off while we were trying to perform (action).” It made me giggle a little bit, I must confess.

Anyhow, I got to pick up my drug-eyed kitten, and back to my apartment I went. I was impressed at how quickly she’d shaken off the effects of the anaesthetics. About an hour after I’d gotten her home, her eyes were clear and while her back end was still a little wobbly, she was trying to play and she was jumping up into the window constantly, trying to see what’s going on outside. When I’m home, I open the window for her, and she likes it.

I laid down on the couch and was trying to convince her to nap with me, but I guess she’d spent the day napping and was done with it. I passed out in two- to five-minute increments, waking up every time I heard her do something new. D called around 5, saying he’d be over shortly, which wound up being about a half-hour later. After some negotiation with Gord, Shawn, and Ben, we were going to go see Harry Potter 3 (my and D’s second time), but that fell through. Instead, D and I wound up going over to see Stepford Wives.

Now... my thoughts on that movie are going to have to wait, ‘cause I’m not sure how to really categorize what I thought of it. Overall, I thought it was decent, there were a few twists in there that kept it interesting, but in the end, the message in it was somewhat unsettling. It led to a good hour-long discussion between D and I on the subject, on gender roles, on sociological roles of men and women and so on, and that was kinda cool. I don’t know if Frank Oz’s goal was to have people thinking when they left it (which sounds bad, but it’s the best way I can think of to phrase it at the moment), but I did appreciate it for that.

After D left I mucked about on the computer for awhile, chatting with a few people, before going to bed around 12:30. I was pretty zonked from two early mornings in a row (I’ll rant about my work retreat another time). At some point in the morning I had felt Thena crawl under the covers to curl up by my outer thigh, and when I woke up that morning, she crawled up me in increments, purring furiously and staring at me the whole time. It’s times like those that I really appreciate her – black button eyes fixated on my face while she rumbles and cuddles against me. She might lick me or put her nose against mine for a kiss, but mostly she just looks content and I feel good about how I care for her.

I checked the time and was a little surprised to find that it was 10 in the morning – typically weekends involve Thena bouncing on me and maybe biting me anywhere between 7 and 8:30 – but either she’d taken pity on me (doubtful) or she was pretty exhausted herself and needed the extra rest. Once she got a bit nippy, I got up and started getting ready for the day.

My Saturday was quiet in a sense... I had coffee with someone and we wandered around a fair bit (another gorgeous day) before I headed off to my parents’ place for a big dinner. We had a few guests over, including most of our friends from Dartmouth and a neighbour, and Dad made a full turkey spread and so on. Good food. The night stretched semi-late, and Dad drove us all back downtown, stopping in for another minute to give Thena a little pat. Dad’s seen her twice since I’ve had her now, Mom’s only seen her the day I got her. Weird to think that.

Sunday I got up a bit early and got my groceries, then just hung around the apartment with the kitten. She spent a fair bit of time just sleeping places, and slept on my bed while I used the computer. I actually got up and curled up near her on the bed and dozed lightly for a little bit myself, before going off to work.

Since then... not too much this week. My legs are dead once more, but such appears to be my lot in life now – to always be in pain. :) Tonight my trainer asked if we could reschedule to Saturday, so I have my evening free to go have Pho with Ben, Mark and whoever else is going to be along. Yup, Mark’s in town for about a week and a half before he heads back out, so it’ll be nice to see him again and see if he’s changed drastically. :)

So, before I forget (and to reward those of you who’ve made it this far), I’ve managed to bully my photos into working. It’s not a perfect system, but it works, and you can find the gallery of photos with some brief explanations up. This includes photos of the water damage in my apartment (though not truly conveying the grossness of the squishy carpet I had to live with for so long), the day Thena unravelled a near-full roll of toilet paper on me (okay, one of the times it happened), and the new hair (minus the colour). Enjoy. :)