I may have given the cat too much nip to get him into the bag. He was being paranoid and panting at the vet's. Oops. He has good news/bad news with his ears. I knew it wasn't totally good news because his ears still flick repeatedly some days, but he's all better with the scratching and shaking his head stuff. Good news is: no more bacteria in the ears. bad news is: still yeast. Worse news: Twice daily drops for the next month. meeeeeeh. I just *barely* managed the month of daily drops. But I will persevere, damnit, and in three weeks I will call the vet and tell him ALL BETTER!

Amusingly enough, I was checking out at the same time as another woman with a cat. So I think I hear the receptionist say "Okie" and I look up, but someone else is handing over a card, etc. So clearly I was wrong. I wait my turn, and the other receptionist waits on me, and starts looking for my bill and she can't find it. So she finally says to the other receptionist, "I think you're checking out the wrong animal."

"No, no, it's Okie, right?" she says to the other woman, and she says, "No, Loki. Like the Norse god." Oh, the hilarity that ensued. (that might be pushing it, but there was a bit of slapstick receptionist swapping.) It was then decided that the two pets must never again be scheduled for the same time.

So, let us consider two moms, and their relative awesomeness. Mom 1: Left the dog. Mom 2: Walked the dog for multiple hours.

Highlights of the walk: Unlike his previously mentioned habit with hannah, of bolting ahead, he likes to dink along until I pull on the leash, whereupon he runs up ahead as if to emphasize that *he* could be moving faster, it is my fault that we're moving so slowly. He also got to walk along Mass Ave on a summer evening, which meant checking out all the people sitting at sidewalk tables. He got fussed over to his heart's content by multiple tables, and then when I finally got to the pizza place--well, actually when the pizza cooled enough to eat-- he (re?)discovered that the world can combine his two favorite things--walking and begging food. If you were wondering (as I know hannah and I have discussed) how far the dog can walk backwards, the answer is: about a half block. After that point, he bounds up ahead, sits and waits for me to notice what a good dog I have. There was leaping, spinning, begging, etc. In related news, ( hannah close your eyes )

why must otherwise decent books have stupid lines in them? Is it the curse of the darling? Does the author think 'my god, this is the best line ever, the editor will cut it over my dead body?"

Cause, I'll tell you, I'm very careful with my darlings, as i don't want to be so in love with a line that I ignore the fact that it just doesn't fit. I have some wonderful lines. But if they don't fit, they don't fit, and beauty won't change that.

The culprit this time?

"Her eyes were hazel syringes of truth serum, searching for an injection site."

Yeah. Just...there...in the story, where anyone could trip over it. Nothing else in the book--NOTHING--would lead you to believe that there would suddenly be a sentence like that, hidden in an otherwise innocuous paragraph.

I'm speechless, really.

Tags: i suffer so you don't have to

I don't know what you're talking about, what new icon?

I think I need to stop reading this book, because I am now rooting for the bad guys

Not in any good way, mind you, just a 'please make the pain stop' sort of way.

last night's dream went all cross-group, and got my quakers mixed up with my writers. The most notable things were a) a sea turtle the size of a swimming pool, b) a hot were-sea turtle (swimming pool turtle's son) and c) Dave Schwartz with a hook and a hand instead of the two real, working hands I saw him with last time I saw him.

The context, what little there was for that, was something like, I was glad that when he'd been driving and had to swerve to avoid hitting something, it was towards his real hand, cause that seemed safer. And I said as much, and he was like, "do you have a hook? Then how do you know how it is to drive with a hook?"

The good news is, getting two cavities filled was less painful than work today.

The bad news is, work today was more painful than getting two cavities filled.

Lack of novacaine at work, though, is probably mostly a bonus, though the topical anesthestic was pretty sweet. Mah tongue ith numb, and I have bitten it and/or the inside of my cheek about 45 times already. This is really annoying.

It also would have been nice if I'd known the Novocaine equivalent had epinephrine before I was sitting in the chair feeling like I was going to have an anxiety attack while the meds were kicking in. It was not pleasant.

Now, back to catching up on work.

Mah tongue ith numb.

Also, this has the worst bad-boy love interest ever: He is a pack leader were who pimped out his (now-murdered) late girlfriend for a while, until they decided to get married and move back to Russia, whereupon she was freelancing for a nest egg. When the main character was all "aw, he's kinda hot" while looking at the mug shot/rap sheet, I hoped desperately that she was just joking. Except she so wasn't.

Tags: i suffer so you don't have to

So, I'm reading Night Life. It is...not very good. And yet, i am still reading it.

How bad is it? I'm glad you asked.

The fact that the werewolf is named Luna, that's bad enough. I mean, thank god the talentless girl got bitten, not the cousin with witch skills named Sunny. Who ever heard of a werewolf named Sunflower?

But that's not the really bad bit. Thus far, the worst bit is that the werewolf girl has a bikini wax.

Oh, wait. the bit about her eyes going all werewolfy--her pupils "changing from human black to animal gold." That's a author who has never looked at an animal in her life. This is the new worst science ever. It has exceeded both the were math in Charlaine Harris's books *and* the 'mineral rich rain' in Yasmine Galenorm's farieland.

I am still reading it.

Tags: i suffer so you don't have to