Hills n' Valleys

Where did June go? I swear it was just here. I'm sure everyone has felt this way at some point, and recently things got a bit crazy here. For one, my school semester was particularly challenging, secondly, I've been cast as Banquo in Macbeth and finally, there was some pet drama here in the form of Scuttle.

My last class of the semester was on Thursday and boy am I relieved it's over! Deep Tissue and Trigger Point Therapy, while useful as a modality for treating chronic muscle tension, is a bitch to cram into your brain in a few short months. The final exam had a written and practical portion, and let me tell you, being in a hot room (81 degrees F) with twelve other students - all of them really nervous - is no way to spend your morning. The exam was like this: while waiting your turn with the professor, you work on whatever muscles your partner asks for. When your turn comes around, you choose a slip of paper from a bag, on which is written one of potentially twenty-odd muscles that you had to study. I chose supraspinitus, a relatively easy one, because it is small, specific and has only two trigger points. As per the routine, I explained the location and attachments, the action, where the trigger points are, then the referral pattern for pain. After this, I was asked to demonstrate my technique for working the muscle and finally how to "set" it. I lost points because I blanked on the referral pattern, (it's down the radial side of the arm), but passed with a 93%. I was mostly just happy that it was over and done. When my partner switched places with me, he got vastus medialis and kinda froze. I felt bad for him, but the prof gave him a second chance. He scraped by with an 80%. (The pass/ fail mark is 75%). Even worse, when I got dressed again, my bra was wet from how much I'd sweat during my test. Yuck.

Banquo is an honourable character from the famed Scottish play, and yes, a man. I'm interested in how the director plans to address my approach to the role, which is to not address gender at all. My first rehearsal was supposed to be on Sunday, from noon till 6pm, but a handful of actors flaked out when they belatedly realized that it was Father's Day. This marks the first bump in what will be a very long road. The director and dramaturge, by the way, are planning an ELEVEN MONTH process of analysis and rehearsal. I'm still not sure why I agreed to this, except perhaps for a sort of morbid fascination. I'll keep you posted.

And then there was Scuttle. As some of you may have noted in previous posts, she's gotten skinny and unpredictable. It's been a very gradual change, and there was concern mixed with rationalization that it was a natural part of aging for our fourteen year old ice princess. About two months ago, she peed on our couch (the expensive one of course), which is totally out of character for her. Then she peed on the ottoman. One day after I'd spent hours with a rented steam cleaner on the furniture, she peed on the ottoman again. Then the other couch. Twice. Obviously, something was wrong.

Given my schedule and relative stress level, I decided to wait until classes finished to take her to the vet while Phillip and I both adapted to this upsetting new routine by keeping everything off-limits and/ or covered in plastic sheeting. We spent more money on cleaning products and kept a close eye on her. On the last day of classes, I took her to our vet and she was kept overnight for extensive tests after learning that she'd went from nine pounds to only six. That's a lot for a little cat. The vet was also concerned about a mass in her abdomen.

The dreaded phone call was to tell us that she was very dehydrated and constipated - which explained the mass in her belly, and that she might have a tumor. I authorized treatment and another test and we waited. When I was called to pick her up the next day, she was in rough shape from an enema and the resulting mess. They had washed her, but she messes in the cat carrier out of nervousness, so I had to wash her again at home. Nightmare!

Diagnosis: hyperthyroidism. The vet has given us pills and an appointment in three weeks to check her T4 hormone level (which was extremely high) and her kidneys. The drugs should stabilize her metabolism, so she'll stop eating so much but gain back some weight. There are potential side effects, of course, but the medication is common enough and inexpensive, so she may safely be able to take it for the rest of her life to manage the condition. Poor old lady. Hopefully, this will calm down her strange behaviour, but we're not taking chances. We'll be the youngest couple on the block to have plasticized our furniture like old biddies. Maybe I should buy a candy dish and peppermints to set out for guests too.

All in all, relief is the emotion of the day. Scuttle is recovering - though I think she got a bit of a strain in her hind legs from struggling against so much handling - and I'm embracing some free time to help Phillip with a bit of yard work and of course to write. I've stopped playing Warcraft since school got so busy and I'm disinclined to return to the time-wasting. I have regular clients wanting massage every week and two more classes to complete before I will be certified. I hope the excitement is done for the year, I've had about as much as I care for.

Hey you kids! Get off my Internet!

Kat and I have some disagreements about technology. She's an artist and a student of the human body, I work in IT. You can see where this is leading, right? Yup, she's an early adopter and I generally dislike technology until you can prove to me that it is better. Happily for me, Kathleen puts up with my Luddite ways; she recently wanted to buy some music by Lamb, and rather than buy it from iTunes (which is what she would normally do) she humoured me and ordered the CD from Amazon instead.

Kathleen loves iTunes. She has bought episodes of Family Guy, Chuck and a few movies. I generally dislike iTunes, I can't explain how much I hate the fact that iTunes tries to restrict what I can do with the media that we legally bought. Cartoons to the rescue! (Also, click on the image above to see a clearer version of my point.)

Kat would sit on the couch and laugh while watching episodes of Chuck so I figured that I wouldn't mind watching them. She bought them on iTunes and downloaded them to her computer so I can't just say "Give me your laptop, I want to watch the shows you bought.". I'd rather watch the shows on the projector in the living room. She also has been running out of space on her machine due to the amount of data she has on it.

Let's pretend that we owned the shows on DVD, how hard would that be? Hmmm ... I'd pick up the DVD case, go in to the living room, put it in the Mini and watch the show. That's easy!

Now let's deal with iTunes.

- We'll just export the shows from iTunes on to some fast media like an external drive and import it to the Mini! Nope.

- We'll just burn it to a DVD! Nope.

- We'll sync it to the iPod and then sync it to the Mini? Nope. The mini will insist on wiping the iPod if it is going to look at it.

Argh!

Yay! iTunes has allowed home sharing. Time to go read some FAQs on how to use it. It works! I copy over the Charlie's Angels movies (it takes all night). A couple nights later I go back to continue the job, I can see her iTunes library on the network ... but it won't let me copy the contents this time. WTF? Two days later I've uncovered the issue and start to copy the T.V. episodes over via the wireless network. So. Very. Slow. Wireless network issues and bandwidth raise their ugly heads days and days later I have the first season of Chuck copied over *whew*, it's been two weeks of on and off suffering for one season of Chuck. I haven't bothered to copy over the other files yet. So painful.

Kat also likes her Kindle (which we've written about before). There are many things about the Kindle that are good, but let me explain what *isn't* good about it. While Kat was in Ottawa a while back she bought a book by Ian C. Esslemont. She went to go read it when she realized she had bought the second book in the series. By the time she gets home she realizes no worries, I'll just buy the first book on my Kindle, woo for new technology! She reads the first book on the Kindle then the second paper copy. 

Let's pretend we own the paper copy. I get it off the shelf and start to read it.

Instead I grab the Kindle (how exciting, new technology!). Wait .. Kat wants the Kindle back because she is reading the Twilight series. So when can I get the Kindle to read the book that she isn't using? Soon? Kinda soon? Maybe? (Note from Kat: Pft. I'm a speed reader. It took me very little time to finish the Twilight series, you big baby.)

We bought a paper copy of the book. I can see why publishers like those things. Could we give the copy of the book to a friend? No. Can we sell it to a used bookstore? No. Did it cost any less? Not really. (Yes it did.)

That is enough of that.

I'm back playing soccer again, which is good fun. During the first game, however, another guy on the team messed up his knee and now we are a guy short again. Dangerous fun.

I've discovered a new web comic, I think it has been around for quite some time but I have only just started going through the backlog. Odd, math-based sense of humour. Very entertaining.

We're back from vacation. A really short one. We rented a cottage up in Idyllwild for the memorial day long weekend. There were two things I was worried about regarding the trip:
1) How the Smart car would handle the hills
2) How the dog would handle the trip and odd surroundings

I'm happy to say they both passed with flying colours. The dog settled down pretty quickly and was really good in the new place. It had bad 70's shag carpeting and he enjoyed his four paw traction. I made use of the 'flappy paddle gear box' as the guys on Top Gear like to call it. That made the annoying shift choices of the car a thing of the past and it took the hills with no problem.

The fact that the windy route caused me to drive up the hill like a go-cart was both fun and amusing, since it sent the dog tumbling on every tight corner. I take my amusement where I can find it.

Like many places that have wilderness and are still close to L.A., it was touristy. We went for a few small hikes but ran in to a lot of people. There wasn't a lot of hiking done because the urban dog was overheated and tired quickly. We found a good local coffee shop (important) where I was outed as a Canadian, I have to stop saying the word 'out'. Of course the coffee person had been to Canada and loved it up there (Victoria and Whistler). Who doesn't love Canada?

Sadly I didn't manage to get far enough away from cell towers so work found me on Friday night and I spent a couple hours trying to trouble shoot issues over the phone. Unpleasant.

The cottage was nice, the back porch was really, really nice. We spent a lot of time on the back porch reading (in my case) and doing yoga (in Kat's case). The dappled sunlight, the quiet and the fresh air. Sigh. There was a small parcel of land at the end of the street for sale that Kat and I spent time building our dream home on (that is the view on the right). You can tell from the two photos how much the dog appreciated my 'Lord of this domain' pose. I thought about putting a mouse-over in there but became bored quickly and gave up on it.

The whole 'Dream House' discussion brought up some question about how exactly does one go about achieving a dream home? I've always been a big fan of paying for things in cash, which obviously you cannot do with something as big as a dream.
Do people save up lots of money just in case the dream home shows up?
Do people buy the dream home after the standard one and hope like hell they don't lose their jobs?
Do people sell everything and live in limbo while the dream home is being built?
How do you know your dream home is in the right place? What happens if your location turns out to be not-so-dreamy?
Buying a dream-home anywhere essentially ties you down to that area, and is that a good idea?

It's a tough thing to figure out. Kat posited that we need to look around a variety of areas to see if any particular place grabs our interest, I'm good with that idea. Idyllwild was nice, but I wouldn't give up things to live there. We are heading back to Portland next month, so we'll have a second look at that area. I've always believed I wanted a place in the desert with views of desolation, that would be very cool. Of course a couple days without a walk to a coffee shop may turn me in to a unhappy person. I also wanted a cool place in town as well. Am I unsure, or am I flexible?

I'm fine. Really, I am. Had a little accident on the motorcycle on the way home tonight. Turns out the protection gear works just like it is supposed to. Some rips in my pants, but otherwise it all came through with flying colours. The guy swerved in to me as I was coming up on his right while getting on to the highway. I took out his wing mirror, but I think there is way more damage to the bike. I just started the insurance process (Gieco was very nice) so we'll see if my normal hatred of insurance companies is going to be validated. My poor bike has some damage now :( I'm going to have to take some pliers to my shifter to get it to stick out like it is supposed to.

In more positive news, Kathleen has received two different accolades at school; the first is a letter of recognition from the school for volunteering with them at the Earth Day fair. The second award is for two semesters of achieving a 4.0 grade point average. Woot!