Current mood:	zen-ish
Current music:	syndication: CSI, Crossing Jordan; also Ellen DeGeneres

my life as a spinster: Happy Leap Day & Goddess bless Sadie Hawkins!
Tomorrow is February 29th, Leap Year Day, the day created to adjust the calendar so it kinda matches reality. One of the traditions that's grown up around Leap Year Day is that today is the day that it's "okay" for single girls to ask single guys out - or even propose. How shocking! Those forward hussies!!! [/sarcasm]

Sadie Hawkins Day, on the other hand, is a yearly event, but in my mind the two are inextricably entangled. Sadie Hawkins, fictitious icon (not the LJ kind) that she is, is kinda the matron saint/demi-goddess of spinsters. Since I identify as a spinster, rather proudly, in a "reclaiming of the term" kinda way (like how I also identify as a Witch), that means tomorrow is a once-every-four-years extra holy day (in addition to the Quarter & Cross-Quarter Days of the Neo-Pagan calendar) for me. Whee!!!

Anyway, I'm taking advantage of all this Adjustment/Leap Year/Spinsters-Run-Wild Day to actually make myself post something, thereby finishing out the month with more than one post (aka two posts). I may even post more before the month ends tomorrow! OMG the shock! How will our systems survive?! Though, wherever LJ's time is set from (Greenwich? elsewhere?) usually means that the new day (month) starts *hours* early.

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I'm doing okay - not great, but okay. LSO has been feeling her age recently, but some of that is weather-related, too. And Max is hanging in there with style. The vet tells us that his latest blood test shows that his various test values are still of the scary (though there has been some very minor improvement), but you wouldn't know it to look at him. He sleeps a lot, yeah, and he doesn't play as much as he once did, but he is 14. He does still play and he still has those moments of Insane Cat Attack where he races around the house chasing Quantum Mice. And his appetite is fine. He's also particularly happy because his diet is still including lots of meat-style baby food, which is The Best Thing Ever according to every cat I've ever seen with it. He's still eating some dry and canned cat food, so the vet feels he's getting plenty of taurine (in case anyone besides me was worried).

He's now getting two liquid medicines and one-fourth of a Pepcid AC everyday, and the subcutaneous fluids approximately 2 out of 3 days. He REALLY!!! doesn't like any of this, it's still definitely Kitty Hell Time - and also hell for His Highness's human servants. For all his age and his dicey blood values, Max is a BIG, STRONG cat, with big, strong back claws. After he caught me one day on the forearm with those big strong back claws, leaving two deep furrows of 8-9 inches each (which are still healing), I've started referring to him as Feline Krueger. I - he - it's been rough on all three of us and there's no end in sight. At least he doesn't hold a grudge - as soon as he's let loose after a medicine/fluids session, he's fine and as affectionate as ever. Which is only slightly more openly affectionate than Lt Col John Sheppard; neither one does big emotional displays or excessive touching. *g*

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OMG I am so ready for winter to be over!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fifty-plus inches of snow here in the Chicago area. I've actually spent weeks semi-trapped in the house because we haven't been able to get through the ice blocking the garage door. Public transportation is a no-go because of my mobility issues (details of which I'll spare you unless there are requests for more info); cabs are a no-go because of cost. I haven't even been able to start my physical therapy because the mounds of snow and ice have given parking lots and walkways treacherous footing. I have long since passed Cabin Fever and am headed straight into gibbering wall-climbing (except not literally because of those mobility issues) insanity. I haven't even seen my shrink once during the entire month of February! ::curls into whimpery little ball of undifferentiated angst::

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So I'm watching the Ellen DeGeneres Show and a few minutes ago she showed a video of Stacy Westfall demonstrating her technique in reining (think dressage for cowboys) - except she rides bareback, except her horse is completely naked without tack, not just no saddle, but no bridle either. What an amazing sight! By the end of the video, I was torn between soul-wrenching envy and deeply-moved tears. Ellen hopes to have her as a guest on the show; she also commented that Stacy Westfall is the only woman who rides this way. Before you comment that you do/did as a kid, I think she meant "in competition" and the whole reining stuff.

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I redecorated the LJ last week, from Alphonse Mucha to Arthur Rackham. Rackham's art is generally kinda wistful (even the Valkyries and Storm Giants look a teensy bit wistful in his Ring Cycle illustrations), but the illustration I chose for my coordinated background/default icon is more wistful than most - and fits my recent mood surprisingly well. Not that I'm so much wistful as I am ... thinky and contemplative, vaguely depressed (existentially depressed?), and occasionally zen-ish. With intermittent periods of Rodney McKay-esque irritation at the stupidity of my species.

The following cut-tags are (1) a test for seeing if the cut-tag thingee will work during a cross-post to other journal sites, and (2) a tour through previous background images I've used in my LJ. I keep thinking that there was another one, but I can't remember what it might've been. The last one is my new look; I've used the matching icon for this post.

La Dauce Vie by Francois Fressinier:


The Fairies and the Furry by Patricia Pierce-Phillips:


Mucha collage:


Feeling Very Undancey by Arthur Rackham:


So ... more later? Maybe even more today?

x-posted to Djinanna @: CJ, DJ, IJ, JF, LJ, via Semagic