Um, almost free?

The title of this post was going to be "Free at last, free at last!" In reference to my having finished, after two whole months of slogging through it, Bleak House. Alas, I still have about 30 pages left to go as of today. I'm happy that I reread it, though - the movie was excellent, but you miss out on all the little Dickensian details. So anyway, I'm almost finished with it, and I'm eager to get on to my next book which I already started reading on the plane back from Seattle. It's The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro. I wish I could be friends with Alice Munro, although apparently she's in her seventies. Seems like a cool lady, though.

The BF and I (I could start calling him the fie-ancy, but why ruin a good thing?) saw Pan's Labyrinth over the weekend and I really enjoyed it. The allegory is not exactly hard to figure out (have you noticed how many movies/TV shows these days have torture scenes?) but that's OK. It was one of the first movies I've seen in a while where I came out of the theatre genuinely happy about my movie-going experience; i.e. good overall film that absorbed me; characters that I cared about; an interesting story that was sad and scary but not overwhelmingly so; poignant but believable ending. In short: it was good.

We also saw Notes on a Scandal last week, which, while also very entertaining, was kind of like The Queen: good in a "so what?" kinda way. Basically if you see it, you see it to watch Cate Blanchett and Judy Dench act really well, and that's about it.

So about the Oscars, am I the only one who is a) almost so bored with the nominations as to not even want to watch the damn thing, and b) completely mystified about the presence of Little Miss Sunshine on the Best Pictures list and about Abigail Breslin's nomination for Best Supporting Actress? For one thing, LMS was not that good a movie. I would rate it slightly above the Chevy Chase/National Lampoon pictures in the "road trip"/"wacky family" genre of films. I think the voters must be getting tired and lazy--it's like they're squinting their eyes and mumbling as they fill out their ballots, "OK, now what movies did I see this year? Oh yeah, there was that Little Miss Sunshine thing...yeah, that was OK. I'll just put down everyone's name who was in that, rather than spend time watching quality films."

I'm not even going to list out my Oscar predictions since the winners are pretty much completely obvious and, like the hypocrite that I am, I haven't seen most of them anyway.

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have...a big pile of crap

First, the good news, which 99.9% of you already know about because I emailed you about it yesterday: the BF and I are engaged. It happened in Seattle, it was a complete surprise (to me), yadda yadda yadda. No ring, no dates set, no locations picked out. If we don't get married in someone's back yard with a potluck reception, as is my hick family's tradition, it will be a miracle. My mother, you will all be heartened to know, screamed for a full ten minutes with relief and joy when I told her the news. Which makes sense, since you would probably have the same reaction if you truly believed this turn of events would deliver your wayward child from frying in an eternity of hellfire. I'm-a comin', Jesus!

Anyhoo. The bad news. Well, it looks like my dear little fuzzyhead is in the early stages of kidney disease. But all is not bleak--apparently if we change her food and give her special (read: expensive) new food if could keep her going for awhile longer. It's been a wake-up call for me, though, because I've never really experienced the decline/death of a loved one. The only people I've ever really known who have died during my life are my paternal grandparents, though I never knew them well, and was relatively young when they passed away. I've even escaped the up-close deaths of my childhood pets - we had to give away my dog when we moved to Oregon, and my parents gave away my first cat, an outdoorsy fellow, when they sold their house and moved to Arizona. Both of those pets have since expired, but I haven't had to see them suffer or find them dead, and in both cases I only heard about it later, and years after I'd had them as my own pets. The only remaining friend from my youth is Easy, and I will be a broken hollow shell of a human when she finally does go, at least for a while. But she's still hearty, and here's hoping she's got some life in her yet.

Oh yeah. The conference. Eh. It was kinda dull - ALA Midwinter is mainly for committee meetings, and when you're not on a committee the whole thing is kinda pointless. I went to some discussion groups which were mostly not interesting, but I did give out a few business cards and engage in copious small talk, so I guess maybe I got a little of my network on. But now I'm stoked--OK, maybe that's too strong of a word--interested in going to ALA Annual, which wouldn't you know it, takes place right here in good ol' DC this summer. Anyone who wants to attend is invited to stay with me, provided I still have an apartment. Unless you get paid by your work to stay someplace nice, in which case I will be staying with you.

Swing low, sweet chariot

So I took my cat in to the vet today, and had about $640 of lab work done on her. She's been losing weight lately, not eating as much, and seems to pee a lot more than she used to. Also, she's 14 now, and I knew that this moment would be coming soon. I had just hoped she'd have at least two or three more healthy years in her. And she may yet - the lab tests don't come back until Thursday at the earliest, and the vet couldn't even say what he suspected at this point since she's old and the list of possible maladies is long.

All of which has me pondering mortality and the value of life. As I have perhaps foolishly made public on this blog from day one, I am poor. The $640 for the lab tests made me freak out a little, though I know my cat is worth every penny, and now I'm wondering how much more I am willing to shell out to keep the little fuzzhead going for what could be a only very short time in any case. I mean, 14 for a cat is, according to all the charts I saw at the vet's today, about 75 in human years. She might have a little bit left in the gas tank, but the red needle is on it's way to empty, no doubt about it.

So a part of me says: you can't afford any major procedures. She's a cat. A much beloved, cared-for and undoubtedly overly spoiled cat, but a cat just the same, and it would be silly to spend thousands of dollars keeping her alive, if indeed she is ill and needs treatment. On the other hand. I adore her about as much as most people adore members of their own family, possibly more. She is my family. And I would spend whatever it took to keep a family member alive, even if I knew it would only be for a short while, right?

And yet. There are government programs set up, Medicaid and Medicare and whatever, especially for people who can't afford medical treatment. There is medical insurance, and tax deductions and various other means of obtaining funds and reimbursements for people who are sick. But nothing exists to help out those who need to pay for treatment of a sick animal. And by the way, how telling is it that the doctor who told me all of these tests would be needed never bothered to mention how much it would cost? It doesn't help matters that the median income where I live is about $90k. I feel ashamed every time I have to ask a doctor or dentist how much a procedure will cost, because health consequences be damned, the price will determine whether or not I can have it done.

So am I going to look like an asshole if I ask how much it will cost to fix my sick kitty? Probably. God, I hate living here. And I hate having to make this choice, even if it is a bit premature. Should I be allowed to even own a pet, if I can't afford any and all expenses it may incur throughout the course of its life? I don't know. I do know that I love my kitty so much that writing this post has caused me to cry at work, and I don't think I should have to miss out on that kind of love and that kind of companionship just because I'm poor.

Westward-ho!

In case I missed letting some of you Seattle/Northwest peeps know that I'm gonna be in town next weekend, consider yourself warned. I'll be going to the ALA Mid-Winter Meeting, which is sure to be entertaining and informative, or at least better than staying here and doing nothing. I'm supposed to be networking and stuff while I'm out there so that maybe I have half a chance of getting a job when I move back, but I can never really seem to muster the energy for the schmoozing. Nevertheless, I just spent $18 getting ugly and non-official-looking business cards printed, so maybe I should at least pretend to wheel-and-deal.

Anyway. The other night I was at work and bored, a rare occurence, and so I took the opportunity to read my blog archives. Some things I've noticed: I used to write a lot more about books I was reading and movies I had seen, but maybe that was because I used to post a lot more often and needed something to write about. Also, (I)(use)(way)(too)(many)(parentheses). (I guess I'm fond of the parenthetical statement.) And wow, have I really gone off the deapend since about August or September with the memes. Sorry about that - they are the lazy man's method of blogging and I realize this. Plus, they're really ultra-fucking-boring.

I didn't really have a point to make there, I was just saying. Here's something you will all enjoy: LEG UPDATE! Well, not much is new, unfortunately. It still hurts. But I feel that perhaps my knees are slightly better, although my hip/pelvis (I have an inflamed joint where my hip and pelvis meet) is still sore and it looks like it will be sore for the rest of my life, since I don't like either of the two options I have been presented with: 1) taking steroid medication - oh good, I get to gain weight and have worse acne than I am already blessed with! or 2) get a cortizone shot. No thanks, I'll just live with the pain. As my good friend and supermodel roommate once said, "Sometimes you have to suffer for fashion." Indeed.

Also, I don't like my doctor so I don't think I'm gonna go there anymore, and besides, it's too expensive and I can't afford it. So, bring the pain!

I'm lame

NEWSFLASH! I had a bunch of things I was going to blog about and then I never did and now I've forgotten them. Anyway, I ran across a short little meme and I knew you'd all be so happy about it, so here it is.

Five Things You Don't Know About Me

1. I have an addiction to at-home workout DVD/videos. They are practically the only media I will actually buy with my own money anymore. I buy one, use it a few times, then have to have another before too long. I've probably collected more than 20 of them now, although the VHS ones get little to no use these days (the Jane Fonda step aerobics tapes just don't it for me anymore, nor does Cher). I've even gone so far as to buy a yoga DVD, featuring Denise Austen no less--I now have two Denise Austen DVDs, and I admit I feel a little stupid about it.

2. I do not now, nor probably will I ever, own an iPod. Gadgets of the devil, I tell you. I mean, I'm sure they're great, but really, must they cost so much? And, costing so much, must they be so ubiquitous? "Hi, I have an iPod. I make $80k a year and you don't." Blow me.

This meme is more difficult than it would appear. I'm having trouble thinking of three more things that no one knows about me, since I pretty much spill the entire contents of my life on this blog. I'll keep trying, though.

3. Oh, here we go. This one is really embarrassing--I used to have a crush on Pauly Shore. Yes, you read that correctly. I don't know what I was thinking, but it goes without saying that I was a confused teenager at the time. I even bought one of his stand-up "comedy" CDs (the term "comedy" being broadly defined here).

4. Well, this is dumb and I may have said this in some previous post, but I don't actually enjoy the taste of alcohol. In fact I find it repulsive, yet I do drink from time to time in order to get a buzz, and occasionally, in order to get utterly stumbling-home slurring-speech blurry-vision, beer-goggly trashed (not very often, though, and I don't actually drink beer, as it is disgusting).

5. Shamefully, I have tried to take up eating disorders at various low points in my life. However, my attempts at anorexia have never lasted more than about two hours, four if I ate a really big meal beforehand. Attempts at bulimia have failed as well, as it seems I am incapable of making myself vomit on command. So I've had to settle for either being fat, which is no fun at all, or exercising and watching what I eat, which is laborious and time consuming, and also no fun at all. But which I do anyway, because see first clause in above sentence.

Lusting in Seattle

I want to be Nancy Pearl when I grow up. Seriously, how cool is her job? By the way, the link goes to her Book Lust Wiki, so you should click on it and not be afraid.