OakMonster's Den

Phototastic Friday: 2008 in pictures

The 12 pictures of 2008.

Also, to keep up with the tradition started last year, here is my First Sentences of 2008 summary.

It was unnecessarily showy for an easy touch down.  So, someone wants to buy OakMonster.com from me.  BBC reports about a possible link that excessive Vitamin E intake may increase risk of lung cancer.  My car is now in the shop.  I KNEW it was too good to be true when Athena started to hang out with us, when she comes running to me when she hears the jangles of the keys, when she sits purring on our floor begging us to rub her belly and every elsewhere on her fluffy black coat with a twinge of orange tabby pattern. We’re once again on death watch as Brandon’s grandfather who has Alzheimer is hospitalized.  My eyes are half opened but I want to post this before I go to bed. Hey, it’s STILL Friday! On Saturday, two major events for me that set the happy tone for the rest of the long weekend. Two things I love most about October: Halloween and beer. I turn 32 on the day Southern California is on fire and Bangkok is flooded. So, the PAD is leaving the airports.

What’s that sound?

Good ol’ laughter.  It was unfamiliar.

I drove in to work this morning. Conveniently, an impromptu happy hour formed around Erin.

You see, Erin helped Dave with this big ol’ project. So he wanted to pay her back in alcohol for her good work. We jumped on that bandwagon and ended up at the Spring Street Smoke House. There we met up with Erin’s roommate and his friend…who are probably going to be reading this later on. So, hi guys!

We were bitching about work. We were talking about cats. We were talking about crazy friends. And the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. We were talking about grease on your hands. Taking naps. Telling embarrassing stories about each other. And many other inappropriatenesses.  Over a face full of pulled pork sandwich and with a pint of Angel City Abbey ale, I realized, “Oh my god. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

Seriously. I laughed my ass off. I had really good food. I enjoyed my company thoroughly. The only downside is that I AM the driver. Haha.

Afterward, I went to drop off Erin at her place and got to meet her and her roommate’s cats Munkin and Werm. And a yard that Athena would’ve been happy in if they didn’t have issues with neighborhood dog.

Dammit. I miss that cat.

Overall, it’s been a great evening…made me forget today at the office. Even if it was a blur of a day, it was still a hell of a day.

Live to fight another day tomorrow. To all, a good night.

What the Cat drags in

Athena has stirred up a lot of emotions for a lot of folks.

The neighbor downstairs apparently gathered a petition to send to the landlady to get Athena back after hearing that she was released to CSULB campus. She said she has almost 80 people on the petition. (But, shouldn’t the petition came from the people who actually live in the complex?)

Another lady who spotted Athena’s listing on Craiglist warned me about a local guy who’d go around “adopting” cats to torture them. Then she continued to help Athena find a home. If I can go get Athena from the campus, the lady and her friend would keep her overnight and take her to a shelter they volunteer at.

Pat O. at the office believes that if Athena loves us enough, and the campus is about 3 miles away, this weekend we might just see her on our doorstep. If that is the case, we can actually get her to a proper shelter.

I have been doing mad research to see campus policy on stray cats. I found an article a few years back that looks promising.

Trappings of the campus cats are conducted weekly during the spring and summer months, and monthly during the fall and winter months.

Trapped cats are taken to a licensed veterinarian, who provides a general physical examination, performs spaying/neutering and provides all vaccines and deworming.

Cats who are gentle (and were previous house or dorm pets) are kept and adopted out…

This article may be old, but that there makes me feel a LOT better about her situation. I am hoping to confirm this fact with someone at CSULB though.

*

With all of the madness going on, I still have time to enjoy myself a bit.

I baked like a mad pastry chef on Monday night to prepare for yesterday’s potluck. The theme was “Spring Buzz” with tinge of leftover Cinco de Mayo as the featured entree I had catered are fajitas. Nonetheless, I stuck with the theme and made lemon cupcakes with blackberry bumble bees on top. See?

And last night, Brandon took me to sushi and sake. Well, he had teriyaki chicken and green tea. *I* had the sushi and sake.

A big. Honking. Glass. Of REALLY good cold sake. (Mu is the brand. Thanks Brenda for introducing me to that.) That was soooo needed!

Nice and buzzed, we then went to browse video games, then booze at BevMo, and then we topped off the evening with frozen yogurt and 2 more hours of television.

I may not have a community cat to play with, but through Athena, Brandon and I seem to have found each other again.

On love, in sadness

I LOVE Ren Faire.

Much fun and debauchery on Saturday. I mean, how can you not have debauchery when Greg M. is involved! We drank even before we left the house…you know where this is going, right?

I’ll put up the SLIDE show here later, but in the meantime, check out my Ren Faire flickr set.

I had 2.5 cups of mead. Would’ve been three but I didn’t drink the last one fast enough before we had to exit the Faire. Everyone else in our group other than Brandon surely had a LOT more than me.

Oh and we went to dinner in Seal Beach in our costumes (minus my headpiece because it hurt my head). Brandon protested a bit at first, but Greg and I were very persuasive. LOL.

Sunday, I ditched Nora (sorry girl!) and didn’t go to Patchwork arts fair as planned. I was beat. All the drinking and the axe throwing and arrow shooting and the heat and the sun didn’t allow me to want to do much else.

Other than going to see Iron Man.

I LOVE Iron Man. It was AWESOME! First 2008 movie I love so far. I am looking forward to Indiana Jones, The Dark Knight, and Hellboy this summer. Oh, and the Happening too.

And in sadness.

I still got to play with Athena this morning. Possibly the last. The girls are supposed to take her to the shelter by the time I get home tonight. No taker for our little girl. We really hope someone adopts her.

ETA: It breaks my heart that the girls had to dump Athena at Cal State Long Beach.  Apparently they have an effort to feed the feral  and the stray cats outside of their campus newspapers.  At least she will be fed.  Hopefully someone would try to make contact with our girl and at least she would have a few human playmates.  I hope.  I wish.  I pray.

It was good while it lasted.

Athena needs a home ASAP

ETA #2: The girls couldn’t place Athena in a shelter so they dumped her at Cal State Long Beach.  Apparently there is a ground where people feed all the strays and feral cats.

Thanks everyone for the help to try to place Athena in a good home even from the shelter.

ETA: The manager came back on Saturday afternoon, and once again lost her shit about the cat. The girls had to take Athena to a shelter straight away.

We have all SUNDAY to get her to a home. The girls are going to take her to a shelter on Monday.

However, I have her shelter information if you STILL want to adopt this little girl. Email me.

**

Athena wandered in to our apartment complex over a month ago. I didn’t start writing about her until the end of March. Slowly but surely, she stole everyone’s heart. She is an outdoor cat as far as we know, claws and all, but she has a very good potential to adapt to being inside.

I mean, she stays put in the courtyard and never really wander too far off during the day. You can always find her napping on the wicker chairs, or under one of the bushes in the courtyard. As to her potty-training, we have spotted her going to the bathroom only on the dirt patches and not on the grass. I don’t know if that means anything though. Hahah!

Athena may be an outdoor kitty, and a little skittish around sudden movement still. But she is all LOVE. And fur. Once she’s used to you, you cannot possibly get her off your lap. Or your bag. Like our “perhaps this is the last time” goodbye this morning.

Athena in pictures and 2 video clips

Athena in my own words

Seriously. Help me find a home for this little girl. Pretty please!

Lost. Love.

I KNEW it was too good to be true when Athena started to hang out with us, when she comes running to me when she hears the jangles of the keys, when she sits purring on our floor begging us to rub her belly and every elsewhere on her fluffy black coat with a twinge of orange tabby pattern.

I don’t think it wouldn’t have been a big deal if the manager lady found Athena napping on the wicker chair, but the food and water bowls set the woman off.

According to the girls, the lady lost her shit and threatened eviction if the girls don’t get rid of the cat in 24 hours, traumatized the hell out of one of the housemates.  Mind you, the cat is not even inside the house.

At the prospect of sending her to a local shelter, we have a mental picture of this roaming garden kitty sitting miserable in a pen, possibly waiting to be put down.  We panicked.

I contacted my fellow cat lovers and did a quick research, and managed to find the girls some contact info for cat rescues and no-kill shelters in the area.   But I am hoping to find someone who would want to take her home right away.  (Anyone?  Anyone?)

Before I left to go to dinner tonight, I stopped over at the fence.  Athena came trotting over, meowing.  Not a second after she “marked” me, she was purring.  I damn near cried.  I rubbed her all over and even hugged her goodbye.

Just in case tomorrow never comes.

Only if we have our own backyard to keep her.  The timing is soooo off for this clandestine meeting.  She is perfect.  Well, a little nutty but understandable for a cat who has been outside on her own.  But we love her for that too.

I already miss the damned cat.  She’s not even mine, really.  I think Brandon is dealing with this loss in his own way too.

I hope that I get to see her one last time before she leaves permanently.

The Cat Whisperer

I witnessed a first up close and personal cat fight this afternoon, right in front of our door.

A REAL cat fight. Not the human kind.

It was Athena v.s. “Muffins” the Other Stray/Outdoor cat. (The girls downstairs called it a him and named him that.)

I picked Athena up from downstairs instead of having her trail me when I came home. She didn’t protest any and made herself at home the moment she came through the door. She was eating in our doorway as usual, but then I spotted Muffins outside the door.

Athena looked up from her bowl and slowly walked out. They were face to face. Muffins backed up ever so slowly as Athena approached him.

And then…

“Mmrrrawww!!”

“Whoa! WHOA!” I yelled out and opened the screen door. Both of them looked at me, and then Athena ran downstairs. Muffins stayed put on the steps, and looked at me for a second.

“Oh, no. You’re not sitting here.” I shooed him down the stairs.

I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all.

Brandon said to leave the door open just in case Athena would come back up. I had a bad feeling about this so I went downstairs to investigate.

Sure enough, Muffins took a post the bottom of our stairs. Athena retreated to her wicker chair. I shooed Muffins off some more but Athena wouldn’t even left the porch. I had to go sit on the planter/wall in the courtyard, where we first made acquaintance for her to come say hi again.

I pet her and picked her up. Muffins was still by the stairs, and I shooed him off. All the while telling my Athena that it’s okay. I brought her back upstairs but she only stayed for just a little while and promptly ran off.

This Muffins cat is wrecking the new found comfort zone for Athena and our brand new relationship. I mean, it took Brandon a week to build the trust with Athena. And this cat waltzed in and changed the game altogether.

I really don’t like this guy.

Brandon and I went down to feed Athena instead. We sat at the planter and she came up to eat. I started to brush her and she didn’t mind that at all.

Oh yes. We just bought a 3-lbs. bag of dry food, a pair of catnip toys, a brush and a flea treatment for the Cat That Is Not Ours. But I digress.

All the while, Muffins was eying the food and stalked toward us. I got up and shooed him away a few times. He ended up in the bush just 10 feet away from me and Athena.

We felt bad not feeding him.

So Brandon, the Cat Whisperer, grabbed a handful of food and stepped to the side, far enough away from me and Athena. He started tossing the nuggets to Muffins. He definitely more feral-ish than Athena. Either that, or he’s some unfriendly outdoor cat.

I got to observed the damn cat. He’s not only looking healthy and fluffy. He has a belly going on, that cat! And he’s here bullying my little girl?

I now have a spray bottle ready for the next time he shows his face around here. Seriously, he’s ruining the dynamics we have with the community cat. We can’t have that.

Suddenly, Athena took off toward the parking lot. Kara, one of the girls downstairs, came home and she went to greet her. This is when we discussed the Community Cat situation as well as our mutual feelings for Muffins. Kara says he likes to stare at her when she sees him. He does that to us too. It is a little creepy.

“That cat looks like he has no soul and he’s ready to steal yours,” she said.

He does look scary. But he’s not scary enough for me. I’m still going to spray his tabby little ass next time I see him. Trying to scare my little Athena away? That kid got something else coming.

Did I mention that Athena is technically not our cat? Hahah. And we are all so protective of her right now.

I mean, look at this little video here and tell me if you can say no to her purring at your door.

Owned

I believe we are now officially properties of Athena the Cat That Is Not Ours.

Then again, I think she knows she has us since the day I started to bring her treats.

Also, television still owns my life. I have been looking forward to the return of LOST all day.

Happy Busy

Seriously.

Friday was a combination of hard work and fun. Nhien and I managed not to hurt ourselves while moving all sorts of boxes of our printed matter around the office and worked up a pretty good appetite. We grabbed Celeste and Pat and headed to Sushi Go 55 and the rest is over there.

We came back just in time for me to throw the office birthday party. With yummy stuff from Delilah Bakery, everyone had a happy afternoon, all hopped up on sugar! I mean, all 6′ 5″ of Canadian Greg scooted over to us on this thing that another coworker used during his recovery from a knee surgery.

Saturday was spectacular! My Adobe Acrobat class is still going at the pace of molasses, but at least there was something new to be learned. However, while I waited for the instructor to explain to the old lady in the front why she had restart her machine or something else, I managed to join the cult of Twitter, did the food blog entry, AND played a few games of Bejeweled on my iGoogle.

Hey, at least I managed my time well. If I’m going to get stuck there, not learning anything while the old folks catch up, I might as well do something productive, right?

Later on that afternoon, we FINALLY got to take Olaina to Las Brisas in Redondo Beach. Back in their high school days, Brandon and Justin would ditch school and drive around for adventures Brandon’s Jeep. It was destiny when the Jeep ran out of gas a few pushes away from Las Brisas. The boys have been eating here whenever they are in the area ever since.

Justin and Olaina were up in the area to hunt for their new place to live. And they found one today in Redondo Beach. Signed, sealed, and delivered! Woohoo!

And for dinner, I made a spectacular dinner without actually having to leave the house for the store: bacon-wrapped cod with caper-shallot sauce with a side of peas and carrots. Oh yes, I am good.

And on Sunday, she rests.

Like, until 10 a.m.

And then it was on like Donkey Kong for the rest of the afternoon, starting with a trip to Fry’s and a pit stop at Fresh & Easy. Then I helped Brandon patched my windshield seals back onto the car. Folks who replaced my windshield in September did a horrific job. A few months after the replacement, the seals around it started to separate. Finally this past week, the one around the top actually popped off in parts. I would be driving down the freeway with this thing flapping about, banging on my roof. The lack of seal also brought on a nasty howling/whistling, depending on literally which way the wind blows. If the homemade cure doesn’t hold, Brandon’s going to take the car back to the folks by his work.

Then again, with the gas price the way it is, he is going to start driving my car to work anyway. Sheesh! $35 for 8 gallon? I damn near cried at the pump! But I digress.

I then started the laundry, including my bedroom curtains which had been pinning them double thickness…which I intended to wash then sew together after dinner…which I pulled out of the dryer and found a tag that said “Dry Clean Only”…and which are now slightly less green and when folded in half and sewn aren’t exactly the same length.

I am an everyday fuckin’ Martha Stewart, I tell ya!

At some point while waiting for the laundry, Brandon went to take a nap. Athena followed me up hung out in our apartment for a good half hour, a new record for her. I couldn’t do anything around the house while she visit because a) sudden movement still scares her and, b) I don’t trust her alone in a room just yet. After all she IS an outdoor cat that wondered in off the street. Who knew what kind of bad habit she had picked up.

But the half hour crawling around the floor after Athena (because getting up suddenly would freak her out a little bit), following this purring, paw-pawing, cute-as-hell black fluff ball of a cat was well worth it.

Pretty much just about anything “busy” I did this weekend is well worth it.

Dinner Guests

Athena popped in for a bite. She spent a good 15 minutes after that getting some love from me and Brandon and exploring our place.

Keep in mind, this is NOT really our cat. Can you imagine what this blog would turn into when we have our own kittens? LOL.

And for the host…

Nutella + Strawberry = Awesome. Wish I could add red wine to these fantastic flavors, but I didn’t think my other dinner guest would agree.

That other guest is the antibiotics…which I was instructed to take with food.

Yes, my darlings. I am back on yet another 10-day course of antibiotics.

The Alien In My Nostril needs to die, you know.

I went to work in the morning with my swollen red nose–now swollen all to the way to the bridge of my nose and I feel pain all the way down my left cheekbone, the redness however stays just over the infected area–just enough time to get a lot of stuff done and to let my colleagues marvel over the redness, the swelling and how ridiculously painful this thing is.

I drove another hour back to see my doctor at 1 p.m., with the parts of the seal around my windshield flapping in the wind, no less; definitely a bad installation job of my replacement windshield in September.  This was earliest I could get in on a Monday which I happily took.  I didn’t even think I could get in on Monday at all.  Someone’s watching out for me a little bit there, I have to say.

Anyways, she said it doesn’t look like staph infection, thank god. Just a nasty, garden variety skin infection. After having had enough of me going “Ow. OW! Ow. OW!” every time she touched the general area around my left nostril, she sent me home with a bottle of antibiotics.  (Freebies, hooray!)  As for the pain, a hot compress for the outside of the nose and continue with Ibuprofen.

No industrial strength pain meds, you asked? Well, my big mouth had to go and tell her I held up okay with Ibuprofen so far. Yeah. DUH! Pain does make you do funny things, like being honest.

Ibuprofen does work for me, but for just for 3 hours. At 15 minutes past that 3 hour mark, I’d start to feel the nose. At 30 past, the pain returns to 80% and if I haven’t taken the pills 15 minutes ago, it’ll be another 15 minutes of 100% pain before it kicks in again. With constant pain in the nose I cannot just ignore like this, it really amazes me how punctual the drug works.

Speaking of 3 hours, mine is coming up. I’m just going to take a couple of Tylenol PM and forget about it for the day.