Cody’s blog

I got up a bit later than I’d like on a long-run day—seven am—still feeling tired and depressed with bad dreams. Started doing the kitty chores, filled up the kitties’ dishes with the new food I bought yesterday, went out to start getting their wet food ready when I heard a crash! And found that Jerry had totally overturned the food/water dish, spilling the nice new food and nearly a full bottle of water besides what was in the bowl. Aargh. I pushed Jerry away from the mess and started cleaning up, very angry and frustrated and wondering how I can fix their bowls so Jerry can’t tip them over—the bricks have been pretty useful, but obviously she can still tip everything over if she tries hard enough. And trying very hard not to start screaming at Jerry. I finally herded Jerry into her room, after I’d cleaned up the water on the carpet as well as I could with towels, spread the damp food onto a paper towel to dry, cleaned the bowl and the mat, and then decided to just sit down with my morning cocoa and check my websites and try to calm down before finishing up.

And found this in my mail: my Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration of the day:

Pay no attention to the faults of others,
things done or left undone by others.
Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone.

Immediately, I felt better. Jerry is just a kitty, and she’ll do what she’ll do. And, occasionally, I’ll have to clean up after her. (I am still eagerly awaiting the day when I can pull up that carpet and replace it with an easy-to-clean hard floor of some kind. I plan to stop at one or two flooring places in town tomorrow, if I have time.) I will also try to think of some way to make her food dishes more secure. Hmm.

I am up to 9/17/02 in going through my livejournal and journalfen backup and fixing up the entries. I started my livejournal in July 2002, so only a few more months to go. It’s fun going through the oldest entries, I hadn’t thought about them in so long. I was doing the Rings Thing at the time, posting once a week about Lord of the Rings, as well as falling head first into Yu-Gi-Oh! and getting started on planning my move to Tehachapi. It was an exciting time, and I was posting a lot more, and a lot more people were posting back at me. Sigh. I wonder if I’ll ever be that enthusiastic and involved again?

It’s also making me consider, once again, digging out the archive of my old Blog Thing blog and reposting it somewhere. I’d considered reposting the entries onto my LJ, but never got around to it. Now, I’m considering putting the entries on this blog. I think they might go better here. Hmm.

Continuing my series of photos from Sunday’s PRCA rodeo, the events opened with the sponsors’ flags being carried around the arena by cowgirls on horseback. After the sponsors, the flags of the PRCA, the state of California, and finally the United States were brought into the arena, and we stood for the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

I really need to start meditating regularly again. I need to do so many things. I have been feeling much more content lately, I’m over that bad patch I went through a couple of weeks ago. I still get antsy and dissatisfied, though. Meditating would help. Perhaps a guided meditation CD? BigHappyBuddha.com has lots of them. Hmm.

Yesterday, Mom and I drove to Lancaster for her eye appointment. First, we had a very nice lunch at Black Angus, then briefly visited Wal-Mart. Mom was looking for some yellow rug yarn, but they didn’t have any. Then I dropped her off at her appointment and drove back to PetSmart. I was mainly looking for aquarium salt, which I bought, but I also wanted to see if they had any sinking pellet goldfish food  (no) or Wellness brand cat food (no). I did also buy some grooming gloves, thinking I could use them to pet Socks shocking her, but, alas, they do not prevent the static electricity. In fact, they seem to make it worse. And I bought a new mat to put under the second litter box in the kitties’ room. It’s very pretty, I like it. Right now, it still has a strong new plastic-y smell, but I suppose that will wear off.

They also had some really nice cat trees there. I want to get a nice big one for the kitties’ room, but I couldn’t buy one yesterday since I didn’t have my truck with me. I still want to replace the floor first, anyway. I should stop by the floor place on Tehachapi Blvd. this weekend to see what they’ve got. I am having second thoughts about rubber flooring, since the surface isn’t hard and I think the kitties’ claws could rip it up. I should call/email Best Friends and ask what they used in their cabins.

I ordered fish food online last night from goldfishconnection.com. I used to always buy fish food from them but I stopped because… I don’t remember why, something to do with shipping? They wanted to send the stuff by UPS but I didn’t want them to. Maybe it was after I first moved, and I wasn’t sure if UPS would come up here to my place. Anyway, I decided to try them again. I liked their ProGold, and anyway, I couldn’t find anything I wanted from either PetSmart or Doctors Foster & Smith. I gave them my PO box because their website said they ship either USPS or UPS, so I didn’t know which way they’d ship it. If they want to send it UPS, they can call me for my street address.

Today, I need to stop by Canine Creek and get some more cat food. I am not going to get the Indoor Cat food this time, because Socks’ coat is starting to get dry again. She needs more oil in her food. I’ve been adding the Lipiderm to her canned food again, but I don’t want to have to put additives in her food to keep her fur soft and shiny, I want her food to have what she needs. I also need to get money at the bank. And I need to back up my computer, and those are my Things to Do for today.

Proceeding onward from the Flossie Flops booth last Sunday, Mom and I went to the PRCA rodeo. I took this photo towards the south over the stands, where brown clouds of smoke from the Zaca fire filled the sky.

I am so happy that my kitty is all better! He even pooped in his box yesterday, so he’s obviously not having trouble squatting any more. He jumps up onto things and claws the carpet and takes swipes at me and insists on going outside when he wants to, just like before. He’s back! Yay! I have been so stressed and worried about him.

Today, I have my midweek run, then at noon Mom and I will be heading down to Lancaster for lunch and a bit of shopping before she goes to her appointment with her eye doctor. It should be a pleasant day. I will try to pick up some aquarium salt while I’m there, there’s some sort of pet store in the complex with the Black Angus where we like to eat lunch. Also a Wal-Mart, if there’s time. (I suppose we could leave earlier and make time, but we’ll have over an hour before her appointment, so it all depends on how long it takes to have lunch.)

That’s all I have planned for today. Other than that, I will probably try to finish going through my livejournal and journalfen to get them updated. I’m back to February 2003, so I only have about six months to go. I re-ran ljmigrate last night to bring over my latest LJ post, and I think I’ve finally figured out why it re-posts certain posts—it must be the ones I’ve edited in LJ, because I noticed it was all the ones with pictures in them that I edited the links for. I should just edit the LJ post and delete the JF post, and let ljmigrate re-post it, but I’ve been afraid I might be wrong (again) about what’s happening and lose posts from JF. Well, there aren’t that many more, it won’t hurt to skim through the subject lines one more time looking for duplicates after the next time I run ljmigrate. I will finish the journal updates before I run it again, though, so it will only be one more time.

I found one more problematic post in LJ that I’ve deleted: my translation of Yoichiro Kohga’s “Bed-Side License,” a story in which a 14-year-old boy seduces his doctor. Heh. It’s text, so it probably wouldn’t be ban-worthy, and it’s four years old besides, but away it goes.

I feel very good today. I’m so relieved that my kitty is better. I expect to have, oh, at least 10 more years with him, and for him to die peacefully of old age on my hearth. Well, I don’t have a hearth, but you know what I mean.

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the lovely brown cow (how now?) in the Flossie Flops pen at the Mountain Festival. Today, here are the two adorable little goats that were keeping her company. They were also very friendly and pettable. They liked to lick and nibble at visitors, but wouldn’t bite.

I said I wanted a couple of cute little goats, and someone sitting across from my brother immediately said, “You want goats? My (sister? wife? cousin? I don’t remember) sells them.” He was all set to hook me up. I must remember that, around here, if you spout off about wanting a dog/cat/goat/horse/llama/ostrich, people will take you seriously, and try to fix you up with one.