(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense 
Long talk with vet today resulted in agreeing that kittens could be kept together. Fell asleep with them on the floor for two hours tonight... groggy groggy gro...
Zzzzzz...
My kittens are crying and so am I. I feel absolutely horrible. The only reason Micah isn't sobbing like his siblings is because he drew the lucky straw to be quarantined in with me tonight: he's purring and batting at my cursor while Aggie and Jasper cry in unison from behind separate locked doors. The vet confirmed tonight my diagnosis of yesterday evening: my merry trio are infected with a strain of calicivirus that has their noses (in the case of the boys) and their tongues (in the case of Aggie) cursed with something very similar to human herpes sores and has them all with low appetite and slight fevers. Other than the fact that I'm forcing them to spend their first night apart... ever... so far as I can tell, they're happy and energetic enough; they're just not eating quite right and I'm still worried sick. The vet recommended separating them to cut down on them reinfecting each other, but I wonder if the stress of being apart and locked up in single rooms (poor Jasper drew the worst lot, being closed up in the bathroom with a nightlight and no windows) won't do them as much harm as good.
(sniffle)
At least I can hear Micah eating, and Jasper was being willing to drink. Sigh.
I'm worried: my kittens are sick. Micah started showing the signs the earliest, but Jasper's catching up and I figure it's only a matter of time until Aggie starts. They have a vet appointment tomorrow night after I get off work, but my mothering instinct is freaking the fuck out.
Oh. My. God. Batman Begins was so good I nearly cried at the end to see it be over. I've loved Christian Bale for years, but this time around I just wanted to lick him off the screen. I don't have to see any other movies this year, I've decided. It was that awesome. I will, of course, go see Serenity. But I don't have to.
Unpacking boxes in the midst of kitten chaos, I started weeping tonight. It's been hard many times the last few days, unpacking boxes untouched since January; I've cried many a time. But tonight was the box I'd been dreading the most... I unwrapped a towel and held it facedown in my lap for some time, tears streaming down my face. Aggie mrwed curiously at my side as I turned it over, choking, and traced a 22 year old boy's face where it leaned close to a girl's hair and smile, and asked him where he went.
Omgish! I intended to come home with two kittens today, but somehow I ended up with three! I hereby present Agate (aka Aggie), Jasper, and Micah. I've been kittened!
More later...
In my movingness, I now have almost no internet access. I've got work email, of course, but as Microsoft has outgoing ssh and the like closed down, I can't even write up stuff, bring it to work, and post that way. Poo, but ah well. Hopefully Jeffie and I will have le'internets soon.
I went hunting for kittens every day this weekend including Friday. No luck yet; perhaps I'm picky, but I've got a very clear idea of the personality I'm expecting to see in my kittens, and I've not seen it yet in any kitten that was both part of a pair and not already adopted. As Craig put it, no matter how sweet they were, they obviously weren't mine. It's for the best, really... I'm still unpacking, there's still a few things to be moved, and I really shouldn't bring cats home until Friday so that I can concentrate on them.
I be tired. And I'm planning on going to work early as much of the time this coming week as possible so that I can leave early to kittenhunt and unpack... sigh.
I have visions of kittens dancing in my head. And I'm ridiculously exhausted. Moving is so the suck.
Grueling, long day today. I was at work for 10 hours and more than I liked (really, meaning some at all) involved talking on the phone to people I don't know in something of a high stress situation. I probably wouldn't have minded had my commute on both sides not royally sucked... I was stuck in front of the Med Center for 25 minutes this morning, and could someone explain to me why 520 was totally backed up at 7 pm? Bleh.
Took another load of stuff over to the new place tonight, but moving in earnest will have to wait until the weekend. My goal is to have everything of mine moved in by the end of Monday at the latest, so that I can start unpacking then and go get kittens next week.
(sigh) I am exhausted and feeling more than a little depressed. And given that I don't quite know how to articulate the reasons in the way I'd like to, I'm also feeling more than a little trapped in my current mood. Sigh. Relatedly, I hate it that even when I'm completely wiped out tired, like I am tonight, I am utterly incapable of just going to bed. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but no... The worst is how the delay opens up the possibility of missing the sleep window and being doomed to spend the next several hours still exhausted but unable to sleep. Bah.
(groan)
I have to stop trawling petfinder. I absolutely cannot get my kittens until after I move, and the likelihood is very small that any kittens that I find online now will still be unadopted a week or so from now. But oh, oh, oh, it's so hard to not look. I want to go get them so very very badly, but the earliest day that I could really hope to bring pets home, best case scenario, would be next Friday night, as I'm assuming that I'll be moving this weekend even in that best-case scenario. Which means looking at any kittens until next week is a big no-no. Sigh.
I spent about an hour in my car this evening. I didn't mind at all; it was a lovely evening for a drive. I drove up to Bothell to check out the commute time to theoretically-soon-to-be-home if I stay at work until 6:30ish (about 25 min), and then decided to explore the route that my direction sense indicated would take me back down to Redmond sans-405-of-hell. My direction sense and spatial intuition once again proved its awesomeness, as the road I chose indeed took me directly into the Redmond Town Center after winding prettily along a ridge and passing briefly through Woodinville. The trip back to Redmond took me no more than a few minutes more than the trip north had taken; I'll have to investigate if 9 gets all clogged during the morning commute. Anyway, the valley was sun-drenched and there were a few high clouds in the sky and it was a lovely night for a drive.
The fact that I have nothing really to do tonight, a Monday night, other than laundry and research programming, is one that is making me very happy.
I've got pictures from graduation up. There's not a whole lot of them, and the vast majority of them aren't particularly wonderful (no offense to the picture taker). However, I really rather like this one of me in line beforehand, so if nothing else, people should look at that one. And I'm all orange-y because that's the designated color for the College of Engineering (my degree is an Inter-Engineering MS, for all the sense that that makes). At least it wasn't the HiLiter(tm) yellow the Information School kiddos had to wear!
I had an excellent most-of-today. I got to see a dear old friend for a day about town, and watch a movie on the couch with two of my other favorite people, and that was good. But now I've had the shit irritated out of me. Bah. I hate going to bed pissed off.
Today was graduation, and it rained. It rained on us sometimes spittingly and intermittently and sometimes hard and furious; my classmate Meredith and I huddled under an umbrella with a plastic poncho shared across our knees and another around our shoulders, shivering as we listened to speakers and smiled at every PhD student's name being called and flirted with the cute Indian boy to our right. It was absolutely lovely, despite the weather, and although I would have been happier to have been a PhD and have my name actually spoken, I'm glad that I went (I'm also glad that I left after the Master's candidates were presented, heh). Watching the PhD candidates marching into the stadium almost made me sniffle. And they got the cool hats!
My departmental ceremony was much smaller; we took up a room in the HUB and everyone was spoken about personally. Mom and Dad finally got to meet Jan and Beth, which they'd been looking forward to... But mostly, it was wonderful to be considered a full member of the department, by the dean, in front of everyone.
I saw Jim at commencement. I stopped stock still and stared, unsure for a while if it was actually him. Why would he be there? But yes, he was there... it wasn't until later that I remembered that Eric was graduating today, as well. I'm glad that he was there, as that means his parents were there... and even if they didn't actually know I was down there on the field, I'm very happy to know that they were in the stands as I walked across the stage.
Damnit. I totally meant to go to bed early tonight, but here it is 1:44 am and I'm just now getting around to the sleeping. I swear up and down that I totally didn't notice the past several hours going by... that's programming zone for you. Got lots more work done on the control panel, which is good, but probability cross checking is making me crazy. Anyway. To bed with me!
(eye whirl) My project at work finished, I've been lent to another one. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing, but they seem to think I do, and that's a bit of an uncomfortable situation. I still haven't had any decompression time from the last six months, and with graduation and Mark's visit this weekend, and hopefully moving the next, I'm just not going to get any any time soon. Amusingly, I have had Simon Jones as Arthur Dent voicing this entire entry... Jim didn't like the old 1981 Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and so I didn't watch it for the last five years despite loving it so. It's nice to have a good thing out of the entire mess.
I don't suppose there's any chance of finding a good cup of tea, now, is there?
(hehe)
Somewhat ironically, I got almost no sleep at all last night. It was rather as if my body decided that it was going to have an all-nighter whether I needed one to finish my paper or not. I was finished with my paper around 1 am, yet I spent until some time after 4 am tossing and turning, absolutely wired and unable to get comfortable and sleep. All I can say is, thank heaven for coffee.
I feel as if today marked a very big turning point in my life: I turned in the last paper of my college career in the morning, and in the evening cashed my first paycheck for my new Real (if somewhat short-termed) Job. Go me! And now, sleep.
Three days early, I am for all intents and purposes done with my final requirement for my final class of my graduate education. I claimed that I was going to stop working on it a few hours ago, but then got rolling again; it's currently a page short of the technical page requirement but I've said all I really want to say on the subject. Further verbage would be simple bullshitting, and this time around, I just really don't feel like it. I am somewhat hesitant to turn it in, however, on grounds that my head might explode to be entirely done with school.
(minor glee)
I think I'm insanely proud of myself.
(yawn)
(sleepy look) I have the theme song from the 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy BBC series in my head. Diss it all you want, but I really do love it so, and it was a pleasure to spend most of the day watching that and Dead Like Me. Sure, I had a paper to work on, but that's what Sunday is for!
My day was kind of awesome as long as I discount some of the stresses. I'm not sure which wins the highlight of the things that were said to me today that were particularly awesome: the intimation that I have the chops to be an SDET or even an SDE, or Greg's killer quote about some people just being capable: "If I needed brain surgery, I would give Jen the tools, and Google. And I'd be FINE with that, because she'd handle it." Hehe!
I'm bone tired.
Brian put it well to me last night: I'm dealing with the near-simultaneous end of five years of boyfriend, five and a half years of job, and eight years of school, while also starting a new job and contemplating a move... I've got a couple reasons to be stressed out. I'm shouldering it all and getting projects turned in for school and having a fabulous time at work... I'm just also exhausted.
I will be so very glad when I can relax next week.
If I had one wish... would I wish that knowing that I was being inconsiderate actually made me stop doing it, or would I wish to blissfully never know that I was being inconsiderate? Because either way, I bet I'd be happier.