Reality Update!
Nov. 14th, 2015 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hat_plays_simsComputer: Thanks to generous donors, I have a new hard drive AND two more gigs of RAM! I'm waiting on an anti-static wristband to arrive from overseas (our local Radio Shack closed and apparently when you need computer-fixin' gear these days, you do not go to Best Buy. You go to Best Buy when you need a phone or a tablet or a dishwasher), and then it'll be time to put the whole thing together and reinstall all my everything.
Cat: According to my sister I've been thinking of Harley as being like two years older than she is. Evidently she's pushing fourteen, not pushing sixteen. Either way, she's definitely a senior citizen somewhere in the human-equivalent of her eighties, which makes her recent health dip kind of scary. She's been limping, and glucosamine didn't help, so now she's on a nerve-blocker pain medication called gabapentin, which has as a side effect loss of coordination. Harley's loss of coordination has been so sharp that she has taken to her bed-- okay, she has taken to the bottom shelf of a bookcase in Mom's bedroom that I lined with a blanket-- and refuses to Do Things unless I do them for her. So she's been happily eating from a baby spoon and sleeping a lot and today, peed on my lap while getting her lunch, which, fun... but honestly if your sick pet is eating, peeing, and pooping normally, you may heave a huge sigh of relief because it's when they STOP doing those things that your problems are fuckin' urgent. The vet has had me cut her gabapentin dose in half, but we have to keep that up for at least a few days to see if her issues are over-medication (if so, the lowered dose should see the side effects lessen, if not stop) before trying to see if they're cancer-related or just plain age-related. Really, otherwise she seems bright and alert, just unwilling to lurch in an undignified manner to go anywhere.
Mom and I have both decided that we won't put Harley through another surgery. I will, however, willingly give up my ability to leave the house to spoon-feed my fussy invalid cat multiple times a day. (And wash a lot of pants.) She came through pancreatitis a few years back that had her much worse off than she is right now, so I'm not giving up on her until the vet tells me "All we can do at this point is make her comfortable," or "surgery is her only option."
So depending on when the wrist strap arrives, I may still be focused on Harley for a while even after reassembling the desktop. (And yes, if you still want to support Harley financially, donations are welcome.)
Sims: Ye-ah, pretty much nothing. I've made a CAS and a YACAS-- well, I say 'made,' it's actually 'refined and fixed,' but the laptop still isn't a proper gaming computer, and taking screenshots is a pain in the ass on this keyboard. If it turns out anyone is interested in refined versions of the custom CAS screens seen here (with the orange tapestries), I'd be happy to upload them.
I do have, for those of you who enjoy Medieval research as much as I do, a delightful if slightly profane post on the nature of Chivalry, which is not so much about treating women like incapable ninnies (thanks, Victorians) but more a system of checking your knight privilege, and this equally delightful/profane post on courtly love, which is basically a reverse-friendzone where the goal is to be as nice as possible to a married lady with the expectation she will never deem you worthy of joining her in adultery.
(The author leaves out one of my favorite aspects of courtly love, which is that it helped encourage knights to bathe regularly. Vanity is sinful, after all, and it's easy, after a hard day's knighting, to just sort of skip all that pesky grooming on the grounds that it's totally virtuous to get so greasy that candles flare when you walk by, honest. Vanity being sinful, however, doesn't miraculously change the fact that other people can smell you, and that you don't deserve to be in the same room as Lady Hotness if you smell like you sleep on a mattress stuffed with onions that the cat regularly pees on. Getting all spruced up to impress Lady Hotness means that Sir Loin of Beef is doing his part to make the Great Hall smell like a smoky, pet-friendly bar-and-grill and not a smoky, pet-friendly locker room.)
I've also got this newsletter debunking the whole 'women never worked outside the home in the Middle Ages' thing, and providing lists of guilds that women could and did belong to.
Cat: According to my sister I've been thinking of Harley as being like two years older than she is. Evidently she's pushing fourteen, not pushing sixteen. Either way, she's definitely a senior citizen somewhere in the human-equivalent of her eighties, which makes her recent health dip kind of scary. She's been limping, and glucosamine didn't help, so now she's on a nerve-blocker pain medication called gabapentin, which has as a side effect loss of coordination. Harley's loss of coordination has been so sharp that she has taken to her bed-- okay, she has taken to the bottom shelf of a bookcase in Mom's bedroom that I lined with a blanket-- and refuses to Do Things unless I do them for her. So she's been happily eating from a baby spoon and sleeping a lot and today, peed on my lap while getting her lunch, which, fun... but honestly if your sick pet is eating, peeing, and pooping normally, you may heave a huge sigh of relief because it's when they STOP doing those things that your problems are fuckin' urgent. The vet has had me cut her gabapentin dose in half, but we have to keep that up for at least a few days to see if her issues are over-medication (if so, the lowered dose should see the side effects lessen, if not stop) before trying to see if they're cancer-related or just plain age-related. Really, otherwise she seems bright and alert, just unwilling to lurch in an undignified manner to go anywhere.
Mom and I have both decided that we won't put Harley through another surgery. I will, however, willingly give up my ability to leave the house to spoon-feed my fussy invalid cat multiple times a day. (And wash a lot of pants.) She came through pancreatitis a few years back that had her much worse off than she is right now, so I'm not giving up on her until the vet tells me "All we can do at this point is make her comfortable," or "surgery is her only option."
So depending on when the wrist strap arrives, I may still be focused on Harley for a while even after reassembling the desktop. (And yes, if you still want to support Harley financially, donations are welcome.)
Sims: Ye-ah, pretty much nothing. I've made a CAS and a YACAS-- well, I say 'made,' it's actually 'refined and fixed,' but the laptop still isn't a proper gaming computer, and taking screenshots is a pain in the ass on this keyboard. If it turns out anyone is interested in refined versions of the custom CAS screens seen here (with the orange tapestries), I'd be happy to upload them.
I do have, for those of you who enjoy Medieval research as much as I do, a delightful if slightly profane post on the nature of Chivalry, which is not so much about treating women like incapable ninnies (thanks, Victorians) but more a system of checking your knight privilege, and this equally delightful/profane post on courtly love, which is basically a reverse-friendzone where the goal is to be as nice as possible to a married lady with the expectation she will never deem you worthy of joining her in adultery.
(The author leaves out one of my favorite aspects of courtly love, which is that it helped encourage knights to bathe regularly. Vanity is sinful, after all, and it's easy, after a hard day's knighting, to just sort of skip all that pesky grooming on the grounds that it's totally virtuous to get so greasy that candles flare when you walk by, honest. Vanity being sinful, however, doesn't miraculously change the fact that other people can smell you, and that you don't deserve to be in the same room as Lady Hotness if you smell like you sleep on a mattress stuffed with onions that the cat regularly pees on. Getting all spruced up to impress Lady Hotness means that Sir Loin of Beef is doing his part to make the Great Hall smell like a smoky, pet-friendly bar-and-grill and not a smoky, pet-friendly locker room.)
I've also got this newsletter debunking the whole 'women never worked outside the home in the Middle Ages' thing, and providing lists of guilds that women could and did belong to.
