It's been a while since I posted any photos, so here are some of Claudia, Vic, Jasmin, and Ashley--and a weta one of the cubs brought in last week. The icon BTW is from a photo of Claudia, who often forgot to retract her tongue. I'm sure she doesn't mind being remembered this way. :-)

( Four cats and a weta )

I really should post these the day after I watch them, because my memory gets a bit hazy on details, especially if I've seen more episodes since these. I shall try to remember my reactions at the time. :-)

( 216: Silence )

( 217: Crash )

( 218: Stolen )

Who would I be in Star Wars?

( FInd out here )

I've seen a few Pretender episodes recently, and because I'm behind on posting about them, I'll do three at a time.

( 213: A Stand-Up Guy )

( 214: Unforgotten )

( 215: Bulletproof )

I've seen three more eps, but I'll post about those later. :-)

I watched another Pretender ep last night--oh, tragic Sydney!--but realised that I really should post about the two previous eps. Or can I make them all one post? Does anyone even care? :-P

[looks at emoticon in previous para] I should also make a :-P icon from a photo of Claudia with her pink tongue out, taken about a month ago.

And in fic news, I just found out via andrastewhite about cliche_bingo. This looks like fun, and could induce me to create some more crack-fic (or even crack-art). Is anyone else interested in playing too? You get a bingo card stocked with clichés and have to write a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal row of fics. There's other stuff you can do for extra points, but I think I'd just do a row. You can, if you wish, ask for a gen set of clichés, but you're free to interpret the prompts in any way you like: gen, slash, or het..

They closed it overnight. I should have signed up yesterday. This is typical of me; dithering and missing out. It happens with clothes I like in the online shop too.

From pet_lunatic, the top 50 TV series according to the UK's Empire Magazine.

1. Bold the shows you watch (or watched regularly in the past)
2. Underline the shows you've seen at least one episode of.
3. Strike out the shows you hated.

( 50 TV shows )

We took Claudia to the vet yesterday afternoon for the last time.

She had gone downhill very fast since the weekend, when we saw her jumping up onto the deck railing, and coming to greet visitors in her friendly, eager way. She stopped eating on Monday and became very weak and dehydrated and was finding walking increasingly difficult, but her last few days were the best we could give her.

She spent her last three nights in bed with us. She hadn't come upstairs for a couple of weeks, but came meowed to be lifted up on the first night and slept between us. The next night we took her bed upstairs, and she actually jumped into bed (not that well, but successfully) with me and spent the night snuggled against my arm. The last night, she was between us again.

Yesterday was a brilliantly sunny winter's day, and I expected her to spend it all borrowed into her bed as she had been doing, but she surprised me by getting out the cat door when I wasn't looking and sitting in the sun in the garden. The cubs and I stayed out there with her for a while, then she made her slow way back inside for a drink, then to her heatpad in the TV room. I thought she'd stay there, but I could see she wanted to jump up beside me, so I lifted her into a snuggler and she spent most of the day there in the sun beside me, curled up peacefully while I talked gently to her and stroked her sweet head.

We took her to the vet in her bed while it was still sunny and bright.

I miss her so much, but given her health and frailty, it's much easier to bear than Tessa's sudden passing.

She was a lovable, funny, and quirky cat--as they all are--and Greg and I have been remembering and talking about all the things she did and liked.

Snagged from astrogirl2 and sallymn, a nicely distracting meme.

( Table of emotional icons )

The cat at the salon found his home! I looked on the "Pets on the Net" lost and found site and there he was: missing from that very street, a much loved Tonkinese called Rocco. Even though it was late, I rang the owner, and she said the person who found him had rung not long before and was coming round with him, probably in our carrier. :-)

So yay for good news!

As for Claudia, we've taken her heated bed with her in it up to our bedroom so she's close to us. I don't think she'll be jumping on the bed tonight like she did last night, but you never know.

Greg called me from the salon where he was getting his hair cut and asked me to bring one of the cat carriers over. A few days ago, one of the hairdressers found a cat living under the local diary (convenience store?) and wanted to take him home for the night as the salon will be very cold tonight. So of course I had to look at the cat. He's about four years old according to the vet she took him to, and unfortunately not microchipped (most animals aren't here) and is lovely! He's obviously been well looked after and loved as he's friendly and likes company and being held. He's at least part-oriental with a long face, green eyes, and solid light brown fur. I'm sure that if they can't find his owners (he may be far from his home) he'll find a good home.

I'd be tempted to see if our cats would accept him, but I don't want to stress Claudia. I think she's near the end now, being so thin, frail, and no longer eating much (anything at all today) or able to walk well. Yet I saw her jump onto the deck railings last week, and she did come outside with me today. I suppose the end comes quickly when they finally stop eating though, and I think she's hit that stage. I'm well prepared this time as she's been ill for so long; Tessa's passing was a huge and unexpected shock. I'm hoping that this time, for the first time ever, I'll be able to have a vet come here so that she goes in familiar surroundings. I just don't know at which point to call them. I don't want to end her life prematurely.

A meme from entropy_house. I did it under my short and full names, and both hit areas of interest. The comments even sound rather like me, but then those generalised ones usually do. :-)

I've posted my Multiverse 5000 story. It's Blake's 7/Firefly: Vila & Wash, because I thought those universes could be made to mesh well.

It's here: You Never Know Your Luck

I was just saying to astrogirl2 that when I've finished my multiverse5000 story (which is due this weekend; eep) I'll be free till August and naarmamo.

I forgot about the gen_ficathon. Official fandoms include Doctor Who, Lost, Star Trek, SG1, and SGA among others; you can request other fandoms too.

The timeline is:

June 4-25: Sign-Ups
June 28: Assignments Sent Out
July 28: Default Deadline
August 11: Final Deadline for Initial Participants
August 18: Final Deadline for Pinch-Hitters
(projected) August 20: Posting Begins!

Have a great day. even though it's almost over!

An interesting quiz, and I suppose that's about right.

( My cultural identity--or lack thereof )

The Auckland Harbour Bridge is 50 years old today. Sadly there weren't fireworks (and why not?) or a mass walk over the bridge like Sydney did for its bridge's 75th; it would have cost far too much. But fireworks were surely doable.

Happy birthday, Bridge! I have always loved you. I still remember doing a school Morning Talk on you when I was about 8; my love of bridges and engineering feats started early.

OK, here's the rest of that word meme: me babbling on about the words sallymn gave me now I'm back and have some time. I'm pretty sure I've done some of these before.

Cats
I loved cats since I was tiny, even though the family cat was a bad-tempered grey Persian called Beethoven (he looked like the famous bust). If I saw a kitten or cat in the street, I had to rush over to it--and still do. They just have a huge fascination for me, in any size. I now have four cats, and believe me, it's hard to resist the weekly Lonely Miaow orphan in the local paper. I regard cats as the most beautiful creatures on this planet.

Art
I'm not that knowledgeable about art; do you mean mine? That's another passion that has ruled me all my life. When I was little, I even used to draw people in the air, create whole murals, rubbing out bits I didn't like with a wave of my hand. People must have thought I was cracked. I learned not to do that, and even not to doodle in meetings because people would become desperate to see what I was drawing. Drawing did make me friends at primary school (I cornered the market in war scenes with fighter planes, bombers, tanks, and little soldiers) and secondary school where I went into cartoons. I loved Ronald Searle's style and used to draw St Trinan's girls doing unspeakable things in the lab, and Romans doing even more murderous things to each other in the back of my Latin exercise book. I used to try to remember to rip those out until the Latin teacher, a deceptively conventional looking woman with a bun, asked me to leave them in because she and the staff room liked them. I wish I had more talent though. But I'm a dilettante.

Chocolate
What can I say? There are people who say this planet should be saved because it's the only one with cats and chocolate, and those are two damned good reasons! I just wish the supermarket would keep stocking the ones I've come to like. No more Cadbury's Old Gold liqueur selection for me, and I only discovered it a few months ago. :-(

Computers
Computers, or more specifically the internet, have given me some of the best friends I've ever had. I use mine mainly for LJ, writing, and drawing. I also spent a lot of my working life programming them till bastards in management drove me out. I'm not sure what else I can say about them, except that Zen made me cry, and I blame that little plastic rat Orac for S4.

Cheers
I assume I got this because of this very old icon. "Cheers" is used in my English as an informal goodbye, a casual "thanks, and a sort of "here you go!" And of course when having a drink. This has probably puzzled quite a few people here, so I hope that helped.

A meme from sallymn, because I responded to her post and have to make one now.

Reply to this post by saying "Words". I'll pick five words that I associate with you. Post to your journal about those words and get your friends to do the same.

sallymn gave me cats, art, chocolate, computers, cheers. And this made me immediately crave some chocolate. :-)

A meme seen in several places:

Name your 15 favourite couples (het/slash/friendship) and ask people to see what trends they notice. Try to pick different fandoms.

This isn't that easy for me as I just don't think in terms of pairings.

1. Avon & Vila (Blake's 7)
   
2. Vila / Soolin (Blake's 7; probably just me, that one)
   
3. Stark / Zhaan (Farscape)
   
4. Londo & Vir (Babylon 5)
   
5. Londo & G'Kar (Babylon 5)
   
6. Spock & McCoy (ST:TOS)
   
7. Data & Spot (ST:TNG)
   
8. Seven & Janeway (ST:Voy)
   
9. Garak & Bashir (ST:DS9)
   
10. Jarod & Sydney (The Pretender)
    
11. Shawn & Gus (Psych)
    
12. Precious Ramotswe & Grace Makutsi (No 1 Ladies Detective Agency)
    
13. Teal'c & Bra'tac (SG1)
    
14. John & Rodney (SGA)
    
15. Locke & Ben (Lost)

My Finishathon 2009 story, in which Avon and Vila, along with Soolin, join an all-female band on Gauda Prime, is now on my site. I had a couple of requests for this one although executrix had already written a very good and extremely funny Some Like It Hot pastiche which you can read here. Thanks to astrogirl2 for her excellent beta.

Hot Stuff

Here, to whet your appetite, is a poster I did based on one used for the film. Click to see full size. :-)

Not only have I have finished my finishathon story, I have also done a poster for it! It just needs some lettering. W00t!

And here's a fun puzzle which matildabj posted in which you have to find the titles of 50 films made in the last 20 years, using cryptic visual clues in a painting. It doesn't work in Firefox; but Opera and IE6 are fine. It's a lot of fun, and you can save it and come back to it. I got all 50, but it took me quite a while over the weekend; it's very addictive. :-)

And to LiveJournal, which is 10!

Apparently the original Time Out list of 50 essential SF films had double and in some case multiple entries (e.g. one for all the Star Trek films) which were expanded by someone to make 75. Thank you to redscharlach for pointing this out. Here are the original 50 with short commentaries which are definitely worth reading. :-)

This is very cool: a flash animation of the building of the International Space Station.

This is what Jasmin looks like now, at almost ten months, compared to what she was in early December when watching Spock on TV. Here she is looking at Sawyer in the Lost season finale last night. Told you she liked SF!

Actually it was quite funny: I took about five photos of her and kept getting Jack on the screen. DO NOT WANT!



As a bonus, ( here are two cuddly Jasmin and Ashley pictures. )

This looks more inpressive than it is; I've only been to Florida in the US. Snurched from jhall1.


visited 33 states (14.6%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Like this? try: Google Chat Bot

I was rather hoping for Spock or Scotty, but I'm very happy with my favourite captain, even though they really got that wrong because I'm a geek, not a leader, Jim! And at least I wasn't a redshirt or Deanna Troy. (Speaking of whom, a Star Trek fan must write for Psych with a recent--for me--character called Deanna Sirtis.)

Your results:
You are Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard 95% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 75% Chekov 65% Geordi LaForge 60% Will Riker 60% Worf 60% Spock 59% Data 58% Mr. Sulu 50% Deanna Troi 50% Mr. Scott 45% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 40% James T. Kirk (Captain) 30% Uhura 30% Beverly Crusher 20%

A lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others.

I thought I'd repost a photo of kitten Jasmin watching the first Star Trek trailer a few months ago.



She's now twice that height and obscures too much of the TV screen for us to leave her there long these days. She most enjoys SF and cricket (trying to catch the ball and the little players). She really enjoyed Back to the Future last weekend.

... not that Thetis is online much lately.

I wish you a day full of glittery joy and Tarrantness respectively!