life lately

What We Did Sunday

 

7 Quick Takes

Hello! How's your week been?

Linking up with Jen :)

1. This is maybe old news, but this recipe for Banana-Nutella-Pistachio Popsicles from Smitten  Kitchen is basically my dream come true.  It looks so easy and perfect for the summer (especially here in TX, where it is a bajillion degrees out by the time the sun comes up), not to mention duh-lish. She's been posting different popsicle recipes for several days now - go check them out! Now I've just got to find some popsicle molds...and maybe, you know, a blender.
2. This article by Costica Bradatan in the New York Times on the "Opinionator" Blog, about learning and writing in a foreign language, so aptly captures what it is I love about language - and what is so challenging and frustrating about it as well.
3. It seems like the new BBC America show "Broadchurch" has been all over the newswaves recently(or maybe I spend too much time on npr.com).  Much like my mom and sister, I love a good mystery series, and now that Inspector Lewis is over (sob), I may check this out.  Eight episodes of grief and angst?? Check.
4. Having read "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg, been a Girl Scout and gone to a women's college, I really enjoyed this article on NPR about the recent rise in female COOs - and then stumbled onto this company, called The Muse, a career platform focused on professional women.  The interview with one of the founders on thejanedough.com was also a good read.
5. Grace over at Camp Patton posted about searching for a good mascara, and on a similar (and incredibly deep)(not) note, I may have been converted from my green-top-pink-tube Maybelline ways to BeneFit's "They're Real!" mascara.  It could be the small sample-size tube that fits in the smallest of pockets, or the spikey blaster-wand, but I'm liking it.  Every time I wear it I think, "Yes! Very nice."  We'll see if this lasts once I run out of it and am loathe to spend twenty-three bucks on mascara.
6. I've been enjoying the Mishnah Yomit from CY I get in my email every day, especially recently, since it's been about offerings that used to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem - the kinds of birds, fruits and so on, the types and decorations on the baskets, how they would hold the baskets, who would come when, what they would say - the whole ceremony of it has been fun to discover.
7. Sheba continues in her quest to wake me in the wee hours of the morning.  This week she's been removing the caps from the something on the side of the toilet and swatting them back and forth across the floor, bouncing them off of the walls, mewing, bringing them to me and biting my feet...it has been a true pleasure to live with her.

And that's all! Have a lovely weekend, wherever you are.

On the way to work

Sheba the Diva, Fire Ants, and other Tales of living in TX

Well, this weekend was a doozy.

I took Sheba to the vet and found out that she probably has feline herpes.  That is a thing.

Poor cute-face.  It kind of makes me laugh, if I’m being totally honest.  She had been sneezing and snoring and it turns out that cats can get colds, and feline herpes usually causes it.

Please, throw your best lectures about cat promiscuity at me.

She’s four months old, for crying out loud! Oh man.  The vet said she probably got it from another cat at the shelter.  It basically only causes flare-ups (am I really saying this) when she’s under stress, like when I take her to the vet or move or, you know, do stressful stuff.  So she’s got some antibiotics to clear up her cold and other than that, she’s good to go!

Cat herpes.  Good God, man, what next?!

I got bitten by fire ants.  Oh, yes.  Yes indeed.  One of the best things about Texas, in case you are thinking of visiting this great land, is the bug situation.  Oh, the size of the mosquito bites, my friends.  I don’t even want to go there.

So after talking to my mom about the spectacularly swollen, red and deeply, profoundly itchy (aren’t you glad you’re reading this post?) situation that had been my left foot for the past three days and the dangers of infection, gangrene, meningitis and possible amputation (I come from a long line of rational thinkers) I decided to go to the Urgent Care Center, or, as I like to call it, The Place Where Money Goes to Die.

Moving on. 

I had a good time watching some HGTV Home Crashers on the TV while I waited, and prayed that the enthusiastic home remodeling would drown out the couple next to me talking about their infected cyst.

An hour later, I had a prescription for an antibiotic and instructions to stay off all grass everywhere, and Sheba the Queen of the Herpes and I sat down to watch some New Girl and North & South and wait for our medicines to kick in.  We really went to town on it.  (The snuggles were pretty good, though, and both patients feel better).

How was your weekend?

What We Did Sunday

 

 

 

7 Quick Takes

Here we go! Linking with Jen:

• Taylor Swift and Carly Simon singing "You're So Vain" together.  Thank you, Birchbox Blog, for bringing this into my life.  Need I say more?

• This scene from "Orange Is the New Black," a new show on Netflix about a white woman from CT who ends up in prison on drug charges - it's really about all of the women in that prison, and it's smart and funny and honest.

• I'd like to give a shout-out to DART, the public transportation system in Dallas.  I took two buses to the Drivers License Center this week and then three buses back to work on routes I'd never been on before and the buses were clean, air-conditioned, on time, and the drivers were helpful and polite.  With the exception of one girl on the bus at 6:30 in the morning who was yelling about cutting people who made faces at her, it was not bad.

• I recently discovered art.com, where you can find paintings, photographs, and canvas prints you love and print them out.  My grandmother had a copy of a Modigliani hanging in her apartment when I was little, and since I figured I might as well make this place homey (finally), I've been looking at different prints I like.  The one at up at the top, called Gypsy Woman With Baby, is a favorite, plus I really love Brian Kershisnik's work, though most of it is too expensive for me right now (I like this one).

• Did anybody hear what Pope Francis said this week? The more I find out about him, the more he seems like an interesting man, and I'm looking forward to following his papal reign.

• Sheba's newest favorite activity is carrying out vicious assaults on my feet, toes, ankles and heels and then...licking where her teeth and claws ripped into my flesh.  Delightful and charming.  Not sure where she got that one from.  Also I really need to invest in a pair of cat nail clippers, otherwise my feet won't survive.

• Still reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson - slow going, but I'm finding it soothing.  The children really seem horrible - why do adult children always seem horrible? - but I'm only halfway through it.  More to come when I'm finished with it.

Happy weekend!