Mayhem and I spent a good chunk of Sunday afternoon at the emergency vet because, while she’d been fine when I went to bed Saturday night, she was not fine when I got up Sunday morning. She was huddled in a corner of the bathroom, had no interest in eating, and seemed to have some pain around one of her back legs.

“Woe is me.” -Mayhem

Turns out, after x-rays, she has osteoarthritis in her lumbar spine area (her back near the base of her tail) and in her hips. D’oh! (She turns 12 on May 31st.) Don’t know if it had been getting progressively worse and she just hit the wall, or if she managed to aggravate it overnight. She got some subcutaneous fluids at the emergency vet and I gave her painkillers twice a day for a couple days. I didn’t need to confine her, because she set herself up in the dining room, under the dining room table and chairs, and mostly hung out there for a few days. I moved a kitty bed, water, and a litter box over there for her. She stayed pretty quiet Monday and Tuesday, but seemed much more herself Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, it seems like she can’t really jump onto stuff very well, so I suspect I’ll be figuring out ways to facilitate her getting to her favorite spots.

So! It’s been quite a week, what with the emergency vet and then the followup with our regular vet. I’m enjoying a couple of days off and decided that would include a little linkity vacation. 🙂

Have a great weekend, everyone! Thanks for visiting us here. 🙂

Welcome back to Art Journaling Monday! 🙂

• Play.
• And more play.
• On creative playing.
• All the colors.
• Is it spring yet??
• Music, clouds, language, tire table.
• The Finder!

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“Mom. It’s called a SECRET hideout for a reason!” -Mayhem

Bookity

• New releases: AAR (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from the Pen Addict.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Cover snark from Smart Bitches.
• Anne Frank’s diary has two hidden pages. (via Book Riot)
• How to get started reading Ray Bradbury.
• A graphic novel biography of Stephen Hawking will be available in 2019.
• Trailer for a documentary about Ursula K Le Guin.
• “I see my queer self in Murakami’s magical realism“.
• Book-themed journal prompts.
• 25 quotes from Margaret Atwood.
• “Badass gifts for profane book lovers“.

Do, Learn, Make, Think

• Very simple (in cartoon form) look at how statistics can be used to make things sound much better than they actually are.
• “EST and EDT are different time zones“. (Hey, I work in telecom – time zones are a big deal!)
• How to resize picture frames from the thrift store without a lot of tools.
• A solution for warm weather thigh chafing.
• What Nazism actually is.
• You go, #ResistanceGenealogy!
• “Why do we have butts?“
• Be careful with your proximity keys, people! (The title’s kind of over-the-top, but there are some good points to remember in the article, so.)
• “Is hummus good for you?“
• “100,000 video game players helped prove Einstein wrong“.
• How the brand-new expansion team Las Vegas Golden Knights got good enough to still be in the NHL Playoffs (3rd round). (Most successful expansion team of any sport, ever.)

Cookity

• Marinated feta beet salad.
• Broccoli and feta pasta salad.
• 9 recipes for salads for dinner.
• 30 recipes you can make with a can of chickpeas.
• Strawberry quinoa salad.
• Refried hummus.
• Brown butter rhubarb cake with crumb topping.
• Elderflower lemon cake.
• Coffee walnut cake.
• Victoria sponge sandwich cake.
• Lemon drizzle cake.

Gluten Free

• Colombian empanadas.
• Pineapple angel food cake.
• Salted chocolate buckwheat cookies.

Artsy Crafty

• Tips for setting yourself up for success with The 100 Day Project.
• The Index-Card-A-Day Challenge starts June 1!
• Linkity from knittyBlog.
• Knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• If you watch the whole thing, it is indeed eerie at the end.
• “The shapes of ideas“.
• Mother’s Day themed linkity from BookWyrmKnits.
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• A wearable that records everything you miss when you are blinking.
• Star Wars fan film about an artisanal light saber maker.

Wha…?

• “Froot Loops are not all shaped like loops anymore“.
• LaCroix swimwear.
• Braspberries…

LOL

• A novel way to keep squirrels out of a bird feeder.
• Resentful Pluto.
• Sheep blep.
• Glasses exchange…
• Barbie on Cake Wrecks.

Teh Cute

• Swans and cygnet! Black kitten!

Reading Update
Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston. Rereading is such a funny thing. I haven’t reread this for at least 20 years and remembered loving it – it really resonated with me then. Now? Not so much.
Once Upon a Piece of Paper: A Visual Guide to Collage Making by Andrea D’Aquino. Not much text at all, so it’s a fast read, and I got some great inspiration from it. But I can’t say that it was worth the price of purchase – maybe if I used every scrap of paper in the “paper to collage” pad that came with the book, but my track record on such things isn’t good.
My Monster Notebook by John Harris. Pretty good kids’ book about mythological monsters. (I have this to cut apart for collage and inadvertently read it.)

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*staring into opposite distances* -Chaos & Mayhem

Small cat in the big cat bed, big cat in the small cat bed…

Welcome back to Art Journaling Monday! 🙂

• I don’t know, either.
• Collage weird.
• Alarm, chicken, poetry.
• Play.
• Scribbling.
• Fragile rooms, mix tapes, reading, kindness.
• Happy accidents.

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*long-suffering look* -Chaos

*blank* -Mayhem

Bookity

• New releases: Tor.com (genre benders)
• Smart Bitches on a ridiculous trademark case. (NSFWish) Book Riot with some amusing bits from Romance Twitter about the whole thing.
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from Inkophile.
• Linkity from the Pen Addict.
• “What Mr Rogers can teach us about storytelling“.
• Levar Burton reads “As Good As New”, a short story by Charlie Jane Anders.
• 22 political satire books.
• Return of a Neil Gaiman post on fanfiction, featuring a brilliant addition at the bottom for those who’ve read it before.
• Ron Weasley, crusher of dreams.
• Go beyond the plot bunny…
• Stages of the reader.
• The Scottish Play.
• Which Shakespeare character are you? (I got Romeo, which… no.)

Think, Learn, Do, Make

• NASA on its ties to Star Wars.
• “Body wash is a scam and you fell for it“. (I’ll take a bar of soap over body wash any day.)
• Did squirrels help spread leprosy around the world?
• Vacationing isn’t great for the environment.
• “The stricter a state’s gun laws, the fewer children die from guns“. (This should not be a surprise…)
• It’s not your imagination – hurricanes are intensifying faster than they did 30 years ago.

Cookity

• Salt and pepper tofu.
• Crispy tofu (pan-fried).
• Cauliflower tacos.
• 17 recipes using black beans.
• 10 recipes for meatless pasta.
• 20 quick pasta recipes.
• BBQ chicken quinoa salad. (via The Kitchn)
• Asparagus bacon pasta.
• 17 veggie snacks.
• 7 recipes for tofu for breakfast.
• 16 easy rhubarb recipes.
• Blueberry pan sauce (for meat).
• Chocolate sponge cake with ganache frosting.
• Fudgy cream cheese chocolate cake.
• Coconuttiest coconut cream pie.

Gluten Free

• Peanut butter banana bread.
• Review of packaged gluten-free breads.

Artsy Crafty

• Linkity from knittyBlog.
• Knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• Shark dragons.
• A short film about grump old gay men in love.
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• User agreements as art.

Wha…?

• Shoes with treadmills in the soles.
• “Army researchers are developing a self-aware squid-like robot you can 3-D print in the field“. (via Schneier on Security)

LOL

• Cats, man.
• A new Simon’s Cat short.
• From our dystopian future…
• The unfortunate intersection of math word problems and orchestra.
• The fireman cake. (NSFWish)
• It’s your turn to shine, Brutus.

Teh Cute

• Bee butts! Porcupine and baby! Baby octopuses! Baby otters! Leopard and babies!

Reading Update

• *waves*

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“But your book is the perfect spot for me to sun my butt, Mom. Please don’t take it away!!!” -Mayhem