LauraCatoe.com

Ashley Ross made me some Rasputina bootlegs. (For BtVS fans, that’s the band that did the song “Transylvanian Concubine” that played during Drusilla’s “coming out party.”) I’m lovin’ the cds, and every time I love a song so much that I have to pick up the case and see what it’s called, the song has been a track off their newest release, Frustration Plantation. All day, I’ve been singing “if your kisses can’t hold the man you love, your tears won’t bring him back.” But “Possum of the Grotto” rocks more than a song of that title should be allowed to do, and you can download it here. Oh, and they cover “Wish You Were Here.”

I made Ashley a mix a few weeks ago of things I thought she might like (Darling Violetta, Eisley, Poe, etc.), but I took the most joy in cutting up an ad for Emily the Strange to use as the cover art for it. Because I am 100% nerd, lest we forget.

Company picnic tomorrow. Quesadillas tonight. And a 10-ton hydraulic house jack sometime in the next 72 hours. Fun!

Yesterday, I was gonna link to the original version of my “toothbrush kid” to contrast with her newer face. That’s when I realized I hadn’t updated my Times illustration page since 2002. Yikes.

Never one to do things the easy way, I designed a new portal to the site first. Then I updated and categorized the Times graphics. There might have been more new ones if accessing my latest archive cd didn’t take forever and a day. I think I’m gonna attempt re-burning it, cause man, is it slow. And I have no patience. I support a Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to waiting and computers. Unholy machines.

I think it’s funny that I refer to fleegan.com as a sister site and we’ve both been reading and blogging about a series of books that we both love and abhor. I rant about Anita Blake and Jaimie raves about Scarpetta. But she’s totally one-upping me on the cat blog entries.

So here’s my Cat Blog Catch-Up:
* When I left for work this morning, Satine was busy mauling a small rodent between the hydrangeas. If I were the me I was 10 years ago, I would’ve saved the mole. But this morning, I just ranted all the way to the car. “Aw, Satine, gross.” I figure she’d mortally wounded him already, so why bother. I was morally wounded by the display, until, say, Randall Street.

* Last night, Satine was sleeping on the bed so completely dead to the world that I rubbed her tummy for like 2 whole minutes and she didn’t claw me with her back claws even once. I could have painted her toenails and she wouldn’t have woken up. Well, if she had toes.

* Her newest place to curl up: the bathroom sink. When she likes to do this: when I go to brush my teeth. Routine as follows: I turn on the faucet. Satine goes “ooo, follow Laura’s hand, ohhh, nothing in it. hmm, what is that? [dramatic head jerk] whoa! what is that? it’s moving. i should eat it. waitaminute! it’s wet. OH HOLD ON, I’M GETTING WET HERE! FLEE! FLEE!” And then she very ungracefully bolts from the sink and I brush my teeth.

/Cat Blog

(Today’s entry is for rowan, who’s digging the Anita Blake commentary.)

Finished AB Book 10 (Narcissus in Chains) last night. The author managed to work in at least two Triple Word Scores with use of terms that resonate well with genre fans: ouroboros (remember Scully’s tattoo, anyone?) and oubliette (yay! Jareth would be so pleased). But the newest term created for the Blakeverse? Panwere. Because it was not enough to have werewolves, wereleopards, wererats, wereswans, weresnakes, weretigers, werehyenas, weredogs and werebears. Nay, we also have to have someone who can shapeshift into multiple animals. Oh, and also, he must have split personality disorder. (Just roll with it, it’s faster that way.)

When the books began, Anita was 24 and she was an animator (meaning she could raise zombies). Then she became a human servant to a vampire. But then she killed him (which nearly killed her) and was freed. Somewhere along the way, she went from being just an animator to a necromancer (like an uber-animator - she can now also raise vampires). Then she became a human servant again. And since she was dating the werewolf king (called an Ulfric), she was deemed his lupa(like a werewolf queen, I guess). And then she killed the head wereleopard in town and became the wereleopard’s Nimir-Ra (queen).

So, when this book began, Anita was 26 and a necromancer human servant to the Master of the City and the werewolf king’s lupa and the wereleopards’ queen. (See how I said to just roll with it?) During the course of the book, Anita is accidentally impaled on the claws of one of her wereleopards, so it seems she might become their Nimir-Ra for like real, yo. She exhibits all sorts of new powers that confirm this suspicion. But come the next full moon, she doesn’t shapeshift and it turns out that much as her vampire sweetie has an “animal to call” (being wolves), she (through the marks of being his human servant) has gained an animal to call of her very own - the leopard. How convenient. Oh, and she has also become a Master Necromancer, in that she now has a vampire servant. And did I mention she is now also a succubus? Yeah, that one would take too long to explain, so just keep rolling.

New folk that want to sleep with her: the new Nimir-Raj (leopard king) in town. And that panwere I mentioned earlier. Of course.

Aside from spam, spyware, pop-ups and stupid people, I love the Internet. Cause, man, I hate going to the doctor. And if I can allay my fears with diligent Googling, trust that I will.

For me to go to the doctor, I have to have one of the following “symptoms”:
(A) Severe pain, example: Strep throat will get me there
(B) Secure knowledge that something is Not Right, example: blood places it isn’t supposed to be
(C) Symptoms that freak my sh*t out, example: a triple-combo of blurred vision, dizziness and unexplained numbness

All other maladies result in Search Engine Diagnoses. Cavalier of me? Maybe. Better than a trip to the doctor? Definitely.

Finished Blue Moon (8th in the Anita Blake series) today. New characters who wanted to sleep with her include 1 wereleopard, 2 more vampires and an entire pack of werewolves in the Smoky Mountains. Damn, girl.

I need to make a trip to the grocery store tonight; Kris and I have been living on the leftovers from his party for 2 days. I have made 4 meals out of Little Sandwiches* alone.

The way we (the royal we, natch) refer to them as Little Sandwiches reminds me of a bit by comedian Gary Gulman (who, I just discovered, has the same birthday as Kris) about The Pill. Gulman says “I give you ‘the’ and a noun” and everyone in the audience knows which pill he means. “There’s a pill that will keep you from getting polio,” he continues. “That’s not The Pill.”

Little Sandwiches are like that. Some parties have little chicken salad sandwiches or little pimento cheese sandwiches. Those aren’t the Little Sandwiches.

* Our famed Little Sandwiches are a tray of dinner rolls, cut lengthwise and layered with ham and swiss and a mustard-poppyseed concoction. If Liz volunteers to bring food to a party, she is always asked to make Little Sandwiches.