11/13:

It looks like I forgot this one in the last TWIP entry. I just thought these clouds looked cool on the way to work:

11/18:

And here’s my adorable dog enjoying the bed in various states of the linens being changed.

And wot about Piper sneepin’ on the laptop!!

I mentioned she’s learning how to be a cat, right? What a good girl.

11/21:

Every year for our Thanksgiving potluck, our head doctor makes a little bar and mixes drinks for people. Not me, since I loathe alcohol, but pretty well everyone else.

I really post this picture just to illustrate how squeamish people in the veterinary field typically aren’t: that’s our cadaver freezer behind him there.

Same day, same clinic: my co-worker sometimes brings her eclectus parrot in to visit. Her name is Ruby (the parrot), and she sits on a perch behind the counter and makes startling noises and agitates all the dogs and cats, and I honestly wish she wouldn’t come visit us.

At the same time, though, she’s a gorgeous bird whom I love to talk to. She does a nibble of love on one’s finger, and tries to steal shiny objects such as earrings.

11/25:

Here’s Piper being a flopcat.

At about that time, I was working on the Disney prompt story on my phone, and Swype gave me positively the best suggestion for how to proceed with my sentence.

11/28:

One day, a feral cat ran out of her trap and started bouncing off the walls trying to escape. My face got in the way.

And you know how ecstatic I would have been about this just a year and a half ago? A scar running along my jaw on the left at just that angle? Now it was merely interesting, and maybe a little sad to think about how much I might once have liked it. How times do change.

The marks are still there, but much fainter. I’m not actually sure what-all scarring I’m going to get out of it. Oh, well.

12/03:

I bought some new boots. They’re super adorbs and can be seen in some later pictures. They came stuffed and surrounded with surprisingly cute tissue paper, which Galileo apparently also liked.

And look at these two sweet Best Friends:

If you’re wondering whether I gave Piper a belly rub after taking this picture, the answer is OF COURSE WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT.

12/09:

Ngyee. Check this out:

12/15:

Piper has already mastered the cat tradition of inspecting and approving new bedding. Here you see her thoughts on my knee pillow:

And here she sleeps half on the bed and half on the little bed on the bed:

All right, time for some srs bsns.

It’s been just over a year since we heard the bad news about the Dead Author of Rurouni Kenshin. At first I thought I could continue to enjoy RK separate from its creator and just decline to send any more money in his direction. As time passed, however, and that asshole got a slap on the wrist and went right back to writing his (already fairly crappy) new RK chapters, I felt worse and worse about RK.

Finally I decided to step away from it, retaining only the ongoing fanfictions wherein the characters feel mine enough that I can stand to continue them. That surprised me as being one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever been through. It was so painful, in fact, that I’ve only been very slowly removing RK from my surroundings. It was like a wound full of shrapnel: it just hurt too much to pick it out, so it stayed in far longer than it should have.

Around the one-year anniversary of the bad news, though, I started to think I was strong enough to pack up all my RK stuff and put it out of sight. So eventually I ordered a couple of big plastic under-bed storage bins. It took two or three days and a fresh bout of tears and depression to get it all done, but I managed it. And I figured I’d take some documentary photos.

So that’s over. Some stories remain, but everything else has been swept away. You can even see the progress on the walls somewhat in the backgrounds of other pictures in this entry. What a tragedy.

12/16:

And back to less awful stuff. On one wall, I have replaced the RK content with framed print-outs of the commissions people have been drawing for me for the TLY site. It’s a delight to look at, and one of the only things in the world, I think, that could so cheerfully have replaced my favorite set of RK posters. You can see some of this in some of the backgrounds here too.

Anyway, the frames I’ve been ordering come in a Styrofoam box for protection since they include glass. I had two frames left from the last package, so I let them stay in their box and put the box up on top of my desk. Waybee and Galileo discovered it and thought it was a vera comfortable place to take turns sneepin’:

I love to have a cat up above me on the desk so I can look up at it any time whilst I’m working ^__^

12/17:

This was printed on the back of the package of an MP3 player:

12/18:

Piper often sits on the chair like this:

See Beeks in the background??

12/19:

I got Lea (Dr. Mayer) for Secret Santa this year, so I designed a custom pillow for her using a picture of her horse Rosie and the very first cheesy animal quote I found with a quick Google search.

I actually think it looks pretty decent. She loved it, and that’s what I wanted.

Meanwhile, she got me reciprocally, and gave me an Amazon gift card that I used to order my proof copies. She also gave me this weird stuffed animal:

I mean, I guess it’s a sort of pegasus? LOL.

Anyway, it’s my check-ins companion now, so it’ll sit in the cat room at work until something happens to it.

12/20:

And speaking of the cat room at work… this lil thang was willing to do just about anything to get her e-collar off. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to take more than just the one picture.

That same day we neutered a bunny, and the dumbass took his e-collar halfway off and got it stuck there. Observe:

12/21:

These three silly shih-tzus, two bros and a sis, were supposed to be warming up on the heating pad, but they wanted to warm up on each other instead. So I had this pile o’shih-tzu to deal with in recovery.

That was the last day of work for the year!!!!

12/22:

As in previous years, over this holiday break I have worn a different tie nearly every day and taken pictures. So now that starts.

I usually don’t even tie this rainbow tie because it’s so narrow and long, but this time I thought it looked decent tied.

12/23:

I ordered three proof copies. My hands were literally shaking when they arrived; it’s a wonder I got any pictures taken at all.

Piper, for some reason, loves this one proof copy. Did I mention this already? Anyway, I signed it for her.

And here she is that same day sitting funny in the chair again, this time with a pillow:

12/24:

Documentation of PUMPKIN BREAD:

It’s srsly the best recipe evar. Sugar free, too :D

And here’s my adorable Christmas dress:

It’s a CowCow dress. You have no idea how many CowCow dresses are on my Amazon wish list.

12/25:

There’s also a ton of dress shirts and ties on my list. Here’s what I wore on Christmas day:

12/26:

Dad got this thick, warm, fleecy blanket from work — it’s got the company logo embroidered in one corner — and Galileo immediately claimed it upon its arriving at home. Dad said that, before he settled down onto it, he kneaded it for, like, 45 minutes with huge-stretched paws.

LOOK IT’S PIPETY

12/26:

It’s hard to choose a favorite outfit from amongst my amazing tie collection, but this one is definitely high on the list:

12/27:

So remember the Styrofoam box on top of the desk? Piper figured out how to jump up there at last, and she didn’t just want to sleep on the box; she wanted to eat the Styrofoam. Of course that wouldn’t do, so I replaced the box with a soft blanket (previously on top of the two picture frames, but since then I’ve used both). I’ve gotten more social media attention for the next three pictures than for almost anything else I’ve ever posted anywhere.

And here’s my outfit for that day, complete with Hiko:

12/28:

Oops, she got up there again:

What a good girl.

Mom gave me a purple cardigan that shrank in the wash, so I put together a purple tie outfit:

12/29:

And that brings us up to this very day! Check out today’s awesome outfit:

I found a bunch of adorable hair clips at Ulta (where I was not, of course, looking for hair clips), and I think they look so cool in my hair because they remind me of zabrak horns. I call them my Darth Maul clips.

And, finally, here’s Waybee on the soft blanket too:

And now I’m all caught up on photos! Well, I mean, in the ongoing photo race; I still have a huge freaking backlog :\