Goodbye, sweet Allegro...

So I mentioned in my last post that I had a huge headache after my day of traveling last week... I think it also had to do with the fact that last Friday was a really stressful day. It started with a 70-page annual report at work that I wanted to get through before I left for the day (because I knew I would be out on Tuesday so I wanted to make sure I had it back to the originator in case he needed it). I finished my proofing marathon, my back feeling rather stiff from hunching over my desk all day, and proceeded to start working on few more odds and ends. I was winding down, knowing the weekend was just around the corner, and then Rick called. He had gone home early, and was there when Allegro had another apparent stroke -- she couldn't stand up, and while Rick was talking to me on the phone, I could hear her meowing mournfully in the background. After a year of watching her slowly deteriorate, we decided this was as far as she should have to go -- it wouldn't be much of a life if she couldn't even stand up. So we made the difficult choice to take her into the vet and have her put to sleep. I felt horrible already, but I felt even worse because of the fact that I happened to be at work when this happened and couldn't go with Rick to the vet. I didn't get a chance to look into those big, round eyes once more and say good-bye...

It was because of those eyes that Allegro ended up with me in the first place. It was 1992, and I had just moved from my parents' house in New Jersey down to Austin. I was living on my own for the first time ever, although I did have a roommate named Lori. Lori, however, had a habit of spending nearly every weekend in either Houston or College Station, and would often be gone even longer. When I was by myself, every little sound in that apartment would rattle my nerves, and I decided if I was going to live alone half the time, I needed a companion of some sort. Enter the Austin Humane Society. Rick and I drove down to their location near Town Lake (or Lady Bird Lake as it's called now...) and asked to see the cats who were up for adoption.

We were led to the "cat" section of the building, where rows of small cages lined the walls. In cage after cage I saw groups of kittens huddled together, fluffy and adorable... I guess I must've decided I wanted a YOUNG cat, and at first, the kittens were definitely calling to me. But how could I decide which one belonged with me? How could I choose just one to take home? I looked around for a few more minutes, and then turned to glance into the cages on the opposite wall. And that's when I saw my cat -- the sun was shining in through a high window, spilling into the cage where she was residing, and the first thing I saw was those huge, round, beautiful yellow eyes. I'd never seen a cat with eyes like that. And even though she was past the "kitten" stage -- she was about a year old already -- I instantly knew that she was the cat for me. She was brought to the humane society by a family who just decided they didn't want her anymore... just changed their minds, like they'd decided on pizza for dinner and then realized they actually wanted hamburgers. Eh, just get rid of the pizza. (I suppose I should applaud them for at LEAST leaving her at the humane society instead of dumping her on the side of the road...) But now she would have a new home with me...


I can't remember why I decided on a "musical" theme when I was choosing a name, but eventually "Allegro" (which means "lively" or "cheerful" in Italian and is used in music to dictate tempo) came to mind. Over the next few months, Allegro grew into her name quite nicely, tearing around the apartment at high speeds, lively and cheerful indeed. She kept me company when I was alone, and slept at the end of my bed every night. She wasn't much of a "lap cat," and would never let me hold her for more than a few seconds before protesting with loud meows -- but she always wanted to be NEAR me. She may not have wanted to sleep on my lap, but she wanted to sleep on the couch cushion next to me. If I walked to another room, she would follow, just to see what I was up to.

About five years after she became a part of our family, Allegro suddenly stopped eating. It seemed like one day she was fine, and the next she'd dropped from her usual seven pounds (which is already a pretty small cat) to five pounds. The vet was totally stumped... she had some liver damage, but he said that could be caused by not eating -- so which came first? Did the damaged liver cause her to stop eating, or did the lack of eating cause the liver damage? She was still drinking water, but I had to take her to the vet to be force-fed at least every other day. It was horrible to hear her crying in the vet's office as they fed her -- I knew I couldn't keep that up for very long. I remember Rick bringing up the possibility that we might have to already say good-bye to her at her young age. I definitely wasn't ready for that. So as a last resort, I decided to switch to a different vet to see if another doctor had different ideas...

I'm still not sure what the new vet did, but within two days, Allegro was eating again. Needless to say, we've stuck with that vet through the years. (In fact, I just received a sympathy card in the mail from them, signed by everyone in the office -- what a sweet gesture!) That one strange little scare was the only hiccup in Allegro's life -- she went on to live for twelve more years, never once resorting to a hunger strike again. :) Actually, the last few years, she LOVED to eat -- and she'd eat pretty much anything you set in front of her. I've never seen a cat eat such a variety of things -- whatever WE were eating, she'd want to eat, too. And more often than not, no matter what it was, if it was a small enough bite of food, she WOULD eat it. 

I know a lot of people don't have pets, and probably don't understand how these furry little creatures can work their way into your heart until you're totally in love with them... but I can't imagine not knowing what that's like. Pets love unconditionally, don't care who you are or what you look like, and have an amazing ability to gauge your feelings. I can't even count how many times I was feeling sad or upset, when Allegro instinctively KNEW that I could use a furry friend next to me to keep me company. She was a part of the family, a companion, a source of happiness and joy, someone who could always bring a smile to my face.

Allegro purred contentedly until the last day of her life. And I know it's because I made the perfect decision 18 years ago, when I brought home someone else's "reject" cat -- their loss was my gain. 

Vegas, baby!

So we're back from our quick weekend trip to Vegas... the first 12 hours or so were a little rocky -- our plane left about an hour late, which normally wouldn't be much of a problem. But I was at the end of a long "I woke up at 4:45 this morning" day, which means that by 8 o'clock I was starting to feel like winding down and putting on some PJs... But instead, I was waiting for our plane to arrive from Lubbock, where it had been delayed because of ice. We eventually left around 9:00, and settled in for the flight... about an hour and half later, the pilot announced that we were over El Paso, which was about halfway to Vegas. Sheesh... it took an hour and half to get to El Paso?? Texas is way too big... :)

Anyway, by the time we landed, got a taxi, checked into the hotel, walked through the gigantic lobby/casino/shop area, and made our way to our room, it was about 1:30 in the morning Austin time. I also had a headache coming on (which isn't unusual for me after a stressful day followed by a three-hour flight on an airplane with dry air and poor ventilation), so I pretty much collapsed into bed and hoped I'd feel better in the morning...

Except in the morning I actually felt WORSE -- I got up around 7:30 and decided to take some Advil. I ate about half of an energy bar first, because I don't like taking Advil on an empty stomach... and then I went back to bed for an hour or so. When I woke up, not only did my head still hurt, but I was nauseous, too... which was either the result of the headache, taking Advil on a nearly empty stomach, lack of food, or not enough water. Or perhaps it was a combination of everything. Needless to say, I was actually worried that I was getting plain old SICK, and for a little while I was wishing we'd just stayed home. Thankfully, after getting up, taking a shower, walking down to a Walgreens next to the hotel and buying some Advil Cold and Sinus, drinking a cup of coffee and eating some food, I FINALLY started feeling a lot better and ended up enjoying the rest of the day.

Since Rick and I really aren't big gamblers, we spent a lot of time just walking up and down the Strip -- we racked up about 16,000 steps both days we were there, which was good, because the other thing we spent a lot of time doing was EATING. Vegas has some great food. But I'm pretty sure our walking canceled out all the calories. Right? Of course it did. :) (And we may have done a liiiiiiittle bit of shopping, too... just a little bit... ;)) But easily the coolest thing we did was watch the fountains at the Bellagio hotel -- I took about a million pictures, but the pictures don't even do it justice. Even watching that scene at the end of "Ocean's 11" doesn't do it justice... seeing it in person is just SO COOL it's hard to explain... if you're ever in Vegas, you HAVE to go see the fountains at the Bellagio...

A few pictures!

We stayed at the Palazzo hotel, which is part of the Venetian... they do a pretty good job of recreating the architectural style of whatever place they're trying to emulate... Vegas is like a big, adult-themed Epcot Center... :)

A canal in "Venice"... (actually, the water was WAY too blue to be Venice... :))

This is INSIDE the hotel -- they do this a lot in the hotels in Vegas. They'll make the ceiling look like a "sky" so it sort of feels like you're outside. This was (as I overheard someone describe it) "St. Mark's Square without the pigeons." Which is a lot better when you're trying to eat lunch... (we ate lunch here both days -- there are three restaurants in this square...)

The canal inside the hotel -- this is actually the SECOND floor, which we found really impressive. All that water, and it's on the second floor...

The view from our room -- the pool, Treasure Island hotel, Trump hotel, and mountains in the distance...

All the hotels in Vegas were decorated for the Chinese New Year, which was kind of cool... (I forgot to take a picture of the giant stuffed tiger at the other end of the lobby!)

Me in front of the waterfall in the lobby...

When we were walking through the Bellagio hotel on our way outside to watch the fountains, we stumbled upon a Chinese New Year celebration. We got there kind of late, so it was hard to take pictures over the heads of the people in the crowd... but I did get one of this dragon...

Outside the Bellagio, looking across the street to the Paris hotel -- that Eiffel tower was surprisingly big... I'm not sure if it was "actual size" or a bit smaller than the one in Paris, but it had to be pretty close...

Top of the Bellagio hotel...

Patiently waiting for the fountains to do something...

And finally -- fountains! They're actually choreographed to music, and they play a different song every 15 minutes... we stayed for three different songs...

Seriously, it's so much cooler than these pictures can convey...

We were really surprised by how high the water can go... really awesome...

Self-portrait on the sidewalk...

What happens there... or their... or they're...

So my Blog Editor (yes, apparently I have a Blog Editor) informed me Friday that there was a misspelled word in my last post. Did anyone else catch it? It has since been corrected, so if you didn't catch it, you're too late. :) (To be honest, I think my Blog Editor peruses my posts in the HOPES of catching a mistake. Because he seems to take a little too much delight in pointing them out to me. Just sayin'... ;))

Not to defend myself... well, okay, actually -- in my defense, it's rather difficult to proofread your own writing. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps because when you write something yourself, you're too close to it -- you're too familiar with what you MEANT to say and what you MEANT to write, that even if you accidentally write something else, your brain skips right over it. If my brain KNOWS I'm thinking, "I like coffee and chocolate," it may not even notice if I happen to type, "I lik cofee and choclate." (Okay, I'd PROBABLY catch those misspellings if I wrote them... but no promises...)

And also in my defense -- I am, without a doubt, a horrible speller. I really am. Yes, I might proofread a lot of stuff on a daily basis, but there's a reason I have a dictionary and the Associated Press Stylebook within arm's reach at all times. I CAN'T SPELL. There. I've admitted it. Seriously, when I was a kid, and we had spelling bees at school, I was lucky if I wasn't the first kid to be eliminated. I'd hope for an easy word, like "cat" or "door," but more often than not, I'd end up getting "onomatopoeia" or "bourgeoise" (and yes, I DID have to look up both of those words just now to make sure I was spelling them correctly...). My biggest problem is spelling in my HEAD -- I can NOT, for the life of me, spell words in my head. I have to be able to SEE them. This was my problem with spelling bees -- if I'd been allowed a piece of paper to WRITE down the word I was asked to spell, my participation would've been long extended. But as it was, we were expected to spell in our minds... our little, warped, pea-sized minds...

Fortunately, the very nature of writing and proofreading requires a VISUAL perusal of words -- and what I AM good at is knowing when a word is misspelled when I SEE it. I may not be able to tell you how to actually spell it, but I can tell you it's wrong. (Enter Webster's dictionary...) I'm also pretty good at knowing when to look up a word just to make sure it's spelled correctly. Even if I'm 95 percent sure it IS spelled correctly.

Of course, none of that helped me with the aforementioned misspelled word in my previous post. I shall attribute that one to plain old exhaustion, as I'm often writing these posts right before I head to bed... I can't be expected to do things like "spell" and "make sense" when I'm really, really tired... can I??

And on a completely different topic -- Rick and I are headed to Vegas for the weekend. Not because either one of us is much of a gambler... but rather because it's easy to get a decent hotel room in Vegas for a relatively cheap price. In fact, our original plan was to head down to San Antonio this weekend, since it's close and it would be easy for a quick weekend getaway... but we realized that it would be CHEAPER to actually fly to Vegas and get a hotel room there. Hotel prices in San Antonio were crazy expensive. So Vegas it is. Hopefully it'll be cooler than the last time we were there -- I believe the thermometer was topping out around 113 degrees. (According to weather forecasts, we can expect the temperature to be somewhere in the 60s this time... ah... much better...)

So I'll see you soon with some Vegas pictures... unless the pictures I take in Vegas have to stay in Vegas... I hope not... :)

(DISCLAIMER: There MAY be misspelled words in this post... I really didn't proofread it very thoroughly... I don't even know if I just spelled "thoroughly" correctly...)  

Move it...

So I've had a rather tough week... just one of those weeks where every day is a struggle to get going and I feel like I'm magnetically drawn to the safety and comfort of my house -- and yet, compelled to stay home or not, I must carry myself to work every day. I managed to get in a couple lame workouts on Monday and Wednesday (well, I'm probably being hard on myself by calling them "lame"... I DID manage to tackle more than three miles both days, but my time was much slower than usual...), but my work out days have been interspersed with "total lack of energy" days. And, as mentioned, the workouts weren't all that energetic, either. It's weird -- some days I can hop right out of bed and tackle my workout with plenty of enthusiasm... and then other days, like Monday and Wednesday this week, I just feel draggy and less-than-energetic and blah. It could also have something to do with the weather, which has been cold and misty and rainy all week... and it's been cold enough to be COLD, but not quite cold enough to freeze. All week, I've been wishing for just the sliiiiightest drop in temperature, because then all this misty, rainy stuff would turn into a nice, hazardous sheet of ice. And when that kind of weather occurs, Austin shuts down and everyone gets to stay home, snuggled until covers with good books...

Ah, well... my one consolation is knowing that Friday is now within my grasp, AND the weekend forecast is FINALLY calling for some sunny weather. I can't wait to sleep in and wake up with sunshine...

For some reason, I've been thinking about my very first job, which was at the public library in Sparta, New Jersey. I was a library page. (Yes, "pages" work at the library. I always thought that was funny... just a page amongst all the pages...) And I actually really enjoyed that job. There wasn't much to it -- my main responsibility was to reshelve all the returned books, and make sure everything was in order. Occasionally, I got to work behind the desk and put that "return by" stamp on the books. Gosh that was fun... (seriously, there's something so satisfying about stamping a date in one of those little empty rectangles... it's like a tiny little bit of library power... you must bring this book back when I say so! Otherwise, be prepared to shell out some serious nickels!!) And on Friday afternoons, I was the sole employee in the children's section -- which meant I not only got to shelve books and use the Library Stamp of Power, but I was the children's section "expert," on hand to answer patron's questions.

What I really loved about that job (aside from the fact that I had an endless supply of reading material when things got slow) was all the physical labor. Okay, "labor" is probably an exaggeration. It's not like it was demanding, exactly... but it WAS a lot of walking back and forth, and reaching and bending and lifting. I actually lost weight after I started the job, no doubt in part because I was moving around so much...

Which brings me back to my PRESENT job, where I spend most of the day at a desk. I'm not really used to sitting for long periods of time, unless I'm in a car or on a plane and it's my only option. Otherwise, I've always liked to get up and move around quite often. In fact, before I got my job, I used to keep my laptop on the kitchen counter, where I would just STAND when I typed or surfed the web... and I was constantly walking from there to the laundry room, or the bedroom, or upstairs, or wherever I needed to go to get something done. It's been such a big adjustment for me to get used to this "sitting" thing. I know some people hate moving around a lot, but I'm just the opposite -- I hate staying STILL for too long...

So hopefully I'll have one of those "hop right out of bed" days tomorrow, so I can get in an hour of moving around before I spend much of the day feeling like a sloth... minus the "hanging upside down in a tree" part... although I wouldn't mind a tree in my office... that would be cool...

I'm obviously tired... I think it's time for bed... :)