Getting caught up on stuff

[annathepiper]

And now, to make up for last weekend, I'd like to post about some things that don't suck.

I have once more begun to try to cut down on my soda. I am trying not to get too ambitious about the goal here or to make long-term plans, since my luck with that lately has been kind of sketchy, but for the last two days at least I've limited myself to two cans of soda a day. At the same time, I'm trying to take myself off the Trazodone since I have reason to believe it's messing with me, and I've stayed off that for the last two days too. So far I have noticed an immediate lessening of the general background noise of tension I've had in my system for a while. This is a very good thing indeed. And I need to remember this feeling for the next time I start getting way too interested in the diet Dew.

I got a surprise letter from the College of Veterinary Medicine at WSU yesterday, informing me that Ravenna Animal Hospital had made a donation to them because of Polly. And Polly has been added to the list of pet names here. That was an incredibly sweet gesture of the vet, and made me feel rather misty.

A story on our site made me feel kind of misty, too. A couple of days ago we'd run this article about how lack of dental care is leaving the poor in agony, and as part of that article a picture had been run of a guy who was sobbing in the dental office since his blood pressure was too high for them to give him anesthetic. Apparently this prompted an outpouring of offers to help from Times readers to get this guy the dental care he needs. That really made me go "awww". Sometimes, every so often, people don't suck.

As y'all have seen over the last week, I've been more aggressively reading. Which has meant that I haven't listened to stuff on my iPod as much, and that means I have yet to actually listen to the new podcast from Great Big Sea! *blush* I really must correct this little problem this weekend. I may lose my GBS fan cred if I don't. ;)

What I have been listening to, though, is Carbon Leaf. I am seriously grooving on Ether-Electrified Porch Music. I may even like it better than Echo Echo; so far every single track on it is striking me as potential repeat-play material, which puts it out ahead of Echo Echo. This will require a few more plays to give it a proper judging. And I've been slurping up the classical music compilations I've got, too; I have found that they seem to unwind me on a fundamental level. The same level that's been feeling quite good with the hard cut of caffeine over the last two days, in fact.

TV-wise, although I have not yet posted an in-depth post about it, I did like the second episode of the Dresden Files. I don't think I'll do in-depth posting about it this weekend just because I want to focus on getting some writing and editing done, but I did want to at least note that yeah, the episode was good. I liked it a little better than the premiere; it felt more like a Harry story to me.

Movie-wise, courtesy of boxer_ferret I hear tell that Russell Crowe has been signed in a new take on the Robin Hood story--playing the Sheriff of Nottingham. As a good guy, even, investigating a string of murders for which Robin Hood is the suspect. This should be entertaining. And this weekend I hope to meet up with mamishka and go see The Painted Veil, which promises to be full of fun socialness and English-Patient-y romantic angst with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

Last but definitely not least, I'm slowly closing in on the five-month mark with Faerie Blood in the e-slush pile at Baen. And trying to remind myself that this doesn't mean much, since their turnaround time is like 9-12 months... but still. It feels satisfying that they haven't told me no quite yet.

Miles from 1/20 up to today: 31.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1730.4
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 421.4
Miles to Isengard: 62.6

Comments

[kieri.livejournal.com]

"The Painted Veil" was good, actually. About as cheerful as you'd expect a cholera movie to be, but visually stunning and very well-performed. :) I liked it.

[annathepiper]

Good to know! Thanks for the picoreview. :)

[ssha.livejournal.com]

You have an awesome vet. Definitely keep him for future animals, and recommend him to everyone you meet who has an animal. He is truly amazing and wonderful.

[annathepiper]

The staffers I was working with at Ravenna, actually, were all female. ;)

I had earlier issues with how they handled Polly, but that donation to WSU really rather balances those out, I think. The main issue I'd have with going back to them for any further animals is that we do live in Kenmore now, so they're a bit of a drive. Especially with a fractious animal.

Should we get another kitty (and that's likely, just not yet since I'm not quite prepared to have another cat yet), we'll probably be going with Woodinville Veterinary just because they're a lot closer and because kathrynt and lyricae have both spoken well of them to me. Plus, they also sent a card. :)

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to cut back on soda too. I only drink diet sodas because I don't like sugar, but I think the chemicals and crap in the diet versions are probably worse than the sugary versions. I try to keep it to one every few days, since the 'one' is a 16-oz bottle out of the vending machine.

The crying guy in the dentist's office - how sad! I love that people came forward to help him. It reminds me of something that happened in this area last week, when an elderly woman's car had been stolen, found, then put in impound, and she was told she'd have to pay to get it out - even though she'd been the victim of a crime. She didn't have the money to get it out, and immediately people started dropping by the local radio station that was airing her story and leaving money. Now the local politicians are looking at forcing a change in the law that allowed something like that to happen in the first place. Bottom line - yeah, it's nice to know that sometimes people DON'T suck. Sometimes.

[annathepiper]

Indeed, I have heard tell too that in some ways diet sodas are worse than the regular ones for one's health. Me, I'm mostly doing it for the sake of caffeine reduction, but I also note that I start losing weight when I'm not consuming so much soda, so that's a happy side benefit.

Wow, her car was stolen and she was ordered to pay up to get it back? Very, very annoying. I'm glad local folks stepped up to help her out. More people that don't suck.