vets, Latin, slushpuddles, and an ode to Cookie

1. This week has been ridiculous. When did I last write? Tuesday night?

2. Wednesday: up early, with almost no sleep, to continue working on my Latin. I plowed through as much as I could, found that I finished early, and caught another hour of sleep before I headed up to Latin. The day is mostly a blur of classes and homework.

3. Thursday: up early, to get some work done in the lab. I reported in by 8:20 and stayed until 10:30, when I had to go to NB Power to photocopy files. The records manager, Sandra Allen, was a huge help, but I was still there for two hours while photocopying and reading typewritten correspondence and archaeological reports.
I hurried home, where Sean made me some lunch, then threw Parallax unceremoniously into the cat carrier and took her off to the vet. She hates, with an all consuming passion, leaving the house, but once we got there and she calmed down a bit, she was very nice to the lady vet. The vet commented on her beautiful electric green eyes and laughed at her toes before checking her out, giving her a couple of shots, and clipping (with her assistant's help) all of her many claws, including the one that was beginning to grow into her paw, which wasn't too bad, just probably uncomfortable.
Then back home to drop off the cat, and to the NBCC office, which is becoming overcrowded with goblets and large pieces of art (two different events). Things have been fairly slow there lately, compared to summer, but Shasta has been handling it all by herself, which makes for hectic times. I'll be glad to be back there fulltime if only to give her a bit of help, and also someone to keep her company and to vent to.
Then home and... more Latin! The only good thing I can say is that the piece of Cicero we've been working on is now completely finished. Unfortunately, that means a test (on Wednesday; no class Monday) and then... Virgil's Aeneid, which is a long epic poem. Poetry, as you might imagine, is horrid to translate.

4. Friday: I meant to go to the lab before Latin, but I couldn't pull myself out of bed on five hours of sleep again. I settled for seven and headed up to class, where we finished reading the Pro Archia and Geyssen informed me that the school seems to think I'm graduating, and with a degree that isn't what I'm taking, and that I ought to speak to them about it because they don't seem to listen to him. I handled my various correspondence (Marina, the Dean's office, Mexico, etc) and headed down to the lab after lunch at Doreen's new cafe.
At four, I headed home to grab Tonks and bring her to the vet. If Parallax hates leaving the house, Tonks... my power of metaphor fails me, but it's so much worse. The bag rocked the entire way to the vet as she growled and tried to get out. In the vet office, she scooted to the corner of the room, curled her tail around a chair leg like a monkey, and shook like a leaf while we waited. She wouldn't even look at me; it's hard to say if she was shaking in fear, or with the cold of the floor, or with sheer rage that I'd brought her to the vet (the only times she's been there were to get spayed, to get her jaw set, and to get the wire removed from her jaw after it healed - all overnight stays that left her sore and groggy). The usual vet, who is very fond of Tonks, was in the middle of surgery, so the other vet came in. She looked over Tonks' jaw, teeth, etc and had nothing but good things to say. We had to hold her down to get her shots, though, and her tail was tucked so far between her legs you couldn't even see it.
The worst, thought, was when the vet left and I had to get her back into the carrier. She stuck her legs out and growled and absolutely refused to stay in while I zipped it up. She got away no fewer than four times; the last time, she made a mad dash to the filing cabinet, flipped onto her back, and jammed her little face into the crack that, when she was a tiny kitten, she actually wormed through and into the cabinet. That time, we'd had to take it apart to get her out; this time, she was too big to do anything but stick her face in and wiggle.
But even after getting her home, my day wasn't over; I had to go up to the school and have a two hour meeting about the Mactequac project. I can't really say much about it, except that it was long and involved lots of maps.

5. Last night, I was feeling sleepy and run down, having slept very little this week, and laid down to read quietly in bed at about ten... and didn't wake up until 11:30 this morning. Yikes. I had a lot of really awful dreams, too. At least I'm well rested today.
Today, it's cold and miserable out; it's drizzling freezing rain, and the streets are filled with icy slushpuddles. We went to Cora's for breakfast, and now it's a quiet, warm afternoon being comfortable indoors. The cats were leaping around for a bit, but now everyone's settled down. Good times.

6. I love sock patterns. There's a lot of little points about socks that people miss; details of cuffs and toes, for example, but most of all heels, are usually custom-fit in a good pattern. I know at least six ways to knit a heel, and most of the more exotic varieties are thanks to a certain sock pattern designer named Cookie A, who designs poems of socks. She's responsible for the design of my Hedera socks (which I will have to photograph soon) and Baudelaire socks, otherwise known as the One Sock (who will carry on as a single sock, I think, and I will transform the rest into two shorter, reasonable Quill Lace socks, which aren't Cookie socks). She's also the author of the Pomatomus socks, which I want to knit, and the BFF socks, which are rather nice.
So imagine, if you can, my delight when I find out that she has a whole new store of sock patterns. Eight of them, including this guy, the Thelonius Sock:
Just plain awesome. Go on, click on it. You can see every stitch. Beautiful.
Anyway, that's all. I like her socks :)