a four-day weekend
in journal
hi there.. hope the nice long weekend was relaxing and fun. i’m just now getting back to work since friday because monday was a holiday and tuesday my day off for class (which i did end up dropping, yippee) ~ so that was a four-day weekend, ay very nice indeed.
saturday was a pretty dramatic day for my cats ~ first time to the vet since i got them from the pound in august 2001 (i know, that’s very irresponsible of me, sigh). mama cat especially was freaked out, meowing like her heart was breaking. for those not in the know, i have two cats (now), mama cat and her kitten, trouble. mama cat is about 3 and a half years old and trouble is almost three (mama cat was a very young mama..) and they are both very sweet. after looking around online, i found this great (though expensive, as i found out later, yikes!) vet place, pet medical center in santa monica. highly recommend it, though i insisted to my sweet girls that they can only get sick once every year or two at the most becuase i can’t afford more than that. vacya came with me, which calmed me down a lot ~ and before going to the vet, we went and bought some hard cat carriers, cat harnesses and leashes (we weren’t taking the slightest chance). they gave us a courtesy nail trim for both cats, which is sweet, since i’ve never done that and their nails are incredibly long. vacya was saying later that it must feel really weird and good for the cats to be walking around without those nails sticking out and getting stuck everywhere. my girls are the world champions of projectile shedding when scared and, thankfully, are equally the world champions at recovering-from-the-vets, with happy purring and excessive (in a good way) snuggling once we got back.
my fourth of july was uneventful ~ and i loved it. and! i’m very excited to announce that i finally get purl! it just clicked ~ though i hate writing that because i remember in my non-purl-wise days (ah, so long ago) i would read others’ knitting accounts/struggles and they would type similarily vague semi-religious/philosophical things and i would grind my teeth in frustration, but now, oh yes, it just clicked. pictures soon to come.
in the newest issues of the new england journal of medicine there’s two articles on the war in/on iraq. in “acknowledging the psychiatric cost of war”, the authors write, “Indeed, there is reason for concern that the reported prevalence of PTSD of 15.6 to 17.1 percent among those returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom will increase in coming years, for two reasons. First, on the basis of the findings of the Fort Devens study, the prevalence of PTSD may increase considerably during the two years after veterans return from combat duty. Second, on the basis of studies of military personnel who served in Somalia, it is possible that psychiatric disorders will increase now that the conduct of war has shifted from a campaign for liberation to an ongoing armed conflict with dissident combatants.” (there is a lot more psychological and emotional support for returning military since the vietnam war, but, the study warns, “although the soldiers and Marines in the study … were able to acknowledge PTSD-related problems in an anonymous survey, they apparently were afraid to seek assistance for fear that a scarlet P could doom their careers.”) all the more reason to be pissed off at bush and cronies for this whole mess of a war.
the great folks at the path project are setting up really exciting july and august events, such as the permaculture credit union meeting (how incredible!) and this workshop and slideshow on permaculture given by robina mccurdy. the second event is kinda expensive but i’m so tempted. and then there’s the knit out on the 13th, which in that beautiful backyard, would be quite inspiring. yay, i’m so glad i found this great resource.
~ andrea
