Sarah will probably tell you all about it, but today we decided to take the hit and take our cats to see the veterinarian (they've been sick for a long time, but this morning one of them looked and smelled like death warmed over).

The good news is that it cost about 1/10 what I thought it would (oh, and the cats are going to be fine...). The bad news is that we found out our cats are, to put it delicately, disease-ridden flea bags.

Interesting fact: chlamydia and herpes apparently aren't considered STDs when they infect cats. At least we can take solace in the fact that they're not promiscuous.

At this point, I need to read, not type.

Step right up! Take a quiz, find out your stance on spirituality. 20 questions and you're done. Click here, find your place in the cosmos...

Seriously, it's an interesting exercise. You answer 20 questions, and the quiz tells you what religious tradition your views line up with (e.g., Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Quaker, etc.), and then it explains what people like you believe (and there's the option of finding out what the other groups believe).

As it turns out, I'm both a 'liberal protestant' (Christian) and a 'conservative protestant' (shall we call my views 'moderate protestant'--it even approximately rhymes; fantastic).

Me, as Rainn Wilson, as Dwight K. Schrute commenting on my day.

Fact: cats sneeze.
Fact: cats sneeze inordinate amounts of snot.

(I'm serious if humans sneezed proportionately as much snot as cats sneeze, you would NOT want to be around someone with a cold and/or allergies).

Fact: cat snot sticks to walls.
Fact: our walls are covered in cat snot.
Fact: I'm very glad that Sarah has taken the initiative to clean the cat snot off the walls.

Question: is it possible for someone to be employed as a cleaner of cat snot?
Answer: Because if it is, I know just the job for Sarah: Special education teacher.

A Poem

The internet is here.
And so am I.
Home.


That wasn't a poem and you know it.

Update on AT&T's progress: our home internet will be activated by 'Monday' 'at the very latest'. Fantastic. Who used to have the slogan about reaching out and touching someone? I'd like to reach out and do something. Maybe on Monday.

Here's something funny: as you're all well aware, for the last two weeks, the library has been home to all my internet and blogging needs. As you're not well aware, for the last week, the air circulator in here has been broken. It was fine when it was only 55 degrees outside, but it's considerably hotter right now. Currently, I'm dripping.

Oh, and school is fine. Lots of reading to do.

Guess where I am. Perhaps you guessed that I am at home, sitting in my home office, blogging from my home computer, in the comfort of my home? You would be wrong. I'm at the library.

Also of note, in terms of health care, it looks like Sarah and I are going to be uninsured (or, at the very least, minimally insured) in the next few weeks. I am now unequivocally in favor of universal health care. Interesting.

Correction about that poster: it actually said "GRAD SCHOOL". My mistake. In other news, I'm still posting from the library; it's lovely. Perhaps by 'Monday' things will again be right in the world, though this dream is likely of the pipe variety. Did I mention that one of my professors assigned 580 pages of (technically oriented) reading for the first week. I'm not sure if you realize how much that actually is. Try reading the about paragraph about 10,000 times, and I think you'll have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Turns out, AT&T forgot to hook up a line to our house. Also turns out, our landlord forgot to connect the outside line from AT&T to the inside of our house. Also also turn out that I'm still blogging from the library.

I'm still getting settled in as the semester progresses (lots of reading to do); I even found out that I have an office; three days later, I found out where it was and got a key. I share it with several other grad students, and, interestingly, on one wall there's a poster of a befuddled-looking John Belushi (from Animal House) with the words, "GRAD STUDENT", taped to his shirt. Telling?

School has officially begun, and AT&T has officially begun to get on my nerves. I signed up for home phone and DSL (internet) service many moons ago, and AT&T 'promised' to have everything turned on by Friday (which was a considerable wait, based on when I signed the service contract). Today is Saturday, and I'm typing this from the school library. AT&T 'promises' that we'll 'probably' have service by 'Monday', or, at the 'earliest', 'Tuesday' or 'Wednesday'. Whatever.

In the meantime I'm starting to adjust to my schedule, but I don't start teaching until Monday, so that should exponentially increase my workload, but we'll have to see how that actually plays out. Regardless, I have to go get back to reading every article in the library. Talk to you soon. ('Monday...or Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest'...