cancer – day 502

Wow, I am ridiculously crippled by a lack of internet connection in my work. I’m trapped at the camper place while they’re putting a new hitch on the Jeep so Rubi can pull my new camper (it’s a tiny little pop-up pseudo-off-roading camper called a Cobalt). First my computer couldn’t find their wireless, and now it can’t connect, and I’m resigned to missing several hours of work this afternoon that I will have to do when I get home tonight, when I can get online again.

I can’t even do e-mail without the internet, compliments of Google mail. I like not having to use Outlook e-mail anymore, until I am in a location without Internet and can’t access my stupid gmail for work. There are times of the year when I am doing a lot of writing that I can happily work without the Internet for quite a few hours a day, but right now I need to be chasing down companies for data and responding to their questions and drafting a new online survey and so on. Today is not a good day to be stuck somewhere that supposedly has wireless but the service is so flaky I’m getting seriously annoyed, today Rubi is getting the Jeep version of a colonoscopy and penile implant (sorry, that was low-brow, but I couldn’t resist it).

Tomorrow night I leave on my first trip with the camper. I have a reservation at a campground that has wireless, I had to reserve a special location site, but they have internet and I should be able to work from the camper the next day. How wild is that?!? Working via wireless while technically camping. I’m looking forward to it. The cats, not so much, but they’ll get used to it. They’ve been wearing harnesses the past day getting ready to be on leashes. Mizzou already knows how to walk on a leash, I used to take him out on a leash in San Jose until he learned the neighborhood and where not to go. Seoul, on the other hand, is a nervous wreck, darting every which way and sideways trying to escape the harness. I feel bad for her being so skittish (this is in comparison to Mizzou, the most calm cat on earth of course, she’s not that bad compared to a normal cat) and how she’s tentative about everything until she’s used to it. Mizzou pretty much adapts to anything right away (except dogs, which he generally scares away with HIS growl), but Seoul always hesitates. It’s funny to watch her explore something new that has movement and makes noise (like the aquarium), but at the same time I feel bad for her. She has the brightness and curiosity I always had as a kid, but Mizzou has the fearlessness that characterized my approach to most things, like jumping in the water before I knew how to swim, or stomping the gas pedal the first time my dad let me behind the wheel of a car (when my brother was learning how to drive). After ten years with me, Mizzou must know I’m his safety net, like my parents are for me. Seoul has my distrust characteristic though, she seems to worry that she’s still on her own like she was in the cat kennel for months while I was in chemo. It sucks that she had to go through that while still an impressionable kitten. Kind of like the sad fact that I was shuffled through numerous foster homes as a newborn, learning that I wasn’t wanted. Until my mom had me for several months, that is. Then everything changed. Hopefully Seoul will figure out that trust some day and be more calm in new situations, more like Mizzou.

Hehe, listen to me, talking about my cats like they’re my kids, descended from my personality somehow. Guess I’m turning into that crazy cat lady you hear about, eh? OMG, did you hear about that house on the news, where there were hundreds of cats living in this woman’s house, under some layer of chairs and garbage with excrement and filth everywhere? How anyone could live with that kind of smell I don’t know. Enough cat rambling for today, guess I’ll try the wireless again, or get clicking away at the blackberry.