Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Tuesday, Apr. 03, 2007 - 2:26 a.m.

Dude. The cat is a psycho. She has this thing where she gets overstimulated when you're petting her (usually after a fairly long time, but sometimes after only like 2 minutes). So one second everything is hunkydory, and the next, she has suddenly taken a piece out of your hand, usually the meaty portion just below your thumb, but she's not really all that picky. I've learned to tell the signs (ears back, a sudden half-twitch, sometimes she stops purring), but sometimes I pet her while I'm doing other things, like watching tv or surfing the net. Which is what I was doing earlier, surfing and stroking her neck as she purred away, when she suddenly meowed like I'd hurt her. So I stopped and looked down, but she looked all happy and purring and like "why'd you stop," so I continued to pet her, scratching her chest, and she went for that part of my hand, so I did what I usually do at that particular point in time, which is freeze if possible, and then slowly draw my limbs away from her, or just immediately remove my limbs from her vicinity. This time, I opted to remove things, since she had already progressed to biting. (You've missed your window of freezing opportunity once she bites. I heartily recommend it if she's progressed to hugging your hand/arm and digging her claws in, but if she chooses to skip that part and go straight to bitey, it's a wise human who withdraws tout de suite, which is what I did.) Faced with a lack of hand to bite, she went for my arm, but I had the sleeves of my fleece pushed up, so all she got was a mouthful of cloth, which was evidently so immensely unsatisfying, she felt the only alternative left to her was to go for my face.

My face. The thing I see with, eat with, talk with, smell with.

She has, on occasion moved away from me only to leap back onto me and bite my arm or shoulder. She has never lunged at my face before. Only an abundance of cautious suspicion and my - if you'll pardon the pun - catlike reflexes saved me. And then only barely, because she still managed to graze my chin just below the right corner of my mouth with one of her gigantic pointy fangs. So I squealed HEY! and set her away from me, which is generally enough, but she bit my arm again, and then went back for my face, which necessitated giving her a hearty shove and a sound "I don't think so, Hannibal; get the hell away from me." She stuck the nubbin of her tail straight up and stalked off, for all the world like *I* was the offending party, and TB came in to see what the heck was going on, since my initial shriek of "hey!" woke him up.

Freaking psycho cat.

I spent my night trying to find the right recipe for body "talc," because I know someone who doesn't like to use cornstarch unless she knows it's from corn which has not been genetically modified, so I went hunting this weekend for rice flour and got that and soy flour, and then made "talc" with that.

Turns out, rice and soy flour are both really grainy. :(

So today, I hunted up some GMO-free (gmo = genetically modified organism) cornstarch, and then I didn't want to waste the batch I'd already made, on accounta all the oils in it are pretty damned expensive, so I experimented with adding the new cornstarch to the old soy/rice flour mixture to try and find a happy balance of texture. By the time I was done, I had a headache and felt a little nauseated from sniffing ylang ylang for all that time. Only a little of that stuff goes a long way, lemme tell ya. I'm not really happy with the results, but I don't know that other people are necessarily as exacting as I am, so I'm now testing with a variety of people. So if you'd like to volunteer to give it a try and lemme know what you think of it, speak up. I can vouch for every bit of it being GMO-free and all the powders being organic. The oils in it are negligible as far as what you'd actually get on your skin, so I guess it doesn't matter *that* much whether or not they're all organic or not, though I believe the ylang ylang is.

And that ylang2 rebound headache is a bitch. Ow.

I went to a birthday party Sunday in a park on the north side of the valley. While we were there, someone hiking nearby did something to hurt herself and had to be airlifted out...after 2 trucks, an ambulance, a search & rescue van, a GIGANTIC search & rescue van, and 3 helicopters came out to see to her.

Now, I've been hiking numerous times here in Southern California, in a variety of canyons and foothills, and I have never once done anything that resulted in my having to be airlifted out. It's really fairly easy to avoid, frankly, so what I want to know is, how come so damn many idiots in this town have to have it done for them? Seriously, what are they doing that this is the end result? All you have to frigging do is stay on the path and don't behave like a moron while climbing or descending. So how come so many people wind up at the bottom of ravines or dangling off a ledge halfway down a cliff face? I seriously don't get it. Especially in an area like the one we were in yesterday that was utterly lacking in cliff faces. It was just hills, and none of them all that steep, so I hope she got bit by a snake or something, because not to be mean or anything, but otherwise she must really be an idiot, because even with a sprained ankle*, I could walk out. It'd hurt, but I could do it. And I know this, because I've walked with a sprain before. I'm just sayin'.

* the firemen at the bottom of the path said she sprained her ankle

Did I mention the headache?

My sleep schedule is still wacky. I'm writing this at 3am.

Tomorrow/today, I'm getting my hair cut and my oil changed, so that I can pass smog check on Wednesday and get my registration renewed. Do I got fun, or what? I also have to start job hunting. ::sigh::

I think I'll go to bed, now.

Peace out,
Katie

5 comments so far

*HUGS* TOTAL! give katiedoyle more *HUGS*
Get hugs of your own

Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008