"The dream shall never die."

Sad news today - Senator Edward Kennedy passed away last night after a battle with brain cancer. I don't have pretty words, but you can read about his incredible life and his impact on US politics for the last 50 years. It's truly the end of an era.

It's sort of timely, I suppose, that I'm currently reading "Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy," which I highly recommend. And let's hope that, in his memory, we can fulfill his lifelong goal of enacting health care reform.

Best news ever!

When fandoms collide... James Marsters is guest starring in "Caprica," the BSG prequel series. Squee!

Let's use some of those tags I've got there...

Remember when I used to post TV news here? Well, it's been a long, slow summer, but we're starting to get more interesting things to talk about again.

First up, HIMYM tidbits for next season. Two words: musical episode.

Also, David Anders will be on next season's 24. He is, like, my second favorite blond, immortal misunderstood TV villain with a fake British accent. (On Heroes, anyway. No word on whether he'll be doing the accent on 24.)

And finally, in honor of the season premiere Sunday night (omg I love this show), Which Mad Man are you? I'm apparently Salvatore, which cracks me all up.

Oh, and for those of you who might be jealous, Megan and I will be in New Jersey this weekend, as James Marsters has decided to come visit our Garden State again. :)

*sneaks in quietly*

Maybe no one will notice I was gone. Eh?

Sorry for the lack of updates. Chelsea is fine, btw. She only took about a third of her medicine, though, so it's a good thing her bladder issue went away on its own. I am psyching myself up for another trip to the vet for the shots she was supposed to get the first time we went to the vet, but which had to be postponed until her bladder thing went away.

Work has been alternately crazy busy and very, very slow. Or, rather, it was crazy busy right up until Tuesday, when my boss left for vacation, and it's been party time ever since. :) I've been catching up on the Daily Show, since I'm now an 80-year-old woman and go to bed at 9:30. (Seriously, I did that one day this week.)

I had a fun-filled weekend last weekend, by certain definitions of the word "fun-filled." Friday was my mother's birthday, so I (the good daughter) called to wish her a happy birthday. While on the phone, my dad says, "Remember how we talked about coming to visit this weekend?"

Uh... no, actually.

"Well, we're coming."

Oh, goody.

But tough noogies, because I had plans for Friday night and I wasn't canceling. I still hadn't seen Becky since I moved, and she only lives SEVEN MILES away. Keep that number in mind. So, we decided I'd drive over to her apartment, and we'd order pizza and watch movies (The Usual Suspects and Dr. Horrible) and play with her new kitty. I Google-mapped, Becky corrected the Google map directions, and I brought along my trusty GPS.

Forty-five minutes and four U-turns later, I arrived at Becky's house. Forty-five minutes. To go seven miles.

I hate driving in this city.

We're not even going to discuss the drive home, which happened of course at 1am, when it was completely dark and I couldn't see street signs or my directions, not that it mattered, because I arrived there on one-way streets, so I had to go in several circles in order to find the way back, and the GPS was NO HELP, because it kept telling me to turn on streets I was ALREADY ON, and telling me to turn on streets that didn't exist and... okay, I guess we are going to discuss it.

Anyway, I got up early on Saturday to clean my apartment, in the futile hope that my mother would criticize it less, and then my parents arrived half an hour early, while I was in the shower. We spent the weekend putting up curtains, assembling my new headboard, hanging pictures on the wall, and shopping for a mat to go underneath Chelsea's litter box. Fun-filled, let me tell you. Then there was the whole thing with it being my mother's birthday, except of course I didn't know they were coming, so I wasn't prepared with, like, a cake or presents or anything, which I think was disappointing, but hello - advance notice, people!

So, this weekend, a friend of mine is coming to visit from New York, and next weekend, Megan and I are going home to see James Marsters!

My cat is smarter than me

Remember last week, I mentioned Chelsea had a trip to the vet? Well, she came home with medication, and has been tormenting me ever since. Baby does not want to take her pills!

The first dose went down really easy - I was making myself tuna for dinner, so I just gave her the pill in a little bit of tuna and she gobbled it up. The next morning, I tried wrapping it in ham, and then cheese, but she ignored me, so finally I broke down and opened another can of tuna just so she'd take the pill.

Well, as it turns out, two doses is how long it takes before she catches on to my evil plan. That night, she just licked the tuna off and left the pill. I tried just holding her down and sticking the pill in her mouth, but she refused to swallow, and I felt like a mean person straddling the poor thing with my hand clamped over her mouth. But no matter how long I held her there, she'd spit the pill out as soon as I let her go. No amount of throat-massaging would get it to go down.

So, we missed three doses in pursuit of those efforts, then I went to PetSmart and bought Pill Pockets, which are these little snacky things that you put the pill inside and close it up and they're supposed to eat the whole thing. "Supposed to" being the operative phrase there. Again, we got two doses down like that before she started sucking on it until the snacky part dissolved and spat the pill back out.

Then, last night, I tried cracking open the gelcap and pouring the powder directly into the Pill Pocket, so she couldn't eat around it. Well, she just ignored it. This morning, again, opened the gelcap, and this time mixed the powder with a little tuna, which she refused to eat.

My last hope is the pill popper, but I haven't been able to find one in a store.

I give up! Megggggannnnn, you're the animal expert - how do you get them to take their pills?