“My New Years’ Resolutions are starting to sound like New Years’ Suggestions.” –KQ

I took the kittens to the vet last week to get JABBED again, and they did very well. Nietzsche always growled non-stop at the vet so it was kind of fun to have new kittens there, whose hearts could actually be listened to due to the lack of rrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR! The assistant snapped pics of them and there was lots of googoo AWWWing about them.

My vet gave me a long list of things I could do to wean them, and he described what the weaning process would be like, about how her little cat boobs would get all hard and she would get grumpy and I thought, boy, this sounds familiar. I listened patiently but ultimately I’ve decided not to interfere. They’re eating cat food (and stealing bites of cha siu bao when I get hungry at midnight after watching the Top Cheffers fuck up dim sum), and Mere is not wasting away, so, it’s okay. If she wants to be the cat version of those appalling hippie moms who nurse their children into their twenties, who am I to interfere?

If you’ve been looking at my pictures lately, you’ve probably gleaned that I enjoy these sheets. Yes, I swear I am washing them sometimes. And then putting them right back on.

I just wanted to capture how happy they get while nursing. The purring an the closed eyes. Mere is tolerating it better as well–for a while there she was passive-aggressively licking them until I thought their little heads would snap back like Pez dispensers. A different vet told me they usually lose their milk after they are spayed, so maybe she was teetering on the edge of that for a bit.

I did not make any real resolutions this year, but I do have some food goals. One is to continue my work with puff pastry, which I started due to Beeton and general wanting-to-do-itness. The second thing is gnocchi, which I think I need to eat more of out, too. I know bad gnocchi, and I know decent gnocchi, but I am not sure I can really appreciate how far apart decent, serviceable gnocchi is from great gnocchi.

Tomorrow I am querying an agent for the first time. I think I have some good leads, and I think I have a good idea. Hello, would you like to try to sell my strange cookbook, lucky lucky agent? I am perversely excited about getting rejection letters and will share them with you here, with names changed to protect the guilty.

THE TONGUE

Hovy came over yesterday after our failed attempt at getting Elvis doughnuts and brought the girls lovely Xmas presents. (Late, because of how sick I was.) The girls spent all day in their robes in part because they could, and in part because they are sick, AGAIN. It’s one of those years. I guess I blame the new school’s germs. Strudel is feverish at night and in good spirits during the day.

For my part I walked Greenlake today at not a totally slacker pace and I did not have a tired or crunchy-lung feeling at all. People who are smarter than me tell me I can get a pneumonia shot and they are good for ten years, holy SHIT. At the very end of this month I am going back to yoga immersion, if I can even fit through the door. Seriously, my ass is kind of amazing me right now.

My pants still fit but I ripped my favorite pair. Pants have become more of a sausage casing effect and less of a flattering drapery effect. I’m going with it. I like squeezing parts of myself, though. It’s a good thing someone does, I guess. I cannot be the only one, right? Sometimes I think maybe I could take my squishy parts and put them into jars like those vegetables that get grown into weird shapes. No run-of-the-mill getting fused to the couch for me.