Achoo-ee-oo-eey!

Allergies.  There are few things in the world that can make a person so miserable.  I firmly stand by the fact that if I had to choose between having an allergy attack or the stomach flu, I wouldn’t even think about it.  I’d take the stomach flu any day.  See, with a stomach flu, there is hope.  Maybe, in a couple days, this will all be over, and we won’t have to think about hugging the toilet seat again until next February.  But with allergies, you who they’re going to bide their time.  They’re like the Spanish Inquisition.  They firmly believe that torturing me is right.  So I can sneeze and sniffle and whine all day, but until there is no dust blowing around my bedroom, my allergies are here to stay.

Someday, when I have health insurance, I am going to go get an allergy test.  I know that I’m allergic to most animals.  Cats.  Dogs.  Horses.  Cows.  Sheep.  Goats.  Anything worth having as a pet.  This dust allergy is extremely new to me.  I didn’t have problems like this as recently as two years ago.  What if I’m allergic to some sort of food that I’ve never tried before?  What if I die because I don’t have an epipen?  Dying in the throes of an allergy attack must certainly be one of the worst deaths ever.  I’m miserable alive, knowing that I’m going to wake up in the morning.  But if I was miserable and knew that unless I had an epipen stabbed into my body in less than thirty seconds, I would die…?  That would be pretty freaking awful.  Gwarsh, I’m happy I haven’t discovered any food allergies yet.

I know a lot of people who, like me, are allergic to animals.  In fact, as of late, I know more people with cat allergies than peanut allergies.  When I was in elementary school, people looked at me as though I was the Creature From the Black Lagoon when I told them I had neither a cat nor a dog due to allergies.  To this day, I know my brother holds it against me.  It’s okay, I understand.  I think if our situations were reversed, I’d hold a grudge against him, too.  I love kitties.

Anybody out there have allergies that drive them wild?  Always wanted a cat, but afraid you’d have an allergy attack in the middle of the night and die?  Wanted to try Thai food, but the restaurant smells like peanuts?  I’d love to hear about it!  We can be comrade in arms.  And of course… if you had a choice between allergies and a stomach flu… what would you pick?

Apologies, Friends…

First and foremost, I want to apologise.

Why?  Well, to start, I changed the layout again.  I’m trying to find something I’m comfortable with.  This is a step up (for me) from the last layout.  On the bright side, it doesn’t require a home page!

Second reason for the apology?  These blog entries lately have been brief and dull.  I’ll work on it.  I went to see Knight and Day today, maybe I will post on that a little tomorrow.

Now?  Now I am going to go test WiiFit Plus.  It is the closest emblance of exercise I have, and I’ve been sitting on my butt all day.  More tomorrow. … I promise.

In way of apology, I have posted a cute kitty to distract you in this entry.  Her name is Ginger, and she loves the camera.

Haven’t You Ever Heard of a Cheshire Cat?

“Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance.” ~ Dan Greenburg.

I was born with an  unfortunately common condition called allergies.  Some people are allergic to foods, some to animals, some to plants.  I am allergic to animals.  Not all animals, thank goodness, but all the really good ones to have for pets.  Namely cats, dogs, and horses (and goats and sheep and other noteworthy livestock).  I don’t do well with things like guinea pigs or ferrets either (ferrets are adorable troublemakers).  This means that all my life, I have been blessed with a peculiar collection of pets.  There were the parakeets – Sweetie and Tweetie – that killed each other.  The snapping turtle, which my dad found as a baby in our driveway.  The ducks, Chirpy and Quacker, are always an interesting story to tell.  We even had baby mice for a week, hidden in the basement, until my mum found out.  Our latest adventure is a sun conure named Andy.

Needless too say, I wanted a cat/dog/horse more than anything… mostly because I couldn’t have one.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown disallusioned to dogs (I don’t want to be knocked over and slobbered on, thanks) and horses (when I was in middle school, I snuck away to a nearby horse farm and got kicked good and hard in the knee.  Through a fence, thank goodness, so I managed to say I fell off my bike and my parents never knew).  However, even at twenty, I still really, really want a cat.

Why a cat?  Well, they’re clean animals, they keep themselves entertained most of the time, they’re soft and cuddly… need I go on?  These last few days I have been living in a house with three clean, well-trained cats.  I’ve been in heaven.  Last night, for the first time, one of the cats decided it wanted to snuggle for the evening.  A small part of my brain went “but he’ll make you sick!  You’ll wake up dead!”  A large part of my brain went “Awwwwwwww, mush.”  So I got to snuggle last night, for the first time in my life, with a cat, and he was soft and cuddly, and I did not, in fact, wake up dead.

This morning, I let my alarm go off.  He ignored it along with me the first few times.  At around 8am, he decided it was time for me to get up (it actually was).  So, in adorable manner, my lovely cat companion started nuzzling my face until I acknowledged him.  Once I said, “good morning, Reagan,” he licked my cheek once, hopped off the bed, and purred by the door until I got up.

My desire to have a cat has increased.

However, I don’t just like cats because they’re adorable (they are adorable, though).  I like them because they’re so smart.  You can talk to them, and you can kind of tell they’re listening.  I don’t think this is necessarily the case with all cats (much like people), but certainly some of them.  Reagan, who was my snuggle!kitty, is definitely intelligent.  He comes when he’s called, goes when he’s told to, et cetera.  If you say “off the bed,” he jumps off the bed and waits by the foot of it.  I don’t know if all this is because he’s trained very well, or what.  But if you talk to him, he looks at you, and it feels like he’s listening.  I know a lot of people feel that way about their dogs.  I just happen to feel that way about cats.

In honor of today’s obsession with felines, today’s Ficlet, Dust Bunnies, is cat-related.  The Photo of the Day section has also been updated, including some cat pictures!  I’m particularly fond of yesterday’s picture.