Oliver

Yesterday Oliver decided to brawl with something (cat, possum or other wild animal) and was hurt pretty bad. Frances found him yesterday evening curled up in his basket in an almost comatose state with big bite marks under his front arms. We decided not to chance it and Frances drove him to the emergency clinic. They gave her an eye-popping estimate of over $1000, which included blood work, x-rays, surgery etc. Egad! We decided to endure a painful night of confining a scared and confused animal with an "elizabethan" collar and have our own vet check him out in the morning. Let me tell you, this cat does not wear the collar well. Every time the collar brushed into something, he jumped, causing the collar to hit other things and scare him even more. I equate it to throwing a ping-pong ball into a room filled with mousetraps. Frances held him virtually the entire night, while I kept Emma, our other cat, away from him (the collar scared her too, and she wouldn't stop hissing). The next morning she took him to the vet and she learned, to our relief, that the wounds were not as serious as previously thought. Best of all, the collar came off. Now the fun part is keeping Oliver inside.

Oliver has always been a bit odd. Frances adopted him back in the summer of 2000 when he was a few weeks old. He was still in the last days of kittenhood when I first met him the following February. We aren't sure what kind of breeds he resembles; I say Balinese, Frances says Ragdoll. We started calling him "Boo" as a shortcut for "boo-boo" and now I think we use that name more than Oliver. He has had some housebreaking issues that might drive some to sell him on eBay, but we just can't resist his playfulness, expressiveness (he's a talker) and affection toward us. Therefore, we let him go between indoors and outdoors, which, unfortunately has led to some injuries, including what happened yesterday.

Our big question now is what to do going forward. We have tried to confine him in the past, but he either (1) breaks out of the room or (2) yowls until we can't stand it anymore. I could wall off the hole under the house where he most likely had his encounter, but I'm a little worried about trapping other animals under the house that could die and stink up the house. Any advice on how to curb an the freedom impulse of beloved pet with minimal agony? Please share!

Finally, I want to thank Frances for being such a great kitty-mom and our vet for not trying to scare us and soak us for a thousand dollars we don't have. Time like this make me realize how much we love our cats, even if they misbehave frequently. Now go read my friends' comic strip, Monsieur Chat and have a laugh.

Regrets? I've had a few...but not today

Welcome to the Age of Obama! Barack Obama has inspired many people to do many things, things they would not normally have done for just any candidate. A year ago, I was working the streets of Las Vegas and Henderson getting my precincts "fired up" and "ready to go" for Obama at the Nevada Caucuses. Needless to say we've come a long way. I remember arguing with two of my co-workers about why Obama was preferable to Hillary Clinton, and these two co-workers ultimately transformed into two of his most enthusiatic supporters. There was a time where, for the first time I can remember, I could not discuss politics with my own mother because we were so split between Obama and Clinton. Yet by September even she was on board the Obama Express. Perhaps most amazing was learning my own father even considered voting for Obama in November (I won't out him - you will have to ask him how he actually ended up voting).

Even through all the caucuses, primaries, debates, upsets, blowouts and close calls, it was still amazing to watch our new 44th President of the United States sworn in this morning. So what has Obama inspired me to do? Blog. There are other things too, ranging from the mundane (wash the car) to the far-reaching (start a family, develop a career), but today I want to blog. I want to leave an electronic time capsule that me, my friends and my family can look back at, say eight years down the line, and think about the road we've been traveling.

The last eight years have been a time of many changes both for myself and the United States. I won't succumb to the temptation of saying that the last eight years were the worst years of our lives because of George W. Bush. I certainly have to say I'm far better off in January 2009 than I was in January 2001. I won't say things like "Bush is stupid" but I think he was unable to move with the times, leaving us with a 20th century President almost one decade into the 21st century. Looking back on the sweep of Presidential history, this feels like one of the great paradigm shifts of the likes seen between Adams and Jackson, Buchanan and Lincoln, and McKinley and Roosevelt. I hope Obama can use the tremendous goodwill and energy he has generated in the months since his election to confirm this belief of mine. Being mindful of blind optimism, I am nevertheless feeling very hopeful in this first day of the Age of Obama.

Don't take my word for it, though. Read the transcript of the inaugural address.

It has been a regrettably long time since my last post here. So, without further ado, I list my top five regrets about not blogging since August.

1) One of the craziest elections in my lifetime passed with nary a word from me here on this blog. To those who know me best, they know I can lay in on thick politically when I find a willing ear. Alas, my "David's Election Picks" ranging from President to the Fullerton city council went unpublished.

2) I've been taking Spanish classes and enjoying them. I'm not exactly ready to bust out full-length rants en español but I've been known to Twitter a few lines here and there, so check the Microblog in the side bar for daily developments.

3) I've received quite a few wedding photos from friends and family in attendance and I've been meaning the organize them in a shareable way to document the day beyond the dusty photo album.

4) I'm ashamed to admit I've let Facebook seep into my life, causing content I want to share to be locked behind the walls of their proprietary design. I want to "syndicate" myself more, meaning that I can update the blog and various profiles I keep all at once. This goes on my blogging "to do" list.

5) While I enjoy reading books and watching movies, I have a bad habit of giving away my reviews to other sites. In keeping with the notion of syndication, I will try to post book and movie reviews here first and copy them to whatever sites I have participated with in the past.

What sort of regrets have you harbored, three weeks into the new year? Do you plan to resolve them? Anything I can do to help? I love getting comments, so feel free to talk back and get some dialogue rolling!