update on emily

so emily made it through her surgery with flying colors
apparently she did not like getting her iv put in so it took not one, not two, but THREE tries
so she has little shaved wrists up front and one on the back
she did not like the bandages they put over them so she let them know by hissing and then taking them off the front
i just took the one off the back

they told us she would need a quiet dimly lit place to heal so jes and i set up the back bedroom which is real warm and cozy
the futon cushion was on the floor and i took her right in there and closed the door
she immediately started meowing and laid in front of the door and with her paws under the door
basically, she wanted her brothers
so i opened the door and she just started ambling around the house. the boys have not hissed or meowed at her once and they are pretty much staying out of her way. she walks a bit and then plops down like she is a little drunk.
she has already gone into the litter box TWICE, ate a little wet food (meowing like CRAZY for it!) and she jumped up on the couch and back down.

so i think she is ok. i think she still should sleep in the back room tonight with one (or both of us) so that we can keep an eye on her. the next 48 hours are the most important, so i am going to stay close to home when jes is not around to make sure she is doing okay. hopefully all will go okay and she will heal up just fine. i will keep yall posted.

thanks for all the emails and voicemails i got from folks. your love and support means a lot to me.

think happy thoughts

in an effort to balance out the nastiness of that last post, i give you this, a picture of two of my sisters cats looking cute:



in about an hour, we take emily to the vet to get surgery. she is getting this growth on her side removed. the doctor said it is a quick procedure, maybe only fifteen minutes, but with a cat her age (16) and with compromised kidneys (both her and larry kitty have them) there is always a risk with them going under. jes and i have been teary eyed about it all week, both of us are scared, but we both agree this is what is best. if the growth is cancerous (they won't know until it is removed) it is good that it was taken off.

because she is getting surgery she could not eat after midnight, so we figured if she can't eat, none of them will. normally we get up AT LEAST twice a night and feed them wet food. needless to say they woke us up meowing just about every hour on the hour last night. i finally gave up and came out here to check email, blog, drink some green tea and start my day. i know i slept enough for two dream cycles but it feels like i got *maybe* three hours if that. good practice for if we ever have a newborn i guess.

anywho, please send positive, healthy, healing energy to emily kitty today.

just plain wrong

yall
i have lots to blog about. it will happen this weekend.
but i have to post this:

early morning- black friday

good morning all.

do you know why its called black friday today? i didn't, so i looked it up on ask.com and they told me that today is the day that most business get "out of the red" (out of deficit) and start making profit (get "in the black"). god bless american consumers. there ain't enough money in the world right now to persuade me to go shopping today. our day will consist of studying/working, volunteering at the co-op for a shift, eating left overs and watching "kinky boots."

before i tell you about our thanksgiving, let me post a cute pic of supper club eating ice cream for jes's bday last week. adorable:



on to thanksgiving. overall, it was a divine day. in large part because i only left the house to pick up ali so that she would not have to walk/bus through the freezing cold monsoon rains that plagued us here in brooklyn all day yesterday. jes talked to her folks in atlanta and her dad let us know that it was 65 and sunny there. whateva!

we slept in yesterday, until 10:30 (craziness) and then we got up and did some work. i hung our new roman shade blinds from ikea. it rindonkulous how much cleaner they are then the ones we had up before them (same ones just old, dirty and broken). seriously, they let so much more light in b/c they are not coated in cat hair. niiice.

so we started cooking maybe at 1pm. we weren't sure if ali was going to join us or not because she was illin like a villian. i guess the thirty minute nativity scene that told the entire life of jesus at the rockette holiday extravaganza was too much for her. she went with her mom. it gave her a fever. back to the cooking. so here was our menu:

deviled eggs
barefoot contessa's chicken with 40 cloves of garlic
jes's homemade stuffing muffins
mashed potatoes with garlic, onion, mushroom and cream cheese
green beans sauteed with garlic
pea and asparagus caserole
cranberry jelly out of a can
homemade-ish pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream

now here are the pics:











as i finished up sauteeing the green beans, i checked my cell phone and ali had called and said she was feeling much better and her fever was gone. so i went and picked her up and we all chowed down together. she brought a seriously nasty looking quorn (this fake meat product) pot roast. she assured us it tasted great. i just took her word for it. the garlic chicken i made came out ok. instead of doing a whole chicken, i just did a couple chicken breasts and it did not yield enough sauce, so the sauce was more like a paste, which was not so good. jes thought it tasted a little overcooked too. i was most pleasantly surprised by the stuffing muffins. jes kind of free styled it using parts of three different recipes. they were really flavorful, which is rare for stuffing, i think.

while jes did the dishes (bless her heart) ali and i watched madonna's confessions concert on tivo. she was wowed as well. the dance/performance number she and her dancers do to the song "jump" is really like nothing i have seen before. if you can, check it out on youtube. its amazing. after madonna, we watched al gore's documentary "an inconvenient truth." yall i was so excited to see this film. i mean i wanted to see it IN THE THEATER, which is rarely true, b/c its so expensive to see a movie now. god bless al gore and the environmental movement but this movie was boring as fuck. we all started dozing off during it. its like an hour and a half lecture (with power point yall) interspersed with little vignettes about his own life. i think ali hit it right on the head when she said "al gore could learn a thing or two from michael moore about making documentaries." the message is important, the science (at times) is fascinating, but the delivery is pretty painful.

ali left after the movie was over and jes and i watched one of my favorite shows: Ugly Betty. yall, for real, i can not get enough of this show. right now i am IN LOVE with three shows:

Ugly Betty
Everybody Hates Chris
Medium

seriously, when the episode is over, i am so very sad. thank god for tivo, because i have no idea when any of them come on, but jes keeps track of it and then we just watch them with NO COMMERCIALS (which i love). and i loved Ugly Betty long before hottie mchotster Salma Hayek was on it, but I tell you what, she sure makes it even better. i love America Ferrara, the woman who plays betty, i love her boss (though he was super evil in The L Word and OC), i love betty's queenie little brother, i love vanessa williams and her assistant and the skinny blonde who answers the phones and eats junk food when she stressed. basically, i love the whole show. i wish it was on every day.

ok, enough of that. even though i ate enough for two people yesterday, i am somehow hungry, so i am going to make my way to the frig and make me some cereal. happy friday yall and have a great weekend.

so its been a minute...

...since i last wrote.

i was definitely on the upswing health wise. feeling better every day. and then last night i got sick again. luckily, i went to the doctor today and got a referral to another doctor so i think i am least doing something about being sick, which is good, right?

while a number of things have happened since i last wrote, like:

1. the chicago bears defeated the new york giants
2. the chicago bears defeated the new york? jersey? jets
3. the ohio state buckeyes defeated the michigan wolverines
4. i turned in some job applications
5. i got a phone interview at one job
6. i got a face to face interview at that same job

the most important thing that has happened is my sweetie had her bday. yep it's true, jes turned 27 last friday. we had a great weekend celebrating AND she raked in the gifts yall. that kid is loved for shizzle.

ok so friday day she and i both worked and then i met her in the city where we did a bus tour of uptown manhattan. it was so much fun but way too cold. i will post pictures forthwith. after that we headed home, warmed up and changed and then headed to dinner at rice with pony. jes and i deviated from our normal menu and got the chicken satay (intsead of the veggie potstickers). big mistake. we did get the delish edamame (so salty) for an app and some black rice and the arepas. so it wasn't a total bust.

after dinner we headed to this bar (i love) called "Moe's" in fort greene. yes it is named after the bar in the simpsons. how hilarious is that? i had a great time there chatting folks up as did jes. there were even some delish black forest cupcakes thanks to beth b. (bless you beth). we got home too late and i was exhausted. on saturday we studied some and then picked up ali, hit the key food to get some game day food and came back here to watch the OSU v. Michigan game. as ali said throughout our viewing it was "anybody's game" through most of the game. very on the edge of your seat. luckily the buckeyes prevailed. that night we met up with glennda and kim at rancho alegre for some divine mexican food. we had some great chicken tacos and glennda had this really good chicken mole poblano. yum. after that the kids got some ice cream at hagen daaz (i refrained due to my recent gastrointestinal distress) and then we all headed home. for whatever reason, jes and i have been really really tired. i think its b/c the sun goes down at like 4pm. i *hate* it. on sunday we slept in, studied some and then got a nice intimate dinner at boreum hill food company. they have an avocado and cheddar sammie to die for. basil mayo. and their fries are by far my favorite in the whole world. thus far.

ok enough talk, lets get to the pics, the part yall really want to see, right?


here is a picture of jes and nikki from when she visited earlier this month:



and here is one of nikki and christina. we were freezing at kate's joint in brooklyn. they just opened and their heat didn't work. oh bother.



here is jes getting her bus tour ticket from whoopi goldberg:



now when we passed the american museum of natural history on the upper west, we saw their new additions, the christmas tree dinosaurs. jes and i think they look like snufalupagus from sesame street:



we learned a lot on the tour, like where madonna's apartment is and where rupert murdoch lives. you have to have a net worth of 100 million dollars to even buy in his building. how bonkers is that? here is jes and i freezing our butts off:



these are the black forest cupcakes beth b. made. everyone loved them and many people ate more than one!



here is a picture of higgs, erica and her new sweetie whose name i can't remember. ugh:



here is beth, liz, pony and jes kicking it live one time at moe's:



steph tried to get in most pictures, so here is one with her, jes and pony:



here is liz, jessica, max and mark:



and here is beth with steph and stephanie:



thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate jes's bday. it was such a great weekend.
stay tuned for the picture from saturday.
have a restful and delicious turkey day yall!

busy and sick

yall
so sorry i have not been posting
i have been sick
and i have been busy with work and job apps
and we have had visitors
right now i am trying to get healthy
after i do, i will post more text about IDKE and what has been going on in my life
peace
dj

IDKE 8- Sunday Brunch

woody on the guitar at the brunch:


kfw & jake danger, emcees at the brunch:


some of the austin crew and some of the board:


here are the austin cuties giving cherry a tiara and wand to say thanks for her hard work:


here is scott turner schofield saying something about the number three:

IDKE 8-saturday

picture of the some of the board members after our saturday morning meeting.

back row L to R: dante, kentucky fried woman, mel,cody, julie, quid
middle row L to R: jodi, kristin, rain, alana
front row: me and ken



here is a cute pic of tamale and johnny t, the emcees for the showcase:

pictures from dragdom

i just want to get these pictures from dragdom up. when i have time later, i will add commentary.

quid and mariah:


this/that way and jolie:


jodi bon jodi and me:


mel, tanner, venus envy and me:


jr stranger (my brother from another mother), johnny t. and me:


i will post pictures from saturday and sunday next