I still use a Samsung Alias 2 flip phone.  Got it in 2009.  A phone lasting six years shouldn’t be that big a deal.  It’s a great phone because of its e-ink keyboard, its dual hinge, and its metal case.  It bounces without any damage.  And best of all, using it only costs me $29/month!

But lately, I have been having trouble opening it into keyboard mode.  Sometimes it will open, other times it won’t.  So today I took it apart.  I removed the cover to the hinge and found it packed with lint.  Cleaned that out, but that wasn’t enough to fix my problem. Found the cover to the locking mechanism.  Under that was a spring, a plate and a ball bearing.  The ball locks into one of two locations to prevent you from rotating both hinges at the same time.  I cleaned that out, put it all back together and now it is as good as new.  Well, it works.  I’d say it should last me another 6 years, but odds are Verizon will turn off their CDMA network before then.

One problem with still using a flip phone is when I post a selfie.  People accuse me of using a pic from years and years ago.  Oh well.

Five months since having the stent inserted into an artery of my heart. Four months since the birth of the kittens.  Almost six months since taking in mama cat Sally. Eight months since my previous cat Oscar died.  And 9.5 months since being laid off. Oh and 3 years since the prostate surgery.

A few weeks ago was the 20th anniversary of Nick moving in with me. Around the same time was the 16th anniversary of him dumping me.  But two weeks ago I met up with him in San Jose for his mom’s 87th birthday (think that’s right).

Doing ok at the gym.  Still no heavy weights. Cardiologist says nothing that will raise my blood pressure.  If my face is turning red while lifting the weight, it’s too much. A year ago I weighed 205, but dieted down to 195 for a pool party in April.  Lost a lot after the stent, then had the flu in Feb and weighed in at 168.  One sixty eight??? Last time I weighed that was in high school. Back up to about 174 now. Someone came up to me at the gym and said I look fit.  Fit? I don’t want to look fit.  I want to look massive! Well I guess my massive days are behind me.

There is a social club that has warehouse parties 3-4 times a year, though there hasn’t been one in almost a year.  Work 2 hours and you get in free, (was $50 at door), plus get to keep any tips. I have bar tended  (open bar) three times in the past. So has Nick, Dino, Martin and Kevin,  This time they asked me to work closing coat check. It was fun.  Made $20 in tips, much less than the bartenders, but ok.

Because my last two jobs were writing digital asset management software for entertainment companies, today I got a call from another entertainment company for “Director of Application Architecture for the Media Services software development team with a key focus on Digital Media Archive”. The HR person had “heard great things” about me and think I would be perfect for this position.  “Does it require interacting with other human beings?”,  I ask.

I am a coder, a pretty good system architect, not too bad at putting out fires.  Even a pretty good mentor in small doses.  But I am not management material.

I’m not one to feel extreme emotions, whether high or low. When people ask how I’m doing, my usual reply is “I’m OK”, which is usually an accurate description of my emotional state. This lack of highs and lows can frustrate others, especially boyfriends, who’s emotions tend to vary widely. (Yes I tend to date latinos.)

The grief I felt the days after I put Oscar down were the most extreme I’ve experienced since my grandmother died in 1985. The difference this time though, was my sense of responsibility. I was responsible for his well being.  And I chose the day that my cat would die. If I knew how much the grief would hurt, how much I would feel I failed my charge, I would probably have decided to try a few more things before giving up.

However, these past two weeks as I’ve been looking at a lot of pics, from long ago and from the past few months, it is clear from the recent pics that Oscar was in decline and was not going to last much longer. I hope I found the right balance with regards to quality of life. I hope I would have made the same decision if I had not been unemployed at the moment and concerned about vet bills.

Today is the second anniversary of the death of Oscar’s brother, Alex. But it was very different for Alex, as he just drifted away. And I think we kept him comfortable till the end. I was sad, but I also felt it was the natural ‘circle of life’.

As many people suggest, when Alex died here at home, I made sure Oscar saw the body so that he knew what had happened. When he did he quickly ran away. But afterward he never cried looking for Alex. However, Alex and Oscar were always together, always slept on top of each other, so you could tell that Oscar was not doing well alone. So after four months we got a new kitten which Ivan named Pancho, which for some reason quickly became Piggy. Piggy is now 20 months old, and was a great companion for Oscar.  Once we introduced them to each other it only took 7 days between “what the hell is that?” to “OK, you can sleep with me.”  (Btw, Kevin, who’s family has had Bengal cats, thinks Piggy is at least part Bengal. He does have the coloring, and that lanky look, long and lean, and the intense stare of Bengals. But there is no way to know for sure.)

Piggy seemed to know that Oscar was sick, and kept watch over him till the end. In the days after, Piggy did cry for Oscar, and look a few times in all Oscar’s usual hiding places. Once I saw him open the door to the linen closet and reach up to look where Oscar often hid. Yes that made me tear up.  But since then Piggy seems to be doing OK. (see what I did there?) He doesn’t leave my side when I’m home, but he was doing that before. However, he will need a companion, sooner more than later.

As I’ve been going through all my cat pics (you take a lot of pics over 18 years), I’ve created a new photo album dedicated to them on this blog. See the Photo Album link in the menu bar, then look for Gatitos. I will continue to add pics as I find them (and as I take new ones).

So I guess in the end, it is good to know that I too can feel strong emotions.  Hopefully someday I’ll feel them towards another human.

Kevin is rather proficient in German, so when I was in Germany I wanted to get him a book, but I didn’t just want to pick one off the top 10 list at random, not knowing what it was about.  I wanted to get something that had a good chance of him enjoying.  While at KaDeWe I perused their book department.  I quickly ruled out the Harry Potters and Twilight books, was considering Hunger Games, when I stumbled upon Ender’s Game.  The movie was coming out soon, so the book was being heavily promoted.  In the past I had given him some of my favorite SciFi books, with mixed reactions.  But it was getting late and I needed to find the bathroom in KaDeWe, so I bought Ender’s Speil.

Kevin loved that I got him a book in German, and read it over the next month.  He found parts of it a little monotonous, but loved practicing his german.  He says reading the german was a bit slow in the beginning, but by the end he was zooming through it.  He finished the book this afternoon, so tonight we went to see the movie at the Grauman’s, I mean Mann’s, I mean TLC Chinese Theater.

Kevin had never been in the Chinese Theater, and I hadn’t since they put in stadium seating. Prior it was a very gentle slope with a huge number of seats.  Now they’ve lowered the floor in front by a good 15-20 feet, so it is a much steeper slope, and probably fewer seats.  And the screen is now IMAX, 70 feet high.  The ceiling and walls are the same, as beautiful as always.  But being IMAX, ticket price was $18 each. And that wasn’t even 3-D IMAX.

We both enjoyed the movie, Kevin was grateful that they left out all Val’s blogging, Peter’s taking over the world, and limit the number of bullies Ender puts down. I asked Kevin if he enjoyed the battle scenes more knowing the twist at the end, and he said yes, having read the book made the movie more enjoyable.

So I guess I need to go back to Germany to buy another book.  What other novels are coming to the big screen?  other than Hunger Games, Part Zwei.

I got the galleries to show the pics, but don’t know why it’s still not showing the captions.

Madrid

My trip to Madrid, Spain, October 2013

33 Photos

Berlin

22 Photos