Ridiculous Mundane Purchase

This week, I made a ridiculous, yet mundane purchase. I went out and got me a Dyson vacuum. Set me back about $400 after all was said and done (sticker price was $399, but it was on sale for $379, and had a 10% off coupon, along with $10 in gift certificates), but man... I love it.

So, we had a fairly powerful bagless vacuum before this one. It had done its duty for a good, I dunno, 4 years or so? The other day, it just stopped sucking up stuff. Luckily, we had a spare (both vacuums were gifts from my dad) that just simply sucked... err... didn't suck enough... whatever.

We needed to vacuum the apartment because it was simply a mess. We managed to fill up the entire (small) cannister on the old vacuum with dust and cat hair, but I could still see balls of fur stuck to the carpet that no matter how hard I tried, simply couldn't get the vacuum to pick up.

Frustrated, we went to Best Buy the next day with coupons in hand, and picked up a Dyson DC07. As soon as I got home, I fired it up and proceeded to clean the house again. Despite only being 24 hours after vacuuming the first time, I managed to fill up the entire (gigantic) cannister on the Dyson. There was enough fur to make a whole new cat, and not to mention a layer of dust about an inch thick at the bottom. Scary.

The vacuum also came with a 5 year warranty, so hopefully my investment will last me a good long while - I don't plan on buying another $400 vacuum any time soon. While it is ridiculously expensive, I think I will be getting my money's worth with this thing...

A Special Kind of Dumb

I am, of course, referring to my cute little kitties. Butter, to be specific. We took the cats (all 3) to the vet on Saturday because it'd been a while, and Peaches (the old one) had been losing weight recently. We weren't sure if it was because of the new kittens chasing her around, the fact that we switched food brands, or if she had developed a kidney disease like her brother.

As always, it was an adventure and a half getting them into their respective cages (wish Ryuhi was there... he makes it so easy), but once they were in, we were off to the vet!

Out comes Butter first. He's the special one. Doctor puts him on the table and weighs him in... 15.8 lbs! Impressive. Doctor is not so impressed, though, and gives him a tsk tsk tsk. After a little anal probing and ear checking, he's good to go! So off the table he goes. Peaches, in the meantime, has been whisked away to the back room to collect blood and urine for tests...

Next up is Bacon. But, as we get him out and onto the table, we hear this scraping sound coming from somewhere below. I look down to see Butter pushing his kitty carrier across the room. "Odd," I thought to myself. I look at the vet and she looks back and says, "I think he's trying to get back into the cage... Maybe." She was trying to suppress a smile. I look back at Butter and realize why. He was pushing his nose into the little air holes on the side of the cage, desperately trying to get back in through a hole that was about 1.5 inches wide. I nearly lost the will to live. We have a dumb cat. Yay. I stop him for a second, then show him the other side of kitty carrier where the door is, and he lets out a happy meow and waltzes in. Poor, sweet Butter.

Bacon weighed in at 16.8 lbs, at which point the doctor warned us the cats needed to go on a diet. They're only 1 year old!!! We have failed as parents :( Ah well, they seem to like their new diet food better than the old stuff, anyway.

Peaches was brought back looking oh-so-unhappy, having gone through the trauma of having her blood taken and being manhandled by the assistants. We tried to get her back in her cage, but she just froze in place. I didn't realize what was going on, but the fiance looked over and said to the assistant, "Oh my god, I think she's peeing on you." Sure enough, she was letting out a nice, long stream of kitty urine all over the assistant's leg. "Revenge is mine!" is probably what was going through her head.

I'm sure they love us at the vet now.

Regrets

My biggest regret from this last trip to Japan was that I didn't bring my camera. At the Shinagawa train station, I walked by a man that I swear looked *exactly* like Beaker from the Muppets. I reached into my bag to get my camera and realized that I didn't bring it with me.

It made me sad.

In other news, I took a tour around Tokyo with one of the producers that came along for the trip, and met up with one of her friends who is living in Yokohama teaching English. Both super geeks. The girl living in Yokohama has the entire lineup of Pokemon creatures memorized in both English and Japanese. Impressive.

Geek girls rock :D