Sick, Vegetarian, Gator
It's been a while since I've had a substantive update, I guess.  There are some major changes...

I've been vegetarian for nine days, now.  If anyone asks me why, I'll just point them to the correlation of the timing between my becoming a vegetarin and the declaration by the World Health Organization of a Swine Flu Pandemic, so they can conclude that I gave up all meat because I think that eating pork can cause the passage of H1N1.  Of course that's nonsense, but it'll make 'em think (about how dumb I must be).  The real reason is that I had already given up pork and beef last September and I found that in doing so I had simply replaced my intake of those meats with chicken, turkey, and fish, each of which is better, but none were particularly good for helping me actually control my weight.  There was a bit of a kicker that happened at work, nine days ago.  A co-worker and I were discussing fish and recent discoveries of the damage that tiny bits of plastic have done to our seas.  To top it off, another co-worker and I were discussing a third co-worker, and I relayed that that co-worker had had a cholesterol scare and shed over 100 pounds, and is now an avid runner and health enthusiast.  He was surprised, and said, "you know wh used to be huge?" and he mentioned another co-worker with whom I'm friends.  He's thin as a freakin' rail and I had no idea he was once over 300 pounds!  One of the keys to his success turns out to have been becoming vegetarian.

So... while I'll call myself a vegetarian, I have to say that I'm not really much of one.  I take no issue in, say, ordering a chicken chow mein for everyone's enjoyment and then picking out all the chicken in my serving.  Meat contact with my food is no big deal.  Also, I figure that there are going to be special occasions, mentally I've budgeted about one per month, which will warrant my enjoying meat.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, etc.  Finally, I still love cooking, and I'm still amazing at cooking meat, so for friends and family, I will continue to share my talents with them, even if I won't partake of it myself.

So there's that.  I don't generally eat meat, and I'm doing just fine.  In fact, in the nine days that I haven't, I've lost quite a bit of weight, however it isn't fair to attribute this to my diet.  Turns out that I caught the cold that spread through my family last week.  It hit me hard.  I was too sick to work on Thursday and thought I was okay enough to work on Friday but I wasn't, so I took the rest of the day off.  Saturday, it settled down into my chest and made it so that I couldn't get a full breath, kind of like when you're up in the mountains.  That seems to have gone, today; I have much more energy than I did on Saturday.  I'll be returning to work, tomorrow, but I'm still not at 100%.  I'm not even sure I'm at 75%.  I just think that I'm capable of doing my job and I'm not contagious any longer, so I'll go.  And if I was wrong, there are doctors at work...

During the first three of the last four days of sick, I hardly ate.  I had my multivitamin and apple juice.  An occasional hunk of bread filled my tummy nicely.  Other than that... not much.  This is why I lost weight.  It happens.

So tonight, the family gets home and for some reason, Gator is hissing at both Rozz and me.  She was actually herding Rozz, keeping him stuck in the bedroom.  I came out to help him get a cut of water, and sat down somewhat near to Gator to talk to her.  I was making nice and she came over to me and I pet her a bit.  A moment later, she hopped up on the chair next to me and came around to where I was leaning and rubbed up against me and I pet her some more, and she seemed happy.  I then turned and started talking with Heather, a few feet away.  I didn't move.  After maybe fifteen second, Gator clawed me with no warning and no provocation.  She drew blood, and would have drawn a lot more if Heather hadn't trimmed all her nails earlier today.  Thirty seconds later, she became an outdoor kitty.  Sadly, the moment she was outside, she bolted and we can't find her to show her where we're putting her food and water.  So be it.  Poor girl.  I'm sad about it, but everyones' safety was my main concern.  There is more to this story, including some backstory, but I'm not up for the telling right now.

Okay.  Now... sleep.