Do you still think that way about me now?

Ok, big dump of the past three weeks altogether. As mentioned in this post, the pictures on the pages labelled for 12-18 May were actually drawn during the week of 5-11 May, and vice versa.

Week 19:




I suspect the hyper detail of Week 18 left me artistically drained; I just couldn't work up enthusiasm for anything in particular that week. I rather like my snail, though. :)

Week 20:




Slightly better. Monday's daffodils are cool, Tuesday's guy with the backpack is unfinished but I'm happy enough with him, Thursday's ladies are cute if cartoony, and even though I still can't draw butterfly wings worth a damn, I like my fairy from Friday.

And now this past week, week 21:




Really happy with Wednesday's, which is a sketch of our dog, Lottie. :)

I have been in a holiday mood all week. I've been dandering through my work with a pleasant sense of laziness, like some part of me keeps expecting to go home on half-day (even though I know I'm not). I'm putting it down to the weather. It's been dry and mild, and with the longer evenings, the days feel brighter, more full of sunlight. I've also been playing fetch with Lottie and it's hard to feel down once you see her chasing after a ball, tail straight up, mouth open in a big doggie grin, taking great flying leaps from lawn to driveway and back again. :)

Eh. I'm not that happy with anything this week. They all feel... unfinished. Messy. Due to other stuff which took up my time, Tuesday's and Wednesday's sketches were actually done on Thursday, while Friday's ended up swallowing Saturday/Sunday's space, so I didn't do any doodling yesterday. I just couldn't get settled to anything. I was sketching from reference/real life models and I think I got bored and a little frustrated that I couldn't make things look like how they really look. Bah.

I am rather proud of my nostrils from Monday, though:




And the cat on Thursday is kinda awesome. But it lacks... something? Stripes? But the cat I was modelling it on is solid black. :(

PS: if anyone can identify the dragon/seal thing from Friday, I would be most grateful. It's a toy I picked up some years ago in a charity shop. The bottom is marked "(c) 1995 L.G.T.I"; it contains a battery and if you press hard enough on the shell on its chest, the jewel on the chest and the shell on the forehead light up (just). The one I've got has a lilac body and sea-green hair. There was another one which was pink, which I paid for and then found when I got home that it had been left out of the bag. >:(

Oliver, our three-legged cat, was ill on Saturday night: he threw up, wouldn't walk very far, just wanted to flop over on his side and lie there. He was making this really weird thin noise, like a cross between a wheeze and miaow, his chest was heaving and he wouldn't open his eyes wider than a slit. It was such a sudden change, he had seemed fine before supper when we let him into the room where he gets fed. We took him to the vet's where they found that his temperature was really low and there seemed to be fluid in his lungs, and they've been keeping him ever since.

They did x-rays today. Oliver has a really enlarged heart; they tell us that it's taking up most of his chest, putting pressure on all the other organs. They can't draw any blood from him to do tests, can't get his temperature or blood pressure up to normal, and the heart medication they want to try is out of stock.

They say that this has got nothing to do with his blood condition or the steroids that he's on. He is apparently quite bright and taking an interest in things, although not moving very much, and he did eat a little today.

I'd really appreciate your prayers and/or good thoughts on this. Oliver is such a character, a big friendly eejit, and he's only 3 and a half. ;_;

I am SO. PLEASED. with the way everything turned out this week :D Even if I did completely forget what the proper markings are on a house sparrow for Monday's sketch >.< But, you know what, it still works ok!

I've taken some close-ups of the bits I'm most proud of this week:




Roses from Tuesday - so tickled with all the little folded over petals and the flower-bud and the one that's wilting.




Coloured sketches of Lottie, our wire-haired fox terrier, from Wednesday. The head-on face is weird, but the rest are fine.




In this one, I wanted the thumbs-up to be realistic but make everything else as creepy-cartoony as possible. The Smiling Man himself is a sort of cross between the Mask and the Joker.




I am so damn proud of that reflection :D The title is a lyric from Counting Crows' "St Robinson in his Cadillac Dream".




And another creepy one - in my head I call this one "Midnight Circus". The little featureless people in the bottom left are supposed to be figurines or miniature automatons which are actually enchanted people, but you could see them as ghosts or sprites or just personifications of atmosphere.

Sitting listening to a debate about which vet to take Lottie to and who will take her and what story we tell (Sharon is paranoid about... something, I don't know, but apparently it means that she can't be the one who takes the dog ugh) and thinking that I should really poke my nose in and prove that, yes, I am alive...

So, yeah, hi.

We have a new doggie! She's a wire haired fox terrier puppy and we've called her Lottie :) Sharon got her as a companion for when she has to go out at night. She is completely adorkable and I will try to get and post pictures.

She has behaved herself very well around the cats too, although both Holly and Ivy have retreated in a huff to their personal sanctuaries (for Holly, the dining room; Ivy, upstairs). Oliver has stuck around but he's not a hundred per cent sure about her yet.

Our dog Jipp took a nasty turn yesterday morning. When Mum let her out of the kennel, she couldn't control her back legs and kept collapsing to the right. She had to go over to the fence and use it to prop herself up. When she got into the house, the back legs went completely. Her eye were flickering left and right, clearly out of her control, and she drooled everywhere - our dogs never drool. At one point she lost control of her bowels.

It was horrible. And then we couldn't get hold of the vets. The phone was just dead. Sharon - our vet-in-training - was down in Dublin, probably not awake and always in need of her sleep, so we were stuck in our ignorance and panic.

But - finally - the call went through. Amy and Mum bundled Jipp up in a quilt cover and used it to carry her into the car. (I wasn't there for this next bit.) The vet was waiting for them and helped them carry Jipp, still in the quilt, into the waiting room. When they laid her down on the floor - up she got and walked out the door >.<

She was still very shaky on her back legs, her eyes still tracking rapidly from side to side, never resting, so the vet could see something was badly wrong. His conclusion was either a mini-stroke or a brain tumour. As she seemed to be recovering a little, he gave her a steroid, an antibiotic and a vitamin shot to help her along and said to bring her back the next day (i.e. today) for observation and blood tests.

By this time, Sharon had been awakened. She explained that the drooling was a sign of nausea; the way Jipp's eyes had been moving, it would have been akin to seasickness.

Jipp got steadily better throughout the day yesterday, although she was lethargic for a long time. Today, she was right back to her usual, boisterous self. You wouldn't know she had ever been ill. Mum phoned to see if the vets still wanted her for observation, but it was decided that since she seemed normal again, we were to treat her with steroids (Sharon says this is the usual treatment for brain tumours) and take her in for an appointment on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Sharon is bemoaning that this has all happened while she wasn't here. If she could have examined Jipp, seen the symptoms herself, it would not only have been great practice but it would have helped the vet out too, having an (almost) professsional report. (It would have calmed us down too.)

Sharon also isn't convinced about the diagnosis of a brain tumour. She has suggested it might be a problem with the inner ear. Apparently, this can happen - the inner ear goes wonky, dog loses balance, and then everything rights itself after a while - and no one knows what causes it. Again, if she had been here, she would know better if the symptoms fit that diagnosis or not.

I'm just relieved that this is past and that it seems we don't have to put Jipp down. She's an old dog and I really thought yesterday morning when I saw her that this was it, this was the end of the line. And Sheba, her litter-mate - how would she have taken it? Jipp has gone for several surgeries and overnight stays - she has a recurring benign tumour on one of her back legs, on the thigh close to that backward-pointing joint - and Sheba clearly misses her when she's gone :( If it is a tumour, then it's treatable with steroids (although she will be on them for the rest of her life). If it's this inner-ear thing, then it's a temporary condition which apparently cures itself (I'm not sure whether it would be a re-occuring condition, though, and it's horrible to see it happening).

I have a mild case of Robert Downey Jr obsession. I blame Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man.

Holly - the skinny, paranoid, socially dysfunctional one of our two cats - is sick :( We don't know yet what's wrong; she has a temperature and isn't retracting her third eyelid properly.

There has been no thaw yet, and it's started snowing again. Driving conditions are atrocious, and everyone is now back to work/school after the Christmas holidays, so traffic is heavy again. Thank goodness I have next week off (for my birthday :D)

That is all!

Contrary to popular belief, I have not fallen off the edge of the universe. Nor have I been abducted by aliens or had my mind wiped by men in black. I have been busy and my dial-up connection has been playing silly buggers. I did have a massive entry written but lost it due to my somehow deleting a password >.< but here are the brief highlights:

- PhD is going well; long may it last!
- History books are good. Doctor Who is better.
- Pets have been ill and aren't out of the woods yet.
- I hate job-hunting.

Hope that helps.