I Am a Weird Cat Lady

So my cat threw up yesterday. She never throws up. I am always proud of her because she is one of those rare non-vomiting cats.

So I'm wondering to myself, what caused my cat to throw up? It could be stress from moving. Or did I leave a cup or plate on the coffee table where she could dabble in human food? If it's either of those things, hopefully she is done with the vomiting now that we're all settled.

Of course, I think the water here is atrocious. Refrigerating it doesn't seem to help. It tastes heavily of metal. So I've gotten it into my head that it might be the water. My response? I emptied her automatic waterer of the tap water that was in it and refilled it from my filter pitcher. Yes, I am now treating my cat to filtered water.

On a positive note, she threw up on the ottoman, which is vinyl and easily wiped off. :)

Apartment Settling

I'm pretty much all unpacked, minus a few random things. They're things I'm scared to throw out in case I need them, but I don't really use them, so I just need to store them somewhere. I hate having weird things like that.

I still haven't gone to the store. I've been surviving on leftovers from when my parents were here. I'm on my last bit of leftover omelette this morning and then I will be foodless.

My initial grocery list is a bit weird, but oh well.

1. eggs
2. grapefruit juice
3. milk
4. cereal
5. beer
6. soup
7. salad
8. salad dressing

That's it. I'm not feeling in cooking mode just yet, although Chris and I are going to cook something random out of a cookbook he got for Christmas when he comes to visit on Friday. We'll grocery shop for that when we decide what we want to make.

I also need a few other random things while I'm out and about today:

1. ice tray
2. water filter pitcher
   (I tried my usual refridgerating of water to make it too cold to taste. No cigar. The water here just tastes that bad.)
3. calendar
4. mirror sheets
5. simple green
6. dish detergent
7. hamper
8. quarters for laundry

If I weren't feeling too cheap, I would invest in a shredder too. I have been shredding old mail by hand, and it's tedious.

On a positive note, living in my own space has already returned cat and I to an inseparable duo. She's curled up on the couch next to me now. Also worthy of note is the fact that I have a dedicated yarn space in this apartment. I put together the rack that I kept my clothes on in the last place, and have sorted all my yarn onto its shelves. No more giant bag of yarn shoved in the closet!

Retiring the Soul

I was just watching National Geographic's "Science of Evil," and one of the researchers being interviewed suggested that research about how the brain works is going to put the soul out of a job because we know that evil choices are just neurons firing, and circumstance influences our morality.

His thought on this was that if people don't believe their souls will continue on, they will make their choices in the present moment, and this could be a good thing. In his view, things like suicide bombing won't happen if we didn't have the continuing soul as a sort of parachute to protect the perpetrator from his or her own act. Even though their body dies, they can be confident that the soul will live on after their act. Without a soul, people won't have motivation to face martyrdom.

I can see his point, but I don't think it's fully thought out. I actually think it reflects the particular researcher's scientific inclination to despise religion. In contrast, I think many people's fear of consequences for their souls prevent self-indulgent behaviors that could harm others. The desire to do good for the soul is also a motivator for good.

In other words, we might gain some good by giving up the soul, but we would lose some as well. It might be a wash.