Well, I'm married! Got married on Wednesday and have had some time to recover. For me, recovering involved the 10 to 15 people that we had in the house dwindling down to 4 or 6. I can't deal with crowds, it does strange things to the way I feel and it really takes the energy out of me.

Being married doesn't feel any different then it did before I got married. But it was really cute to see Philip dressed up in vampire Lestat fashion. Very very cute. And it was also personally reassuring to know that I did the kimono thing and pulled it off in flying colours on my own. (Considering it was also my first time and I was doing it all the way with all the proper accessories and no help. I had never even seen anyone walking around in a kimono before, so I had zero real life experience to draw on.) I learned some important things about kimono-dressing, too. Mostly that getting all of the collars right is really difficult and that minimizing your breasts down with a cotton first aid bandage wrap makes a huge difference in how well the kimono fits. (And here I had thought my fitting issues were entirely with my hips.)

Well, I'm about to head off to the Jorvik Viking Centre with Elfnoodles and Thudfactor, so I'll write more about the wedding day later.

I know I've been talking about the new kitten a lot lately, but thats just because I'm so excited and I get even more so when I see new pictures of him. Ryoko and Touma are hardly forgotten.

They spent the first couple of days under the bed as expected, then they did a tenative and methodical search of the house. Another couple of days and they were sleeping on top of the bed, with or without us. They became affectionate again in short order, but they're still skittish. Whenever either of us walks near them or is seen approaching, they pull a runner straight up the stairs.

I don't think they've noticed the gecko yet even though they like to sit on the table that her environment is on. She has noticed them however. I assume she thinks that they're really large crickets. She thinks Philip is a really large cricket sometimes.

I'm still trying to get settled into my new life in York - there's not much to report on really, except that I'm really excited about getting to show my family around this place. I think they're all really going to like it here.

I do have some new information about the kitten Olo. He's the largest kitten at the breeder's, he's the ring leader, and he's evil. He gets all of the other kittens into trouble and then sits to one side, purring his heart out, while the others take the blame. In other words, it sounds like he is indeed Olo incarnate.

In case anyone is curious... my life weighs in at approximately 120 pounds (not including carry-ons) and consists of clothes, cels, foxes, and a final category best described as miscellanous. The part of my life that I carry with me consists of over 350 CDs/DVDs, nail polish I never really use, a particularly expensive antique fox figurine and Philip's coffee mugs. And of course there's the passport with a marriage visa inside that says I'm a man, and a one way plane ticket to Manchester.

It is sort of a wierd feeling knowing that tonight is my last night in this country as a resident. It's a feeling of... nothing. I don't particularly feel anything tonight. I guess I don't feel that it is really that big of a deal or really that far. Everyone keeps telling me that they guess they'll never really see me again, but they never saw me very much anyways. (I'm something of a hermit when left to my own devices.)

The one thing I am quite emotionally struck by this evening as I spend these last moments with my beloved basset hound is that the saddest thing about pets is watching them grow old. Its in seeing how grey their muzzle has become or seeing that sheen in their eyes that tells you they're going blind. So as I cuddled up with Jasmine, I started to cry because she's getting so old. So many things I could be upset about on the eve of my departure and I'm crying because my dog is getting old. I wish I knew what that said about me, but I don't have a clue.

After a mad morning of lifting up beds, climbing up onto counters and getting pissed on, I finally caught the cats and took them to the vets to get them sealed into their containers. When I got back, the guy who is transporting them to the airport was waiting for me...

And he looked like Anthony Hopkins.

In literally the last moments before I move to the UK and complicate my cel-collecting habits with VAT and import fees, I'm getting in something wonderful and special...

A production sketch from Fruits Basket! Yay!

Unlike my copy sets, this one is the real thing and its a beautiful portrait of Shigure. A fellow cel collector was sweet enough to let me have the very first stab at it when she found out I was moving and getting married. I don't know when I'll get the chance to make my own scan of it, so I'm using hers. (Bleh. JPEG artifacts. Must remember to save sketches in .gif)

I recently got in some new kitten shots of Olo, so I thought I'd share one of them. I know all kittens are supposed to be little balls of fluff, but bengals do it particularly well. They go through a stage that is scientifically known as "the fuzzies." Different bengal kittens go fuzzy in different ways, but all of them look awful and don't particularly do themselves justice during this time. Olo is still having the fuzzies himself, but I chose a picture where its not quite so bad.

I think he's really cute, although he does look like a little bastard.

My sister Sarah had this to say in response to a line in my last post about having to condense down my life into two suitcases:

Percentage of room in the suitcases that can be accounted for by fox knick-knacks... 19.643%

You know, that is surprisingly accurate. And here I bet all you people thought she was just teasing me. Heh.

I haven't been posting again. Between Star Wars Galaxies providing a much needed distraction and the great rearranging of my life that its distracting me from, I've been busy.

Mmmm... my current events in brief: Moving pets overseas is a pain in the butt. Trying to condense down an apartment full of stuff into two suitcases is a pain in the butt. Star Wars Galaxies is a pain in the butt but that fact can be overlooked because I've found fellow roleplayers there. Cute little F4 kittens... well... they're not a pain in the butt. They're fuzzy evilness.

Apparently Olo loves his wet food so much that he bit another kitten's tongue for daring to try to eat his food. Yeah, that sounds exactly like the character we named him after. I think we should all be scared if this kitten really does turn out to be the spirit of Olo incarnate.