A few updates

Can't believe I'm sitting down to do this at 10:55, but darn it, there's news to get out, and tomorrow's another day of the world not knowing that:

Milk of Amnesia is now 3-1.

Second place the other night. Which, really, was the best possible outcome. We don't have to wonder for another year whether people hate us. Because we know that they do - but we know that their hatred is tempered by having seen us fall. And that hatred is still kept alive by the knowledge that we are still smarter than all but one table-full of them.

I could list a lot of questions we got right and questions we got wrong, but...Well, there's no but. Here are a few:

Nicholas Breakspear was the only Englishman ever to become...what?

Which rocker was known as the "Motor City Madman"?

Only one Berkshire County town supported Thomas Jefferson in the 1800 election. When he won, they sent him a gift of...what?

Who wrote the Windows 95 startup music?

Answers (DON'T LOOK DOWN IF YOU'RE STILL WONDERING):






Pope. (We were wrong.)
Ted Nugent. (We were right.)
Cheese. (We were right.)
Brian Eno. (We were wrong.)

And so on. We got the final question right, in which we had to put these events in chronological order:

Discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls
Prohibition began
"The Great Gatsby" published
The Titanic sank

...and two more that I don't recall right now. But we nailed it. Still, we only had 64 points, and the other team had 78. I don't know anything about them, other than that Betsy works with one of them, that one of them is a rabbi, and that next year, they are going down.

Oh - I also know that they rock. Because they say they're getting shirts next year, and want to know the name of the website. Which, in case Brad is reading, is this:

www.bowlingconnection.com

We had an absolute blast. I think next year the trophy will be brought back with our jersey intact - but their jersey over the top of it. Which I think would be way, way cool. Soon I'll have to get "LOSERS 2009" stitched on our right sleeves. Oh, the ignom...in...ity...?

Other news: Skittles went to the vet today regarding her goofy walk (arched back, stiff back legs) of late, though it's been getting better, and X-rays revealed that she has a slipped disk! Two of her vertebrae are rubbing against each other. Could have happened here, could have happened before we got her. So we're trying out a pain killer, which we could give her three days on, three days off (cats don't do well with anti-inflammatories, apparently), though honestly, she seems perfectly fine now. Or as fine as she's going to be - still not leaping up onto anything, but scampering everywhere. She's hopefully in for a long life with less pain because she'll make fewer trips up and down the stairs - we moved her food upstairs, but after an experiment with the litterbox where she knew where it was, just wasn't using it, and continually prowled the spot where it used to be, and looked like she was antsy to drop a little stink bomb, we caved and moved it back down. She uses the food where it is, but the box has gone back. Hopefully having food upstairs will mean fewer trips...But she should be fine going up and down now: The carpets on the stairs have been duct-taped down, and since that happened, she hasn't fallen once. And the arched back and stiff legs have been gone for a couple of days.

All right, off to bed. 5:30 AM comes awfully early. Good night, and good luck.