The interim between the parade and the fireworks...

I've previously posted some photos of Dilly climbing a towel and Vada being a grumpus because she's not the cutest cat anymore, but I didn't show this somewhat post-apocalyptic-looking sunset:

Nor did I make any mention of Dilly's habit of sleeping underneath Lou Ryan's guitar whenever he left it on the sofa:

Nor did I post this cute video of Dilly chasing a moth. Will she catch it? Let's see:

It was a bright and sunny gay day with the flying spaghetti monster...

As I'm so focused on going to The Amazing Meeting and making sure that I get ahead in some things before I leave, I don't have much time for writing posts -- displaying photos, yes, but little more than that. Luckily, I have plenty of those! Care to be touched by a noodly appendage?

What's this all about? Well, on June 24, Brianade and I headed out to the gay pride parade, in which I was featured and of which I took gorb-loads of pictures. The highlights, however should be plenty:

I officially have earned my degree!

This was in my email inbox today:

Congratulations! Your degree requirements are completed.  We have posted the degree to your transcript and it is immediately available for viewing and verification. 

• Go to www.everettcc.edu/kiosk to view your unofficial transcript...

The diploma will be ordered and will be mailed to you soon.  If you change your mailing address, please notify Sydnie Tran at...

If you choose to attend commencement in mid-June, you must RSVP by the posted deadline.

Seeing as it's already July, I don't think I'll make it to that commencement.

In truth, I actually earned my degree about a year ago (so saith my school records), but have been having to take more classes and re-apply for this degree, and despite the fact that my GPA has gone down a little since then, I finally am getting it in the mail!

Now, this transfer degree I've been telling everyone about, including universities that I applied to last year, is no longer a pipe dream, but officially mine, and no one can take that away from me!

Seattle Science Festival thingy at the Paramount

I've been doing a lot of things, partly in preparation for The Amazing Meeting, but thought I'd dig up this post, from back on June 16 when I went to the Seattle Science Festival thingy at the Paramount, with this guy as the headliner:

 

Although books are generally much more informative, lectures can be more fun to actually see, which is why I bother going to them at all.

The topic was supposed to be on evolution, but for whatever reason, Stephen Hawking was lecturing about things like multiple universes. And as he was the last speaker, I really ought to take a step back and check out the rest of picture before going into that:

I has a new kitteh for my catteh -- mostly short videos!

Lou Ryan's mom, the day after accidentally erasing my science blog post, singlehandedly bought Lou Ryan and I some much-needed new footwear and a kitten, all in the same day!

` (She had offered to get us a flatscreen TV, but we said that we would rather have something more practical. And we all know how practical kittens can be!)

As one would predict, the catteh doesn't much like the kitteh:

Watch what happened when the kitteh and the catteh met for the first time:

I didn't name her, but her name is indeed Dilly, and this actually went better than with Rusty, the last kitten we got for Vada. Let's just say, he became such great friends with Vada that she apparently drove him off.
` Luckily, Dilly is not the kind of cat who prefers having her nose in Vada's ass all day long, so they'll probably get along better.

Home Video-a-Palooza!

This would have been a science post, but it got erased when I let Lou Ryan's mom check her email on my laptop -- because her laptop can't access our wi-fi -- and she shut it off!

I know. Just when I thought my BlogImpediments were outta here, something always surprises me.

And if you doubt my story, I actually caught this blunder on camera -- precisely because this was the only time I was in the living room with Lou Ryan and his mom, while trying to figure out how the video function on my camera really works, and all three of us were distracted by electronic devices.

Yes, I just had to try to make a witty comment (which the camera cut off at the end anyway) before asking her whether she meant shutting the laptop, or actually turning it off (thus erasing my blog post and everything else that was open and that I thought I had saved), but didn't because I wasn't too worried about that.
` After all, I thought it was ludicrous that anyone would even think of just turning off a computer that has several programs open, and besides, why would anyone turn their computer off, which shortens its lifespan, instead of putting it in sleep mode (which you can do by shutting the screen)?
` As soon as I stopped recording, I asked, "You mean, put the screen down?" and she said, "No, I meant turn it off," and I said, "No, never do that," and she said, "Well, it's too late."

I was really annoyed when I saw that the post I was working on (as well as documents in which I was translating things from Spanish to English) were completely erased somehow. That's what I get for working on posts outside of Blogger, which backs up your progress automatically.
` Such is the fog of having a short attention span, and other human faults. Speaking of, here's a picture I took in the fog -- I tried to get the spider web in front of my reflection so that you can see it better:

Anyway, I should at very least be thankful for the fact that, after five years of stress and suffering with much worse roommates than the ones we just booted out, as well as some seriously unsafe and miserable, sometimes utterly intolerable living conditions, I've finally earned my degree -- I think!

What else? Lots:

FREE AT LAST after five years of crazy roommates!!

Today I have much great news, photos, and the first video I've taken with the same camera that I use for my photos.

` Maybe I said this next post would be sciencey, but maybe I've been spending more time reading and writing in Spanish than in English. My final is tomorrow, I'm finally supposed to get my degree, and am determined to work harder at Spanish than is necessary.

This dismal travesty of myself as a science writer is overshadowed by my elation at the wonderful state of affairs beginning on June 1 -- no, it's not liquor being sold at the grocery store: Rather, we are no longer housing, putting up with, and cleaning up after any crazy, creationist conspiracy-believing or schizophrenic substance-abusing people!

Also, that day, I saw the USS Nimitz try to creep by undetected by moi:

You can't hide from me, Nimitz!

Anyway, without these people around to stink up the house, the smell actually had almost completely disappeared by June 2, before we had even started our massive cleaning project:
` Among other things, Brianade got the bathrooms and I vacuumed the carpets -- including the stairs, without a hose --, and Lou Ryan -- superhero that he is -- did more than twice as much work as either of us, including throwing out literally pounds of rotten stuff from the back of the fridge!

Since then, I've been struck by my lack of needing to shovel garbage from the counter into the garbage can next to the counter.
` Let me repeat that -- there are no longer piles of garbage on the counter that I need to move a few inches over, into the garbage can that is sitting right underneath it. As it should be.

Also, the last time I was swamped at the sink, it was just after the Pickled One had brought up his store of dirty dishes (complete with mold, cigarette ashes, and something that used to be milk), and then left them on the counter for me to wash. Never again!

In addition, now that I won't have to constantly scrub the cheese grater, our sponges will last longer! On a related note, no more melted cheese to pick out of the texture on the plates -- also, no more textured plates to pick cheese out of!

` Similarly, no more scrubbing egg out of the plastic container in which the same housemate would cook them -- in the microwave after midnight! Shortly before he had left, I had to get out of bed and vent the house because of the stink (a combination of his late night egg microwaving and his own body odor), and this was something I did routinely. No more!

And, although all of this is really great, there is one more thing that is perhaps more astounding: