Given how busy my weekends from May-July are, I thought this weekend might be a semi-break. After all, I only had one item on the agenda, my Saturday tennis tournament. This was not the case.

Our first unplanned event was a pet crisis. H. (girl cat) was due for an annual checkup and since R. (boy cat) had been licking himself quite a lot recently we decided to take both of them into the vet. (The Scientist did a Google search on "cat penis licking," which I found terribly amusing. Turns out, it's a common sign of a bladder infection or other bladder illness. Still, how funny is that? I entertained myself thinking of all the other information he could have gotten from the search results.)

The Scientist picked out a new vet and we made an appointment for Thursday. R. had to be confined on the morning of the appointment so he wouldn't pee and could have his urine checked at the vet's. I did that (locked him in the office with me while I worked) and we stuffed him into the carrier (yes, it was a joint effort) at the appointed time. H. went into her carrier with slightly less effort. When The Scientist returned from the vet, it was clear that almost everyone involved had been traumatized. R. did not cooperate for the vet. He threw up twice, peed on the table (which was actually a good thing since the vet needed to check his urine), and pooped in his carrier. The Scientist was completely grossed out. H. was fine. The vet said that R. had crystals in his urine, but otherwise was ok (and should lose a few pounds). R. got some special food and all was supposed to be well.

The Scientist left to go back to work and I went back to work as well. Several hours later, R. had not bounced back to his usual happy-go-lucky self and was lethargic, hiding in strange places, and yowling loudly after trying to use the litterbox. The next morning he did the same thing and was still not himself. We called the vet's office and they said to bring him in that morning because they wanted to check him before the weekend. Back in the carrier (joint effort again) and off to the vet's other clinic location (farther away). When we got there, we had to sign a form saying that we authorized potential surgery for a blockage in his urinary tract, to the tune of $500. Yikes. We signed the forms, thinking that $500 was a lot of money, but he is our pet and we love him and we'd just have to deal with it. Still, I wondered how much money would be too much money. We're not working with a huge cushion right now, but we make a decent living. $2000? $3000? $5000? Would we put ourselves in debt to save our kitty? How much debt? I wanted to think that we wouldn't put a price on our pet, but realistically at some point we'd have to. It was hard to realize that my love for our pet had a limit. If we'd had to spend $5000 on him, he would have been really, really sick and it would have been an entirely different situation, but it wasn't something I wanted to contemplate.

We didn't have to make that choice, though, and I picked him up a few hours later to the tune of $150 and a diagnosis of Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease with struvite crystals in his urine. He's on meds for two weeks, super special food (Hill's S/D) for a while, then on regular special food (Hill's C/D) for life. Everything worked out fine, but it was a stressful Thursday and Friday.

Saturday was my tennis tournament. I won!

That was pretty exciting. It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. There were only 2 other women in my bracket, so we played a little round robin. I won both my matches, so I won the tournament, such that it was. It was so hot on the courts, I was just happy to finish my matches, let alone win. Those extra pounds really kill me when I have to run around in the heat.

Saturday night, we partied with the band. The Scientist had read last week in our local weekly arts/community paper that his friends who are in a band were on tour and coming to our town. He tried to get in touch with them through their label, but couldn't.

We showed up at the venue and caught up with them before the show. They were completely surprised to see us because they didn't know we had moved. They were looking for us the night before when they were playing a show in our former city. They even called our old number, but the Spanish-speaking woman who answered the phone wasn't much help. The show was outside and the heat that had been so brutal during the day was pleasant and balmy in the dark. They played a good set (as far as I could tell) and the crowd loved them. I stood too close to the speakers for most of the show and my right ear was ringing until just this morning.

The band took us up on our offer to crash at our apartment, so by 1:00 a.m. there were five unwashed band members and one unwashed roadie/groupie/friend hanging out at our place. Three of them left after only a little while to go to a party they'd been invited. The other three hung out with us, watched music video compilations (on DVD, courtesy of The Scientist's hobby), took showers, got pizza, drank beer, etc. It was fun to see them again, especially in such a random situation (I have a feeling it was more random for us than for them--it seems like lots of random things happen to up-and-coming bands on tour). They've stayed with us before, once for a couple of nights. That time provided me with a story I continue to tell to this day, The Time In Which a Guy Peed on My Floor and Got Drunk for Breakfast. It's pretty much what it sounds like. One of the band members got too drunk to stand up at a party after the show. The Scientist got the partygoer home (in a taxi along with another band member) and left him passed out on the floor. Unfortunately, when the partygoer got up later to go to the bathroom, he neglected the bathroom part of the equation and peed all over the rug, demonstrating why it's called getting pissed. When I found out about it the next morning, I was Not Pleased to say the least. Relationship strife of the, "I don't bring my friends over to stay for two days and pee on YOUR floor!" resulted. The guilty party did not endear himself to me by drinking his breakfast the next morning and getting completely wasted before noon. There were many apologies on his behalf since the event (including yet another one on Saturday night) and it has never been repeated. The band member has since cleaned up and quit drinking entirely. I think it's a good thing.

This time around, everything was fine. Those of us who stayed home had a good, low-key time. I somehow stayed up 'til 3:00 a.m., not a usual occurance at the Yasmara household. I think the partygoers had fun too--I didn't even hear them come home, so it must have been really late (or early in the morning).

Somewhere in all of this rock star lifestyle, The Scientist and I saw two movies in the theater, one movie on DVD at home, did lots of laundry, washed the car, and bought groceries. We saw The Bourne Identity on Friday night and both liked it a lot. Neither of us have read the book, but we both like spy movies. This one delivered with fine helpings of action, suspense, and romance, if not a lot of plot. Plus it had Matt Damon looking dishy and Franka Potente who I've liked since Run Lola Run.

Saturday afternoon we escaped the heat and saw Minority Report. I liked it more than The Scientist. I'm not sure why. He felt it just didn't have enough to it, but I liked the look and found it entertaining and a little thought-provoking. There were a couple of annoying plot holes having to do with [SPOILERS AHEAD] John Anderton (Tom Cruise) being able to use his retina access to the police station even after a) being identified as a future murderer and having a warrant issued for his arrest, b) having his original eyes popped out and replaced with new ones (in a very icky scene) and carrying his old eyeballs around for said retinal access, c) being actually locked up in prison during which time his wife uses his popped-out grotty old eyeball for access to the super-high-security prisoner storage area. I mean, come on. Wouldn't any half-decent security system immediately deny him access once the warrant was issued? Isn't there any sort of cross-referencing between the police access databases and the criminal databases? He had to get the "eye transplant" because there were so many random retina readers around town and he could be easily tracked. Wouldn't locking him out of the police station be the first thing they would do? Plus there's the whole popped-out eyeball thing. He was just carrying the eyeballs around in a little baggie. Wouldn't they get yucky after a few minutes? The human body is something like 85% water. It dries out and starts to rot pretty quickly. And wouldn't there be some sort of double-checking scenario to make sure the eyeballs were actually inside the right person's head and not being carried around by a woman who shares none of John Anderton's DNA? Plot holes aside, I did like it, although I'm happy we paid matinee prices.

Sunday afternoon was laundry, buying of floor mats for the new car (plain black ones for the back and rockingly trashy black ones with red flaming dragons on them for the front), washing of the new car, buying of groceries, and napping. Napping actually happened first. After dinner (yummy salads), we watched Crazy/Beautiful on DVD. Again, a movie I liked more than The Scientist. He found Kirstin Dunst's character unsympathetic (even though he thinks she's hot) and thought the guy (Jay Hernandez) was too good for her. I liked its realism. It didn't trivialize their lives or their problems--it seemed like these were real (albeit very attractive) teenagers, not Hollywood's idea of kids.

After the movie I stayed up late finishing I & Claudius: Travels With My Cat by Claire De Vries, which I didn't like a whole lot. It was a presumably semi-fictionalized autobiographical memoir-y account of a British woman's extended road trip across the U.S. with her cat. It was written in a journal stream-of-consciousness way that I would have liked, except I didn't like the narrator/author/main character at all. I'm pretty sure I would have been completely annoyed with her in person, given how annoyed with her I was just by reading about her. I had been looking forward to the book (it got great recommendations by a lot of people on Amazon and I had heard other good things about it) and stuck with it to the end thinking that maybe it took a turn for the better partway through. It didn't. I liked the cat, though.

And that was our weekend.

Ice cream update: Our regular grocery store didn't have the B&J Peanut Butter Me Up, so I had to (yes, had to) get the Edy's Dreamery Chocolate Peanut Butter Chunk. I devoured half a pint last night while watching Crazy/Beautiful and ate the rest today for lunch. Yummy, if not healthy.