neuters and jet-sets

i left the cats in their plastic neck cones for exactly ten minutes after we got home from the vet this afternoon.  when i let them out of their carrier, they went absolutely apeshit, running into the same walls over and over and leaping crazily off of the couches and chairs.  they hissed at each other and slunk around the apartment like they were feral tomcats looking for something to destroy.  it was the realization of my pre-neuter nightmare - namely, that they would come back from the surgery with totally different personalities and we'd have to live with terrible demon cats (all the while remembering how they used to be).  so, i cornered each of them and trapped them together in the bathroom, where i sat with them until they calmed down and then released them from their torture collars.  and, then some magic happened.  they were perfectly normal the instant i took the cones off, which means that their insane behavior had less to do with their being loopy with drugs (which is what i was told by the vet assistant when abe was returned to me making a horrible low growly sound) and more to do with their being totally pissed about, and vision-impaired by, the collars.  i also just discovered that their claws were cut down to the quick, so all their nails are bloody.  i am really not built to handle this crap.  every pet i get from now on must already to be spayed/neutered.

i am sooo glad this day is over.  now i just have to police them to make sure they're not tearing out their stitches.  delicious.

ok, on to san francisco:

i had such a fantastic time.  lina was a grand hostess and put up with having to (read: was forced to) drive me around late at night while i fell asleep in the passenger seat.  i think we hit the perfect combination of tourist traps and local haunts.  we walked around fisherman's wharf, where i got some boudin sourdough bread, and then had drinks at the buena vista cafe, where, on saturday, they were already celebrating st. patrick's day.  we had incredible pasta in north beach, walked along embarcadero, scoped out the ferry building and shopped in union square.  all in all, i think i love that city.  san francisco, and most other cities in the world, with the exception of los angeles, has a spirit and a character that is almost tangible.  you can get a sense of the kind of people who live there just by breathing their same air.  i suppose you can do that in l.a. - and maybe i just don't like what the atmosphere here says about me.  regardless, i think i see myself in the northwest, somewhere, when it comes to determining permanent residence.  

what really sealed the deal for me was an encounter lina and i had with a man named patrick, who we met while sitting a bar in a restaurant on embarcadero.  he came up behind us and ordered a lavender cosmo and proceeded, throughout a nearly whispered conversation peppered with misused words and giggles, to tell us all about the racy emails he's been sending to the boyfriend in russia he met on the internet.  he was an incredible character and told us we have phenomenal energy and was just generally the kind of conversationalist that makes me want to write books.  he deserves to be immortalized in print - that's how amazing our discussion was.  also, he perfectly bookended the weekend by telling us, as we said goodbye, that when we see him again (although we, fate notwithstanding, will never see him again), his boyfriend will have "put a ring on it."  i'd spent the entire weekend discussing the pros and cons of beyonce and that statement was perhaps the only pro.