Okay, I'm a little distressed. My cat is sick; she's actually in the kitty hospital. I don't like this.

She was throwing up all day Saturday, which she's done before. Usually she just gets it out of her system, sleeps for a few hours, then wakes up and is back to her old sassy self.

But I got up for church on Sunday morning, and she wasn't any better. She still hadn't eaten anything, and every time I touched her stomach, it was quivering, like something was moving around in there.

So I took her to the emergency clinic outside town. The doctor took some x-rays and found both constipation (which I thought was strange, because everything seemed normal on Saturday... whenever she throws up it's usually the first thing I check, just to see if there's anything obviously abnormal) and kidney stones, which the doctor said she could have had for years.

But they did bloodwork also and found that all the levels having to do with her kidneys were really high. So they decided to keep her for 24 to 48 hours, just to see if this is all about the constipation or there's something more serious going on with her kidneys.

I don't like being in my apartment without her. I've never been in this apartment without her before. It's very strange. I'm sure she'll be fine, but she's never been this sick before and I don't like it.

Hooray for the two-hour delay. This is something the school just came up with last year, and I think they're getting a little happy with it. We had a freaky ice storm last night (I drove back from my parents' house in it, thank you very much) but everything is fine this morning. I even got up on time, making my one goal for the day to be sitting in my 9:00 class when it started.

I so would have been. I wasn't even thinking about checking for the delay, but I had a few extra minutes so I turned on the Today show while I had my coffee. NOW I don't have to be in my 9:00 class until 10:45. Woo-hoo.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but Moonlighting is the best show that ever was.

Well, the first two seasons of it, anyway. We're coming up on the big bang episode next week on Bravo (true story: the writers actually wanted to call it "The Big Bang," but the censors wouldn't allow it; they called it "I Am Curious Maddie" instead), at which point the series went into a nosedive and never fully recovered. It's also become the object lesson for all future producers of one-man one-woman television shows: your characters can't get together, not ever.

Everybody knows what tomorrow is, right?

That's right! It's Oscar Nomination Day, which also marks the official beginning of my Free Oscar Pool. It will be the fifth year that my friend Laura and I watch the nominations together over the phone (we did it in California when we had to get up at 5:30... she's still there, but they're at 8:30 for me now), and since I don't have class tomorrow until 1:00, you'll be able to check in here to get all the nominations through a link on the index page (the word "Oscar" will soon replace "limelight").

Then you can make your picks and enter the pool! It's free, free, free, and you can win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.

For the record, here are my best pic picks: American Beauty, Boys Don't Cry, The Green Mile, The Hurricane, The Talented Mr. Ripley. The only one I'm sure of is American Beauty. The others are just guesses, or personal favorites, like Ripley.

And yeah, I'll be mentioning it again from time to time, so don't worry about forgetting to enter. Believe me, I won't let you.