In a boring meeting...

And i am falling asleep. Everyone is fine, Rhett is adapting to cage
rest just fine, Romeo will have fluids and blood work with his new
vet, and except for this meeting, all is mostly well. Harry had a
seizure, and phoned in sick; i am glad he did not try to go in, but am
hoping he is not expecting me to intervene if he gets in trouble for
his attendance. And i think i saw Sophie and her new baby on the way
up, but i did not have time to make sure. I had wanted to have free
time over the weekend, but i simply did not. After this meeting, i am
going to have to find some way to sneak out and get Rome taken care
of. Like last week, this one is going to suck. Sigh.

In case of emergency, break anything you can get your hands on...

Rhett is just fine; he did not have the FHO surgery. Instead, he is on
'cage rest' for a month and a half, but he is fine. I will explain
more in my next post, to be titled, 'How to Survive a Break-Up With
Your Vet and Still Have a Healthy Kitty'. Oh, i am one ANGRY Ancodia.
More when i am at home.

RBK Update

He is ok-ish. I gave him his evening pain killer (Tramadol, if you
can believe), and have to pull food and water... I am trying to not
worry, but i am afraid he might die in surgery, like i always am. And
i am also worried about Rhett's brother, Oscar, who is still Out
There. I TNR'd him because i felt i could not keep one single cat
more, and now i am kicking myself for that. What if this is congenital
and he needs help too? One more cat would not have hurt. Pfft. I am
so fucking stupid.

Just shoot me.

I stopped by my home to check on the cats after core class and my
morning meeting, and Rhett Butler was limping. Not that i had time to,
but i took him to the vet, and the silly blue cat has somehow managed
to basically dislocate his hip. How, i have no idea. So tomorrow
morning he will have surgery to fix it. The surgery is called a
femoral head ostectomy, and i am so very drowning that i have not even
had time to look and see what that is, other than what Dr Vet said. He
says it is really successful in cats, and it sticks his leg back in
his hip. He is at home and on pain killers right now. Sigh. I am
getting depressed again. And i am worried about Rhett. And i wish that
i could stay with him, but i have to be at work. This is awful; my
poor blue baby!

To everyone who made this possible...

I just did the waking up in a cold sweat thing, albeit figuratively,
over the shit i have due tomorrow. For once, i did not have to do it
all myself, and this is a novel feeling. One of my teammates has
really helped, and i frankly had not thought i would have the help. I
have to get ready for my hellish core class, but after waking up
panicking that i would not be ready and realising that i probably will
be ok largely due to the efforts of someone else, i just needed to
share this odd experience. I have to find some way to thank this guy.
I know i will be thanking him for something he was supposed to do, but
in the past it has not worked out that way. It is weird.

Stuck In My Haid!

C'mon...sing with me!




Ok, not too bad! We were supposed to sound like this, though:





Ach! It is *still* stuck in my head!

...this is like fucking disco Bananaphone. Srsly. Imagine this with Daddy Cool.

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And so it goes...

Romeo had a rough night; he vomited a few times, but then ate. Even
though he is still happy-ish, i do not think he will be with me for
much longer. It may be about that time. Sigh. I guess it figures, as
difficult as this week is shaping up to be. We have a pilot project
due Thursday, and i cannot get the vendors of one of our systems to
fricking make their crap work. Double-sigh. I want to quit working and
be a stay-at-home cat mom. Sheesh. This morning i have an exercise
class, and i am insanely jealous of some of these other women; they
look great and seem to have all their shit together. I, on the other
hand, am a god-damned, falling-apart-at-the-seams disaster area. Sad,
that. I am wallowing in self-pity; do it show? ;-) But i have had my
morning coffee, and it is time to get moving. Argh.

Ancodia At Her Shallowest!

Meg did not win her HOE tourney, but she did Quite Respectably. I have been teasing her that she is in the Top ## HOEs in the world.

…that’s Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Eight or Better (seven-card stud). I would tell you where Meg finished, but I am sure it will be up on a website somewheres.

That being said, I am going to have a suck-ass time at work tomorrow; all of our Powers That Be are off to a conference in China, and that leaves us here holding down the fort and trying to be productive. Whee.

Knowing how much I *adore* Thierry Mugler (even though I was at first underwhelmed by Alien, I have come to like it…though never as much as Angel. Ever.), an old friend directed me to this site (Warning: NSFW. Or Small Eyes. Or pets.). I think he might possibly be wearing fugly Crocs (or at best socks and sandals, as one comment suggested, though I thought ‘Crocs!’ when I first saw it). Hold me.

Okay, what he has done to himself is ghastly (his face specifically; whether that is from ‘wrinkle-fillers’ or HGH as some comments have suggested, it is sad), though by all reports he is a phenomenally kind, nice man, and I will go to my grave still believing that he is an absolute genius, style-wise.

Well, except for that footwear. Bad, bad choice. Meh. But like I should talk, I guess. One thing that *did* make me happy is that it sounds like Mugler is re-opening his design house, at least in some capacity this Fall. I will wait to be actually happy, though; one, I am not completely fashion-absorbed; I just find some aspects fascinating. Two, I am sure it will somehow get mucked up, cos I am a depressive realist.

Butsoanyway.

Romeo is doing ok; he sits a lot and purrs a lot. He seems to be largely happy-ish, and no, I really do not think his purring is anything other than happiness; he does not sit and purr for No Reason, he sits and purrs when he is beside me and I am petting him, or have been, or have my hand on him. I just got up to get him a half a Tagamet, and he went on and put himself to bed. He is a good Measle.

Everyone else is ok; My brother and his family left to visit his wife’s family on Thursday. We had several nice visits, though. I went with Mummers to see No Reservations Saturday night because one of her friends cancelled on her, and then we had a not-too-bad Mexican dinner. The movie was completely formulaic, but it was cute. Call me crazy, but What’shisname’s hair (the guy from Thank You For Smoking) was distractingly atrocious (did they not want to have two dark-headed lead actors, or something?). The cut was bad enough (it looked like he was trying to grow out a modified Carol Brady shag!!), but that colour job was pretty bad as well (in some shots looking like the Fakest-Looking Highlights on Earth), and Catherine Zeta-Jones called more than a few of Meg Ryan’s facial expressions into play (or maybe I just like Meg Ryan ‘cos she reminds me so of *my* Meg that I am seeing her everywhere). And he wore Crocs. Orange ones. Très hideux. But a cute movie. If I told you the set-up, you could tell me the ending, though. Wait for video and save your money.

I have to get to sleep; Meg arrives early tomorrow morning, but my neck is *killing* me. I am taking one hour of that soporific that is Rock of Love with Bret Michaels; those are some nasty, scary womenfolk. Some of them are strippers. Shocker. But they do get bonus points for correctly pronouncing (though not for *using*; that was a ghey idea) ‘plethysmograph’, and I think Magdalena is a guy. Her voice is making me hot. ;-) And Lacey’s hair when she is giving side commentary looks a great deal like mine (Meg mentioned it last weekend, and I am deciding if that was a veiled insult. Heh. Though I have not been able to do the fun colours for Quite Some Time now). Perhaps it is time for me to get rid of it…I might have Skank Style hair now. Who knows?

What is really scary is that if I were to give Chrissy (cat rescuing Chrissy) a full frontal lobotomy and a drinking problem and then let the Ladies of Skank Central make her over, she could be a double for Tiffany. I do not know if that is a compliment, or not; I am not going to share this with Chrissy, 'cos I love her.

Why, oh why do I get into these shows? Why? I do not even LIKE Bret Michaels, and actually had no idea who he was – Meg had to tell me. A ‘Rock God’? VH1, quit trying to make me laugh. And I could not name a song by Poison if my life depended upon it. Well, before last weekend, when Meg and I watched RoL, and she told me that song that was playing was Poison (she could not think of one before that either), which only makes sense, seeing as it was on RoL. It was that ‘don’t need nothing but a good time’ song (whatever it is called…Good Time, maybe?), but as god is my witness, had I been asked for the artist’s name prior to that, my response would have been something along the lines of ‘How in the fuck should I know?’, followed by some guesses like Kiss, Bon Jovi, Ratt, or Quiet Riot. Blecch. All those songs SOUND THE SAME. HELLO.

And I like Rodeo (out of a very wanting field) best, but she needs to Botox that neck. Please. For the love of Elvis. Seriously.

Oh, I have to quit watching this crap.

Though I Hate My 30’s looks cute, as does one other show that I cannot remember right now, and do not have the time to watch, anyway.

Well, RoL is ending (why on Earth do some of these girls have tattoos from head to toe? Ugh!), and I *have* to get some sleep. Seriously.

Thus ends my Ancodia At Her Shallowest Post. We should do this more often. ;-)

.

I like takin' Tuinal, it keeps me edgy and mean...

I stayed home with Rome today cos he is feeling poorly. He has
water-soluble vitamin deficiency from all the fluid therapy he has
(3x/wk), so today he had fluids and a vitamin shot, so he is
super-grumpy right now. He is always super-grumpy when he gets a shot.
That's all that is interesting. Except that the morse code is still
going on at HSN. But now i have to turn the volume up way-loud to hear
it. I do not feel like recording it right now; Romeo and I are
watching Caddyshack II at the moment. Plus i am feeling monumentally
lazy. I wonder if i could make an undergrad do it... Hmmm.

In Other News, my bastard of a postman -- the one who dresses in a
ninja costume and stealthily sneaks up to my door and sticks a 'sorry
i missed you' note there to avoid actually having to deliver a package
-- actually *did* deliver my Deathly Hallows book from Amazon, but he
probably only did it cos i was standing out there waiting today with a
cat carrier full of Romeo, so that i could collect my mail and go to
the vet. One word of advice: do not read the end first. That will ruin
it. Or, it did for me, at least. Well sort-of. I read the end at the
vet's (and on the drive over), so now i have to read the rest. I hate
it when i do that. Pfft.

Of course it is only me...

I stayed home a little later than usual today, and i was watching the
Home Shopping Network (shut up) cos i fell asleep on the couch, and
that was what was putting me to sleep at 2am. And i had thought i
heard it last night (i had the volume low), but i *know* i heard it
this morning. Under the hosts, with or without the computer-generated
boxes for price and phone numbers, so i know it was none of those.
And i am not so good that i could figure out what they are saying, but
i will work on it cos god only knows i only run into this stuff when i
have no time, what with this major thing due Friday (next). And that's
a damn shame, cos last night i fell asleep laughing when a *really*
funny story 'explaining' this occurred to me. I should probably write
it down or something before i forget.

Butsoanyway.

I am the only person who hears morse code being broadcast on HSN, aren't I?

I thought so.

Sigh.

Surely drama and pestilence shall follow me all of the days of my life...

Ack! I have one week to produce a certain thingy at Job 2, despite the
fact that i would bet that it will take more like two, maybe three
weeks. My brother's visit threw Meg's schedule off, so she is headed
back to Vegas today...poor Meg. She has been doing well this year in
spite of not being able to play in the main tournament because of her
work. Much to her dismay, my brother does not see her sacrifice as a
loss of income. :-) This really ticks Meg off. Harry fell on his butt
at home and i think he bruised his tailbone. Sigh. Ok... I have to
get to Eviljob. Everything else is going well, or at least i am
deluded into believing so for now. :-D

In case anyone was worried...

I phoned in sick to Job 2 and took Mr Squooshable to the vet. It was
not a scratched eye, he had a big wad of fuzz on his eye that to me
looked like a scratch and loose eye skin, but Dr Vet flushed out in
two minutes, charged me nothing, and told me to stay off the Internet.
:-) sigh. I needed the rest anyway.

Family Invasion

...hang in there.  Rome lives, Squoosh seems to have gotten a scratched cornea (he does not seem bothered by it in the least, I just noticed it tonight when the light hit his eye), everyone else is ok.  I will get Squoosh to the vet tomorrow, I think.  If not, then Tuesday.  I promise, he seems to be not bothered in the slightest by it, and he looks perfectly normal.

Harry fell and smacked the crap out of his tailbone, but said that he is going to wait to get looked at until Tuesday.  I have given up on trying to reason with him.

My brother and family are here, and he is driving me nuts.  He is like a 6' 5" version of my father sometimes, and, well...grr.   Today he became pouty over his wife having turned his cell phone to 'speaker phone' -- where all of one's conversations are put on speaker, whether one wants them there or not.  He and I (and Meg, who was there as well) do not have the same service providers, and even though Meg has a V3 too, the menus were totally different, so she had no idea how to turn it back, and neither did my brother's wife. 

Sigh.  I am going to have to come up with names for them all.

But today my four year-old niece decided halfway through the day that I am one of her favourite people.  Do not ask me why; it was around the time that I was debating if what I have left in savings would cover my moving away before Monday morning to upstate Michigan or Minnesota, buying a small place with no phone, and just living off the land.  I think that I would plant a lot of fig trees.  I like figs.  My cats might like figs; one never knows. 

Sometimes my brother can make one consider things like this. 

Butsoanyway.

I got in not that long ago, and I am half-dead.  I have to get some sleep so that I can go work until nine or ten tomorrow night.  Ugh.  g'night. 

:-*

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Negotiation Phase

Ok; after talking with Meg, i have decided to give it until Saturday
or Tuesday. One reason is that Rome perked up hugely with the lobster.
And Meg pointed out that doing this tomorrow has me going from about
five a.m. until around eleven p.m. at two jobs and trying to not be
nuts. Plus, Rome is still purring and stuff--he is not in absolute
misery, he just feels a little shitty. In the meantime, i hope some
miracle happens. Childish, true. But at least i am honest.

As good as it gets.

Dr Vet had told me that there was not a whole lot that could be done
to give Romeo a good week, that something like a cortisone shot might
do more harm than good; cortisone might send him right into full-blown
kidney shut down. So i took him for water like normal, and yesterday
morning he had vomited again, and he is still not eating, even with
the cyproheptadine. So this morning i took him for water, and asked
the tech to add in a shot of tagamet and Valium. When they brought
Romeo back out, he was already snarfing some AD they had put in the
carrier. He feels better. He came home and ate even more, and i had to
go to work. Tonight i was afraid i would not have time, so i had Meg
buy a lobster tail on her way over here from work, and i am going to
go prepare it now. Tomorrow morning, i am going to take him in to be
put down. Romeo is my son and my best friend; my heart is breaking, so
much that i cannot even begin to describe my misery, but keeping him
from feeling any worse than he already feels is the best that i can do
with what i have been handed. I hope. God, i am going to miss him
so much; in my world, this is a life-changing event, a total
devastation. But this is about him, not me.

Look Skyward, Moron!

Driving home, I thought of this skit for No Reason Whatsoever and ended up giggling like a nut the rest of the way back; I am amazed that I found it on You Tube:




What the hell?

Killing Harry Would Be Justifiable Homicide

...under the 'he just needed a good killing' rule.

I took Romeo to the vet today, but they were stacked ten dogs high in
the waiting room; since Rome was just a drop-in for fluids, i just
left a message to phone me on Monday. Romeo is mostly ok, though. He
feels a little crappy, that is all.

Harry, on the other hand, is about to feel a lot worse. He volunteered
to work thirteen hours today, and then did not bother to bring any
food. Or money. And of course he has none in the bank or anything, so
i am just now leaving from dropping off food to him. Which i paid for.
Christ. It never ends.

The past few days...

...have been busy.  The 4th was ok, but only 'cos I did not have to go in to work.  Yay.  Bless bankers' hours jobs and accrued time.  I ended up having dinner with Mom, and we had an ok time.

Romeo went to the vet yesterday; I have been taking him every Monday and Thursday for his bolus of water (the first time Dr Vet said that, I thought he said that he was going to give Rome ebola; I was like, '...the fuck?'), but he was looking fairly crappy and he has been in a shitty mood for a week or so.  So they drew blood, and his BUN was 60 -- almost double last month's value of (I think) 35, and CRE was 4.1.  So he is officially Not Doing Well; both of those values are in the high range, and Dr Vet said that means that Romeo has, at this stage, less than 25% kidney function going on.  And he is back down from 11 pounds to 9, despite my giving him 2mg Cyproheptadine 2x/dy; he all but refuses to eat. He also got a shot of B12 yesterday, in the hopes that might perk him up a little and stimulate his appetite, 'cos we're running out of things to make him want to eat.  Dr Vet said he could hospitalise him and get him back up fluid- and weight-wise, but that could very well be only a temporary fix, one that costs a lot of money and still has Rome not eating and losing weight when he comes home, plus he would still feel crappy from the elevated BUN/CRE.  His kidney is just not working. 

Fuck you, China, Menu Foods, and Nutro.  I hope that I am dead wrong and there is a Hell, so you can rot there.

So we decided to add a third day of fluids (Sat.).  And I think that I have decided to put Romeo to sleep now, while he is not feeling completely gagging shitty all the time.  I decided this tonight, I think.  I think that I will do this next Saturday, and ask Dr Vet tomorrow if there is something we could do to give Romeo a happy week, even if it is torpedoing his kidney; I want him to have a few days where he at least *feels* well, even if he isn't. 

I am as ok as I think anyone could be with all this. 

So I have to work tomorrow, and then take Rome to get fluids and maybe something to smoothe out the upcoming week for him -- cortisone shot so that he can have a Theo-Dur free week, and whatever else. 

And Eviljob seems to be swimming with cats; leaving yesterday evening I could have sworn that I saw a tiny baby scoot across the parking lot in the darkness; it would have had to have been about 2 or 3 months old.  I could not see where it ran, though. 

Blacktoe I think had a litter, however small it may have been; she showed up and ate last night.  The older male that I believe is Squooshdaddy (he looks and acts *just* like Squooshable, only when I trapped him and got him neutered, he was not very friendly) came over to eat as Blacktoe was snarfing (seriously; she was *ravenously* hungry), and Blacktoe hissed at Squooshdaddy.  Squooshdaddy just backed up from this tiny cat -- at least half his size -- and was like, 'tell you what; you look real hungry, Baby.  I let you eat and I just stand here and wait.  Ok, Baby?'  And he stood back and let Blacktoe eat all she wanted, and then he came and ate after she left...and then I had to leave.  I took a picture of the two of them -- Blacktoe eating, and Squooshdaddy standing back and waiting.  :-)  I will try to post it tomorrow, though it is dark; I have only seen it on my cell, and it may be a better picture than I think. 

It is things like that which leave me feeling that cats are altruistic.  Or they can be, I guess. 

.

Yessssssss!!

It's official:  Saaphyri has won Charm School! 

Ok...now I have to get back to work.  I completely forgot about something I have to have ready Monday until just tonight...ack.

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Total Exhaustion.

Oh...my...god, am I tired. I have been trapped at Eviljob for the past forty-eight hours.

Bwaah!

I just counted...*over* forty-eight hours. Fuckaduck.

I love the smell of crisis over the week-end. It's the smell of victory.

Someone come over here with some acetone and a spatula and peel my ill-chosen high heels off my feet.

Ow.

I just wanted to tell someone how tired I am. And my hands hurt. And my feet. And my brain.

If I can wake up tomorrow, I am going to go buy myself something special for having made it.

But my point is I live, and right now in an ok sort of way. For a brief moment. ;-)

g'night.

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