To Catch Up...

Okay; Mom got out of hospital and was in rehab for six or seven days when we found they'd been overdosing her on Ambien. So it was back to the ED and after two rounds of dialysis, she is getting back to normal. In the meantime, I am getting NO work done, at least not productive work. And I am achy. But the 'mom being alive' thing is of the utmost importance.

In Other News, Sabra's launched a campaign to snare a physical trainer. She's cute. She has taken up everything from dance to, well, physical training. But she won't quit smoking, neither cigarettes nor pot. At least not yet. Ah, l'amour...

Meg is as stressed as I am. 'Nuff said.

This Guy may be turning out to be a royal pain in the arse; I think he is nervous, or trying to impress me, but I keep hearing that 'I Want To Talk About Me' song in my head when I am on the phone with him, unable to get a complete sentence out. And with everything else going on, this is the wrong time to be doing that stuff. I am really only able to talk to a handful of people, and some of my support *should* be coming from him, albeit from a respectful distance, as we're not that far into a relationship. Chat support, yes; moving in and offering total emotional support, no. At least he is understanding of the fact that my family and career come first and second. So there's one favour point. 

Butsoanyway.

I have to finish writing and get fully employed in my field, that's just the bottom line. And everything else will work out.  I hope.

Hesperus is Phosphorus

And, actually, things are mostly ok.  I was really happy to find out that Butler 2: Electric Butleroo, one of my ferals at Eviljob, is already neutered.  Yes, my parking lot BFF finally let me get close enough to see a tiny little left-hand ear tipping, and all of a sudden, I understood why my parking lot BFF (he follows me EVERYWHERE) would not let me get close -- I already trapped him and cut his balls off, and I merit watching. :->

I am swamped, as usual.  I had more job upheavals, and am now back to just two jobs, though that's about to end; I have to conduct some independent work, and...I'll kvetch about that later.  Promise.

I had a largely good end of 2009, and I am going to have to type on the fly and get caught up...even though there were a ton of largely good things, me being me had to have drama and pettiness in there, too.  But things are getting better, not the least of which is that, after Mummers was hospitalised for right at about a month with high blood sugar, low potassium, profound mental confusion, testing positive for CHF, and DKA, she is at least a little better about dosing herself with insulin now, which -- yes -- she is back on.  But that's good.  And the fact that my next round of trapping is not going to be as hard as I'd thought (I had already ID'd some of Butler 2's friends as ear-tipped, but they have a little more ear missing; Butleroo has *literally* only the tip missing) is a joy.  Add to that the fact that I am swimming in topics that I need to address, and...well...life is ok.  Yay.

I tweet a lot, and I'll get back to posting, yes.  Promise.

Fights and Five Mo!

We (Myself, Meg, Minimeg, and a few others in our pokerklatch) had a little fight break out during poker last night, and I finally realised how terribly drunk many of the people there are. And I realised that drunks are, generally, still pretty disgusting to me.

Tonight however, we (a different 'we' -- the cat-catching 'we') rounded up five more kitties at Eviljob, minus the two that were released from the traps 'cos they were already ear-tipped from one of my previous speuterfests.

And now I have to get some sleep; I am exhausted!

The Coming Tuxedo Cat Uprising

moar funny pictures

Too funny -- I have not checked this email in a week, so I suck. I know. I am okay, and so is everyone else, though this semester is promising to be psychotic. :-D In the fun way, at least. I really should not be posting right now, but woth'hell. I am getting a lot more individualised attention than I have acclimated myself to in the past couple years.

So that's weird.

Now,the down-side of all this fun, fun, fun is that every day it is like I have a new project, and these past two weeks, I feel as if all I have done is hustle from one place to another. Right now I *should* be listening to my tag-team partner present, and I am going to have to do that soon, but basically for the past couple weeks I have been doing everything, and it feels like *nothing*. I have only been in to Eviljob after-hours, and I am not sure how much longer I can keep this up. Frankly, I am tired. Gah.

My partner is fielding a question about third-world countries right now that reminds me about a post I saw on SHFB about using one's period for good, and thankfully I am not the one answering 'cos I would prolly come off like a Nazi, plus this is about aid in general, specifically mosquito nets, and I cannot think of any parallels other than tampons. This, chirrin, is known as a recency effect, or at least it would be once I made the segue back on to something unlikely to make me sound like a Nazi...like the recency effect.

I should have picked up something to eat...bwaah. I woke up this morning craving coffee -- specifically Starschmucks' raspberry-with-soy, but did not take the time to stop 'cos I hate Starschmucks; they charge too much, and...and...and...ummm... they lack theology and geometry. Yeah. That's it.

:-D

So I am starving, and conceivably have no free time until like, this evening. Grr. This will teach me to volunteer for things. Although I am currently just grumbling self-absorbedly and doing nothing (which, if tapped, would be what Meg would tell you I do all day), my involvement occurs in a bit. That's why I am being unobtrusive right now -- so that I don't seem as if I am trying to steal the spotlight, make Partner look (as if I feel they are) incapable, or monopolise everything (which, if queried, would be what Meg would tell you I *actually* do at any opportunity). I cannot help it that I have an overwhelming personality; I was born like that. Partner knows if they need me, I am right here, and we already spent a lot of time dividing this up, so it's all good. So I am going to try to stop feeling as if everyone is wondering what my justification for breathing, much less sitting up here is. This was a *huge* hurdle for me to overcome when I first started training for Eviljob a million years ago; I am *still* teased about giving people ten seconds to complete something 'cos I felt as if I should be talking. :-) That, thankfully, was a long, long time ago. I still *feel* worthless and judged (and found sorely wanting), but I have learnt to shut up, take turns, and back off so that it doesn't show. :-)

Butsoanyway.

I didn't take the time to get coffee also cos I overslept a little -- I had a weird dream in which I was being prosecuted in a totally science-fictiony scenario, but I had this brilliant lawyer who ended up making me this huge legal precedent...it was cool.

gah...have to run

Oh, yeah...

...and I did get Ultrasound II, Return of The Killer Ultrasound results back; both of my ovaries – Millicent and Melisande – have cysts on them; Millicent, who apparently never quite got the hang of this ovulation thing, still has the same ol’ cyst which is probably a chocolate cyst, and it is not much larger. This means that Millicent has a hard time letting go. Literally. Now Melisande (my favourite; if one can have favoured ovaries, Melisande is it. All my non-idiot children will come from Melisande – if they come at all – paternal contributions aside, that is) has a cyst of her own, about the size of a walnut. Significantly smaller than the cyst on Millicent (Millicent’s previous cyst grew to be almost the size of a man’s fist, and squooshed the crap out of Millicent), my gyn is fairly confident that Melisande’s will diminish with staying on the Pill, and we are hoping Millicent’s will start to go down.

C’mon, Millicent. Get with the fucking program.

Butsoanyway.

I did ask about changing my pill to something else in case doing that might make me less psychotically horny, but my gyn said that it should go away (I have had this discussion before; it doesn’t), and would likely happen with any pill, so it makes no sense to switch (per her) and maybe ovulate even once and make Melisande or Millicent’s cysts get bigger. Ok, fine.

[Ed. Note: I have never gotten around to putting together post pages thingy-stuffs that will re-direct you to another page of you want to hear about stuff, and let you just read the other stuffs and skip the link if you don’t, so…sorry. I am going to deviate for a sec, but then we are back to more girlstuffs. You have been warned.]

Oh, I am *finally* getting to see Night at the Museum, and so far it is awfully cute; I think that, although Mickey Rooney’s character is cute, they would have done better with Burgess Meredith. Were he to be still alive, that is; as-is, maybe not so much.

Butsoanyway. Back to girlstuffs:

I do like my gyn, by the way. She is new to the area, and specialises in pelvic pain; she just came from a research university, and I pulled some of her papers. I was not expecting to, but I really like her; in between the physical therapist she has me seeing, the exercise classes, and the dope (eventually I’ll be off da dope, but not just yet; I am still taking ibuprofen and Tramadol…only now I have my own prescription for the Tramadol, ‘cos I was using the uberbottle Mummers gave me, and ran out of that. I am also supposed to be taking klonopin at night at the very least so that I can ‘sleep appropriately’, and during the day ideally per my gyn, but…I don’t. I lie and say that I do, but…I don’t. I do not mind alleviation of pain, but I do not like being tranqued. What in the fuck am I going to do in case of zombie attack if I am all tranqued? Huh? Answer me that, willya? Dr Gyn was wholly non-accepting of my Tranqued = Red Shirt in the Landing Party argument, so I lie. Though I do occasionally take a quarter or a half of one at night because I am supposed to), I am doing one thousand times better than I was this time last year, as in I can move freely and do not have to sneak off to burst into tears for No Real Reason. I have not gone into a lot of this with many people ‘cos there is not a real reason to, plus most would not understand. Plus even more do not give a fuck.

But this is my blog, and we don’t care about them, now do we?

I didn’t think so.

Butsoanyway, now we get to the interesting part. My physical therapist (well, I do not know who it actually started with, but let’s blame her ; my new gyn and the whole group are in the process of establishing a women’s clinic for this sort of thing, so they are all in cahoots as far as I am concerned) got the bright idea that I needed to add counselling to my regimen, and so now I have pressure on all four corners, so…I am. Sigh. It is essentially because they are of a mind that there is this interwoven stuff between mind and body, blah, blah, blah. It sounds newage-y (that’s newage, as in ‘rhymes with sewage’), but it is not really like that. I get what they are saying – that with most women, there are psychological habits and whatnot that need to be eliminated. So ok, fine.

Like I have time for this; it has been all I can do to free up early mornings for pilates, core class and therapy. Feh.

Thing is, I am having trouble talking to anyone anymore. Sure, I have a ton of stuff that I could ramble on about, but…why? It really does not matter; maybe things will get better, maybe they won’t; either way, I guess I have to go chat to make everyone happy. Okay, so I finally wrote something here about it.

Feh.

.

I hear weasels!

Halloween was great; I went over to a friend's and watched horror movies. Now I have this weekend 'off', but the stuff that I wanted to do is *next* weekend, so I have to find a way to talk Harry into going to this cat festival our rescue group is contributing to (after we get this over with, next is Speuterfest 2007…though I have been given no firm date yet). Plus, Meg's out of town at some tournament in (I think) Biloxi that she is doing well in (last I was messaged).

Right now, I am watching Intimate Power on (naturellement) Cinemax. What god-awful crap. I hate watching things like this alone, 'cos I have so damn much fun making fun of movies like this. It is so awful, it's *fabulous*! Everyone is wearing these fake moustaches à la early porn movies, and it is so drama-ridden I am having a hard time clearing my eyes of tears from my hysterical laughter. I need a MST3K-like show of my own. Seriously.

Especially funny was the part where F Murray Abraham (who is the Sultan) calls for Aimee (who is the requisite demure French virgin girl) to go shtup him, and after making muchly with the 'yes/no/maybe/sometimes' (think Harlequin Romances at their WORST) where Aimee vacillates between killing herself to escape such an ignominious fate (all these heroines *always* have potentially ignominious fates – I think the term is probably one of the most over-used stock phrases in the genre) and going ahead and doing the deed using some lame justification like not wanting Tulip – the head harem guy (who is a story in himself; I cannot decide who is copying whom between Tulip and Arsenio Hall's Semi in Coming to America) – to get all killt-n-stuff. And all this yes/no/maybe/sometimes vacillation takes place in the span of about five minutes. You know – as those internal debates always do with us girls. Ummm…yeah. And then, within the span of one lame-assed speech by F Murray Sultan, Aimee changes her mind and shtups him anyway. Cos F Sultan Murrayham is just enchanting like that. Yeah. Because it is important to F Sultan Murrayham that Aimee wants him for *him*, not 'cos if she doesn't do It he is going to have her all killt-n-stuff. Which, of course, she does do. It, I mean. What girl wouldn't, you know?

This was so very clearly written by a man. Snort.

And during all this, *I* am thinking that a more accurate portrayal would have F Sultan yapping on about the natural inferiority of womenfolk or somesuch whilst Aimee gets unceremoniously dumped out of a rolled-up carpet and goes nattering on about how she hears weasels and sees racoons in birthday hats and entertains herself by making vapour-trail hands, then the sex lasts two minutes and she is tossed back into the harem on her tuchas to come down off the drugs.

Now we see why I am not asked to write soft-core porn for Cinemax. Sigh.

Butsoanyway.

I was just messaged by Meg, who said that if she takes Moneymaker out of this tournament, she gets a trip to the Playboy Mansion. Ok, that is too funny. Sexist much, Poker People? He is at her table right now (or was and will be after the break, I don't know), and told someone else (the rest of the table is male) that Meg is the only one he could try to run a bluff on 'cos she was the only one who would not call just to get the trip. Ha.

Anyway, I need to finish up some drafts from the past few weeks since I have today free; the way the past month has gone, I have done little but start one post after another and then abandon it. Grr. I am still doing three jobs, and that may not change until December. I can try to move to a consultancy position on one, but not the one that I *want* to do that on. I have not decided what I want to do. Again, grr.

-----

Stuff I'm late on:

…and then depression set in

Quit Being Batshit!

…and I will clean up more later. Swear.

Gentle Commenter and everyone else who missed me,

I live. I am all pericombobulated and compunctuously frasmotic. Please forgive me for being off wallowing in my own freaking misery for like, a week.

Okay, so I was not actually doing that, I was trying to finish one project off and not get roped into a third, which I failed -- pathetically -- to do. Yes, that is correct. Ancodia has three jobs. Three. And I moved back into The Big Office just to shut everyone the fuck up, not that I get to *stay* there, or anything. And Romeo is doing not-so-well, and the attorneys for the class action lawsuit have asked me for a to-date tally of all that I have spent on His Measleness, and scurrying around between three vets and an emergency vet has eaten up my time and patience. Plus I have been staggeringly In Heat, and trying to not smoke.

Sigh. Butsoanyway. The answer to your comment is below; I would email it instead, however I have no email address for you. You are skewing the curve by choosing to comment over email. ;-) Stop immediately. And for the one funny email that introduced me to LOLPresident, thanks. :-) And omfg, huge thanks to Ms Grammarian, who helped me keep my sanity over the past week by introducing me to The LOLCat Bible. I am a convert who now believes -- deeply and abidingly -- in Ceiling Cat.

Ok, now back to the question; I swipe and pervert an astronomical number of my post titles from song lyrics. Some fitting to the post, some finishing a comment or post point, and some just for shits and giggles. The one I think you saw ( Will You Answer All These Questions, on a Postcard if You Please) was quoting...

::drum roll::

Chas (Chazz, Chaz, et cetera) Jankel. Questionnaire. It was off his album...

Oh, lord...let me think now. Shan't cheat. No. Shan't.

Chazzilicious? Chazmotic? Chazzy Chaz and The Chazmatics?

Nope. As I recall, it was more clever than that...

Gah. Okay. Cheating now...

::insert sounds of Googling::

Ach! It appears to be off the album Questionnaire, it seems. I believe I thought it was off Chasanova. Or perhaps Chazablanca. And lookit; he has a chazzography, not a discography. His cleverity is underwhelming, 'specially with the s/z/zz shite; you may have the best luck just going with 'Jankel' and 'Questionnaire' in searching, 'cos here we have a domain name with one z, yet our 'chazzography' has *two*. Or perhaps that is what happens when one adds the suffix -ography to a word with a terminal z, and I just missed that day of English class. Or whatever.

Nah. Clearly he's a man that would name his wee The Jankel Rotary Engine, or somesuch.

I mean *clearly*.

Great artist, though. Cool video. I do not think people have forgotten about him as much as lost track of him what with all the s/z/zz schtuff. At one point in time, I had a digi-copy of Questionnaire somewheres; if I find it, I will be more than happy to share, and really need to put up a swipe-able blogbox thingy eventually here anyway. It may be swipeable off WinMx or Bt. Or whatnot. ...though right now I think I see only Glad to Know You on WinMx. Not that I have WinMx or am looking, or would re-download it again if I were to find it, or anything; that would be wrong and bad, and I don't do things like that. But it is prolly sitting around somewhere, all free and stuff.

Oh, lookit. I went to googlevids and found, well, the video. Of course I am going to sploop it here:



I would just swipe the fricking vid; make life easy.

Or you could just email His Chazziness and ask him if he has a copy. :-D

Hope that helps. :-)


.

Ancodia Is Evil

It is important to remember one's own email address.

No, really.

I just changed the ad of someone who has posted to the Women Seeking Men category of Craigslist.

I received from Craigslist an email requesting that I confirm this advertisement:

Sweet and fit female seeks good looking, professional jewish male (Manhattan)

---

Reply to: pers-38xxxxx4@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-08-04, 6:41PM EDT


Do you have a chivalrous, romantic side that perhaps coexists nicely with a hidden edgy side?

Tell me about yourself.....send a photo iwth your age, height,
weight, what you do, where you live, interests, and hobbies.

Myself.......slender, feminine, 5'7 117lbs, sweet, sexy, playful,
stylish from head to toe, thoughtful, loving, no children,
no pets, creative artistic type exotic pretty girly (feminine) girl.

I am seeking a male who is mature, down to earth, good-looking, fun, with a sense of humor. I am seeking someone who is between 29 and 35, single, intelligent, educated, and passionate. In fact, I am searching for someone similar or if not, maybe you could "sell" yourself to me.

• Location: Manhattan
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 389xxxxx4

=============================

Ok? So my first thought is, 'what a fucking idiot'. My second thought is that I am about thirty seconds away from every loser in Manhattan emailing me a picture of his penis.

::Shudder::

In an attempt to thwart such a disaster, I immediately logged in (the link to edit is oh-so-helpfully included in the confirmation email) and re-wrote things a bit:

Semi-sweet female seeks really rich guy who is about to croak

---

Reply to: pers-389xxxxx4@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-08-05, 3:24AM EDT


Do you have a chivalrous, romantic side that perhaps coexists nicely with a hidden edgy side, or are you a repellent asshat? Either way, it doesn't matter a whit if you are loaded, stupid, and near death! :-D

Tell me about yourself, but only the important parts...send a photo with your age (near death only need apply), height (in flats, not heels...duh!), weight (both real and imaginary), what you do (and how much you make doing it, and how often you will be gone once we are married), where you live (I want to scope out the house I'll have once you kick the bucket), interests (snore), and hobbies (double-snore). I will ignore you unless you make over $500,000 (that's USD, retards) per year...AFTER taxes.

Myself? Mind your own fricking business. You shall take what you get, and you will ENJOY it.

I am seeking a male who is wealthy, about to die, generous, lacking friends and/or family members to whom he intends to leave his money, with a sense of humour about being ignored for weeks on end and cheated on. I am seeking someone who is, frankly, as dumb as a box of rocks.

...you know, kind-of like the girl who posted this ad, and can't remember her own email address? Would you trust a girl like that? Would you? Should you, the next thing you know, she'll 'forget' where she lives, and you'll find her a year later in Argentina with Manuel The Shepherd, 'cos she also 'forgot' that you were her boyfriend, or husband, or whatever. She may have already forgotten about her husband...who knows? Whatever, one would definitely not want to cheat *with* this girl, so married men take note: She's likely to 'forget' that she is not supposed to phone your home when the wife's there. But, on the other hand, that might not be all that bad:

Wife: Hello?
Dingbat: Hi!
Wife: ...may I help you? Who is this?
Dingbat: I forgot. Gimme a sec...

Christ on a cracker. If Craigslist had a 'Women Seeking Expatriation, Flogging, and Bites From Rabid Wombats' category, I would re-post this there.

Please...remember your own email address. Sigh.

p.s.: Should perhaps there be any really wealthy men as above-described, I am still totally open to hooking up. Rilly. ;-)

• Location: Manhattan
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
• 
  
• License info:

PostingID: 389448564

=================================

I do hope that picture comes through on my post; if not, I will have to add it later, cos I am tired. Butsoanyway. I already (before I could get on and change it) received two loser replies. Sigh. One of them is a black guy, and I resisted the temptation to email him back and tell him that I did not believe that he is really Jewish.

No, not 'cos of his skin colour; on account of Mr Dangly. Well, and he's not wearing a yarmulke, but one cannot always go by that. The disposition of Mr Dangly, however, tends to be non-negotiable, except for those Reform Jews.

:-D

I still have a live link, so I am considering further editing. But then I have the guilts about not posting, so I will instead catch up for a sec:

I am drowning in work, but our semester is almost over, so that is ok. I will be better on Friday. Rhett Butler is doing well, and is Just Fine with cage rest. :-) He seems to be walking a bit better, also. Romeo is actually doing pretty well; his new vet (I am fully aware that I have not explained all this yet) has changed his meds up a bit (to make it less expensive for me), and taught me how to give fluids at home, so I have my ringer & needles, and Rome and I will have a go at it in the morning. Yay. This is supposed to be less expensive, also. Our new vet charges just $25 for fluids and IM Valium, but Old Vet charged almost double that.

Ok...I give up...let me give a brief swipe at an explanation. Dr Vet is actually several different vets, though I usually tried to stick with the same one. They have quite a thing going over there: huge building, indirect lighting, walled-off walk area for the boarders, and so on. I have stuck with Dr Vet even though they do no business with rescue groups -- period. No discounts, no volunteer hours, nothing. I am actually ok with this, because they have the right to make a profit in any way they see fit; they are, after all, a business, and I explained this to the people who have helped me for the past -- what has it been? Two years? -- that I do not want to switch vets (they all suggested that I switch to, in their words, more 'animal-friendly' vets, typically Dr Superhero or the vet I am now with).

So back when Romeo became ill, I had an 'incident' happen at Dr Vet's. I thought so little of it at the time that I did not even think to mention it here; I was given an estimate of around $800 for Romeo's exploratory surgery. We agreed to do it, and I had nothing better to do as I was waiting to hear that he had died, so I paid the estimated bill with the front desk.

Well, as we all know, he did not die. When they came out and told me he had needed a nephrectomy and his colour had improved already, I had to leave to go take care of things at work, and after talking with Dr Vet (as Rome was still open on the table back there), I left with the agreement that I would come back at close and transport Romeo to the Emergency Vet for overnight monitoring.

When I returned, the office manager was waiting for me, telling me to NEVER leave owing them that much and not answer my phone (I had managed to sneak in a nap of about 3 hours, and shut the fucking cell phone off until I *had* to wake up) EVER, EVER AGAIN. All in a nasty-assed Hitler tone.

O-kay, then.

That much? Huh? Well, that is when I found out that Romeo's surgery cost me $1,700.

...in addition to the $800 I had already paid.

And that did not cover the Emergency Vet stay that night, though it did cover some of the next day's expenses at Dr Vet's.

So I said fine. I did not feel like arguing at that point. Had I known how bad she would become, I would have argued, or something. I do not feel that it is okay to run up a bill of $1,700 when the estimate was $800 and then be a rude ass on top of it. I defused the conversation with the office manager, and when I saw Dr Vet, he explained that they had not tried to phone me, it was a judgement call (or several, rather) that we were trying to make Romeo live. It was the office manager who had tried to phone me, and that was about the bill.

Ok, whatever. As long as Romeo had a few more months of happiness, I am not going to fight or gripe. And I did not; not in real life, and not here. Fine. *Fine*.

So then Rhett was injured, and I took him in. And after Dr Vet looked him over, the office manager came in and gave me Rhett's estimate...and told me I had to pay her right then. I told her, point-blank, that I was not going to pay her the day before, that I would pay *when* he had his surgery the next day, and that I was saying so specifically *because* Romeo's surgery was initially $800, and then ballooned so; I wanted a realistic estimate, if not a firm one (I did not feel that I was being unreasonable asking for a semi-firm estimate, because Dr Vet assured me that FHOs are performed all the time), plus the estimate included things like boarding pre-surgery, and I was going to take him home, and it also included things I had already paid for, like x-rays (or was about five minutes away from paying for, on my way out, rather). And I took Rhett and left. Their estimate had been for $952.whatever, and according to *my* calculations, it should have been more like five or six-something after removing the things I was not going to do (pre-surgery boarding), and the things for which I had already paid ( e.g., x-rays, exam, pain pills).

I thought we understood each other. So I took Rhett, paid for what had been done, and left with the instructions to return with him between seven a.m. and nine-thirty the next day for surgery, with no food or water after ten p.m.

I was already getting a Really Weird Feeling.

When I showed up with Rhett the next day, a surgery tech came out to pick him up with the surgery release forms and estimate from the day before. She handed me the estimate and said that Office Manager had said that I must pay for the procedure before they are allowed to take Rhett back, so could I give her a credit card for her to charge $952.whatever to as I am filling out the paperwork?

Ummm...NO.

I showed her my receipt where I had paid for x-rays, office visit, pain pills, office injection, etc., the day before. I explained to her that I understood that she was the middleman here, but I am not going to double-pay. PERIOD. If I do, then I will never see that money again; Dr Vet's puts it on one's account as a credit, they do not refund money (this has happened before, but only by a hundred or so). If the Office Manager is going to be a bitch and insist that I pay beforehand (which I have NEVER been asked to do in the entire history of going to Dr Vet), then I am going to be a bitch as well, and ask for the *correct* amount to be charged, and I am also going to ask for an estimate that is more accurately reflective of what I will be charged in Reality since this is allegedly such a common surgery.

So the tech says that she has to phone the office manager, and goes off. She comes back a few minutes later and says that OM says that I do not have to pay for the x-rays, but I do have to pay for everything else. I ask the tech if she is on drugs; does she not see that this estimate includes pre-surgery boarding? How about *yesterday's* exam? And my receipt shows that I paid for Rhett's exam, x-rays, pain pills, and so on -- yet here they all are on this estimate. No. Bzzt. Try again, and now I have fucking *rabies*. I ask to talk to Dr Vet, and am told that he is already in surgery. So the tech goes to phone OM back, and then comes back with the explanation that I have to pay for pre-surgery boarding because it is actually going to be POST-surgery boarding. After I have been told that I could take Rhett home that evening.

Why? Because, the tech explains, Rhett was cancelled from the surgery list YESTERDAY by OM, after I refused to pay her in advance. Now, OM will let Rhett go in as the last surgery of the day, but that has him ready to go home at around five or six in the evening, and they know that I cannot pick him up then (I have been going there so frequently, for so long that they know that late evenings I am in one job or the other).

WHAT...THE...FUCK???

I asked the tech if this was something coming from any of the Dr Vets, or if this was something going on with the OM, and she told me it was the OM, that she did not know what happened, did not want to know what happened, was only doing what the OM had cornered her the day before and told her to do.

So I told her that I was sorry that she was put in this position, and asked her if I could have a copy of Romeo's last blood tests as well as a copy of Rhett's x-rays. She left, brought them back (one sheet of paper and a cd). I thanked her and told her to tell OM to go fuck herself.

Then I took Rhett Butler and left, and it was especially satisfying to have the girls at the front desk try to ask me if I was going to reschedule.

As if. I have not had a worse feeling about something in a long, long time.

As I drove off, I phoned Dr Superhero's, and his office person said that he was just going to sleep after having been with a horse all night (quit laughing; Dr S does a lot of farm and show animals...although I have to admit, the phrasing *did* make me smile), and would probably not be in or available any time before four p.m. So I phoned the other vet that works with local rescue groups, and explained to his front desk girl what was going on in a nutshell, and she said to come over right away and she would fit Rhett in.

We only had to wait about forty five minutes (and as I was waiting, I ran into Lisa -- the normal, good one, not the nutty con artist one -- dropping off some ferals and rescues; I told her what had happened, and her reaction, besides empathy at my frustration, was to say that she had told me from the beginning that she did not like Dr Vet's in the least, and that is true; she had), and then we were taken in and (sheesh...I have to come up with a good name) the vet checked Rhett out, moving his leg around and holding him and stuff (Rhett did not mind; though he did growl when it hurt, he was quick to snuggle after), and then took the cd into the surgery room where he has the system to read x-rays on cd (where it is important if it comes from the emergency vet, etc...), 'cos he still uses regular film x-rays.

He showed me where Rhett's hip is not dislocated at all, but the leg (the femur, I think) is showing up as separated from the hip a tich whereas the other hip is close together because of a line he saw on the x-ray where the ball of the top is. He said that he thinks Rhett may have fractured it, but that it is still in the socket and that Rhett managed to do this because of Mister Blue Cat's avoirdupois; Mr Rhett is just under fourteen pounds, and Doc (still working on a good name) said Rhett needs to be closer to nine. He said that he was not trying to hurt my feelings, but he was diagnosing this in his records as an 'owner-inflicted injury'...because I let Rhett get so fat, and that almost five pounds is nothing on a human, but it is a BIG difference for a small animal.

Okay, so I let him get a little porky.

Doc said that as young as Rhett is, with the hip being *not* dislocated, and with Rhett being an indoor-only cat, he would like to try cage rest for a month and a half and see if the fracture will heal on its own. This would be better for Rhett, Doc said. He also said that, contrary to what I was told at Dr Vet's, in Rhett's situation this is *not* an emergency surgery, and if Rhett never *ever* has it he would probably be Just Fine, although there is the chance that he might fracture it further, and waiting 1.5 months will *not* result in Rhett being crippled with arthritis forever, and even if he is, there are meds and surgeries for arthritis, and worst possible case scenario as an indoor cat would be that when he hurts I give him some pain meds and set him on a heating pad.

This is in stark contrast to Dr Vet's, where I was told that Rhett is in excruciating pain, if we do not operate immediately he will develop arthritis and may stop using his left leg entirely, and I am being negligent. I forgot to mention the part about OM calling me negligent, and I do not feel like going back up and explaining it all, but yeah -- *I* am a negligent cat mom. Smoke starts rising from my head when I think about that whole part of the conversation.

Butsoanyway.

I was really not feeling like being social, so I told Doc flat-out that I do not know who to believe at this point, that I really thought I was taking Rhett over to him for him to work in an FHO today or on Saturday, and that if I had at any point in time given the impression that I am unwilling to pay for Rhett, that is wholly wrong, that I will pay for him THIS MOMENT...I just want him fixed, out of pain, and not crippled for life. I just had a Very Bad Feeling about what was going on over at Dr Vet's (I am NOT a religious girl, but at one point during the brouhaha, I actually thought to myself, 'how much more of a clue do you need, Bitch? Take the cat and LEAVE!', and actually had carried a Bad Feeling of Foreboding since the day before).

Oh! Oh! I forgot one *really* good part! When I was at Dr Vet's and arguing with the tech, after she got off the phone the first time and took the x-rays off the estimate, there was a $50 'miscellaneous' charge added in, so in actuality I only had $100 of the x-ray charges taken off. I asked what 'Miscellaneous' was, and the tech said that OM was on her way in and would explain it, but that was basically the limit of my credit with them for Rhett's procedure, because I had complained about having unexpected bills from them. So I asked her if that meant that, god forbid, should Rhett start seizing in surgery and it costs $51.00 to stop the seizures, that they are just going to let him die? That they would not even make an effort to save him, or euthanise him...because euthanising at Dr Vet's is more than $50 also? The tech said that OM could explain it to me, she was just telling me what she was told by OM, that she didn't know what OM meant, and that this is not a standard policy (no shit!), so she really is just repeating what OM told her to say.

Oh. Yeah. I am so very *totally* going to let you operate on my fucking cat. Absolutely. Sign me up.

Snort.

Butsoanyway.

So Doc looked at my copy of Rhett's estimate, and told me that for a straight FHO he runs around $800-ish, and he was not exactly sure 'cos he does not handle billing, plus most of his FHOs have other issues, like being hit by a car, or falling out of a tree. Then he took me to meet Ike. :-)

Ike is, as Doc put it, 'another slim, trim member of the feline family, like Rhett'. Ike fell out of a tree a few days ago. :-( Ike is recovering from an FHO and having some other stuff done, 'cos he basically smashed the crap out of his whole back end. Doc showed me Ike's x-rays from when he was brought in, and showed me what a dislocated hip looks like (Ike's left side), and a fractured and dislocated hip looks like (Ike's right side). Yeowtch. And it did look different from Rhett's hip. It's easy to see how Rhett's ball part of the bone is still in his hip, where it should be. So Doc convinced me to cage-rest him for a bit.

Rhett *loves* it; Mom comes and hugs and kisses him, and brings him food, and kisses him some more, and all he has to do is lie there and every once in a while get up and take a crap in the litter box; Rhett is in Heaven.

And I bought a whole bunch of his favourite food, Purina's Sardines and Whatnot in Aspic. He just loves that stuff; he eats a whole small can in like, four bites.

Wellll...Doc said to monitor his eating so that he does not gain, but not put him on a diet as-such until after he is better.

So I figured that since Romeo is dying and will need water until I put him to sleep, I would give Doc Rome's blood work, and make sure that if Rome crashes that I can bring him in to be put down. Doc said absolutely, and when I brought Romeo in the next day for fluids, Doc was surprised that Romeo was alert and stuff; he increased his water to 200cc every other day, and ran more blood work, and can you believe -- Romeo's kidney function has actually gotten *better*! He was at BUN 60, CRE 4.5 and now he is at BUN 41, CRE 3.3. Yay, Measle!

And Doc taught me on Friday how to give fluids myself, 'cos he says that NO ONE with a cat like Romeo brings the animal in three to four times a week. This is another total inconsistency with Dr Vet's, because I was told that No Way could I do this myself. But on Wednesday, Doc made me watch (Dr Vet takes Romeo in back to do it), and on Friday, Doc made me do it. I screwed up because I didn't realise the needle had to be poked all the way in, but I know now. :-)

So I think that this was good, overall. I have not returned any of Dr Vet's phone calls, and have in fact deleted the voice mail messages unheard. I am still a little angry, to be honest. Doc showed me how to make a pill gun out of a syringe (cut the tip off, so that the black plunger is sticking out a bit, and put some Laxastat -- a VERY small amount -- on the black tip, then put the pill on, pull back the plunger and stick it in the cat's mouth all the way in the back, and depress the plunger fast...it works PERFECTLY! And he also told me that it is ok to buy vitamins for Romeo, and if Rome likes the cheap Hartz vitamins at Wal-Mart better than the expensive FeliVites (or whatever they are called; I buy like ten a year at $15 a bottle, and they always go mushy before I can use them all, 'cos the only cats I own that will touch them are Rhett and Squooshable; Romeo refuses to eat them, period. So now I can go back to giving Rome the Cyproheptadine at home, and cut out the IM Valium and vitamin shots; Romeo has been costing me approximately $120 a week (around $90 - $150) at Dr Vet's since March with all the stuff I have to do to him. I don't resent paying it, but I would have appreciated some counselling on how to minimise costs.

I have to take a nap (I am -- again -- fighting to get crap out before Monday morning), but I am glad I posted. And now I *do* feel a bit guilty over messing with that ad, but seriously -- I would rather discourage people in Manhattan from emailing me pictures of their dicks.

Sigh.

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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. ;-)

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Traditional Sunday Post

This past week has been *busy*! Yet another week where I was glued to my work computers, and I am too cautious to even log into gmail and post. I started several posts by phone and ended up having to abandon them all; I wish gmail kept WAP drafts.

Butsoanyway.

The Big Deal presentation I had on Tuesday could not have gone better if I had paid someone. I was quite floored at how well it went, but I had That Feeling when I was getting everything called up to start (PowerPoint, etc…) – I used to get That Feeling all the time when I worked in the theatre; I am not an actress (tech all the way, baby!), and whenever I was called upon to be, right before I walked on stage I would have this moment of absolute terror, followed by a total dissociative calm. I was Adel in Self-Torture and Strenuous Exercise in this thingy our theatre troupe did, though (the director begged me to do it 'cos he said that I *am* Adel…augh), and I barely remember a moment of the day (and virtually none of the actual performance, save for one fleeting second when I looked at our Alvin and saw that I was scaring the fuck out of him), I was *that* 'gone'. But I did well then, and I did so again on Tuesday, and that is what is important. Our group is under a lot less pressure now, and that presentation was a huge part of it. Whew.

I actually fucking kicked ASS as Adel, I was told. I do know that I probably gave myself a concussion from slamming my head on the floor, and our Bethany was a charm to be sure, but she was a heavier girl and I am not unhappy that I do not remember her squooshing me when she jumped on me and sat; my friends and family reported hearing quite a ker-THUMP, eclipsed only by the WHAP that heralded my concussing myself.

Seriously. I had a raised bruise on my forehead for a while after. If you want to read any of it, pieces are here. It is a fantastic play, one of my favourites.

Butsoanyway; so far we are up to last Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday, I received a phone call from a lady at Animal Services; they had picked up a cat near Eviljob, and I am (I found out Wednesday) on record as the 'mom' of the feral colony – not only at Eviljob, but in the *entire* corporate park Eviljob is in.

This is a *large* corporate park, with a lot of cats. Sigh.

So they have this cat, and wanted to give me a chance to re-home it before they put it down. I asked if it was friendly, and she told me yes, that she had just been holding it a little bit ago. I made some phone calls and got a place for the cat to stay with the president of the rescue group, who said she would evaluate the cat to see if she is adoptable or needs to be put back out in the corporate park.

Ok, awesome.

Then on Thursday, Harry is coming back from lunch (in Eviljob's cafeteria), and he sees four men and one of the security guards running around in the lobby. He looks out into the lobby, and they are chasing a small black cat! He went out and made them stop chasing it, and managed to catch it himself when it stuck its head into the hollow at the bottom of a sculpture in our lobby and decided that if it can't see anyone, that means no one can see it.

This is a *baby* cat!

Harry picked it up and it immediately hid its head in his neck; Harry tried to get it to calm down, and it started *purring*! He tried to phone me, but I was already upstairs at work, and had to give him the number of the same lady who had taken the cat from Animal Services. She couldn't come out right then, so Harry put the cat in his car and phoned his GF to come get the cat, and he went back to work.

No – not mean; first-off, Harry has a '05 or '06 Grand Am, and the air conditioner turns itself on every so often to keep the cabin at a below-baking temperature, his windows are tinted, and he cracked the windows, plus girl friend was only fifteen minutes away. The position Harry has right now prevents him from just *leaving*, and I was trapped and could not even leave the fifth floor. So GF got the cat and fed it (she ate a HUGE amount of food), and it went to the rescue president Friday morning. Harry and Prez both said the cat is NOT feral at ALL – it is very playful, and probably just got put out at Eviljob and went inside to get food. It is definitely an indoors cat, about six months old; she's a girl, and she is *very* playful, and LOVES attention. :-) Along with the cat from Animal Services, she will be tested for AIDS and leukaemia, spayed, and adopted out.

We have had other cats who were probably former pets look at the glass front of Eviljob longingly (and a couple I have trapped and gotten adopted out if they are friendly), but none have ever come *in* Eviljob! The guard told Harry that the little girl just walked right in with a group of employees!

This kind-of breaks my heart, you know. She was trying to get to some place that had food and water. Poor little baby!

If I ever catch the bastard who puts cats out in our corporate park, I will beat them senseless.

Butsoanyway.

I have been a little sparse in describing all the people I now work with at Job II, and I should mostly keep it that way, but we are having a little drama there; one of the new(er) guys is a Romanian from Canada, and when he first showed up, we had nowhere to put him, so I offered up my office to share (I got my own office a few months ago, when Sophie lost hers), because I am not territorial, and I am usually in the basement listening to creepy beeping anyway. Plus, one of my dearest friends – Dorina – is a Ceausescu refugee in Toronto, I have known a lot of Canadian Romanians throughout my life, and we get along well. This guy is a bit younger than my friend, maybe by five or ten years (I am guessing), and I thought this would work out well. We have an *extremely* multi-cultural group (two Russians, a Greek, a Romanian, two Chinese, four Indian, a few Brits, one Scot, and two French, and I could go on…and that is not even counting the 'American mix' of Spanish, Black, and those who are just mutts like me). Several of them cannot be in certain rooms unaccompanied or work on certain projects because of citizenship issues (which is how *I* come to be translating the directions for something we are working on currently into French, which is funny; I am sure I am telling people to fuck off and take their broccoli with them or something [Merci de votre coopération. Veuillez prendre votre broccoli et aller à l'enfer…Quoi?!?], but our French-speakers are tasked with another completely unrelated project that takes them off-site, and I cannot ask the two other people who speak French to do it, 'cos right now they would be looking at code, and they are not allowed to do that…and I keep forgetting to just write it down and take it out of my basement for review; I'll just change whatever is wrong when I am done), and the restrictions are silly and annoying. They do not factor into my immediate story, though.

So I am sharing an office with this guy; we'll call him Karol. I was going to call him Mircea, but I know a Mircea whom I like greatly, so we're going with Karol. And I am friends with The Wacky Divorcee, whom I am going to have to call something, so let's call her Kate.

Kate is older – in her late 40's – and 200% Lucille Ball; she is American with two kids, and divorcing a Chinese artist at least ten years her senior. She has a HUGE history behind her (we brought her in because of her expertise in a certain area), and when I came on board there was no room (space-wise) for me, so Kate and I roomed together for a few months until I was conscripted into Sophie-saving (but that is another story), similar to what Karol and I are doing.

So Karol has been talking with me when I am up in my office area, and the conversations have been weird. They are not about business; he keeps asking me to check out his body (no, I am NOT kidding; he actually *points*), and so on. To the extent that I actually said 'let's change the subject' at one point, not that he then did. He *made* me put his number into my cell phone – as in stood OVER me as I entered it.

Oh! And! Karol has been calling the woman in the office next to me a 'sex goddess', and lamenting that he has no female companionship (and I am putting that oh so much more tactfully).

I have been doing a lot of hiding in the basement. Karol not only cannot go into the basement unaccompanied, he has no purpose in there at all; he is on a different project.

Kate, however, has to coordinate things with Karol; they *are* working together. And on Friday Kate and I took lunch together, and she told me what has been going on. She even printed out an email from Karol to show me which was *indescribably* rude, as well as having been sent through Job II's email, which is potentially some very, very serious shit, going way, WAY deeper than just basic sexual harassment because of the nature of Job II, and the nature of Karol's current standing (basically, not being an American, Karol has less rights at Job II. That may not sound fair, but that is the way it is; being psycho will land him back Home fast enough to make his head spin).

When Kate left her husband, she took up with a local contractor, and they have been happy (enough). Kate has looked up other old flames, and did manage to pick up TWO admirers when we were at a military technology expo late last year, including one guy who went *way* out of his way to have dinner with her (in the past four years, I have NEVER seen ANYONE make a love connection at those things; Kate may be older, but she is a major cutie patootie), but largely she is committed to Mr Current Muffin. Well, Kate made a comment to Karol about how she feels so tired and has no stamina these past few months (oh, tell me about it!!), and Karol sent an email to her that basically said Kate had no stamina because she needs to get laid, and Karol can tell Mr Current Muffin is bad in bed, if – IF! – they are even sleeping together, and if Kate ever wants to remedy that situation, she may call upon Karol any time.

I swear to you, I damn near fell off my chair right in the restaurant.

Karol sent that to Kate earlier this week, and Kate had done nothing about it. This is somewhat understandable, because Kate and I have similar histories, and do have a habit of just accepting some behaviours as our hardships to bear; I had not told Kate (or anyone else) about the gross conversations Karol and I had been having, and Kate had not told anyone about the conversations (and IMs, email) she had been having with Karol. For some reason, as soon as I saw it in writing I just realised that this whole thing is WRONG. I told Kate that I thought there was something wrong with Karol's mind, and she agreed, and told me about the *other* conversations she has had with Karol, which were as bad as mine, or worse. She had thought this stuff with Karol was a Romanian thing, and I assured her that *nothing* was being messed up in translation, as it were; I knew *no one* so crude, and I know quite a few Eastern Europeans; in addition, none of our other men are behaving this way. I tried to talk Kate into taking the email she had printed out and her IM history (Karol has put nothing into writing with me, so I have nothing as 'proof') and making a formal complaint with it, but Kate did not want to cause problems. I let it drop, 'cos I do understand where she is coming from; if Karol was not made to leave, things could be quite uncomfortable. But I did vow to stay as far away from Karol as possible.

So after lunch I returned to my basement, and checked my work email; during the time Kate and I had been away, a few people had had an email back-and-forth, and Karol had participated; I was on the phone to Kate in two seconds, 'cos Karol had emailed – to the ENTIRE FACILITY – some crap totally unrelated to the discussion about how he wishes he could have a woman living with him at the present time because such an arrangement carries with it its own 'unique benefits' (nudge, nudge), or somesuch. It was a very crude attempt to put feelers out to see if there were any interested females, basically. UGH!! On top of which, this is taking place AT WORK. On a *monitored* email list.

I phoned Kate and told her about the email, and that I think Karol is having a meltdown. Or that he was totally batshit to begin with, and it is about to explode. We both decided that we will talk to our manager on Monday, because this is getting scary. And now I have to go and meet Mummers for dinner; Meg may be joining us, but I am not optimistic because she was at a tournament yesterday, and I am not sure she is back yet. Just me and Mommy...this will be fun. :-)

So how was your week?

.

Look! More Kittens!

This has been a busy week, and I am in pretty constant pain, so I am just going to stop kvetching about that. Everyone else is fine; Romeo is fine, Harry still has his job, and Meg is in a generally pissy mood for some reason, but other than that, she is fine. Mummers is still batshit, however.

Oh, and my brother just had a birfday. Happy birfday, you stuffy bastard.

Butsoanyway.

I have given the task of feeding the Eviljob cats to Harry and Chrissy for the time being; I need a week to a month off to catch up with work and school, and to get used to being in pain all the god damned time.

Was is Camus who said that after a while, one could get used to anything? I sure hope that son of a bitch knows what he is talking about.

Sigh.

So I am putting trapping on hold, at least any that I might have been personally doing, or personally involved in. Anyone who wants to trap on their own at Eviljob has my best wishes. But on Monday evening, I got a call from someone in Security who knows someone who is working Security at this car auction place, and this guard has made friends with a feral cat there that has a litter...and it is the only feral cat on the entire property, which is at least the size of a football field, maybe two; they are the Ancodia Region centre for national and international auto auctions of cars that have been totalled-out by insurance companies, and they have a total turnover of stock -- the entire god-damned football field's worth -- every sixty to ninety days. Who in the fuck is buying all these smooshed cars????

And this guard wants me to find a momcat in this mess. 'Cos no one else will help.

Bwaah.

Fine. So I had a bout of retardation yesterday and forgot that it was Tuesday, and so I skipped a pretty important meeting, but feh. Whatever.

I get down to this place after getting lost at least twelve times in the ginormous industrial park it is in -- you know, the type that are always polluting the crap out of your Sim City? I always get lost in those, 'cos once you see one of those water tower thingies with the conveyor belts running up to it, and the cool-ass piles of rocks beneath, it's all one can do to keep driving and not think about climbing up one and having a cool-ass fist fight, or a shoot out.

So I got there, and the place is HUGE, and we have to take a golf cart halfway across all these lines of smashed cars...it looked like the parking lot at the Superbowl after Godzilla stepped on all the cars, ok? Really cool and freaky-looking, and part of the back lot used to be a car dealership, I think, 'cos a dead car dealership-looking building was still standing there, needing a good paint job way out in the back half of this place. It even had a service garage attached, and everything, though the back entrance from the road (what I am assuming was the back entrance) had been reclaimed by foliage, and now this tall-assed concrete and electric fence (concrete on the outside, electrified on the inside) separated the auto auction lot from the interstate on one end. This guard promised me that I could go check out the old dealership building if we got the cats with enough light left.

Heh. Yeah.

It took over an hour to find the mom cat. The Guard had named her Sweetie, and she was a light-coloured tortoiseshell. This cat, once she came around, walked right up to me and wiped her dirty fur all over my pants, and when I knelt down to pet her, she purred and *kissed* me. Then went over to rub all over the guard. Feral cat my *ass*...this was totally a PET. Though how in the crap she got over the fence, no one knew. The fence is (1) too high to jump, and (2) electrified on the inside, and there is a gap between the concrete wall and the electrified fence that is intentionally made so that even if one *did* make it to the top of the concrete fence, one could not jump over without touching the electrified fence, at which time one would get one's ass zapped. I am half-convinced that she might have been a passenger in one of the wrecked cars, or something. Maybe she was in an accident and got dazed, or was too stunned or scared to run, and she got towed away, hiding in her car? I guess we will never know.

Butsoanyway.

Sweetie had taken the guard to meet her three babies, and so the guard brought me over to where that was...no babies. I decided to sit still and see if they came out, and the guard went to look in nearby cars. After a while, I heard a whistle, and went to look; the guard had found them in a big pick-up truck, like an F150, or 250, whichever, or something. I could see one tiny nose sticking out from under the back bench seat. So I opened the back door, and I got hissed and spat at by a tiny kitten.

To make a VERY long story short, the sun was thinking about setting by then, all the employees had left, and as I wondered what I was going to do if I had to spend the night out here 'cos we'd been locked in, I was trying to lure the kittens out with tuna in a cat carrier. Sweetie was helping me. Then the lot manager (who has a fucking BEAUTIFUL Saleen like you would not believe parked up front...the guard had to walk me away from it before I put my dirty paws all over it) came out to find out why one of his carts was missing 'cos he personally closes up every night. Not that I blame him; if my business kept me in fucking beautiful Saleens, I'd be herding everyone out and locking up my damn self, too.

I thought he was going to be a dick, but he was really, REALLY nice when he found out what we were doing! He said he just wanted the cats out of there, and if I would catch them and take them away, he'd help any way he could. So he opened up the other side of the pick up, and showed me how the back bench seat lifted up...and there were FIVE kittens there! All crouched together. Mr Manager grabbed the tiniest one and handed it to me, saying 'Runt goes first!' :-) I put the runt in the carrier (a big one!) and then scooped up two more and stuck them in, then two more. Then we tried to get one that we saw run under the front seat (that's SIX, mind you), and it darted up into the dashboard on the passenger side. I was afraid that if it got out, I would NEVER find it in this huge lot, and it would get smooshed by a tow truck or fork lift, or shipped off to Pakistan (why are people in Pakistan buying wrecked cars?), or something. Mr Manager took the a/c assembly out in like two *seconds*, and assured me that the kittens could not get out, but the guard went and stood by the front, just in case. We pulled the glove box down, and tried to reach up the vent, but no luck. Then the Manager saw a kitten face behind the a/c big box that is behind the glove box, and he tried to reach it, but he got bitten. So he took this thing that looked like a spatula (all the cars had personal stuff still inside...the pick up truck still had some kind of folding baby carriage in the back) off the floor and tried to poke it out, but it just hunched down and refused to budge.

BWAAH!

We were out of stuff to disassemble on the dash, and Mr Manager suggested that I put Sweetie in the cabin and close the doors to see if they would see Mom and come out. I was not crazy about the idea, but Sweetie was pretty docile, and I did not have any better ideas, so I did it, and held the door closed.

If Sweetie had been feral I would have never tried that, though.

We waited about ten minutes, and then I thought I saw something stirring under the hanging glove box; I opened the door and grabbed Sweetie and the kitten, and as I turned to dump them in the carrier, I saw ANOTHER grey kitten that had come out of the dash!

Ok, that is SEVEN. As in four more than the three I went there to get.

Mr Managerman let me do a once-over to make sure that was all of them, and I really believe that it was. I think they had all been asleep in the back underneath the seat, and the one I saw skedaddling up into the dash was actually two. The guard said he would check over the next few days to see if he saw any signs of kittens that got left, and since the Manager had to go and wanted the day guard and myself to leave, that was ok with me. I really *really* believe that seven was it, though; Sweetie is only about a year old, I would guess, and she is not a big cat.

Butsoanyway; here are the only pictures I was able to take, 'cos I was told that I am completely NOT allowed to take pictures in there, so I had to sneak and take them on my cell phone:

This white truck was Home.
Sorry for the crappy view, but I had to sneak this one.

Sweetie & Co., immediately after being cotched. :-)

After everyone had calmed down a bit.

God is a good driver? Ummm...maybe not so much.
Just god damned funny -- you might not be able to see it in the pic, but the bumper sticker says, 'GOD is STEERING...I'm only in the Driver's Seat'
I damn near wet myself.

And the Manager said that I had to leave with him and the guard, and was not allowed to be walking around the property anyway (the guard asked for me, but Mr Manager explained to me that half his employees are not allowed back in the lot for security and insurance reasons, and *I* was totally NOT allowed to be back there, so once cat-catching was done, I had to vacate ASAP), so I missed out on checking out the dead dealership building. Sigh. No justice...I swear. And if the Manager had not been with us, I think the night security guards would have fricking strip-searched me, or something. I was getting *glared* at. Sheesh. Back off...I'm packing kittens!

But at least we stopped a feral colony before it started. Yay.

I called in my very lastliest favour with this rescue group, and got to bring Sweetie and Company over to the home of one of their past presidents (thank GOD!). She is going to give Sweetie a chance to eat (she is hungry as HELL) and calm down, and then take her to the vet on Friday or Monday to see if she is microchipped. If not, she'll get an FIV/FeLV test, and if that is negative, she'll stay at this lady's house until she stops nursing and her babies are old enough to be speutered, then they will all go to get adopted. Now I have to come up with something really nice to do to have more favours...as run-down as I am, that may be crapping out and just buying a bunch of traps and donating them, or something. Sigh. But at least Sweetie and her babies are safe. I hope she is microchipped, and could maybe go back home; she is a nice cat, and a good mom.

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Taking Care of Boydness

Okay, so I am a bad Blogger, I never have enough time, and blah, blah, blah.

We all knew that already.

But I am prepping to leave, and want to make amends and all that, so I am trying to catch up before I leave.

Ok, first things first; here is my post about the little birdie:

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Butsoanyway.

Ok; so there's this crowd around the bird, and they are talking to it, some are crouched down poking it, and as i walk over, i see one guy push the bird with his foot. So BB and i walk over and get told that the bird flew into a window on one of the upper floors (people said everything from third floor on up). BB had to go, and one of the girls out there who knows about my cat-saving attempts there asked me if i could 'do something'. Bwaah. So i told them to leave the bird alone, and went back inside to get a box as i tried to get the number of The Bird Lady in the area (whom i know of from a few years back when some huge-assed pet bird that spoke got loose from its home and flew into Mom's back yard when i was there). I finally found a box the right size, and also found that Bird Lady has de-listed her number, not that i can blame her on that one. So i get back outside, and there is a *new* group around the bird, and one girl is down on her knees, POKING the bird, saying -- and this is a direct quote -- 'come on Birdy, you can do it! FLY!'

as if the bird were going to say, 'oh, that's a splendid idea; I hadn't thought of that! Bye, now!' and take off. Sigh.

Not knowing what else to do, i tried Chrissy and she picked right up. At first we were going to meet at Dr Superhero's, and Chrissy would drive the bird over to Bird Lady's house (Chrissy knows her, but didn't have her phone number either, and i was so stressed out about the kittens' neutering that i didn't think to phone Dr Vet, or even Dr Superhero to ask if they had it). Then Chrissy phoned me back and suggested that instead of taking about an hour and a half to do all this (plus her travel time), that I could just take Boyd (I named the bird Boyd) to the Wildlife Refuge placey thing that was 1.5 – 2 hours away (which ended up being about the same time or less as all our other options).

As I was taking Boyd out to my car, Breakfast (followed by the infinitely more cautious Blacktoe) came up to ask if I was giving them a box lunch. I said no, apologised, and raced out of there.

Chrissy kept phoning me back to give me more directions, because I had no damned idea where I was going. And all this time, I actually was figuring that I was hauling around a dead Boyd, ‘cos he wasn’t making any noise.

Ok; to make a long story short…

I know. Too late.

So I got out there, and they took Boyd right away! And he was alive! Felt him (or her?) all up, and declared Boyd unbroken. But Boyd the Bird was still stunned, and they said Boyd might have a cracked breastbone, and Boyd was definitely underweight. So they kept Boyd and were going to let Boyd just hang out in a dark cage, and they were going to feed and de-worm Boyd. They said that, unless Boyd has something wrong that was making him (her??) fly stupidly, Boyd should be released in a few weeks, and they will release Boyd somewhere where he (or she) will be happier and will be able to find more food, with a lot less buildings around.

So basically, Boyd is taking a vacation at a country club right now.

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Okay; there is other stuff (LOTS of other stuff), but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

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And I don’t want to live this life…

Okay, I have to get in a quick update of sorts.

One, Lisa seems to be back in the rescue bidness. She has a new name, new flyers, and I phoned Chrissy and talked to her for a bit; Chrissy still has around fifty cats of Lisa’s, only now to take them back Lisa wants all of them to be tested and for Chrissy to buy $300 worth of building materials. Now, I personally think that is bullshit, but I am not Chrissy. So I offered to give her some of it, and help her raise some more. This really sucks.

Eviljob is the same as always. I haven’t seen Mehitabel recently, so I guess that means that she’s had her next litter. I just want to cry. Breakfast is so friendly…up to a point. Won’t let me near, though. Not that I know what I’d do if she did. Cry, probably.

Job 2 is Hell. Though in a good way. I am busy as crap, but I am having as much of a good time as I am probably capable of having in this life. It’s what I want to do.

Well, mostly.

I just wish I did not have all these other things going on. I realised that the other day; I am, in a couple major ways, doing what I want to be doing, and things are – in this one tiny corner of my life – perfect.

Butsoanyway.

I have to get to sleep, but…things are ok. I am worried about the usual stuff: my upcoming trip, Ms Grammarian’s absence, the cats in the parking lot, and a bunch of other things that I can’t even remember most of the time. I am under this ginormous amount of stress, and I am getting forgetful…or maybe there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

School stuff is ok. Just ok. I am *doing* fine…it’s just that everything is moving so fast. I like having some free time to read and think and stuff, and this semester, I have *none*.

All my cats are great. Even Harry seems to be doing better after this last round of Clavamox and that pill, Whateveritwas.

My father came into town last week to see me, and I and guess it is because I had not been out to see him in a while, so…I guess we had fun. He brought my stepmother, and we went to her favourite seafood place in town. It was a pretty nice evening, though I guess it stressed me out; I went and bought earrings after. And I am still somehow fitting in time to go to the chiropractor, who is actually helping out tremendously with my headaches. Added to that is this other physical rehab thing I have entered, and, well…my dance card’s full. I am *tired*.

Though this really cracked me up: $25 an hour?!? Not nearly enough!

I have a lot to write about, but I have to go to sleep.

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Why shouldn't I be permanently freaked-out?

Well, I mean, c'mon...

I deal with Really Stupid Questions whenever I am in Eviljob--questions which, if I misinterpret them, could have severe repercussions. Job 2 I sit alone in a dark, locked basement (I haven't gotten to see my office in *weeks*), listening to 'BZZT! BZZT! WARNING! BZZT! BZZT! WARNING! BZZT! BZZT!...' coming out of headsets at barely-audible levels (hence my ability to hear ice cream vans eight hundred miles away), while a battery of Dell XPSs (or whatever they are) glow Demonic Red in the dark. And then I step out into the world to take a break, and meteorologically, it's like The Day After Tomorrow out there.

And I keep forgetting to go to class until about ten minutes before class starts.

Sigh.

Thanks for the good wishes and all. :-*

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