Friday, December 21, 2007

the wee hours

Life Sucks.  And Then It Sucks Some More.  And Then A Little More After That.

Cricket is currently spending her second night at the vet’s office, getting IV fluids and possibly pain meds still.  Last night around 8p, when all the vet offices were closed, Cricket started vomiting constantly.  When I say constantly, I mean every two seconds.  She was diagnosed with pancreatitis a couple of weeks ago and she’d been doing well.  She spent the day acting weird, but Cricket is high strung, so she sometimes just acts weird.  Well, now we know, she was in pain.  I’d even given her the pain meds in the morning, but apparently the pain went way beyond that.  We had to take her to the emergency clinic that’s 15 or so miles away.  Cricket settled down a tiny bit in the car, which was a relief, because she couldn’t have kept up the constant retching much longer.  I feel sorry for people whose pet stops breathing or something, and have to drive so far to get emergency help.  We have a vet’s office a couple blocks away that used to be an emergency clinic.  We called them, and the vet called back five minutes later, telling us that they’re no longer an emergency clinic.  He basically told us that it was $100 to leave his home, did we want him to get off his warm and cozy couch to come treat our dog in distress?  Gee, why would we want that, Mr. Vet Guy.  Duh.  So, since it would’ve required waiting for Mr. We Don’t Have An Emergency Clinic, we drove to the actual emergency clinic.  Also, that’s the vet that screwed up Carlo’s neuter and had him bleeding all over the kitchen floor...and had him under-medicated for pain.  The emergency clinic is all women, all the vets, all the techs (that we saw), the receptionists (that we saw), and they’re very very competent.  And expensive.  But competent.

Cricket was probably having a bad pancreatitis attack, although we’re not sure why because she’s been eating a special diet...and really not eating very much.  Her x-rays also showed that she has a narrow area between the disks in her back.  Not oozing out like my herniated disk, but a flattening of the cushy material between them.  We don’t know if she’s always had that, or if she got that when she fell off the bottom step of the stairs two days ago.  It was a very short fall...and one where the brunt of it sounded like it was taken by her jaw.  Ouch!  But, she seemed okay after that.  We were at the clinic until 11p, then had to drive home and get back up to pick her up by 7:30am, because the clinic closes at 8am.  They’re open during all of the hours that the other vets are closed - evenings, weekends, and holidays.  While I’m grateful they’re there, and I’m glad to know that the pets receive really terrific care there, the prices are higher than our vet’s office, which is one of the more expensive offices in town.  Although, again, the care there has proven to be at a much higher standard than the office run by Mr. Are You Sure You Want Me To Leave My House?

We picked Cricket up and had to take her directly to our regular vet’s office.  We left the emergency clinic with a goodie bag of vials of blood, a bag of fluids, and a cd with her x-rays on it.  She was put back on IV fluids and kept overnight.  We wanted her to stay overnight to make sure she was on the road to wellness since Leigh-Ann is leaving for Canada on Sunday night.  I don’t want any pet medical issues while she’s gone.  It’s awfully quiet without Cricket here.  Phoenix is such a peaceful well-behaved dog.  Cricket is more, well, yappy.  Let’s just say that she makes her presence known at various times throughout the day.  If the doorbell rings, if one of the cats walks in front of the bedroom door, if we’re downstairs and she’s lonely, well, you get the idea.  If any of you have a poodle or terrier, you probably know what I’m talking about.  Cricket seems to be a combination of poodle & terrier (we rescued her from a puppy store that couldn’t sell her because she’s a mix), and she gets the worst of their characteristics (yappy sometimes & high-strung) and the best (she’s adorable).  See, isn’t she cute?

So that was the sucks part.  My paycheck was the “and sucks some more” part of the equation.  I asked when I’d get my invoice because it was later than it normally is, and I need the invoice in order to bill for my work.  Well, my invoice was held up by the editor who decimated the previous invoice - yeah, apparently he was too busy to look at it then, but now was an excellent time to reject commissions that I’d been expecting right before Xmas.  Although, really, who needs money during the holidays?  Oh, not us folks who work on commission only, no sirree.  Not only will it be too late to pay the mortgage (on the 26th), it was a whole whoppin’ $350 for two weeks of work.  Merry Effin’ Xmas, no?  Let’s add this up - the mortgage (a lot), the car payment (a lot...and due Monday), and the power company wants $500 on the 31st, after I paid them $781 on the 12th.  Not only that, I called them on the 11th and made payment arrangements (they billed for the equal payments overage all at once), and then paid them on the 12th.  On the 17th, they shut off the power.  Yes, after I’d called them and made payment arrangements.  You’d think that paying almost $800 would keep your power on for more than a week, right?  I called them, in horror, telling them I paid them.  Two different people (I asked for a supervisor, which is something I don’t ordinarily do) gave me the most ridiculous reason - they said it was because I hadn’t CALLED BACK after I made that payment and made payment arrangements.  The hell?  When you’re on the phone, talking to someone at the power company and they give you an amount to pay and a date it’s due (which I paid them by), isn’t THAT the damned payment arrangement?  Why on earth would someone tell you to call back to make another different payment arrangement?  Honestly, I’m so sick of worrying about money.  It’s no wonder I can’t get the Fibromyalgia under control - I don’t have a single day without financial stress.  My body is probably attacking itself inside.  Oh wait, I didn’t finish the power company story.  I had to make ANOTHER payment arrangement to pay them another $500 on the 31st, or they wouldn’t turn the power back on.  When I finally agreed to it, because I would’ve agreed to anything to get the power on, they told me, “Oh, we can’t guarantee that you’ll get the power back on today.” Yeah, they said it like it was no big deal.  The guy had left our house less than ten minutes prior to that point in the conversation and they’re telling me that they can’t guarantee I’ll get the power back...when the lows are in the 30’s.  They turned it back on at 8pm, which beat their deadline of 8:30p by thirty minutes.  So, we had to spend 8 hours without power, and we both work online.  Luckily, I’d worked through the previous night until 10am, so I’d only been in bed for two hours when the power went out.  So, we just went to bed and hoped to have power when we woke up.

It’s been a crappy crappy week.  Leigh-Ann’s leaving on Sunday for Canada, and I’m glad.  It’s depressing being here, so I want her to get away and have some fun with her family.  Maybe I’ll have sold a kidney by the time she gets back.  A kidney and maybe three toes.  What the heck, and a spleen and a gallbladder.  Wait, and an appendix.  People have those removed all the time without a problem.  So, I can have them removed and someone who’s been missing their extraneous organs can give me some cash for them and have them inserted ASAP.  They’re barely used.  I personally think I have a lovely appendix and that no one could give them a better deal.  Well, no one in North America.  Oh wait, and tonsils.  Oh, what the hell, I’ll throw in the tonsils for free.

the wee hours

Brrr, It Got Cold & Windy Here

This is a good way to deal with being cold.  Notice that two of your friends are napping, all wrapped up in each other’s arms, then carefully tiptoe up to them, and climb slowly on top of the pile.  They won’t care...much.  Scampi & Tie felt the sudden chill in the air and curled up top of a kitty hut.  The cats have decided that they like it better smashed down as a bed, than propped up as a hut.  I was petting Dobby while she was on Leigh-Ann’s chair, but she decided she had enough, so she walked over to Tie & Scampi and slowly climbed on top of them.  It was amusing to watch.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

terribly early in the morning

The Wranglers & The Leafs - Two Choking Peas in a Pod

My parents took Leigh-Ann and I to the Las Vegas Wranglers midnight game, which is generally a fun and festive affair.  Apparently, the Wranglers forgot to take care of the festive for us.  It was absolutely the same as any old game, which was disappointing.  Remind me to get around to complaining to them.  They were winning the game 4-1 at one point, and leading throughout the entire game.  They allowed three goals in the third period, then choked further (the goalie was pretty sucky - it was someone we’d never heard of before) in the shootout.  The easy victory snatched away by the jaws of stupid defeat reminded us so very much of the Maple Leafs, of this year and last, and the year before that, and the year before that, and so on.  We were kind of out of it, as we went out to breakfast after the midnight game, then went grocery shopping after that.  So, our schedule was all out of whack.  That meant that we missed last night’s Leafs’ game.

This is from the Toronto Star.  Does it sound vaguely familiar?  Like many of the games from the team we know and occasionally love?  After almost three periods of solid hockey, the Leafs’ top left winger made an incredible gaffe, leading to the tying goal and, ultimately, a 3-2 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes before 17,045 at the RBC Center last night..  What a surprise.  Not.  The Leafs must constantly make winning difficult...or impossible.

That said, we had a good time at the Wranglers’ game.  The game had lots of action, we each got our pretzel & cheese (a deliciously fresh crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, warm pretzel), and except for the stupid classless woman sitting behind my parents who spent most of the game cussing at the players and the ref (the officiating actually DID suck), I think a good time was had by all.  Of course, it could have been better if the Wranglers had actually attempted to go out of their way and give the pre-Xmas crowd some entertainment.  Chuck-a-Puck and having two guys attempt to put on a frozen t-shirt at center ice?  Not really entertainment.  The best midnight game had Mini Kiss performing.  Last year had a crappy Billy Idol impersonator, but at least they tried.

Friday, December 14, 2007

terribly early in the morning

Caught!  In Bed!

TJ and Dobby were looking so cute, I couldn’t resist tracking down a camera to take a picture of them.  When you have so many pets, there are instances of cute every day.  Click on the picture to see the cute expression on Dobby’s (she’s on the right) face.

In other news, please help me, I’m addicted to Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses.  I don’t even like white chocolate, but I looooove these.  I’m so sad, I only have one left, and in a minute or so, I’ll be out of them.  How will I go on?

Thursday, December 13, 2007

evening

Bunny, the love bug

Since Bunny’s heart problems have cropped up, she’s gotten extra attention because she needs daily meds, and well, we were worried about her so she got extra cuddles.  She’s changed into a really affectionate little cat who loves the attention.  She likes to sleep on my computer chair and when I come near her, she stretches and looks at me like, “What are you waiting for, get over here and scratch my belly.” This is her new favorite spot, on my shoulders.  She attempts to groom my hair, but it seems a bit more like she’s trying to eat my head.  The sitting is allowed, the hair chewing is not.