Saturday, November 15, 2008

the wee hours

Does Your Cat Have Any Favorite Browser Folders?

Bunny likes to walk on my keyboard and type things.  Who knows, maybe she’s writing to her other cat friends.  Anyway, one day she not only managed to add a favorite link to the browser, she added a favorite folder.  Right now, it’s empty, but I’m sure she has big plans for it…when I’m not looking.  Her usual computer time is around 4am.

She enjoys being in all sorts of places where Bunny(s) shouldn’t be, not just on my keyboard.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

the wee hours

I’m just effin’ sick of making lemonade

To save yourself some boring reading time, jumped to the bottom of the blog entry and buy yourself a jumpstarter for your car.  You’ll thank me someday.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow or next week or next month, but someday you’ll be thrilled to own that thing.  I promise.

Today was going to be a good day.  We had an offer for each of us to make a little extra cash for about ten seconds of work (okay, ten seconds for Leigh-Ann, maybe two minutes for me because I had to look it up to make sure I did it right), then we were going to the doctor for our clinical study, which pays us each a whoppin’ $45.  Still, $45 is $45, and this visit didn’t even require the three or four hour treasure hunt for blood in Leigh-Ann’s veins, nor did it require peeing in a cup.  Just blood pressure and chatting about side effects - ugh, I have a high dose of the meds and it makes me sweat for no reason.  My face starts to sweat and it drives me crazy.  I hate sweating and I’m normally not a facial sweater.  Heh, a facial sweater - sounds like a sweater for your face.  We’re doing a clinical trial for a new Fibromyalgia drug, Reboxetine, which is basically reformulated Strattera.  Why it helps with Fibro pain, I dunno.  I get why it helps with the fatigue because it’s like taking uppers every morning.  All in all, I think it’s a pretty good Fibro drug (hear that people who haven’t yet approved it for use in the U.S.?  It works, so let everyday people have it, instead of them trying to buy it from Canada or the UK), but the sweating is super annoying to me.  It’s especially annoying when you’re stuck outside with your car that won’t start.  We’ll get to that part of the story eventually.

So everything’s fine & dandy - we leave the doctor’s office to go, well, somewhere to get financial help.  I left Leigh-Ann in the car because I figured why should both of us feel like deadbeats.  It took about ninety minutes to be seen (note to self: next time, bring a book or iPod - don’t second guess yourself when you always bring your iPod to the clinical study visits because they have a wireless network that you access to listen to Pandora or read blogs.  I once commented on a blog, but the keyboard isn’t easy for us old folks with fat fingers, and I signed my name as Floppy, oops) and then about twenty minutes being interviewed.  The interview didn’t go terribly well, as the person I was talking to was internet illiterate, so she didn’t understand why I didn’t want to just up and cancel all of our domain names.  “But, it would save $300 right off the bat.”  Yeah, lady, but then those domain names that are worth hundreds would be given away, not sold, not used, just dumped.  [redacted and moved to my Vox blog]

Now, we get to the title.  We had big plans for the rest of the day:  free tacos at Taco Bell (because of base stealing in the World Series), half-price slushes at Sonic during Happy Hour (we needed to go to the library, which is a block away from Sonic),  a coupon for half-price ice-cream at Cold Stone, stopping by the vet’s office to pick up Pinto’s ashes, and finally…voting.  The agency saw people between 1-2:30p, so I figured we should be able to make the 2p-4p Happy Hour at Sonic no problem, and everything else needed to be done by 7p.  However, I got out of there after 4p, and when we got ready to leave, THE BATTERY WAS DEAD!  That was totally and incredibly sucky, on top of missing Happy Hour, but yay, we were prepared with a little car safety kit and it had jumper cables.  A nice guy from the agency came out and moved his car so we could jump mine.  It didn’t work.  Crap!  Oh, and my cell phone battery is DEAD.  So, I have to go back to the place of humiliation to call my insurance company and I find out that I cancelled the emergency roadside service (I added it again, just now) and it’ll be $45 for someone to come out and jump the car, but it’s okay, I think it comes with my super extended car warranty.  So, I call the service phone number on the business card with my “important car papers” - it goes to voice mail.  I call the main service number also to see if maybe they can tell us something we didn’t do right with the jumper cables (my car doesn’t have a negative terminal) and maybe there’s a special trick to it.  The phone rings and rings and rings and rings.  It’s 30 minutes before they close.  Thanks a lot Vista Chevrolet.  Useless.  In the meantime, it’s hot outside, we’re both exhausted and sweaty.  Remember, the meds make us sweat, even when it’s cool.  So then, I call my dad - dads can fix everything, right?  He’s not home, the answering machine picks up.  Finally, I have to call the insurance company to have them call Pop-a-Lock to come out for $45.  While we’re waiting, another guy from the agency comes out and says that he’s jumped lots of cars, no problem.  He hooks up the cables - the dreaded click, click, click.  He even knew what to expect with the no negative terminal deal.  Finally, the Pop-a-Lock guy gets there and he uses one of those jumpstarter thingies.  At first, it doesn’t work, but then, SUCCESS!  By that time, it was too late to get the free tacos, too late for half-price anythings, the dogs needed to be taken outside, and I was afraid to shut the car off anywhere, but home.

So, I go through the humiliation of asking an agency for financial help and it COSTS me money.  I have no idea if they’ll help me at all, but I know for sure that I didn’t have a good time there.  We did, however, discover a cheap restaurant (where we went to buy a soda…that was not half-price, nor a tasty raspberry slush from Sonic) that serves Mexican & Salvadoran food.  The next time we go to the doctor, we’ll get some cheap food, too.

I’m not sure what lessons I learned, except not to cancel roadside service.  I have a lesson for the rest of you - buy one of these, and make sure it’s always charged and in the car with you.  I promise that you won’t be sorry.

 

Saturday, October 11, 2008

the wee hours

Okay, so the fridge didn’t have to be replaced, but…

Being charged over $200 (we know now because we have the old part) for replacing an $11 part is a bit much.  Don’t you think so, Sears?  So, let’s see, what Sears products we’ve had die or need replacing while we’ve been in this house - the dishwasher (we bought a really nice one, and when it stopped working, the repairman said it wasn’t worth fixing - some computer part, I think, so we bought another new one from Sears and it sucks), the hot water heater (it stopped making hot water, which I know must be ever so difficult a job for an appliance), but luckily, it was under warranty.  Yay!  Right?  Yay?  No!  The warranty didn’t include the service charge and the “upgraded” part it now needed.  It was like $300 or $400.  I can’t remember.

Today’s appliance death….the microwave.  Well, I guess it’s not considered dead if it microwaves when you OPEN the door, rather than when you SHUT the door, but it seems kind of dangerous to us.  We have enough problems without being microwaved.  Although, come to think of it, we haven’t always had this microwave, and I haven’t always been sick.  Coincidence?  I mean, I’m sure a microwave didn’t herniate my disk, but it could’ve caused other problems, no?  It’s always cooked at least twice as fast as any other microwave.  We just thought we’d finally gotten a decent microwave, but perhaps we just finally got a microwave that cooked at whatever speed would get it done fastest, so it could go back to lazing around on the counter.

Maybe there’s something wrong with the electrical systems in us - they’re shorting out everything we come into contact with, and it’s happening more and more often.  Freaky.

Monday, December 24, 2007

terribly early in the morning

Some Xmas Videos - Happy Holidays to My Friends, Near & Far (mostly far, really far)

Not meant to be depressing - I was going more for the Las Vegas & Elvis flavor.  I already miss Leigh-Ann, since we’re together pretty much 24/7.  Nonetheless, I’m happy she’s having a white Christmas with her family, for the first time in 13 years.  That’s way too long to miss the holidays at home.  Hopefully, next year we’ll have it all figured out so that she can be here for Xmas Eve and we can both be there for Christmas Day.  And, I wouldn’t mind a Leafs’ game to add to it…and some snow, but not too much snow…or too much cold.

One more.  I’ve been awake for an hour or so waiting until it was time to give Cricket her meds.  I don’t want to let her get off schedule because the meds are helping her pain tremendously.  No panting since yesterday after she, uh, took care of some business that she was in too much pain to take care of before.  I’m guessing the position is very painful for her.  However, the combination of Tramadol, Robaxin, & Prednisone is keeping her comfortable.  She’s sleeping, she still has an appetite, and she isn’t making me want to cry when I listen to her pant and whimper.  Best of all, she isn’t following me everywhere I go in the bedroom, which was also making her pain worse due to all of the activity.  I tried sitting on the floor with her and petting her to calm her through the pain, but it didn’t work.  She wanted to be glued to me…but she was still in extreme pain.  However, add another fan of better living through chemistry to the household.  She’s much closer to being the happy Cricket we know and love.  So, I’m off to give her a lovely Hawaiian bread doughball (mmm, nothing but the best for my baby - plus, I can occasionally sneak a pillless doughball) with some lovely Tramadol & Prednisone.  And, I’ll see you at 8am for the Robaxin doughball.

A fun one!

I appreciate all of your good thoughts for us (in previous entries and emails), and we’re hoping for a better and healthier 2008, for us and for our furry beings.  This year has sucked in a whole lot of ways, but we’re both grateful for the amazing friendships we’ve found online.  You’ve all enriched our lives, and we wished you lived closer.  I’m hoping to at least be able to track down Laurie & Dana (our Ontario pals) and their boys (Dana has THREE boys!!!, as of last Friday - she wins for best Xmas present ever) for next year’s Canadian Xmas (or fall, fall is good) vacation.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

terribly early in the morning

Buy this new 4 GB iPod Nano… help raise funds for Bunny! (copied from Leigh-Ann’s Blog Pound blog)

Leigh-Ann is selling the 4GB iPod Nano that she won at BlogWorld, as a fundraiser for li’l Bunny and her heart meds.  Also, we don’t need it because I won the iPod Touch (which despite being an Apple product, I actually like it - although I’d like it a whole lot more if it would let me use Rhapsody-to-Go on it…I don’t like having to buy each album I want to listen to) and Leigh-Ann won another iPod, so we each have our little prize, which we needed, psychologically, as a little reward for rescuing the cats from the shelter.  Because, those cats?  They gave every single one of our cats a cold.  They’ve all been sneezy, but several of them have been much worse than that, with an awful runny eye problem, which gives them crusty eyes when they wake up.  Yuk.  Also, they seem to sneeze on us often and with great feeling.  I swear that they aim at us.  I think that deserves a little MP3 player keeping.  However, the one we’re selling is pimped to sell and is groovy looking, if I do say so myself.

This is copied from Leigh-Ann’s blog:

Christmas is just around the corner, and I’d like to sell the second brand-new, 4GB iPod Nano that I won at Blog World.  We could use the cash more than we could use the iPod, especially given that Carlo must have an ECG, Cricket has been sick all week with pancreatitis, and a few of the cats with URIs now also have eye infections.  It seems like we’ve been at the vet almost every day in the past week!

As I said, this iPod Nano is 3rd generation, and 4GB.  It’s never been removed from its storage box.  There was recently a sale at a cool store called iFrogz.com, so we purchased a nice case and decorative control pad decal for this iPod, and it will be included in the sale.  Here’s what your new lovely iPod will look like once you put it in the new case and add the decal:

Isn’t that nice?!  The iPod, without the case, sells for $144.99 at Amazon.com.  The case and decal are worth about $18, so the total retail value here is $162.94 (plus whatever taxes and shipping you’d have to add if you bought it in a retail store or online).  If you buy this Nano from me, I’ll give you the entire package for just $130, and I’ll ship it to you for free.  If you’d like to buy this and send it to someone as a gift, I’ll happily wrap it and send it wherever you’d like, too.  If you’re interested, you can jot me an email using the “Contact Me” link at the top of the page, or just send $130 to me using the Wee Paws donation button in the sidebar.  If I can’t sell this in a couple of days I’ll put it on eBay, but then I’d have to pay a lot of fees to list it.  I figured I’d try this first.

So, if you’re interested in buying the groovy iPod NanoNano from Ork, please go to Leigh-Ann’s blog and contact her.  It’s a good deal, and it’ll go to a good cause…us.  :D Thank you for your rapt attention.

P.S.  Just look at that face, don’t you want to help buy some heart medicine for her?   I used her serious face, versus a video I could’ve taken of her racing around the house today, playing with a plastic ring from the milk bottle.  She’s also been jumping from my desk to my back, gnawing on my hair.  She’s been super cuddly too, only she’s a bit too full of energy and doesn’t quite know what to do with herself…so she lightly bit the end of my nose.  The meds seem to have finally kicked in the past few days and she’s back to acting like a kitten.  She has so much energy that no one else can keep up with her, so she’s been running everywhere she goes, and playing with the plastic from the bottles by herself.  It’s like solo soccer practice.