Flippy - I Rant, You Read
Friday, December 21, 2007
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.
Next entry: A Lonely Jew on Christmas Previous entry: Brrr, It Got Cold & Windy Here
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Dammit. Hugs.
on 12/21 at 07:19 AM -
We can add another “and sucks some more” to this story if we add the fact that my employer cannot seem to pay me the tiny bit of money I earn without me writing to remind them three or four times every week. And then I have to do the same thing the next week. And then the following week. Yesterday I was paid the money I should have received last Friday. Today I should have received payment for my invoice last week, but no, it’s not in my bank account. That means another round of emailing and begging someone to pay me.
Leigh-Ann on 12/21 at 10:38 AM -
To Leigh-Ann: why not include late fees in your contract? I do that. To avoid evilness. Well, actually, I only do that for the one client who usually pays me late. But after that, we included it in our standard contracts. Lateness is evil and paves the way for headaches and poverty.
celine on 12/23 at 03:31 PM
