I realized that I forgot to send a shout-out to my girls Sharyn and Panajane for their well wishes to my cat. It's nice to know I have homies in Minnesota and Panama, watchin' my back.
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Today is so boring at work, I'm just f'n around with Microsoft Paint.
Blah.
Hidey-ho, Internet. Hope you all have had an absolutely superb week since last I wrote. I was sort of in a funk for a couple of days there. More about that later. Anyways, my funk finally lifted last night, thanks to 5+ hours of laying on the couch with my DS. Having a boyfriend who didn't seem to mind that I needed him to cater to my every whim helped alot, too. Didn't say a word when asked if he could turn the TV volume up "just one notch. Really. Any more will be too loud. ONLY ONE NOTCH."
That's love.
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Wisconsin was fun. Just as I thought it would be. Of course, the fact that we were at a wedding helped alot, because weddings, for me, mean Bloody Marys. Bloody Marys in those skinny reception hall glasses are my Achille's Heel. Only this was Motherfuckin' WISCONSIN, yo, so those skinny reception glasses were actually gigantic tumblers of vegetably vodka goodness. What I'm trying to say is that the actual wedding itself is sort of a blur. What I do remember is that I tried my damnedest for the bouquet. Two girls I'd were in on the plan to catch the bouquet, and were ready to take down anyone that tried to stand in my way. But alas, this Wisconsin-bred Amazon that kept on shouting "IT'S MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!!" caught the bouquet instead, but not before I made a drunken move to grab it from her arms, which pretty much beheaded all of the flowers. So ha! A pile of stems doesn't count, Crazy!
There's only a little documentation of the event, and that's only because Steve's cousin and his fiance had the bright idea to bring a camera. I was too busy with my "liquid diet."
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I guess I should update about Babe now. I don't want to, because it makes me sad, but if I can't vomit up my feelings on the Internet, where can I go? Steve's already spending more quality time with himself and his Wii than usual because I'm such a fucking wreck over this. It's probably best I give him a break for the night.
The ER visit of last week was a from a reaction to some antibiotics Babe had been on. She's on antibiotics because about a week ago, Steve noticed a gigantic lump right between her shoulder blades. Turns out Babe has a golfball-sized tumor that seemed to pop up overnight. Her vet is really afraid that it's a particularly nasty tumor called a "vaccine-associated feline sarcoma." If any of you have cats, READ THIS. I didn't even know this existed. I'm not saying don't vaccinate your cats. I'm just asking you to find out EXACTLY what your cat is getting vaccinated for.
Anyways, because of the location of the tumor, and the fast rate that it grew (and continues to grow), Babe's vet is very, very concerned that this is the sort of tumor we're dealing with.
She's getting a biopsy next Wednesday. If they find out that's not what the tumor is, they'll probably just stitch her back up and keep an eye on it until it seems to change her quality of life in any way. If she does have a vaccine-associated sarcoma, chances are the tumor has been fanning out these little microscopic fingers through her tissue, which can only be fought with aggressive radiation.
Steve and I have decided we're not going to take that route if that's what we're dealing with. The first reason is that Babe will have to spend inordinate amounts of time in the hospital, and it's not like you can explain to a cat why you keep on taking her away from the home she loves, and to a scary hospital, where the radiation procedure will probably end up making her feel worse than she did in the first place. I don't want that. If she doesn't have much time with us, I want that time to be here with us. At home.
The second reason that we won't attack this tumor any further is that financially it will massacre us. We love our Blabe Blabe Flava Flave, but we have to be realistic about this. We've already spent over $500 just getting her to this point. It's just hard knowing that, sometimes, you can only do as much as your wallet will let you.
So that's that. I'm not the prayin' type, but please keep Babe in your thoughts if you can.
Destination weddings make me want to crawl into a hole and die.
We're supposed to be headed to one now....instead we spent the evening at the Kitty ER with Babe, for reasons that make my throat close up and my heart skip, so I don't want to talk about them just yet. But we're home, she's okay for now, and tomorrow we're off to Wisconsin for Destination Wedding #1. I guess Wisconsin isn't that big of a destination, it's more just a Place That's Not Here, and somewhere I don't really want to be going to right now, all things considered.
It's cool, I'll enjoy myself once I get there, and Babe's in good hands.
But I'd still rather spend the weekend in bed. With my cat.
I am in love with iGoogle's hilarious gestalt of How To's today:
1. How to leash train a cat
2. How to grow citrus fruits
and, which I know is at the top of my list of things to learn:
3. How to survive a school or workplace shooting.
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Ooooh, look who's pleading guilty. What a selfish prick. I don't know....for some reason I feel that animals being killed is just so much sadder than when humans are killed. Maybe it's the fact that animals can't necessarily understand what's happening until it's happening, or perhaps it's the blind trust that animals - especially dogs - have for people, and then rat bastards like Michael Vick go and senselessly, brutally kill them. I hope he rots while he's in jail, and I hope that the NFL gets a little more stringent on allowing all these thugs back into the League after they've so royally fucked up.
I will now hop off my soapbox.
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Ok, even though it was cancelled due to bad weather, thanks to the week-long practices prior to the Chicago Air and Water Show, I now know that in the time it takes me to walk my dog, the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds can complete their flight path around Chicago three times.
In his defense, Mojo's legs are only about four inches high. Walk tall, Little Buddy. You are the slowest dog on Earth.
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Yesterday I spent my whole day cleaning and disinfecting my apartment, because I have a cleaning lady coming to inspect it on Wednesday, and then tell me how much she'll charge me to clean it once a month.
Steve looked around at my place, pretty much cleaner than it has ever been, ever, and said, "Don't you think we should show her how the place really looks, every day, so she can get a sense of what she's in for?"
Ho HO! Looks like somebody doesn't know the Unwritten Rule that you clean your place up BEFORE the cleaning lady comes, because God forbid a STRANGER learns the depths of squalor in which you normally live! I scoffed in Steve's general direction, as I applied another round of Comet to my bathtub with my right hand and stirred the shower curtain in a bucket of diluted bleach solution with my left.
Men. So misguided.
****
That's about it for me. Oh, wait. Two more things:
1. "Superbad" really was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen; and,
2. Look what I get to see on my way to work every morning:
I know, right? Awesome.
Holy crap, yesterday was a day filled with stupid shit, like going to get the nail in my car's back tire taken out, finding out that the tire's a goner, and THEN being told I need A WHOLE NEW SET. Lucky for me, I'm watching some kids this weekend, which should cover the cost of said new tires.
Oh, oh! So I get to the house where the beasts reside, and I notice that the sliding door isn't locking. And, you know, those crappy sliding door locks are so shitty a squirrel could get in without exerting too much effort, so I was sort of nervous to leave it as is. Even though God would have to help the sucker that breaks into a house with four 100+ pound dogs inside - two of which are German Shepherds with aptly frightening German names - a Girl can't be too careful these days. So it was off to the hardware store to pick up some galvanized steel tubing, with rubber stoppers at each end, which fits perfectly in the space between the inner door and the door frame. Ho HO - try to get in NOW, Murderers!
Anyways, I got everything I needed to handle done, and pretty efficiently, because, come on, that's how I roll. But all this was entirely too much Adult Stuff for me to handle in one day, so I had to spend the rest of it in bed, with the DS, alternating between games of Sudoku and Cooking Mama. Both of which I'm hooked on again, ever since I gave up playing this, because I pretty much don't remember anything about January, February, March and the beginning of April thanks to that fucking game. Thanks for nothing, Miyamoto.
This morning, I made Steve's lunch for him to take to work, because last night we did the math, and the man is spending about ten dollars a day eating out for breakfast and lunch in the Loop. A day. So I offered to make Steve's lunch for him, because even though I say my job sucks my soul right out of my body, I do have the luxury of going home for lunch every day. I also have a more selfish reason, which is that at some point in my life with Steve I would really enjoy to get that ring on my finger, and spending ten dollars a day on food isn't going to get us nearer to that goal.
There's really no point to this story, I guess, other than my Beloved complaining - COMPLAINING - that I put a peach in to his lunch bag. "Oh, I don't like peaches," he said. Sorry, bud. Sorry I tried to put something healthy in your lunch. You can go ahead and trade it on the playground for something you really want.
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I'm sure you've all seen the recent Mattel recalls. Since I am a doting aunt who enjoys buying alot of needless crap for her nephew, I scoured the recall list to see what was on it. Nothing that my nephew would be interested in, but it's too bad the Barbie and Tanner "scooper" playsets were on the list. Thousands of girls aren't going to have the chance to pick up Barbie's dog's plastic poop! So sad.
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Time for me to head to lunch. And by "head to lunch," I actually mean:
- take car to service station so they can take the nail out of the tire;
- clean the bathroom;
- use the bathroom for certain things I can only do in the comfort of my own home; and,
- wash dishes.
Sigh. I think I'd rather be trading peaches for Ho-Hos on the playground.
Does anyone know when they started putting fragrance in flea and tick treatments? I put some on the pooch last night, because he goes romping in the woods with his buddies when he's at my parents' house, so all three dogs get treated until at least the first frost.
Anyways, for about 15 minutes I couldn't figure out why it smelled vaguely like baby powder in the house.
My dog now smells like a Cabbage Patch Kid. A Cabbage Patch Kid with dog breath.
So I was rushing around this morning, because the dog needed to be walked. Moj is less of a walker, really, and more of a schlepper. He likes to smell the proverbial roses, you know? Oh, and his legs are 4 inches long. So what I'm really saying is, he's Ass Slow.
But he's pretty cute ambling along, so I deal:
Anyways, in my haste, I forgot to put on deodorant. I smell like a pirate. Or, since I've never really been in close proximity to a pirate, what I feel a pirate would smell like.
In most settings I would think it would be kind of neat to smell like a pirate, but I think I'm offending my coworkers here in the Land of Biz Casz.
Solution? Confinement in the Medical Record Room, with my afternoon Hooch and a Sudoku puzzle to keep me smelly company.
Really, I'm doing it for the coworkers.
So to get to my parking space every day, I use an alley. By the time I go home for lunch to walk the dog, there's a collection of folks out, congregating along the side of said alley. Now, maybe I'm just blowing smoke here, but there are alot of other places I can think of that would be more pleasant to sit next to than a smelly, hot alley that's littered with flattened rat carcasses as thin as paper, but to each their own.
Occasionally my Homeless Doorman joins them, who recently violated some Silent Code that I thought we had going by asking me for a ride. A ride. In my car. Now I can never talk to him again.
Anyways, I've suddenly noticed that every time I drive past, I get dirty looks from these guys. Like I'm sullying their Chicago Alleyway G8 Summit with my car fumes. You know, as my car goes through the alley. The alley. The alley for cars.
So, I'm sorry, Alley Crew. I'm sorry I use the alley for it's intended purpose. Not nearly as sorry as I am for giving Homeless Doorman a lift the other day, though. Believe me, they don't make a car freshener potent enough for that train wreck.
I want to know what I bought online that made Delia*s assume a teenager lives at my house. Their catalog came in the mail today, with my name on it. Is it the five boxes of macaroni and cheese that show up on my standing grocery order? Or the fact that I have not one, but now two pairs of rubber shoes?
I don't know, but I don't think any of the models in the catalog were born before 1990. I am ashamed.
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This made my day today. Fuck, it made my week. And it's only Monday. Thanks alot, Erin. It's just downhill from here.
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We got Moj shaved this weekend. I don't feel that those photos really do him justice, so I made a little video of him scampering around. Chasing after a laser pointer. We'll call this video "The Laser Always Wins." Alternate title: "I Never Claimed My Dog Had Any Brains."
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Speaking of brains, I just walked that dog during a lightning storm. Take that degree back, Illinois, obviously it hasn't been put to any use.
I already told Bev this, but the other night I had a dream that I had a polar bear as a pet. It's probably because of this ridiculously adorable little guy, Hudson, who was born at the Brookfield Zoo in December:
Seriously, I could watch him for hours. People have actually left me to go see other exhibits while I stand and watch Hudson.
I'm a dork, I'm cool with it, and I don't mind if it the Internets knows it.
Anyways, in my dream, my cute little bear grew up into a standard, 1,200 pound beast, but I still loved him. Even when he was mauling members of my family, I still felt like possibly, maybe, I could make this pet work with my lifestyle. As the polar bear ate Moj, I remember thinking, "Well, we'll just need to make sure [the beast munching on my dachshund] is crated during the day."
I suppose we could go ahead and analyze this further, but hey! Let's not.
