Well, it's been a long week and I have today off. I should be doing car insurance crap and cleaning the condo now that I can bend over again (and get your minds out of the gutter - I meant because of the car accident!), but I don't want to. It's "Free Day," when I eat whatever I want, so I am having a piece of banana bread and a strawberry cream cheese croissant for breakfast and then going to read Cosmo. Every so often I get sucked in to all the shallow crap they have on the cover (i.e. "50 Ways to Have Fun with Your Man"), but this time I bought it 'cause Ashlee Simpson is on the cover. I have mixed feelings about her. On one hand, I don't think she has much vocal talent (and in fact struggles just to sound average), I think she's overexposed and overhyped, but there is something cute and spunky about her that I do like. So we'll see what Cosmo has to say.
Hope everyone has a great weekend. Sorry I don't have more to say.
Posted @ 9:58 AM
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
There was a book that came out (or became popular) when I was a kid called Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I thought that could be modified to apply to me last Friday, but yesterday managed to top it. Or more, I have just had a string of shitty days lately...
On my way to work on 101 East (a 2-lane 65 MPH highway), a jackass kid in a truck way too big for him swerved for no apparent reason and the huge trailer he was towing started to fish tail, knocking me into the left guard rail and then down the meridian and up the other side, stopping literally a foot from hitting the traffic on 101 West. The weirdest part? And don't believe it if you don't want to, but I am very far from kidding. About ten minutes earlier, I had had this fleeting vision/premonition of myself getting hit and careening down into the marshy area off the highway, exactly like it happened. I ignored it. So between that and the fact that I managed to get out of it with nothing more than a very sore back, I truly feel like something divine happened to me yesterday. The truth of how much worse it could have been is haunting me. I can't stop thinking about if I had hit the person behind the truck, what would have happened then? Or if I hadn't been able to keep my car straight against the guard rail and spun around, causing everyone behind me and beside me to hit me and each other... What would have happened if I hadn't finally come to a stop right before I went head on into the westbound traffic, very heavy with commuters? What if I had been going my usual 80 instead of 60? I got very very lucky yesterday. It's kind of humbling.
My car was not so lucky. It's pretty fucked up. Actually has a gaping hole in the passenger side door, that's how hard the trailer hit me. I have this horrible little Daewoo sedan that I can only imagine is going to SUCK in the snow compared to my Subaru and the AWD, and I am trying not to dwell on that because it makes me very nervous...
*sigh* I am going to pop my painkillers and muscle relaxants and hit the couch. (I would be on the TempurPedic, but I'm afraid my heating pad will fuck it up.) Hope everyone's having a better week so far than I am!
Posted @ 7:56 AM
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Well, I guess I have been neglecting my blog again... Are you surprised? Shouldn't be! This is very much a recurring theme with me. Anyway...
This week just sucked ass. It was sad, stressful, frustrating, infuriating... Everything you don't want a week to be. Thursday, we had a tech from a neighboring animal hospital call because they were sending over an employee of theirs with her puppy that got hit by a car. (I should mention that the clinic she was sent from only sees cats, though the doc there is educated in all small animal medicine and chooses not to see anything but cats - it is not that she is incapable. Not to sound like a bitch, but I am actually kind of pissed at them for shipping this disaster to us when they were more than capable of handling it.) So this girl comes in with her 4-month-old puppy who got hit and dragged and his left forlimb "degloved," which is the term for basically the skin being pulled off completely. It was a friggin mess, but totally salvageable. So we do what we do, get him medicated so it's not hurting, get him bandaged as best we can to stop any more bleeding or injury until the owners decide what they want to do. The options were to do some major surgery to try to save the leg, which would have cost a few thousand dollars even if we did it as inexpensively as possible, or amputate (less expensive) and hope he doesn't develop hip dysplasia or a knee issue later in life. (Three legged dogs need their back legs to work!) Well, as we encounter so often in this field, it often boils down to money and as much as we hate it, we make the recommendations and the clients have to make the decisions. However, these people elected to euthanize this puppy not because of money... Not because of potential complications down the road. They did it because they didn't want an imperfect (if we tried to save the leg) or three legged dog if we ended up amputating. I almost wish it was about money, because as much as I hate that excuse, I know it's reality. But these assholes actually chose to euthanize the puppy not for money, but because he would no longer be aesthetically pleasing to them. It makes me so angry and was the icing on the cake of my shitty day. I took a picture of this puppy's injury when I thought we were going to fix him...for a sort of "before and after," as we sometimes do. Well, it's now just a poster for why you should never let a dog off leash if he's not very well trained in recalls. They let this untrained puppy go and surprise! He got smacked. I wish I could show this to every idiot who lets their untrained dogs run loose. (And I am not talking about those people who know their dogs stick to the yard, or live in the middle of nowhere. I am talking about people who are just plain stupid/irresponsible and should fucking know better.) Anyway, if you are interested and have a strong stomach - and I mean it!!! - click here to see. He was under anesthesia in this picture, not dead, just so you know. Sorry if this upset anyone, but with the shit I see every day that could have easily been prevented, I say this is just tough love. Take care of your pets, please!!!!!!
So...um...what else... I think I forgot to mention that I bought a portable dishwasher a couple weeks ago and we picked it up on Friday last week. Jay was the previous dishwasher and never did them and instead of just living with the stinky, crusty dishes in the sink or fighting with him about it, I thought this made more sense. I love the thing. The wooooorsh noises are the best. Shopping for cool, high tech dishwasher detergents was fun, too. I settled on these little capsule things from Cascade that have orange-scented Dawn in them as well as Cascade powder. So doing the dishes actually smells good and is fun now. Yay!
Um...in other news, after more or less abandoning "Project Revamp," which was the working title for my body refab project, due to an old knee injury flaring up, Sarah being gone on maternity leave and me working too many hours as well as a bunch of other deterrents, I am back on the plan and down 3 pounds already in the last week. I have told myself that this is the year I'm going to do it. Or finish doing it, I should say. I will never be a waifish size 4, but I'd like to get into a 10 or 12 again. And I will. Yes indeedy!!! So wish me luck.
Anyway, I have to pee, so I'm gonna get going. Hope everyone is well. Have a good weekend!
Posted @ 11:47 AM
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Well, the day out with my sister went really well. Beachball got a clean bill of health and I have to say, my sister did, too. She has always been kind of speedy (jumping from one subject to the next, which is a sigh of hypomania, the stage before a manic episode in terms of Bipolar Disorder), so she seemed as normal as ever to me. Normal being an extremely subjective term, of course. So I wish her luck and hope everything will be OK. She leaves to go back to Olympia on Wednesday.
I just got back from WalMart, after waiting 15 minutes for the Vision Center person to show up. They were supposed to open at 11:30, but no one was there until 11:45. I went for a long overdue eye exam back on December 27th and picked up my glasses the 29th. Though it was a very different Rx than my last one (like 4 years ago...like I said, I was way overdue), something just seemed fucked up about it. Both eyes were not seeing the same thing, and they should, right? I mean, isn't that what glasses do? Perfect imperfect vision? Anyway, so I went back last Wednesday and had them reevaluate my eyes and guess what?? The Rx was indeed wrong, despite the doc treating me like some kind of ocular hypochondriac. They will replace lenses free if a Rx changes within 60 days, so they foot the bill. These seem good. I can see, I am not dizzy, and I don't feel like I am on a boat. Those other ones just had me all fucked up. Anyway, what do you think? Cute? Too granny-like? I dig 'em.
Anyway, I have a hundred and one things to do today, so I am going to get to it. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I am off until Tuesday, so neener neener neener! ;o)
Posted @ 1:31 PM
Friday, January 07, 2005
Hola, Reader(s). It's Friday and I have the day off. I am going to have lunch with my sister and her hippy boyfriend and then we are going out to my work to get a health certificate for her little dog so they can fly back to Washington on Wednesday. I guess while my sister was recovering in Maryland with my mom (if you don't know what I mean by recovering, go check out the April '04 archive), a little pregnant dog was dumped there, literally about to burst. (Hence the name, Beachball.) My sister bonded with this dog over the months and when she went out to Washington in November, missed her terribly. So sis went to Maryland for Christmas, made arrangements to take Beachball back to Olympia and now we just have to make it happen. As much as I think my sister's mental health makes her a questionable candidate for dog adoption, maybe Beachball is just what she needs. For a long time, people speculated about dogs being therapeutic, but I actually read a study about a year ago where people's seratonin levels were measured before and after interacting with a dog and the level after was something like 3 times higher than before the interaction. I guess that would explain why some depressed/obsessive compulsive people collect animals. It makes them feel good... Anyway... So I'm taking Dabney and Francis (or is it Frances?) out to Shorty's and then off to Barrington. Yippee!
I also broke down and bought a dishwasher at Sears last Sunday and we have to go pick it up at the warehouse today. There totally isn't enough room here for a dishwasher, but - as much as this is admitting defeat - Jay has dish duty but very rarely does them (usually I have to beg or they have to start to stink), I chose the lesser of two evils. I don't want to fight with him and I also don't want to have a stinky, crusty stack of dishes in the sink at all times. So yay Kenmore. I'm pretty psyched about that. It's a portable one with a permanent option, so when/if I/we move somewhere, it can be put under a counter like a built-in. Good buy, no?
I guess I should go take a shower and start to get my shit together for the day's activities. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. :o)
Fran & Dabney (That's Beachball in her jacket.)
Speaking of jackets... I never thought I'd be the type to put clothes on an animal, but she was cold...
Have a great day!
Posted @ 10:44 AM
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Well, happy 2005! Life was a little nuts this fall, but now I've got my shit together (as much as I ever will) and I am back to blog. Hope everyone is doing well and I am sorry I kind of lost track of you, "you" being anyone who used to read and is now reading this crap. :-P I kind of wanted to get this layout up ASAP so as to encourage myself to actually use it, so please forgive the lack of content. Anyone who knows me knows I never finish my layouts 100% anyway. (Can we call that part of my charm?) Anyway, feel free leave a message on the shoutbox/tagboard/whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-it) or email me.
I just got back from WalMart, after waiting 15 minutes for the Vision Center person to show up. They were supposed to open at 11:30, but no one was there until 11:45. I went for a long overdue eye exam back on December 27th and picked up my glasses the 29th. Though it was a very different Rx than my last one (like 4 years ago...like I said, I was way overdue), something just seemed fucked up about it. Both eyes were not seeing the same thing, and they should, right? I mean, isn't that what glasses do? Perfect imperfect vision? Anyway, so I went back last Wednesday and had them reevaluate my eyes and guess what?? The Rx was indeed wrong, despite the doc treating me like some kind of ocular hypochondriac. They will replace lenses free if a Rx changes within 60 days, so they foot the bill. These seem good. I can see, I am not dizzy, and I don't feel like I am on a boat. Those other ones just had me all fucked up. Anyway, what do you think? Cute? Too granny-like? I dig 'em.
