Bored and Cold

Well I don't think I've been colder in my life. The heat's on, I have my nightshirt and lounge pants on and footie socks, and I'm still cold. I think the only cure is some hot cider. Can't believe in less than 2 weeks it'll be Christmas. The apartment still looks like a bomb went off and I have a lot to do before Christmas. I have school until the 22nd so I have a feeling it'll be another 'death march' this year to get it all done. I'm excited...making my dip as usual, but also some mulled wine - and I'm going to attempt some caramel corn. Plus I got my yearly shipment from Swiss Colony so we'll have plenty.

I'm bored today, so I'm reading miscellaneous blogs...and I'm also checking to make sure my links in my favorites are still working. Fascinating, huh? There's a lot of funny stuff on mylifeisaverage.com. It's kind of hard to stop reading, even though a lot of is posted by teenagers in high school. I posted a couple of things but they haven't shown up.

I hurt myself at school on Tuesday. We have to work on the receiving dock for Cost Control class and right away I went into the walk-in to get a case of eggs, came out and slammed my calf against the scale that was right outside the door. OMG I saw stars! I stumbled but caught myself, thankfully, and put the eggs on the bottom of the cart, still trying to see through the stars. Everyone around me asked if I was ok, then the woman that runs the dock came running out yelling at me because I didn't have non-skid shoes on. I tried to tell her that my accident had nothing to do with slipping, that I had banged my leg against the scale, but she said 'well you still need non-skid shoes'...whatever bitch. Thanks for your concern, by the way. I'll live, but I have a giant welt on my leg that is a nice pretty shade of purple and is still swollen after 3 days. I tried ice and a heating pad on Tuesday but haven't done anything since...maybe if I did the heating pad, it would finally warm me up LOL.

Oh well, such is life. The irony is, I'm a klutz in the culinary program. Go figure. Hopefully I'll graduate with a full set of limbs.

Giving Tigger a bath.....

Well, last night was eventful....I got off of work at midnight, came home, fixed dinner and watched TV...the next thing I knew it was going on 3....so I decided to go to bed, even though I wasn't all that tired. I came in to check e-mail and Tigger was on the bed behind me, his feet hanging over the footboard as always, and I smelled, well, cat crap....I turned on a light and went to him on the bed, and sure enough, he had a big wad of it smooshed into his fur under his tail. So I got a Kleenex and tried to pull it out, but it was caught in his fur and some came out but there was still some there. So even though it was 3 and I was tired, I decided to give him a bath because I just bought a new comforter and sheets and didn't want him getting it all over....so I locked him in the bathroom and grabbed a towel, and spent a few minutes bathing him...

Well, that was fun! Not...he is soooo strong...he kept fighting and trying to climb out of the tub and I kept putting him back in, and I was getting madder and madder and yelling at him...I really was close to beating him, actually....I am such a cat lover, an all-around animal lover, and I hate it when I get like that...Patches used to bring that out in me, and I hated it...I hated what she would do to me...hated what I would become out of frustration, and I see a lot of that in Tigger. People think I'd make a great vet or someone who works with animals, but I don't know. I love them, sometimes more than people, but it's hard to communicate with them and sometimes they refuse to do what you want because they don't understand. It's not their fault, and it's not yours...it's just the way it is because you can't explain things to them....and you either have the patience to keep putting the cat in the tub or whatever, and keep your cool, or you don't....and apparently I don't. I really hated myself last night, even as I was yelling at him and pulling him back into the tub, but I couldn't seem to stop myself. Even as I was doing it, I was wondering, does this make me a bad person? Still don't have the answer to that one.

So after a few minutes, he was clean and sulking in the bathroom. I tried to towel him off and he just hunkered there, shivering, obviously pissed at me. So I opened the door and left, and came in here to settle down a bit. There were wet spots in the hallway, so I knew he had come out of the bathroom...found him under the kitchen table, cleaning himself. I sat on the couch and watched a little bit of TV, and sure enough he came out and cleaned himself some more, and I knew he wasn't mad at me.

Since it was now going on 4, I went to bed for good....I put a towel on the comforter at the foot of the bed, which is where he usually lays...and as I was starting to drift off, I realized he'd jumped up and found the towel, so I went to sleep knowing that he was bright enough to find the towel :)

When I woke up this morning, I checked e-mail and before long, he was on my lap...so I think it's safe to say he's forgiven me. The question is, can I forgive myself?

Missing Dad....

I've been missing dad lately.....I know he's been gone nearly 21 years now...Wow, hard to believe so much time has passed....But sometimes I just miss him so much and wonder how I ever survived losing him. Yes, I miss mom too, and Aunt Tata and Grandma and Grandpa....but Dad is special...he was mine, you know? All mine. Mom was my mother, but she didn't give birth to me so we had a bond, but it wasn't what is normally between a mother and child. I love her and still miss her...regret terribly how I treated her, although I understand now that my behavior was completely normal for what I had been through. But dad...he was mine, and God saw fit to take him away from me when I was only ten...maybe losing him so young is one reason why I'm still hanging on, I don't know.

UB told me the other day about the day Dad realized he had cancer. I'd never heard this story before, and it didn't bother me at first but crept into my mind two days ago (the day after hearing it) at work and I about lost it. Apparently, Dad went to UB at work while they were waiting to go to a meeting and told him he was urinating blood, and he said he knew what that meant. That must've been the same day Aunt Tata picked me up from Brownies and the whole family was at the house when we got there. I would imagine it was either the same day or very soon after...I never knew that UB was the first person he told, or that he realized this at work or knew right away what it meant. He said they both knew it wasn't good news, but had no idea it was so bad.

So I was at work the next day and it crept into my mind and I had to fight to hold it together. I was sad and withdrawn and didn't talk or laugh much, and it's possible people noticed but if they did, they didn't say much to me. I barely made it to my second break, but when it came, I went to the bathroom and cried....I got a text message from Sean that said he was coming over that night (it was a Tuesday), so I replied saying I needed him and was missing dad. Splashed cold water on my face and tried to appear normal when I went back to work, and it must've worked because no one seemed to notice that my nose was a little red.

Made it through the rest of work OK...maybe just knowing he was waiting for me and would be here to console me as always helped, I don't know. But I made it through it without thinking too much about it and left at midnight. He was asleep when I got home, but was here for me when I started to cry again. Didn't get much sleep that night, and I remember him holding me as I sobbed myself to sleep. Was of course drained the next day, but I made it through OK.

He's always so wonderful to me...he doesn't know what it's like to lose a parent, especially as a child, so I know he has no idea what I've been through, but he's always here to lend a shoulder when I need to cry. Actually, no one in my life understands. Russ hated his father and was actually a little happy when he died; Missy has never lost a parent, although hers are divorced and remarried and she sometimes feels her father is gone because he lives so far away and has a new life....no one gets it but UB, because he's been there the entire way and has watched what losing my family has done to me...he's helped me through most of their deaths...he looked after me when Dad died, held my hand at my mom's funeral, was the one to tell me Grandma had passed during the night, and of course we helped each other through Aunt Tata's death last year. So I suppose if anyone truly understands, it would be him.

To follow this train of thought a little further, perhaps that is why I keep him around after all he's done to me...maybe it's a combination of having someone in my life who truly understands what I've been through, and having any semblance of family. I have to watch, though, that I don't get so caught up in having family that I lose myself or let myself get hurt...I know all too well how easily he can go from best friend to asshole. I thought losing his wife would end all of that and would make him a better person, but it didn't even stop after she died....I don't know, that's probably fodder for another journal entry.

Stuff

Lots of stuff has been going on lately. Skeeter Davis died the other day, and yesterday Rodney Dangerfield died of complications after a heart valve replacement surgery in August. He'd spent the last 2 months in a coma, and woke up shortly before dying. Not sure about Skeeter, other than that she was 72 and died of cancer. Just seems a lot of celebrities are dying lately. Janet Leigh died the other day, too, but I'm not sure what from.

On another note, I got stung by a bee at work last week (9 days ago) and it's still red and inflamed. Didn't want to go to a doctor for a bee sting, but a pharmacist yesterday told me it was infected, so I woke up early and made an appointment. He said it had certainly gone into my lymphatic system and tested my lymph notes by putting his hands in my armpit....great! Anyway, he gave me samples of an antibiotic and antihistmaine (the antibiotic would have been $90 by itself!), enough for a week, so it should be cleared up by then. Feel foolish going to a doctor for a bee sting, but the idea of the infection possibly going to my heart really bothered me. I hadn't eaten or drank anything before the appointment, and my BP was low, too, but the nurse didn't seem bothered by it. I grabbed some Rally's on the way home, though, just in case. I'm glad I only have to worry about taking these samples once a day, because with working every day, it's going to be tough to remember to take it 3 times a day. He said this stuff is strong, so hopefully it'll be gone inside a week...but I'm going to keep taking it until it's gone.

Not much else going on today. Carmel's in my lap, hot as always. I know it's mean, but sometimes I wish she'd go away - just for a little while. She's just SO hot and SO clingy...I walk in the door, get undressed and as soon as I'm in my desk chair, she's wanting in my lap. Tigger's almost as bad, and he's even hotter LOL.

New contacts are working. Got them Saturday and it's now Wednesday and I'm very happy with them. For once I can see! I couldn't stand the haze, which I found out was due to my eyes (or, rather, the contacts) drying out from not blinking enough. These new ones are wetter and seem to work better with my dry eyes. I think anyone who wears contacts has 'dry eye syndrome,' though...everyone I've talked to has had to use eye drops, so I'm not worried about it...as long as I can see and function on the job, I'm happy.

Cats, life....

OK, so I have 2 cats, Carmel and Tigger. Carmel is the sweetest, most special cat in the world. She's 8 1/2 and is so incredibly special. I can't tell you how special she is. I don't know what I'll do when I eventually have to lose her. I know it's going to happen, but I try not to think about it. She's one of a kind.

Tigger, on the other hand, well, he's special, but in the rode-the-short-bus sort of way. He's a sweet cat, most of the time, but soemtimes he's a little sh*t. That's the only word for it. He bites. And hard. He'll be fine one minute, purring and flipping his tail and enjoying the attention, and the next he gets this look in his eyes that says "I'm going to bite!" and he bites before I can react. And sometimes it leaves marks. Little brat.

He's beautiful, though. They both are. But then again, maybe I'm biased :)

I heard you can post pictures here, so if anyone wants to see pics of them - if anyone's reading this at all - let me know and I'll give it a try.

Gotta go. Gotta get ready to meet my man and my best friend (the one I went to Cleveland with), and on top of that I have the haze to deal with. I think my chapter in the book I'm going to write will be called The Haze.

Hugs.

The road-rage psycho from hell...

As previously mentioned, my friend and I just got back a few weeks ago from Cleveland. Instead of coming home 71, we came home 75 via Toledo. We were about an hour north of Dayton when it happened - I was almost run off the road!

See, it was a two-lane high way at that point, and I was in the fast lane going about 80. It was about 11:30 at night and there weren't many cars on the highway...until I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw these HUGE headlights! This relatively new pickup was on my tail and had its headlights in my window and was blinding me! I was a little annoyed and covered my rear-view mirror with my hand so I could see the road. At the same time, I got over to the right lane to let him pass. But I was upset that someone would *drive* with their brights on...it's not for that, it's for use in emergency situations like fog or poor visibility, and isn't supposed to be used when other drivers are around! So after he passed, I got over in back of *him* and turned on *my* brights so the a**hole would know how it felt.

That's where I made my mistake.

He got over to the right lane and let ME pass - then got over behind me and REALLY put on his brights! It was then that I realized he hadn't been using his brights at all, but just had really bright regular headlights! I thought about waving at him to tell him I had been mistaken, but feared he would take it as me flipping him the bird and who knows what would happen then! So my friend snapped off the radio and we held hands and I told him how scared I was, and he told me to find an exit. There wasn't one anywhere near where we were, so I got over to the right lane to let him pass - and he got over behind me!

It was then that it started to rain - out of nowhere. It was right out of a horror movie.

I got over to the fast lane, hoping he would pass - and he followed me there, too. This happened a few times, until I was about to pull out my cell phone and call 911. But what would I tell them? That I had provoked this maniac and we were somewhere on 75 and hope they got to me before he ran me off the road? This all happened so fast and there was no time to think.

The third and final time I got over to the slow lane, he stayed in the fast lane. See, out of habit I had been using my turn signals...and the final time, I just got over because no one was there. He stayed in the fast lane - but kept pace with me and stayed in my blind spot. I said to my friend, he's not passing! He told me again to find an exit, and I was beginning to re-think the cell phone idea - when he took off like a bat out of hell. AND THAT IS WHEN THE RAIN STOPPED. I swear, it was the eeriest thing I've ever been through.

He took off but I could still see him. It seemed we were going the same speed, so what was his hurry? The thing is, he got in back of a SEMI of all things up head and did the exact same thing to them, getting on their tail and turning on his brights until they moved over. But he didn't follow it all over the road, he just passed them and kept going the same speed I was.

It was the eeriest thing I'd ever seen, but I'm glad it happened - it taught me the valuable lesson of not pissing off fellow drivers, because you never know what kind of maniac you're messing with!

What made this funny, and something I will definitely write about at some point, is that after it was all over with, I turned to my friend and asked with a dead-serious expression, "Have you ever wondered how you were going to die?" I wasn't trying to freak him out, I was just curious and wanted to talk about something serious instead of our usual unimportant BS. But it DID freak him out, and he laughed and went on and on about how it was just like a horror movie, and I told him I just wondered...he finally answered my question, saying he wanted to die of old age surrounded by people he loved and people who loved him, which was THE perfect answer. Not that he was trying to give the perfect answer, it just was....and you would have to know my friend to know that he usually does say the right, perfect thing, even without trying. He's just a dramatic person and I have no doubt what he said was sincere.

I told him I'd envisioned dying in a fire, or possibly a car crash, which sent him into more hysterics...and he told me about this actress in the 30's, can't remember her name, but apparently she was deathly afraid of fire. She always did these darkly-themed black and white movies, too, and had jet-black hair. At one point in her career, she accepted the role of Joan of Arc....of all people to portray! She managed to survive being burned alive on screen, but rather than getting over her fear, it just made it all the worse.

Later in her life, she was trapped in her home and burned alive. She lived four days before her death. And apparently, my admitting that I had often envisioned my own death in a blaze of glory reminded him of this cursed actress.

My friend and I have been through so many amazing adventures over the ten years we've been together, and they'll all go into a book someday. Each one will have its own chapter, and this one will be entitled Road Rage.

Cecilia the Wonder Hamster

Well, she wasn't really a wonder hamster...but she was cute and fuzzy and noisy and busy and....and now she's dead.

I knew it was going to happen, and I pretty much knew when. See, I went to Cleveland for a few days two weeks ago for a Heart concert (birthday gift from a friend - he was already going and bought me a ticket too - so we had separate seats - boy what a gift - but it was still a fun time) and I noticed as I was giving her food before I left that she had not only lost weight (as much as a hamster could lose) but also had one eye closed. It was sort of crusted over, and she didn't like me poking at it so I didn't. I worried about it on my trip and when I talked to my boyfriend (whose only job during my absense was to check on the hamster), he said 'she's still kicking' and joked about leaving it for me to take care of should she die in my absence. Ha effing ha.

So I thought about it through most of my trip. Would she die while I was gone, or shortly after I got home, or did she just get water on the fur around her eye and is she going to be OK? Well, I came home late that Thursday and had gone straight to bed without checking on her because I drove the *entire* 4-hour trip there and the *entire* 4-hour trip home, not to mention around Cleveland and from there to Sandusky (to go to the islands) and from Sandusky to Toledo to catch 75 home. Needless to say, I was half-dead when I came in (friend didn't offer to drive, so I drove the whole way, dumb me), so I shot my boyfriend a quick e-mail telling him I'd made it home and went straight to bed.

The next day, I had post-birthday plans with another friend of mine, and I sort of vegged all day until she got off of work. Later that day, I realized I hadn't heard Cecilia running on her wheel or messing around in her cage...but that didn't occur to me until I was with my friend. So we bought an eye-dropper so I could flush out her eye in the hopes it wasn't an infection and went back to my place to help out Cecilia...and that's when I found her dead. *sigh* I knew as soon as I bought the eye dropper that it was too little too late.

I had some checks to destroy because I'm changing banks, so I used the box as a little hamster coffin and lined it with tissue paper (which I had gotten in a birthday gift from the friend I went to Cleveland with) and my friend and I buried her around the corner of my apartment building. She's against the wall and right under my bedroom. I obviously live in an apartment on the corner of the building, and she's not under my window because that faces the street and I thought it would be too obvious, us digging there, so she's a few feet around the corner buried against the wall and next to a bush. I think she'll like it there.

It was cute. Well, not cute. I'm not taking this lightly. But I thought her position was sort of neat. She was curled in a ball in her pine shavings and cotton nest (she wouldn't use the tube, for some reason), so she had died in her sleep. That made me happy...I'm glad she didn't suffer. She had a litter of pups when I first got her...the idiots at the pet store put a boy in with four females and they were all pregnant...I bought the one female that didn't *look* pregnant, but she was and gave birth a few days later. Boy they have short gestation periods. Anyway, I gave one of her 8 pups to my boyfriend, and the other 7 back to the pet store (a different one, after making sure they separated boys and girls) - so Cecilia's life goes on. And after I buried her, I gave her food and treats (I bought more stuff for that hamster!) to my boyfriend for his hamster, Nibblet.

TGIF

I'm so frustrated...had the day off on Wed and went to the eye doctor...had the full exam, and decided to get contacts. They're great - when I can see. But more often than not, it gets blurry after awhile and will not go away. Here I was at work yesterday with this haze hanging over my line of vision, and no amount of blinking would make it go away. I took them out on my first break and rinsed them and put them back in, and was ecstatic when I could see....only to have the blurriness return inside of a half an hour. By the time my second break came, I was so frustrated and upset at the waste of money that I sat at the table and cried out of frustration. I also called Sean and left a tearful message on his voicemail, saying why did I do this? Why couldn't I have left well enough alone? I also asked him to pick up my glasses from my apartment and bring them to me at work. One of the managers was really concerned, and pressed me to also call a friend, so I did....and later, I was paged to come up front because my friend was there to pick up his check. By that time, Sean had already put my glasses in my car and left me a text message saying he did so, but why didn't I take my glasses with me in case? I swear, he never ceases to point out where I went wrong.....

I'm frustrated (I know, I've said that a few times, but I can't seem to say it enough today) and worried I spent so much for nothing. What if my eyes are allergic to lenses and can't handle them? Will I get a refund? If so, I want to give up and get the money back now....or a part of me does. But then I look at how my glasses have broken out my face and think maybe I should give this a little longer. I don't know.

I called them yesterday and the girl who sold me the contacts told me to keep putting drops (and even the solution!) in my eyes and it should go away. She didn't seem too worried about it, even though I have to work and I have to drive...of course she wasn't! It doesn't affect her! She made a sale, didn't she? Hey, it's only my eyes.....for all I know, she works on commission, and loses it if someone returns the lenses or glasses.

*shrug* I don't know.

I keep hoping my eyes will get used to them and I can just keep them and put the glasses aside, because I definitely like the idea of not having the glasses....but for now, I'll have to keep the glasses with me in case the contacts get blurry again. Before long, I'm going to have to keep a pouch or something at work to keep all my eye stuff in, between all the solutions, the contact case, the eye drops and the glasses! That's actually a good idea....

Well, I suppose I'd better get those contacts in....sigh...wish me luck....TGIF and I can relax at home and not stress out over it, which I'm sure isn't helping matters.