The next day

So, where was I?  Right, the aftermath of the vet clinic visit.

Today the cats went back for teeth cleaning and possible mouth surgery.  Yesterday's visit included a whole bunch of blood work, both as a pre-whatever for the anesthesia, but also because both of them have significant trouble with their teeth and gums.

Today's visit took the entire day, as they had difficulty recovering from the anesthesia, always a possibility with cats, sad to say.  I have never lost a cat to anesthesia drugs, but it is worth the risk because they simply cannot have mouths that hurt all the time and the additional risk that poor dental health causes to some internal organs, including their little hearts. 

So, under they went and several hours later I received a telephone call that they were doing well, but not waking up very well.  They were supposed to come home at 2 p.m., then 3, then 4:30, and I was finally able to fetch them at 6.  They have lots of antibiotics and pain medicine, syringes for today and two more days.  Because I used to tech, I can call them on Friday and come in for more, need be.

They, the clinic, expressed some of the the blood drawn yesterday to one of the state labs so that they would get results sometime today.  It seems that someone there suspected that there was more going on than just bad dental hygiene.  They have feline stomatitis.  They are allergic to the plaque that forms on their teeth between cleanings.  How both of them can have this is beyond me.  During the past forty-plus years that I have had cats and dogs, we have experienced lots of physical issues, mostly because we adopt animals that are health compromised in some way.  We know to expect problems and that is fine.  But, this!  It is beyond my ability to understand.  Worrying is that both FIV and FeLV are often present with this other immune issue, but the tests indicate that neither is there.  Small favors.  I get to be frightened about this for at least a week.


L had four extractions, two of which needed jaw surgery.  C had one, and no one expected to have to do more than simply clean his teeth.  We, the docs and me, are going to get together and figure out a way to monitor this and maybe have me do regular treatments and cleaning at home.

So, the good news is that we are going to be as proactive about this as possible.  L is seven years old and C is just a bit over eleven and I am going to do everything possible to keep them around as long as possible.

The best news about all of this is that I had a lot of money saved for my next trip.  Two days at the clinic and the bill is nearly $1400.00. 

Yeah.

I was nice. I was scared, but I was nice.

I just cannot go through the whole thing, but something happened at the vet clinic today and I had to come home and try to manage a change with, well, with someone who is not me.  Within the handicap of not having a voice here, I had to try to convince someone that what he was doing with the cats and their diet was killing them, although using the word killing could not be used.

So, I came home and spent the entire day trying to figure out how to do this.  This is all about trying and I hate using that word today because trying to do the best for everyone is just not working for me today, and not for a long time.

When I finally settled on a plan of something and went to have the discussion, I was so gentle and nice about it.  I took all of the responsibility and simply asked for help.  I was so sure that it would be fine.  Seriously, a day in which you are scolded for something that you did not do and then are scolded again whilst begging for a new approach to this problem, well, it totally sucks.  Between this same old crap and the last four months of our daughter angry with me because she does not have a relationship with that person who is not me and who will not even consider any of it, man, something has to give here.  The stress is so great and I think that the thing that finally gives is going to be me.

I just cannot understand how all of this stuff is always my responsibility and subsequent fault.  I could not do Thanksgiving and I know that I cannot do Christmas and Yule.  I want out.

Worthiness. Again.

I wish that I did not have to be the person who did whatever needed doing.

I wish that, just once in a while, that there was someone who would take care of things.  You know?  Someone who would be willing to relieve me of the burden of always doing stuff.  Like the tires.  Twelve days ago I replaced the tires on the vehicle that I am allowed to use.  They were many years old and two of them needed filling with air at least once a week.  I do not know anything about tires, but aside from the inconvenience of finding a place where there was an air hose/compressor thing and having enough change to pay for the time it took to fill up those tires, my guess is that having tires that leak all the time is not all that safe.  But, like I said, I do not know anything about how they work, so it really is a guess.

So, I have these four new tires and today when I was at my daughter's house, the babies and I were watching the little machines move and scoop the leaves in the gutters and dump them into the big machine, the little machines zipped (yeah, those things can really move) and the big, orange machine went to follow them, but stopped right in front of the house and I could see that he was saying something and that he was making truly weird hand gestures and I thought that he was complaining about how close my car was to where they had to maneuver the leaves over to the big pile, so I went to the porch so that he could scold me properly.

Turns out that he was trying to tell me that I had a flat tire.  So, I told my daughter that I was going to have to take care of that and that I would probably have to stop watching the babies whilst she and her husband were trying to get a room or two painted without the help of those two, little helpers.  She and I went out to look at the flat and she was ahead of me and noticed that one tire on the other side of the car was flat, too.

What the fuck?

Yes, two flat-ish tires. One sort of and the other really flat-ish.  So, I waited until they took a final break for the day, and as I had told them to go out, have dinner and some adult fun, whilst they were getting ready I drove to the gasoline station, filled the tires and filled the gas tank.  At least I would be able to make it home tonight.

And, I did.  I filled everything just fine.  I made it home and the tires look well enough so that I can try to get into the car fixer guy to try to find out what the hell is going on with the tires on this stupid car.  I mean, new tires should not be going flat, right?

And, it really is not about the tires.  When I was struggling with the hose and the wonky thing that you press against the tire nozzle, all that I could think about was how nice it would be if there were someone who would be willing to give me some help with, well, not the tires exactly, but a few of the things that just mess up your time and schedule, those little things that are driving me to sadness.  You know, at least once in a while, it would be really nice to not be the only person who takes care of things.

I am independent and sort of pride myself on being that.  Whatever needs doing, I can do it.  Car stuff, well, I know the guys to use for all of that, not being able to figure out most of it.  I can change the oil and a blown-out headlamp, the windshield wipers, refit a loose window gasket and some other small stuff.  So, I use the car guys to take care of the rest.  I can also do pretty much anything that the house needs.  I paint and repair windows, screens, downspouts, even do minor plumbing stuff.  No electricity though, and I did not replace the toilet recently because I simply could not lift either the old or new one.  I can design and build furniture, but not any more because of my crappy joints, although there is plenty of built-in bookcases and stuff like that to remind me that I could at one time do that stuff.

I do not mind doing any of that stuff, I enjoy it.  And, I am wondering what it is about today's tire thing that is making me so sad.  And, when I finally got home late tonight, I wanted to check on a few sites I run and as of this moment, I have been trying to connect to the Internet for more than an hour.  I know from the symptoms that it is the stupid modem and that I need to take the tower in and have the damn thing replaced.  Like right now, this instant, but it is very late and will have to be done tomorrow.  And, I am not certain how I am going to fit that in with a very long dental appointment and the fact that tomorrow is the only day of the week that I am allowed to do laundry here.  Yeah, I live here and I can use the machines only on Tuesdays.  Long and really kind of heartbreaking story, which is directly related to why I do everything for myself.

I know that I was feeling sorry for myself during the time that I struggled with filling the tires, in the rain, in the muck.  I get that that was a dumb thing to be sentimental and needy about, but it was just the most recent thing that no one except for me cares about.  You know, it would be different if I lived alone and could sort of revel in the whole doing for myself thing.  But, I do not.  I live with someone who everyone else thinks is great and that is because no one knows what goes on around here.  Not even my daughter.  Yeah, my fault and all that crap, but it is what it is.

I am going to give up and just go to bed.  Maybe I will get over being such a selfish brat by the time I get up in the morning.  God, I hope so.  You know, I thought that I was finished posting here, that I had moved on, to the point where I understood how pointless it is to allow all of this stuff to hold energy for me.  I know that I need to grab and pull up my big-girl-panties and be an actual big girl.  Why am I stuck here?  I will unlikely be able to get on-line tonight and will not post this.  If I am lucky.

I am such a disappointment to so many people.  I just keep failing all over the damn place.  I give up.

Chocolate and beef

I just tried a piece of a Toblerone bar that I bought at least a month ago during one of those endless trips to the pharmacy for meds.  Man, that is good milk chocolate.  I do not like milk chocolate, but this bar is great, even without the nougat stuff in it.  Someone told me that the KitKat bars that are made in England are better than the ones made here, so I tried some when I was there.  

Really?  Not so great, and the same thing for all of the milk bars.  And it is not as though I am fond of KitKats here, by the way.  All I really like is the wafer cookie part inside.  I cut/break/bite the chocolate off and toss/spit the chocolate parts away.  Same thing for Snickers bars.  Get rid of the chocolate, even the dark chocolate, and just give me the nougat.  Please.

The only reason this holds any energy for me is that I love chocolate, but eat mostly the 90% cocoa kind.  Having diabetes will do that for you.  You like, even love as in Godiva's white chocolate raspberry starfish, a nice piece of candy once in a while and you cannot have any because of your stupid blood sugar crap...errrr...cauliflower, sorry.

More, I only succumb to the chocolate when I am feeling really terrible, which I am not today because I am experiencing much less pain than usual and the house smells divine from the slow-cooker cooking of a nice pot roast (this is the beef part) with parsnips, and other vegetables, too, but it is all about the parsnips.  

All of that should be making me happy-toes-dancing in the streets, but when I saw that bar in the cabinet next to the seasonings, I had to have a taste.  So, I did.  It was great.  Then I had another section and before you know it, I had eaten four of the nine sections in the box.  Well, I let them melt in my mouth and then chewed the nougat bits.

And, again, for the second time today, I thought...what the cauliflower?

Honestly, I think that I am losing it.  

Between the whole dreaming thing, which by the way is insane, I have to look forward to one of my more challenging clients at work on Wednesday.  She never does her part of the work, e-mails me with ridiculous demands that I have to decline and endlessly explain why I cannot, it is impossible to, comply.  She misses sessions, shows up late and wants me to stay late to work with her.  She has had sufficient opportunities to do what she needs to do and I really should tell her that we are finished working together, but I cannot.  She has run out of resources that will help her and despite the fact that she will eventually do something so outrageous that we will not be able to allow her to return, at this time I simply cannot stop giving her appointments.  I always, during our sessions, see a glimpse of something reasonable in her, some aspect of who she is, or might have been at one time, that keeps me working with her.  So, then.  Wednesday.

Back to the dreams, I woke this morning remembering eight dreams, completely, not just fragments, but the whole darn things.  That is entirely too much information to take into the day with you.  Worse is that the final dream, the one just before I woke up was very sexy.  Not in the lots of sex department, but in the tender, someone cares about you in a significant way realm.  

There is no violence in those kinds of dreams and they never wake me crying or yelling or screaming (although a little post-coital-dream-screaming might be nice) or anything sad like that, but I think that those dreams in which someone is nice to me might be the saddest of all dreams.  The reality of waking is too great a contrast.  The sense of loss and longing, well, I do not actually cry about this, but I do get all moist in the eyes for a moment or two or twenty. 

So, maybe that is where the desperation for that forgotten chocolate bar was born. 

I have these moments where I think that if I were pretty and thin and rich, or even one of those, that maybe someone could love me, but I am not any of those things and even though I am the best person that I can possibly be on the inside (where I think that it really counts), the chances that anyone could care about me for being just who I am simply do not exist.

Not everyone gets to find happily-ever-after.  We just do not.  What we do get is the chance to make the best of what we actually do have and I try to do that.  Just, sometimes.

Wee doggies!

I took one of those twelve-hour OTC pain relievers before bed last night and woke with much less joint pain this morning.  I took another dose, which is actually half of the maximum dose of two tablets.  So, I guess I took one. 

I did not have any of the horrible side effects that I read on the label, so that is a good thing.  The only problem is that that darn label also says that you cannot take this stuff for more than ten days.  What the cauliflower????

What am I supposed to do in ten day?  Man.

I am going to worry about that next week and just enjoy less pain when I wake up. 

Sleep

I never pay attention to the quality of my sleep until there is a problem.  How much, how long, how disturbing or delicious the dreams.  All of it.

So, anyway, since I have been ill, and, frankly, at this point it is a stretch (ha! sleep pun) to remember when I was not feeling like crap in a casserole, sleep has not been my friend.

I can, customarily, sleep without a thought, not a care in the world.  Even in my sometimes weird and inappropriate world, sleep comes easily.  I have supportive pre-bed routines and my mind is peaceful.  I fall asleep, I stay asleep and I rarely need an alarm to wake me.  I wake refreshed and bright as a penny.  I will probably forget and then repeat all of this later, but that is only because it is true. :)  

I dream a lot, well, we all do, but most people do not remember all or even some of the dreams that they have each night.  I remember a lot of them, as in up to ten or more.  They often dematerialize shortly after I awake, drifting away in gossamer strands and shreds and wisp's, whispers, until they are invisible to my mind's eye.  Some of the stories stay with me for a while, an hour, a day, forever.  The unpleasant ones stick around the longest, probably because they have the most relevant messages to share with me.  Fine, I do not mind so much.  Well, except for the one where I was the engineer on a train and it was early in the morning, deep dark, silent except for the sound of my wheels on the tracks and the hum of my engine.  That part was quite lovely, but the ending part where the homeless man stepped out of the deep dark and onto the tracks and I hit him, well, that part was horrible.  

I awoke, certain that it was real and that somehow, overnight, I had become a train engineer, came into possession of a train, and had killed a man with it.  I never thought much about where I actually got the train, but in the dream it did belong to me.  Anyway, I woke knowing that I had done this terrible thing and for long minutes I struggled with calling the police to turn myself in and not calling the police to turn myself in until I had talked to someone about it.

Even once I finally realized and admitted that it had been a truly sucky dream, the day was kind of ruined.  Worse is that I can still remember every detail, every sound, every smell and scent and physical sensation of that dream, and I do not have to try very hard to bring it back in screech-ing-ly lurid and in-the-moment, heart-pounding consciousness.  I have a few dreams like that, but the murdering train one is the worst.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, I am having trouble sleeping.  I cannot fall asleep or sleep for very long or wake with any vigor.  I need a nap nearly every, single damn day.  I do not always take one, but they always want to be taken.

It is the cough.  Well, it is the pain, too, but that is another whine.

I take prescription cough medicine, or I take OTC stuff.  I suck on drops, sip tea with honey and lemon, or warm water with lemon and chamomile or whatever herb I am desperate enough to try mixing with the damn honey and lemon.  Valerian, catmint (both of which delight the cats), more herbs, melatonin, my own sleep pillows, meditation, reading, breathing exercises, muscle exercises, stop-the-brain exercises, actual exercise earlier in the day, more reading, snuggling with the cats, cats out of the room, socks on/socks off, fan blowing, white noise, open windows, closed windows (totally sucked), staying up a bit later, even a subliminal, sleep-supportive tape, boring books.  I keep regular hours for settling in and do not have a television to seduce and corrupt my late night rituals.  A nice, bubbly, warm bath would be nice,, however, whilst the old knees will allow me to settle into the tub, they will not permit me to get out again, which reminds me that I once had to sleep in a tub during an ill-fated trip with someone who is not me and there are no circumstances under which I would recommend that to anyone...it was horrible, even though it was lined with lovely and cushy comforters and was huge enough to hold two sleepers.  Now, that particular trip would give ya nightmares.  Lordy.

I have a great mattress and pillows and lovely bedclothes and sleepwear.  All very comfortable.  No noisy outdoors stuff, quiet neighbors, quiet neighborhood.  My mind is calm and I feel relaxed, and I make sure that I am all peed out before I go to bed, so no nocturnal trips to the loo.  I like that word, loo, so much nicer than toilet for some reason.  I do not eat anywhere close to bedtime, nor do I drink alcohol or caffeine.

None of it works, although the lay/stay in bed and exercise exercises are nice and relaxing and if you have to do something in bed besides sleep, they are lovely.

It is the cough and the pain, neither of which I can eliminate.

I cough until the other residents of this place want to toss me out and then string me up as a caution to others in the area who might be thinking about taking up coughing as an avocation.  You know, like me.  I am spending more time trying to clear my lungs or just cough for absolutely no reason, or maybe pop a blood vessel or have a stroke than I am on doing anything else, even if you add all of the everything elses together.

My solution, of the past week and a half, has been to take a night-time cold medicine.  I started with the recommended dose of two tablets, but after the first night and feeling disconnected for too long the following morning, have reduced the dose to one tablet, even though I have to struggle to be alert in the mornings.  I hate it, but I need the sleep, for crying out loud.  I do not want it to be a crutch, so I only take it when I absolutely have to be someplace early in the mornings, which is only a few days each week.  The rest of the time I do not mind not sleeping a bit later and can always take one of those naps later in the day, which I really want whether or not I take the sleeping stuff.

I am normally a patient person, but the novelty of this feeling ill is totally worn off.  Not to mention that taking this OTC cold med is not making me happy in the teeniest bit. Stunningly bad habit.

Anyway, I do not have to be anyplace tomorrow and it makes no difference to anyone, save me, when I get up.  So, I am off to bed and will read a bit if I cannot drift off within reason.  I am tired, despite this afternoon's nap, but that means nothing in the big sleep picture (yeah, another pun, I gotta million of 'em).

Sweet dreams to me, sleep tight and dunt let the bedbugs bite.  To sleep, perchance to dream, but mostly to cauliflowering sleep.

They go out

every Thursday for dinner.  They have a favourite place and that is where they go.  If you call over there, forgetting that this is their Thursday thing, you are reminded that they only have a few minutes before they will be leaving and then you get to have a nice conversation until they are ready.

They have, each of them, favourite items on the menu, although one or the other will try to mix it up a bit once in a while.  I hear that the soup is good, but some of the names of the soups are weird and despite their years of experience at this restaurant, they joke with the people there and simply decline the more strange offerings.

They go there and they sit and talk.  They spend the entire evening talking and eating.  They have drinks.  

It is grown-up stuff and they never let anything affect their plans.  

Thursday evenings are for just the two of them. 

Even though it is a great restaurant, I can never eat there.  Even driving by on my way to work fills me with yearning for just a single, tiny moment of the same for myself.

Winners and losers

There are still a few stragglers in the candidate pool, but the results are in for what interested me.  All but two of the favorites lost.  The two that did win ran unopposed.  Well, then.

I am still glad that I voted with my brain and my unrelenting hope for a decent government that will focus on what is important, as in those things, projects, legislation that will actually help the citizenry instead of the far-too-often insider bickering and fighting some proposal simply because it was suggested or initiated by someone from the other political party.  

School-yard posturings, and on grown-ups is is sad, disappointing and just plain stupid.  Yet, it goes on every single election, every damn time.

It makes all of us big, fat losers.  No exceptions.  Fuck.

Vote

Well, if today is a voting day where you live, get out there and vote.

Even if you feel that you are not adequately prepared on the candidates and issues, just go anyway, and vote.

Even if the weather is crappy, vote.  Interestingly enough, except for one state, here in the US, it is mild and mostly sunny everywhere else.  So, vote.

Splash some water on your face, draw in some eyebrows (that is mostly for me, thyroid issues) and haul your butt to the polling station and vote.

Promise yourself some treat for making the effort, like unlimited time on the computer when you get home, or a nice, long nap or one of those yummy blended coffee drinks from the drive-through on the way home.

Just go vote.  

And, if you are completely uninformed about everything political, try to make yourself vote for the Democrat candidates.  Our system is imperfect, and every candidate is imperfect, but we have the best chance for real, honest and true change with those aligned with the Democratic party.

Even if you have to vote for the other guys, just please go out and vote.  It is too important to waste this opportunity to make your voice heard, even if you end up voting for the wrong people.

Please.