Here lately I’ve been having a hard time getting up and moving in the mornings. Part of me just doesn’t want to go in to work here lately, so I really drag my feet in the mornings when I’m getting ready. I take a shower in the morning because I like starting the day off clean and fresh, but also because it’s a good way to wake me up. Usually. Lately though I’ve been lingering in the shower and it’s been taking longer to wake up that way as well.

Well today my kitties decided to change that for me. I’m not really sure who the culprit was, but I’m leaning towards Ichigo since he was hanging out by the bathroom this morning and came scurrying in as soon as I opened the door and started investigating the room.

Picture this: it’s early in the morning, you’re still half-asleep and wondering if you really have to go into work that day, but damn does the shower feel good. You reach for the shampoo when suddenly something dark and about the size of your palm starts jumping around in the shower with you, collides into your legs and keeps hopping all over the place.

Nothing like having a live desert toad in your shower jumping around to really wake you up!

I am sad to say I let out a shriek at first, not knowing what was going on, but eventually I realized what had gotten into my shower with me.

It wasn’t funny then, admittedly, but now it most definitely is.

My kitty seems to have had a fire lit under her after seeing how many mice have been caught in my traps. She’s stepped up her hunting game….a lot. And she’s not limiting herself to just mice either. Every time I let her outside she returns with at least one catch, and literally lays it at my feet. I think she’s trying to make me acknowledge that she is indeed a talented huntress. Bets my mousetraps have offended her?

I’ve been seriously considering putting her on a diet, because she has gained some weight lately. But with all the exercise she’s getting hunting, well really, what kitty needs the feline equivalent of South Beach or apidexin to burn fat when they’re running all over the place hunting down mice, lizards, gophers, squirrels, and birds?

Speaking of birds, take a gander at what Denali caught this evening:

Mind you, this was after she caught (and tortured) two lizards. Wildlife beware, my kitty is on the prowl!

I had to hand it to the little bird though, it was very determined to live. And even after Denali crippled its wings, it was able to evade her for a bit.

Yup, the bird tried to fly away on broken wings, gave it up, then hitched a ride on Denali when Denali turned her back on the bird briefly. When Denali turned back around she just could not fathom where her prey had gone for the longest time. Eventually she did glace back and notice her passenger though! The befuddled look on her little face was priceless!

It’s a proven fact, Mondays just plain suck. Certainly one can have decent or even good Mondays, but for the most part they just suck. Mondays herald the end of the weekend and the return to drudgery. I sometimes think I get an obscene amount of horrendous Mondays, but I could be biased.

Let me tell you how my Monday went and you can be the judge of how bad it was.

To start, since the elementary school near the interstate is a year round school, the school zone lights are still going in the mornings and afternoons. I don’t think the school is completely year-round though, as they only use two school buses now instead of the fleet and the faculty parking lot isn’t nearly as full. So maybe a summer school of sorts? Whatever the case, morning traffic is still slowed down. I was supposed to leave the house at 7am – plenty of time to get to town on time I thought. Well, I set my alarm earlier so that I could get up and get ready on time, but then ended up snoozing for a bit and had to rush around like crazy to get ready for work in under forty minutes. No breakfast, and somehow I forgot to put deodorant on as well. I didn’t realize about the deodorant until I was about ten minutes outside of ‘Cruces. Too late to do jack about it. Damn good thing the air conditioner is on so high at work I can wear sweaters and still be fine. Never the less, I was paranoid everyone could tell and sprayed some extra body spray on when I got to work.

On the way to work I went the interstate instead of the frontage road, which is my usual route. I did this because I thought it would cut more time off my commute. I was right, but damn did I get the crap scared out of me. There is a Las Cruces City police officer who lives out somewhere around Chamberino, NM and the outskirts of La Mesa, NM. These are villages (not towns due to lack of population) that are over twenty miles away from Las Cruces. In short, he is waaay out of his jurisdiction. Yet this officer, who drives his unit home every day (lets not even go into the tax payer dollars going into the upkeep and gas of his unit) thinks he’s god and likes to bully people on his way to and from work. I hate him and he’s just another prime example of why the LCPD deserves no respect what-so-ever.

On the way into ‘Cruces this bastard decides to start scaring people by riding on their bumpers and turning his sirens on and off, then switching lanes, brake-checking the people he just cut in front of, then doing it again. Of course no one dared to pass him, so you have about eight cars in three lanes going 65mph in a pack and eyeballing the loon that’s messing with them. This is, sadly, not unusual at all and I’ve seen him do stuff like this many a time. All of a sudden he swerved from the middle lane into the far-left lane in front of the car in front of me, no signal lights of course, and flips his lights and sirens on. He almost clipped the car in front of me and they came to such a hardstop that I almost rear-ended them! It was insane, and all that just to pull over the truck in front of us. Who, by the way, was going the speed limit and everything. No idea why he pulled them over, but he did.

I was hoping that would be the worst thing to happen to me today, but alas, wishful thinking. Since I was fairly certain that the guy in the pickup truck didn’t break the law and was just that Pig’s victim of the day, I happily put the pedal to the metal after I got out of radar range and put some much needed distance between me and the Pig. The guy pulled him over outside of Las Cruces city limits so he couldn’t issue a citation of any kind. Thus, I did not want to be anywhere nearby when the Pig got back on the road, lest I be victim number two.

Despite all this, I managed to get to work a little early. Instead of getting a “Good morning, how are you?” or even a “Thanks for coming in, I appreciate it” or something from my boss I got a “You’re too early, don’t clock in yet”. Well fuck you too. Guess that’s what I get for being nice and opening when it’s nothing but a hardship for me. Now, as I mentioned, they were installing the new printers and system on the drive thru computers today. Every time they hooked up a new printer last week, the two stations connected to it always experienced glitches. You’d think after doing this all of last week (and when they set ‘em up at the other branches too since we were the last) they’d have it down to an art by now. All possible glitches expected and the method for dealing with them known, right? Apparently not. One computer was set up, it had some sort of glitch and the girl I was opening with got locked out of the system – completely unable to do transactions now. Naturally it got busy at this point and I was handling the drive thru all by myself up until a little after the lobby itself opened. And since the tech guy was working on the one computer that experienced the glitch, he hadn’t finished setting up mine.

So I had to set up my drawer and handle transactions at one of the computers in the teller-line for the lobby. Back and forth I go from drive thru to my station handling the transactions all by myself. My supervisor, or one of the assistant supervisors, could have gotten on a station as well and helped out since I was literally by myself with my co-worker locked out completely. Did they? No. Instead I got snide comments about how I needed to pick up the pace. When everyone else started arriving and getting set up, did anyone offer to help? No. They saw me there with four drive-thru canisters lined up and instead they talked about their weekend, upcoming events, their morning, but no one helped. And if the drive thru gets busy and the teller line isn’t, those on the teller line are supposed to help. Considering they had opened their drawers, but the doors weren’t scheduled to open for another ten minutes, they could have helped. But no.

Then of course, after the first computer gets fixed and the tech guy sets up mine, it has the same problem as the first one and they gotta fix it. Except, I didn’t get locked out of the system so I was still handling drive thru transactions from another station. Where’s my break from this mess?

And to top off my craptacular day, I got written up.

Yup, I got a written reprimand for something I supposedly did over a month ago.

The real shits of it is that it’s not really my fault. Member’s accounts will have memos or flags on them that let the workers know if there is something going on with the account. For example, the member filed chapter 7 bankruptcy, their account is in collections, their wages are garnished, they have a password they want verified before any transactions are handled, or some other department wants to be notified prior to a transaction. You get the picture. Well, in those cases we need someone’s approval to process the transaction and the Member Service Reps. are notorious for sending the member to the teller line and telling the member to inform us that “So-and-so said it was okay/go head”. I’ve never really liked that they do that because a member can lie, and if we leave to go and double-check they get offended and half the time the MSR’s get onto us for doing that. I’ve always thought it was trouble waiting to happen.

Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right.

I actually remember the member, since his name is an odd one that stands out, and I remember the transaction in question. He had come from one of the MSR’s offices, and I saw him with them. He gave me everything that needed to be done and said he had So-And-So’s approval, so I did the transaction. Now, over a month later, I get written up for it. The hell?

Sure, I probably should have double-checked, but since we get talked down to for doing that, especially if the member gets upset or we’re busy and if I recall, we were busy, I was in a no-win situation there. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

So I got lectured about always reading the memos, getting the proper authorization, and so on. And, on my write up, it says that my next offense could lead to termination. GAH! Seriously?!

So, that was my Monday. How was yours?

Now, before I forget, I need to schedule Denali’s appointment at the vet’s and I need to check out the prices for samsung phone batteries since my phone’s battery doesn’t seem to hard its charge for long at all anymore. Hopefully I can get a new battery with my next paycheck, but I’m not holding my breath. Denali’s veterinary care has to take priority this time. She needs her rabies and feline leukemia vaccinations and I’ve put them off for too long as it is.

I come home to a house that looks like it’s been ransacked by a herd of wild animals, but it’s only Denali chasing after the elusive mice that have taken up residence here as well.

Magazines knocked off the contemporary coffee table, along with what looks suspiciously like claw marks on the legs. Pillows on the floor when I know they were in their respective places, books knocked off shelves, anything on the kitchen counters that can be knocked over, has been. And lets not even talk about the toilet paper roll scattered throughout the house.

Denali of course is no where to be found for about an hour. But as soon as I sit down before the computer she’s standing on her back paws with her big furry paw patting my arm to get my attention. She knows I have a bag of cat treats in the drawer and she wants her treat now that her human is home.

She purrs contentedly after having a few, stays for a few minutes for scratches and attention then disappears. The only evidence I have of her presence is the occasional banging sound of her opening cabinet doors in pursuit of mice and the lowering levels of food and water in her dishes that I’ve just refilled.

Then, as I get ready to call it a night I spy her out in the living room asleep on the couch.

I’m thinking Denali has begun to consider me a non-entity in her life since I’m never home it seems. Just the human that feeds her and gives her treats. Maybe she needs another furry friend to keep her company during the day?

All I can say, is that right now, coming home to these messes is not fun. Not to mention, there’s something disconcerting about having a pet in the house that you don’t really see.

That Joana now has some damn good food in her kitchen once again!

Seriously, grocery shopping is no longer depressing and I’ve even found myself able to “splurge” a bit and order food from food delivery companies like Schwann’s again.

I really missed being able to order stuff from Schwann’s. Their food is so yummy, like their stuffed pretzels, and of course number 505 – breaded chicken strips. *drools*

Denali of course loves the change in food purchases and cooking. There’s more fresh produce and meat, which means I actually cook meals now and not just eating ramen or canned goods. This of course means there are actually human table scraps for her to slip off with.

Which leads us to Denali’s new nickname – Pyro Kitty.

Yeah, she’s always had a habit of jumping on the stove before, but she’d mostly cut it out. I figured that after singing her tail so many times she had finally learned that it wasn’t worth it.

Turns out she just realized that anything I had on the stove previously wasn’t worth the effort; because now she’s back to her old ways. And this time she damn near burned down the house instead of just burning some fur off her fluffy tail.

Yeah, Denali jumped on the stove while I was heating up some water in the tea kettle. Clearly she thought I was cooking. I was in the bedroom at the time and didn’t realize anything was up until I smelled something burning. I thought it was the electrical space heater I had plugged in so I turned it off. But that wasn’t the source of the smell. Some instinct screamed “kitchen moron!” and I ran in just in time to see Denali streak out of the kitchen and flames on the counter next to the stove to flare up and scorch the wall.

Denali apparently knocked over a small stack of dishes on the counter by the stove, what I smelled burning was a plastic bowl that melted. It, however, caught something else, not sure what, on fire and it spread to the stuff on the counter. I managed to throw water on the fire and nothing was severely damaged. The scorch marks on the wall wiped off, the counter came clean. A glass jar cracked due to the fire, the handle of the coffee pot melted and my battery charger for my batteries had been unplugged from the wall socket and was sitting on the counter, and unfortunately melted as well. A few plastic utensils and dishes melted as well. But over all, the loss minimal when compared to what could have been.

Needless to say I screamed bloody murder for a few hours on end and Denali remained safely hidden for the rest of the day.

I still haven’t gotten another battery charger for my rechargeable batteries though. So I’ve been unable to use my camera due to lack of batteries in the mean time. Every time I want to use it and remember the batteries are dead I’m reminded of why the batteries aren’t charged and get upset all over again. I just can’t help but think about what could have happened and how Denali just will not learn to stay off the stove.

What is it gonna take to get it through this kitty’s head?!

Getting ready to head out to a small Halloween party to benefit the local animal shelter in a few minutes. I finally got my outfit (I’m a pirate, argh!) to look how I wanted it. The hair though, that was a royal pain in the butt. I’d never tried wearing a properly-styled topknot before, and oh my gosh, getting it to sit on the top of my head just so is a hell of a lot harder then the movies and television make it appear to be.

It’s good idea I nixed the idea of wearing my medieval sorceress’ robes with my gold and black mask like I had first intended to. Not only was the mask covered in dust (and a chore to clean thoroughly because of the glitter) but Denali took a shine to it as well.

By the time Denali stopped trying to wear it (and attack it) it had lost a fair amount of its glitter.

It will be weird taking Denali with me to the party this year. I’ve attended the shindig before in the years past, but Isis was the one who always accompanied me to those parties. Isis loved being dressed in elaborate outfits, being fussed over, and she didn’t mind walking on a leash. In short, the little event was something Isis enjoyed greatly. I was half-tempted to go by myself or not at all this year…but somehow that seemed like an insult-slash-snub to Denali. Whose to say she won’t enjoying going for once, right?

I won’t be there long today, maybe a couple of hours max, before I return home as I was invited to a Halloween Block Party of sorts, and even though some of my neighbors I’d really rather not interact with, well, I can’t just snub everyone else. KWIM? I guess today will be a bit of a trial-run for Denali. I’ll see how she handles the crowds of strangers and other animals before committing to attending the Harvest Howl in November for the Action Programs for Animals. We’ll have to see how today goes before Denali can start accepting any Christmas party invitations.

So, I’m off for some socializing, and since the elections are next week, I suspect I will be forced to suffer a great many conversations on the parties and their candidates who are running as well. Because, sadly, it’s all people want to talk about. Joy. Normally I don’t mind sharing my opinion, but with the way some of the campaigns have gotten downright dirty and slanderous…well, I’m not looking forward to talking politics with anyone around here.

Hope everyone has a wonderful (and safe!) Halloween this year. May yours be more interesting and exciting then mine.

Excuse my French, but damn it all to hell that freaking stinks!

There I am, sleeping like the dead, which isn’t surprising since it’s the middle of the night, and then I’m rudely awakened by a horrendous smell that chokes me up. Then I hear screaming and cursing, and somehow the smell gets even worse.

Apparently my neighbor’s dog decided that a skunk makes an excellent chew toy and went and caught itself one. But not before the skunk sprayed the dog by their house. The neighbors were rudely awakened by the smell and went to investigate. They tried to get their dog to return to their yard and stop chasing the skunk. No dice. Three guesses where the skunk ran to?

Yeah, that would be my yard. They pursued the dog trying to get it to give up the chase. I gotta give ‘em credit, chasing a dog through a muddy field at night (even if it’s not that large) is pretty impressive. The skunk was not impressed by the tenacious humans and dog however and decided to let them know this in the only way it knew how. By spraying the dog again. While it was in my yard and by my window. Oh you’re too kind skunk.

As you can guess, this is where I woke up.

I woke up gagging, since my window was left open for the cool breeze, and immediately knew that some dog had tangled with a skunk. Too many years with Big Mamma kinda made me used to this. But at least she never killed one by the house! I ran around shutting windows with lightening speed then, very carefully, turned on the porch light to investigate. That’s when the neighbors came up to the door and began explaining and apologizing. Upset as I was, I couldn’t blame them sadly, well not too much anyway. Dogs are dogs after all.

The dog on the other hand, seriously want to strangle and murder it right about now. I can’t sleep in my room, the smell is just too strong there since the skunk seems to have sprayed directly outside my window. So I’m sleeping on the couch tonight, which sadly isn’t much better given it’s proximity to my bedroom. Seriously, somebody get that dog some term life insurance from wholesaleinsurance.net (or the pet equivalent) because I’m going to bloody murder the thing.

We spent some time trying to locate their dog but he ducked into the cotton field behind the house with his very dead and very smelly prize clamped firmly between his teeth and no one wished to pursue him further.

I spent an hour in the shower with lots of floral smelling shampoo and body washed, but to no avail. I know I didn’t get sprayed, but I swear I smell it on me. Disgusting. I’ve got scented candles, incense, and liquid potpourri burning in every room of the house, literally. Got candles and liquid potpourri in the bathroom, the kitchen has a dish of liquid potpourri going as well, the bedroom has incense cones, sticks, and candles, and the living room has more potpourri and incense cones.

In the morning I’ll try splashing some tomato sauce all over the wall and sidewalk by the window and see if that helps. I’ve had the misfortune of hitting a skunk with my car before, but I swear, even then it never seemed to strong. I was near to tears and gagging on the smell. Maybe the skunk got off more rounds then I thought?

Stupid dogs. This is why cats are awesome and dogs less so.

It’s almost October and yet for some reason this house still seems to be stifling hot during the day. It’s actually kind of aggravating because it’s been raining off and on this past week so it’s hot and muggy in the house now. Joy.

The reason I’m thinking about this right now is the fact that I just saw an infomercial for electric fireplaces and it reminded me that I should be putting the room fans up and digging out the electric space heaters now. Instead, I’m turning the fans on every day and I’m not even tempted to get the heaters out. How weird is that? I didn’t even realize that the temperature seems to be off, for this time of year, until I saw the infomercial.

And wow, those electric fireplaces are pretty cool. The infomercial I saw was about ones that had wooden frames built by the Amish. They’re small, easy to move around, and take up as much energy as a coffee pot. Sweet huh? They’re only $300 too. Wait, what?! Yeah, that was my reaction too. Sorry Amish dudes, I’m sticking with my little space heaters.

I just realized something else, this will be the first fall/winter in years where I won’t have to chase Isis away from the front of a heater to make sure she doesn’t end up laying there all day and dehydrate herself. The first year I won’t be bundling her up in her little sweaters, or pulling back the covers on the bed and checking them carefully for a certain kitty who liked to burrow in them to make sure I don’t sit on her or something. No Isis sitting under my desk by my feet to take advantage of being with me and by the small floor heater I usually put there.

And no Isis to see Christmas lights with either. This winter seems extra depressing all of a sudden.

Last week was a troublesome and sad affair and this week isn’t shaping up to be much better sadly. With everything that has been going on I haven’t had much time (or inclination) to blog. First of all, thank you so much to everybody who has been commenting, dropping emails, and just sending kind words and thoughts for us during this time. It has been really appreciated.

For those that don’t know, my furbaby Isis passed away last Sunday. She became sick some time late Friday, although since Isis has a habit of curling up to take naps in places that are out of sight (like under chairs and behind curtains) I didn’t realize anything was wrong until very late that evening. I took her to the vet first thing Saturday and although there was some initial improvement, Isis didn’t make it and passed away on Sunday.

I brought Isis home on Monday and she was laid to rest in the yard, beneath her favorite window to sleep on too. I’ve got a small wooden fence constructed around it right now and plan on making a headstone for her. I’m undecided about whether to leave the soil as it is or make a rock bed on top with a few flowers planted around the head stone. Whatever I end up deciding though, it’ll have to wait for a bit. I am completely broke right now.

Isis’ vet bill was pretty big and I took out most of the money I had in my checking account to pay it, what little I left in wasn’t enough to cover my discover card bill which is taken out automatically. I should have been fine because the bill wasn’t due to be paid for a few more days and I had hoped to go and donate plasma to get the rest I needed put in ASAP. But Discover card took out the payment early and I was $11 dollars short. Lovely. My bank covered the difference thankfully, but now I have an overdraft fee and a negative balance to fix. Joy.

To top it off, one of my tires is messing up. Won’t hold air for shit and my spare tire picked developed a slow air leak to boot. I had to go up to town today and get it taken care of. Thankfully my tires were under warranty so they got fixed for free. Well, the spare wasn’t as it’s the spare that came with the car, but the guys there were willing to fix it for me for free despite not having what’s called a 5th wheel warranty. I’ve been a loyal customer and my other tires were under warranty so they fixed it for free.

Which was so wonderful because I really didn’t know what I was going to do about the spare. The other tire was covered, I knew that. But the fifth? Uh yeah, that one I expected to just have to leave alone for now. Thankfully that wasn’t the case though!

Of course the downside is that I am still pretty much flat-broke and waiting for money to come in and cover that negative balance. Ugh.

I got a call from Dr. Calista’s earlier today, just barely bringing myself to write about it now. Isis passed away today, she 14 years old. The vet is unsure what exactly caused Isis’ illness still as they were waiting for her to come off the IV fluids before doing a urine sample. They were sure it was her kidney’s however, just not what exactly.

This news, it comes as a shock as I had gotten an update that last night that, although she was still critical, she had improved greatly.

Now, now she’s gone and all I can think is that if I had just gotten her to the vet sooner, if I had just noticed she was sick and not hiding away in a napping spot as usual, she might still be here. Isis has been with me so long, since middle school in fact, and it’s just impossible to think she’s not going to be here anymore. Last night I missed her trilling meows when I went to sleep and actually called for her, forgetting that she wasn’t there. I told myself “she’ll be better in no time and sleeping smack-dab in the middle of my bed and refusing to budge once-again in no time”. But now, now I know that yesterday’s car ride was her last and that when she stretched out her paw to me as I was handing her over to the vet she was waving goodbye because it was the last time I’d see her. My little attack-cat, sand-kitty, sleepy-time-kitty, my Cici, my little goddess, my Isis is gone now and she’s not coming home anymore.

Isis got sick at some point yesterday and hid herself away. I wasn’t able to find her until late in the evening. Isis had apparently been throwing up as well, although I didn’t actually find the stuff until later.

Dr. Calista’s office doesn’t open until 9am on Saturdays, so I had to wait around before I could actually get her up there. In the end I had to have my mother drive me because Isis’ state had deteriorated and I just couldn’t bring myself to put her in a cat carrier; I instead opted to wrap her in a towel and hold her on the way up.

They’re running tests on her right now and aren’t sure what’s wrong. What they do know is that she’s badly dehydrated now and having a hard time breathing because of fluid in her lung.

They’re going to do some x-rays on her, she’s in an oxygen tank, and on an IV. Because of her age (she’s almost 15 human years) they suspect it could be a heart problem, kidney failure, even her liver. But they don’t know and have to run tests.

I’m at my mother’s office right now, waiting on a phone call to let me know more. Said they’d have more information in about an hour or so. I’m just so worried for her. Isis has been with me for so long, she’s my little baby. I just want her better and her lovable self again.

What’s worst yet is the preliminary bill, just to figure out what’s wrong is more than I have. So far the bill is at $549.05 and I’ve put down $150. I have no idea how I’m gonna pay for this either. Well, I guess I could always go the route of title loans or asset based lenders or something. I dunno. I guess, worry about how I’ll pay her bills later and worry about what’s happening to Isis now? Just freaking out now.

I got roped into going to another seminar with my mom, this time it’s one that doesn’t interest me in the least – it’s a tax seminar. *yawns* After that whole fiasco with her former employer, Mom hasn’t been interested in attending any of the tax seminars in El Paso, but since this one is in Albuquerque, she’s eager to go because they [former employers] won’t be there. But she doesn’t feel like making the trip by herself and asked me to come along. I’ve pretty much got nothing better to do so I figure, two days out of town might be nice and give me some breathing room.

There is a downside though, what to do about my cats. Normally leaving one of those feeders stocked with cat food would be a good idea, but I’ve had to put up with a bit of a roach problem lately. Not too eager to feed the roaches I’ve been combating. Know what I mean? Not to mention Isis tends to gorge herself if food is left out instead of just eating her fill and coming back later. Oh no, she’ll sit there and try to eat it all. Gotta find someone to feed the girls while I’m gone and time’s almost up because I leave early Wednesday morning.

I got everything I need for the trip though, and even managed to find a fathers day present for my grandfather while I was stocking up at Wal-Mart too.

Will definitely be taking my laptop with me. Hopefully the motel/hotel/whatever has wi-fi.

Money is still pretty tight here, even though I’ve had some new sources of income coming in, most of it just goes to pay long overdue bills rather then actually building a cushion. Grocery shopping is actually kind of humorous for the cashiers at Wal-Mart. They’ll see me come up with a large bag of cat food, some cans of wet food, and cat litter. Then they’ll see the rest of my items consists of human food that is non-perishable, can be stretched to infinity, and is really cheap.

I actually had a cashier laugh at me and say maybe it’s time I got “rid of the cat” since I “clearly can’t afford it”. Just about popped the cashier one on that. I mean seriously, just because times are rough I’m supposed to abandon my girls? Well, you can tell what kind of pet owner that cashier was. I have no intention of ditching Isis and Denali just because I’m experiencing employment woes. That’s not their fault damn it!

Needless to say my “diet” is pretty much shot to hell and back. I’ve cut out a lot of fruits and veggies from my diet because they’re just too damn expensive and I can’t see spending the money on them. Sad isn’t it? It’s just that produce doesn’t last that long (and it seems to go bad sooner and sooner now a days too) and I tend to do all my grocery shopping for the month in one fell swoop to save money and time. So, for the amount I spend on produce, for what little I do get, can usually be better spent elsewhere. Somehow I always manage to have apples, potatoes, and onions in the house though. Then again, considering how well those last compared to other produce, it’s not that surprising.

So, despite working out pretty regularly still, my eating habits aren’t what I’d like them to be. As a result? The diet isn’t going nearly as well as it was in the beginning. Ironically, some folks have suggested I invest in dietary stuff like that noxycut. Yeah, because since money is tight buying expensive diet stuff that may or may not work is a completely viable option. Pfft!

Honestly though, I feel kinda proud that I’m managing to stay afloat right now. Granted, I’ve got the support of people who love me to boost me when I’m down, but I’m managing. That’s all one can really ask for.

On another note, my cold is finally clearing up. Throat is still sore and my sinuses are still clogged, but at least I’m not trying to hack up a lung every five minutes!

Just finished eating a nice yummy dinner comprised of nothing but leftovers!

From right to left we have quelites (spinach and pinto beans), lentejas, green enchiladas, and rice.

Yeah, it’s really late and I shouldn’t have eaten dinner this late, but I spent most of the day cleaning the house from top to bottom. Even after the longest shower in recorded history I could smell all of the cleaning chemicals on me still. Not to mention, my stomach was queasy as hell from smelling all of the chemicals and from skipping lunch to boot.

First thing that got done today – kicked the cats outside. Denali was happy enough with that, Isis not so much. But I planned on taking the house apart and cats get underfoot when there is serious cleaning going on. Not to mention, with all the chemicals being used, I didn’t want them inside inhaling the shit. Since the weather has warmed up considerably, I took this chance to battle the roach infestation that has somehow settled in. Covered furniture, closed off rooms I didn’t want affected, then set off some foggers early this morning around 6am. I ended up doing some yard work while giving it a chance to do its stuff before going back in the house late in the day. I attacked the carpet in the living room and hall got it vacuumed, cleaned, and vacuumed again. Then attacked the walls and ceilings in the rooms that I set off the foggers. Then scrubbed, bleachified, pine sol’d, and just cleaned everything until it shined and smelled lovely. Still gotta do laundry though.

For the most part, my hands don’t look like they’re in serious need of the world’s best anti wrinkle cream anymore. They did stay submerged in soapy, chemical-laden water for the most part today after all. Then I showered for almost two hours. Not surprising they look like they belong to an old lady. They’re also all dried-out now too.

There is a plus side though! I closed the door to my bedroom and had some downloads running all day while I was cleaning away. As a result, I am now all caught up on the latest episodes of Bleach, Naruto Shippuuden, and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Not to mention, I FINALLY have the second Original Soundtrack for Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood too. Been listening to it ever since I got it. My favorite tracks on it are: 4. Envy Revealed; 6. Xing Symphony ~Overture~; 20. The Land of Ishvala; 25. Battle Scherzo; and 30. To Be King. Honestly, Akira Senju’s second OST for FMA: Brotherhood is better then the first over all, although I did like the first one well enough.

Well, as I mentioned previously, I attended the Investools Seminar by Wealth Magazine today. It was the first day of a two-day workshop/seminar that my Mother actually dragged me to. While I will admit to being interested by the presentation at the Get Motivated Business Seminar, I just really didn’t think it was for me.

After today though, I have to admit that I am glad that my Mother signed me up as her guest and dragged me down to El Paso for the seminar. It was very enlightening, not to mention, there was just a lot of information to take in. Enough to make one’s brain explode, to be honest. I am eager to set up an account of my own and do a little trading. What really got me interested was not buying a few shares in stocks and fiddling with them. No, what I’m interested in doing is getting a monthly income via covered calls and doing some option calls.

The down side to both of those wonderful options is sadly that one needs to have at least 100 shares of a stock in order to do covered calls on them. And when it comes to options, you have to buy them sets of 100. Granted, you can buy options at a much cheaper price then shares. Let’s say, a possible $340 versus $34,000 or something. Right now though I just don’t have the capital to invest into it. So while the seminar is motivating and exciting, it’s also kind of depressing. But we’ll see, I am going to try and purchase at least a few shares and see where things go from there. You have to start somehow after all.

As I mentioned, there was a lot of information to take in. And if you’re new to all of this, knowing only bare basics, it’s really a lot to take in. At one point my eyes were watering and stinging badly as a result of trying to read the slides. The white text and font they chose just always looked blurry on the edges of the words and forced my eyes to strain. I ended up having to get up and leave for a bit just to walk around and really give my eyes a rest. For the heck of it, since there were these humongous mirrors in the hallway of the Marriott, I shot a picture of me:

Yeah, kinda grumpy looking right? That was around 3pm or so. Totally worn out and my eyes were just totally bugging me. I think it may seriously be time to get a new eye exam. Seriously, they were bugging me that much viewing the slides for the presentation and I just could not read most of the graphs they had or see the finer details of the website either. No matter how much I squinted.

After the seminar Mom insisted we go out to eat. I went ahead and humored her, because to be honest, I didn’t think she should be spending money on dinning out given that she never lets me pay. She was insistent, so off we to…wait for it…Famous Dave’s!

I swear, their food is so awesome, the servings are humongous, and every time I eat their food I feel stuffed and in need of the world’s best weight loss pills. Seriously, I always feel like I just gained ten pounds. But it’s ten pounds I don’t mind because the food is just sooo good.

Mom got their beef brisket sandwich with a side of their famous fries. I settled for their Dave’s Sampler Platter which includes spareribs, fried chicken tenders, catfish fingers, onion strings and your choice of Buffalo or BBQ chicken wings Of course, as you know, I can’t eat fish anymore so I asked the waiter if it was possible to substitute something else for the catfish and explained I was allergic to fish. To be honest I expected them to say no, or that I could substitute it for something like a cornbread muffin (which are yummy) or a corn on the cob or something. Instead the waiter happily informed me that I could remove the catfish so I chose the chopped pork link in place of the catfish.

Yeah, it was as good as it looks. No, it was better. I couldn’t finish it though and had to get a takeout box for it. But, oh my gosh, heaven I tell you.

Then of course, when I walked in the door I got attacked by not one but two starving kitties. Did I forget to feed them? No, in face, they still had food in their dish. Apparently the takeout box smelled that good. Denali and Isis were begging me to give them some, but alas, Joana does not share her Famous Dave’s leftovers. Sorry kitties.

Over all, a fun and enjoyable first day, if a little exhausting. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and what we’ll learn next.

Today was a long, tedious, and exhausting day.

First I woke up early so I could get the girls (Isis and Denali) up to town today for their physical and interviews (a local agency is actually “hiring” cats for modeling in media). There actually weren’t that many people that responded to the ad apparently, and despite the fact that Isis and Denali were among the better behaved kitties there, they probably won’t be getting any “jobs” sadly. Isis and Denali are all up to date on their shots, are in wonderful health (some couldn’t believe Isis is actually 14 years!), and unlike most of the cats that were brought in, Isis and Denali obey commands like “up”, “down”, “stay”, and “follow”. In the instances where they hesitate, all I have to say is “kitchen”, which Denali and Isis translate as “FOOD!” and their hesitance is gone. Yet despite this, after every stage of their “audition” people felt the need to comment on how it was “such a shame they’re not pure breeds”.

I seriously hate it when people judge pets by their pedigree. Just because they’re of a mixed breed does not mean the animal in question is any less “desirable”.

In any case, I was given the distinct impression that the lack of a pedigree will keep Isis and Denali from getting a call back. Disheartening really as Isis seemed to be eating the attention up. Seriously, I just know that kitty knew exactly what was going on and loved every minute of it. I expected her to act as she does at the vet’s office, instead she was a little prima donna.

After that ordeal, I took the girls back home then went up to ‘Cruces to run a few errands before donating plasma. Ugh, I swear every time I go something goes wrong. Today my blood was clotting up badly so instead of donating plasma I donated more blood than anything else. You see, the machine draws your blood out, separates the plasma from the blood and sends the plasma to the container while sending your blood back into you. Well, since my blood was clotting so badly, my blood was drawn out, got clogged up in the machine and very little of the plasma actually went into the collection container. To top it off, my blood wasn’t returning to me either. Eventually, because of the “shock” of having so much blood drawn, the continuance of my blood clotting, and the way my veins were acting, it was decided that they would switch arms to re-stick me and then return my blood to me that way as the arm I was using was bruising already. Even then, immediately after sticking me on my other arm, the area around my vein swelled and started bruising.

And did I mention my arms are sore where they stuck me still?

After that I decided to grab something in town, which kinda put a dent in my healthy eating and will probably be reflected in the weigh in on PixieWire to boot. Ah! For those that don’t know, PixieWire.net is a blog I created in January to keep track of progress towards becoming a healthier and happier me. I hesitate to call it simply a diet blog, simply because it also focuses on my emotional/mental health as well. I’m afraid you won’t be finding anything like a Jenny Craig review on there, as I am not enrolled in any such programs or taking any special drugs, just good old fashioned exercise and eating right. Still, I’m sure it’ll be good for a laugh! You can always smirk and giggle at my attempts to drop from an unhealthy 246 lbs to a slimmer 160 lbs.

Well, in any case, after all of that, then coming home to clean and logging on to my blogs to find them out of date (new version of wordpress!) and several plugins needing to be updated, not to mention my backlogged emails, and re-installing some more stuff to the laptop after the re-install of Windows, I’m just exhausted and ready to hit the sack.

Major run-on sentence there, yes I know.

I got a late start today, I’ve only been awake for about four hours now in fact, and it’s because I was out late last night. I needed to get some last minute grocery items and with it being the holidays stores are going to be way crowded. Since Wal-Mart is open 24/7 logic dictated that if I go late in the evening, say around 1am, there will be very little people there. Right? Wrong! It took me two hours to get everything I wanted and get out of that store. I should have been out sooner, but waiting in line for almost thirty minutes kind of made my escape take a little longer.

Yes, I waited in line for thirty minutes. There was easily thirty people all congregated at the registers trying to check out and there were only two lanes open. Now, I might not be a rocket scientist, but wouldn’t you think that if the lines are backing up and curving around around in loops to accommodate the many people standing in line and their baskets (some had two even) that it might be time to open another lane despite the late hour?

Clearly logic escaped them. In the end, by the time I got out of there and got home it was well after 3am. Isis loved it though, standing in line with nothing to do, she got lots of attention and loving from the people around us. A worker even came up and brought her a little can of kitty food (Fancy feast) for the “good kitty waiting in line with her mommy”. Isis was eating it up, the food and the attention.

While shopping I saw something that disturbed me a bit. It wasn’t a gag gift or anything, it was in the candy aisle and meant to be given to kids or as stocking stuffers. They were little animals that when you pushed down on them they said “Merry Christmas!” and “Guess from Who?” and variations on those phrases. They also dispensed candy.

Looks kinda cute huh? But wait, where exactly does the candy come from….?

Hey, why is there a little bowl-like space behind the doggy? Oh, please, don’t tell me that…

Yup, the dog “shits” out the candy. Seriously, what the hell? Am I the only one who found the little mice, reindeer, and doggy candy dispensers that “shit” out candies to be disturbing and wrong to be given out to little kids and stocking stuffers for Christmas?

I had to force myself to go out into the horrendous weather a couple of hours ago. Believe me, even though the house isn’t that warm (on account of the pilot being out on the heater) it’s still warmer (and drier!) inside than it is outside. And once the individual room heaters get going it’ll be even warmer still.

I had to make a run out to grab some necessary food stuffs that I had run out of (milk, eggs, bread, rice, beans, and so on) and to pick up some cleaning supplies that I had completely run out of and there was a sale going on that I really wanted to take advantage of. The kitchen sinks look really bad, on account of accumulated hard water stains, and some grime that was left over from Thanksgiving that I couldn’t get off. Despite this house being an old farm house the sinks are your regular kitchen sinks and not copper kitchen sinks for which I’m thankful. I can only imagine how much more troublesome those would be to clean.

While out I also picked up a few Christmas gifts because, apparently, I didn’t have everyone’s gifts bought as I thought I had! I was just standing there in the aisle trying to figure out if there was anything else I needed to pick up when I glanced towards one aisle and saw something that was too cute for words:

They’re these adorable Santa-hat and collars for pets and they’re so cute too! The one on the left (red collar) is for Denali and the one on the right (green and white) collar is for Isis. I can’t believe I actually forgot all about getting the cats their Christmas presents. I didn’t want the girls to have the exact same thing, and the way I figure it, the thicker collar is probably warm and will do Isis some good since she’s always cold during the winter.

Don’t worry, when the girls get these gifts there will be a lot of pictures posted on the blog!

Now I’ve got everyone’s Christmas gifts taken care of. I think.

It started raining yesterday evening and has been raining since. Oh, it’ll stop for a few hours, or slow to a drizzle, but that’s about it. On top of the rain it’s cold and windy outside. Definitely a day you don’t go outside if you don’t have to. It’s the kind of weather that results in a lot of desperate phone calls from drivers for roadside assistance.

Which is exactly why I can’t figure out why exactly Denali wanted to go out in it. I do, however, know what the end results of her ten minute excursion were:

Yes, Denali was most insistent that I open the door and let her outside. And I obliged, though to be honest, I thought as soon as she saw the rain pouring down she’d decide going outside wasn’t worth it. I was wrong and instead she darted outside into the rain. Ten minutes later I hear her yowling at the kitchen door to be let in. I opened it to find the rain had stopped for a bit and that Denali had left a present for me in a patch of mud by the sidewalk.

This, combined with the gory remains she left me a few days ago, really has me wondering just what goes on inside that kitty’s mind. Why go out in the rain for all of ten minutes to kill a mouse you’re not going to eat? This cat makes absolutely no sense to me.