A Farewell to my Stevie Cat (and an important PSA)

After five and a half years of being my best friend, our kitty, Señor Stevie Nicks, succumbed to heart disease*.

If I had known it was coming I would have taken the time to have a few more days with him to do all the lovey things people do:

Chasing butterflies

Spinning in a field of flowers

 

Drinking milkshakes together

Going for boat rides in Central Park

Snuggling at home

   

But he was sick... and scared, and we lost him so suddenly. He was barely showing any signs of illness, still eating and playful, sleeping with his butt in our faces, drinking milkshakes, and rowing boats, but then he was gone just moments after getting him to the vet, leaving me and Mike shocked and devastated. I don't know how I have managed my whole life to avoid the up-close death of a pet with as many as I've had. It's a really horrible concept and I don't know who came up with it but I would like to unsubscribe, RIGHT NOW.  In the end, I am glad he chose us and we did everything we could to give him the best life possible. I love him so much and I will never forget my sweet Stevie cat.

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*Stevie died of cardiac arrest from an enlarged heart. He had a grain allergy, to the point that he couldn't even eat poultry that was fed grain or he would itch terribly and barf/poop/gain lots of weight. We found him a grain-free food that had all the nutrition he needed to keep him healthy, in theory. Unfortunately, I am finding now, much too late, that grain-free pet food currently on the market seems to contain some ingredient that might interfere with taurine uptake, which cats (and dogs) need to avoid heart damage. The FDA is investigating this, but there are things you can do in the meantime.

Please, if you are feeding your pet a grain-free diet have their taurine levels tested IMMEDIATELY (or as soon as you can afford to).

If they don't have allergies, stop feeding them a commercial grain-free diet. If they do, please, get their taurine tested and consult with a vet on how best to proceed. Once they have symptoms, which, in Stevie's case was only abdominal breathing, it is often too late, but the damage can be reversed if it is caught early enough with taurine supplementation. No one should go through what we're going through now, losing our pet so young, so please, share this information so every cat lives long enough to replace us as the dominant species on the planet.

Some Like It Hot!

Someone needs to take my adult badge away...

This is the second time I have burned myself this week. 

The first time, I was melting wax on my stove to use while felting and I accidentally placed my hand on the element. I think I should get a pass on that one, because I have one of those flat top stoves and when the element area is being lazy, it's black (instead of glowing red) like the rest of stove top (Wow, that comes off as really racist upon reading it aloud).

Tonight's burning really is putting me in the realms of, "You can't use the stove any more."

I was innocently heating up a tortilla to make another pulled pork soft taco to eat while watching "We Are The Millers" and the tortilla, which I had just placed in the pan that had been sitting over heat for a few minutes, wasn't particularly warm when I touched it, so I lifted it up and put the back of my fingers directly on the pan... that had been sitting on the heat for a few minutes. As you might expect, which somehow I didn't, it was hot. Very fucking hot. I will need adult supervision until further notice.

Sucky, Suckier, Suckiest.

Last week was one of the suckiest of suck weeks in my life. I just had to add suckiest to my dictionary, because really, it needs to recognize degrees of suck. So yeah, it started off innocuously enough with awesome stuff on TV. I don't watch all that much TV any more, but Sunday evenings, I am there from 6-midnight, pretty much. It brings me joy.  The rest of the week, not so much. 

So yeah, I am back to being destitute, and my mom has thyroid cancer. She goes in a week to have it removed and hopefully that will be the end of it. They assured us that although it is a very large tumor, it is unlikely that it has metastasized, so she should be just fine... hopefully.

The husband losing the job is another matter all together. It took him a year to get a job last time, and places around here aren't really hiring, so I am trying to convince him to go pick up applications for jobs where he obviously isn't going to get hired wearing a magician's cape, since I figure he might as well be amused if he is going to be rejected. Also because flourishing a cape while introducing yourself and asking for an application sounds incredibly fun and the man seriously needs some fun.

So if anyone has an adult sized magician's cape they could loan us, just let me know!

Hanukkah 2012: 7th Night - Llamakkah

My nephew came over for Hanukkah the other night and exclaimed "YEA, THERE ARE ONLY THREE NIGHTS LEFT!"  Clearly, he gets this holiday.


Today has been a long day. I am unprepared. Your present is a stern look from a llama.  Consider it a coupon for a free post sometime when the world sucks less.

Life Lessons - Tire Balancing

There are many things I have learned in life, the hard way, and I thought I would use my stupid mistakes as examples to help all of you, in this new series I've aptly titled, Life Lessons.


This is the first in the series: Tire Balancing



I think that asking if you want a newly mounted tire "balanced" for an additional cost is some sort of mechanics' practical joke.

I learned this lesson in my early 20s while getting a new tire at a used tired place.

I was wrong. Even though I only had $50 to my name, I REALLY did want to spend that extra money, but I was working under the assumption that tires are actually round by nature.  They're not. I think they might be triangular, or hexagonal, but they sure as hell aren't naturally round, which I learned, as my car rocked and wobbled as I drove it away from the shop, fifteen dollars richer, but substantially less comfortable.
I'm surprised they weren't openly laughing at me when I came back a few days later to report there was something wrong with the tire they sold me.

Zed: Well, you said you didn't want it balanced!
Me: Right, because I didn't realize that "balancing" was a secret code word for AN ACTUAL WORKING TIRE!
And then I paid $15 to get my tire made in to a circle.

So here's your lesson:
You want your new tire balanced. It's worth the money. Only an asshole gives you the option to drive away on a triangular tire.

Suffering Magnets

Does everyone have these people?

The ones who pop up when you are really upset and end up making everything SO MUCH WORSE?

Inevitably, every time you're really upset there they are, like some sort of suffering magnet, ready to beat you down until you are quivering jelly on the floor with their special misery boot-imprint stamped right on your globby forehead.

It should be legal to set those people on fire.

Just sayin'.

The Poop-a-thon Begins

Remember, I am live tweeting today (and tomorrow) about my colonoscopy prep. Good times. Good times.

Sponsor my Pooping!

I have a colonoscopy scheduled for next Thursday. My doctor keeps on harping at me, "blah blah, have a colonoscopy, colon cancer risk, blah blah blah." And I have no problem with HAVING a colonoscopy; they put you to sleep for it and give you drugs that make you mostly forget the procedure (though I have a knack of waking up during it each time until they realize I am awake and pump more drugs into me)... the problem is the prep.  If they could somehow give me amnesia through the whole prep leading up to the procedure, I would have those things any damned time they asked me to.

If you are not familiar with colonoscopies, after they install an IV drip to flood you with drugs of joy, a doctor takes a flexible tube with a camera type device on it and sticks it up your poop chute, looking for any signs of scarring, or cancer, or bleeding, or polyps, or wormholes that make you poop out of your own mouth. But to do that, they have to remove all the everything that usually hangs out in one's intestines so they can get a clear view of the intestine walls, and to do THAT, they make you drink a bunch of gnarly tasting junk that turns your butt into Old Faithful.. for 20 hours.

During my last colonoscopy, 4 years ago, they apparently replaced the regular nursing staff with some Medieval Inquisitionist who clearly thought I was harboring some serious secrets, because she was more than happy to torture me by refusing to let me get up to go to the bathroom. "Just go on the table." I don't WANT to go on the table!! They break prisoners by making them violate potty training! JUST LET ME GO! But nope, she apparently wanted to scar me for life, which she has done, which is part of why, though I am supposed to have a colonoscopy every year, I have avoided doing so.

When I took my mom in for a colonoscopy last year and they told her to just let them know when she needed to go again so they could help her up, I yelped out "WHAT THE HELL!?" and told my tale of Nurse Torment.  "Here?!" the nurse asked incredulously. "That is NOT our policy! I don't know why that happened to you." Uh, because I have to write a blarg somehow and if things were always boring and sane around me, I'd have to ACTUALLY be entertaining, instead of just telling what happens to me or laying in fetal position rocking back and forth.

But as usual, there is more to it than just doing the prep and having this test done. The prep meds cost about 4 times my budget for buying things in a week. The colonoscopy, itself, is totally covered by the hospital now, but the Old Faithful intestinal cleanser, nope... they won't pay for it, so I have to find a way to make it so.

I have toyed with the idea of having sponsored pooping. For a minimum of ten dollars, I could announce on Twitter and/or Facebook

with the inclusion of a link and logo or quick drawing from me. For more than 10 dollars, they could actually make up their own tagline, instead of leaving it to me.  Then I would send the sponsors a card and an I HELP FIGHT COLON CANCER sticker with a brown ribbon, of course*, to thank them for their support, or something along those lines. There is 20 hours of prep, but I wouldn't need that many sponsors to cover the cost, and any extra could go to buy me a solid lunch after the procedure. Genius, no?

I also thought we could have a betting pool to guess how many polyps I have this time.


Regardless, I shall be live tweeting my colonoscopy prep on the 28th of March. It should be a rocking good time. And I promise not to post any pictures of toilets or things that have come out of my butt. I might describe some of it though... but with a sense of humor, always a sense of humor.


*no, really, that is the ribbon color for colon cancer, because someone has quite a sense of humor, and laughter is still the best medicine.

Arizona HB2625, amirite!?

I really ought to get to the Grand Canyon before I am too disgusted to ever step foot in Arizona again.

You know, this is really not a political blarg, and I am really not a political person, until it comes to my lady bits... so again... if you hate politics, feel free to skip to the second picture.

But after reading about the latest bill coming out of Arizona, I felt the need to share one of my medically necessary reasons for birth control.

Think it would pass legislative muster? 

AND, because I am a nerd and cannot ignore it.

An Apology 'Neath the Green Bay Tree

A letter to my nephew in the future:

Dear Booger,

I just want to tell you that I love you before I begin explaining.

I am writing this because some day, I am sure you will see the movie Gummo, and when you are done watching that movie, I'm fairly certain that you are going to hook your brain into the computer and google "WTF IS WRONG WITH MY AUNT!?"

And the answer is, "I don't really know. I guess I wasn't thinking about the fact that you would see that movie some day and it had the potential to implode your childhood."  Which probably won't help in your need for therapy, but it is my honest answer.

See, there IS something wrong with your uncle, as he really likes the movie Gummo and played it often before you were born. I tried to avoid watching it and would leave the room or retreat to the computer when he turned it on, but it starts with THAT DAMNED SONG, and that damned song is an awesome song... and somehow, when I first held you shortly after you were born, I thought, "I love my little rooster and my rooster loves me!" and so I sang it to you, and it became our song, and it wasn't until I heard you singing under your breath the other day, "Cock a doodle do, doodle doo, doodle doo," that I thought, 'OH CRAP, SOME DAY HE'S GONNA WATCH THAT FREAKING MOVIE! I AM THE WORST AUNT EVER!'

So, I am sorry. I could lie and say I didn't get the song I have sung to you all your life from a really upsetting awful movie, but clearly that is not true. I just thought it was better than Old McDonald and it has yodeling. Yodeling is good. Gummo, not so much, unless you are into that sort of HORRIFIC disturbing thing (which you are allowed to be if you are... I still love your uncle, you'll notice).

All my love,
Your Aunt J

The song in question. Research the movie on your own if you've been lucky enough not to see it. =P

Introducing SST!

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Queen of the Nerds

I'm supposed to be writing a Secret Cupid Valentine Exchange Round-up because it went really well, but unfortunately, I received The Big Bang Theory on DVD for Valentine's day from my friend Vez, so I have no desire to do anything but fall in love with fictional nerds who will also ignore me and, on occasion, make me cry.  It is like single life all over again.
I must say, I'm proud of myself for understanding so many of the jokes (and not just laughing because they said something I didn't understand at all, which is what I imagine a lot of people do). I am disappointed that they referred to giving electric shocks as "negative reinforcement" when talking about operant conditioning. Any psychology nerds out there will understand my ire. Everyone else will just continue to call me nit-picky and say that I am too serious, but what the hell is the purpose of giving things names if we are just going to call psychological techniques anything we damned well please?!  Also, unrelated to the show, don't get me started on schizophrenia being stupidly and incorrectly mistaken for multiple personality disorders in popular culture. Seriously, cringe-worthy.



So, I'm going to do the round up tomorrow, most likely, and in the meantime, back to my imaginary nerd harem.

It was taking way too long, attempting to draw convincing comic versions of the cast. I don't have the patience while I am jonesing to watch more.

The problem I see.

So, I went to the eye doctor (aka eye touching motherfuckers). It was the first time I've been to an actual eye doctor since 1983. They did all their tests, which are much less traumatizing now than they were in 1983, and my vision seemed completely normal, perfect, in fact.
For perhaps a year, I have been complaining that I FEEL like my vision in my right eye is shrouded, but it isn't. I understand that doesn't make sense, but when I look out of each eye separately, each eye is perfectly normal, but with both eyes open, it feels like my left eye sees clearer than my right.
So after doing all of the tests, I told the doctor exactly that, and he said "OH! Let me do one more test!"
And then he gave me lenses so I could see, because apparently dilating the hell out of your eyes makes them not focus. And as an aside, I don't understand how anyone who has perfect vision who then develops severe far sidedness doesn't immediately jump off a bridge. I was close and I only had to put up with it for 6 hours.
Anyway, he had me hold lenses in front of my eyes so I could see anything that wasn't 40 feet away, and had me cover my left eye and then my right and this is what I saw:

The left side is the left eye and the right, is the right... funny how that works.

This is called a "Red Cap Desaturation Test" by the way.

He explained to me that the difference in my ability to see colors now is not a problem with my physical eye but is a neurological problem. He didn't give me an actual diagnosis but sent the report to my doctors (who I have demanded take all this stuff seriously). I go to the neurologist on Thursday, so I should have more information for us all then, though Dr. Google has already given me a sound diagnosis that does not surprise me at all.




Also, remember, today is the last day to sign up to give a stranger an AWESOME VD*! Sign up for da Cheeseblarg's Secret Cupid Exchange before midnight.

No actual venereal diseases should be sent, VD is meant to refer to Valentines Day, because VD is a Special Trading Day!

Laughter is the best medicine cause it is free.

I'd like to talk about a major issue in my life right now. It's a downer, so prepare yourself.
So, I'm poor. I know I have said that before but when I say I am poor, I mean we survived last year on less than $6,000 income. Like super poor.
And one would think, "Oh, you're taken care of by the state," but nope.  If you don't have kids and you are poor, you can pretty much go fuck yourself... which apparently I have done by becoming ill while poor.
I have been chronically ill for about 8 years now. Longer really, but it has been steady for 8 years. I used to have a job, and I worked, and I loved working. I would even work for free, if they didn't have money to pay me because working was awesome and fun. But then I got sick and I had to go home from work all the time and had to ask people to cover for me, and my job was such that I couldn't just leave when I needed to... I had to wait for someone else to be there before I could go, so it sucked, and it made many people mad at me, and at the end of the year, I got let go. And the next year, my contract wasn't renewed. And then my day to day jobs stopped because I was making errors of judgment from being on pain pills that I was required to take... and then 4 years ago, I stopped working. I was making it through my days by refusing to eat or drink, because those things made me sick and made me have to go home, and working is hard when you have no food in you.  I know models do it, but they just have to stand there and look pretty... they don't have to keep other people safe and alive and stuff.
And the point of telling you that I am poor is to tell you I have no insurance. I have no medicaid, I ain't got shit... except a bunch of chronic illnesses that like to make me miserable and a moral code that tells me it is wrong to run up bills and not pay them.
Beyond that, I have several diseases, all autoimmune, that don't have cures.  My experiences with doctors has been this:

I am certain there is something actually wrong with me that hasn't been diagnosed, as far as my chronic pain and lessening muscle control, but I think I come off to doctors as a hypochondriac.  I say this because I complain and I complain and they just look at me cross-armed and say "Mmhm." and nothing gets done.
I had one doctor lady stand across from me, when I was pleading that she do some test, test for MS maybe because it runs in my family and I have almost all the symptoms of it, and I was being told "we don't know what is wrong so we aren't going to do any more tests on you," please test me, for the love of God, test me,  and she crossed her arms and her legs and said in a nasty accusatory tone, "Do you WANT to have MS?"
And you know, yeah, I would rather be diagnosed with MS when I have most of the symptoms of it anyway, and actually fucking be treated, than to sit in a room with shitty doctors who treat you like crap because you have problems that they don't have a name for. You get screwed because your symptoms are too hard to figure out and testing costs money and you don't have money, and people subsequently think you are making it all up, but you are in pain all the time and you know this is real.
So, I have tried to get help but all of the agencies say that there isn't enough documentation to prove that I am sick enough. Because when I am feeling my worst, I don't want to go sit in a doctor's office, or ER, for hours to tell them "I feel like shit, I am going to take some narcotics and lie in bed for the rest of the day. " Or "I feel like shit, I am puking and crapping and I can't stop." yelled through the bathroom door of the doctor's office because I don't relish the idea of wearing a diaper out in public. Or "Hi, my intestines are bleeding again. I have ulcers on every mucus membrane of my body. I can't sit up because it hurts so bad. You can't do anything about it because taking steroids all the time is going to kill me... so hi, bye, thanks for writing it down after I sat here miserable for 5 hours. That will be $500 I don't have. Please, make sure you call me every day to stress me about it which will make all of this flare worse."
And because it has been suggested that they can't do anything for me, it seems an exercise in futility to mention it. I don't WANT to spend every second thinking about being sick. I want to ignore it and do whatever I can to bring myself joy (like writing this blarg here, that I love, and interacting with all of you), but in order to get any help from any agency that is in place (disability, voc. rehab, etc), it seems that you can't have a moment of joy in your life, which is about how I feel right now. So, please, I can have help nao?

Happy New Year!

Many years ago, I made a resolution not to make any more resolutions, and I've stuck to it since.  It is a shame, because I am really good at sticking to resolutions.  For example, I resolved, after breaking up with Evil Mike never to date anyone, ever again, who I did not find at least reasonably attractive upon first seeing them. That worked out well for me since my husband is pretty cute.

I think if I were to make resolutions, it would only be right for them to be ridiculous and super easy.  Like:

or perhaps:

I resolve to annoy celebrities on twitter until one of them finally acknowledges me as awesome OR blocks me.


Resolving not to do things seems like a drag. I have enough opportunities to be disappointed in myself naturally (still neurotic), I don't need to manufacture any more that I then declare publicly, giving other people the opportunity to be disappointed in me too. I think if you are gonna set up rules for yourself, they should make you happy, not miserable. So if you are still into resolving stuff, go easy on yourself, and please consider making at least one funny/easy resolution so you can feel like a success and add some laughter to your life... and then tell me about it so I can laugh too.

And hey, because I am a nerd and can't help myself, SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! =P

Scrooged.

I'm having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit this year.

For the first time in. . . forever, actually, I think, I cannot afford to send gifts to my friends around the country.

Of course, they will understand, but the problem is, sending things out to people is also MY gift.

The whole process of baking fiddly things and then having to bake more because the monster version of my husband eats half the batch of cookies in the middle of the night, and packaging them up with funny labels, and dealing with the heinously rude jerk mail lady, Betty, after waiting in a giant line, sweating to death because I am wearing 2 sweaters and a fluffy coat and the post office is toasty warm, is my present to myself.
I don't get many presents, so I usually sustain myself by sending things out and being elf-like.  Not LOTR elf-like, more of the Harry Potter/Keeblerish type, and that I can't afford that right now kinda makes me one grumpy asshole.

And unfortunately, "Jesus" being "the reason for the season" doesn't really work for me, because I am Jewish and the Maccabees are the reason for the season, which doesn't ring quite as nicely, since they were an army, and long burning oil during a cleaning binge isn't terribly inspiring. So, barring some unexpected windfall,  I guess this year I'll gorge myself on latkes and Christmas cookies and then I'll go out and find some orphans to kick and maybe staple little antlers on some dormice.

As an aside, I've never understood why they make places so damned hot inside during the winter when people are dressed warmly anyway.  I mean, I don't need it to be negative degrees inside too, but it should be cool enough that people don't get heat stroke while waiting in line, buying eggnog.

The Mouse in the House

There's a mouse in my house, which is difficult for me, because while I don't want vermin in my house, I like mice a lot and I don't want to be part of crushing their little skulls or otherwise ending their lives just to rid my house of creatures that are probably going to give me the plague, or Ebola, or some variation of mouse-related cancer.

But, if they would meet my demands, they could totally stay.

click to see bigger

p.s. The Halloween Scavenger Hunt deadline is being extended as several people have let me know that they need more time. Remember, you don't have to get all the pictures... the person who gets the most first is the winner. 

NaBlaPoMo, Dontcha Know!

I've decided I am going to do NaBloPoMo (or NaBlaPoMo, in my case)... however, that is going to require that I stop drowning my sorrow in leftover Halloween candy, because otherwise, I am going to be in a candy-induced Carb Coma ™ for the remainder of November, which will make posting EVERY DAY very difficult.

To update, still haven't gotten my money back from Paypal. The remainder of my money was stolen moments before midnight the night before last because for some reason, probably having to do with stupid optimism, naïveté, and a desire for a cheeseburger, my Paypal credit card was not canceled, and I was not given the option to block the hell out of iTunes until the rest of my money was gone... JRose is a little stressed.

But I will be posting every day of National Blarg Posting Month, so you should have at least something to read each day. Be here or be part and parcel of my complete and total mental breakdown!

Cheers!

Acme Gunk Factory

I had the good fortune not to have had much acne throughout my adolescence.  But now, as an adult, I seem to get pimples, usually when stressed, that defy the laws of space and time.  I have one on my lip right now that I keep popping that gets bigger each time I look in the mirror.  By this time next week, I fear it will engulf my entire face.

When Cars Attack

There are some things in life that you are supposed to be able to navigate easily as an adult, and dealing with a minor traffic accident apparently is one of those things.  Not having been in any traffic collisions, until Friday, I realize I have been woefully unprepared for what the quack you are supposed to do when someone backs into your car while you are happily coming about in a parking lot.


How it should happen:

How it apparently really happens when you have no clue what is supposed to happen: