Post Storm update

 Well damn my week didn't pan out the way I thought it would.  Saturday/Sunday around midnight a derecho blew through and fucked my world.  I was asleep and my mom called to make sure we were awake.  I sat on the far side of the couch with a blanket over me in case the window blew out.  We got lucky in that respect.  The power went during the storm.  When I let the dogs out but walked out with them just in case.  There was shingles all over my hard and the back part of my fence was smashed by a tree.  I have, or had rather, a privacy fence and the neighbors have a chain link.  The tree grew up between the fence.  The huge tree in the front of my house was fine, thankfully.  When Dennis got up I my spidey sense went off and I knew he was going to be a douche canoe.  Sure enough he blew up and left.  I sat in my house without power for 2 nights before he pulled his head out of his ass and brought the generator.  In the meantime I had the tree removed and I wish I would have him put up a temp fence but I didn't.  Now I have to help Dennis put it up and we DO NOT work well together.  

This is what is left of my fence.  My roof didn't fare much better but it isn't leaking into the house.  I am hoping that after all these years of working with FEMA I can finally cash in on all that knowledge.  

My plan for Monday was going to the head spa.  They called and said they had to cancel because they had no power.  I was so freaking disappointed but 100 % expected it.   My mom had her power back by that afternoon.  I want to rebook at the spa before I get my extensions put back in, but right now I have spent so much because of the stupid storm.  

Tuesday I was supposed to get my nails done but she didn't have power either.  I had a mini breakdown Wednesday morning and from what I have heard from other people that was the point we all started to become unhinged.  

So I did very little on my week off.  I cleaned up the yard and bought myself a mini-chainsaw to clean up some other brush in my yard to take advantage of the greenwaste pick up they are going to do.  

Because I have to go outside with the dogs I caught the guy that lives behind me throwing downed branches over the 6 foot privacy fence.  I was pissed.  I walked to the fence and told him as I threw the branch back that the branch the tree came off of wasn't mine and the city is going to do curbside debris clean-up.  As I was walking back to the deck he leaned over the fence to say something, not sure what, because Bailey went apeshit.  He jumped up high enough to bite the shit out of the guy behind me.  It drew blood.  Now I am really nervous about the fence being down.  I am still a little nervous that the guy will animal control or whatever and get him on some kind of list.  Not sure if that is even a thing.  It's so strange because he has been socialized from day one and I'm not sure where this comes from.  At any rate, this is the second time he has bitten someone

When the power first went out we were told the power would be back on by 5 on Friday and that seemed like a lifetime.  Sure enough, power came back on about 3:30 Friday.  I literally cried tears of joy.  This is the first time I have been without power for this long in the summer.  We had a major ice storm about 10 years ago and staying warm is a whole lot easier than trying to get cool.

I have gotten several pictures of Frankie cat from her new family and she appears to be settling in well.  I got a picture of her and their little girl and she looks so happy.  

Now I'm just wasting time because today is the day I am cleaning the fridge and freezer because trash comes tomorrow.  I haven't opened either of them yet and I'm a little scared to see what grew in there.  

 

Spay Day eve

 Well baby Frankie cat gets spayed tomorrow.  I always get anxious with the rescues going off because I know they are scared.  Yeah I know it's for their own good and for the good of the animal population as a whole but not sure how to explain that to a scared kitty.  Her new home is wanting to take her home on Friday so I hope the vet will let us keep her there and let them pick her up there.  As much as I hate the thought of her being at the kennel I really don't want to just let her loose outside the day she has surgery.  It would probably be less traumatic for her in the long run.  She should be easy to wrangle in the morning, she comes when I call her so she won't be a problem.  The boys are another story.  It's anyone's guess when and if they show up.  

She is such a pretty happy kitty.  I love her so much and her new parents better love her as much as I do or I will come and get her!  They have a younger little (human) girl and they can grow up together.

We hadn't seen big boy since I got the message from his "owners" but he showed up while I was outside loving on baby girl.  

He had ticks and several stickers in his fur.  I got what I could until I finally had to go in and charge my phone.  If it all works out we will get one or both of the boys cut tomorrow.  Just have to wait and see if they show up.  If he had gotten here an hour earlier I would have loaded him up and dropped him off tonight.  I'm curious to see if I catch him how long it will take the 'owners' to notice he has been neutered.  They tip their ear but I seriously doubt if the neglectful owners are knowledgeable enough about TNR programs to know they do that when they fix cats to identify them.  But as Patti knows, that isn't always the case.  As far as I'm concerned I haven't seen him and have no idea what happened to that sweet big guy.  People suck.

Friday I went with HMF to see Lion King.  It was amazing.  I had seen it twice before but didn't tell HMF about the march of the animals and the singers in the opening scene.  We had to switch nights so we weren't in our normal seats and lucked into seats on the row they cut down to head to the stage.  That will turn the grumpiest of people into an excited kid.  During the Scar/Mufasa scene the hyenas came down the aisle and one of them turned and made a motion towards a lady a few seats down and she screamed.  Honestly I jumped and probably would have screamed too if it had been a little closer.  

Remind me to never do my hair like this again.  The six-head is living.  You could show an imax film on it.

That was the last show of this season and I'm big sad.  I did get the add on tickets for Book of Mormon, which is one of the top on my want to see list.  I have seen it online and I am not 100% sure HMF will think it is nearly as funny as I do.  Guess we will see next month.  I got our season tickets for next year.  It starts with Aladdin, which I am ambivalent about.  But Beetlejuice is shortly after and that one I am so excited for.  HMF has never seen the movie and I am not sure how we are even friends.  One of my favorite movie quotes of all times is "I've seen the Exorcist 167 times and it just keeps getting funnier every single time I see it" She teaches online for Baylor and has a mini course she teaches at Waco for a month every summer so I told her before she comes back she has to watch it.  We will see.

I also psyched myself up to go get my bloodwork done for the rheumatologist.  My veins love to hide and I will pass smooth out so it's always a joy for everyone involved.  I had a great tech this time and it was pretty easy.  I got the My Chart results back that say I am pretty anemic.  I am not surprised to hear this as I have had a lot of the basic symptoms, one of which being weight loss.  I also got a really significant bruise from the tattoo a few weeks ago.  I have never bruised from a tattoo before.

 

it is fading but it is still there.  I also slept all day Saturday and was so tired I never got dressed.  When I got up Sunday I told Dennis that the first thing I had to do was get some food because I didn't stay awake long enough to eat.  I am the polar opposite of someone who sleeps all day, my insomnia is real.  I have an appointment with my PCP July 13, I am thinking of emailing and seeing if I can move it up.  I might just ask him to do the anemia panel.  Based on past experience and dr. google I think it will end up being pernicious anemia.  I would much rather do B-12 nose spray than iron pills, those suck so it might be wishful thinking, if you can call it that.  At any rate it would probably be better to have that information before I go in.

I changed the batteries in my scale and my weight today was 102.5.  I am barely 5'2" so it's not as bad as it sounds.  I have also set an alarm on my phone and am trying to at least drink a glass of milk if I am hungry or not.  This time next year I will be bitching about how I gained 50 pounds back.  

While I am on that topic, AP really pissed me off last week.  We were talking about random work stuff and she told me out of the blue that I was scary thin and that I needed to stop losing weight.  I was pissed.  We have a guy that works with us that has gained a significant amount of weight and it has noticeably effected his health.  I can hear him breathing from my desk and he doses off in meetings.  He is a younger guy so can't use age as an excuse.  At any rate I asked her if she brought up Jason's weight with him.  It is never appropriate and she has no idea what I am going through.  I added that to my 'if I ever have to file a complaint' list.

I had planned on going to Little Rock next month but since Brooke's mom passed away her sister is staying with her.  Instead I got tickets for the USA gymnastic championship.  Probably the closest I will get to watching olympic gymnastics.  I am off Monday and the competition lasts all week but I decided to take the rest of the week off so I can go to the daytime rounds as well.  I am going by myself so I won't have to coordinate with anyone.  Monday is just pre-heat/rehearsal so I decided to have a little spa treatment with a little of my annual bonus (the rest is going into the bank for the NYC trip).  I found a new trend called a head spa and I am curious to see how that works.  It's not cheap so I won't be going very often and it is 70 minutes so takes a chunk of the day.  I had planned on getting my nails done but since I am taking all week I should be able to find time.  Plus I really like the design she did last time and I'm not in a hurry to change it. 

Update

Frankie was really easy to capture and get to the vet.  She was pretty vocal about not wanting to be in a crate but I unzipped the top just enough to get my hand in and she purred and relaxed a little.  I'm sure the purring to soothe herself.  She was pregnant so that just shows that if there were kittens, they were no longer an issue because she wasn't lactating.  

I got baby daddy wrangled around 11 and got him taken care of.  They said that with the scratches and scabs on him they wanted to get him a stronger antibiotic that would cost $75 and the street cats program doesn't cover it.  I told them to make him healthy but I wasn't interested in getting him house ready like I did with Frankie.  Dennis picked him up on his way home from work and he let me pet him and he ate really well.  We will now have, statistically, 12 less kittens a year to have to deal with.  He ran off after he ate and found a hiding place.  Now I just have to get big boy.  It is storming so I doubt he will be out for awhile.  The vet did agree to hold on to Frankie until Friday.  I also decided to have her microchipped and register it to my "rescue" just in case.  All of the animals I have rehomed have a no questions asked return policy.  I am low key hoping they change their mind on her anyway so I'm forced to integrate her.  Oh, and they said that she was older than we anticipated based on the build up on her teeth.  She is just a tiny thing. We will probably keep taking care of baby daddy as an outside cat but we will have to change his name fore obvious reasons.  They listed him as baby daddy on the vet paperwork 😂

June

 

Still kicking it at what has quickly become to feel like a cat sanctuary. 

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We still have the 3 outside.  I am not sure what happened, but kittens never materialized.  Maybe she was starved and ate until she was bloated, maybe she had them and they didn’t survive.  Not sure but I’m glad we didn’t have to deal with it.  I got certificates through our local street cats chapter to get them all fixed next week.  They are $25 each so I don’t have an issue paying that.  The one big male cat belongs to someone in the neighborhood.  I posted on our FB page on May 23 and didn’t hear from them until a few days ago.  They said they hadn’t seen him for a week.  I was like, no shit.  I reiterated that he was not looking healthy, and they acted offended that I thought they would mistreat their cat.  I mentioned him getting fixed and they were adamant that they didn’t want it to happen.  So as far as I’m concerned, I haven’t seen the cat.  There is one that kind of looks like it but can’t be theirs.  It has no identification so fair game.  They will tip his ear so I am probably starting a turf war. 

 

I am getting pretty attached to Frankie.  There have been a few people interested in her.  Someone related to the people across the street wanted to take her home but I told them to hold off until after her spay.  They asked if I could get her to come out so I did.  They made no effort to interact with her, which I thought was odd.  She didn’t want anything to do with them.  I decided they aren’t the ones.  There is also a ranger in our district that is interested in her.  I don’t see anyway for me to keep her.  I have 3 cats already and I’m allergic. So looks like after her surgery she will go live with them.  She is just so sweet.  They are all scheduled for Tuesday.

 

My friend Brooke had surgery to remove the tumor from her abdomen.  The tumor ended up weighing 30 pounds!!  She said she has lost 55 pounds in the 2 weeks after surgery.  Even better news is it wasn’t cancer.  Her mom has been battling cancer since before we were friends and was in really bad shape and recently was put on hospice.  She sent me a text after midnight Sunday that her mom passed away.  I know she has to be exhausted.  They are just doing a grave side so I sent flowers but I’m not going to drive the 4 hours to attend.  I had planned on going to LR in a few weeks to give her a distraction but I’m not sure if she will feel up to it after everything. 

 

My friend Linda was down last week to clean out MIL’s house.  She said it was so much worse than she thought.  They also worked out a plea deal so all three of the jackass inlaws were released with probation.  The cousin that is taking care of the daughter that was the SIL’s ride or die has figured out some of the lies and swears she is done with her.  Only time will tell.  I will never understand how people can do that kind of crap.  Linda has wanted a tattoo for a long tine and it has always been the sane design and location so I asked her why she hadn't just done it.  She said she wouldn't do it by herself so we made an appointment.  She wanted something tiny and she was done in like 5 minutes so I twisted her arm and she got a second one.  I got this one, 

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which obviously is very typically me since Patti saw it on a random FB page and knew it was me.  It's a small world and I guess I am predictable.  This is my 5th tattoo in less than a year.  I guess we can go with midlife crisis.  I mean it's not like I am going to have the tattoos that long in  the scheme of things.  

Weight and exercise are at an odd point.  My weight had levelled of around 110 but with the stress of things the last couple of weeks has dropped to 101.6.  I am making a concentrated effort to remember to eat.  I haven't been to dance much.  I wonder how much of it is the ADD obsession ran it's course or what.  I kind of got my feelings hurt a few weeks ago because I had sent the owner a text telling her about my hip issue.  She didn't respond until a month later when she needed me for something.  They were having an event at the studio with the belly dance crew.  Belly dance is the one style I have tried that I just have no interest in.  Anyway, I didn't know what the event was, but I got a text asking if I would be willing to help when she never responded to the first text.  I initially just said yes because that's my default.  She wanted me to buy stuff for punch and infused water and I would get reimbursed after the event. Normally on these kinds of things I never let her pay my back and I was feeling more than a little used.  This was happening the same week as Brooke's surgery and she told me to use her as an excuse so I did.  I have been paying for my membership but I really think I am going to take a break and save that $100/month towards the NY trip.  Speaking of, I got my performance award that I need to put in savings for the trip also.

OK, I have to go out to one of the lakes and audit their meter system.