catheroominations

If I leave my house at a specific time, I always see this little red-haired girl driving a Honda Fit. She is putting on her eye makeup. WHILE SHE IS OPERATING A MOVING VEHICLE. I’ll admit, I have been one to apply the M.A.C. ProLash in my car, but I do it at a red light, and only at a red light. Or at a stop sign. OK, and sometimes when traffic is at a dead standstill. But while I am in motion, operating the heavy machinery known as my Accord, I am all about paying attention to the road. And the person I’m talking to on the phone while I drink my latte of course.

Back to the redhead. You’d think that maybe one day she’d consider getting up a little earlier and doing her makeup while standing still in a stationary enclosure such as a bathroom. Much less likely to be involved in a collision and inflicting pain and injury to others. Could be that she’s got ADD, and has to occupy herself with various distractions while driving. Perhaps it works for her, the multitasking of clutch, shadow, gearshift, liner, gas pedal, and mascara. It’s just not for me.

Yesterday I passed a woman driving on the freeway who had a towel wrapped around her head, like she had just gotten out of the shower. I think she was wearing a robe too. Or a very thick cowl-neck sweater. At least the ladies who drive in curlers make it as far as the style-in-process phase. When I saw the woman bedecked in Wamsutta Egyptian cotton, I thought “maybe she’s taking one of her kids to school?” But there was no kid in the car. Just her. I wondered where she was going in such a hurry, and would she arrive at her destination, keeping the towel on? Or would she pull the towel off to reveal glorious flowing tresses like in old-school shampoo ads? Was she hiding a bad haircut? One would think a hat would be sufficient, and draw much less attention.

Then this morning, I saw a Prius on the road that was labeled as a courtesy vehicle for a local car dealership. The male driver was maneuvering his electric razor all around his face. How courteous of Toyota to offer their customers the use of a razor in their loaner car. If they really cared about their customers, they’d have a barber in the passenger seat.

What’s next? A woman waxing her legs? Someone flossing their teeth? Or clipping their toenails?

At a recent TTWS concert, someone from the band told a joke that went something like this:

Two muffins are sitting in an oven. One muffin says to the other,

“Damn it’s hot in here, huh?”

The other muffin, screams…

“GAH! Talking muffin!”

Your turn. Comment below and tell me a stupid joke.

I used to have such a cushy schedule. Arrive at 9:30 am or so, take lunch from about 11:30 to 1:30 or so, walk over to the bubble tea place around 3 p.m. for some afternoon refreshment, and go home around 4:59 p.m. Sometimes I wouldn’t get out until 5:05 p.m., if we were really busy. Rough, huh?

Those days are long gone. My current job keeps me much busier, requiring me to put in additional hours (additional to the 4 I used to work every day). Seriously though, I have no power over my strong work ethic and guilty conscience and so must adapt to the grueling schedule.

Take this week for example:
Tuesday night, as I was about to leave the office, one of the big cheeses invited me to join him at a group dinner at Gordon Biersch. I had to sit and drink beer and eat great food and laugh and joke for hours after close of business. That night, I got home around 9 p.m.

Tonight as I was shutting down my laptop, my phone rang. It was an invitation to come down the hall for wine with some folks from HR, legal, marketing, and finance. I’m definitely a team player (although I work for none of those teams), so I had to participate. You see? Even on Fridays I put in the extra hours.

I should be Employee of the Month.

In the continuing cat saga, I am ecstatic to report that Daphne ate food yesterday. She also ate one of my toe separators (I’m pretty sure anyway), which the vet was hoping she’d puke up, but didn’t. I’m seriously hoping it won’t have an ill effect on her. Anyway, last night when I got home from my first day back at work in 2 weeks, Matte and I witnessed Daphne scarfing her new food like she hadn’t eaten in days. Oh yeah, she hadn’t. Her nostrils had finally cleared up enough so she could smell the bits in the bowl. We were so happy, tears fell from our eye holes. Honest. That’s how worried we were that our little boo had gone the way of Nicole Richie. Perhaps we have an extreme love for our feline family, but we don’t care. We hiss and spit at your mocking, so there!

keep reading Random Tuesday Ramblings

Daphne, not me. Well, I am too, actually. I got home from Calgary yesterday and before we even went home from the airport, Matte took me to the cat hospital to see Daphne. She didn’t look so good. Her eyes were all red and goopy and her nose was ooky and yucky. She’s still got her cold, but they’ve ruled out pneumonia and liver problems. Whew! When she saw me, she perked up a bit and raised her head to meet my hand. She even batted at the ball I was dangling in front of her and did the elevator butt thing when I scratched her lower back. I was so relieved to see she had so much Daphne-ness even while sick, much more than when Matte saw her the previous day.

keep reading She’s home!

When we picked up Jasper and Daphne from the cat hospital where they stayed while we were on our Disney World vacation (WHERE WE GOT ENGAGED) the vet told us that Little Daph had lost some weight and caught a cold during her stay. I had heard that catching a cold during boarding was common, so I wasn’t too concerned. Plus, I was so happy to see my kitties, I was focusing on getting them home where they’d be more comfortable. I only had a couple of hours to visit with them and get my share of headbutts and purrs before I flew off to Calgary for work.

But when I saw Daphne in the carrier, she didn’t look like herself. At all. Her eyes were squinty, her mouth was slightly open, she was sneezing, and she looked miserable. When I got her home, she didn’t fight me when I held her (and she HATES being held). Her body was scrawny. I gave her her 2 antibiotics so Matte could see how to give them to her while I was gone. I didn’t want to be away from home so soon after returning, but I had to make this trip for work, so I left Daph and her brother Jasper in my fiance’s tender loving care.

Tonight when I talked to Matte, he said Daphne was making some strange noises. He couldn’t really describe them, and I couldn’t hear them through the phone. He mentioned that he didn’t think she’d been eating and I was concerned because she needs to eat in order to have the strength to get over this cold or whatever it is (she’s all skinny now). I suggested he take her in to the emergency vet and get her on an IV or something. I know the after-hours vet is expensive, but money is not an object when it comes to these things.

Daph is now spending the night in isolation at the emergency pet hospital because she is contagious. It looks like she has a respiratory infection, and possibly pneumonia, although the vet couldn’t hear anything in her lungs tonight. She’s getting an IV and more antibiotics and they’re running a blood panel to see if there’s any liver damage. Apparently this can be caused when cats have gone without eating for just a few days and since we haven’t been around her lately, we don’t know if she ate while we were gone. Tomorrow morning, Matte will pick her up (kitty catheter and all) and take her to the regular-hours cat hospital (where we take Jasper) and she’ll stay there for a few days. They’ll do chest x-rays to hopefully rule out pneumonia, and continue administering her IV and meds.

All the time we were on vacation, I worried about how Jasper would handle being boarded. With his kidney tumor and weight loss, I thought this might be too stressful on him, and I even thought the worst at one point. (I’m a worrywart by nature, could you tell?) I didn’t worry about Daphne much because as long as she had my hoodie to snuggle into, and her brother in the same cage as her, she’d be fine.

But now she’s sick, and I know there is nothing I can do for her. Even if I was at home, there’d still be nothing I could do. She’s getting the best care she can, but I still feel helpless.

And I’m homesick for my fiance. If he was just my boyfriend, that’d be one thing, but now he’s my fiance and I miss him more. (And I really like saying fiance but I like to pronounce it so that it rhymes with finance.)

So, if you have kitties, or doggies, or any kind of furball, give them some extra love tonight on my behalf, eh? And if you have a fiance, or partner/significant other/boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/poolboy, give them an extra sumpthin’-sumpthin’ for those of us who are missing ours.