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Dear Neighbors (the ones in our neighborhood):
You know what I said yesterday about how much I hate you for leaving fireworks shit all over the yard? I take that back. I’ll happily put up with the fireworks shit, since you’re nice enough to get your fireworkin’ done at a decent hour. If you could arrange for a painful accident to happen to the assholes in that other subdivision, that’d be great, m’kay?
As ever,
Robyn
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Dear readers:
Okay, I’ll shut the fuck up about the fireworkin’ mofos in our neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods. At least ’til next year! Ha!
As ever,
Robyn
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I know you guys like to try to figure out this sort of thing, so I thought I’d ask for help. Reader LC is trying to find out the name of a book she read back in the early ’90s. It doesn’t sound familiar to me, but maybe one of you know the book she’s reading about. Here’s her description:
What I can remember is this. I found this book in a public library in the the early 1980s, so the chance of it being a Harlequin or Silhouette romance is slim to none. The library I went to didn’t carry those. It was a hard cover book, I remember checking it out with a Gail Godwin and a Susan Issacs, so I am thinking the author was in the F-G-H-I area of the fiction area.
The main female character is a woman who was either an abandoned wife or divorced (same thing, I guess,) with a couple of small children. The story takes place in contemporary California. I remember this because one of the things she does is take her children to Taco Bell, which we didn’t have in in the area of Phoenix I lived in then.
She meets a male hairdresser. She thinks he gay. He helps her out, they become friends. Her friends are appalled. He’s helping her make curtains for her apartment and she learns PDQ that he’s quite straight. They end up being a couple and living happily every after.
I know it sounds cheesy as hell, but the book made such an impression I am still thinking about it 20 years later. It could also be I am not remembering the quality of the book well, but I’d like to find it and re-read it.
I’ve asked my other romance-readin’ friends if they had ever heard of it, and all they can say is “He’s not bisexual?”
Anyone know what it might be? Leave a comment or email me!
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Fred bought some honey maple Boar’s Head ham at the deli of our grocery store on Saturday and OH. MY. GOD. that is some fine, fine stuff. Between the two of us we ate almost a pound of it over the weekend (Fred had a ham sandwich for breakfast yesterday, even), and I had to buy some more when I went yesterday so I’d have something quick and easy for lunches this week.
(I’m all about the quick and easy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge-har-har.)
I also wanted to pick up a box of
Children’s Benadryl Fastmelt because I read about them somewhere over the weekend, and I realized a few weeks ago that I’ve been taking an adult dose of Benadryl on Mondays before I go to the petstore, and it makes me drowsy and lethargic (“How do you know the difference from how you USUALLY feel, Robyn? Ha! Ha!”) and kind of blue all day long. So I thought I’d go with a dose actually intended for children, and so I turned down that particular aisle to look for the stuff, and what did I find? Why, that all the Benadryl was in a locked case, and there was an article taped to the front of the case stating that as of a particular date (can you tell I skimmed?), products that contain pseudoephedrine and ephedrine will be kept in a locked case and sales will be limited to two packages at a time, because pseudoephedrine and ephedrine are used to make meth.
But then, interestingly, after I looked around some more I found a selection of Benadryl out in the open, and I located a box of Children’s Benadryl Fastmelts, so I put them in my cart and was on my way.
And then? When I was checking out? I started feeling guilty as if, perhaps, I was intending to use the box of Children’s Benadryl to GO HOME AND MAKE METH.
I’m such a freak.
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You know, originally we were supposed to go to Florida this weekend, but we canceled the trip because we didn’t want to spend the money, but mostly because I didn’t want to have to find someone to cover for me yesterday morning at the pet store. So I said to myself “Self, I better find something to keep me occupied, or it’s going to be a long, boring-ass summer!”, and that’s when the opportunity to foster Mia and the babies came along and I took it.
All in all, I had a better time this weekend snuggling baby kittens than I would have had spending 10 – 12 hours in the car driving to and from Florida and listening to Fred bitch about the traffic.
Except, that is, for the two hours we spent in the Emergency Vet Clinic yesterday, and the fact that Mia doesn’t seem to be doing very well.
She was okay, if a little agitated by the fireworks, Sunday night. Fred spent a little time with her before bed, and she seemed okay, if a little less inclined to purr. When he went in yesterday morning – I think I mentioned this in yesterday’s entry – there were several small puddles of what appeared to be nothing but bile. She was lethargic, and was clearly not feeling well – cats get a certain look around their eyes when they aren’t feeling well – so we gave her a dose of the anti-emetic we have, and Fred coaxed her to drink some water, and she let him pet her for a while, and we decided to check on her every now and then to see how she was doing.
When I went into her room at 12:30ish, she was laying under the spud’s desk and she looked at me, but didn’t come out to be petted, didn’t meow at me, just lay there and looked at me. Finally she came out, and her legs seemed a little shaky. She let me pet her for a few minutes, then moved away from me and settled down to sleep. I called Fred (who was off on a hike) to tell him how she was, and we thought that maybe the anti-emetic was making her sleepy.
I went off and took my shower, checked on the (extremely rambunctious) kittens, then came downstairs to check my email and all that good stuff. Fred got home from his hike a few minutes later and we ate lunch, then he went upstairs to check on Mia and take a nap. He came right back down to tell me that he’d tried to get her to come to him, and she took one very shaky step, but couldn’t go any further.
I sent him back upstairs to box her up, and tried calling the lady who runs the shelter to let her know what was going on. I couldn’t get ahold of her, so I left a message letting her know that we were taking Mia to the emergency clinic – and thank GOD we live near a city where there’s an emergency clinic – and we left the house.
Luckily, due to the holiday, the traffic was pretty light and we got to the emergency clinic quickly. We sat in the waiting room for a little while, and the lady who runs the shelter called to find out what was going on, and then they took us back to the exam room.
To cut a long story short (too late!) they did all sorts of tests on her, and found that she had a great deal of blood in her urine. Her blood tests came back showing that her BUN, Creatine, and Phosphorus levels were very high which, the vet told us, indicated that there was a toxin in her blood, and her kidneys weren’t clearing it out of her system. After a bunch of questions from Fred, he admitted that he didn’t know exactly what was going on, told us that they were going to give her IV fluids and a shot of antibiotics and an anti-emetic, and that she needed to see her regular vet.
We brought her home and for a few minutes she seemed a lot better; she hopped out of the carrier when Fred opened it, and she purred and rubbed on him. Then she flopped down on one of the cat beds, and Fred checked on her every so often through the night, but she apparently didn’t move at all during the night. He checked on her this morning, and she was still in the bed, and when I went into her room she was still there. She had clearly not had anything to eat or drink, and she didn’t use the litter box. I boxed her up and drove her to Ardmore, to the vet that the shelter uses.
She didn’t meow once the entire way.
The vet looked her over – Mia could barely summon up a halfhearted growl as she was being examined – and basically told me that the fact that Mia hadn’t used the litter box overnight after having IV fluids was worrisome, because when a cat’s kidneys start to go into renal failure they urinate a lot, but when they don’t urinate at all, that could indicate end-stage renal failure.
Everyone asked if there was anything she could have gotten into, something toxic that could be making her so sick, and we’ve been wracking our brains, but there’s just nothing. She spent the first several weeks in the guest bedroom with the kittens, and there’s nothing in there except cat toys, cat beds, and towels to sleep on. I went over the study – where we put her after we separated her from the kittens – with a fine-tooth comb, and there’s nothing at all that could be dangerous to her, nothing. I mean, all our cats used to hang out in that room, and of course we’re very careful not to leave anything around that could harm them, so it’s driving us crazy.
I don’t know, y’all. It doesn’t seem like it’s looking very good for Mia. They’re keeping her at the vet’s for now, and I’m not sure how they’re going to treat her; Fred’s going to call and check on her this afternoon. If you can spare a prayer or a good thought aimed at a sweet little gray and white spitfire who’s in Ardmore, Alabama right now, I’d appreciate it.
Edited to add: Fred just talked to the vet, who said that there’s nothing they can do for Mia. They’re going to put her down.
The vet believes that Mia may have gotten into antifreeze when she was living at the auto parts store, before she had her babies. Antifreeze can apparently take a while to build up in their system and make them sick. Poor Mia.
I know that we took good care of her and she was happy here for a while and it helps to know that, but this just really, really sucks.
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The kitten pictures.
Peanut’s ready to begin his lucrative boxing career.
“I see you, paw. Don’t try anything funny, or I’ll kick your ass…”
Oy, chewing on a toy. Or trying to, at least, if he could just get hold of it…
“The wimmins like it when I sit like this.”
“I like to sniff Snoopy’s tail. It tells me where he’s been.”
“Pbblllt. Why does my paw taste like kitty litter?”
“Heeeey, macarena!”
You cannot resist the cuteness.
Oy poses prettily.
“I like to smell my foot. Is that weird?”
Tellin’ secrets. Or, brotherly love.
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Miz Poo is outside and wants to come in, but every time she heads for the cat door, Mister Boogers runs over and won’t let her come in. Because he’s a mean little bastard.
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2004: If you set off fireworks for three hours straight, starting at 7:30, you are not only an asshole, you live near me.
2003: No entry.
2002: A bunch of links that are probably no longer good.
2001: Pictures from Maine.
2000: Unfortunately, I forgot that when I say things like “Let’s go skinny-dipping and watch the fireworks”, what I actually mean is “Let’s go skinny-dipping and watch the fireworks”, but he hears “Let’s go swimming naked and get frisky in the pool under the fireworks.”]]>