My Kitty has come home.

In the interest of time, I'm going to simple spew forth the things that have happened since last I wrote. Some of this is kinda whiny but it's been that kind of week. Last week was pretty sucky. Work overwhelmed me, I started getting a cold that wouldn't quit, and I just didn't have the energy to rally for a drive to northern Maryland. I - along with the Puddin' - bailed on Crusades. All of you who went are better off for not having to deal with my not so charming personality. Thursday morning before Crusades I came downstairs to find that Sarah had run out of rawhides and decided to chew on a bottle of blue fabric paint instead. So I had a spot of navy blue in the middle of my tan living room carpet. Sigh. Thursday night I cleaned that only to find that for some cosmic reason the same cleaner I've been using on my carpets for forever decided to nearly bleach my rug so I have several palm sized faded spots in the middle of my living room. I guess I'll be replacing that carpet sooner than I expected.

My new television won't fit in my living room in the space where my old television currently sits. I think I may have to sell my sofa in order to fit the television. Ridiculous really, but I can't think of another option and I could use a new sofa.

Friday, I got in the second fight with Connor over how it was actually my new television that was in the floor and not his despite his desperate attempts to "mark" it as otherwise. The second fight we had over it was pretty ugly and I think we both carry emotional scars from it. Needless to say, I don't think Rich's dog is used to my world of pet discipline and it might be too late for him to learn. Connor and I have since made up and he should soon be allowed back in my house full of chewie toys and rawhides.

After that domestic doggie dispute, the dogs and I headed to Richmond to lick our proverbial wounds. Sarah almost threw up in my car, but we managed to pull over on the bridge tunnel and she regained her composure. I myself got even sicker over the weekend, and spent most of it asleep or killing bad guys with the Puddin' in video games. My car, which I purchased in January with six miles on the odometer, just broke 20,000 miles over the weekend.

I came home Monday morning to amazingly slow tunnel traffic (they just opened the midtown tunnel after hurricane Isabel yesterday so lots of traffic has been diverted to the others). And when I got to work our three most important servers were powered off. No one knew this because the monitoring machine turned itself off when it received a message from the big ass UPS that the three most important servers are connected to saying it had a power problem. There was much teeth gnashing and policy changing and phone calling customers.

Monday night I came home and noticed that the black goddess cat was looking extremely gaunt. It was not her nature to be so quiet and not want to go outside. I also noticed she hadn't used her litter box in several days and she had lost several pounds. Being a pretty small cat to begin with she didn't have a lot of pounds to spare. I agonized over whether to take her to the vet in the morning or the emergency room that night. I opted for the emergency room and am very thankful for it. She apparently had cat scratch fever and some other blood infection. I didn't know cats really got that. So they hydrated her and cleaned out her system and gave her antibiotics. I even got an ultrasound of her liver because it was abnormally large. The doctor said that her liver is fine, though, and my cat is apparently just well endowed when it comes to internal organs. I think she's been out boozing with other kitties and she's gonna have to give up her rock and roll lifestyle. The beautiful kitten came home tonight with a shaved belly and two shaved arms. But she's meowing and eating and snoozing next to me and I'm overjoyed. I'm not overjoyed at the vet bill, but such is life.

So after all that crap, my pets are all happy and healthy, I'm still sick but getting better, my house is getting cleaned up and I'm making progress to unearth myself from work. Not the most perky of updates, but all in all I'm happy.

16373

It's a boring mundane update. Lo dee do... I still don't have phone or cable modem at the house. And while I have power it does neat things like dim all the lights when I run the washing machine. This does nothing to instill any faith in my power staying around for a long time or toughing it out through the next big storm we have. But so far, I have lights and a working fridge and a hot water heater, so life it pretty good.

In my many escapades to random stores this weekend I have realized that it's October now and that means there are tons of adorable Halloween decorations everywhere. I looooove Halloween and am a particular sucker for anything with black cats on it. It took much will power to not pile spooky cat figurines, spooky cat cookie cutters, spooky cat votive candle holders, spooky cat stuffed animals and spooky cat undies into the cart. I still bought some of those items, but restrained myself quite a bit.

Yesterday was kitty day in Richmond too. The PetSmart had adult cats up for adoption, the Ukrops grocery had cats out front, there were donation jars at every store and I swear there were people standing on street corners holding kittens out to the traffic driving by. Again, tons of self-restraint on my part to only come home with a new dog collar and lunch and not a car full of kittens. Meow!

I've developed a bit of a sniffle today and am trying out the Zicam homeopathic nose gel to nip it in the proverbial bud. So far, I don't feel horrible, so I'm optimistic. I've just been sleeping for 10 hours each night. That's going to make tonight interesting, being a "school night" and all. But maybe I've stored up enough sleep to hold me for a few days.

Rich's surgery went fine. I'll save any stories to tell for him. But other than being sleepy, he's been doing well. It's been a pretty lax nursing duty for me the past few days. Off to work on some shower technology.

DLand - Oh What a Night ...

Someone planned trees well around here. With the exception of one tree that fell into a house and another that took off a chimney, all the trees we saw that fell did so in either the street or blank patches of yard. Yeah, so it sheared off my power pole and we won't have power back for several days, but my house is in one piece and everyone is doing fine.

The generators seem to be holding out and keeping us running here at the office. Ironically, we don't have phones or power, but we're still online and working. I need to get my own generator now. So it's a beautiful day today and I think we found a fast food place with power. I'll be looking forward to hot showers and fancy restaurants very soon.