Fang and the Brat

I should change Aladdin’s name to "Fang." That’s all he has left anyway. His teeth were so rotten that they ended up extracting eight of them. Apparently some had already fallen out, so now all he has are his four canines.  They put him on pain meds, antibiotics, and steroids. Well, he was fine eating the pain pills ground up in his food, but he seemed to catch on to that really quickly and stopped eating his food when the meds were there.  So for a day we tried shoving them down his poor little throat, but he wasn’t big on that one either.  And they’re only painkillers. If he doesn’t want to take them, I’m not going to torture him by forcing him to. Yeah, he’ll be in pain, but it’s not like he was going to be on them for the rest of his life.  The pain will subside.

The antibiotic is at least a liquid so I can just shoot the syringe into his mouth.  It worries me though.  He really doesn’t like it… and I mean, he yowls in distress the way he yowled when we gave him a bath or when we drove him to the vet.  And one time I gave it to him he threw it right back up.  Now he’s sneezing all the time.  I mean, what’s the treatment for an upper respiratory infection? Antibiotics.  So I can’t guess why he’d get one in the middle of a course of clindamycin.  Unless it’s a reaction to the antibiotic itself?  I’m a little afraid to keep giving it to him if it is, but we’re almost done with the bottle, anyway.

Karma has been a total brat since Aladdin came home.  He was so drunk on sedatives the first night and so relieved to be home and out of his carrier that he just paced unsteadily around the house, pausing here and there to wolf down some food.  The next few days he was completely doped up on his pain meds and was about as playful as a wet mop. So she’s had to channel her playful impulses into other areas… like the Christmas tree.  She spent a good three hours one morning in decimating the tree, knocking down all reachable ornaments, and climbing around in the lower branches.  "Reachable ornaments" apparently includes any from about my waist down. Karma can jump pretty high.  She managed not to break any until a couple days ago, however, and it wasn’t because she was playing too rough.  She had already knocked down a glass ball and somehow knocked a much heavier ornament on top of it, shattering it into a bazillion itty bitty pieces.  I had to put her in the pop-up carrier to keep her out of the way long enough to clean it up.  All ornaments are now above the level of my ribcage, although that really hasn’t stopped her from trying.  I’m going to undecorate the tree before we leave for Vermont.

I had been hoping to go to Vermont with wonderful news about a new job, but no such luck.  We had a nasty winter storm on Friday and Elisa called to reschedule my meeting with the center’s owner.  So I won’t meet her until next Monday.  It’s more than a little frustrating, let me tell you.  Especially with another giant vet bill.  On top of that, we never got our gas bill last month.  With the holidays and the cats and everything, I never even thought about it, but now we have a giant bill for that too. One that we can’t pay.  Alan called and set up a payment option, but he had to borrow money from Louis because we had to pay part of it immediately.  I hate borrowing money.  I really want to start working soon.  I don’t know how we’re going to manage if I don’t.  Elisa has said I already have the job.  I just need to meet with the owner to discuss salary and hours and job responsibilities and such, but it’s starting to feel like I’m getting jerked around.  I know it’s just my pessimism talking.  I don’t think they’ve even opened the center yet, so I really couldn’t start yet.  Still, I’d be happy if I had a date.

Alan is having some work drama too.  Apparently his manager is not all that she seems.  He got in trouble a while ago for being friends with Louis, one of the sales associates.  The store manager had made it seem like it was another associate who had a problem with it, but now it turns out that it was Andy, the auto center manager, who raised the issue.  And Alan overheard her talking to her associate friend that he was lazy, when she’s the one who spends her time at work bs-ing in the office.  Alan is far from lazy when it comes to work.  Suzon told Alan that she was thinking of calling the Associate hotline to complain about her.  Alan was considering it himself last night.  I guess around 4:30 yesterday she showed up at the auto center with her associate friend, completely plastered.  And since managers are salaried, any time they’re at work, they’re at work.  So Andy, aside from "fraternizing with an associate," was drunk at work.  I’m starting to wonder how the hell she got this promotion.  She was the assistant manager in Danbury before.  While I know Alan doesn’t want to work too far from home, I wish he could get that promotion.  He’s good at what he does, and we could use the money.  Maybe they’ll fire Andy and put Alan in her position.  Not likely, but I can hope.

I’ve finished my list of 101 Things in 1001 Days.  I’ll post it before the new year, which is when I’m starting it.  I also have Christmas pictures to post, although I may wait until I have pictures from Christmas in Vermont to go with them.

For now I’ve got to clean the bathroom and kitchen.  Zach is taking care of our kitties while we’re gone and I don’t want him to think we live in a pig sty.  We don’t, generally, but a little extra cleanliness never hurt anyone.

~Liz