happy friday

What a long long loooong week. Long and stressful. Much trauma. But looks like it’s all turned out well – at least as well as it can, and as far as the really important things. And I apologize profusely for being such a terrible reader/noter this week. I’ve barely been online, other than when I’m at work. And have been too busy at work to do things like, oh, have fun. Perish the thought. I’ve spent a large chunk of the week in meetings or in training for the new (doomed as doomed can be) computer system, or at doctor’s appointments, or at vet appointments.

I’m actually writing at work now, because I’m trying to work on a big project that requires serious concentration – and guess what! I can’t concentrate!!! Shocking, I know. New Person J, who needs a new name since she’s been here since October, keeps talking to me. My boss keeps coming in and talking to me. My phone keeps ringing, mostly thanks to The Memo From Hell. I don’t know how on earth I’m ever going to get this done. If it’s work hours, I can’t concentrate, and if I stay till after 5 like I used to do when I needed to concentrate, Insane Boss (who does not need a new name)  is always here and won’t leave me alone.

I’m hoping that J will leave early and at least I’ll have an hour or so to work on it. Of course, right now she’s being perfectly quiet.

The vet appointment is a big part of the trauma. Poor Colfax, our 15 1/2 year old cat, has been acting like she doesn’t feel well for ages. We kept putting off taking her to the vet because, well, going to the vet always ends up costing a small fortune and we keep having to spend vast amounts of money that we don’t have and we just kept hoping she’d get over whatever it was. But then she started getting very skinny, so we finally gave up and took her in on Friday. And they ran blood tests on her, and the bad news is she may have leukemia. Not the feline kind, the same kind humans get. This isn’t a certain diagnosis, since to find out for sure they’d have to do bone marrow sample tests, which are very expensive and very painful, and would only tell us for sure that she has it, and we still couldn’t do much about it. The vet, who I love, said if it was her 15 year old cat, she’d just wait and see what happens and not put her through all that.

So she gave Colfax fluids and gave her an antibiotic because she was running a fever and we have some pills to give her that will hopefully raise her red blood cell count. And the good news is that she seems to feel much better now. She’s acting much perkier, and eating well. And at least she’s not in pain. We may have to keep giving her fluids, but we can do that. I’m still holding out hope that it’s not really leukemia – she had a similar illness a few years ago, and once we got her on antibiotics she was fine. So we can hope. And I have to say – with a HUGE amount of guilt – that if it were Stella, I’d probably be hysterical. I’m still upset about it, of course, but not like I would be if it were Stella. And that makes me feel terrible.

This was a few weeks ago. I brought home this bag and she acted like she’d been waiting on it for DAYS. She hardly gave me a chance to sit it down before she was inside it, and she stayed there the rest of the afternoon.

The other big trauma was the doctor’s appointments – my scheduled checkups and the ultrasound I have every six months. Which were fine, no problems, and I got a clean bill of health, but it always makes me very very anxious. I guess that’s perfectly normal, but I’m glad to have it over for six more months. And I’m fine! Always exciting news that’s certain to put everything else into perspective.

And of course the house trauma – I think we’re about to sign the contract to have three anchors sunk into the ground from inside the basement, and something like NINE piers sunk into the ground behind the house. For a vast sum of money, but actually less than we were fearing it would be, so it didn’t sound nearly as bad as it could have. We really like the structural engineer and we liked the guy who runs the company that will be doing the actual work. They’ve been recommended by a number of people we’ve talked to. And the vastly expensive work comes guaranteed for life, including if the company goes under, and we got the house so cheap that the vastly expensive work will kind of be like paying a normal amount for it to begin with. And if we ever sell it, we’ll make much more back that what we’ve put into it. So, it could be way worse. Now we just have to find out when the work will be done. Apparently it doesn’t take very long, which is surprising. And it was actually very interesting listening to them talking about it and explaining what they would do. It of course would be way more interesting if it were someone else’s house. I’ll have to provide details and photos later on.  It will be interesting for everyone reading, since it’s MY house!

Oh, look, it’s the big crack in the wall! You can see it above that bottom window. It looks way worse in person, especially when you’re standing right beside it. And this was during our lovely return of the blizzard season a few weeks ago. Which killed everything that was blooming. I am happy to report that we seem to be back to spring now, finally. It’s not hot, but it’s not snowing, and things are looking a little green and pretty again.

Okay, I really must go. Try to work on my concentration-requiring project. I’ll catch up on everyone this weekend, I swear. Unless, of course, the internet goes down, which is probably what will happen now that I’ve sworn to catch up. Happy weekend!