Too Cute!

Yay! More Simon's Cat!

Catching Up

Well, things are settling down a little around here. I got my car back. It needed a new instrument cluster. I really don't know what this does, but apparently it's kind of the "brains" of the car and if it goes out your car won't start. I think it is kind of like the hard drive of the car. It stores all the electronic information like the theft alarm, odometer, key recognition, mileage, all that stuff. The mechanic was kind enough to find a "gently used" one to replace mine with. I'm sure a new one would have been many more dollars, so I'm fine with that. The car is 11 years old and has 180,000 miles on it after all. Well, it USED to have 180,000 miles. Now that it has the new instrument cluster it only has 155,000 since the mileage can't be changed on them and they put in the used one.

On Monday, my parents moved out of the beautiful home they built. I'm sad that they are leaving it, but totally understand that they don't need a house (or house payment) that big for just the two of them. It's a really neat place and I hope the new owners will love it as much as my parents and grandmother did. They are moving into a rental house until they find a place to purchase.

The big ole fly in the ointment is that they can't get into the house they are renting until next week, so they are temporarily homeless. Greg and I have their kitties at our house, but our place is way too messy for human guests. I know it's frustrating for them to have to move out of one place and not be able to settle in right away someplace else. It's like moving twice in a week! I would hate that.

I can't say that the visiting cats are enjoying themselves much, but they are doing fine. They both came out for pets and brushing this morning and only a few small hisses were aimed at the dogs.

The dogs for the most part couldn't really care less that there are two more cats in the house. They think it's awesome that there is kitty food down where they can eat it though. Since I found Kissa sleeping in the bathroom sink downstairs this morning (note to self: clean downstairs bathroom sink so the cat doesn't get all dirty and gross from it), I think it's safe to move their food to the bathroom counter, where my cats eat.

Wow, Thanksgiving in two days. Where has this year gone? This year I'm thankful for so much. I know I complain a lot on here, but I really am very lucky. I have so much to thank God for giving me.

We are going to have a very quiet and low-key Thanksgiving by staying home. Greg still isn't feeling that well and gets tired very easily. I think it will be much easier for him if we just celebrate at home. We might meet up with friends for dessert if he's feeling up to it, but I expect it'll be a quiet night at home. Boring, but okay with me.

I'm working Friday, so that's good. No Christmas presents this year, so I don't need to go shopping. And I don't have very much time off to take now that I spent the best part of three weeks off taking care of Greg.

Hope you all have a terrific Turkey Day and remember all the wonderful things in your life.

Speeding By

I'm not sure how we got to the middle of November, let alone two days away from Thanksgiving. Sheesh, time sure flies.

Here's a Thanksgiving funny for you:

I Want My Car Back

I totally hate it when my car is in the shop. I feel so out of control without my own vehicle. Control freak? Me? Naw.

So I asked for a cheap rental car and boy did I get cheap. I got a Chevy Aveo with no amenities at all. It is an okay car, but it has a lot of blind spots for such a little car. It also has the loudest road noise of any vehicle I've been in.

I feel like such a car snob because I looked for the button to put down the window until I realized the window had a HANDLE. My Expedition doesn't have that many amenities, but it does have power windows.

The windshield wipers are stupid on this car, too. I confess I was too dumb to figure out that you lifted the little arm UP to turn on the wipers. Silly me, I thought the twirly thing next to the picture was how you turned on the wipers.

Yesterday was a crappy day because I had to get the rental car and Enterprise forgot to come and pick me up at the appointed time. So I was two hours later to work than I had planned. And I'm waaay behind at work with a pile o'crap to do. And I thought the windshield wipers didn't work, so I was using the cleaning function the whole way from Vancouver to Gresham and had gotten a little steamed by the time I got there. Then, to add insult to injury and totally top off my Monday, I went to Wendy's for lunch on the way to work, ordered a diet Coke and it came all mixed funny and tasted horrible.

Don't mess with my diet Coke, people. I've already had a bad day. Honestly, how hard can it possibly be to get the right mix ratio on a fountain soda?

Oh, and the mechanic called and said "hmm" a lot while asking me to describe (again) what was wrong with my Expedition. This can't be a good sign. Well, the only sign I think was involved here was lots of dollar signs.

Sorry, just wanted to whine a little. I realize in the scheme of things these are itty bitty problems and just blips on the radar, but I was annoyed. And I needed something to blog about.

Better

Greg went to the doctor on Thursday and was given a clean bill of health. Well, on the meningitis, anyway. The infectious disease specialist said all of his labs came back with normal results and the infection is cleared. He is off the antibiotic pump as of Saturday. The neurosurgeon gave the almost all clear. He did really have back surgery, so he has to take it easy on lifting and stuff for the next two months.

So that's all good.

Greg went to see his naturopath about getting some good bacteria back in his system and we spent an obscene amount of money on those drugs. I can't wait to see what this hospital bill will total. What do you all think? MRIs, chest x-ray, CT scan, emergency room visit, spinal tap, 5 days in the hospital, daily blood tests, cultures, back surgery, and two weeks of out patient antibiotics. I'm guessing when all is said and done we'll be lucky if the whole bill comes in under $100,000. NOT the way I would plan to use that kind of money. Thank the Good Lord we have good insurance. Hopefully it will all be covered. Please, God! Let it all be covered.

Of course, nothing can be easy around here. Now that I have Greg back to mostly normal, I was really looking forward to MY life getting back to normal. Unfortunately, my car broke down on Friday night, so I am momentarily without a vehicle. I totally HATE not having my car. Keep your fingers crossed that it is something cheap to fix. The tow was covered under road side assistance through our insurance, so that was at least something good.

Oh, except the man who just had back surgery had to push the Expedition out of the drive through at Panda Express. In the pouring rain.

Yeah, so not good on his back.

Needless to say, I'm pretty grumpy about it all.

On the plus side, I got to go out for a morning of letterboxing with my favorite boxers on Friday. We got 4 boxes up at Morgan Creek. The Wonder Whippets went along as well as Friday, Maiden's Newfoundland puppy. Aside from Friday wanting to play and the girls decidedly NOT wanting anything to do with him, it was very relaxing and just what I needed. Too bad all the efficacious effects of the morning are now gone.

So Sweet!

One of my co-workers was sweet enough to make me this really cool purse. She had made a couple for a charitable giving auction we had at work before Halloween and I spent an inordinate amount of time talking to her about how cool they were and how I was going to bid on one for the auction. I thought they were great and talked them up to everyone I saw. I helped her pick which cover should go with which bag and everything.

I was SO disappointed when I didn't get to go to the auction (Greg was in the hospital and all) and my proxy bid (thanks, Char) didn't win.

So today when I went back to work, she presented me with one of my very own. Wasn't that sweet? I was so surprised and so very touched that she thought of me. She knew it had been a rough week so she and another co-worker came up with the idea to make me one.

So I put it on my desk when I got home tonight and went to get my other purse to transfer the stuff over and look what I found when I returned:






Apparently, Cleo thinks it's a really great purse, too. I can't decide if Elizabeth will think this is funny or be insulted that I "let" my cat lay in it. But really, she was already in it, it already had cat hair on it, why not let her stay? Besides, if I turfed her out, she'd just get in it again when I turned my back.

I will try and post some pictures of my really cool bag at some point when there is not a cat in it.

Oh, and please notice in the background of these pictures the black EMPTY cat bed behind her.

Oh, Hell No!

It's the time of year for met to rant on about how I hate it when stores put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. You can read about it in at least one post every November I've been writing this blog.

I was in JC Penny's at the mall tonight (on the way to the library) and they not only had all of their Christmas decorations up, they were playing Christmas MUSIC.

It's just wrong, wrong, wrong.

I heard one guy tell his kid, "No, you can't have the Christmas candy, you still have Halloween candy left."

This is not a sentence anyone should ever utter a week after Halloween.

I'm just saying.