My Yesterday

Okay, so yesterday didn't go anywhere near to what I had loosely planned.  And it didn't do a damn thing to help increase my Christmas cheeriness.  

'Round about last Friday, Kira started sneezing her fool head off again.  So I cleaned the house like a maniac and Hubs washed all her bedding, in hopes we could stave off the impending respiratory infection.  Umm, nope.  By yesterday morning it was clear we were going to have to get some meds for her.  

Considering that she just had the exact same maladies last May, I had great hopes I could just call the vet and then run down to pick up the meds.  Umm, nope.  Since the last time had been longer than 6 months ago, they had to see her before they could prescribe anything.  I harangued the poor office manager to no avail.  I explained once again, as if they'd forgotten, that Kira is agoraphobic, that she gets motion sick, that she's like 86 years old in kitty age and doesn't need the stress of riding and barfing in a car all the way there and all the way back.  Still, nope.  We set the appointment for 2:30pm.  I mean, what choice did I have?  Cat antibiotics (and cat laxatives, which she also needs again) are by prescription only.

Long about 1:45, I load the cat up and drive her down.  She meowed and barfed the whole thirty minute trip.  Which is why I left plenty of time to clean her up when we got there.  We arrived, I cleaned her up, and then I called them from the parking lot to let them know they could come out and get her.  Because, like, their lobby is still closed and no humans are allowed in.  Umm, yeah.  

I told the vet tech what was up - Kira has a URI again and she needs more laxative.  Last time, the vet also gave me some stuff to help with kidney function, but I researched it and it's iffy as to whether it even does anything, and it's hella expensive, so I told the gal I didn't want that.  

Then I went to run a quick errand*.  Something I had planned to do in the morning, but since I was going down there in the afternoon, I left it until then.  

I was back in about ten minutes and as soon as I got back, the vet was out to talk to me.  She was really pushing the need for blood tests to check Kira's kidney function, which she was certain would be bad, and pushing the supplement thing, using loads of BIG WORDS to convince me I was remiss and the research I had done was wrong.  Umm, okee doke and whatever, but I'm not having the blood tests and supplements done at this time, thank you.  Antibiotics and laxatives, thank you very much, and what's the charge so I can write a check and have it ready when you bring my cat back to me?

Within minutes, my cell phone buzzes.  It's the office manager to give me my amount.  (Oddly, she called the house first, even though I was parked right in front of the doors and the vet knew I was out there.)  Minutes later, I had my cat and her meds.  Zip zap, I was home by 3:15. Which, of course, included a quick stop at the convenience store for ice cream. 

Of course, I was a total spazz for the rest of the day and I didn't get any sleep because my brain wouldn't quit replaying all of the social interactions.  Today is all about coffee, let me tell ya.  And maybe I'll go throw some logs in the woods.  Rebuild the last nerve everyone was bouncing on yesterday.  

Oh, and thank goodness that while I was waiting to take Kira to the vet, I made a chocolate oil cake.  Frosted it after I got home with a super yummy peanut butter frosting.  Lord, I needed that.  (Well, that and the ice cream.)

Needless to say, my early plans of throwing on some Christmas music and doing Christmas cards and decorations flew right the hell out the window.  Holly Jolly I wasn't.  Maybe today will be better.

Oh, and yeah, the reason I had to take Kira in rather than just pick up the damn meds without her?  They changed some stupid law governing pet prescriptions.  If they haven't seen the pet within 6 months, they can't write a prescription - even if it's a chronic condition.  As I told the gal**, that's asinine.  But then again, that's government.  Thank goodness Max isn't around for this.

* my toilet went squonky over the weekend and I needed to stop at the plumbing supply place for replacement parts.  woohoo.  Thank goodness this house has more than one bathroom.

** lest you think I am a total bitch, I did apologize to the office manager for giving her shit on the phone.  I know it's not their fault, but it really is asinine.  And I am on my last nerve.

Ho Ho No?

It's the 7th of December.  Setting aside what day this actually is (if you don't know, go smack whatever educator was supposed to teach you history), we're already 7 days into the month and I have absolutely no urge to send Christmas cards, decorate for Christmas, watch Christmas movies, or listen to Christmas music.  And I've tried.

I bought a box of new Christmas cards because Hubs mentioned them.  They're sitting on the dining room table, staring up at me accusingly every time I walk by.

Before that, I was in the storage room, pawing through my decorations to find last year's cards and see if I needed to buy new ones.  I did.  But I put the lid back on the box and put everything back where it was instead of dragging everything out and decorating the house.

I did watch Die Hard*, but when I sat down to watch The Santa Clause... meh. I usually love that movie.  All I could think was... whiny kid, snotty adults... why am I watching this?

Three of the stations I have set on my car radio are playing Christmas music.  Nothing else was on, so I flipped over to one of them.  Meh.  

By now, everything would be up and the cards would be done or mostly done.  I'd be playing Christmas music in the house and watching all the old favorites.  I'd be surfing the online stores looking for the right gifts to ship to loved ones.  Maybe making up a box to send to the Owl.  

Nope.  It's all Ho Ho No around here.  

Part of it is the weather, I guess.  It's been warm.  It's supposed to hit 68F later this week.  That's warm even for a southern Missouri December.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's causing the rest of it.  

Eh, I really need to get over myself.  Throw some damn Christmas music on - Nat King Cole ought to do it - get the boxes out and decorate the tree, get the freakin' cards done so the people I love know I'm thinking about them.  Maybe that'll get my Christmas groove on.  Or at least fake it 'til I make it.  Or something.

How about you?  Have you got the Christmas spirit?  Ho Ho Ho or Ho Ho No?

*Die Hard is too a Christmas movie.  It might be the least Christmassy of the Christmas movies, which is why I could watch it, but it's set at Christmas, there are Christmas songs and decorations, and even a Ho-Ho-Ho.  It's written on a dead bad guy, but it's there.

Sunday Update - Week 49?

Another week of 2020 is finished.  2021 will soon be here.  I have great hopes that it will be a better year, but I'm not holding my breath.  I had great hopes for this year and look how that turned out.

Anyway...

I wrote about 150 words on a weird little story that popped into my head.  I'm calling it Bert the Immortal.  I got mired in researching his backstory and then got bored with myself.  Never a good way to start a book.  The premise is sound, though, so I may go back to it once I get out of my own way.

Last week's marketing was wrapped up in Friday's post.  

I wrapped up last week's reading yesterday.

In baking news, I made another pumpkin cheesecake and I also made Peach Jam Squares - recipe below.  (Okay, they were supposed to be half peach and half strawberry, but I accidentally grabbed sugar-free jam instead of regular and I don't like usually sugar-free jam to bake with, so I ended up with 1/4 strawberry from the old jar and the rest peach.  Turns out the peach was yummier anyway.)

In deer news, the rut must be over because the does are gathering up again and they're pretty much ignoring Arthur when he feeds with them.  (He's ignoring them, too, so it's all good.)  Here's hoping we see lots of fawns in late spring.

Not sure if any of you need to read this, but here's an awesome article: Put an End to Emotional Abuse.  I got out of my wicked spiral of emotionally abusive relationships a while before I met Hubs. I can't even begin to count the number of people I've known over the years who were either in an emotionally abusive relationship or who had already escaped one.  Hell, I met another gal the other day who told me about the crap she once put up with.  We commiserated.  If you're in one of these poisonous relationships or if you, too, have escaped one, you're not alone.  There's a sea of us out there.

I sat down and watched Steel Magnolias yesterday.  (The original one.)  Balled like a baby, as always.  The funeral scene... need I say more?  I also cry during the first beauty shop scene because I know what's coming.  Let me also just say, I love Weezer.  I think I'm turning into her.  "I'm not insane.  I've just been in a bad mood for 40 years."  ;o)

And on that note, I'll let you get back to your day.  Have a great one, wherever you are.

How was your week?

Recipe:

Peach Jam Squares

1 cup butter (softened)
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups quick oats
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup peach preserves

Preheat oven to 400F.  Grease or nonstick spray a 9x13" baking pan.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until smooth and consistent in color.  In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda, and cinnamon.  Stir into butter mixture until well combined.  Stir in walnuts.  Set aside two cups worth of the dough.  Press the remaining dough into the bottom of your prepared pan.  Spread the preserves over the it until preserves covers every inch.  Crumble the set aside dough over the top of the jam and press it down until it's flat.  (You may still see some jam here and there, but that's okay.)  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the crust is golden and the jam is bubbly.  Cool completely before cutting into squares.  Store the squares in an airtight container.  I refrigerate mine. (You can easily use any type of fruit preserves for this.  I like peach best.)

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 12/5/20

Hello again.  Thanks for taking time out of your day to stop by.  Hopefully you'll find something you want to read when you're perusing these Saturday posts.  =o)

I picked up one new ebook this week - a thriller.  I still have two ebooks leftover from last month that I should get to next week - a romance and a mystery.  

If you stop by my 2020 Books Read post, you'll see I upped my reading goal for the year again.  And I probably need to up it again, if these fast reads keep coming.  I'm only 4 books off the new goal and I will probably end up reading more than that.  We'll see how fast I get to 84 and then make a decision, eh?

Books Read:

81) Cherry Pie or Die by CeeCee James (12/3/20) - Cozy Mystery* - 4 stars. New to me but not underappreciated.  Picked up for free off the ENT newsletter.
Review: "Cute little mystery with a nice set-up for more stories and an interesting background for the heroine."
Available in audio.

80) Two Hearts Home for Christmas by Tamara Ferguson (12/2/20) - Romance*# - 5 stars.  New to me and while it does have plenty of ratings, it doesn't have nearly enough reviews.  Free off the Book Doggy newsletter.
Review: "What a nice story! So what I needed right now."

79) A Litter of Bones (DCI Logan #1) by JD Kirk (12/1/20) - Thriller* - 5 stars.  New to me but plenty of reviews.  (It's so good, I'm not surprised.)  Found this on the All About Books Divas FB page while it was free.
Review: "What a wild ride! The suspense was so delicious that this one was really hard to put down to do things like eat and sleep and various other life stuff. I thoroughly loved this book. It reminded me of the Masterpiece Mysteries I wait months to catch and then can't sleep afterwards going over and over the scenes in my head. This one will stick with me for a while."
Available in audio.

DNFs:

12/4/20 - Themed compilation of fiction and non-fiction.  The intro and the first two 'stories' bored the every lovin' hell out of me.  I'm keeping the book.  I'll try again later.  Maybe there are more interesting stories in there somewhere.

Currently reading...  Since I gave up on that book last night, I couldn't find something else to start.  Bummer.

What did your reading week look like?

Thursday This n That

Adapt dammit!  Whether you want to or not. 

I've been up since 3:30.  This does not bode well for human interaction.  And I have to go to Wallyworld today.  

Lucky for Hubs, he is exempt from my crankiness.  He and Mom are the only ones with that exemption.  The cat doesn't care.

I read a really awesome book this week.  It was a British suspense/thriller.  I need to coax some money out of my budget to buy the next book.  

Unfortunately, I got my new jacked-up health insurance bill this morning.  They added an additional $50 a month.  A month.  That's more money per month than I've made this year selling books, btw.  And I never use the damn insurance.  Seriously.  Never.  I only have it in case something bad happens.  If I'd taken all the premiums I've paid and never used over the years and put that money into a savings account, I'd probably have enough to pay for major surgery out of pocket.  Sheesh.

As I told Mom yesterday, don't get me started or we'll be here all day.

Yesterday, I saw a bald eagle.

No sign of Pierre the skunk since that one time.  I hope he's okay.  I mean, I'm glad he's not stinking up the joint, but I don't want anything bad to happen to him.

Send positive thoughts out to my BFF's great niece.  She's fourteen and they just discovered she has a brain tumor.  =o(  Come to think of it, send positive thoughts to her and her whole family.  It hasn't been the best of years for them.

It hasn't been the best of years for most of us, I'd say.  Sure, not as bad as the above, but we're each struggling with all of this in our own ways.  Hang in there.  By your fingertips or the skin of your teeth if you have to, but hang in there.  :hugs:

Sorry to be such a downer this morning.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Arthur

Instead of the morning rant I just typed and deleted, here's a couple pictures of Arthur.

These were taken back in September, but we saw him yesterday, which means he made it through another hunting season.  Yay. 

I think he's the buck I was calling Curly last year because of the hair between his antlers.  He's got a cool 'do.  

Anyway, he's the dominant buck in the neighborhood and he'll be spreading his genes around this year.  I'd be willing to bet that most of this year's and last year's fawns were his kids.  He da man.

Apropos of Nothing

As you all might know, I am a slave to a geriatric cat.  She's 17, which is like 86 for her.  We have to take her to the litterbox on a regular basis so we don't have accidents outside the litterbox.  As you also might know, I like to make up songs.  We have one for calling her to dinner (she doesn't actually come to it anymore, but we still sing it).  And now I made up one for when we want her to go poop.  It's sung to the tune of 'If You Want to Sing Out' by Cat Stevens.  "If you want to go poop, go poop.  If you don't wanna poop, jump out."  It amuses me and she seems to respond to it, so yay.  

My dad used to make up the words to songs, too.  With Christmas approaching, I'm reminded of his famous "Deck the Halls" wording.  'Deck the halls with Boston Charlie, fa la rah la rah de sis boom bah.'  So apparently, it's in the blood.  We won't talk about how my brother ruined the song Yesterday for me.  Suffice it to say, I can never listen to that song without hearing his words instead of Lennon's.  (Yes, I did pass on that to my daughter, but only the non-R rated verse.)  

The sky is just beginning to get light in the East and it's like 20-something degrees out.  Hubs braved the cold to feed the critters.  The birds will have to eat off the ground today because the feeder lid is frozen in place.  Blerg.

I still hate the new Blogger format.  And I'm still forcing Facebook to show me the original format.  Every 48 hours, which is a pain but less of one than trying to force myself to accept the new format.  Which, by the way, looks a lot like MeWe's format, so I should be able to learn the new FB.  I'm just being mulish.  

It's baking day.  I have enough ingredients to make another pumpkin cheesecake.  And we're out of both cookies and quick bread, so I need to make those.  Not sure how much will get done today, but something.

And I'm spent.  Got anything random to talk about today?