Surprise!

It's kittens!

I got a call from a local rescue yesterday afternoon. They had gotten a call about a litter of young kittens that were living in someone's garage and needed a foster home immediately; could I help?

Yep.

And THIS group of Foster Campers came with their own Head Counselor:

Mama cat!  She is a very loving, extremely friendly young cat who obviously belonged to a family at some point.


Eating lessons:

"I got claws and I ain't afraid to use them, lady ... zzzzzzZZZZzzzzz ... "

Skeptical kitten:

Foster Camp is now in session!

Warmer

I'm relieved to be able to report that it was considerably warmer out this weekend.  So warm and sunny, in fact, that I even managed to get a little bit sunburned yesterday, which, sunburned in April?!  In upstate New York?!?  I don't even understand this world anymore.

It was so warm that I decided to bring my buddy out of the garage:

Hello, NEWMAN.  Ha.

I am pleased to report that after some initial hesitation, the mower started right up and ran just fine.  Whew.  (and to be fair, this particular lawn mower has never been a problem.  It was the mower I had BEFORE this one that was a POS.  I'm afraid that my current lawnmower is being unfairly maligned for actions of  its predecessor.)

Little white flowers blooming in the woods:

The hunters continue their assault on any and all metal signs:

One of these trees is not like the others:

Do you see that?  That tree in the middle, all bent over?  At first I thought that it was being held down by another tree's branches or something, but no.  THEN I thought that maybe the top end of the tree was somehow held down by ... something ... but when I checked it out, the tree was free to be upright; it just ... wasn't.  Mystery!

The kitty cabana came out, and Pop-pop wasted NO time hopping on for a siesta:

Yep, it sure is the life, Sodapop.

Okay, all you financial whizzes, let me run something by you

Disclaimer:  Money talk ahead.

When my mom died a few years back, I inherited a bit of  money.  Let's just say it's more than fifteen thousand, and less than twenty thousand.  Okay?

I promptly invested that money in an investment fund, a mix of stocks, bonds, and overseas investments with a "moderate", middle-of-the-road strategy - nothing too risky.

The damn thing's been losing money ever since.  Nothing much, but it's two years on, and instead of making money, I'm down by a few hundred bucks.   The fees are eating up any gains that I make.

So what I'm thinking is, instead of letting that money sit there and stagnant, hoping that at some point the fund will turn the corner and start earning me some interest, I should take that money and pay down my mortgage.

My mortgage interest rate is currently 5.75%.  I've been paying extra on the principal every month for the past couple of years, and if I continue at that pace, I'll have the thing paid off in eight years or so.  If I take the money out of the fund and put it against the mortgage, I'll have the mortgage paid off much, much quicker.  (If I put the fund money against the mortgage, it'll bring the remaining mortgage down to 14K.)

But!, you say.  Your job situation is not stable!  Yes, that is true.  HOWEVER, I do have other savings, which will carry me through if necessary for several months until I get find another position, and in the meantime,  I feel like I would sleep easier at night knowing that my mortgage was practically all paid off, PLUS the fund money, instead of making me zip-zero-nada, would instantly generate a return of 5.75%, or the interest rate on the mortgage.

I ran it by someone IRL who I trust very much, and they said it sounded like a solid plan.  Now I would like to know:  What do YOU think?  Enquiring minds want to know.

(And I've been thinking about this for some time now, so no, it's not the meds talking.  I've also been thinking about this since before the whole my-boss-is-a-lunatic thing, so it's not *just* the job situation talking.)

Let me hear it!

Pics from the weekend

Saturday was a crap day.  Snowing and blowing and cold.  Everybody did a lot of snoozing:

Tinks would like me to point out to you that he's not fat, he's fluffy.  Seriously, he weighs just the same as the other cats; he's just got fur that's about six times as long as the others'.

Soda's favorite spot:

And Ponyboy, enjoying the break in fosters to nap in the foster room:

On Sunday, it was still cold out, but the sun was shining, so I bundled up and headed for a park.

Um ... where is everybody?:

The docks are waiting for warmer weather:

And SO AM I.  Dressing like Nanook of the North just to spend a couple of hours outside is BOGUS, as far as I'm concerned.:

Heavy socks, long johns, jeans, t-shirt, sweatshirt, turtleneck ski jacket, neck gaiter, Elmer Fudd hat topped with blaze orange knit cap, and heavy gloves.  *sigh*

There was less snow around the lake:

And more snow in the woods, where some emerging spring plants were giving a hearty "eff you" to the weather:

There was still ice on the beaver pond, but running water coming through the dam:

And hopefully, the NEXT time I go walking, it will be a little (or a LOT, come ON) warmer out.  Sheesh.

Southern Culture on the Skids

Last weekend, I met up for lunch with a friend of mine, who was kind enough to pick up the tab because of my might-soon-be-uncertain employment status, so thank you, Laurie!  I owe you one.  ANYway, we had been talking on the phone earlier in the week, and she was telling me about some weird dessert concoction that is a holiday tradition in her family, and she brought some along for me to try.

It was Southern Pineapple Casserole.

It tasted ... odd, but not as odd as one might think a dish made with pineapple and cheese and Ritz crackers and butter (erk) would taste.

But it got me thinking ... it tasted really, really similar to another dessert I had tried before ... one with, like, pineapple and cake mix and butter ... what was it, what was it ...

And then I remembered:  Dump Cake!  I had once made a Dump Cake that tasted really similar to the casserole.  Time to google, where I found an old favorite website, but only if your stomach's not feeling queasy ...

The Southern Culture on the Skids recipe site!

Let me warn you again ... do not click on that if your stomach is under par or if you are a delicate flower, because some of those recipes are a little dubious.  And feature roadkill.  But if you could use a laugh, click away!  And I gotta say, the Dump Cake recipe is not half bad.

Stone Art

While I was engaged in my effort to hike-away-the-pain (ha) two weeks ago, I came across quite the collection of stone art at Salt Springs.

I absolutely love this kind of stuff; I think it's cool.

I'll bet it's very relaxing to stack stones.

Update! (Believe me, I'm as tired of going through this as you are reading about it)

  So, I started taking the Celexa (10 mg, if anyone is interested in details, and what the doc told me is a very small dose) daily on Saturday.  The doctor had told me that it might take several weeks for it to "kick in", which is why she had given me the Zanax (.25 mg) to take if I got overwhelmed in the meantime.

On Sunday, I woke up with the old brain just a-churning, so I thought I'd take a Zanax, just to see if  it would calm me down.  It calmed me so far down, in fact, that I just wanted to sleep all day, but I had a lot of stuff to get done and managed to stay awake.  I got no type of "high" whatever; just felt kind of peaceful.  And sleepy.  And it did "turn down" my thoughts.

Went to work today, and blahblahblah drama, so an hour before the boss was scheduled to call, I took half a Zanax.  (yeah, a regular pill-popper, that's me.)  It was enough to calm me down, but not enough to knock me out, and I was able to handle a conversation with the boss (about the Project from Hell, don't even get me started) without panicking or wanting to pass out.  I was able to perform competently and without the overwhelming dread that has dogged my recent days.

So!  Waiting for the Celexa to kick in, taking the Zanax as a stop-gap (and yes, I know that both are habit-forming drugs which iare in no way, shape or form to be taken long-term or in excess), and hoping for the best.

I'll keep you posted!  And thank you for your patience as I continue on my quest for equilibrium.

7.0

I was just sitting here watching TV when I realized that it was seven years ago today that I quit smoking.

I can't even tell you how many times, over those seven years,  I've gone through something really stressful and thought, "well, if this doesn't make me start smoking again, I guess nothing will", and probably never so much as in the past few weeks. 

Sorry, just couldn't let the date go by without giving myself a shout-out.

Dammit, I may fail at lots of things, but turns out I'm actually good at quitting smoking. :)

Medication FTW!

Well, despite those of you who seemed determined to label me a hormonal, post-menopausal whack job (AHEM) (Seriously, guys, the only way it could've been worse would have been if you'd suggested I was upset because I was "on my period", so to speak) (JAYSUS CHRIST), the doctor thinks it's a problem with my brain chemistry, which got knocked right the eff out of whack when I was repeatedly exposed to an unmanageable situation.

She wants me to start taking Celexa (sp?) daily, immediately, and Zanax (sp?  I haven't picked up the prescriptions yet) on an as-needed basis when I start to panic out.

And I sure hope I start feeling better, because I'm getting tired of feeling like I'm about to be run over by a train.

HORMONES MY ASS.


(Sorry.  I know hormonal imbalances can and do wreak havoc.  But for me, hearing someone being called "hormonal" seems to imply disdain, like that person can't handle something because they're a woman.  See Donald Trump and his "She had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her ... wherever" bon mots.  Just ... don't.)

Update! (I know, I know)

So!  Work.  Even after the immediate threat of The Project had been removed, I was still having problems with severe anxiety, panic attacks, and irrational bouts of tears.

(And if there is a man reading this right now (I know, I know, WHAT ARE THE ODDS, but still), I can just hear you (the theoretical man who is reading, that is) saying, "typical woman", so, Dear Sir, please let me know where you are so I can come kick you in the junk.)

Wait.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Not really getting better, on the mental front.  So I called the office of my primary care physician this afternoon and briefly explained the situation, stating that I think I needed some help of the mental sort, and HOLY HELL, evidently that will get some alarm bells ringing right quick, because I was offered immediate care if I felt it necessary (nope, not gonna slit my wrists, at least not right now, thanks), and an appointment as soon as I felt I would be able to come in in the morning.

Because I *do* need help.  I don't know why I can't get my brain to step down from PANIC MODE PANIC MODE SOUND THE ALARMS A-OOO-GA A-OOO-GA, but  I need to do so, or I'm afraid that some kind of internal circuit breakers in my head are going to start frying right up.

(And if you are reading this right now thinking, "over-reaction, much?", you are probably still that same man I want to come kick in the junk (see above), so go eff right off.  I don't KNOW why I can't calm down, I just know that I CAN'T right now, and it's scaring me and I'm tired of feeling the way I feel.)

So!  Doctor's appointment in the a.m.  I will, of course, keep you posted.

Oh!  And let's end on a more cheerful note, shall we?  The hyacinths are in bloom.

(Yep, that's right, Little Miss Head Case managed to snap a pic.  I'm cured!  Eff you, Dear (theoretical) Sir.)

Recently Read

Yep, here we go again.  Skip it if you wanna.

1.  If Wishes Were Horses:  The Education of a Veterinarian by Loretta Gage, DVM and Nancy Gage - Vet school memoir.  Absorbing.

2.  Two in the Far North by Margaret Murie - BO-RING.  It's a memoir about living in Alaska, which I usually eat up, but according to this book, set in the early to mid 1900s, Alaska was full of civilized people living cushy if simple lives, and it never even got that cold, evidently.  Bah.  On the bright side, evidently Ms. Murie's Alaska experience was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from that of every other Alaska memoirist I've ever read, so good for her.

3.  Animal Patients by Edward J. Scanlon - Yep, another veterinarian memoir.  Good.

4.  The Animals Come First by Mary Bowring - Just for a change of pace, this was NOT a veterinarian memoir.  It was a veterinarian's WIFE'S memoir.  Ha.  I enjoyed it.  OF COURSE.

5.  The Flying Circus by Susan Crandall - Novel about barnstormers in the 1920s.  A light read, and I didn't get really invested in it until about two-thirds of the way through, but a good book.

6.  Honey in the Horn by H.L Davis.  Novel about homesteading in Oregon in the early 1900s. Did not finish. 

7.  A Girl From Yamhill by Beverly Cleary - Memoir of childhood from the woman who wrote the "Ramona Quimby" series of children's books.  Charming.

8.  Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong.  Memoir of the experiences of a woman who became a nun at 17 in the mid-sixties.  Interesting and well written, and did not disavow me of the opinion that organized religion is whacked.

9.  Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall -  I thought The Flying Circus was enjoyable, so I checked out this one.  Didn't like and didn't finish.

That's it!  Anybody reading anything good?

Something other than work

When I wasn't at work, these last couple of horrible weeks, I did a lot of walking.  A LOT of walking.  I don't use a pedometer, so I don't know how many miles exactly, but MAN did I walk.

Some pictures, for you:

That must've been a helluva campout, that's all I'm sayin':

Whenever I look at a pine tree, I can't help but size up its Christmas Tree potential.  I don't know why, I just do. :

Memories:

Camouflage tree:

Well, now we know what the hunters think of this sign, at least:  Target practice!:

Coltsfoot (feet?) are up:

As is the skunk cabbage:

Some falls are big, some falls are little, and all falls are cool.

Update

My boss (supposedly) worked on the project all through the weekend, including (supposedly) pulling an all-nighter last night.

He asked me to make copies, etc., today, but nothing more.

The project went out the door this afternoon.

I've never seen a more botched abomination in my life.  None of the numbers add up, nothing makes any sense, and he didn't include any continuation spreadsheets to explain his numbers.

You know what?  Not my problem. 

Now he's on his way out of the country, he took exactly NO copies of the completed paperwork with him, and I predict the project owner, the financing bank, etc., will be making calling my boss's cell phone in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Good luck with that, boss.  You're gonna need it.

Update

I did go to the office today.  I was not asked to work on the project in question, instead working on my normal office duties.  One of the problems with the whole situation is that my normal office duties take up my entire day, so trying to shoehorn in this extra project was not really realistic from the get-go.  My boss still has not completed the project on his own, and I highly, highly doubt that he will be able to before he leaves the country Monday evening, but that is no longer my concern and I will not be drawn into it.  He did thank me for coming in to the office today, and repeated that the work that I had already done on the project in question had been a big help to him.  He continues to tell me that I will no longer be working on the project.

Now we'll just have to see what happens on Monday.  Should be interesting.

Thank you for all the comments on the previous posts!  Between work and a terrible situation going on at home right now I haven't really been present on line, but I wanted to keep everybody posted.

As of right now, I am still employed and I am not being asked to work on the project, so that's good news.  And it's Friday, I am off work until Monday, and that's even better news!  Happy Friday, everybody!

Email from my boss

We,ndy,

I got 2 resolved,and will do #3...

It took me until 9:30,  You were a great help, I would like to have you return to work when you feel better. 

You will have nothing to do with the Cook Bros. job,I need you for your help just to handle the daily business excluding any thing to do with that project. ..

John 

Update

After taking the weekend off, I returned to work on Monday morning, at which point my boss threw me right back on the same hopeless project.  I worked on it, working overtime and repeatedly telling him that I was on the verge of a breakdown and could not continue to work on the project, running on about 6 hours sleep in the past 48 hours, until this morning, when I broke after half an hour at work.

After getting myself enough together to compose an email, I emailed my boss, telling him that I would be taking unpaid personal leave for health reasons starting immediately.  I again told him that he could fire me if he wanted to, but I could no longer work on that project under any circumstances, and I left the office. 

After driving around aimlessly for some time, repeatedly having to pull over to compose myself enough to get back on the road, I headed home, intending to change into hiking clothes and hit a trail to try to relieve some of the relentless anxiety.  My boss CAME TO MY HOUSE and told me that I HAD to come back to work.  I told him, again, that my mental state was extremely precarious, and I felt I had to take some personal leave to recover.  He reiterated that I HAD to come to work and work on that project, at which I flipped the fuck out.

Oh my God the DRAMA.

Guys, over the past 29 years, I have worked on many, many projects which were not particularly enjoyable, as anyone does.  I have rescued my boss from disaster more times than I can count, but when he handed me this project, which needed to be done by someone with his skill set and his professional education, I was doomed to failure.  He gets $175.00 per hour to do this particular job, and he dumped it on my desk and expected me to deal with it.  I could not.  It would be like taking me into an operating room, handing me a scalpel, and expecting me to perform brain surgery.  It was an impossible task for me.

Where do things stand now?  I don't know.  I need to accomplish some goals before I can make any decisions.  I need to be able to eat without throwing it back up (yep, that's happening, too), I need to  be able to sleep more than two hours at a time without waking up in a blind panic, and I need to be able to stop hyperventilating every fifteen goddamn minutes.  Once I can get myself off the precipice I'm currently on, I may be able to make some decisions.

My boss told me this morning that I was putting him in a "terrible position", and I wanted to say, "Like you did when you handed me a project you knew I was in no way capable of completing?"  Part of the problem is that he's about to leave for (another) month in Europe, but I can't be concerned about that right now.  Maybe he should have thought about the timing of that particular leisure trip, while he was right in the middle of doing construction management on a million-plus dollar project.

So that's where things are right now.  I need to regain my mental stability  before I can make any decisions about returning to work, and in the meantime, if my boss fires me, he fires me.

To be continued ...

Pro tips!

(a) Breaking into tears at your desk because of the stress of trying to do an impossible task leads to your boss giving you the afternoon off from work.

(b)  Day drinking is a perfectly legitimate way to spend an unexpected afternoon off from work.

Cheers!

Still Alive

Yep, I'm still alive.  Still in the weeds at work, so I thought I'd take a little break to pop in here. 

PG watch continues:

COME ON, Kitty Mama!  BIRTH those babies, er, kittens!

Last night the spring peepers were peeping away, which was awesome, and I slept with a window cracked a little even though it got down to, like, 34 degrees, because PEEPERS!

I went up to the reservoir last weekend, and there was still ice on the lake, which, boooo.

But it didn't stop some dude from kayaking on the open part, which, all I can say is, better you than me, dude:

But the crocuses in my gardens are blooming, so, yaaaay!

Hopefully, the next time I'm back here, I'll be out of the weeds at work, and I'll have pictures of KITTENS.

(Placeholder)

Sorry, guys, work is completely in the weeds right now.  Today I didn't know whether to quit, cry, or punch somebody, and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better any time soon.  Basically, I'm being asked to perform far, far above my education, experience or pay grade, and then reprimanded (okay, YELLED AT) when I fall short. 

But like they say, when you're going through hell you've got to keep on going, so I'm going to keep my head down, my mouth shut, and slog this through.

Copious amounts of alcohol may be involved.  Ha.

And if anybody out there has any coping techniques OTHER than heavy drinking, let me hear them!

I'll be back when I'm through to the other side.

Some days you just gotta walk

PG or not PG? That is the question

Okay, first off, an update:  The (alleged) babydaddy has been captured!  He is going to be neutered, and then, because he is feral, he will released in the same place where Kitty Mama will be released if she decides to remain feral.  That leaves one remaining cat, the tabby, still to go, and then the Walmart feral colony will be all taken care of.  We're going to let the raccoons and the possums fend for themselves, thankyouverymuch.

Now, to the question at hand.

Just like it's not a good idea to ask a woman if she's pregnant, it also can be tricky telling if a CAT is pregnant, and how far along she is.  With the last pregnant cat I fostered, Honey, I was SURE that she had a couple of weeks to go, or possibly wasn't even pregnant at all, when I went in the foster room one morning, and, Surprise!  Kittens!

It is not uncommon at all for a foster cat thought to be pregnant to turn out to be not pregnant at all.  Short of doing an ultrasound, which most rescues can't afford to have done simply to determine pregnancy, there really isn't any good way to tell, as many cats can carry a pregnancy without showing much at all until the last few days.  And some cats blow up like balloons and turn out to be simply well-fed.

So!  We come to Kitty Mama.  I am taking the word of the woman who rescued her that she's pregnant.  I mean, that was the big hurry on trapping her.  It really doesn't matter much to me one way or the other:  I'll either be fostering her and her kittens, or just her, for the next couple of months.  But!  I have to admit that I wouldn't mind having some itty-bitty baby kittens in the foster room, along with Kitty Mama.

Let's go to the game cam, shall we?


Hmmm, she doesn't look pregnant to me:
















Oh, but wait, I think I see a bulge:

Nope, she looks totally normal:

But waaaaaaait a minute!:

Haha basically, I have no idea at this point.  Anyone care to hazard any guesses?

Random

Every time I hear that old Billy Joel song, "You're My Home", I used to always think, "yeah, she WAS your home, until you became famous and ditched her and married a supermodel."  But then!  I found out that his first wife was actually married to another man when they first hooked up, so pot calling out the kettle and all that. 

NPR keeps pushing websites named "News in Slow Spanish", "News in Slow French", and "News in Slow Italian".  I think any of those would make an excellent band name.

There is a squirrel (or possibly two) living in the crawlspace above the offices at work.  We can hear him (or them) thumping around like crazy up there most days.  Once I saw a tail drop down into a light fixture screen, and my co-worker saw one of the culprits on top of a bookcase once, where he had dropped out out of a removed ceiling panel.  I guess it's all fun and games until a computer wire gets chewed through.

My favorite brand/flavor of toothpaste has been discontinued, and I am bereft.  Damn you, Colgate!

I can't even with The Voice anymore, ever since Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani hooked up.  I mean, I never liked Gwen Stefani, and I only tolerated Blake Shelton because he was married to Miranda Lambert, so a Gwen/Blake mashup is just too much for me to take, dislikeability-wise.  Blech.  I can't believe I actually THINK about stuff like this, but there ya go.

Friskies has recently come out with several new canned cat food flavors, one of which is named "With Lamb in Clam Flavored Sauce" , or, as it will be forever called in my house, "Lamb 'n Clams".  hahahaha I don't know why, but that just cracks me up.  Unfortunately, the cats don't care for the taste of it, but I still love that name.

I keep a string of Christmas tree lights up in a window in my kitchen all year round, because it makes me smile, and the other night I was bereft, BEREFT I tell you, to discover that half the string had gone out.  I toyed briefly with trying to figure out which bulb, exactly, needed to be replaced, but then said Eff That Noise and tossed the string of lights, only to panic at the idea that there would be no replacement Christmas tree light strings available in stores for several months.  So I rushed to ebay, just to make SURE that I would be able to buy a replacement string right away, and went ahead and bought one.  Heaven forbid my kitchen window be without its Christmas lights.

I flipped over a bookmark the other day to find it had been published by "The Mouth and Foot Painting Artists."  Hmmmm, I wondered, is that really a thing?  Why, yes.  Yes it is.  Live and learn.  And I will tell you what, those people can paint a helluva lot better than I can.

I am pleased to be able to say that Kitty Mama broke her hunger strike last night.  Progress!

The daffodils are up in my gardens.  What's coming up at your place?

CAPTURED!!

The cat has been captured!

On Saturday night, we ALMOST got her.  She walked into the trap, the tabby right behind her, but somehow, the trap did not trigger.  From this pic, it almost looks like she was leaning over the trigger plate, but it's hard to tell.  When the woman went back to check the trap it had not triggered, so she removed the door for the night.  I checked the trap on Sunday morning and the whole setup was all kittywampus, with the trigger plate flipped over in the wrong direction, so I set everything back up correctly in preparation for another try.

Late Sunday afternoon, the woman went back and activated the trap.  Approximately TWO MINUTES after she left, this happened:

And THIS time, the door dropped down.  The trap worked!  The cat was CAPTURED!!!

The woman brought her up to my house:

Where she briefly explored the foster room:

And then promptly hid behind a bookcase.  *sigh*

But!  She is safe!  She is inside!  She has a nice, quiet place to have her kittens and raise them, and she will be spayed, so her cycle of raising kittens underneath Walmart has come to an end.  Her kittens will be raised with human companionship, so they will not be feral like their mama and they will be able to be adopted into loving homes.  Once the kittens are old enough to be adopted, if she has decided that she still wants to be feral, she has a guaranteed spot at a place where she can be feral and still be sheltered and monitored.

Little calico, safe at last.