Tag: family

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Split My Life into Pieces

I woke up pretty rested, having held Split Lip in my hands most of the night. He didn’t leave the way he normally would after I fell asleep, at least until hours into the night when he wanted to go outside. When I finally got up to go to work, I scooped him up and carried him off to the vet. I actually felt a little bit hopeful that he seemed to eat a bit of canned food before bed last night.

When we got to the vet, I parked next to Robyn, who was there dropping off a cat as well. They were super busy running in and out with animals, so we chatted while we waited. Just after she left, I heard the spew of diarrhea in the carrier, so I pulled it out of the car and threw some napkins in to try and cover it up the best I could. It didn’t keep Split’s tail from getting in it though. It was actually kind of normal colored and had some solid in it, which made me even more hopeful. I thought maybe he had just powered through some mouth pain so he could eat last night.

I carried on to work feeling a little better about the ordeal, so I stopped and grabbed a slice of breakfast pizza on the way. From there, things slowly started going downhill.

Sandy emailed me to say Dover couldn’t meet my salary request, so they went with another candidate. I would have liked a raise, even if it was only an opportunity to say no to a couple thousand dollars for a lateral step to their pay scale. I wasn’t heartbroken about it though, and in fact had at least a little bit of relief in sticking with what I know.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why imaging the student laptops was suddenly destroying my task sequence flash media. Ben called a couple times and we chatted about Impero some more. Overall, not much was really accomplished.

Dr. Pearson called about split sometime in the middle of the day, and let me know that she couldn’t find anything in his mouth that would cause the grinding sound we were hearing. Without any real answers as to why he wouldn’t eat, her best guess was that he was wasting away from some kind of cancer, and that it was best to let him go. He was already sedated for the examination, so it was a pretty easy decision with the expected fallout throughout the rest of the evening.

I stopped by to get my pet carrier, then picked up a shirt that Ben got me for toughing it out while everyone else was quarantined. The girls didn’t have karate, so I stopped to see Summer briefly before making it home. When I got there, I realized they had not cleaned the cat carrier at the vet, so I hosed it down a bit and left it out to dry.

Autumn made dinner, so I eventually made my way across town. Summer spent nearly the whole evening on a video call with the automotive guys at the ATCC. Autumn’s hamburger meat with rice reminded me of eating leftover taco meat over steamed rice as a child. Then we played a round of Mario Kart before Summer went to sleep and I headed back home.

It really feels like the end of an era. I’ve never truly been here, home, alone. I had my childhood at home. Then I moved out with Angie and we got Kitty, turned Big Kitty, turned Momma. Little Kitty quickly outgrew Big Kitty, but size didn’t matter when he became Daddy. They had five distinct little kittens while we were away in Hawaii just over 15 years ago – Split Lip, Grey, Chewie, Momma’s Clone, and a fifth that we managed to give away before having to come up with a way to describe it against the others.

Daddy and Clone disappeared after I put a bunch of them outside to keep the males from breeding and spraying everywhere. Chewie stuck around the neighborhood, but quickly came down with a dickborn disease, and I had to put him down suddenly when the vet said he had developed jaundice. For a long time, it was just Momma, Grey, and Split. Then Momma blew up like a balloon and I put her down suddenly after a completely worthless trip to the vet at Town and Country. Years later, Grey got the same thing, and Dr. Tanner easily identified and fixed the issue, giving us a little over two more years.

I had been over the whole idea of having cats, and largely pets in general, for a long time. That whole second era of my life had dragged on enough, and I felt like I was never really able to pick up the pieces and move on. Maybe I used the cats as an excuse for being an awful human, but I wanted the chance to find out for sure. I had been ready to move on for a long time, and I guess he was finally ready too.

I’m gonna miss you, buddy. We’ve sure been through some shit together.

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Self Service

I woke up feeling pretty well rested this morning, but it still didn’t give me a whole lot of motivation for the day. I tried working outside at a picnic table for a little while, but it got a little bit too warm and humid for that. I ended up spending most of the day trying to figure out why the student laptops were only imaging intermittently with the flash media. None of it made any sense, so of course I didn’t get anywhere with it.

I picked up Summer for a late lunch at Cici’s. They had single-use tongs available for the pizza so you could serve yourself. The salad wasn’t arranged the same, but to be honest, it seemed to work better to just have them serve you anyway. I felt like the tongs, though washable, ended up being more wasteful than anything else. The pizza on the bar was all super dry and gross looking, too. My custom spinach alfredo with all the extra toppings was pretty good though.

After work, Autumn wanted me to pick up a friend of hers from the Explorers program, then take him, her, and Eaddie to La Huerta for a fundraiser meeting. Summer was sent home with back pain, so I went back to spend a little time with her while I waited for the kids. Then I dropped them all back off at their homes.

Before going home myself, I stopped by Casey’s for a freebie, then gave the car a good wash. I hadn’t done that in quite a while, and after our weekend in Little Rock, it sorely needed it. When I got home, I got the cat to eat a little bit of a new can of cat food. I’ve got an appointment to get him back in to the vet tomorrow to see if it’s a dental issue. If it’s not an easy fix, then it’s time to say, “goodbye.”

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The Help

I woke up so tired again this morning, so it was nice that Greg showed up at my office this morning to help out. I sent him on a couple errands while I worked on some more software deployments. I really lost track of time, because lunch time came and went, and I barely noticed.

After work, I stopped by the shop for Autumn’s gift bag for helping over the summer, then went to get her for an Explorers meeting. Once I dropped her off, I stopped to see Summer for a bit on the way home. The girls would end up coming over for the evening, but it would be late, so I stopped for a cheap Bacon Big Mac deal.

When they got there, they made salads out of the rotisserie chicken we bought yesterday, and we watched an episode of Glee. It felt like every bone in my body hurt, so it was off to bed as soon as I could get there.

Don’t panic.

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Good Vibrations

I got up this morning and made bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. It all slowed down quite a bit from there after my tummy got the rumblies. We wanted to get some more cleaning up done around the house, but we ended up just mentally rearranging furniture instead. I do think it helped to visualize an end result though, since we’ll have so much furniture to manage.

Julie called in the afternoon and wanted to chat about our vacation. I think our usual flow of conversation escalation made Summer a little wide-eyed, but it was nothing new for us.

Eventually we went to the Neighborhood Market for something healthy to whip up for dinner. On the way out of the parking lot, Mom and Dad were pulling in and invited us over for curry. We continued on to get the girls from their grandparents’ house, then went on to my parents’ since I wasn’t in the mood to argue with the universe’s obvious plans for us.

We didn’t have to wait very long for my parents to get back, but we dug out Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur and started a game anyway. When they did get home, dinner was actually ready to dish out, so we didn’t waste any time eating. Afterward, we finished our game where the reluctant-to-play Eaddie ended up winning the game.

I dropped the girls off at home at the end of the evening, then headed back home to go to sleep with the cat. He curled right up next to me, so I didn’t have the heart to put him outside again.

Might as well get the carpet cleaner ready…

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Plan It

I picked up a free breakfast burrito from Taco John’s on the way to work this morning, and they loaded me up with Potato Olés. I didn’t even finish either of them, so I’ll have breakfast ready for me tomorrow.

I spent almost all day working on an engineering deployment package because I couldn’t get the detection method to work. Summer wanted to go out to Stoby’s for lunch, so when Noah got out of class, we met her there. Later in the afternoon, I finally figured out why my deployment wasn’t working, and got it pushed out.

Summer took Split some different dry food to see if he would take to it, and we thought he was. When I got home, I realized he had just pushed the bowl around and spilled a bunch of it all over the ground. It really seemed like he was eating for a bit though.

I started cleaning the carpet again when Summer came over for the evening. Then Julie called and wanted to talk about our Disney trip, which aggravated me because I prefer to communicate in writing. The kids eventually showed up with some leftover fajitas, but they had spilled them all over Eaddie’s clothes, so I had to start a load of laundry for them.

My body feels relatively ragged, and I’m a different kind of exhausted than I’ve ever felt before. I need a break before I break.

We’ll be in touch.

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My Cat is on Antidepressants

I got up this morning to some more lovely work to do on the carpet. I put the cat out and continued to get ready for work. I went to the shop to sign some paperwork before going to the high school. I stopped for an expiring free slice of pizza, then stuck my nose in some deployment packages, only coming up for air for a late lunch.

Summer met me at Foodie’s, and we had a couple giros. I didn’t find my lamb to be very filling at all, but the waitress warned us about “chewy” steak. Summer really liked hers, but didn’t finish. When I got back from lunch, I continued doing more of the same.

At the end of the day, I called the vet to see what else I could do for Split. Finally, she said it may just be his time to go, as though it was her idea in the first place. I was aggravated, but decided to give some appetite stimulants a try. She prescribed him some Mirtazapine, which evidently is an antidepressant, and said it should take effect within about half an hour to hopefully make him eat something.

I had trouble giving him both medications today, but we made it work. It did seem to bring him around the food more, but he still didn’t seem very interested. He licked a little bit of gravy, and ate one treat. He kept digging in the dry food silo as well, as though he wanted something fresh from up top. I guess I should try a small bag of some other dry food to see if he takes to it.

When the girls got out of karate, I met them and Noah at my parents’ house for dinner. Nova was there again, and it was just a night of leftovers after the Great Labor Day Cook-off of 2020. I made it home a bit later than I wanted, and spent the rest of the night cleaning carpet. Split did seem a little more lively late at night, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

Fear is the mind-killer.

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Bake and Fry and Grill, Oh My!

We got up this morning and had the last of the eggs. I’ve really enjoyed frying eggs. They’re so simple, and so delicious. Summer left for the gym while I got baked potatoes ready for dinner with my parents. For as little as I actually did, I was still just completely beat.

The cat refused to eat anything again, which has been wearing on me more than anything else. He tried to throw up his medicine today, but Summer said it just came out foamy. I don’t know what else to do.

I had to run to Walmart for some stuff for the twice-baked potatoes, then came home to load everything up and head to my parents’ house. The girls were back home, so they beat me there and were playing in the pool. I got there and started frying bacon for the potatoes. Everything came together reasonably well, but there were just so many people there with the girls, Julie, and Nova.

Afterward, I came straight home and tried to bring the cat in. He immediately went and had diarrhea in the tub, which really was the best possible scenario. He also dumped water all over the kitchen floor though, so I just kept running around after him, trying to clean up. He has me absolutely ragged. Every day, I wish they had just put him out of both of our misery.

The vet never asks about your quality of life.

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Sunday Runday

I got up and made eggs for breakfast again this morning. The slow cooker barbecue chicken burned a bit and seemed dry, but I didn’t really think forward enough to actually turn it off. I tried to start cleaning the garage while Summer went to the gym with Noah.

It was pretty overwhelming to find a place where I could dig in enough make enough room to rearrange things. I paced around quite a bit at first. Summer eventually came back with Noah and we made a late lunch out of the barbecue chicken. It tasted alright, but you could really tell it was overcooked.

After lunch, Noah went to take a nap while Summer and I tried to tackle the garage together. By that time it started to get pretty warm out there, and I got crankier the hotter I got, and the more she pushed to motivate me. Then I got a text from Mark and realized I had to get cleaned up before I could go meet him.

After my shower, Summer took Noah to work and I left for Mark’s office. He had some new questions for me, and I felt good about what we accomplished in just over an hour. Before I left, he urged me to vote to keep the penny sales tax.

From there, I picked Summer up and we went to my parents’ house for bún bò Huế. Nova was there too, and I guess Dad had taken her out practice driving before ending up there. We stayed a little while, but eventually left as I seemed to be allergic to something there. My head stopped up and started to throb until we got back home.

Summer and I settled in pretty quickly, spending a little time to talk about our feelings some more before bed. Communication is easy if you just suck it up and do it.

When someone asks if you want a parachute, the answer is always, “yes!”

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!YOHA

I got up this morning and made some delicious egg sandwiches for breakfast. Summer left to get the Lit’l Smokies and smoked sausage started in the slow cooker while I got dishes cleaned and took a shower at home.

The afternoon was quite a bit slower than I expected it to be, but I sorely needed the time to just relax. Eventually Summer got back and we headed up to Travis’s for his pirate-themed birthday party.

John and Melissa were already there, but Veronica bailed on us as usual. Travis’s mother seemed to be doing pretty well, and a good, quiet time was had by all. The girls got into some temporary tattoos, and would have tried making full sleeves if we hadn’t come out to chat.

After the party, we came back home and settled in. Noah called to chat about his feelings for a bit, and gave me the best compliment I could ever hope for. I spent the rest of the night boiling the hell out of some chicken breast for the cat, but he probably won’t eat it anyway.

Do what you want, cause a pirate is free. You are a pirate!

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An Act of Piracy

I took Split into the vet this morning, tears in my eyes, expecting never to see him again. They met me in the parking lot and shuttled him away with the hopeful demeanor that veterinarians have, and I sobbed off toward the shop for work.

They were still mopping up water from the flooding, but for the most part everyone was back to work. I chatted for a little while, then went on to the high school to see what I could accomplish.

I worked a little into lunch, then left in a hurry to make my interview in Dover. I ran home first to change into some nicer pants and shoes, then made the 15 minute drive out of town to try and find their technology office. Excitedly, it’s on a bit of a hill in the old middle school building, so flooding shouldn’t be such a regular occurance.

I felt like the interview went really well. Josh, the superintendent, was there, along with Toby, one of the techs, and of course Sandy, the technology coordinator. They all seemed pretty friendly, and I was probably a little too relaxed, but it was nice to do an interview and not be so uptight. Not needing a job really does wonders for the nerves.

Afterward, I went back to the shop to update everyone. Then ran home to change again before going back to the high school. The vet called in the middle of all of that, and let me know that Split’s bloodwork came back showing signs of normal kidney function and blood sugar, so all we were really looking at was an enlarged thyroid. The stupid cat’s got too many hormones. Or a tumor. Who’s to say? The point was, I would get to continue shampooing carpet until he either quits making messes, or I give up and kill him myself.

After work, I stopped by the vet to get him, along with some meds and a can of special, bland food, to help him “reset” his tastes. I really don’t understand how that’s going to work, but he did at least eat about a quarter of the can of food when we got home. I watched him for a little while, then went to get Eaddie from karate.

When we got up to their house, I snacked a bit until Summer got home, and then she grilled some brats for the girls while I ate some leftover pork chop. I dare say it was better leftover and reheated. It didn’t even really taste freezer burned any more.

I didn’t stick around too long before leaving for Walmart to pick up some plain yogurt to give Split some gut bacteria. It was awful. It’s no wonder he didn’t want to eat it. Of course I also had to clean the carpet again, because that’s still my life. It’s inescapable. This damned cat is going to live forever.

I would say that my biggest weakness is that I never have a good answer for this question during interviews.