Random thoughts and a deal on razor blades.

Let's tackle the razor blade thing first...Jake needed new razor blades today, sort of urgently, since I'd bought the wrong ones the other day and he was leaving today (more on that in a bit).  Within a mile radius, we have a Publix, Winn-Dixie, CVS, Family Dollar and Walgreen's. He wanted Schick Quattro Titanium blades and Walgreen's had the regular Quattro blades on sale for $8.99 but the Titaniums were $13.99.  For four.  Yes, *four.  Razor blades are one of those things that make my asshole pucker up when I have to buy 'em, but hey, he's going to be gone a long time and I decided to suck it up. At the register, however, even the Titaniums rang up at $8.99.  Yay!  But to make matters even better, this purchase got me a printed coupon for $5 off my next purchase of more than $5.  So, basically, I can go spend $5.10 and only pay 10 cents.  Or, alternately, I got $13.99 blades for $3.99 and will pay for something I'd buy on sale there anyway.  Probably nail polish.  Anyway, with the purchase of *any Schick Quattro product, men's or ladies', and even the disposable razors, you'll get the $5 coupon for a future purchase of anything.  This is a deal worth sharing.  :-)

So, yeah, it's 3am and about 2 hours ago, Jake left out with a friend to spend an undetermined mount of time in Ft. Lauderdale.  He will be back long before Thanksgiving, but that's all either of us know right now.  I will miss him fiercely but am glad he's getting to experience a new area and see if it's a place he might be better off living in.  Don't get me wrong, I love my kid and hate the idea of him moving, but this area offers nothing for him now. Just nothing. He has to move away to have a future and at least Ft. Lauderdale isn't that far away.. But here I am...kidless, alone, feeling sort of giggly at the freedom of it all.  I"m such a piss-poor empty-nester.  Oh, and his friend?  Is cute.  And a little...um...prancy.  Hmmmm.  :-D

So here I sit, it's past 3am and I'm having a glass of wine, bleaching my shower grout and trying to keep Tucker the cat from breaking in and licking the bleach. Does anyone else have a cat that loves bleach?  Obviously, I'm going to be leading a wild life while Jake is gone, lol. I think tomorrow (fine, *today, whatthehellever) I'm going to make myself a honey-do list and share it.  Maybe I'll even keep myself honest with pictures.

For now, I'm going to try sleeping in my bed.  It's been over a month since I've slept in it.  My back objects to being flat, I have issues with being on the far end of the house and so I tend to sleep in my recliner and Jake takes my bed since it's a full size and no one is in it.  Still, in celebration of being freeeeeee and alone, I'm going to sleep there.  I put fresh sheets and a fresh coverlet on, have a lavender tart melting and am going to try it without a TV, since my TV in there died. Wish me luck.

Goodnight to everyone.

(PS:  I'm not bothering to proofread this so ignore any typos)

Passive-Aggressive Scrabble.

Miss Arse and I play Scrabble on Facebook and she usually beats my ass, too.  When we have an argument or she's in a foul mood about something, she starts new games even though we have several going and plays mean.  I just opened up a new game and apparently she has something on her mind...
 

 
Click it to make it bigger.
I love how she wishes me luck...that's my clue it's about to get ugly on the Scrabble board.  By the way, check out my letters.  Can you guess what word I played back?  :-D

It's the old lady's birthday!

Nope, not mine or Miss Arse's.  ;-)  It's Ginger's birthday! Now, I'm not ordinarily one to celebrate cat birthdays (much), but when a cat turns 19 it seems to me it ought to be acknowledged and Miss Ginger is 19 today!  Coincidentally, had I remained married to Jake's dad, we'd have been married 20 years ago today.  But let's stick with happy things and celebrate the sweet old, bony furbag that is Miss Ginger.  She's absolutely the most agreeable, kind, accepting and tolerant cat that ever lived and is happiest in a lap, having her belly rubbed. Or eating.

She does not like it when you wake her up, though, lol.  See, Ginger's deaf now and a year or so ago was diagnosed with Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome. That's just a fancy name to say she's sort of senile now...kitty Alzheimer's. It doesn't really bother any of us, least of all her, and provides for some amusing times. She will eat imaginary things off the floor (yes, they are imaginary, I'm sure!) and just chomp and chomp, then swallow and look very pleased with herself.  She's stopped grooming so I have to brush and wash her up daily.  She's become fiercely attached to some objects over the last few years and she will randomly kitten call and we have to get one of them to her quickly or she'll get so upset she gets sick. One is her feather duster, which she's actually loved for many years.

We named him Dusty. I don't want to talk anymore about that.  :-P

Lately, though, she seems to find the most comfort in my remote when she's all discombobulated.  She will seriously snuggle it and relaxes like a baby with a pacifier...so sweet.  The remote doesn't have a name, by the way.  Perhaps her oddest, and only aggravating quirk she's acquired with her senility is that she's completely forgotten she's supposed to pee in her litterbox...

...instead, she pees in a towel lined, galvanized bucket in my bedroom closet.  Trust me, I'm not thrilled with this at *all, but what can you do?  It was that or have her peeing on whatever struck her fancy at the time.  At least I know where the pee is now, you know?  She generates much laundry, so it's a good thing I love her. By the way, those shoes?  Jake's.  *nods*   Back to sweet Gingie, 'cause it's her birthday, the CDS also causes her to do random and daring things she's never, ever done before.

Like this. This game lasted until she lost her footing one day and broke a fang tooth inside the bowl.  I really hope this kind of stuff never happens to Miss Arse.  Or me.

So, happy birthday to our silly old Poogie.  We're so glad we've had her for 19 years and hope we get to see one more together, at least.  And just because I've shared some fairly unlady-like, unattractive pictures of her...

...here's proof that even an old lady can still be beautiful.  :-)

Destination Unknown.

We all say we'll never be like our mothers, but then most of us turn out that way anyway.  I said it and meant it. I just sent Jake off on a spur of the moment road trip with friends.  They have no idea where all they're going or when they'll be back, only that one stop will be somewhere in Georgia since one friend wants to go back there to live.  The others, including my sweet son?  Will journey on to wherever a 12 year old Mercury Tracer and Facebook friends of friends with spare couches takes them.  I armed him with a Walmart bag containing rice chips, Vienna sausages, Little Debbies and plastic forks, plus made sure he has his ID, two types of phone chargers, Claritin, an "in case of emergency" card, insurance card and $50.  Adventures are fun, but I'm not funding them beyond some necessary money.  Oh, and I gave him instructions on how to find a Western Union, just in case.  Who knows where he'll go, what he'll see, and who he'll meet? How exciting, to just *go and see where the road takes you, though...what a cool thing to do.  Soon enough, he'll be at an age where responsibility looms large and doing things like this won't be possible, not with the same sense of freedom.  I just know it'll be a grand adventure, one I'm glad he can go on and one I wish my mom would have supported me going on at 19.  Between us, though, I'm so worried and nervous. 

It's a big, scary world out there and after all, he's still my baby.  *sighs*


Update:  Not an hour after he left, he texted to tell me they're still in town, tired, and may just start out in the morning...could I leave the door unlocked for him in case he comes in?  Lol, really?  Me and my friends would have slept in a rest stop 10 miles from home, just to not go home.  My son, he's obviously not a good adventurer.

Beatrice's herpes...an update.

Now *there's a post title not many people would put up, hmmm?  ;-)

So,  we've been busy around here.  Y'all remember Bea was tentatively diagnosed with Feline Herpetic Keratitis, no?  The options we had were basically that or cancer, and apparently they look very much the same.  So, she responded okay-ish to her meds, I saw a little improvement happening slowly, and then I woke up to this in my face one morning.

Sad, sad, little Bea face and her eye looked awful, just overnight.  I mean *bad, totally clouded over, lumpy, red patches...bad. Bea was very unhappy and Mama here was pretty panicked.  We headed into the vet, where the poor thing didn't even insist on being in her carrier with her invisibility cloak on.  They put her on the scale and she just stayed there.  She was just a pitiful little girl.  :-(

Our vet was not happy at all with how her eye looked and cancer was mentioned a couple of times as something that now needed to be considered.  So, with a referral to an animal ophthalmologist (who knew those even existed?) in hand, we went on a 100 mile round trip to get a biopsy done and see what was really going on.  Luckily, Beatrice is a great traveler, thanks to the fact I've tossed her loose in the car for short trips to drop Jake off places since she was a baby, but she's never made a trip like this before.  I took half of one of someone else's Xanax, Bea wore her invisibility cloak in her carrier and off we went. I took no pictures of the next part since I was:  1)  a basket case;  2)  wary of taking pictures with one hand and driving with the other, considering the Xanax factor;  3)  trying to not vomit.  We get to the ophthalmologist's office and it's good...dark inside, no other pets but for an old, quiet pug with cataracts, so no real dogs to scare either of us...it's good.  They take her in, burrito wrap her and, in no time flat, have the biopsy done and we're left to await the results. They had to scrape that sad eye, but once again, Beatrice showed off her manners and was proclaimed one of the sweetest cats they've ever dealt with.  Apparently, I have the Eddie Haskell of cats here.  ;-)  After 15 minutes of waiting room hell,  we go back in and the doctor gives me news that nearly makes me pee myself with relief...no cancer.  Yay!  On top of herpes, she's got Eosinophilic Keratitis and it's unusually aggressive, it seems.  On that link, see the eye of that cat?  That's exactly what her poor little eye looked like, but hey, it's not cancer and I was so damned relieved, I almost couldn't stand it.  We got her new meds, many meds, lol, and got our asses out of there.  I swear, I don't know if she sensed my relief or what, but once in the car, she pawed to get out of her carrier and I figured what the hell...driving in downtown rush hour traffic with a loose cat in my lap and a loose Xanax in my body sounds like a fun thing to do.  I opened the carrier, she climbed out and assumed her favorite spot for car rides...partly on me, partly on the armrest, watching the world go by.

She was all "Let's go, Mama!" so off we went, garnering much attention at traffic lights. It seems people don't often see cats in cars, lol.  It went very well until we got on the interstate and a semi passed us, rocking  the car hard.  She looked at me with pure terror in her good eye, belly-crept over the gear shift and back into her carrier. The rest of the way home, this is all I saw.  :-D

Yes, I took a picture while I was driving.  So sue me.  How could I not document that bit of cuteness?  Here are the new meds...9 drops a day, which she's become accustomed to and doesn't fight anymore, plus two things for her food.

 

The miracle drug has been the Prednisolone Acetate (steroids) and is, ironically, the exact stuff Miss Arse has to use daily in her cadaver eye  the rest of her life.  These two tickle me with their twin medications.  Anyway, just one week into our new regime and just look at the pretty eye that's showing back up again! By the way, I balanced a bag of treats on my head to get this shot. I'm slightly ashamed of that.

It's still got a long way to go but it's just got a thin cloudy layer on it now, no lumpy stuff, no red!

I surely do love this goofy cat, in case that's not obvious.  I know, you couldn't tell, could you?  You're shocked. *nods* Part of why I'm sharing all this, though, is because it's easy to initially miss or dismiss these conditions as nothing serious and, in fact, it can be very serious for your cat.  Not all vets can diagnose it, either, as we found out, if it's aggressive, and since it does mimic cancer in appearance.  It *is fixable, though, and do not be put off by the potential cost of a specialist.  I'm not one to typically talk money, but the entire visit to the ophthalmologist, including the biopsy and all of her meds, was under $200.  Yes, it's a lot of money but not nearly what I feared it would be and not what a lot of people might fear and put off until something bad has happened.  Luckily, I didn't put it off because seriously, who wouldn't want that face up there to be so happy again?  ;-)

Also, totally unrelated, but I'm going to be messing with my blog some later. I don't like the layout anymore.  For whatever reason, I can be a situational 'tard and just realized that hanging around with the whole MWOP/BWOP bunch and having a little sheep(le) dragging dead like that looks like I'm some radical anti-MckMama person and, in reality, I just thought it was cute.  But yeah, I need to change it. I might even go private for a day to get it in order, but I'll be right back!

(Edited:  Good God, I connected the "cadaver eye" link to a cooking post.  Fixed *that!)

It was a (mid) Summer's Eve...

So, look, we all know I'm pretty damn open-minded and we know I'm no big feminist, either.  I'm also not easily offended at inappropriate things.  Those are all understatements, by the way, so when something really does offend me, it's usually got to be pretty bad and the new Summer's Eve commercial?  Offends the living shit out of me.



Really? "Show it a little love"? and "Hail to the V"?  Niiiiiice.  So, as women, it's not our brains or determination that get us places in life. It's not that we may strong ethics or principles, it's the simple fact we have vaginas and should be used for breeding, display and to make men feel like men with our admiration, and men are too stupid to see past our vaginas if we (figuratively, I hope) make them obvious?  That was a badly constructed sentence, but whatever...this just bugs the snot out of me.  Watch this, please...tell me what you think. Am I being overly sensitive and ridiculous?  Have I lost my sense of humor?  Or is this just damn degrading?

I need advice, please.

I'll try to not make this too long-winded, but I think detail may be necessary and that means long-winded.  Back when Tom and I split up, Jake, the cats and I left our house for the one we live in now.  The house we were in was supposed to be sold and all profits split up between us and Tom was court-ordered to maintain that house until that time, even though I bought this place far earlier.  He did not and the house went into foreclosure. That didn't stop Tom, his girlfriend (now-wife), Crackwhore Michelle (no, really, she is), from moving back into it, nor did it stop him from having his brother, Tim, move in with them.  Various and assorted other people also lived in that house in that time frame, resulting in the the house becoming the local crack house.  All of them are/were/whatever crackheads at that point in time and who knew crack houses could exist in really, really nice neighborhoods?  Trust me, they do, and it's humiliating to even admit that, so very embarrassing, but it's part of my history and it plays a part in this problem. So, the lot of them had over a years notice of the auction date, but they didn't leave or get their stuff out.  The house was auctioned and they were given 30 days to leave.  Because I'm nosy, I was keeping an eye on things and they left with one day to spare...one freaking day. You'd think this is done and over, no?  No.  A few days later I got a call from the man who bought the house in the auction,  irate, and blaming *me.  It seems he had no clue, being an out of state buyer, that the house was a crack house and that the interior was destroyed. He found me (the crack heads were untraceable by then) and decided to dump his world of ire on my shoulders.  Yeah, not so much.  Once I got him calmed down enough to let me talk, I 'splained I'd not lived in that house for well over a year, told him who *had, and said that since he's made such nasty accusations against me ("What kind of filthy trash *are you?" and other ore colorful variations), I'd like to drive out, meet him and bring him pictures of the interior of the house on the day I left.  Luckily, my attorney had instructed me to take pictures of every room with that days' newspaper in the picture, save the paper, and document I turned my house keys over to a deputy.  I took everything with me and  went to meet ol', mad Bob.  When I pulled into the yard, I saw masses and masses of...well...garbage.  It filled the huge front porch to the ceiling and overflowed out into the front yard and driveway.  Bob and I, once he saw the pictures of how I left the place (trust me, *anyone could have moved right into that house, it was so spotless and nice) got along just fine and he asked me if I wanted to pick through the garbage to see if there was anything important to me or my son.  Gah, now *there's a charming offer, and I'm getting to my dilemma,  I swear, so hang with me.  Anyway, he gave me three days and I spent all of them out there, sorting through the nastiest shit you could imagine but I stuck at it.  Why?  Because I'm a sentimental person and the very first bag I looked in, mixed in with maggot-y kitchen garbage, I found the silver baby spoon and fork that's a family heirlooom on Tom's side and was passed to us for Jake.  In another bag, I found Tom's and Tim's graduation pictures.  In a box of filth I won't even share the details of, I found Tom's trophies.  So, I went back and dug and dug and dug some more, cleaning and salvaging anything I could.  In the end, I filled two huge Rubbermaid boxes with things of Tom's and Tim's that could be saved...diplomas, degrees, family pictures taken in the early 1900's, childhood scrapbooks, photo albums, memorabilia from the deaths and funerals of various grandparents, books with special meaning, school year books,  and the thing that made me most sad, all the cards Jake ever gave Tom. You know, the ones where they can't really write, so you hold their hands and guide them on a card they made themselves?  Yeah, all of those.  Anyway,  my plan was to clean everything up and when Jake's great grandmother came to see him, I'd give them all to her since all of the old photos, silver and some other things were hers to begin with.  I had no reason to give it back to Tom or Tim, since they obviously didn't give a shit about any of it.  Well, in the end, Jake's great grandmother apparently never gave a shit about *him, since she never came to visit.  Ten years later, here I am with these bins still in my house, a constant reminder of all the pain the time brought and I want rid of them.  For the record, Jake has no interest in any of it since he's come to see these people for what they are.  When I first got the stuff, I did give him his dad's trophies and framed a few pictures of his dad as a young boy for his room and he still has those but says I can do whatever with them, too. Here's where I need some advice and am asking what y'all would do with all this stuff?  I'm most inclined to ship them jointly to Jake's great grandmother, mother and sister anyway (mother and sister are mean bitches of the highest caliber), along with a letter laying a lot of things out there that they they don't know because they refused to hear it...basically, unburdening my heart *and my floorspace in one fell swoop, finishing it all up with one big "fuck the whole, big, dysfunctional lot of you", only phrased more mannerly than that.  As much as I hate them all, and I do because they fought hard to take Jake completely away from me, I feel like this stuff needs to be back in their family. But part of me also wonders why.  I mean, if they didn't give a damn about Jake, why bother?  And I've got some family telling me to dump the stuff, let it go and don't worry over it.  A few say to send it back but with my letter, so my burdens are all dumped back on them, and some are saying to let them know I have it and the first one down this way can pick it up. Trouble is, that'll be Tom and really, I'm mean enough to want to everyone to see what he and Tim abandoned. At the same time, I realize they aren't going to give a rat's ass about anything I have to say and, in reality, are going to be pissed at me for holding on to all this stuff instead of giving it to Tom or letting them know I have it.  Ugh. No matter what I do, it's only going to reinforce what a bitch I am in their eyes.

So, knowing the whole, drawn-out story, what would y'all do with this stuff?