Confessions of an Internet Junkie

1. Yay, NY! It wasn't a landslide by any means, but you pulled it together enough to do the right thing.

2. We have no internet at home and probably won't for several days yet. (We've ducked into a Starbucks for internetness, but my battery is dying!) The modem is fried; no tech service on the weekend, and they'll call on Monday. Which means we'll probably see someone around Thursday.

3. I could make you laugh at the incredible number of things that have died or are in the process of dying in my car. My favorite was, after just getting out of the garage (for $700) the day before, the alternator died as the car was pulling into the driveway. Happily, we've met someone through a friend who is an out-of-work, very nice guy mechanic. He fixed the alternator (and will work on the rest of the list) at a fraction of the cost.

4. No new crias. We have four who are racing around the paddocks like they have rockets on their butts. They are very, very fast. And simply adorable. Two more crias due; actually they're overdue.

5. Deeply immersed in the Song of Ice and Fire stories. Deeply.

6. That should do it for the quick update. Hope to be back online by next week. Think good internet thoughts, please.

I didn't really choose to wake up, because I'd only been asleep for 2 1/2 hours, but apparently my brain (maybe my nervous system?) had its own agenda, and sleep was not on the list. I read. I went online and read some more. Finally around 5AM I started to fall back asleep. At 5:28AM Rocky woke me up by trying to scratch a hatchway through my bedroom door. Go away, Rocky. Almost fell asleep again when the cat fight brought me up and out of bed in a rush.

You see, we have this orange cat that roams around the area; he's not a stray, because he looks fed and groomed, but he's definitely an outdoor cat. He comes up onto our deck either late at night or early in the morning and taunts our three cats. They freak. I mean yowling and screaming and then Holmes gets aggressive and Rocky reacts and Pixel hisses and all three have huge tails and ruffled fur and it's a mess. This morning Dar was already up and trying to intervene - without getting herself slashed - but by the time it was over Rocky had one of his fangs torn out (or broken out) of his mouth. Blood and unhappiness. He's been laying low most of the day on my bed; I've been giving him attention and wet food since he's having trouble eating the dry stuff. Poor Rockula.

Then it was time to run some errands. I gather all of my stuff - water bottle, grocery bags, list, purse, iPod - throw it in the car, start to back up onto the road and then pull right back in because I have a flat tire. Who gets a flat tire in their own driveway? That would be me. I was all set to change the flat (heaven knows I've done it before), but I was saved by Deb's daughter's boyfriend. It turns out that my tires are so out of alignment that the tire - which is only a year old - was punctured by its own steel belt. There was some minor drama about finding the lug key, but that was resolved, and I toddled into town on the little donut spare tire that seemed barely big enough to keep that side of my car from scraping the ground.

Along the way I passed two different dead raccoons on our road (poor creatures), and one of them had a very active crowd of turkey vultures working on it. I had to nudge my way past them, because they were not giving up their roadway buffet. I made it to the garage, but I had to wait, of course, because I didn't have an appointment. Happily, I had thought to bring a book. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. It's a reread, but it's been years since I've read it, so it's all pretty new to me. The upside of having memory problems :) I was there over two hours, but at least I left with a new tire and appointment next week to get the tires aligned. (In the meantime, I'm hoping not to drive that often.)

Then on to the farm store to pick up some stuff for the alpaca's barn. By this time I'm literally reeling from fatigue. I have to pick up soft wood pellets (35 lbs.) and Stable Boy (50 lbs.); they're each used on the floor of the barn to absorb liquid and help tamp down the smell. For some reason known only to the manufacturer, the bags for the soft wood pellets are made of what for all intents and purposes can be described as tissue paper. The bags split very easily, and it's the usual routine to lift and replace several bags because as you start to put it in the cart the contents start to spill out. So got that done. I have a shopping carriage, and I drape the heavy stuff across the little seat where people put their kids. Or their purses. The Stable Boy is on a high shelf, but that actually works to my advantage because I don't have to lift it. Dusty as hell, though. Oh, and I picked up a large bag of rabbit pellets; the alpacas love them. Head to the cashier - who is new - and do the dance of trying to find the damn UPC codes. Another new helper, trying to be, well, helpful, comes over, lift the 50 lb. bag so the cashier can get the code, and then drops it into the bottom of the carriage. *head desk* Then he races off to help someone in the rear of the store, because he is helpful. The cashier asks if I want to wait for him to help me load the stuff into my car, but I just want to get home. I did manage to wrangle it out of the carriage and into the trunk without hurting my back or dropping it on the ground and splitting it open. Yay!

On the way home, I notice that the buffet is over and there is nothing but a bloody splotch in the road now, and the buzzards are all flying around overhead. Damn, they're efficient.

Got home, dropped everything off at the barn. Tried to put the trunk back in order but gave up. Got something to eat, headed into my room and thought I'd get some sleep. But. The phone rang off the hook. (I wonder if there are people reading this who don't actually get the reference there?) Dar was there to answer it (and she's having her own day, by the way), but I never did get any sleep. And now it's going on 10PM, and I'm wide awake again.

And that was my day. How was yours?

I tried one last time to recharge the battery in my Mazda. Nope. Nuh-uh. Nuthin'. Either the battery charger just doesn't have the juice to charge a completely dead battery or else the battery itself is FUBAR. It's going to have to be towed when we finally get it fixed.

At least I got outside for a bit. I'm still not feeling well, although most of the dizziness has gone, so that's some improvement. Anyway, I spent some time hooking up the battery and charger, and then later I went out with Dar to put the herd inside for the night. OMG, the crias are insane! Ripley has this little routine where, if you bend your head down to her level, she'll sniff you, then nuzzle your face. Then you scratch her back. Then she completely squees out, stands up to give you a hug, backs off, jumps up and twists herself around, then proceeds to romp and jump on the other alpacas and generally make a pain in the ass of herself. It's completely adorable. Today, because the weather was so nice and so much of the snow had melted, she got herself and Suki revved up, and the two of them raced back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Poor Valentino was in the side paddock whimpering because he's still a cria at heart, and he wanted so much to be racing out there with them. It took a while for the girls to wear themselves out, and in the meantime Ripley's mom (Cinnamon Girl) was having conniptions, because the Ripper looked like she was going to go roaring through the fence line every. single. time. But those little girls are agile, let me tell you.

Because the weather has finally become more agreeable, the cats have been outside more, too. I had shoveled a small portion of the deck right outside the sliding glass door so they had someplace to hang out. The railing is all free of snow now, so they get to ramble along that. Mostly, though, the snow is still too high around the rest of the deck for the cats to get over to the stairs and down into the yard. And yet . . . Every night around 10PM I get out the bag of cat treats (known around these parts as "crunchies") and give the kitties their evening snack. This is also used to lure a half dozen cats out of my room and off of my bed so I can get some sleep. Last night they're all gathered around when I notice that Mao isn't among them. And I haven't seen him since around noon. I check in his usual haunts. No Mao. I step out onto the porch and call his name - and I hear the most mournful meowing coming from somewhere down on the ground. Mao! Somehow he ended up down there for hours, huddled against the window outside Q's bedroom. Except Q is in Malaysia, so there's no way she was going to hear him. I think he might have fallen off of the railing. I'm rambling, sorry. Anyway, I rushed out to get him, poor little boy. He was very hungry but otherwise OK. And I spent the rest of the night and a good part of the day feeling very guilty. All of these cats need GPS chips, I swear.

See, this is what happens when you have no life. Crazy cat person. And now it's time to "crunch" the kitties. Excitement! In the TV movie of my life, I will be played by a bean bag.

Another annoying day dealing with the health care system.

I had a 9:30 appointment with my PCP this morning. At 9:01, as I'm rushing about, I get a phone call from the doctor's office telling me that not only is he not in today, he's actually on vacation and won't be back for several weeks. Oh? And you're telling me that now? Idiots. One of the main reasons I wanted to meet with him was to get a renewal for some pain meds and talk with him about the Lipitor he's having me take for my non-existent high cholesterol. Guess that'll have to wait, huh.

I'd called them the Friday before I left for Vegas because I needed to have my Tylenol 3 prescription refilled. I had been stealing from Dar's stash, but I really thought I should have my own. Call me crazy. So I called in to my doctor's office and left a message on the refill line. Of course you all know what happened. No refill was called in to the pharmacy. So when they cancelled on me today, I brought up the refill issue and got a run around again. Yeah, they'd try to see what they could do. No promises. Because it's only pain medication. No real need for that. I am such a wimp, apparently.

Then there's the Lipitor problem. My testing has shown that I have artherosclerosis of the abdominal aorta. Hardening of the artery. Precursor to stroke and heart attack. No joy. My cholesterol levels are fine. Wonderful, even. They always have been. But my doctor, wanting to be proactive, prescribed 20mg of Lipitor a day for me in hopes of heading off more plaque build up. OK, I appreciate that. BUT . . . I was doing some research and found that not only does Lipitor cause liver problems, it also has little to no effect on the abdominal aorta. Thoracic, yes. This is from a recent study, so I can't fault my doctor on not knowing that, but I certainly want to talk with him about it. I'm compromising by not taking it as often as it's been prescribed. I'm not sure if that's actually being at all effective, but at least I can fool myself that I'm doing something.

The other nonsense of the day involved getting the much-anticipated cookie test. (Cookies!) Dar and I ran some errands this morning, and I came home to find a voice mail from the speech pathologist who will be running the test. She'd like to schedule it on a Wednesday ASAP. Please call. She only works M, T, Thr, so call before she leaves the office today. Well, you can't say I didn't try. And try. And try. And try a couple more times, too. But you know, when you won't answer your fucking phone and your fucking voice mail box is FULL, there's only so much I can do. Stuff like pisses me off to a very large degree. You can probably see your screen melting a little because I'm all pissed again just typing this. So now I have to plaster my room (and myself, probably) with sticky notes so I'll remember to call her on Monday.

It was cold and windy and grey around here, and the forecast is calling for snow within a few days. We still have to get the snow fencing up. We still have to get a snow blower because for sure this year there's no way I'll be shoveling. We still have to clean out the garage so we have someplace to put the snow blower.

I need to go back to doing job lists. You non-list makers point and laugh at those of us anal-retentive types wo live by the list, but really . . . they work. And there is great satisfaction in being able to cross things off the list, too. It's all win.

I made spicy black bean soup with turkey kielbasa this evening, but it wasn't very spicy because I can no longer tolerate garlic (kill me now!) and I could not find the chili powder. Dar dug some out for me and saved it near the end, thankfully. Other than that, running errands, shopping, and cleaning up around the kitchen and the cat litter boxes, it was a slothful day. I've been stiffer than a Brit's upper lip all day. Past few days, really. Maybe, like the Tin Man, I just need to be oiled. Feel free to run with that image.

Oh, I found a great air pump! Yes, I'm easily pleased. Stop laughing. It's at the 24-hour convenience store/gas station in Listowel, and not only is it free to pump air (as it damn well should be) but it has a wonderfully loud beeping noise that let's you know when your tire is properly inflated. As mine most certainly were not. It was bad. So bad even I could tell that tires were low. But now they are round and firm and we can actually feel the difference while tootling down the roads. And really, stop snickering.

Well it's a safe bet that there's kidney damage. The ultrasound took an hour, most of which was devoted to taking pictures of my right kidney. Either there's something medically wrong there or else the kidney is now imprinted with a likeness of (choose one: a)Mother Teresa b)Virgin Mary c)Jesus d)Stephen Colbert) and the tech is going to sell the photos to a tabloid. In which case I demand a cut of the profits, and you'll all be getting invites to the freakin' huge bash I'll be throwing.

I'm going with something being medically wrong. She started off assuming that it was a simple stomach complaint, but that lasted about 90 seconds. Of course professionally she had to be circumspect, but she was fairly easy to read. I told her I was being tested for lupus; after hitting my right side she asked rather pointedly, "And when did you say all this started?" So it's a safe bet what she was seeing has been going on for a while. And later, when it was obvious that she was concentrating on the right kidney, I told her that my latest blood work showed a high probability of kidney involvement. She asked if the blood test was done there, because she'd like to see the report because she was sure it was going to be "interesting." Uh-huh.

Next was the chest x-ray, which I'm almost positive is going to be unremarkable. Except for the spot on my lung that always shows up and has been determined by the doctors in MA to be scar tissue from past pneumonia. Of course these guys don't know that, so I expect a call about it.

Then came the upper GI test. The good news is that it's not an ulcer. And my pouch is still really small. (I've been wondering if I'd expanded it over the years.) The bad news is that there's a blockage or something that's stopping the food from flowing smoothly between the pouch and the intestines,and that's most probably what's causing the pain and nausea. I'll have to be referred to a GI specialist for further work.

The radiologist was very funny, because he thought this was the most interesting thing he'd seen in ages. I was still standing on the pedestal on the x-ray machine in my lab gown, waiting for them to give me the OK to get dressed when I see the radiologist waving me over to his little room. "Come here and look at this. It's fascinating!" Who am I to say no to a chance to see a movie of my innards? So I pad over to him, and he starts reviewing the scans and explaining everything to me - except he's using very technical terms. You know that Gary Larson cartoon about a dog listening to her owners talking to her, and what she's hearing is "Blah blah blah blah blah blah, Ginger."? Well, that was me. But I still got the gist if not the jargon, and it was wild to see my little pouch and all of the other working (or not) parts. Hurrah for high disclosure radiologists! Hee. I just wished that I could have dragged darlong out of the waiting room to interpret for me.

After that it was more blood work and a urine sample. Easy peasy. Or eesy peesy, as it were. The tech, who was a delightful young woman, told me that the ultrasound, x-ray, and GI results would be on a disk and on their way to my doctor's office by tomorrow afternoon. Which means I'll start hounding my doctor Friday morning. I'm very anxious to see those ultrasound results, as you might imagine.

Along with all of the medical nonsense, I also had to bring my car into the shop today. It's been in bad shape for weeks now and getting worse every time I took it on the road. Yesterday coming back from the vet's office was so bad that Dar and I were pretty sure that we weren't going to make it home. I have no idea what's going on with it. So far the guesses are tie rods, bearings, transaxle, and exhaust system. All I know is it makes a horrible, loud, scary grinding noise - off and on. So since Mark stayed home today to shepherd me to and from the hospital, we took the opportunity to have him follow me to the garage so I could drop the car off out there in the middle of nowhere down a gravelly country road. Seriously. The mechanic is the brother-in-law of one of our alpaca friends, and he has a great reputation. He's just a bit off the beaten path. And the paved road.

So that was our day. Never a dull moment, eh? Oh, and Dar found a growth on Chloe Kitty's stomach. So we'll be hauling her furry butt into the vet for sure.

But for now, I sleep.