I'd like to write briefly about giving life the middle finger.
Now, I usually don't like to blog with an angry undertone, I feel it's better for writing in a journal and personal venting space but this past month has been arguably one of the most stressful in recent years. Yes, I'm including wedding month in that, you know- that major life event I had to move to a new location less than 9 hours before it started.
On my way home from visiting my 7 favorite chimpanzees on Monday October 12th, I had been on I-90 for a whopping 5 minutes before my car made a loud clunk noise and began shaking almost uncontrollably. I lost most acceleration and could go a maximum speed of 40 MPH, on a road where most people are doing 75 mph- lets just say I didn't make a lot of new friends on the ride home that day.
It would still drive- so I toddled on home. I took it to a Midas about mile from my house- for fear it wouldn't get any farther than that and dropped it off in the hopes that it would be back to me the next day. This was on Thursday October 15th.
Midas calls on Monday to inform me that they have no idea what is wrong. They checked all the things they could think to check- I needed to take it to the Jeep dealership because it was a problem specific to a Jeep. So, after 4 days I still was in no hope of getting my car back. I took it to the Jeep dealership (luckily only another mile down the street) where after a day they said I needed a new computer-the current computer was no longer communicating with anything in the car. So, they ordered a new one but it's on back order. Could be 2-4 weeks. And with my luck, it was 4 weeks. The part was just delivered today, November 10th and I will *hopefully* have the car back tomorrow. At this point, the $1000+ bill is whatever- I'm just overjoyed to be able to get it back.
During all this, Lars and I played musical cars with his car, his motorcycle, many uber trips and begging people to give us rides places. My husband is undoubtedly the sweetest and most understanding human I've ever known. I hate mooching. I despise being reliant on other people to lend me things and I felt and still feel horrible for borrowing Lars' car so often. Of course, classic Lars, was more than happy to help and doesn't mind being chauffeured around while I use the car. The straw that broke the camels back was yesterday when Lars planned to ride his motorcycle to work. He needed to be there early so he got up with plenty of time, got all his gear on, only to discover that his bike wouldn't start. After trying to troubleshoot, he called an uber- a last minute attempt to be on time. After 20 minutes of waiting his driver calls to tell him to cancel the trip and request a new one- he's been pulled over. And I'm at work thinking "Whoops. I have Lars' car. This wouldn't have been such a day if he just had the car!" So, wishful thinking that tomorrow I get my sweet Melvin back and our life is a little less hectic.
In the end of October, Raleigh went into the vet to get looked at- he had a rash that had been only getting worse throughout October and was turning into scabs. The vet set him up with an antibiotic and a steroid for the rash- nothing too major. The real kicker was his teeth. He has 2-3 teeth that are in bad shape, and possibly need to be removed. Just a teeth cleaning- $800+. A teeth cleaning + 2 removals-$1200+. Great. And because I always want my animals to be in the best health possible, I scheduled it. Today he'll be going under and hopefully will come back with most of his teeth.
Jasper is next. I came home from work to find his left eye swollen shut, watery and bright red when he could open it. It's 1pm on a Saturday, so I have to take him to the emergency vet ($$$) but the fun part is that Lars is in Olympia at rehearsal with our only car. So, Jas and I wait not so patiently for Lars to get home. Around 4:30 I take him to the vet and we wait in the emergency waiting room. We wait. We get bumped for a dog that needed attention right away. We wait. I search desperately for snacks. Nothing. We wait. We get bumped again for another emergency situation. We finally get into a room and a doctor sees Jas and immediately says pink eye. He's also got a corneal ulcer on his eye. He also might have a respiratory infection. We get the drops for his eye and leave. I arrive home at 8:30pm. The emergency vet is 15 minutes from our house. I spend $$$ on Jasper, and we get a cone.
Until Jasper, I have never seen another animal so incapable of living in a cone. He thrashed around relentlessly trying to get it off. Ran into everything he could possibly run into. He has no idea how to eat with it, drink with it, and could only sleep if I pushed a blanket or pillow underneath his head, like the photo above.
Follow up with our regular vet led to a diagnoses of kitty herpes. Yeah, that's real. Not on their sexual organs or anything, but Jasper has a viral infection that is a lot like herpes- meaning he will have outbreaks of being sick his entire life. His version of being sick is getting eye infections, ear infections and constant sneezing. The vet assured me it's typical in some cats, but I can expect outbreaks every few months. aka $$$. Which I don't mind, because I love that little shithead so much.
Princess Butters' health remains unknown, because I didn't have enough money to take her in for a check up- the boys and all their problems took priority. *eyeroll* Boys, amirite.
So, in short: Life is sucking all the money I have and I'm fighting like a little salmon swimming upstream, just trying to hold it all together. So, life, I'd like to offer you my middle finger.
As thankful as I am for everything good in my life, I see someone is trying to test me here. And all I have to say is GOOD TRY BUT NOT TODAY. Sometimes, you have to just give life the middle finger. Haven't we already talked about my resiliency and strength? Good. Someone upstairs is vastly underestimating my ability to make sure my family has everything they need.
In the background of all that noise: We are still in the process of suing our caterer, I got a second job working nights, I'll hopefully be headed to Thailand for a few weeks next year, my pink hair has finally faded into the color I wanted and we are preparing for the holiday madness.
We did our annual holiday photo shoot with Mara and as usual she got some of my favorite pictures of us. I can't wait to get our Christmas cards and updates out!
More updates on chimping in a few days- now that I have a car to go see them. :)
B
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