The Vet, the Cat and Some Drool.

The next part in the ongoing saga of my cats eyeballs involved making her another vet appointment and dragging her ass to it. Of course I knew she was going to have to go back at some point but I was dragging my feet on it because I still had medication for her and I had to go to work and holy shit how is it December already I have to give gifts to people this month. Fortunately the decision to call the vet clinic got made for me when I found blood in her fur.

There I was sitting calmly at my desk working on my Christmas card, music playing out of my head phones with a cup of tea beside me. Outside snow was coming down and I was enjoying watching it from my warm chair. Emoticon jumps up, and asks to be petted. I put my hand on her head and rub her thick soft fur. A thunderous purr starts up in her chest and I run my hand down her spine. She puts her butt in my face and then I see a few streaks of blood on her butt.

Freaking out ensued.

Of course this would happen when I have to leave for work for two days for a job that can't be missed. So I freak out some more and check the litter box and find out that there is blood on the litter around some poop and then I spend some time making sure the cat is not about to drop dead and then I tell the farm sitter and then I leave for work the next morning and resist the urge to text him like fifty times asking how the cats asshole is doing.

That might have been a bit much.

So then I get home and then I make an appointment and tell the receptionist that I found blood on her butt and I was kinda freaked and oh by the way her eyeballs are turning into big fat messes again and then they give me an appointment for later that afternoon. So at the appropriate time I shove Emoticon into a carrier and put on all the layers ever cause it's like 15 degrees outside without wind chill and then we get in the car and she starts meowing. Because she was just thrilled.

Yowlingly thrilled.

Of course going to the vet always makes me super nervous because what if this trip is where she is diagnosed with super cat eyeball tumors or catdealthitis or something? So we get to the waiting room and I try not to think about all the horrible things that could be wrong and instead I watched these two pug dogs come in that were dressed in Christmas sweaters.

Pug dogs. In Christmas sweaters.

It was god damned adorable. Even if their breathing sounded like they were farting out of there short little faces. Of course while I was smiling at the pure cuteness on legs I kept hearing these ominous thuds on the door across from us. Then a vet tech came and got one of the pugs and as she was leaving I saw a long tail sticking out from under the mystery door, accompanied by the sounds of a dogs toenails scrabbling on the floor.

Then the pug comes back and they are paying to leave and the pugs are walking around and breathing like deflating balloons and then without warning the door across from me bursts open and the biggest dog I have ever seen in my entire life comes rushing out of the door straight at us and then I was all like, “Holy crap I thought that thing was a small bear” and then the owner laughed while the giant fucking dog snorfled my hand and then it effortlessly wheeled around and put two paws up on the reception desk and looked the lady behind the desk magnificently in the eye before the owner could get him down. He came crashing to the floor and then he set eyes on the pugs.

There was a moment when the two bloated sausages with legs and festive sweaters considered the small horse big ass dog before they both decided they could take each other and the barking started. I have heard dogs whose barks were said to start at their toes. This dog's bark started under the floor somewhere. Possibly he just stored it in the basement wrapped around the plumbing until he needed it.

“I'll just put him in the car and then pay.” The owner said calmly hauling his wheeling barking dog out the glass door. No one moved to stop him. Quiet came back to the waiting room and then the tech appeared and called us into a room and then I tried not to think about Catdealthitis and the vet comes in and puts dye in her eyeballs and then she shuts her third eyelid and then he tries to get her to look at him and then I try to get her to look at him and then she glares at us.

I couldn't really blame her at that point.

Then he talks us through this round of what he thinks her fucking eye ulcers are doing and then he looks at her and says that the mystery blood was probably parasites and gave her A dewormer pill which she promptly spat back onto the techs hand because Emoticon had clearly said fuck it by this point.

So after the great pill puke-a-thon he tells about this new med that he wants to put her on. He went on to say that it was not as vital as the other two but we could give it a shot to stop the discomfort and hopefully aid in the healing. The only catch here was that it might cause her to foam at the mouth.

Cue that record scratching sound.

I was all like, WTF? And he was all like, one in ten cats might have a bad reaction to it so most likely she will be fine and then he breezed out of the room and we collected our meds and paid the slightly frazzled desk lady and then we went home.

Scott started on dinner and then I gave her her first med and then was all like we might as well give this new one a shot. So I held her and told her she was an awesome kitty and put in the drops while she thought swear words at me and then I went into the kitchen to wash my hands and then Scott asked me a question and I answered it and then I poked my head back into the living room to see my cat doing her damnedest rabies impression.

There was drool coming out of that cats mouth like someone had poured a fucking bottle of bubble bath into a five jet hot tub.

I had to clean the floor twice. Twice.

Then I promised her that I wouldn't give her that one anymore and hoped that the vet would agree with me next week at our next appointment while she looked like she had just burst a pipe in her face.

Which was all the excitement I really needed for one evening, really.

The Warranty on my Cats Eyeballs Must Have Expired.

Unfortunately while Emoticon was enjoying the freedom of being a wild tiger in the jungle being on outdoor cat her eyeballs were busy going to shit again. Because I clearly haven't paid the vets office enough money yet. So I made the decision to pull her back inside and bombard her eyeballs with drops again because I love her and she loves me and when I am working she sleeps on my desk and it's the cutest thing ever in the whole world ever.

Although I might be a little biased on that one.

Anyway after a few days of putting drops in her bad eye while she tried to hide under furniture from me Scott noticed that her good eye was also looking cloudy again and then I went outside and yelled at the sky except it was too cold for that really so I just told Scott that the warranty on my cats eyeballs must have expired.

Of course all this would be going on during a ice storm when I also have to get my ass to work and make money so I have not yet been able to make a vet appointment but that is the next thing that has to happen because I don't believe in investing money outside of my cat. Apparently.

Also I don't know how it got to be December all ready but I would like to have a do over of November. And not just because I would enjoy doing Thanksgiving again but also because I had goals for November and it's gone now. The goals? Still here.

Anywho so now I am back to having an indoor cat that knocks things off my desk and gets cat hair all up in my keyboard and makes my living room extra festive by coating it in a layer of snow like white cat fur and now I am afraid to put up my Thriftmas Tree because I am kind of afraid of what she would do to it.

Also this time around I decided I wasn't crating her anymore and so far she has avoided destroying the house although I don't know what I am going to do when summer comes and she tries to bust through another window screen to sweet, sweet freedom. I suppose I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it. And hopefully it's not one of those rope bridges from Indiana Jones where everybody goes all crazy pants and then we have to cut the bridge in two and somebody gets eaten by crocodiles. Except we don't even have crocodiles here so it would have to be bears.

Metaphorical bears.

Hopefully the vet will have a good idea of where to go from here in the medication is working as a place holder but not helping long term problem I am seeing and that we won't have to cross any metaphorical bridges at the vets office because no one there deserves to get eaten by bears. Or crocodiles.

Especially not the cat.

I mean that would be pretty hard to explain to Scott. I'm sure you guys would understand if my cat got eaten by metaphorical bears.

Pretty sure.

Mostly sure.

We Fixed the Washer. Twice.

Twice. Okay. Here is how it went down. First off we didn't get the part, until oh about 5pm. So we had to do that thing where you panic and run around and gather tools because winter means the sun sets earlier then 9pm and it was going to snow overnight because of course it was. Because of course we have to pull the machine out onto the deck to drain it.

So we got the handcart and then we discovered that even with the clothes removed, the washer weighed a fuck ton because apparently water is heavy as shit. Anyway, we managed to wrestled the damn thing onto the deck and then let it's smelly ass water drain out under the deck like god intended.

Then we just had to fix it.

The first time we did this, there was a general air of can do spirit. We were pumped and ready for action. We were excited to see if we really could pull this off. Video's were watched, tools were assembled, high fives were given.

This attempt, none of those things happened.

We tore that washer apart and cursed and huffed and had to get flash lights and tools and then it started to rain freezing rain, and Scott's knee kept hurting him and we both fought about shit and how none of the sockets were the right socket until I fantasized about dragging the washer off into the woods and shooting it.

It might have been the merciful thing to do.

So anyway, we got the damn thing back together and fought it back inside the house, and turned it on. Just like the first time we replaced the direct drive coupler, everything went smoothly. Once again my house was filled with the smooth gentle chugging of a contented washing machine.

That is, until we got to spin cycle.

Spin cycle sounded like the washer was filled with all the demons from hell that ever were ever. You know, like they were all knocking to escape and squealing and grinding. Those demons. Grinding demons. At this point Scott decided to see if the washer was level. Which of course it wasn't because that would have made sense. It was, really, phenomenally not level. By like, a whole lot. So in our second washer based trust exercise, Scott lifted up the machine and I adjusted the front feet until they were level. I will mercifully leave out the part where we first attempted to shove card board under the feet like morons, until we realized the feet adjusted. Because clearly we know washers like, whoa.

Clearly.

Anywho, We turned it on again and of course that helped, but it did not completely remove the demons fix the problem. So I turned, yet again to the Internet. After spending what felt like the better part of the day asking inane questions like, 'does the drum stop when you open the lid in spin cycle?' I came up with an answer. The springs were bad. So in a fit of extravagance I ordered more springs and had them overnighted to my house. Which when you are poor, overnighting something is a big deal. Like a really big deal.

Really. Like I was chatting with my friend while doing this and had to keep asking her if overnight really meant overnight and she had to keep reassuring me that yes, yes it does, and I had to keep freaking out because what witchcraft is this? Parcels, that arrive the next day!? Truly THIS IS THE FUTURE.

And like the fucking rich people magic it was, when I got home from work the next day, lo there was the part in it's neat little bag. So the next morning we got our loins girded and took apart the washer in the heated hallway of not being outside and begun. And by begun I mean we took the washer front off and then couldn't find a spot for it and then we stuck it in the hallway and then I got stuck on the wrong side of it so I basically watched Scott take all the springs off while complaining that it was unpleasant. Then we discovered that part of the spinning noise was coming from the drum bumping a plastic piece on the inside and that it was in fact, not going to come flying apart during spin cycle. So there was that. So we shoved the damn thing back together and turned it on. It appeared to work. We put clothes in it. It appeared to work. We marveled at how quiet the spin cycle was now.

Until it got to high spin.

There is no good way to describe high spin. You know how the Large Hadron Collider was supposed to have destroyed the world? And then it didn't? Well this is what it would have sounded like if it did.* So I am still getting a lot of drum movement and shift, accompanied by the same squeaking sound that preluded it's death the last time. But only on high spin.

Sooooo I am just not using high spin.

You know, it might just be time to replace the washer. Or maybe the drum pads. Or maybe I don't give a fuck anymore because I am wearing clean pants.

Yeah, we'll go with that last one.

*This is a lie. A funny, funny lie.

The Car and the Freezer

So the other day, I had a DAY. You know one of those days where you plan on having a nice easy day because you have to get up at like 3am in the morning and then everything snowballs into a big mess?

Yeah I had that.

What we had planned was that we were going to clean out the big chest freezer my dad owned that was still sitting in the shed. Unfortunately the outlet it had been plugged into had died over the course of the summer, and I did not realize it until I walked into the shed to get a tool one day and it smelled a whole lot more like meat in there then I remembered.

At that point I did what anybody would do, I found a working outlet and plugged the freezer into that.

Don't judge me, you would have done it too.

This would have been a great plan except for the fact that all the other outlets in the shed are controlled by the light switch by the door. You know the light switch that accidentally got flipped off sometime last week thus cutting power to the freezer AGAIN. So this time I flipped the freezer back on out of habit and made plans to clean it out because we would like to have it to store our food in.

Now to clarify we knew we would have to clean it out since the first time it lost power and that we would pretty much be making the dump run the same day we cleaned it out. However, what neither of us realized was that we probably should have cut power to it the night before we cleaned it out.

Ha ha ha! Hindsight you stupid bitch you.

Ahem.

So the next morning we leisurely got up, after spending the night cuddling with our sweet doggy boy who had just recently come home, gathered the necessary materials such as trash bags and rubber gloves, moved the truck up by the shed, flipped the power off and prepared to clean it out.

For the most part everything was going well. The top layers were a little stuck together but that was to be expected. It wasn't until we had emptied out the top trays that we saw the horror. Everything, and I mean everything, on the bottom was completely stuck together. Three layers deep of solid icy food.

It was about that time that we got the call saying the car was done and that the rental was due back this afternoon or they would charge us.

Fuck.

Now keep in mind we have a truck full of rapidly dethawing meat and food that we absolutely have to take to the dump because A: it will smell bad real soon here, B: we are going to be gone for two days and it will smell really really bad, and C: bears.

So pretty much Scott would have to leave for the dump right now in order to have enough time to get the rental back. We both stared down at the solid looking wasteland that was bottom of the freezer.

What happened next was the two of us freaking out and dumping boiling water into the freezer which didn't really help and then breaking bags of food loose with a crow bar and a mallet. Which was really not effective at all.

There came a moment when we were both exhausted and we stared at the bottom of the freezer and then Scott checked his phone and realized that he had to leave RIGHT NOW if this was going to happen at all. So I volunteered to stay home, dump the excess food down the bank by the shed* and finish cleaning out the freezer.

Possibly because I hate myself.

What followed was Holly using every science trick she ever knew. First I remember that air heats and cools faster then water so using a bucket and an old sour cream container I scooped out as much of the now freezing water as I could. Then I tried the blow dryer which did nothing, before finally wising up and putting a god damn heat lamp on it for an hour.

By the end of the hour I removed the heat lamp and peered down into what appeared to be some sort of meat and blackberry slushy. Unfortunately it appeared only the top layer had really thawed. What followed next was me using the crow bar and the mallet to wedge a few bags loose. Luckily, they were still frozen enough that I could use them as leverage, because scarring up the sides of the freezer would have been bad.

It was incredibly slow going. I had to bend all the way over while the edge of the freezer cut into my innards. The side which by this point was covered in who knows what, and the only thing I could leverage myself against while crowbarring was the sides of the freezer so I ended up bruising both knees. Also everything was starting to thaw so I was left scooping out a slushy of blackberries, venison and cheese.

I had also decided to cut all the plastic packaging off the food before dumping it into the woods which I should point out at his juncture was a fucking ADVENTURE.

Also, I became incredibly nauseous because the combination of being bent over all the way and the smell of meat berries was taking it's grim toll. I looked down at freezer. Even with all my efforts I had only cleared one little corner. Defeated I went and stood at door of the shed. How the fuck was I going to get this done in time? There was only one solution.

Anger.

I was going to hate that freezer like no one had every hated anything before. I was going to call it a bastardwhorecuntmotherfucker. I was going to think of every single thing that had ever pissed me off and direct it at all at those bags of rotting meat.**

And I did. I cursed and swore and beat, and I mean BEAT that crowbar down into the ice. At some point my fingers went numb and I didn't even notice. It became a routine, smash bag loose, cut bag open, dump and scoop contents into bucket, repeat. At some point Scott came back, looked at me and announced that he would get a lift to repair garage from the rent a car place and left again.

But I hardly noticed, I had entered the perfect point of mediation when all things are balanced and pure.

Did I mention that I was also wearing a white tank top?

I was wearing a white tank top, at least it was white when I started out. At one point I burst out of the shed, holding my bucket of meat, looking like I had just hacked apart someone or something, wearing bright yellow kitchen gloves that were covered, covered with gore,to discover that they were mowing along the road today and one of the flagger trucks had pulled into our drive temporally to let some cars pass.

Lets, just say it was not the proudest moment of my life.

So after an hour of fighting and swearing and not being able to feel my fingers and of course it started raining so not I looked even more like a serial killer, it was done.

Wearily I grabbed a roll of paper towels and gave the freezer a good wipe down and cleaned it out and then staggered back to the house where I took the greatest shower of my entire life and then spent the rest of the day wondering when the cops were going to show up and demand to know what the fuck I had been doing except this is the country so nobody gives a shit.

I'm not sure if this story has a moral, other then, don't let power get cut to your chest freezer. Or maybe, try not to act like an axe murderer around your neighbors.

Really, the moral is that you probably just shouldn't be me.

*Down the bank is still on my land, I was not, nor would I ever, dump even biodegradable waste on someone else's land because that is why we can't have nice things.

** I somehow never thought I would ever type this sentence in context.

Jack Ran Away and I Picked up a Stray.

So the other day I woke up the sound of all my metal porch furniture being drug across the porch. I hadn't been feeling well the night before so I had taken some over the counter cold medicine that had put me out as effectively as if I had been tranquilized as part of a study on adult human females. So of course my first thought upon waking out of my drugged stupor was that I had died and was in hell for my sins.

Hell sounded a lot like a steel cable hitting porch furniture.

So I put on whatever clothes were closest to me and blearily wandered to the porch to find what looked like a full size pure breed coon hound had broken loose from someone's yard dragging 15 feet of cable tie that she had proceeded to wrap around my front porch. At the slight on me she launched into a happy people dance and proceed to dump a chair and a table into the lawn.

I should also mention that I was leaving for a three day business trip the next day and really really didn't want to dump this problem on the farm sitter.

What followed was hours of talking to the neighbors, calling the vets, driving the dog around in the truck in the hopes somebody recognized her, putting a sign on the mailbox, and even having two people show up to look at her and take down my number. I should also point to those of you who are chanting call animal control I will point out that I did. Except they never did pick up their damn phone. And they are only open two hours a day. And they only keep dogs for 48 hours before sending them to that big kennel in the sky because they lack any real kennels.

Yeah.

So it pretty much became the farm sitters problem. Except in the middle of worky time I get a call saying that my dog, Jack, you know, the dog I got to “replace” Razzle my first ever dog after she died from a snake bite, you know the dog I was hoping that would fill that dog shaped hole in my heart and give me many great years to look forward, yeah that dog, well it turns out he had slipped off his lead and taken off on a magical journey with the new new dog.

The new dog who, from this moment on, shall be known as Stupidface Fuckbrain.

So Stupidface comes back, but Jack doesn't. Now as you may recall, Jack is a somewhat traumatized dog, from what we suspect was abuse followed by tow years in a kennel with only limited human interaction. He is not going to come up to people. If he doesn't find his own way home and start begging to come inside, then he is not coming home.

Period.

I would like to gloss over the next bit, which involved a lot of trails for everybody, including farm sitter who nearly bust a lung climbing around the fucking mountains trying to find Jack, the brief sighting of Jack Scott got while taking Stupidface Fuckbrain out for a walk because we had to keep her kenneled in Jack's kennel to protect the chickens, my desperate attempts wandering around the forest calling for a dog that I was not sure loved me enough to return to me, Scott's desire to keep Stupidface Fuckbrain, WHO HAS STOLEN MY DOGS PLACE, and the fact I am writing this when I should be sleeping because I am on the road again and far from home and wondering where my sweet little doggy boy is now.

So to recap, my car is still in the shop, we are still traveling in a rental car that is starting to smell less new car smell and more stale food and sweat smell, I am still waiting for the septic system to be approved (if it even will be or we will be stuck with the less desirable system), this the time of year I am gone the most because this is when the work is, and now my dog has run off to be replaced by a dog that thinks my cats and chickens are chew toys.

Um. So I may be under just a little stress right now.

Just a little.

Maybe a tad.

You know. Tiny bit.

AUGGGHHHHHH.