You really have to be careful how you phrase things.

I had a shite day. Like, completely, 100% crap. Almost nothing went at all correctly. About the only things that actually went according to plan were a) I was able to withdraw money from the ATM, and b) I was able to purchase a stamp at the post office. The rest of the day? Shite.

1. I had to go today to the County Clerk's office to renew my business DBA registration. Had to be done *today*.

The building is closed until further notice, and the only way to do it was to drive downtown, a feat I had neither the time nor willpower to do.

2. I had to buy a printer ribbon for the fax machine.

Nope. Not in stock.

3. I needed to go see a man about a purchase I ordered ages ago and then forgot to go pay for.

Not open on Mondays.

4. I went into Baja Fresh nextdoor, to buy a badly needed chunk of deep-fried carbs known as a churro.

Out of churros.

I need to move out, and I have no way to pay rent, no idea what to do to pay rent, and no idea where to pay rent, since I can't afford to continue living in Los Angeles, especially with two large dogs, but I have no way to get my shit crosscountry to anywhere else. So I have decided just to pack my shit and decide where to put it afterward.

Sorry for the use of the pejorative, but damn it, that's the day I had, one in which the only appropriate way to refer to all the belongings one has accrued in one's lifetime as "shit." It may not sound like much on "paper," but believe me, it was a really crap day.

I then came home and cleaned the kitchen, which was part of what the fight was about, and believe me, there's a crapload more to it, but let's just leave it at I needed to clean the kitchen.

I then left home to take the dogs to the bark park without remembering to turn on the dishwasher, so when I got home to make dinner?

No clean dishes.

So I went to start the dishwasher.

No dishwasher detergent.

Earlier in the day, I had remarked aloud that the only way my day could get any frigging worse was if someone ended up dead or in the emergency room.

Would you care to guess where my day next led?

If you guessed puppy ER, give yourself a cookie and 100 points.

While TB and I were discussing the crapitude in our relationship at the moment, Napoleon, who was at my feet, rooting around the edge of the floor as he always does, began to choke. TB had to get down and remove whatever it was from his throat. I will spare you the grisly details. 10 minutes later, Napoleon was still trying to hack/throw up whatever was in his throat, so I took him to the ER, where they gave him stuff to make him throw up...and then came out and gave me a HUGE lecture on what a bad pet owner I am as they showed me the contents of his stomach, which was, aside from the obvious disgusting, appalling. Pine cones (copious, copious amounts), 3" long pine needles (both brown and green), pine twigs, whole chunks of Natural Balance deli roll he did not bother to chew (the largest of which was approx. 1.5 x 1 x .5" and earned me an extra scolding), kibble, canned food, small rocks, the fabric from the underside of a sofa, cardboard, bits of a red bottle lid, and the piece de resistance: several chunks of green plastic safety netting. Almost all of which he ingested while I was out running errands today and TB was supposed to be supervising him. So TB has paid the vet bill and does not expect to be reimbursed, since he feels largely responsible for the entire escapade. And the cost of the bill?

$300.

For stuff to make him throw up, stuff to stop him from throwing up, charcoal to coat his entire digestive track, incase he ate anything toxic or caustic which is what made him choke, and syrup to give him tomorrow to coat his throat and stomach, in case all that sharp crap ulcerated the lining of his stomach and/or esophagus. Frankly, I thought it was going to be $500, so 3 was a bit of a relief. He can not go outside unsupervised or do anything more strenous than go on a short, leashed walk for the next 3-4 days. He's currently passed out in his box behind me, where I put him when he insisted on wrestling with Razzle until he rasped and wheezed so loudly you could hear it from 6' away. :(

All of this after I put my knee into his ribs at the bark park for repeatedly doing a bad behavior, and he yelped sharply, then immediately sat and gave me the single most heartbreaking look ever, which clearly said "what did you do that for?" in an utterly confused and betrayed fashion. It made me feel like the biggest jerk ever, and I had to work not to cry for being such a loser to my dog. Now he's been shot up with drugs twice, made to throw up, and imprisoned in his box so he'll be still. :(

When the vet tech brought him out to me at the end of his 2 hour event at the ER tonight, she remarked, "Your dog will eat anything." To which I nodded sagely, as I know this about him already, and said, "Yes, he will."

"No," she said, "you don't understand. We gave him charcoal. We have to force feed that to 90% of the dogs that come in here, but he wolfed it down like it was candy. He'll eat anything."

Awesome.

peace out,
katie

Death By Pedicure

So, I took Napoleon to the vet today, for his bordatella vaccination which they forgot to give him last week, when he got his distemper combo booster. He's got a little respiratory thing going right now, though, so he couldn't have the vaccination and got a check-up instead. Since his nails had gotten pretty long and sharp, I figured you know, what the heck, get his nails trimmed, and also since we're here, let's get his anal glands expressed, because he's been having some issues with that, and frankly, you get spooged on once with anal gland fluid, you've really been spooged on all you ever wanna be with anal gland fluid. That stuff stinks. (excuse me: that substance is malodorous.)

So anyway, I let the techs know that, and after Napoleon's checkup, two of them descend upon us to take care of it. They go to clip his nails, and holy crap, you never heard such a fracas. I'm not kidding. There was wailing, howling, whining, barking, wriggling, squirming, struggling, yelping, spazzing, and full-on pissed off Wookie noises. I actually lost it laughing at one point, because seriously, you'd have thought we were torturing the poor guy to death. People were poking their heads into the room to see what the hell was going on. It was Armageddon in there, peeps, I'm not kidding. I could not believe the ire and woe. He was genuinely freaking the hell out. It took a big guy tech to hold him down, me to talk to him and pet his head, and the girl doing all the trimming and sanding, who did an excellent job, especially given all his black nails, and she didn't make him bleed once. After it was done, one of the techs poked her head in and was all, "He's got a lot to say." I'll second that.

After that was done, they went to do the gland expressing thing, and when I realized they were going to do it from the inside, I got pretty grim over it, because dude, if he was that aggro over a little pedicure, how the heck is he gonna take having a finger shoved up his butt (even if it is just a little ways). I mean, he has a meltdown over the little thermometer thingie when they try to put it in his ear. So the guy gloves up and lifts Napoleon's tail, and I've got the puppy by the harness, trying to act all cool and calm about it so he won't freak out again, and next thing I know, the tech is all, "Well, the left one was totally full, but the right one's empty, that should be fine, now." And I'm like, huh? And he's all, "we're done."

And Napoleon didn't issue a peep. He didn't even squirm or try to sit down. Go figure.

So yay, all done, and then I get the bill.

For office visit, $45. For the nail trim, $15. For the glands?

$29.

For something that took literally fewer than 10 seconds. Unlike the nail trimming, which took close to 20 minutes and cost half as much.

So the whole bill was $89, which, ouch. Not that it's THAT much, but I *am* unemployed, and what was started out as a $10 vaccination ended up costing almost $100, AND he still has to go back for the vaccination in a week or 2, when he's cold symptom-free.

Ah, pets.

So we came home, and he played outside for a while, and I took some pictures of him playing, and then we played with Ty and Razzle as Ty threw Razzle's ball for him, and then we came in and had chewies, and now he's sleeping. And I'm going to my friend Jennifer's for a few hours, for dinner. I *should* find all my tax stuff, but this is the first time I've been out of the house and had a conversation with a friend in weeks (like, 3 or 4 of 'em), so I'm going, even if I do feel totally guilty about it.

Hope you guys have a good weekend.

peace out,
katie

Of taxes, websites, anxiety, and pups. Roughly in that order.

I got nothing done today that I needed to. Taxes are due on October 15, and I called my mom to see if she'd do them for me (I'll pay her), and I'm so out of it, I didn't even realize they were due in 2 weeks. My mom informs me of that, and I'm all, I'll just get another extension, and she says there aren't any, and I'm like why not, and she points out it's OCTOBER.

How the hell did that happen?

I swear, it was just July yesterday.

I'm freaking out right now. I don't know why, exactly, but I'm depressed and anxious and overwhelmed. I feel like I'm slowly being crushed, and every other day, I have to fight off a feeling of such intense panic that I feel like I might actually snap and have a nervous breakdown.

Maybe it's just a combination of not getting anything done for the last 4 months, coupled with the fact I haven't had a freaking period since early April, and I'm PMS'g my ass off. I don't know. Whatever it is, I wish it would stop. A job would probably go a long way toward helping me get rid of it, I think. Alas.

I got a phone call last week asking me to design a website, but when I returned the call, I got voice mail, and though I've left 2 messages, I've gotten no response.

I *have* designed a website for Calli (Auntie Em) and I, though. It's something we've been talking about for quite a while (like somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years), so it's nice to be taking steps in that direction. It's sort of a melding of things, from our original idea of making things to our idea of doing blogskins and the like, to finally incorporating our photography, which is something we both really love doing. And we'll probably also sell a few handcrafted items, as well. It's still in the beginning stages. I have to find gallery software that will work on our server. But you can take a look, if you like. That's what I worked on when I had time over the weekend. We're also doing a blog, with photoshop info and free textures and brushes and the like.

That's all I got. It's 3am and I need to crash. One of the pups will wake me up by 9, at the latest.

Here's a picture of the 2 of them. It's a composite I did for a layers tutorial today. Sorry it's so small. I refuse to sign Google/Blogger's bullshit TOS agreement wherein Google gets to do whatever the fuck it wants with my images. Fuck you, Google. This is not a totalitarian state, and *I* own my images. You can kiss my fat frigging ass. Y tu mama tambien, mo@#%&*$(#ers.

Sorry about that, but I really frigging hate Google. They had to work to earn that hatred, too, because I used to sing that company's praises to anyone who would listen. But whatever. Here are the pups. If you click the image, it will take you to the Flickr page for it, where you may view it in two larger sizes.



peace out,
katie

Oy.

Since August 15th, my life has been nothing but dogs.

Now, while this sounds highly enjoyable and awesome - because I mean, come on: PUPPIES - it is actually (perhaps surprisingly) mindnumbing as all hell.

Seriously. Imagine yourself for 16 hours a day with nothing to do but supervise puppies as they play, making sure they don't kill or maim each other; chew power cords, furniture, or expensive equipment; pee in the house; venture somewhere they can become lost, damaged, or damage something else; or do anything else detrimental to either home, puppy, or goodwill, all while they bark, whine, growl, howl, and a host of other virtually non-stop loud noises.

I need human interaction.

Don't get me wrong - I love my dogs. They rule. But I can't wait for Napoleon to get out of the puppy phase which necessitates constant supervision. When we first got him, he was one angry little puppy. Understandable for a little dog who was ripped from his mother and littermates as soon as his eyes opened, attempted to be raised at this too early age by a single guy who gave up and relinquished him to the pound at 4 weeks of age, lived his days in a newspaper-lined steel cage at the shelter and his nights at someone's house with 3 full grown dogs, one of which did NOT like him, and then at 8 weeks of age exactly, found himself yet again in another new environment.

Lemme tell you, those first 3 days were not awesome. He bit and snapped and lunged and growled every single time I got near him. He was pretty deeply distrustful of everyone and chose to deal with every situation by suddenly dashing at it in an attempt to tackle and devour it, if at all possible. And then he got sick on top of it, and I had to keep him and Razzle separated so that Razzle wouldn't also get it, and that lasted 2 or 3 days before I had a meltdown and gave up on life. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. That was the hardest frigging week of my entire life. If I'd owned a gun, I don't think I'd be sitting here, I was that ready to chuck it all in. Ty didn't seem to think there was any real difficulty involved in any of it, and was absolutely no help at all. So I gave up and let both dogs play together. And Razzle got sick. And I told Ty I was calling the shelter and giving Napoleon back. And he said no, I wasn't. And there was a huge fight. And then Ty ended up having to take care of both dogs for a few hours one day and figured out that holy shit, yes, they were a LOT of frigging work. So the work started to be more equitably shared. I still have to do the lion's share of it, but every once in a while, I tell Ty I have to go run errands, and he ends up having to care for them for an hour or two. So at least a day or two a week, I escape, but dude. I haven't been able to get anything done that needs doing (showers, laundry, taxes, job search, writing, web design, or jewelry making for the holiday shopping season), and I really, really, REALLY can't wait for Napoleon to reach the stage where he can be trusted to do his business outside and to not destroy anything or chew on power cords.

I love both dogs very much, but I'm still sayin'.

Aside from puppies, I really haven't got much of anything. As you might imagine, Sarah Palin sends me into fits almost daily. That woman is insanely ill-equipped to be Vice President, let alone President when John McCain kicks over suddenly in office one day. At first I thought her nomination was a joke. Then I figured out McCain was going for the morons in PUMA and other idiots who will vote for Palin just because she's a woman and therefore MUST be good for women, which is sadly about as far from the truth as you can get. I posted some notes about her to Facebook which I will probably cheat and repost here, because I don't want to have to write them all over again. Whatever the reason he named her to the ticket, she's about the most appalling choice he could have made. Or at least the most appalling that leaps to mind. Except for maybe Mitt Romney, who actually has a brain and is probably slightly more evil than Sarah Palin, on accounta how she's just flat out vile and doesn't have the brains to hide it, but he's a sneaky snake oil salesman who has figured out you gotta sweet-talk the people before you bend 'em over a barrel and steal their most precious possessions while you're pounding away at 'em. She's too overtly vile and toxic for you to ever have any doubts as to her true intentions, although I have to say, every week, I learn something even more foul about her that makes me hate her even more. She's one of the ugliest women I've ever seen in my life now, I've found out so much ugly crap about her.

But anyway. Those views are no surprise to anyone here, I'm sure. And Napoleon is going to wake up from his nap any second now, so if I'm going to get to savor the big "Tear and Share" pack of peanut M&M's and the nice, cold Diet Coke I have in the fridge, now is the time to do it.

Peace out,
katie