Water World

I went to bed last night with ankle deep water in my basement. It had been raining viciously for hours and I should not have been surprised, but I was. I had taken Rocket out to pee and the whole time I was begging him to just pee, please just pee damn it I noticed the sump pump was running non stop.

I said Good going pump!

And then I went inside and took a quick look-see in the basement.

And

I shrieked. There was water. A lot of water. All over the place. The pump was still working its little heart out but waster was pouring under the door and as soon as it could be sucked away, it was replaced. I moved what I could out of the way and tried to be calm. because really, being in hysterics was not going to stop the rain, and frankly, this was not my first trip to this rodeo. It was also not make the water stop pouring from under the door and it would cause splashing and I didn't want to get even more wet... Also, I had just dosed myself with some Benadryl and I was not physically capable of hysteria. Good timing on my part, I think. Better living through chemistry.

And then I noticed, as I wandered around in the flood, that the basement is tiled back, back toward the back wall, back toward my water heater. It was wet, sitting in a puddle.

So flooded basement and out pilot light. Super awesome.

I kept myself awake for a little longer than normal while I waited for the deluge to stop, it had to stop, I mean, how much more could there be up there? And it did finally run out and slowly stopped raining. I went back down and checked and it, and with the rain stopped, the pump had a chance to catch up and the flood was shrinking down to puddles. I said a prayer for the pump and went to sleep.

In the morning the basement was damp, but no long as wet. I turned the dehumidifier on and went to work. Later, after work the floor was still wet but the puddles were shallow and getting further part.

I knew it was time to look to the cause of it all and I went  outside  to the stairwell of  doom, and made a dozen trips up and down the stairs clearing the sitting water out from the bottom of the stairs. The dog thought the nasty, dirty run off was really neat!

In was glad he had something to do because I had a lot of work getting the well cleaned out and the mud removed from he drain. It was a dirty job and I didn't know who to ask to do it for me. So I did it! Yay for me coming to my own rescue!

While I was being all Wonder Woman with the drain, dog was getting his jollies playing in the gallons and gallons of filthy, muddy, stinky water I was throwing into the yard.  He thought it was less neat when he learned that playing in dirty water leads directly to being bathed in clean water.

We are both very tired, we worked hard. Well, I worked hard, he played hard.

Another Day

The internet was sad today. At work we spent the day  processing and pointing out newer and more sad stories about him and It .The AKC was even sad. letting us know that he had a pug. We also learned that he bonded with a gorilla and the gorilla is now also shocked and saddened. All Gods creatures are sad now. Its raining here, even the sky is sad.

I am sad.

Its important that we all be sad.  His family is sad, his friends are sad, his fans are sad and now we know, his little dog is sad.

I think we also need to not fetishize suicide or claim that people who kill themselves are some how heroic or that they should be immune from judgement or shame or their deaths are more honorable than a natural death. Its a rotten, hateful thing to do to your world and the people in it.

Mental Illness prevents you from thinking about those people who are not you, its the true calling card of mental illness. Not the crazy behavior, dress or speech Not the manic energy or the black sadness. Its the inability to care about how your behavior, dress or speech affects other people.  Because you are the only person in your world. You live in your world, everyone else lives in an another world, different and dull and lacking. Your world is exciting and bright and terrifying. Mentally illness makes you selfish. It makes you want to die.

Robin Williams Live at the Mets Part 1

Not all right

Robin Williams is dead and my parents are on their way to Putins' Russia . #notawesome, #notokay.

Swimming with the fishes

It rained Saturday. All Day Saturday. The dog got zero walks and I got next to nothing done. I did however, go research fresh water aquarium fish with Broskey and Alphagal.

My research concluded that salt water aquarium fish are sexy. Very sexy, sexy fish. Almost obscenely beautiful with bright colors and beautiful patterns. They stand out, they are eminently fuckable. These fish know how to party, they know they are desirable and wanted and they know you think they are desirable and  and that you want them. Salt water aquarium fish are very high maintenance creatures,  very high self esteem creatures, like all highly desirable, wanted creatures, are - probably real douche bags as well.

The fresh water aquarium fish are pious, modest, clearly reverent creatures.You really needed a sign to tell you that the tank actually did have something in it. Generally these fish appear to have poor self esteem and low self worth, I think they must cry a lot. When they weren't emo poetry, these fish would totally pick you up at the last moment from the airport in the middle of the night. Fresh water aquairum fish are very nice fish, friendly fish but you do not want to fuck these fish.  They spend a lot of time hiding behind rocks or pretending to be rocks, and generally being as unobtrusive as possible. They probably apologize a lot. The smartest and probably least pious fishes school together to give you the impression that they were not a mass of reverent, modest fish but actually a larger, possibly attractive fish that you may actually want to spend time with.

This is why I don't have an aquarium.

Friday Cat Blogging

Before his morning kibble, Ace is just not himself.

Rocket Rolls, Week 2

Doggy Psych Hosp

I took little dog into the vets today for his bordetella shot - except its not a shot anymore, its a fluid they shot up his nose.

He did not care for this.

After they were finished with him, I  stood around and kibbized with the vet techs. I  told them about Rockets increased  anxiety and destructive behaviors and sleep disturbances and they agreed to add these to his chart and to bring these changes to the doctors attention.

They also suggested again that I take him to a behaviorist - a real behaviorist. I did have a  vet tech/"behaviorist" come in several months ago and he did have some good ideas and I put a few interventions into practice - to varying degrees of success- along with the drug therapy that his vet started and along with doggy school and visits to daycare, he seemed to even out a little - But. I think Rockets body chemistry has changed as he left his puppy years behind him and started to enter dog adulthood. I need better ideas and maybe better drugs.

The vet tech at my veterinarians suggest the NC State Vet School and their behaviorist. They did this months ago but I didn't think he was sick enough for the vet school and I decided to handle it myself. Also the vet school is expensive as hell.

She said they have sent many, many clients there over the years and they all come back  uniformly singing the praises of the program and berating themselves for not going sooner. I cruised around the site and learned a lot. Mostly that my dog isn't as crazy as other peoples dogs. My dog isn't a raging , violent, aggressive monster, my dog  is merely emotionally disturbed!  He's neurotic, not deranged.

I read through the questionnaire that new clients fill out prior to their first visit. I was reading through it and while some of the behaviors were familiar, a lot of them were not and it made me worry that maybe as disturbed as he is, maybe he isn't disturbed enough.

I'm hoping that they can still help him out, perhaps at an adjusted rate, even if his problems aren't as interesting and clearly he isn't a candidate for a padded kennel like some of their other clients. Yet.

Taste, Lacking in.

I've been watching Botched . I should have been watching any of the stuff I have clogging up my DVR. Some of it quality wedding dress shows and Bobby Flay vehicles! Tree House Construction! House Hunters in Horrible Places!   I have a lot of stuff clogging my DVR, and I "need" to get some stuff off...

And I would, but Botched! Plastic! Surgery! Before!And!After!  In Beverly Hills! I'm transfixed!

Monday

So, this morning the alarm went off and scared the bejesus out of me. Normally I wake up a few minutes before it sounds and I get up without the fanfair - which is good, because waking up naturally is better and loudness at 5:15am is wrong, but its bad, because why do I need to be awake prior to 5:15am?

I get up and do my thing and come back to the room and turn on the somewhat gentle bedside light and get dressed. Fine. I go to put on my Tevas and they are not there. I think they are playing hide and seek, so I peek under the bed. No Tevas. I go to the dining room and turn on the not-at-all-gentle overhead light and search under the table for them. No Tevas!, I search the living room, no Tevas!

I decide I can't spend any more time on this and I settle for some stretched out unpadded, stretched out canvas sandals I do not love any more, I'm going to flap and slap all day!I hate these sandals!, I have fallen out of love with non-Teva sandals. I have bleak thoughts about spending the day in my unpadded, stretched out canvas flap and slap sandals. I sigh.

What did I wear Yesterday? I ask myself. I say: Sneakers. I wore my sneakers. Then I say why? I haven't taken off the Tevas since last spring, I have a semi-permanent Teva tan on my feet. I answer : I wore the sneakers to Church, they are my "good shoes" at the moment" and then I said : Why didn't I change out of my "good shoes" when I came home? How long have my Tevas been missing?! If I knew they were gone why didn't I say something?!  How long have they been gone! They could be miles away by now!

These are a lot of thoughts for 5:20am.

And then I remembered. Saturday it rained very hard. Saturday I got caught in the rain and got soaked. I got soaked and had to change clothes. My clothes  to change into are mostly upstairs.

 To the upstairs!  I say and rush upstairs

To find my Tevas! Safe and sound. I joyfully bring them downstairs and strip off the rejected sandals and push the restart button for my day.

 I free the dog from his room - or  as he prefers to call it his "jailhouse of dog misery". I refer to it as "the  air-conditioned room with his own futon and a large window and a TV". He lives better than a lot of people. He thinks he is being punished because he has been banished during the day from having the run of the house because, he always fails to mention this,  he was banished because he eating the house and my belongings, bit by bit, room by room. He's lucky I didn't decide to crate train him by force.

We have a nice walk. Later, while I am home for lunch, a neighbor comes by and rehomes my old beloved, oven. My neighbor explains that her stove died and she really needs another. I tell her I had called Habitat but they hadn't gotten back to me. I assure her it works perfectly and to take it with my blessings. A good day was had by all.

New Things

It rained all day Saturday. I walked the dog in it twice. I took myself doe a walk in it when I got caught in a deluge trying to leave Sam's, I hope Dannen appreciates me as a client, I about got washed away for want of their yogurt.

Friday, before the sky's opened up, I bought myself something I have not had in my adult life : A bathroom scale. I was resolutely living in a post-weightism world and I decided I didn't need to keep track of that because I didn't have body image problems and I don't need the media to tell me how much I should weigh or have the power to me feel bad about my body.

Yeah. But if you don't weigh yourself, you don't know how much you weigh and if you don't know how much you weigh you don't realize you weigh more then you used to and by the time you do finally figure out that you are twice the woman you used to be... Well, its dire, your health is affected and its going to take more than temporarily  cutting out treats to fix the damage.

I've lost weight and have a few more pounds to go. I do not want to have to do all  this again. I think that a scale ( I re-read this and I had typed "scare") and a weekly weigh in will help me keep on top of what's going on and keep me where I want to be or at least in the neighborhood of that number. I am also becoming a much tougher critic of myself than the media ever was. The media honestly doesn't care about forty-six year old women. But I care about this one and I want to take better care of her.

I got a another new thing this weekend, it was a weekend of New Things For Diana

A New To Me Stove! Wheeee! Its so cool! and its a glass top and has a convection setting and its all fancy and awesome! Broskey and Alphagal kindly donated it to me when they upgraded to gas. I love it! It is the dreaded Metallic, but it is very nice and I can forgive it for not being my beloved Bisquet. Eventually, I will replace the other machines to metallic, if only because of resale issues - should that ever happen, I have no plans for that whatsoever, but sometimes life happens out of your control and against your will.

Old stove, my lovely bisquet, you really have to search for that shade! Its all white or black of metallic and I wanted to have everything the same color. The room is verysmall and it helps to have everything the same color. Tomorrow will be hopefully, picked up by Habitat for Humanity and will got to another home where her lovely complexion will be appreciated.

Tall Dog

Friday Cat Blogging

Rocket Rolls, Week 1

He's not really at all independent with the rolling, he'll go for a a little bit and then stop. He and I are sloppy... but this is only the end of week 1.