Thursday

(Today we are not thinking about all the things that have anniversaries today. April 19th is not a nice day)

I think I learned an important lesson today : Do not lay down after work. Just don't. Stay vertical at all times.

I could have gone for a nice walk in the nice weather  but No, instead I took  nap instead and wasted most of the daylight. I should have taken a walk, a walk would have been better for me and the dog. Walks are good, naps may feel good but they aren't good for you. Naps are the devil.

It doesn't help that the dog and both cats think thats naps are a very good way to welcome me home and they all are huge fans of napping and if they can celebrate that fandom by showing me how much they love napping by napping with me?! The day just got better! All three of them already sleep 17 hours a day, if they can sleep an extra hour or so with me as a back up guest daytime sleeper?, why not? I'm there all night but there is just something special about napping together during the daylight.

I blame work making me work too much. I need to work less. Or take more breaks, I haven't taken a good break at work in too long. I need to do more playing on the computer and less time working on it. I should be wasting more state time.

The dog likes the walks, I think, but clearly he can and does live without them too. I need them more than he does and clearly, I also live without them just fine too. I think in all honesty, I take him downtown so other people can admire him. They get so happy when they pet him and I watch them relax and and calm down just by petting his ears and talking to him. He is a furry antidepressant. The longer they interact with him the happier they become and the more they smile and less stressed out they become.. They talk to me about their current pets and pets they had as children and stories about those pets and they go to a softer, less rushed place. I've seen it time after time.

They pull out their phones and show me pictures of pets both living and gone on and tell me stores about their fifteen year old cockapoos. II never guessed so many people were walking around with pictures of their late pets on their phones, a lot of people have a lot of pictures of late pets. I know because I've seen them. Of course, I also have pictures of my late pets on my phone too.

Wednesday

Two mornings in a row I've had  my routine disrupted. Monday, I was dressed for a warmer morning than I encountered - Sue me, Sunday was gorgeous and I figured that Monday was be equally so. It was not.

I had to change clothes - a bigger issue than you might expect, I had plenty of time to over think my choices the night before but a very limited time the next morning! My over thinking does not like to be on a timer, I need time to fully explore every possible avenue and normally this takes some time, having to do it on a much compressed schedule was stressful. I do not need stress first thing in the morning. Normally, I try very hard to avoid any stress at all in the morning by making things very easy for myself and doing things exactly the same way and on the same schedule and not having any surprises - like a change in weather! Fortunately, I had time on the walk to decide what I was going to change into and it was available and so it wasn't as stressful a change in my morning as it could have been. But it was enough. 

Tuesday,  I set out to walk the dog and got all the way to end of the street before I discovered that I had left the house without bags! The horror. I had to turn home and the dog got to "walk" the backyard instead of around the block. I felt bad for him. I'm hoping that Wednesday dawns as warm as it is supposed to and that I remember to bring bags on our walk, these disruptions are not okay.

Speaking of disruptive, I accidentally locked Tiny kitty in  the downstairs bedroom over night! I had to go in there to get a shirt to wear to work and I thought the kitty was upstairs already. I went upstairs with the dog and went to bed immediately. I was tired and I thought both cats were there! I feel like a bad pet person, I should have counted noses before I turned off the light. Poor kitty! locked into a room all by himself! Crying by the door all night! Well, I bet he slept on the bed a lot of the time, he isn't a dumb kitty. The bed is very warm and soft and I know he likes that in a bed. It was still mean of me though. Tonight I put him upstairs early. He is already complaining but I think he would rather be upstairs with me than downstairs ny himself.

Monday

I was so good this weekend! I mowed the front yard, I did laundry and put it away and I got my weekly shopping done and put gas in the car!  And on Sunday I watched  several episodes of Monk one after anoter which is kind of like reading one of those books set in a yarn store where the main protagonist is a cat who solves murders.

I also spoke with the lawn mowing guy about mowing the jungle in the backyard but he ran away and hasn't been back, and so I don't know the status on him actually doing anything about the jungle - but I know I am not going to tackle it.

I might just have to get used to the Natural Look.

My front yard looks great, very sleek. I am happy with it. Right now however I am listening to the wind outside and hoping that everything stays where I left it outside. Already my lovely vines around my front door have been blown down and are now my  climbing vines are crawling  around my front porch deck. This is not lovely. The culprit, along with an assist from the wind was the wire that I had around my front door snapped and my plants fell to the ground. Not okay at all.

The dog and I took a walk while we waiting for it to get ugly, while it was just windy, we could have taken another walk later but it was much visually uglier then and I didn't to hedge my bets. It still hasn't really started raining yet so I could, in theory go out now but I really don't want to and I don't think the dog really wants to either. Its very windy and he hates wind, it makes him uncomfortable and upsets his inner sonar or doggy GPS or whatever. Its just easier to take him outside and let him pee under the carport and not mess with a full on walk.

Oh. And I forgot. The dog had a chance to kill a mouse on Friday and he completely muffed it. We were coming back from our walk and I saw what I thought was a baby bird on the ground, running. And then I thought "Baby birds don't run that fast. Have I seen a baby bird run?" , and then we got closer and I discovered that it was not a baby bird it it was a mouse!

Now, I just had a discussion with Brosky about how his much smaller and younger dog killed a Vol - On Purpose. His dog is a Boxer, a dog from a breed without a prey drive, and she still killed the little beast because she knew it needed killing. My older and bigger dog and from a breed with a well developed prey drive just chased it up and down and sniffed it! He could have killed it with a single tap from his paw! All he had to to was throw it in the air a couple of inches with his nose and he could have killed it from fear alone. But NO. the little beast went on the spread disease another day.

I was very disappointed. This is the same dog that tries to climb trees to get squirrels! Like he would even know what to do if he caught one! I would probably end up with a pet squirrel.

Friday Cats Blogging

Not being served.

I came into work tired. I woke up every hour on the hour to look at the clock. I wasn't awake all night, I slept, I just woke up frequently to look at the clock. So. Much. Fun. Loved. It.

 Later on in the morning when I was putting on make up I looked like I had been punched in both eyes. It is not a good look. This is why I invested in good quality make up, I went from "victim" to "How Can I Help You!?" in minutes. True, someone told me I looked pale once I was at work, but I would rather look pale than  punched.

Before I was "pale", I marched into my office head on straight, shoulders square, all ready  to work and turned on the computer and signed in to the first three or four places we have to sign in and then nothing. Place five wasn't responding. And hasn't responded all day. I was all ready to do my work and be productive and all of that and I and everyone else got stopped at the border. No work for us.

It didn't respond at 6: 40am and it is now 2:10pm and it is still not responding ( 4:00pm, left for the day, still not responding). I was sure that when I left to go to lunch at noon, I would be greeted by a fully functioning computer when I returned at 1pm. I counted on it. I was sure that by the time I got back ( I was supposed to eat a protean bar in my car, but after suffering with no computer all morning, I decided I needed to be rewarded with McDonald's, I got a very nice Happy Meal and a tiny stuffed  Emperor penguin)

 ...Everyone else would be playing catch up - because they promised us at 6:50am that they just had to get the server back up and it would be "five minutes" Longest five minutes ever. We after all have people who have taken a lot of courses on how to work on computers working on our computers! None have degrees in it, but damn it, they have taken a lot of classes from the state. Its a wonder we have functional computers at all.

Everything else they feel completely comfortable outsourcing but our IT they keep in house. We can tell.

And now I have a headache. I don't know if its from the computer issue or the weather issue or something organic, I blame IT.

Thursday

Yay Thursday!

Okay thats all I got.  It was a good day though, I did kind of fall asleep on my desk, briefly,  which I blame on an early migraine intervention, and not at all that there were some left over cupcakes that needed eating... but I did wake up in time for lunch and after work I didn't fall asleep at all! Wheeee!


I went to Wally at lunch, because I have to go to either Wally or Sam's every day and yet again I forgot that I need more fake sugar. I did remember that I needed more strawberries and peaches, and those I did get , finally, my home Wally hasn't had peaches in a week and I was getting frantic I tell you frantic. Its a been a grim three or four days, I tell you.

So, I came back from lunch, well fed, fully awake and ready to face the rest of my day and I walk in the door into a wall of shit. Someone stepped into what must have been a huge mound of shite and walked it into the building and just kept going. And what is worse? We had a Fun Run on campus over the weekend and I have my doubts that what was stepped in was dog shite.

Yay for the rest of the day.

Wednesday

Blame the cat for no entry.

If this was your life, would you be getting up off your nice warm chair and disturbing your nice warm kitty? I don't think so.  If you aren't watching LA to Vegas,  you should be.

Tuesday

I had a busy weekend. Friday I came home and discovered that the dog snacked on his futon, that made me super happy - well, he did only snack on it! Thats a big step up from his usual feasting. I did have to get a new sheet for it and restuff it and re-tape it, but I didn't even think about it until Sunday because I wasn't up for it.

Friday night was First Friday so I went shopping and bought things I didn't need. I bought a birthday gift that I hope I don't forget about, and two very fancy, very decadent, very not at all going stale croissants . It was nice to be out on a warm night for once.

Saturday was cold and rainy and windy. A complete bummer. So I found things to do inside, I painted my shelves! Its turns out I bought a lot too much paint, so this summer I'm going to paint inside of the table, its now very pink and doesn't need to stay that way. I already painted the inside of the doors since they are open frequently, so the inside should get done sooner rather than later.

I know they gray looks dark, but it matches the darker gray in the birds and it works in the room really well. I was concerned about the different grays not working together and now I am not. The lighter gay of the walls goes with the lighter gray of the birds, but the lighter gray of the birds isn't exactly in the foreground, and it was disappearing - but now I feel better.

Then, I went to the mall. ON the way to the mall I had to drive down Lower Greenville, well, Raleigh's version of Lower Greenville, and those girls were wearing shorts! It was 43 degrees with a constant rain and a wind. It was miserable! I was wearing winter clothes because it is still winter. Shorts and tee shirts! Like it was spring. Its not, it was, briefly, and then it went a way.

I was a not-very-bright undergrad once upon a time too but when it was cold I respected that it was cold and I dressed accordingly. But it was rarely cold and when it was cold we kind of liked it. We wore sweaters in October because it was October and you are supposed to wear sweaters in October even though in October it was 85 degrees. We got really, really tired of summer. When I wore shorts in February it was because it was 80 degrees.

I got to the mall and got a spot, that wasn't the big deal, the big deal was that later, when I was finished, I was able to find my car again! That was the big deal.

Sunday, it stopped raining but it was cold. I finally took Rocket for a nice walk which was nice for both of us.

Friday Cats Blogging

TGIF

All this working at work has got to stop, two days in a row and I come home and have no desire whatsoever to immediately go for a miles long walk or go for a walk or do much of anything. I do however want to shut my eyes for just a second though...

It ended badly for Team Take the Dog For a Walk, but Team Nap With The Dog pulled out another win. The dog seemed just as happy the time he would have been out walking, napping, so at least he was satisfied. My fitbit is not speaking to me.

Its just so wrong, I need to not be such a good worker and go back to spending the day goofing off and playing with phone. I go for more walks after work and when I goof off more. I did finished another book today, now I have to find another. I want another title by the same author, Martin Cruz Smith, but he is not cheap and even one of his back titles is  pricey. I might just suck it up though because I haven't read Gorky Park is years and it is a good book, but I read a bit of one of the newer books and I liked it too - I can't get both, that's too much of an investment - so maybe I'll draw lots and see which one I end up. MCS writes a lot but I'm only interested in one  of his characters, so its not like Im going to buy his entire oeuvre .

Its also fiction and I think I deserve credit for reading some fiction after so much non-fiction. I think its good for me. I do love a good murder mystery. Ideally, KIllers of the Flower Moon will get cheaper and I can buy that. Its a murder mystery and its non-fiction! Double score. And its about how we got the FBI, so screw you 45.

This weekend I have so much to do, I have to paint, I have to run errands, I should mow the back yard and even more fun? Its supposed to rain! So at least hopefully, I can get the painting done finally. In really, really want to. And the errands, I have errands I should run in the evening but by the time I get home I don't want to leave again and there is only so much I can get done in a lunch hour. The weekend, its like a 48 hour lunch.

Thursday

I didn't actually take the dog for a walk today - work sucked okay! There was a subpoena and this time it wasn't for someone else, which totally sucks because of course I am the one who gets to fill it because why not! And I do have file room subpoena PTSD, but no one cares about that.

But as it turns out this time it only requires me to hit print, over and over and over again, while sitting at my desk. I can do that.

And I still go all my other work done too, I have until Friday to get the rest of the order filled.  Still sucks though.

I came home, thinking it would be a good day to walk the dog. I took the dog out to pee, I came back inside and saw a puddle on the floor. I looked at the cats - hard. They have never had an accident, but there is always a first time. They weren't in the room so I looked hard into the space they would have occupied if they were in the room, then I looked at the dog, who was in the room, I couldn't figure out when he would have had time to do this, then I sniffed it. It wasn't pee. It was way to clear and watery to be anyone's pee.

I then looked to the sink,  I mean, I gave it a really dirty look.

The recently repaired sink.  The recently paid for sink.  The sink with entirely new guts sink. The still cleared out sink that I haven't even put the stuff back underneath it sink because I haven't felt like it sink. It was coming from under the sink.

I made a 911 call to my plumber. Hey. Its leaking under my sink  . Fifteen minutes later he was under my sink. It wasn't the guts, it was the faucet. The faucent had been dripping earlier in the week but it had stopped - that should have been a clue, it stopped up at the top but it started underneath . When you are spitting up blood , you have to wonder whats going on further down the pipe. I needed to have looked further down the pipe. Because it was waiting to flood my kitchen. Kind of, there was a puddle!

Anyway, he tightened everything that could be tightened, stopped the leaking and went home to study up on warranties on the faucet, which he installed.

And then I hung up my new Mom-Made drapes. I think they look very nice and lighten the room considerably.

Discount anything pink, and think dark gray, and you have the idea.

Wednesday

This time the animal keeping me away was Ace. I was woken up by the sound of purring in my ear, apparently, for  hours. I kept waking up and finding him on my pillow but with most of him on my chest, staring at me, purring.

Now, this is great, and he hasn't done this in a long time and I'm glad he has forgiven me for whatever I did wrong, and he does hold a grudge and I really have missed him a lot... but gee whiz.

But I should sleep better tonight because I didn't take a nap! No naps for me! I kept myself awake after work! And I took the dog for a walk! Yay!!!!!! I literally didn't do anything else, but at least I did the big things. I did make dinner and take the dog for a walk!

Its a good thing I don't have a long list of things I need to get done or anything.

Tuesday

First genuinely warm day of the spring and a perfect day to walk the dog after work and I come home and fall asleep on the chair. By the time I finally get up dinner is late and its gotten too far along in the timeline to walk the dog. Not okay. Its days like this that makes my fitbit very disappointed with me, I can feel it sighing mechanically and shaking its little sensors. Tough shit weirdo one of us is a biped one of us has a battery, you don't move unless I do and I didn't move today. Deal with it.

I make my dinner, I fix the dogs and I clean the cat boxes.  Super I got things done!

I did finally change clothes and then I did pretend there was some chance in hell that I might still make it outside.  The self delusion is real, I should have just been completely honest with myself  about my plans and my level of motivation for the evening and  put on pajamas and been warm because while the outside may have finally warmed up the inside is still cold and now so am I- and now I'm going to have to change clothes again for no reason and that feels like a waste of time and effort when I could have just cut out the middle outfit all together.

I did hear it rain a little earlier so I felt all self righteous about not going out after all., but then I never checked to see if it was actually rain and not just stuff from the tree falling , so I decided to go faith alone that I was right and my post-work nap was not ill timed and wrong. I was tired damn it! The dog was restless and kept getting up and moving and normally he's a pretty good sleeper but he would not stay in one place for more than a couple of hours, it was driving me crazy. I don't know how I kept myself from face planting on my desk all day but it sure caught up with me the first time I stopped moving. I sure hope he used his time wisely today and caught up on his sleep.

He kept thinking he wanted to be under the covers and then he would be under the coves and would get, I guess, too warm, so he would  leave and then he would want to get back under the covers which would require waking me up to help him. Over and over and over. So much fun.

It is possible for him to do this without waking me up, I know it is because I know he  does this and he doesn't wake me up to show me how clever he is everytime. I know this because sometimes we go to sleep and he is on top of the blanket in place A and we wake up and he's under the blanket in place D and I have no memory of him getting there. He can do it and he chooses not to.

Dog ownership is not for the faint hearted.

Hoppy Easter!

Its the Easter Doggy!