Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

Mixed feelings on the change of seasons, cause I so love summer, but fall is nice and September is chock full of weekend outdoor festivals. But it also means winter and way too little sunlight is also around the corner, *sob*… But for now, I’m going to do my best to enjoy that it’s not yet winter. FALL FESTIVALS, HERE I COME!

Oh, last weekend when I said work had been sane lately? Holy shit, I jinxed myself big time. This past week was 3 days of putting out a dumpster fire. Half inadvertently self-inflicted by the client, half a software problem – but that problem stems from a use case I can only describe as “well, you’re the one that has to explain this to your auditors, not me.” But at least by the end of the week, the dumpster fire was out and I got a nice public shoutout from as colleague in support for my help, and I actually got some of my other work done, and replicated a different client problem, so the week ended on a good note.

Sean & Jorge continue to be awesome. It’s so much fun learning more about them – now that we’re past the initial “So, this is home now” phase, they’re feeling good enough to PLAY! They like to chase each other around, and Jorge prefers rolling toys, and Sean is a big fan of strings on sticks. (Big thick fleece strings, nothing he can eat.) Does my heart good to see them relaxed enough to just have fun.

My brother is having some “problems” (HA!) with Jorge in that the little furry dude will be sacked out on his bed, and just as my brother is drifting off to sleep, that is when Jorge decides I MUST SLEEP RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU.

Sean is doing great, and I am still figuring out more things about him. When he had his few accidents downstairs, I thought it was separation anxiety. I may have overestimated my importance, LOL. I think wherever he lived before, he may not have been allowed in a lot of places, like upstairs, or bedrooms. Even though he started upstairs here, once he was able to be downstairs in the living room – he seemed to start treating the upstairs as somewhere he wasn’t allowed to be.

So, we’re working through that – it’s hard to explain to a cat “anywhere you can get to, you’re allowed to be – if you’re not allowed somewhere, there is a physical barrier, and if you somehow get around that, well, that’s on the humans, not you, and you’ll just be gently relocated.”

At night, he’ll follow me to the stairs and stop – I’ll scoop him up and take him upstairs and he has a snack and will stay for a while, then goes back downstairs – and that’s progress. And this morning, he was in my room when I got up, and started purring up a storm when I went to tell him good morning. Cue exploding hearts floating around my head.

Beyond that, the only real “challenge” I have with Sean is that he is an ankle twirler and he can be FAST when he wants to be – so I have to be careful when I’m walking as there can be a cat between my feet in the blink of an eye, especially when I come home from the store.

I love them both to pieces – and they very graciously put up with many random hugs and forehead kisses from me.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and if you have to work tomorrow, I really hope you’re getting double time pay and folks are kind to you.

You made it to another weekend, well done!! Things are delightfully boring around these parts, and I am here for it.

The only bit of the DNC I watched live was VP Harris’ speech and damn, it was a banger. I am actually a little bit fucking hopeful? It’s weird cause I haven’t felt like that with regards to politics in…a while. It has been very nice to see the Democrats get their collective shit together.

Also, to anyone that went after Gus Walz? These hands are rated E for everyone – go fuck yourself. A young man being emotional about A Very Big Day for his Dad? THAT’S HEALTHY YOU GODDAMN WEIRDOS.

It was another lovely morning at our local farmers market, with fake fall making it even nicer. Went to one of the bakers that I usually don’t frequent because they specialize in very large loaves of bread, but I really wanted some croissants and checked them out to see if they had any. OMG, so many croissants, and little cheese danishes, and mini ham & cheese quiches! Yeah, I fucked up sleeping on that vendor.

Work has been somewhat sane lately, which is nice. Took yesterday off – half day Friday, why not make it all day? Though I didn’t turn off my Teams notifications on my phone and I saw a chat notification come in at 3PM – I did not open it. If you were expecting a response at 3PM on a half day Friday when everyone leaves at 1PM – even if I hadn’t taken the whole day off – you’re out of your goddamned mind.

Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out Monday morning. But also, JFC, I should have stayed in my art classes and gone anywhere but corporate with my life.

Jorge & Sean continue to be awesome and the fake fall is giving them both serious zoomies. I love them so much.

Jorge hijacked Sean’s favorite spot on the bin and if this look isn’t “This Is Some Bullshit” I don’t know what is, LOL.

And thankfully, I don’t seem to have any lingering symptoms. (Though my sinuses are a bit, “Hey, where is that nightly Benadryl, that was great!) Here was my timeline – and it was WAY longer than I would have preferred…

Day 0 – Symptom onset, did not test cause I wrote it off to general cat-wrangling fatigue.
Day 1 – Light positive (Not me thinking, “Maybe this is already the tail end of it?” HAHAHAHA!)
Day 2-7 – Very positive
Day 8 – Light positive
Day 9-10 – Positive/Negative depending on the angle I held the test under the light – OH, FFS.
Day 11 – Barely positive regardless of lighting – ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Day 12-14 – True negative three days in a row!

Day 2 of testing, my symptoms had resolved. Did the nightly Benadryl help? IDK, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Overall my symptoms were fatigue & achy-ness, slightly scratchy throat, and a bit of a headache. I was also very lucky in that my symptoms were brief & genuinely mild.

I find I keep saying “genuinely mild” because I remember in the early days when they were telling us, “Oh, like 80% of Covid cases are mild” and we all thought, “OK, well, mild isn’t too bad, right?” and then we found out that “mild” just meant “you’ll be flat on your back for two weeks, but you won’t need to be admitted to a hospital.”

Honestly, had I not needed to test for my acupuncture appointment, I may very well have written it all off to walking A LOT in Baltimore and the vet visit being physically strenuous and mentally stressful cause I was worried about the kitties behaving. (Thankfully, I did have an N95 on at the vet appointment, and yes I should have tested before it, but it just completely slipped my mind.)

According to the current CDC guidelines, I could have been out & about with “additional precautions” on Day 3 of testing and just done whatever on Day 8. I was still fucking positive on Day 8 and if I’d followed the CDC guidelines, I could have easily infected someone else. Granted, I wasn’t gonna do whatever, I’m still masking up indoors and I’m gonna make sure I don’t get distracted and fuck up again – but jesus, what shitty guidelines.

Can’t help but wonder if the change in guidelines is just a tacit acknowledgement that so few people have dedicated sick leave, and thanks to 50+ years of being told in America “if you can’t do it on your own, you suck” – a lot of people don’t have the support systems they need to get through an extended isolation period.

I haven’t seen a soul in a mask in I don’t know how long. And because there are so few people actively taking any precautions, if you are trying to actively take precautions, you gotta be pretty damn perfect about it right now.

Day 5 of testing positive, I keep reading it can average around 10 days, so I’m REALLY hoping this is the halfway mark.  I’d been trying to avoid Covid because I didn’t want to get sick, or make anyone else sick.  

What I did not consider was HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THIS IS.  I don’t like isolation, I don’t like masking in the house (not gonna give my brother Covid) and I’m not enjoying trying to keep my body as calm as freaking possible in an attempt to ward off Long Covid. 

You should absolutely avoid Covid cause getting sick sucks, getting other people sick sucks, nobody wants Long Covid, but also – seriously consider the annoyance and inconvenience factors, too, cause damn, I did not ever anticipate those and they are making me very stabby.

My symptoms resolved in under 48 hours, yay, and per the CDC, I can just go all face-naked Wednesday, because they tossed the 5/10 day isolation guidance out the window in March and it’s all about symptoms and vibes apparently.  (I will not be going face-naked anytime soon.)

Been seeing two camps on Covid lately.  One is surprised that they know a bunch of people who have picked up Covid recently, and the other is astonished and really angry that people seem to not know better.

If you’re not Terminally Online and actively seeking out Covid info – honestly, I can understand why you’d think things were OK and just go about your business like all was well.  Because if it was still dangerous out there, the government would do something, right?

I can’t remember the last time I heard about Covid in a meaningful way in any mainstream media.  No structural mitigations since mid-2021.  Health departments aren’t really talking about it*, and the only data we seem to have anymore is wastewater surveillance, & you have to go looking for that.  (And at least for my county’s health department, that wastewater dashboard is not particularly helpful.  It’s out of date and only says if things are up/down/static.)

Federal, State & Local governments just acquiesced to industry and right wing psychos the moment the vaccines came out and just said “welp, good luck” and that was it.  

The fact that the President caught Covid last month and it didn’t even spark the tiniest of official public health discussions?  The whole thing was a blip on the radar at best.  Not a mitigation in sight at the Olympics?  Of course folks will think things are OK.

Hell, anywhere I have a mask on these days, it is rare that I see anyone else with a mask on.  When like 95% of folks aren’t taking precautions, you can’t slip up *at all* – and boy do I know – and if it was flipped and we were back in a majority of folks masking situation, we could all fuck up every now and then and it would be OK.

I am 99% sure I know exactly where I let my guard down and fucked up Covid-wise.  I had masks on my trip, and I used them, and I got distracted and forgot once, and welp, here we are.  Maybe if I’d looked around and everyone else was wearing a mask, I would have had that “what am I forgetting?” thought, IDK.

I’m not mad at whoever had it – I’m betting they didn’t even know it and if their symptoms were anything like mine, it may not have even occurred to them as a possibility.  I genuinely hope they’re doing OK.

My symptoms were genuinely mild, and resolved in under 48 hours.  Thursday morning, no symptoms, but still positive.  If I’d not tested on Wednesday, I might have written it all off to just being overtired and just gone on with life.**

I understand the people in the “angry that folks don’t know better camp” but that anger is misdirected.  This has been a public health failure on multiple fronts from the start.  You cannot make managing something as big as Covid an individual responsibility with zero support, which is exactly what has happened.  

There is no good data being pushed out, tests aren’t covered by insurance anymore, masks aren’t covered by insurance, the CDC says a “Core Prevention Strategy” is vaccination, but current vaccines don’t prevent transmission (ASK ME HOW I KNOW,) strains are changing faster than we get vaccines out, a year seems to be a big stretch on vaccine efficacy, and masking is just a “Additional Strategy”…  

We fucking *know* masking is the best, easiest, and cheapest damn method for preventing transmission – every agency even tangentially involved with public health should still be screaming it from the rooftops 24/7.  But it’s crickets, because, fuck if I know anymore.

Fucking terrified of what H5N1 avian flu is gonna do given the sorry state of public health in this country.

* I checked my county health departments Twitter account.  6 mentions of Covid in 2024.  That account has 14,000 followers.  There are over 880,000 people over the age of 18 in the county.  They only have 22,000 followers on FB, and about as many Covid mentions.
** Yes, I still took sick leave for two days, because I know a critical factor in recovery is rest, and I am not resting when I’m working, even if it is a laptop job.  HR can fight me on this if they want.

Yep, I tested positive for Covid yesterday, and yes, I am kicking myself up down and sideways over it, but what’s done is done.

Tuesday night after I wrangled two cats who don’t like confined spaces into crates, then the vet visit, then more cats-into-crates wrangling – I was fucking tired, but didn’t think anything of it, because, cat wrangling.

Yesterday morning, scratchy throat, bit achy, took a test, and DAMMIT ALL TO HELL it was positive.

Let the vet’s office know (I had an N95 on the whole time at least) and the vet called me back to check on me and told me not to worry it would all be OK.  So very kind, cause I felt like a jackass.

Teladoc said Paloxvid wouldn’t really be beneficial (reasonable, my symptoms aren’t bad at all) but also said “just treat it like a cold” – uh, we’re gonna take a little more care than *that* thankyouverymuch.

I’ve read multiple articles that antihistamines can block mast cell responses and basically stop your body from overreacting to Covid (best way I can explain it) so I took a Benadryl before bed last night. Mind you, correlation does not equal causation, but damn, I felt way better this morning. (I would only put yesterday at “vaguely crappy” to start with but hey, better is better.) I’m gonna keep that Benadryl habit going for a few more days to be sure. (If nothing else, it makes me sleep well.)

All I’ve taken today is a Halls drop cause my throat is scratchy, because when I wear a mask, I mouth breathe, LOL. (Happens *every* time I have a mask on for more than like, 20 minutes.)

This really shows how easy it is to *not* realize you have Covid, though – my two days of mild symptoms could easily be written off to just being overtired, especially since I felt pretty decent this morning. If I’d not tested yesterday, I don’t know that I would have today.

Taste & smell are fine, but I’ve not been super hungry. (Though in the last hour I’ve really wanted fettucine alfredo, which I do not have sitting around the house, dammit.)

Isolation guidelines are still a mess, especially when you know folks are just gonna do whatever anyway.  5 days, 10 days, do you have symptoms, are you testing negative, is there a full moon or is Mercury in retrograde? My brother is still negative and I want to keep it that way, so I’m masking up in the house everywhere but my room (with windows open) and I guess I’ll just keep doing that until I get 3 days of negative tests.

Now, at work, I am somehow so caught up on everything that I have literally no work to do until Monday. And I have sick leave. So, I am taking today & tomorrow off – everything I’ve read says that rest is paramount – and even a laptop job is *not* resting. So it’s resting time.

This is still all annoying AF though – not being able to go anywhere is driving me a little nuts. But my brother ran errands for me, and I didn’t have any specific food wants, so he got me cheese & crackers, ginger ale, and M&Ms. All winners.

Even though everything is *very* mild for me, zero stars, do not recommend.

What a wonderful pair of kitties. You never know what you’ll get when you adopt cats, especially adult cats who have Been Through It like Sean & Jorge. But they’re just truly great cats.

Jorge continues to be an adorable lovebug.  He has discovered that the back of the sofa is a kitty spot.  (I’m so hosed on replacing this sofa.)  He is officially allowed in the basement now and is disappointed that it really is no different than when he snuck down there before.

And Sean – wow, what a difference a week makes.  I’d said maybe he was a cat that just wanted a good meal and a safe place to sleep and nothing more.  Oh, he is not that cat.  He follows me all around, but doesn’t have to be glued to me.  He talks SO MUCH.  When my brother comes up from the basement, he runs to him to say hi.  He routinely sleeps upside down.

Since these two came home, I’ve been on the lookout for any behavior issues so we can address them right away and make sure everyone is happy & healthy.  But I am just not really seeing anything.

They’re calm.  Affectionate. Confident. They aren’t picky eaters.  They’re not particularly nocturnal and like a good night’s sleep.  If Jorge is trying to get into something he shouldn’t, I just tell him no and he stops.  They don’t try to eat things they shouldn’t.  No litterbox issues.  They haven’t tried to eat or knock over the plants.  

If Jorge gets overstimulated, he can get a bit punchy – but he also just bounds away and calms down on his own.  It’s pretty normal for cats anyway and we’ve put the catnip away and are just mindful of it.

Jorge can open cabinets. We have secured them.

Jorge forgets there are two food dishes. We pick him up and move him to his bowl.

Sean likes to splash in the water dish. We own towels.

Sean has the itchybritches and we’ll be working with the vet on that.

They are both a little too interested in the side door, so we’re just extra careful coming & going.  

That’s it.  Those “issues” are just nothing.  I cannot fathom why someone would dump them the way they did.  I understand there are many valid reasons someone can’t keep a pet.  But to just ditch them so cruelly – I don’t understand.  Had someone not found them, there is no way they would have survived outside.

We know they were found together, but not totally sure if they were put out together given that Jorge was already neutered but Sean wasn’t. So, they might not be a super bonded pair, but Sean certainly needed Jorge to get through the shelter time. While they aren’t glued to each other, they happily share the bed and sofa, and certainly don’t mind each other at all. I’ve even seen a bit of play out of them.

Right now, I’m just hoping they are somewhat calm at their upcoming vet appointment, so I’m standing there going, “No, really, I swear, they are awesome and chill as fuck!” as they try to climb the walls or something like that.

I don’t know how we got so lucky, but I am so happy we did.

It is amazing to me how one little bad file absolutely fucked shit up worldwide. I cannot wait to see the post mortem on this one, and I really think they’re going to have to make it public given the widespread effects. Also – quite the lesson in “maybe monopolies aren’t great!” (A lesson we will absolutely NOT learn.)

As we all wondered how this got out into the wild like it did, this post from Mastodon summed it up so well:

speaking as a tester; the test team were promised a week, then had it shortened to 3 days and ended up with three hours left to test.
After 2 hours of testing someone started the roll out.

Yep, I have 110% BEEN THERE. Nothing like going balls to the wall to get a test series done because someone needs the file yesterday, finishing up, and discovering the file had been sent out hours before. I also have to wonder if they are trying to use AI to design and execute tests.

I got lucky and did not get the Blue Screen Of Death on my work laptop, but our network was pretty hosed most of the day. Around 1PM, our “critical systems” were back online and that is how I discovered that the tools and systems I need to actually do my job are not considered critical, and still weren’t online when I bounced at 3PM.

Why they did not just say “Look, if you’re not getting the BSOD and don’t need IT for that, but all your other shit is broken and being worked on, just call it a day” is beyond me. I basically got paid to sit and stare lovingly at my cats all day. (Oh no.)

And the thing is – once I hit the halfway mark of the day, there was no way I was going to be able to get back into “work mode” even if they did get things back online before I left – my brain is GREAT at getting into work mode as soon as I put on my headphones and open my work laptop, but staying there is dependent on actually having work to do. The work mode ship sailed around noon.

One thing I realized last night – they had sent out emails saying “If you’re getting the BSOD, try rebooting, and call IT” – but if you’re getting the BSOD, you’re not going to be able to get to your email…

I had a hair appointment yesterday and realized that I had no idea if their payment systems would be working and that my “power outage cash stash*” was empty. Everything was broken at work, so I popped out to see if the ATMs were working (thankfully they were) and decided to hit up Starbucks as long as I was out.

Oh my gawd, the poor folks working at Starbucks. I did an mobile order and thought “great, things are working for them!” My first hint that something was amiss should have been that instead of saying “Your order will be ready at 8:45” it just said “Your order will be ready soon” – I just wrote that off to the fact that they recently upgraded their time estimate bit, and new things can glitch.

Oh no, not a glitch. “Soon” is how the app says “Fuck if we know!” There was a 10-15 minute delay in orders going from the app to the stores. The printers weren’t working, so they were having to transcribe the orders off the store iPads, and orders were just getting eaten by the system. (Mine was!) Plus I am sure they had extra volume from folks like me going “Welp, can’t work, might as well make a Starbucks run.” Bless them, they were working SO HARD and I was happy to see that later the online ordering was just shut off for their sake. (Same crew today and I left them a BIG tip, which I should have done yesterday, but I flaked big time on that.)

Seems like lots of things are back online today, which is good. I suspect the affected airlines are going to be messed up for a couple days more, because all the planes are in the wrong places.

Huge, HUGE props to all the IT folks all over the place trying to fix this. I hope you got paid overtime for it, or got some kind of good reward. And I hope everyone is sending invoices to Crowdstrike for this mess.

* A takeaway from the 2012 derecho. So many places could only take cash for days. The cash stash has been appropriately replenished.

They are 7 and 8 years old, and awesome. Will post more later, but here they are – Sean is the kitty in front.