Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

You cannot adopt all 26 cats at the county shelter. That is OK. Your house is a nice size, but it is not 26 cats large.

Once you find the right one(s) – you won’t be letting down any of the cats you can’t adopt.

The cats at the county shelter DO get adopted – some not as quickly as others, but they get adopted. You saw this morning as a 4 year old creamsicle kitty was checked in and adopted out in under an hour. It’s not just kittens getting adopted quickly. Over the past week you’ve seen lots of grown kitties get to go to forever homes.

Remember how you tell everyone else, “Do what you can, when you can”? Adopting one or two cats absolutely qualifies as that, so listen to your own advice.

These people are going to be the death of me.

Get email that we have to order upgraded equipment because they were doing a software update. Get on support chat and order.

Turns out the support person didn’t know what we needed and just upgraded the whole damn account, seems to have sent us shit we didn’t need, bricked a DVR in the process and dropped half our channels, and I am still trying to get them to tell me what was actually needed – cause I think they didn’t actually send the one thing we DID need.

Livid does not even begin to describe where I am with this clusterfuck.

Note to self: Never, EVER use the chat option, even when they say “Oh, you can use chat!” Because the Tier 1 chat techs aren’t trained to do shit and won’t go off script. That’s not on the techs, that is on the cable company for absolute craptastic training and support policies. ASK ME HOW I KNOW ABOUT GOOD AND BAD SUPPORT POLICIES.

So, I’m waiting on an email to confirm that basically rather than saying “I have no idea what this software upgrade requires, let me get you to someone who knows what is going on” instead decided to go into sales mode and fuck everything up in the process.

GOOD TIMES.

Not much to celebrate in my mind – the confirmation this week that the country is essentially being run by a religious tribunal kinda puts a damper on things.

When I was a kid, the 4th was great – it meant a cookout, sparklers, and a lot of popsicles. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with it. Feels like every year it brings out more and more aggressively nationalist assholes.

My racist fuckwit neighbor… Already had the Gadsden flag license plates, so we all knew. Then the morning after the SCOTUS immunity ruling, an American flag, a Gadsden flag, and a Join or Die flag out in front. Then yesterday, a 1776 flag and another one that I can’t quite see. Dude, we know you’re a racist POS, settle the fuck down.

My company sent out a little “happy 4th” email that included this:

Let’s not forget, this holiday is a time to celebrate and reflect on the collective freedoms we all share. Recognizing and appreciating the diversity that exists across the country is what makes America unique.

Not exactly the full throated rebuke to fascism that I would have preferred, but it’s something and probably the closest we’ll get to corporate admitting there is a whole world outside work that is trying very hard to hurt their employees.

We’ll see if we have another one or not.

And it’s awesome!

If you’re not much of a DIY’er and you’re going to replace a ceiling fan – just call someone to do it. Just trust me on this one. So far, replacing the one in my room has involved a fair amount of cussing, way more fucking assembly than anticipated, completely unexpected difficulty in getting the old one out, briefly thinking that somehow I’d bought a fan that needed a different sized ceiling box, and a trip to the hardware store for more screws.

And we haven’t even gotten the mounting bracket on the ceiling.

Now, all the bits of the new fan that need to be assembled are put together, so that’s something. I just really thought this would be a couple hours, not span the whole weekend.

But it will be worth it when the fan is up and I can put it on hurricane mode and not roast to death because the upstairs is always hotter than downstairs and I refuse to put the AC lower.

However, when it comes time for the living room – I’m calling someone.

Right now I should be doing a reset around the house, but my brain is very “Nah” about it, which is basically any and every Sunday, LOL.

I realized that I am now actually going to be going to the beach next month – I’d just set it solidly in my mind that I’d be here looking after Lily – and I am not even slightly physically or mentally prepared for it. Like, I don’t know where anything is that I’d need to take, what laundry needs to bed done, no idea what I still need to buy, etc, etc.

Granted, the beach is a place you can just show up with your wallet and whatever you need, they have – but that gets a little pricey if you *only* show up with your wallet.

I still catch myself looking around for Lily every now and again. There has of course been the second-guessing myself this week, but I also know if there had been any better option, the vet would have given it to us. When there is a new cat (or cats) around, I suspect I’ll still occasionally be looking for the wrong one, or be surprised when I see a not-Lily come around a corner.

In ways to procrastinate & distract myself, I have finally gotten around to watching Resident Alien on Netflix. It’s very silly, with a few serious themes here and there, but on the whole, pretty light. There was of course literally just now, a very sweet and sad scene involving a death and gosh, don’t know why my face is all wet. But really, Alan Tudyk playing an alien pretending to be a human – he’s perfect.

Oh the “getting older is bullshit” front, last week I managed to tweak my upper arm BY AWKWARDLY REACHING FOR THE ALARM CLOCK. I shit you not. The simple solution is to rest the arm. Unfortunately, it is my dominant arm and no matter how hard I try to be conscious of letting it rest, I forget and keep re-tweaking it. So, I have ordered a shoulder brace – should help keep it a little more immobile and remind me that “Hey dumbass, you’re resting this arm, remember?”

Full reset probably isn’t gonna happen today, but I have made cold brew for the week, switched out all the air filters, and I am going to at least get some laundry done – so it’s better than nothing.

You enjoy what’s left of the weekend.

And it’s fuck all hot out there – 12:30 with a heat index of 96 already. I kinda sorta beat the heat at the farmers market, but I was still sweaty & gross by the time I got home. But we have salad stuff!

The house has been way too empty without any furry friends about – my brother pointed out that the last time I was living somewhere with no pets, I was in college. And that was a very, very long time ago. Our friends sent flowers, which was so sweet – and their dog was included on the card, too. And another friend made a donation to one of our local animal welfare groups. It’s been so nice to know so many people really do understand.

I don’t know where the saying came from but “Grief is love with nowhere to go” is so damn spot on.

So, it’s not going to be long before I rechannel that grief into smothering love for another cat. Talked to my brother about it, and the search will start when we get back from the beach. Even though I’m going to Baltimore for a few days at the end of July, that would give him some bonding time if we find a new friend right away.

There will never be another Lily, but every cat is one in a million, and it sucks too much to not have a cat (or cats) here.

My biggest concern is that whoever the new cat is, they will look at us and think “Damn, these are some weirdo losers.” 😹

We had to say goodbye to my sweet Lily last night.

She’d been a bit off yesterday and I suspected a UTI – we took her to the vet and they took x-rays and she had multiple masses in her lungs. That would have progressed very rapidly and been very painful for her, so we decided it was time.

She was the fucking best, most awesome, goofiest, and most talkative cat I have ever had. She was the best pandemic buddy – once she got past the first few Friday nights where we didn’t leave the house, LOL. At the start, she was rather, “Why are you here? I have things to do!” I still wonder if she was hosting a floating craps game when we were out.

I think we did right by her with the three months of kitty hospice – spoiling a cat rotten who is already spoiled rotten is the best challenge you can have.

I don’t know what is on the other side, but I know she had a hella welcoming committee – Carmen, Patches, Ashley, Snoopy, Target, Murphy, Grey Kitty, Cringer, Pepper, Miss Kitty, Doc, Sandy, Snoodle, Moxley, Dad’s boxer, and multiple Whiskers to show her around and introduce her to everyone.

I am heartbroken and I will miss her terribly – the house is too quiet today.

I’ll be donating her prescription food to the shelter, but keeping everything else – she was the best cat ever (as they somehow all are – it’s amazing how that works) but I cannot fathom being without a furry friend for very long.

When Target passed away in 2008, it was over a year before I could bring myself to go to the shelter – it somehow felt like a betrayal and I kept hoping Moxley would just find kittens when we were out walking so I didn’t have to make the decision, it would just happen. (Kind of a big fail on the cat distribution system there.)

This time, it feels like I owe it to her to make sure there are other kitties who get as spoiled rotten and loved to pieces as she was.

Love you to the moon and back LilyMonster.

Er, um, afternoon at this point. A week and half a weekend sure whipped by – I was sure I’d written something between last Saturday and now, but time flies and all that.

Had a blissfully calm week at work this week, no repeats of the “let’s delay moving files until 5:30PM” nonsense or anything like that. Topped off with margs and tacos Friday afternoon with a buddy who also had a half day Friday and the weather held and that was awesome.

Plus we have short week this week with Juneteenth hitting on Wednesday, fingers crossed for another nice, calm week without the CTO making some announcement that puts everyone completely on edge. Realizing now that we have the second half of our all hands on Tuesday, that may be a pipe dream. Dude has that amazing C level inability to read a room and just stress everyone out.

But eh, it is what it is, and I just ignore him as much as I can, LOL.

The LilyMonster had another good week, taking her meds, eating lots, and generally being awesome. I know things could change at any time, but I’m honestly amazed that she is still with us and doing so well. However, right now it also looks like I’ll not be heading to the beach – 2x a day meds, plus monitoring that she actually takes the meds & is doing OK in general – not something I can put on a petsitter.

But honestly – it’s OK and pretty much a no-brainer if she is still here. The beach will be there later, and I’ll still be taking the time off work for my sanity, and there is all kinds of stuff I can do around town. It’s the very least I can do for a kitty that has given me near 15 years of love.

I will still be going to Baltimore for a couple days at the end of July for baseball – at my brother’s insistence. Yes, he is absolutely capable of taking care of her. (I do have to remind myself of that.) Also getting some transdermal gabapentin, which should be easier to administer for him. So, even if I can’t get to the beach, I can get some crabcakes, hotel time, and not have to wait a year before actually getting out of town for a bit. And I’ve got some time off scheduled in the fall – could pop down to the beach then, too, if I want to.

I’m just glad I still have her here to love. Today should be a reset day around the house, but I think it will more likely just be laundry and marveling at my kitty on borrowed time, who has woken up from her nap and is happily chowing down on lunch.

The chores can wait.