The return of the Piss Crusader…and other tribulations September 22, 2005 ~ 10:02 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI spent part of Tuesday carefully typing responses to the comments you all left while I was in Atlanta. Why don’t you see those responses? Because Colleen’s computer decided it hated me about halfway through and shut itself off. And when I finally got it to start up again (there is something weird with the power cord, you have to do the Hokey Pokey and turn yourself around while holding it to get the damn thing to work), I didn’t have the password. And Leenie was in the shower, and then it was time for me to pack, and then we left for the airport. Really. I should have taken that as a sign of how my day was going to be but I walked blithely on, ignoring the Universe’s little warning sign.
When we got to the airport (2 hours early, since Michael’s didn’t have the knitting needle size I was looking for when we stopped there…Note to Michael’s: some of us knit with needles below a size 8, dumbasses) we saw that the hourly parking was full, so Leenie had to drop me off. Not that big of a deal…I was already checked in and had printed out my boarding pass ahead of time, so I figured I was good to go. Wrong.
If you haven’t been through security at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, consider yourself blessed. Colleen had warned me about it, but I figured “What the hell, security was a cakewalk in New York, how bad can it be in Atlanta?”. Mistake. Atlanta’s security is a huge clusterfuck pretending to be organized. You stand in a huge line in an unairconditioned area, and when you get to the front of the line, they just check your boarding pass and ID, then send you on to the actual metal detectors/bag screeners. That’s also unairconditioned. They still make you take off your shoes in Atlanta, something I haven’t had to do since I flew to Nebraska two years ago. After you have spent 45 minutes doing all of this, you are free to go to your gate. Mine was 8 billion light years away in Concourse E. And despite it being Gate #2, it was as far as possible from the main section of the Concourse.
When I got there, I realized that my bag was missing its ID tag. My luck is such that I would be stopped at the door of the plane and told my bag was too big, and in stowing it below the plane they would lose it, and I would never get it back because it had no ID on it. I walked off looking for a little store that would sell luggage tags, and almost to the other end of the Concourse found one. My bag is now emblazoned with a CNN tag, because it was ALL I COULD FIND. So sad.
I made it back to the gate just in time for boarding (my wanderings took a fair amount of time), and all was well until we landed. We even got to watch The Simpsons on the plane’s TVs. And then we landed, and sat on the runway for a very looooong time. Thirty-five minutes, in fact, because they were only letting one plane down it at a time. Thirty-five minutes doesn’t seem like a long time until you are almost home, but still looking at an hour commute till you get home to see how much cats have wrecked your house.
We finally got to the gate and were allowed to get off the damn plane. I tracked down the AirTrain, rode it to the train (a 30 minute ride), then got on the subway. That ride was much shorter, and I was home by 8. I should have been home by 7, but we won’t go there.
I was not in the best frame of mind when I walked into the house. After 6 hours of travel Hell, I wanted nothing more than to give Jesse his shot and go to sleep, but I was hungry and there was unpacking to do. I tested Jesse’s glucose and found that he was at 423 (normal cat level is about 60), so he’d had a few fur shots. His glucose hadn’t been that high since he was diagnosed, and I knew what that meant. There was pee somewhere in my house. Sure enough, I found two spots of it in front of my closets in the living room. And me without vinegar or anything to clean it up. I sopped them up as best I could and ended up using the kitty litter baking soda to try to mask the smell so he wouldn’t go there again. I found another spot on my bedroom carpet and did the same. I was talking to Jordana on the phone and unpacking when I noticed Jesse sniffing at the pillows. I sniffed too, and sure enough found that he had peed on my bed, nailing pillows, sheets, mattress pad, and mattress.
I know he can’t help it when his sugar is high, and I was fairly sure that he had been napping there when the urge hit him and he couldn’t get to the litterbox fast enough. That didn’t stop me from having a little breakdown on the phone with Jordana, since I was now going to have to go do laundry immediately to wash away the smell. Jordana is a true friend, though, and when she found out my neighborhood grocery and bodega were closed, she went out and bought me white vinegar to soak the mattress with. I love that woman. She helped me strip the bed, put the pissed-on bedding in a bag, and soak the mattress, pillows, and wall with vinegar. She convinced me that I didn’t need to do laundry until the next morning, and made me realize that I had one pillow in the house that was piss-free, and I could sleep on the couch that night, not on the piss bed. And she did not once laugh at me for crying, even though I know I look horrendous when I do. That is a true friend.
And that’s how I spent yesterday doing laundry, grocery shopping, and buying Nature’s Miracle to take out the rest of the piss smell from the mattress. And why my mattress now has a vinyl bed condom on it to match the couch condom. But you know, Jesse and Joe were thrilled to see me and spent the day telling me “Never leave us again!”. I missed those little furballs, even the one that pissed all over my pillows.
Tonight or tomorrow, I’ll tell you about my visit with Regan. Now I have to catch up on a week’s worth of work.
Hotlanta September 18, 2005 ~ 10:49 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedHere I am in Atlanta. Three things I have learned about Atlanta already:
1.) It’s hot and humid. Homid, as Nanner would say. While up north where I live the nights are cool and the days for the most part no longer require airconditioning, that is not the case here. Hotlanta, indeed. I see why these people drink sweet tea by the gallon. I like sweet tea now. A lot.
2.) In Atlanta, liquor stores are referred to by the euphemism “Package Store.” That makes me laugh even harder than Pennsylvania’s “State Store.” Because when I think of what you might buy at the Package Store, my mind goes straight past liquor and cigarettes and into the gutter. Oh, yeah, and I found out that wine is cheaper in New York. That makes me abnormally happy and makes up for the fact that I can’t buy it in a grocery store like people down here can. HA! I can get a bottle of Jacob’s Creek Shiraz for $5! Take that, Hotlanta!
3.) Hartsfield-Jackson (Atlanta’s airport) is apparently a hub for Hooters Air. Yeah, you heard me right. Those scantily-clad beer-serving waitresses are also stewardesses. Goddess forbid there be turbulence while they’re wearing those tops. Or if you’re a guy, maybe that’s what you’re hoping for.
Leenie and I also met Regan. In fact, we spent 7 hours together yesterday. Do you know the evil that can be accomplished in 7 hours? Much evil! Particularly when some of that time is spent at the Farmer’s Market. I also met Kev and Sadie and saw the infamous farmer’s tote bag. You’re jealous now, I know. But since I can’t upload the pictures from that encounter until I get home, you’re reliant on Regan for the story. Don’t worry, I’ll deny it all.
Wishlist September 14, 2005 ~ 2:59 pm
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Ravine ~Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
Today is the Oldest’s 13th birthday. Everyone wish her a happy birthday, although I doubt she will check the blog. She does periodically, just to prove she can find me, but it’s been a while. She is my new favorite 13-year-old because so far she hasn’t displayed any of the annoying qualities of a teenager. (Sidenote: Rick, your daughter is a teenager. That should make you feel old if nothing else does.)
While we’re talking birthdays, it is approximately two weeks until my 28th birthday (September 30, for those of you who are keeping track). Since I’m leaving for Atlanta bright and early tomorrow and my blogging while there will be sporadic, I’m leaving you with my birthday wishlist. I’m not expecting any presents out of this (unless you are my mother or my boyfriend or otherwise obligated to give me a present), but I think you can tell a lot about a person by what they want. Your assignment is to tell me what my list says about me, and if that matches up with the impression you already had of me. I’ll let you know if any of you get close to the mark, or if you make me laugh so hard beer comes out my nose. Onto business, in no particular order:
A Littermaid. If you had to clean out two litterboxes every morning, you would understand why.
A PSP. It plays video games, movies, MP3s, and you can check out digital photos and the internet on it. This could keep me entertained for hours. Or at least the span of the subway ride from my place to Rick’s.
This shirt in blue and white. Because I really do heart Mr. Darcy. Especially when I think of the BBC series, where Colin Firth was Mr. Darcy. Mmmmm.
Fraggle Rock: The Complete First Season. I didn’t have HBO when this was originally on, so I only caught bits and pieces of it. I would like to fill the gaps in my knowledge of Doozer habits.
This book. Damn you, Aimee, for making me fall in love with Jamie Fraser!
Yarn to make this. It’s gorgeous, but what is stopping me (as always) is the sheer amount of yarn needed to make a sweater. I am not made of money. Alas.
There ya go. Any surprises?
The Weather Dance September 14, 2005 ~ 11:39 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedThis morning Rick and I had some sit-around-and-do-nothing time, since we had to get up at the crack of dawn to give InjectaKitty his shot (I’m leaving at 6 AM tomorrow, and have to give his shots earlier until that time. Can’t OD the kitty on insulin.).
We had the Weather Channel on TV, and I should have known what was coming next, as Rick has been known to sing along with the Weather Channel muzak in the past. But this morning I looked over to find him full-out dancing in his frog-print boxers to the muzak. He was even doing the White Man’s Overbite (watch When Harry Met Sally if you don’t know what I’m talking about).
First words to come out of my mouth: “I am so blogging this!”
First words of defense to come out of Rick’s mouth: “What? I’m dancing! See, Jesse likes it!”
In truth, Jesse the InjectaKitty was looking up at Rick with something like horror in his eyes, but he was too dumbstruck to run.
I looked back at Rick. “I am so blogging this!” I repeated. He just smiled benevolently at me and kept on dancing. That’s my boy.
He is the champion of the world September 13, 2005 ~ 9:52 am
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Rick and Julie at Coney, June 2005.
Rick’s team won the Performing Arts League softball championships yesterday for the seventh year in a row, and he was named game MVP. I am deeply impressed by this and you should be, too. Bow down before the manly man that is my boyfriend.
Now that you’re done bowing, I’ll tell you the rest of the story. He called me at 5:30 last night while I was waiting for the subway to inform me of the good news. I knew that since he was calling me that late, they had won and engaged in after-game partying. I knew that even before he started singing “We Are the Champions” to me. I congratulated him.
“You’re the first person I’ve called! We won! It’s good to be a winner! It’s much better than losing!”
When Rick starts talking in exclamation points like that, he is three sheets to the wind. I asked him how much he’d had to drink.
“I don’t know. Not a lot. Maybe four cans of beer…no, maybe five. No. Four cans and one bottle. And some sips of champagne. Cheap champagne. I didn’t want that, I don’t like champagne, but they made me drink it to celebrate. It’s good to be a winner! Much better than losing! Oh! And I made dirt angels! ”
Yeah, you read that right. Dirt angels. But that was before he drank anything…it was sheer happiness that inspired him to lay down in the infield. And it was apparently a combination of happiness and drunkenness that made him scream (he insists he was singing) his Michael Jackson “Hee Hee” noise at intervals on the way home. It’s a miracle no one grabbed him and locked him up in Bellevue yesterday. Maybe they thought he had Tourette’s.
This morning he realized that he was drunk yesterday. He had denied it in the three phone calls he made to me last night. But drunk or not, dirt angels or not, MJ-Tourette’s or not, he’s still a champion. Bow down before him.
This just pulled at my heartstrings September 12, 2005 ~ 4:18 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI was catching up on Brian May’s blog, and his entry for September 5 made me smile and tear up a little at the same time:
“Dear Freddie !
Have one for me !
Love
Bri”
September 5 would have been Freddie Mercury’s 59th birthday. Have a belated one for me, too, Freddie. Cheers.
Remembrance, renewal September 12, 2005 ~ 10:35 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI wrote last year that I was starting to get past the stabbing pains that the anniversary of 9/11 (sorry, I cannot feed into the propaganda and call it Patriot Day) normally brings to me. On the whole, this year was even better. I know it sounds odd to say that, but I was able to go for large parts of the day without reliving that day in my mind.
I had a bad hour of it in the laundromat since all the TVs were tuned to the name reading ceremony and the sheer numbers washed over me again. I remembered what it was like that day to not know where my friends were, to wait by the phone hoping they would call me and let me know everything was okay. I remembered how lucky I am that all of my friends survived, even the four who were working in or around the WTC that day. And I thought about what it must be like for those people who were reading the names, who lost friends, lovers, siblings, children on that day, and realized that it must still cut them like a knife when they’re least expecting it. But as I looked around the laundromat at the other people doing their wash, I realized we’re moving on. People were watching the TVs, white-faced as their own memories crowded in on them, and then went back to the laundry, or watching the kids, or reading a book, or whatever. It didn’t control them anymore.
On the way home I walked past the neighborhood Catholic church. Five fire trucks were parked in front of it, and the 11 o’clock Mass was packed with parishioners and firefighters remembering that day. The fire trucks were from Park Slope, and my neighborhood, Windsor Terrace - two of the first neighborhoods to respond to the attack, and thus units that lost a lot of men. The trucks were emblazoned with the names of their dead, and the Mass being said was obviously one of remembrance, but when I walked by I saw some of the firefighters getting food out for an after-Mass potluck lunch, and we smiled and nodded at each other. These guys, who were in the middle of the chaos that day, were also moving on.
I looked up at the blue sky, my mind registered that it wasn’t that intense blue it was four years ago, and I did breathe a little sigh of relief. But when I saw a plane coming in for a landing at JFK I didn’t flinch or try to figure out if it was too low as we all did in the weeks and months after 9/11. I went home, talked to Rick, and met him and the girls for some yarn shopping and time together. I followed the Steelers game on the internet and cheered when my boys won 34-7 over the Titans. I went home, played with my cats, and talked to Regan and my mom on the phone. I went to bed.
It’s taken four years to get to this point. I’m sure that the pain will never entirely go away. If I see a video of that day when I’m 80, I will instantly be back in the moment and it will rip through me like a knife as if it had happened yesterday. But in between times, the pain grows less and less. I’m moving on.
Good reading for today - how an Iraqi woman remembers 9/11: Baghdad Burning.
When he’s gotta go, he’s gotta go September 9, 2005 ~ 10:15 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedA gross story about life with cats:
Last night I stopped home long enough to feed and water the cats, give Jess his shot, and clean litterboxes before I went to dress rehearsal. In that order.
The first part went well. I mixed up some of their old food with their new food in the hopes of stopping Jesse’s diarrhea that way (perhaps the lack of grains/fiber in the new food is not so great). I cleaned out their Drinkwell fountain and refilled it, being sure to put ice cubes in it, because Jesse thinks ice cubes are a gift from the gods. Seriously, he comes running when I open the freezer now.
And then I sat down to pet him before I tested his glucose and gave him his shot. I do this every time, it helps to calm him down and makes him think that the shot and blood test are something to look forward to. When I was done petting him, I sat him down on the floor in front of me and got ready to do the test. He’s normally very good about this part, but last night he kept trying to get away. I was on a schedule and determined to get the damn test done and the cat shot so I could leave, and I kept pulling him back.
Then I detected a foul odor.
I looked down at Jesse and said “Did you fart?” He looked at me with panic in his eyes and ran off. As he did, I could see a little tiny dingleberry had escaped. He got it off and then ran for the litterbox.
Lesson learned: Cats are like people. When they’ve gotta go, they’ve gotta go, and you had better not get in the way of that.
Attention, Crafty People (and non-Crafty People with money) September 8, 2005 ~ 10:53 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI know there are a ton of you crafters who read this blog, so I’m passing on another way that you can help the Katrina victims. (Got this via the Brooklyn Stitch n Bitch mailing list):
CraftRevolution.com accepts donations of handmade stuff and sells them on etsy, which is similar to ebay stores. They accept only handmade stuff, and 100% of the money goes to hurricane victims. So far they have raised 10,500.00 for Red Cross. If you are a crafter/artist and want to donate some of your work you can find more info here http://www.craftrevolution.com/donate.htm
If you aren’t crafty but want to buy some really great stuff, while helping out a great cause check out the store, the link is http://www.craftrevolution.etsy.com please check out the site and pass this along to all crafters you know!!
My ovary and the cat are in league with Satan September 7, 2005 ~ 12:23 pm
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Rick is tall.
It’s hectic here, and I’m slowly going insane. Let me detail my reasons for impending insanity for you:
I went to the kitty doctor yesterday. My kitty doctor. The differentiation will be apparent soon. I was out of birth control refills, therefore it was time for my exam, right? Wrong. I went, I paid my co-pay, I was weighed and had my blood pressure taken, I stripped and sat in a ridiculous paper gown for 10 minutes, thinking about how much I hate the exam, and then my doctor came in and said “It hasn’t been a year since your exam. If I do one now, your insurance won’t cover it.” But it had been a year, I insisted, I was out of birth control pills. Were they dating my annual based on my sonogram last year? Because that was a month after my annual exam. Didn’t matter, I couldn’t have an exam done yesterday. He did write me a scrip for my pill, which I put in the mail this morning (my prescription plan is mail order, isn’t that special?), and made an appointment for the end of October. I should have asked if I could have my co-pay check back…but see, the ovary is tricksy! It fucked me up again without even being examined! It’s evil power must be growing.
I was in rehearsal till 10:30 last night, which is when I had to leave so I could get up this morning, give InjectaKitty his shot, and do it all over again. We’ve yet to have a run thru of this play that takes less than 3 hours. It’s supposed to be a 1 hour, 45 minute show, but our lead doesn’t know all his lines yet. Have I mentioned we open on Friday? I just want to get paid for this and leave.
Speaking of InjectaKitty, he’s got diarrhea again. He was put on Metronidazole last week, and we had finished up the 10 day course, and then the diarrhea came back. So, bearing in mind that I am leaving for Atlanta in a week and need to have everything set up for my pet sitters, I called the kitty doctor, aka, the vet (see? there’s the other kitty doctor). He wants to see Jesse. I can’t bring Jesse in before Sunday because of my schedule (a day job and tech week on a show do not leave you with very much free time), so the receptionist gave me a little hell. I basically told her where she could get off. Politely, but I explained that I cannot take time off this week. Ain’t gonna happen. She suggested I go to the emergency vet. Yeah, because spending more money that I don’t have is going to help this situation. Needless to say, we have an appointment for Sunday morning. The cat, he and the ovary work for Satan.
Finances are shaky right now. I’ve had to order more syringes and test strips for the cat for while I’m gone, and lots of bills came due. And I had to eat and keep us supplied in kitty litter. We is broke. This makes me more jittery and nervous, and wishing I would get paid for the play. Like, yesterday.
Two bright spots in an otherwise crap time have come from the generosity of other bloggers. When I was at my lowest last week, I got a package of Starburst and Skittles from the Fashion Diva, who remembered that I would sell my soul for Skittles. And Aimee, Goddess bless her, knows that I must have something to read, and have not had fresh reading material for a while now. And she sent me the Outlander series by Diane Gabaldon, which should keep me busy for a good long time. These gifts came when I really needed a lift, and I can’t thank these ladies enough. You guys are the best.
Now to figure out what I still have to do before I leave for Atlanta next Thursday. So much to remember…
