Pet problems

So Caroline's cat has gone back to peeing everywhere. Basically she and Mr. Caroline are determined to either get rid of him or have him euthanized, which the vet is refusing to do the latter because he's otherwise healthy. I think she kind of wants Mr. Samoa and I to take him, but it ain't happening because if we stick one more cat in this house the house is going to pop a seam. Plus, it isn't like we want him pissing everywhere! (It's not helping my sympathy level that if it were one of ours, we would go with Option C, keep the cat and clean up after him. Mr. Samoa and I do realize, and have been reminding ourselves, that we don't have to worry about carpet or the cat peeing on baby or carseat, which is a bit different; however, that's still what we'd do.) I gave her the list of options that I could think of and got off the phone, in no small part because I was hacking up a lung.

In Happier Pet News, Tagalong came and took the leopard frog that hopped up to our house and sparked WWIII. (If I haven't blogged about that, I will when I feel better.) It is going to go live with the science teacher at the high school where she teaches, who is quite amped about a free exotic pet. We also got to meet her future stepsons, who are very fond of critters. Can we keep Fiance and Stepsons, and ship her off? :P

Blah

I have spent most of today in bed with this stupid crud. It Will. Not. Die!!! And this is typical, from what I've seen in the residents. It's like the Plague Vol. II!

Black jumpy specks

Oh, how I hate them. C'MONNNN Mr. Samoa's paycheck so we can buy all the household furbearers a round of FrontLine!!!

HRAAAAGGHHH!

That's the sound the guck in my throat makes when I have to remove it. :P Said sound HURTS, too. This sinus infection can leave any time it feels like it! Oh, and so can the hiccups.

It can be done!

Childfree people CAN throw a baby shower! And it can be a darn successful one too!

So, Caroline's shower was a smashing success. The story of this smashing success follows.

I spent yesterday (Friday) cooking and finishing the other stuff. (That may be the last time I cross-stitch a card. But, I digress. When Mr. Samoa got home from work, we went up to Hometown to decorate the church. After we got Mom and Dad dissuaded from "helping", which tended to consist of such things as putting boxes on tables as I was trying to decorate the tables, we got it all done up. We stashed the food in the church refrigerator, and headed back home. Not, however, without a Mom-Ism. It went thus:

Me: I'm going to go put these signs on the doors so that people know where to go.

Mom: Oh, you better wait until tomorrow to do that!

Me: I'd rather do it now, tomorrow will be kind of pressed for time.

Mom: But I'm afraid someone will steal them! This isn't the best neighborhood, you know. [Note: The church is bounded on all four sides by: another church, a funeral home, a gas station, a Green Ship Movers franchise, and a house owned by gay bikers who take Extreme Exception to people messing with the church. To say nothing of, the signs were posterboard and Sharpie.]

Me: Mom. If they are going to steal anything, I think they'll pick something a little more valuable than posterboard. Besides, I have extra, if for some God-unknown reason they do.

Mom: Oh! I guess you're right.

Me: [slams own head in door repeatedly]

Today, we packed up the presents and such, went up, and set out the food. For some reason people started arriving at 12:30 for a 1:00 shower, but oh well. Games went splendidly. We made babies out of Play-Doh, had a diaper relay race, and decorated onesies. We all stuffed our faces, and everyone lived happily ever after. Now, I will be spending tomorrow staring blankly at the wall. :P

T-2 DAYS and counting!

Caroline's shower is THIS COMING SATURDAY ACK! I took tomorrow off from work to cook, and was able to use being home sick today to get a good bit of stuff done. But, ACK!

Antibiotic SCORE

So the sinus infection either didn't go away, or has come back, or something. Thus, back to Urgent Care I went. They gave me the high-powered stuff this time, which is normally the high copay ($20, oogity boogity, but still).
But, they also gave me a coupon for a pretty good percentage off the antibiotic! So, Mr. Samoa wound up paying $5 for it. Yay coupons!

It's the thought that counts.

So Gina and I were headed back from Keep-a-Bunch today. Merging onto the highway was a sheriff's deputy, sirens and lights going. Thus, the civic-minded souls on the highway concluded they should pull to the side of the road. Which would have been a more touching gesture if they hadn't all cut the deputy off. :P We figured at least they bothered to pull over, a courtesy that is not so common these days.

Oops, no, I didn't

So, the bank card. Mr. Samoa had managed to leave it in the ATM at the Miss Butterhorn festival. Which we did not notice until Sunday, when our water went out and he went to go buy water. :P It was one of those days.

Catching up

Mr. Samoa's bank card is back, safe and sound. As it turned out, some civic-minded soul had put it in his bank's night drop, and he picked it up today, contents of account safe and sound. Off to see if I remembered to blog about it in the first place.

Speaking of work

You know, I never really thought of showing up to work as an optional thing, assuming you wanted to remain employed there. Sure, you can get sick every now and again, but you should at least call and let them know what's going on. Common policy, right?

Weeellll... apparently not if you work alongside me at Shady Acres Group Home. There are a grand total of five of us, out of about 20 staff, who seem to think it is a good idea to reliably and consistently show up for work. The rest call off, don't show up, don't take shifts, etc, etc, etc. So, the five of us are fairly fried and tired out. Don't happen to want a job, do you?

Canes for all!

So Mr. Samoa and I were at the Miss Butterhorn festival (yeah, lots of butterhorns around here) when this lady we didn't know came sprinting up to us. She wanted to know where I had gotten my cane! (I have a new cane. It is lovely and it has lilacs on the shaft.) As it turns out, her mother has spinal issues and the doctors are recommending she use a cane, but she doesn't want to because she doesn't like how they look. Apparently her mom really likes purple, and she was sure one like mine could help. Happily, there is a CVS ( home of kewl canes), and she toddled off to purchase one, content.

I was actually helpful! Yay! I do hope her mom uses it, as if she does she will feel so much better. I wish I could use mine more, but it would be hard to deal with at work. :P

Animal abuse

Of the worst possible kind. Yorkie dressup torture!

I had a resident at the local Miss Butterhorn festival, and we were in line to get French fries. Across the street from us, we saw this guy and his wife. Their poor little Yorkie was wearing:

* A Harley jacket
* A Harley hat
* And he was riding in this thing that looked like a baby backpack, on the guy's back, with all four of his little paws sticking straight out.

All I can say is, that dog must love his Mama and Papa very much, if he has not already torn off their faces in their sleep.

The apocalypse is (again) nigh

Tagalong's babydaddy actually did something useful.

The time is coming for me to make Daisy's yearly scrapbook page, and I had no recent pictures of her. Like, none. I didn't really feel like dealing with Tagalong, so I decided to bite the bullet and see if Babydaddy had any or could facilitate me taking some.

Turns out he had some all right! Like, a whole Picasa site full! Publicly accessible! So, I was able to download the ones I wanted and didn't have to deal with either one of them.

This is not natural. I am perturbed. That was too easy!

I really need to lay off Cake Wrecks

Because it makes me want cake. And I just ate. I need no cake. :P

The full moon cometh

But this time, it isn't the residents, it's the staff. As in, getting them to show up.

My favorite tale o'woe from this weekend was the following. Noob, one of the new hires, was unable to come to work, so he called off the day before he was scheduled to work, like a responsible citizen. So far, so good, right?

Or...y'know, not. The girl who took his call neither documented it properly nor told anyone he had called. She then proceeded not to show up herself the next day, meaning there was no way for anyone to know he had called off. Those folks there found that Noob wasn't coming at 11:00 PM, when he was originally scheduled to be there. >:( Such responsibility! Or not!

Whew!

You may have heard of the terrible train wreck in LA. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/train_collision;_ylt=Ane8GM5HNlx4dYrLxiheZL6s0NUE

This was the cause of some excitement at Casa Zen-Samoa; you see, this is right. where. the Hawaiian Hottie lives. And, the train line goes right past his apartment building. o_o

Fortunately, he popped onto Messenger a few minutes ago. He is fine, but as it turned out he would not have been if he still worked for the Suburbia Snooper, his old job. You see, that was the train he took every day to the Snooper offices. Some of his neighbors in the apartment complex are still unaccounted for. :( So, prayers for them and thanks that HH lives to sizzle another day.

Blog by Oldkeh

Caroline's old kitty, who lives with us, has advised me that she wishes to be known in "the Zen" as Oldkeh. She also says CHURR PURR MEW. Just thought you would all like to know that. :D

T-2 weeks and counting

Until Caroline's shower. I'm beginning to stock up on shower food supplies. Cooking here I come!

Notice the date

Seven years ago today, many sucky things happened. All at once. I trust I need not elaborate further, because we all got pounded with the images 24/7/365, so if you haven't figured it out by this time, you aren't going to.

I was in my first year of grad school at the time, teaching an introductory Spanish class to undergrads that was mainly freshmen. I should have known it was going to be one of those days when I was walking up the hill to my classes and I saw a flock of sheep. The Bugpit U. campus is in the middle of a small city. (As it turned out, the sheep were part of an alcohol-awareness campaign that flopped, but I digress.) I didn't think too much more about it; it was a beautiful, sunny day and I probably had plans for that evening.

My medieval Spanish lit class, from 8-10 AM, passed without incident, though I probably dozed off somewhere in there. Little did I know that people were dying less than a thousand miles away, while I was trying to pretend I was interested in Gonzalo de Berceo. That lack of realization was about to change

Class got out at 10, and I had an hour before I had to teach class. I was noodling around doing some last-minute preparations, when my office mate came in and called her husband. I heard her say something about "blah blah, plane hit the World Trade Center". Now it was a fairly routine occurrence for light aircraft to fly into the side of the building, so I just assumed that this was what had happened. I wasn't sure why she was calling her husband over such a thing, but I thought "hey, maybe it's not routine in Bolivia" and continued about my business.

Then I walked out into the hall, and everyone was crying. Every single person, including the Latino male grad students. The Latino men I have known do not cry. Ever. Even if you pull out their fingernails. I think someone punched the wall. I pretty well figured from that that something was horribly wrong, but I still hadn't connected the phone conversation and the horribly wrong something. So, I headed into the stairwell to go up a floor to teach class. The stairwell was set up such that you could see into classrooms, and every single TV in all the classrooms was showing the same thing. "Why are they all showing a Schwarzenegger movie?" I thought to myself. At that point, light began to dawn, and I was starting to associate the plane and the Very Bad Something. I remember I was running the rest of the way up the stairs.

I got into the classroom, and my supervisor was packing up from teaching the class before mine. My students were all there, watching the TV in frozen horror. "WHAT is going on??!!" I asked her. "You don't know?" she said. "Um, no!" I replied. She pointed at the TV and left, leaving me to explain to twenty-nine frightened teenagers what the hell was going on. :P Needless to say, we did not have class that day, though they all stayed and watched the news. That day was the one time in my life where I have badly wanted to cry and couldn't to save my life. It was that much shock.

We all found out soon enough what happened, of course. Also, what was going to happen, and what wasn't, some of which was almost as bad as what had happened before, but none of it could really compare to that day. I normally love true crime, disaster documentaries, etc. and I still to this day have not seen any of the ones about 9/11. I sure as hell did not go to see United 93. I just can't do it, and to be honest I don't think I ever will be able to. This morning when I was getting one of the residents dressed, someone had put a country station on her radio, and they were playing 9/11 themed country songs, of which there are a lot. I started bawling and had to turn off the radio. I apologized to the resident and explained briefly why I had to do it; she was quite understanding, as she usually is. She's not able to speak, but I think she remembered too.

I'll leave you with the prayer I said an awful lot that day; I think a lot of us did.

Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia; el Señor es
contigo;
bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres,
y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús.
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén.

Skipping the important parts

So there's currently an ongoing debate about skipping children a grade in school on a board I frequent. I put a polite $.02 in and wandered off, because I had the distinct feeling that nothing I said could change anyone's mind in any case. But, that made me think of a piece I wanted to say.

Skipping a grade: Don't do it. Just don't do it, parents. Send 'em to private school, get them in gifted classes, homeschool them, get them tutors, send them off to join the circus, whatever. But don't skip them. My mother gets upset when I say this; I think she takes it as me blaming her for the problems I had later, but that is not so. They were doing the best they could with what information they had at the time. And, now I am informing current and future parents of schoolchildren that it is a bad idea.

It all began when I started school. Kindergarten, the teacher refused to believe I could read, which was a whole other mess. My cousin, who was in high school at the time at the same school, once said of it: "That was when I realized adults didn't always know best. It's a bizarre feeling when you're sixteen years old, and you're arguing with a forty-year-old teacher, and you know you're right!" First grade, they tried to give me "enrichment work". Read: More badly mimeographed worksheets. In ADDITION to still being required to do the regular work. There were not enough hours in the school day for me to get it all done, literally. So, I stopped doing any of it. This was when, at the end of first grade, it was decided that I would skip second grade.
Mother likes to say "You chose it!" Um, not exactly. I was called down to the principal's office one day, and Mom, my LD teacher (yes, you can be gifted and have an LD folks, not explaining further), and the principal were all there. I about coded right there. The LD teacher was the only one who realized this and said "You're not in trouble or anything!" I believe my exact thoughts were "Yeah, right!" (Oh, did I mention I was all of seven?) Then they asked me if I wanted to skip second grade. I would have agreed to cut off my arm if it meant I could get out of there, so I agreed to do it. Not my idea of voluntary. But anyway, that's how it all got started.

Disaster. Oh, I could do the third grade work, no problem. Socially, I don't think I was even on par with my age-mates, never mind kids a year older. And it showed. And we all know the kindness, tolerance, and patience shown by the typical elementary schooler to the different and/or immature. (I'll stop for a minute while you all finish rolling around on the floor laughing.) Meanwhile back at the ranch, other parents were mad that their speshul snowflakes didn't get skipped, so they told their children that I was snotty, stuck-up, etc. Which their children, all predisposed to believe the worst, lapped up. The absolute worst was seventh grade. We'd all left school at the end of sixth and everyone was normal. Then we all came back to junior high (this was when dinosaurs roamed the earth, before "middle schools") and WHOOOOOAAAHHHH all the other girls were into boys, boobs, and Tiger Beat, and I was still stuck back on Barbie. Yeah. Not fun. I think that year was pretty much what cemented my hatred for 99% of the rest of the human race. :P

While we're at it, let's not forget the part where teachers and other people who should have known better took every. single. opportunity to announce that I was a year younger. Did I mention I was a year younger? Because I was a year younger, you know. Remember that I was a year younger! And so on and on and on until I thought my head was going to explode. I had been one of the older kids in my "right" class, so it extra-special sucked. Let's not forget doing drivers ed a year later than everyone else! And still needing permission slips for field trips during fall quarter of freshman year of college! (I turned 18 in December, college started in September.) Oh, and lots and lots of boys want to date girls in HS that they see as a bratty kid! It's quite the turn-on! Or, you know, not. :P Honestly, the best part of grad school was NOT being younger than everyone else for once, having taken two years off in between undergrad and grad.

I did get to "save" one little girl, though. About three or four years after I graduated, a colleague of my mom's was offered the opportunity to skip her daughter. Said child, Abigail, had gone to Montessori kindergarten, and as a result was way ahead, so the school POTB were looking to have her skip first grade. Mom's colleague being a bit more forward-thinking, she decided to research the idea before telling them yea or nay, so she came to me. I told her all of the above, and added that it's not worth having your child be out-of-sync for the rest of their academic career (or life!) just to get them ahead a little. She took my advice to heart, sent Abigail to Montessori first grade and then to private school. Abigail's in high school now, and very normal, in-sync and happy. It does make me feel better to know I was able to help someone else avoid it, if I couldn't.

So, I guess my point is this. Parents, school only lasts 12 years (well, 16 for the college bound, but the point still stands). Your children are going to have to deal with people for at least 80 years. Which is more important, making sure they have the social skills they need to succeed or entering MIT at 16? You be the judge. I'll be at the prom, thanks.

Dog LOLz

So Mr. Samoa was walking the dogs just now. They started to fight while he was walking them along the road, so he bent over to separate them. Just then, a car came along, and the occupants were treated to the sight of Mr. Samoa's backside, and Dog WWF at the end of the leashes. They applauded. :D I don't know, I guess you kind of had to be there, but it was funny.

We found them!

I forgot to mention it, we finally found onesies for the crafts at Caroline's shower. I'm going to have everyone decorate onesies and bibs, using fabric markers. I was looking for somewhere that had them cheaper than Smiley Face Hell, and Target had them for ten cents cheaper. One thing I have noticed throughout this, however, is that parents really get bent over on the cost of stuff. $9.89 for what are basically five teeny pieces of T-shirt material? Oookayyyy!

Oh dear

First, a little background. (Don't all my posts need background?)

Casa Zen-Samoa is next to a particular building. The top half of this building is an apartment, and the bottom half is an area that used to be a pet store. Said pet store closed about six months before we moved in here; we have lived here about fifteen months. So, about two years it's been closed.

The setup is something like this:
...............................................................X
...............................................................X
..............................................Casa Z-S 1 Building
............................................................1
............................................................1


Let the X's represent a fence that goes back past the backyard, and the 1's represent our driveway. While they are pretty close together, it's still reasonably obvious that they're separate.

Unless you're Yokel 1 and Yokel 2. Said Yokels came flying into the parking lot in their redneckmobile at Mach 5 as Mr. Samoa and I were getting into our car, in our driveway. Yokel 1 comes dashing over and hollers "Are you guys open?" It took us a minute to figure out what the hell he was talking about, and then it dawned on us that he somehow had decided that, since we were within 300 feet of the property, we must be the proprietors! Never mind that 1) huh?, 2) there haven't BEEN any proprietors for two years.

Fortunately for them, they got Mr. Samoa and not me, as I don't do stupid terribly well. He said, "Oh, you mean are they open? They haven't been open for a couple years. You might want OtherPetStore, over yonder." So Yokel 1 and 2 proceeded over yonder, happy. But, do they make a habit of assuming that anyone within the vicinity of an establishment owns it? And how do you not notice, in a time period of TWO YEARS, that a business is closed? It's a mystery.

They're baaaack

Bugpit is a university town. The students came back this weekend. In one sense, I'm glad to see them because Bugpit is sleepy when they're not here, but on the other hand, I did not miss:

*Staggering out in front of cars/crossing the street when the light is green/insert other pedestrian follies here

* Size XXL freshmen wearing size S shirts

*Needing to take my cane when I go uptown, not to walk with, but to beat my way through the throngs of people parked in the middle of the sidewalk yapping on their cell phones

I'm sure there will be more.

I knew it!

The 2008-09 Sinus Infection Season has officially kicked off at Casa Zen-Samoa. This month's edition has migrated from my sinuses and gotten into my ears and throat. So I basically have an infected head. Go doxycycline!

Is it November yet?

Because I am soooooo sick of all the talk about politics I could scream. Mercifully, the forums I mostly visit now have dedicated politics folders, but I can't figure out how to ignore a whole folder, so I still get stuck with some of it. :P

Y'see, I do not care about politics. Not one whit. I am one of those cynical souls who believes all politicians are liars anyways, so it doesn't really matter which one we elect. I am for neither of the presidential candidates. Not McCain, because he's more of the same, and not Obama, because... well, I actually think he would make a perfectly good president. For the whole fifteen minutes he would last until some KKK yahoo assassinates him. :P The likelihood of my making it to the polls is slim to none anyways, because for the last three years something work-related has always happened on Election Day to prevent me from getting there, and I expect this year to be no different. So I don't think I'll actually have to pick one. But, the nonstop political talk will persist until November either way. STFUTHXBAI!!!!

Memo to the bread people

"The sell by date is tomorrow" is NOT synonymous with "That bread is no good." Particularly when it's going to a group home where most of it's going in the freezer and what doesn't won't last until tomorrow. I think it was National Dumbass Day or something. :P

I have faced the forces of darkness.

And I have won. I have defeated them and sent them scrambling back to their pits of despair from whence they sprang.

I took Tricia to get new shoes.

Tricia, like a lot of people with disabilities, likes things to remain ExactlyTheSameForever. More reasonably, she prefers to wear shoes that are appropriate to her adult age. Unfortunately, her feet are small and she wears childrens' sizes. :P Do you see where all this is going?

So, we began at Smiley Face Hell. Everything was too narrow to go over her ankle widget. By "everything" I mean "the two pairs in the store that don't look like Tinkerbell threw up all over them." Then, onto Dumbass Jock Sports Store. ("We need this in a 4.5 or 5." [looks] "All we have is a 6." "Um, that's not going to work." "Could she wear a 7?" I wish I was making the above exchange up. ) Oh, and did I mention we only had $30 to work with? So $60 shoes are not going to cut it?

Finally, we went to Chain Store that Changes Its Name Like Monthly (CSTCINLM, or CST for short). We dug and dug and dug through the piles of shoes. (Oh, for the full effect picture an amount of dramatics to make Sarah Bernhardt look like a rank amateur, coming from Tricia.) Finally, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a pair of plain gray sneakers, from the clearance rack. In size 5 wide. More than sufficient to go over the widget. I showed them to Tricia, she pointed at them and said firmly, "Yes." Tried them on her, they slipped over the widget like they were made to do it. Oh, and they were $22! I nearly wept for joy.

On the way out, Tricia said, "I'm happy now!" I said, "So am I, Tricia. So am I." Was I ever!

Happy September

And happy Labor Day. It's been a busy few days.

Yesterday, went to Stacey's recital at her church. Mr. Samoa and I being a Presbyterian and lapsed Orthodox Lutheran (Catholic lite) respectively, we were a bit at sea with the Baptist thing but we had fun. Mr. Samoa hadn't gotten to meet Stacey before, so that was cool.

Today, went to the Renaissance Faire with a resident. We had a good time; she liked the jugglers. But the thing that surprised me- she was afraid of the Renaissance garb at first. She hadn't seen it before! And she's 40! It's really amazing the stuff people miss out on just by being mentally disabled. People think they won't like it and they do. They have a term for it in MRDD theory, it's called "poverty of experience". Basically, they "only like" certain things because no one ever thinks to have them try new ones. All the more reason for everyone to try new things!