Caterwauling

Subtitle: Wish I could say the same about the hot water.

Well, I picked up the Short Bus cat from Paul today. We had a nice visit — and as we had our appendixes out within a week of each other, we could commiserate about how bad the hospital care was. Cripes, we sounded like a coupla old farts, bitching about our health. 🙂

I brought the cat home so that Mikey could pick her up today, but I just left him a message saying that I think I’d like to give it one more try with the girls. If Maddie gets depressed again, Short Bus goes for good. But if they can at least learn to co-exist, then I’d rather keep the kitty with me. I had assumed that, if they didn’t get along, Mikey could just keep Short Bus. But instead, he’s got too much going on (and is fostering three brand-new kittens right now), so Kadi would have to go up for adoption. And I was feelin’ pretty guilty about that, so I’ll give it one more go. Wish me luck! So far, the girls are quiet and just watching each other, so I will take that as a sign of good things to come.

The hot water will be off for another four days, according to my neighbors Bob and Sue. Great. Just frickin peachy. But Bob and Sue also don’t have a/c, which I do have, so their lives are much rougher right now. Damn storm. Paul and Bryan are still waiting for their cable to come back on. I think no cable is the worst problem of the three — I can’t imagine sitting around, convalescing, without a TV to lull you to sleep. 🙂

But as for me, well, I hate to say it, but I am in no hurry to take another frostbite-inducing shower anytime soon, so I am not going to be going out or inviting anyone over in the near future. At least the TV doesn’t care how much I reek. 🙂

OK, so I gave up and took an ice-cold shower this morning. Sweet mother of pain. My nerve endings are electrified.

There’s a new commercial out for Herbal Essences — I think it’s for the body wash. Some chick gets into the shower and her dipshit husband starts yelling that they don’t have hot water, and should he call a plumber? And she screams, “No!” and lathers up in the body wash, and it gets all hot and steamy in there.

All I have to say, kids, is that I want them to shoot that commercial with a shower that ONLY has cold water. There will be shrieking, no question, but it won’t be in pleasure.

Of course, maybe I need to go buy some of that Herbal Essences crap, till my hot water comes back. ‘Cause today’s shower just sucked, not to mention that it smelled like a community center pool, with all the damn chlorine the water treatment plants must have dumped into the H2O supply. Ick.

Oh, and the coffee pot won’t work. How am I supposed to bring my body temperature back up to normal without coffee?!?!

I have no hot water. I’ve barely had cold water all day, but now that’s on and I can’t get any fucking hot water. Jesus H Christ on a Fucking Pogo Stick. How is one supposed to bathe in ice-cold water? I can’t handle this.

Minus losing power for several hours last night, I’m a happy girl. My a/c is working, it’s sunny and gorgeous outside, and the storm is over.

There are more tree limbs on the ground than up in the sky, but the grounds look much better now that the trees had a Mother Nature’s manicure. There was a lot of damage in Old Town (down the street) but things are peaceful around here. I understand Fairfax County (where I used to live) will be without power for up to four days.

Shawn and Scott are speeding up to Pittsburgh as I write this. The three of us were supposed to go to a Pirates game tonight in the new stadium, but as my health is still pretty crappy, I bailed out. They’re going to go visit my mom and get my microwave oven for me, and all she has to do is provide Shawn with plenty of her special-recipe banana bread for making the voyage. I also put in a quick request for her famous orange cookies and chocolate-chip cookies, so she’s gonna be busy cookin’ up a storm for her kids today. 🙂

I’m sad to not be on the trip, but I know I would never have been able to sit upright for the entire four-hour-plus drive. At any rate, wish our boys a safe adventure, and send lots of love to everyone without power and gas during the next few days. 🙂

Things are going swimmingly here in Alexandria, Va., during the early hours of Hurricane Isabel’s rag upon the East Coast, minus the 1.2 million without power in Virginia.

Meryl gives us tips on how to tell when you’re in a hurricane. Junk food and popcorn on the grill. Good times, I tell ya.

Dave called earlier to say that he’s lost half the power at his apartment. Unfortunately, that’s down the street, so I’m hoping his power gets restored quickly and that the rest of this city stays happily hooked up. I’ll be taping “Survivor” for him — sounds like a good time to catch up on blog-reading, or (gasp!) read a book. 🙂 Update: Read 70 pages of “Good in Bed.” Not bad for an hour and a half!!! 🙂

The federal government was closed today. I heard D.C. government is closed again tomorrow, which is great news (assuming the federal government follows), even though it’s not like there was a snowball’s chance in hell that I would be returning to work anytime soon. 🙂 But it would be great for me to put the publication of the paper on hold for a week, and this is just the excuse I’d need (seeing as though near-death doesn’t qualify for a deadline extension). Update: the feds are closed! Party on, Wayne!

It’s been raining steadily here for hours. A lot of branches have snapped off the trees in my apartment complex. There is one massive branch right in front of my car, but it doesn’t seem to have hit it. *whew* Then again, the worst is yet to come, but let me tell you, if there weren’t two flights of steps leading into my apartment, I’d bring my car in here. 🙂

I got a new oven today. w00t! The old one was emitting fumes and had all the wrong knobs on it (i.e., you couldn’t turn the fucking thing on because the knobs didn’t fit and they came off in your hands). This one is the same ugly almond color as the other one (damn these apartment complexes and their bland almond fixtures, floors, walls and tiles!), but at least it’s brand-new. I SO need my apartment to be “Queer Eyed” because it’s so damn boring to look at right now. 🙂

Anyway, that’s news for now from the Axis of Isabel. I’m sure I’ll blog more, assuming the power doesn’t cut out! 🙂 Stay dry, kids. And try not to blow away!

Rejected title: Three to six inches coming tonight. And it’s only rain.

Well, looks as though armageddon is drawing near. Signs are posted throughout my apartment complex for us to clear off our decks and balconies, and we’ve been urged to remove any satellite television systems, if applicable.

I only felt the effects of one hurricane before — Floyd — back in 1999. It rained like a mofo and my entire wall-o-kitchen-windows blew in. I came in the house absolutely soaked (umbrellas were worthless in those winds), and I was terrified because I couldn’t find Maddie for three hours. I worried that she had jumped out the hole in my kitchen wall, but she had smartly blended herself into a hamper in my closet until the storm had passed.

At any rate, I have a wall of windows in my living/dining area now, but I’m more worried that I parked my car under a tree. I’m supposed to see Bryan today to get the Short Bus cat back for a day or two, but maybe I can wiggle out of it. 😉 Or maybe I can let her out in the hurricane. Heh. That might be fun. 😉

Shawn and I took an adventure voyage to Wallyworld last night to stock up on necessities. I couldn’t find a flashlight to save my life (Bryan said not to burn candles, in case of a gas leak), but I saw some in the toy aisle that were shaped like lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) and appropriately roared or squeaked or oinked or mooed. I loved them, but Shawn wouldn’t let me get one without the promise of humiliating me for it. 😉

We stopped by the new Macaroni Grill at Kingstowne for dinner. Oh. My. God. Yum. I had Pork Chops Emilia, and I’m not a pork chops fan, but I could have ridden those straight up the Beltway, they were so good. We tried a wine sampler, which blended very well with my Percocet. 🙂 The tiramisu sucked, as it was caked in a cocoa powder fiesta that made me sneeze, but all in all, it was lovely to go out for dinner and not munch at the fridge door on whatever’s handy.

It’s windy as all hell here this morning. Shawn graciously brought my grill and balcony furniture inside last night, so I don’t have to worry about it blowing away. I’m expecting three to six inches tonight … and it’s only rain. *damn*

Just wanted to thank everyone for making the blog into a giant get-well card for me! It’s meant a lot to me that everyone has been pulling for me. As I always say, my friends are the best!

Also want to send a shout-out to Bill for tweaking the template and making it more user-friendly. (It used to look horrible on Windows — I wouldn’t know, ’cause even though I have a piece of shit Mac, it’s still a glorious Mac.) Now if we could just figure out a way to make ME more user-friendly, but that’ll never happen. 😉

Today is Dave’s birthday. Happy Birthday, old chum! Go wish him a good day, even though it’s almost over. 🙂

I’ve been doing a little bit of work from home today. It sucks. I’m constantly interrupted by my operation-induced narcolepsy, which strikes randomly. I got an e-mail from my boss that disturbed me — something about that I should be keeping track of my working hours so that they’re not counted against my sick leave. It’s not that she upset me — just workplaces in general, how you have to deal with stupid semantics like sick leave when you’ve just survived what could have been a fatal illness. Who gives a shit? I mean, really — does it matter that much?

Bleah. At any rate, I made a quick run to Safeway to stock up on chips, cookies, ice cream and water for Hurricane Isabel. But what if we lose power and my ice cream should melt? Better to eat it now and not lose it. 🙂 It’s amazing how much EFFORT it takes to run to the fucking grocery store when you’re recovering from an operation — I had no idea how many muscles it takes to keep from killing annoying customers. Now I’m hurtin’. Percocet, anyone? 😉

Fucking foreigners.

I don’t care if this is the melting pot of the world — when I can’t successfully order a pizza because the dumbass on the end of the phone can’t understand what the hell I want, I get pissed. And I am pretty fucking articulate and patient — it’s not like I myself am speaking past a lump of shit in my esophagus.

I just hung up on the guy — I told him it was too much goddamned work to spend my money at his establishment. And I’m still hungry. Grrr.

The ghetto ice cream van is in the ‘hood.

There’s this crazy person who drives a tan SUV and sounds a fire alarm, driving through my apartment complex, selling sweet treats out of his or her trunk to the neighborhood immigrant children. Oh, the humanity.

The fire alarm scares the living shit out of me every time it sounds. I’m not sure how ice cream and alarms came to be associated with each other — whatever happened to the nice, clean Good Humor truck and the “Goodybar Man” who drove it?

Oh well. At least it stopped the children temporarily from beating on our cars. I yelled at the whole lot of them today — I’m sure they’re wondering, “And who the hell are you, crazy lady with the bedhead and the Garfield pajamas?”

Exciting day (if only in comparison to the last week of nothingness). I took a Wal-Mart odyssey this morning, stopping by Starbucks for the world’s worst caramel macchiato and then by Popeye’s for the nation’s best chicken strips.

That was enough of a day for me. I did not miss driving among Northern Virginia’s most psychotic morons, yet they gladly came out to remind me that they’re stll here. 🙂

I talked with Mikey today about giving the Short Bus cat back. I will probably cry when I am done typing this, but I think I made the right decision to put her up for adoption. If she were human, she’d be the child setting your bed on fire and stealing all your money. 🙂 Paul and Bryan are keeping her for a couple more days, but she’s done nothing but rip the shit out of their house, their cats, their belongings and their bodies. Obviously, she’d be doing the same here, and they are such good friends that they’d rather her terrorize them than me in my weakened state.

Mikey said he will come around Friday night to take the cat back. I feel a lump in my throat — I really do love the little rascal. She’s so friggin’ cute (although, we’ve established, not real bright), and all she wants is love. But she kept attacking and harassing Maddie, who’s never been around another cat before in her life, and Maddie walked around with her fur standing on end during Short Bus’s stay here. I can always hope that those two can eventually get along, but I haven’t been that good of a mommy to Maddie lately, and I know I can’t keep up with two kids. Maddie is at least pretty low-maintenance — give her food and peace, and she’s a happy cat.

I don’t know. I think I’m trying to talk myself into this. Short Bus will go up for adoption on Saturday. I just hope she finds a good home where everyone is loving and energetic and forgiving. She will be a great cat — it’s just hard to get through the feline equivalent of the “terrible twos” until that good cat is finally ready to show itself.

Everyone around here is preparing for Hurricane Isabel. I guess I should go buy some provisions, but I can barely lift myself up my steps, let alone bottled water and groceries.

I took Maddie outside on a harness and leash so she could get some fresh air on the balcony. She hates me. Howled the whole fucking time. I was on the phone with my Mom, and even she could hear her screaming. I swear — every time I go outside, the cat follows me, so I figured I’d do one better and let her come out with me. She promptly parked her pudgy ass on the floor and made me drag her outside. And despite herself, Maddie did sneak in a few moments of enjoying the sunshine — I can tell.

One of my neighbors across the street yelled over to ask if I’d been in the hospital — she saw me walking the past two days, and she figured I’d had an operation. I confirmed that and thanked her for asking. It’s nice when people notice what’s happening in your world. Maybe I won’t die a “Bridget Jones” death and be left alone to be eaten by wolves — maybe someone will notice I’m gone before that happens. 🙂