I need a week off.

I don’t really take vacations. I visit Eddie in Lansing for a weekend or two a year. I have Convergence in July but as fun as that is I wouldn’t call it a completely relaxing experience. The shore isn’t as relaxing and stress free as it was when I was younger. I need one of those don’t go anywhere and putter around the house kind of vacations. Me, the cats, awful TV and no where to be. I have hit my stress limit. Everything is stressing me out and I think a week of sleeping in might just help.


I don’t get that much vacation time and it is tied to my sick time. I can’t afford to take a week off but my tax returns might be just what I need to take the time. I am also moving in March and neeeeed to get my apartment together. I have to decide what I can live without for short-term, long-term and what will go away forever. Taking a week to sort things on my terms will also reduce stress.

Just talked to the boss… It’s just a matter of getting my shifts covered.

Frodo part 1

Frodo
Frodo came to the school this week from a rescue group we don’t normally use. He was the only animal we received from them. When the lady dropped him off she gave off that “crazy cat lady” vibe. All the other rescue people I have dealt with so far as the Animal Care supervisor seem to be really in tune with the animals they bring in and have an understanding as to what our mission is, even when it is the foster homes bringing in the animals I feel confident about the animals in their care. Not with this lady. I brushed it off, I have been having a rough time of getting enough sleep and it was on Monday morning. I watched her put the cat in the kennel with his “favorite towel”, fill out the forms, tell me about the meds he was on, she showed me that he had un-distended testicle (that she marked with a red pen) , went over the feeding protocol and sent her on her way. Frodo crawled into the corner under the perch and stayed there, this is not uncommon, a new place that smells funny, 5 other cats in cages around you, 1-5 barking dogs on the other side of the door and strange people walking through the room a million times a day.

The history I got from the lady about Frodo is that he was a rescue and they thought he was neutered but he was spraying like an un-neutered cat so they put him on an anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety medication and they had had him for about a year and he wasn’t adoptable until the spraying was under control and they will take him off the meds as soon as the un-distended testicle was removed. That made some sense at the time.

The Vet and I did his intake physical his temp was normal and he didn’t struggle at all. He seemed to just move really slow and his muscles were really tense. She made note of the movement and she put is body condition score at 4 out of 10. We went on to the other 6 animals we had to do. Tuesday after my class the vet and I were doing intake on 2 new animals that had come in and we checked on good ol’ Frodo he hadn’t eaten anything and he was in the same place I put him after his kennel had been cleaned. I picked him up and we put him on the table and he was still as a statue. I picked him up by his scruff and placed him down on the table with his back feet and like he was in slow motion he curled himself down to put his front feet down. The Vet figured out that he was over medicated and there was no way we could neuter him in that condition, there no way to maintain vitals on him under anesthesia. So the priority shifted from getting him ready for surgery to making him feel better. The Vet went to the office to call the rescue to find out if this was from the stress of being in a new place or was he just as sluggish at home. At the time I had left on Tuesday the rescue lady hadn’t called back.

Epitome grace and style

Saturday was a very interesting day.

Rob and I went to the Ren Fest. I love the fest. We hadn’t gone last year so I was really looking forward to going. We had a great time. We saw my two favorite acts the Tortuga Twins and the Danger Committee (formerly the Dew Drop Jugglers). I will not leave until I see them. :) and it was fantastic, very crude just the way it should be. We also ran in to my buddy Jess from school so that was neat. Drew had the nerve to do something else this weekend so we didn’t get to spend time with him at the fencing booth, boohoo.

At 8pm after we got home I decided that I should take a bath and start reading one of the many books I haven’t time for because of school. At 8:30 I really wanted something to drink so I grabbed a towel and went down stairs to grab a soda, when I hit the landing at the bottom I slipped when I stepped on the linoleum with wet feet. I screamed as I folded my foot in half tearing the tendons across the top of my foot , jamming my toe causing serious bone on bone contact, and sliding my arm on the floor causing a nice linoleum burn. In other words "HOLY FUCK THAT HURTS!!!". When I couldn’t move my foot without excruciating pain we made trip to the ER to make sure I hadn't broken anything. Nothing was broken but I have done serious injury to myself. I was in so much pain I was nauseous, the problem with that is the more pain I am in the more punchy I get, I crack jokes and make off hand comments and that leaves the medical staff believing I am in less pain then I am. I should know better than that by now and I should have asked for pain meds but I didn’t. 800mg of Ibuprofen every 4 hours only goes so far. And to add to my suffering I also manage to bang up my knee (the one that had ACL surgery) during the fall but that pain was WAY down on my list at the time. Therefore I have to wear my knee brace along with wrapping my foot and walking with crutches.

That is me.. always graceful

and so it goes

I have piles of homework, powerpoint to put together, I have the house to myself and I can't seem to put the laptop down.

This hasn't been the hardest quarter I have had but I am finding it so hard to get things done. I am sure it has something to do with having to take classses about animals I do not care about. I really have no interest in horses and production animal. I have to do a power point on Jousting. YUCK and I really don't care.

I also managed to pull/tear a tendon in my foot and that alone has put me in a crappy mood!

Fired

I have quit many jobs, I have moved away from jobs, I have been harassed out of jobs and I have even been layed off… but I had never been fired… until today. The kicker is I LOVED that job. This is the first job in my lifetime that I actully question my abilities but I was so eager to learn and be good at it. I guess I wasn’t. I had my 90 days and they told me that I wasn’t up to par so they were taking the option to not keep me on. THAT SUCKS!!!! I called my mom, dad and rob and cried to them as I was driving home. Then mom talked me into going in to school and talk to my teachers (most of whom had worked at one point at this clinic) and they reasured me that my lack of success at being an assistant should not make me rethink my abilities about being a Vet Tech, and in fact one of my favorite techs from the clinic just left to become a teacher at the school and gave me a hug and told me in the long run this is a good thing. That made me feel better and then I found my girls and they all gave me hugs and told me to go get drunk, I love my girls!!!

So here is the plan, I am going to eat guacamole, drink margarits, eat chocolate cheesecake and take the next week off!

Cheers!