MFA Mama

thanks

   I'm feeling a bit better, no longer wheezing, and no longer on enough prednisone to make Mr. Ed want to kick Wilbur's STUPIDFUCKINGFACE in, and despite life's assorted woes and worries (most notably my ex-husband's current stated intent to take me to custody court over my requests that he abide by the terms of our custody order, cease his verbal abuse of me, and also STOP PEEING IN MY YARD, all of which he finds unreasonable on my part*) I've even found it in my black little heart to be thankful. We're all together, we're all either healthy or on the mend, we had an amazing locally-sourced, organic, humanely-farmed and gluten-free feast, and Thanksgiving and Hannukah aren't likely to fall on the same day again during my lifetime (because adults in tryptophan comas and children wired on pie and gelt is...an interesting combination). We've got it pretty good, all things considered, and I decided to poll everyone about what they are thankful for this year.

MFA Mama: Is very thankful that she left the unhappiness of her first marriage behind and made a better life for herself and the MFA Children with a mostly-wonderful man who deserves to have a head at least 95% of the time :)

Hotter: Is thankful that he finally got his eye fixed, and that his wife still loves him, and that I found my current amazing job at The Ritz "to support my bum ass!"

Big Child: Is thankful that he has a house, and a family that is able and willing to provide him with food, shelter, and video games (heh).

Middle Child: Is thankful to have his family's love (awwww TODAY HE IS MY FAVORITE).

Little Child: Is thankful for his laptop (oy).

Isis: Is thankful we only got ONE kitten, and for turkey necks.

Bumpus: Is thankful for Big Child, and that we moved his tether away from Bravo Hive (whoops).

Skeeter: Is not thankful for a goddamn thing, WILL KILL YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP (at least he's cute).

MFA Birdie: Is thankful for honey seed sticks, and also that we only got ONE kitten.

Clementine: Is thankful for heat lamps and crickets, and maybe also for carrots and berries.

The MFA Flock: Are thankful I hate butchering chickens enough that they still have heads despite a less-than-stellar laying performance of late (although they did pick back up again).

The MFA Rabbits: Are thankful not to be headed to "freezer camp" at the moment.

The MFA Honeybees: Are thankful it's too cold for hive incursions.

   How about you and yours? What are you thankful for this year?

 

 

*   God, yes, really. I just...I can't even laugh at it anymore because it's just sad that he's clearly not doing so great lately in the mental health department. I've offered to arrange and pay for third-party mediation in hopes that hearing a human being who is not me say that court orders are non-negotiable and functional adults don't PEE IN PEOPLE'S YARDS might help him see that he's going down a bad road with this, restricted our contact to e-mail by blocking him from calling or texting me or Hotter, and eaten my feelings on the matter, and that is all I can really do.

today

   I worked many hours and came out on top (there's this register-system feature by which you can figure out what percentage of the day's revenue you personally brought in/got tipped on and mine today was over 1/3, which considering that there were four servers on means I made out like a fat rat).

   One of the hens laid an egg!

   Hotter and I cooked dinner together, which is always good. We made meatloaf (mostly him), mashed potatoes with butter, parmesan, and scallions (mostly me), and asparagus in lemon/butter sauce (joint effort). It was delicious!

   My back is hurting like hell, but all in all when there are bald little kitties and smelly pitbulls and small boys to snuggle, and money to be made, and delicious foods to be eaten, it's hard to let pain get you down, even nerve pain (which is saying something about how great the rest of my life is today!).

   How are all of YOU?

the state of various things

*   Work: some extremely minor bullshit, and people (as a whole) continue to suck on an "irritating for ten minutes" level, but all in all I enjoy it. Lately I've been trying to pick up one shift per week in another department (there are two outside of my own where I've been permitted to moonlight) because we have been hemorrhaging money (car insurance! Kitten! Hotter's eyes! My mouthguard!). 

*   Animals: I think both female rabbits have recently done that "get pregnant but re-absorb the fetuses" thing that some animals can do, which: GROSS. The chickens are still not laying (BOO!). The dog continues to adoptively breastfeed the cat, which continues to amuse the resident bipeds. The bird and the lizard continue to mind their own fucking business (they are my favorites).

*   My body is a wonderland: Yeahhhh I have definitely reinjured my back. Hello disc pain, you whore. My knee went out again last week as well, and today I got my clog stuck in the door of a service elevator and tripped in such a way as to twist the be-bunioned part of my foot rather sickeningly. I AM OLD AND IT SUCKS. 

*   Children: All the under-eighteens succeeding at school, devastatingly handsome, and all-around good kids (if all-around good kid means "prone to occasionally leaving the gate open so that the dog can ingest enough clumping litter to crap a cinderblock foundation"). The over-eighteen stepkid is getting out of prison sometime in the next few weeks (we think?), and I anticipate him getting shot, ODing, and/or crashing my MIL's car (AGAIN) within a week. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! MERRRRRY CHRISTMAS! Ho, ho, ho.

*   Hotter: Much less prone to fits of dickheadedness of late than he was for a while there! I think part of this is due to our having the money for creature comforts like good coffee, part of it is due to his looking forward to the impending cataract surgery and improved vision, and part of it is due to my working so much that he's just happy to see me when he gets the chance. Also, that one issue that had been festering for years is fully resolved and he did, in fact, stop beating the dead horse. Phew.

*   MFA Mama: Feeling kind of tired and bewildered in general. Sick of being in constant pain. Both grateful for where we  are right now financially and terrified that something will come along and eff it up. Really bummed my back won't permit me to start a winter garden this year. And damn-near homicidal over the mouthguard--I found a shard of mutilated plastic that looks like it may potentially have at one point been a $500 custom nightguard and ALL of the animals (except the bird and the lizard) are on my shitlist.

   How are all of YOU?

items, comma, assorted

*   Work is going MUCH better. The Offender, in addition to being, well, offensive in a scary, predatory, show-HR-on-the-doll-where-he-touched-you kind of way, sucked at his job and was lazy and surly to boot. Without his former position being filled there is more work, but things still seem to go a lot more smoothly and morale is higher. Also, I had rather lost my faith in the goodness of The Ritz as a company based on their seeming failure to handle the situation for a bit there, but it turns out that was a lack of Middle Management passing things up the chain and not indifference on the part of the company itself. Following their swift and effective handling of The Situation after I took it up the chain my own self last week I am back to loving the hell out of not just my job and paychecks but also the company itself. MFA Mama + The Ritz = TRUE <3

*   Speaking of pink puffy hearts, the kitten has settled in nicely. By which I mean he does as he damnwellpleases and has made excellent progress in training his human subjects. His new routine is to spend the hours between the children getting home from school and their bedtime napping in my closet (I kind of envy him that sometimes, haha), then emerge and alternate between pettings from Hotter and me and crazed ricocheting through the house. Before bed we've fallen into a nightly ritual wherein he perches on my shoulder while I fill a glass with water and take my pills, then dump it out and refill it for him to have a "fresh" drink out of. 

*   Mint.com amused me greatly this morning by sending me a LOW CHECKING BALANCE ALERT OMG e-mail. Said low balance? Was over $200. Oh, Mint.com, how soon you forget just HOW DAMN POOR we were a few short months ago! Things are currently a little tight (by the new standards) due to back-to-back kitten purchase and six months' car insurance paying, but we have milk and bread and coffee and enough gas for me to get to and from work, so no one is really complaining. Except Mint.com.

*   Our hens are moulting in spectacular fashion (THEY HAVE BALD PATCHES!) and haven't laid in a couple of weeks, and I am starting to think that Their Time Has Come. I am admittedly a bit loathe to Do The Deed because a) I hate butchering chickens, they smell AWFUL and b) I've grown rather fond of these four sassy old hens. The jury is still out on whether I have gone soft...probably whether Isis runs out of meat before I get paid next will have a large part in determining the hens' fate.

*   Life continues to be full of the small daily aggravations, like the nail in the (NEW--couldn't be in one of the two OLD ones, ohHO no!) tire in the spot that can't be plugged (it's currently holding steady but does in fact go all the way through, as I learned when I gave it a tentative tug and heard the hiss of air escaping), and the hair (mine) that needs cutting (when it's long enough to be in my arse-crack after a shower I consider it TOO LONG), but they are aggravations and not Last Straws. I think my back and my knee are almost ready for me to return to the gym. So all in all things here are pretty good. How are all of YOU?

sphynxlike

*   Someone actually reached out to me on the Twitter to ask if my blog had gone away since I haven't written in DAYS. Haha, nope, still here. HI, PONDLADY :) I'm just very affected by things I cannot blog about (boring-to-you worky things, nothing fascinating) and things that suck and would make me sound repetitive (MYKNEEMYKNEEMYKNEEMYKNEE).

*   Oh, but here's a good thing: a couple of days ago Hotter and I took a beautiful drive and met a bunch of hairless cats! I sniffed this guy:

Figure One: KITTEH!

   I also met, and sniffed, his sister and their mama and their cousin and her sister and some other extended family members, all of whom were VERY friendly and sweet. At one point I was COVERED in cats! And didn't sneeze or sniffle once! Then the little guy took my nose between his two paws and licked it and I whipped out my checkbook so fast I nearly sprained my wrist! He doesn't have a name yet (we're currently fond of either Ramses or Skeeter), but he comes home mid-October. 

*   Other than that, things here are comfortable and good. We're giving the house an enema in preparation for The Kittening (no clutter! No piles! Nothing that could injure a little bald kitty or make him think it's a litterbox!). The deposit for the kitten cleaned out the bank account temporarily so we're coasting on cash tips and pantry-sweepings for a few days, which I now find amusingly nostalgic (given that the cash tips put gas in the tank and we swept a bunch of frozen steaks out of the "pantry" for dinner tonight). Little Child has a new bedspread to go with his newish bed that is "Minecraft-inspired" (by way of eBay and someone very, very crafty) and I have a new purse made by the same crafter (it looks like an owlface, I love it). The hens have stopped laying and appear to be molting and I think Iden The Killer Rabbit might be experiencing a false pregnancy and the bees started trying to propolis the entryway of Alpha Hive shut so I turned the entrance reducer to the smaller hole. How are all of YOU?

bullets because steroids make my ADD worse than usual

*   Bad Ear took a turn for the worse this morning, and was hurting like a bloody bastard. Since Anthem will only cover up to five Zithromax pills at a time (after which it will require you to get the rest as a refill and pay a second co-payment) (I'm not mad about that, just explaining it to y'all--this is still SO MUCH BETTER than paying out of pocket), and I was due to pick up the second lot today, I decided to talk to the doctor on call and make sure that was the thing to do (I thought maybe this meant the antibiotic wasn't working and would need to be changed, and didn't want to pick up another batch only to end up not using it). The doctor on call was very nice, and said no no, Zithromax should kill whatever was in my ear, but if I was still having pain and taking the antibiotic and decongestant as instructed then it was time to add in a steroid for the inflammation as well. Stupid Bad Ear!

*   Work today was lovely as usual. Everyone there is just SO very nice. Well, except for one person, who wasn't there today. I worked alone with that person on Wednesday right before my days off, and everyone I worked with today was eager to know how it went. I said pretty well, a little confusion at first but management sorted that right out (with extreme prejudice I might add), so no big deal. By confusion I mean they tried to do something unfair and underhanded, and I threw them under the bus without hesitation because if you screw with my money that is what I will do, but I was trying to be nice so I went with "confusion." No one was surprised, and told me that said person was A Bastard. I guess that is good to know. But even The Bastard at this place is at least pretty decent to your face and doesn't threaten anyone or go on angry tirades, so if The Bastard is the worst I have to deal with there all is still roses as far as I am concerned. Because even The Bastard at my new job is nicer than the nicest person at The Hotel California.

*   I spent an hour on the elliptical trainer working off the initial high-dose steroids, and exhausted myself. No yoga today; I missed that due to my work schedule. I do hope I'm not sore tomorrow, but it felt necessary. 

*   OH! I couldn't eat it because probably gluten, but HR sent me a candygram at work today! How nice was that? The wrapping paper said "Welcome to the family!" Aww.

*   Our female animals are broken. Pfeffer kindled a couple of days ago and had...three kits. One of which was stillborn. So another litter of two. And the same day one of the chickens laid an egg with no shell. It had a membrane (that fiddly rubbery-thing that you find under the shell when you peel a hardboiled egg), and so I brought it up to the house to gross the boys out with (they actually thought it was pretty cool, although Hotter screamed like a girl when I put it in his hand). WTH, animals? I blame the heat.

Monday miscellany [ETA] [ETA again)

*   From what I could tell, the second interview this morning went well. They're going to run a criminal background check and talk to my references, and make a decision hopefully by the end of this week. A friend has shared that in her experience this usually means the job is yours unless you are a felon, and since I am not a felon I am cautiously optimistic.

*   I have not made a final decision re: Pristiq vs. Effexor yet. My online research has revealed that Pristiq has the same active ingredient as Effexor, but Effexor contains some other additional "stuff" (possibly inert ingredients?) that seems to heighten the incidence of side effects. Hotter spoke to his mother yesterday and apparently asked her to help us out with this, which I have...let's go with "mixed feelings"...about since I don't know that she can afford to do that. Either way I really don't want to pay as much out of pocket as Pristiq costs, particularly when we need that money so badly for other bills. I have reached out to Anthem to see what my options are for short-term individual coverage in the meantime; if their website is to be believed that may cost about the same as a one-month supply of Pristiq would out of pocket, in which case obviously acquiring health insurance would be the way to go with this and also take care of most of the cost of the prescription. If not then I'm back to making a tough call. Feel free to weigh on on Pristiq vs. Effexor in the interim if you have any experience with either drug and/or switching between the two.

*   Thank you for your kind words, both here and on the facespace/via e-mail, about The Narcissist's passing, and I'm sorry to hear that so many of you also have a narcissist in your family tree. 

*   As part of my duties for Temp Agency #2, I recently helped a client make restaurant reservations and came across this place's website in the process. The image of the roasted bird (it looks kind of small for a chicken; I'm thinking that if they're serving it this way it's most likely a Cornish game hen) on the front page has been haunting me ever since. WHY ARE THE FEET STILL ATTACHED? I don't see how this sight on their plate would enhance anyone's dining experience, and more importantly THEY SCRATCH IN POO WITH THOSE THINGS. Gahhh!

*   I am now within five pounds of my goal weight, which is exciting. I woke up yesterday to find my scale broken (nobody will fess up, naturally) and was seriously bummed as I am looking forward to seeing confirmation of having finally reached my goal, but it still works for weight, just not bodyfat and water percentages. That's fine with me; I don't use the other functions much anyway (I kind of doubt they're very accurate).

*   How are all of YOU? I am super-busy working for Temp Agency #2 as much as I am able to in an effort to keep us afloat over here. I hope your Monday is going well.

ETA: Oh my gentle Jesus, y'all. If you think that I am a big lying scammer who lies on the innernet and scams people for bad fun and profit, please do us both a favor and do not e-mail me offering to help me in any way. Just...yeah. Please don't do that. I now have someone who I thought was a friend accusing me of of either being the unluckiest person alive or having a "huge imagination," based largely on their assertion that pre-existing condition rules have changed and there is no longer a 60-day rule. I was basing my knowledge of pre-existing condition rules in the health insurance industry on information I got from Anthem the last time I shopped for individual coverage with them during The Great Health Insurance Clusterfuck of '11, referenced here and in numerous other posts from the same time period. Apparently (maybe? I don't know but I have already e-mailed Anthem to ask for some quotes and will definitely ask whoever I speak with when someone gets back to me on that) that rule is no longer in effect. I don't know. I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, so please don't base any health insurance decisions of your own on anything I've said on here or decide based on my ignorance of health insurance laws that I'm full of it. Or go ahead, if that's your thing, hell, I don't even know what to say. Also, please don't base your understanding of how Pristiq works on what I have shared here. I'm aware it's not supposed to even start to wear off within one day. I've said as much. Pristiq (apparently, according to one of the several scathing e-mails I have received over the past twenty-four hours from the same party) is not a treatment for OCD. I have never been diagnosed with OCD, which is why I used the phrase "OCD tendencies." My treating physician has theorized that they may be a way that I manifest anxiety, and Pristiq does treat that, so maybe that is why it works for me? I don't know. Your mileage may vary. This message may self-destruct.

ETA (again): Well okay nevermind, I think the person I mentioned above is just afflicted with their very own dose of The Crazy. Because now they're going off on me for things like my non-belief in a higher power, which...I don't even know what to do with that. Oh, and also claiming that the standardized tests in my state have not been graded and there is no such award as the one I mentioned Big Child receiving. Which good grief, I didn't mention the name of the award because I AM PSEUDONYMOUS, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, and yes, actually those tests HAVE been graded (and I sent them a link to an article about the preliminary results). I'm not going to waste any more time that would better be spent working for Temp Agency #2 on this nut-job, and have set gmail to direct any further craziness from them straight to the trash without even showing it to me. Carry on.

blahhhh

   I am still sick, and so is Hotter. This virus (I am fairly certain it IS a virus at least) does not fuck around! I still have no voice to speak of and my back is killing me...originally I thought I threw it out coughing (and it DOES hurt like hell to cough) but Hotter says his aches really badly too, so maybe this is an achy-virus? I'm hoping that with the boys being with my ex for the weekend they will have missed out on the incubation period, since Big Child doesn't need to be coughing with a broken collarbone!

   On top of the sick we are the broke. It's not panic-level broke, in that Hotter has his prescriptions and I have gas in the car to get to and from work until payday, but it is "less than ten bucks in the bank, when we run out of milk we're just going to be out for a bit"-level broke, which is no fun. We have enough pantry to eat. It'll pass (although my next payday will be very sad with my having missed three days of work due to Big Child's injury and my illness and I only have another three weeks to get health insurance before I will have gone 60 days without and invoked the pre-existing conditions clause of doom that would make insurance pointless, so we're going to stay broke for a bit). It still sucks though.

   Mentally at least I am not doing too badly. I think PMS Buddy failed me, or else all the weight loss and/or sickness has thrown my hormones off, because that whatever-it-was ten days ago was NOT normal and it did pass after a couple of days. I did gain a bunch of weight when it happened, which would support the hormone theory, but could also point toward it having been gluten-related. 

   What else? The bees are doing well, and I am pretty confident in saying that splitting the hive hasn't harmed Alpha Hive one bit. I think they were getting ready to swarm if I hadn't intervened, and I would hate to lose my marked and over-wintered 2012 queen. Bravo Hive is doing well too, with plenty of activity. I haven't really felt up to making any hive incursions this weekend, so I'm letting them be for now. The hens are laying well, although someone (I think "Blacktop") has taken to laying wee mini eggs. This can be age-related, and my girls are in their third year of laying for us, so they're probably perimenopausal. As long as we're getting at least two eggs a day from four birds I'm okay with letting them coast a bit. Any less than that and they'd not be earning their feed (the chickens forage some and eat our leftovers, so feed for them isn't much of an expense). The rabbits, SPEAKING OF NOT EARNING THEIR FEED, are being pains in the arse. Iden is tied up with the "twins," and Pfeffer proved not to be pregnant last month after all and duly spent a day with Haas last week. Since she hasn't had kit-bearing to keep her busy she has focused her efforts on digging all of her bedding into a heap and getting so fat that her brisket laps over her tucked forepaws in the "loaf" position. Haas is full of beans; Hotter calls Haas his "dog" and pets him and carries on, and I have a feeling that if the old boy ever starts shooting blanks I'll have a hell of a time convincing Hotter he's not still earning his keep around here.

   And finally, Isis remains utterly worthless except as comic relief. In that area, however, she excels. Here is a picture from this morning:

Figure One: From foreground to background, here we have 1) MFA Mama, as portrayed by her right boob, 2) a thoroughly worthless dog, 3) said thoroughly worthless dog's outstretched legs,4) my husband, clinging to the edge of the bed, with the claw-ends of said thoroughly worthless dog's outstretched legs over his heart. I may have forgiven him, but Isis seems to be holding a grudge--she definitely senses when things aren't right with us and abuses Hotter accordingly, and I find it kind of hilarious.

 

back

   Okay, so here is the deal now that I am done freaking out about it/going on hiatus.

   I no longer work for the erstwhile Job #1. It's absolutely fucking outrageous how that came to pass, so outrageous in fact that I think I'd better not run my mouth about it on the record, even pseudonymously. There is rather a lot of money at stake in certain...investigations...and I'm going to let that all shake out before I comment in any way. There are stories to tell though, oh yes there are.

   I have filed for Unemployment, but am hoping to have another job in place before I'd receive anything through that (there's a brief waiting period). I have one more paycheck coming, and a couple of bucks on the one after that (but nothing to write home about), and I've picked up work for this Saturday and next Saturday via Temp Agency #1. We're okay for the rent, the electricity, groceries for the next week, and the next bottle of Prograf. After that, I don't know. Hotter's eye surgery, sadly, is canceled, and I have NO idea how I'll afford my Pristiq (Synthroid and Symbicort are cheap and I can go without Mirapex and Nexium, although I'd prefer not to obviously).

   To add to my enjoyment of the above, the MFA Beater has been suffering grave mechanical issues, and was briefly unfuckingdriveable. I almost called out on my last day of work because of it, but managed to flog it downtown. Immediately after the shit hit the fan, I picked up a couple of applications within walking distance of the Hotel California (as we will start calling my now-previous employer), since I was already downtown, then barely got the fucking thing home. In a way this was good, as the workout I got (equivalent to a Stairmaster on low--think LOTS of revving the gas and stomping the clutch) kept me from getting emotional in any way until I was home. Today Hotter took a ratchet set and his feelings outside and rendered the Beater functional again by the skin of its teeth, so that's good.

   What else? Bumpus ran away. He slipped past Big Child, ran outside as if to greet the XY, who was here picking the kids up for dinner visitation, and just kept going. He was MIA for two hours. MICROCHIP YOUR PETS, Y'ALL. Now he's back, mysteriously damp and in need of a bath, and I have fond memories of being screamed at by my ex-husband on my front lawn to mull over when I wake up from tonight's round of nightmares in a cold sweat (yeah, HIIIII ANXIETY DREAMS).

   I'm trying to look on the bright side here. While the circumstances suck, I'm reconnecting with my kids in ways I haven't been able to in months and months due to work obligations. We're eating meals together as a family again, and thanks to the garden and beasts of Squatter Workshop, so far everyone/thing in the household has had enough to eat. If I were capable of timetravel I'd go back and kiss myself, with TONGUE, for getting rabbits. One fluffy-fryer only yields as much human-grade meat as a large commercial chicken breast, but its' giblets and trimmed skeleton yield three days' worth of meat for Isis, who would otherwise be subsisting on supermarket eggs about now (our four geriatric hens only produce enough backyard eggs for human consumption--we keep "dog eggs" in the fridge and crack one into each bowl of kibble we serve Bumpus to encourage him to eat more and help keep weight on him) given that she's a speshul preshus snowflake who's allergic to grains (including rice--WTF, ISIS?). So that's good. And finally, while I will miss those amazing benefits forever, working for the Hotel California was starting to take a toll on my mental health, and had been for a while. I won't go so far as to say I'm glad their underhandedness and illegal machinations forced a parting of the ways, but I'll admit to a certain amount of relief that it's OVER.

   Also, while life is sucking a fat one currently, I have some truly amazing friends, who have plied me with funny animal pictures and ratchet extensions, YA lit for my Kindle via Amazon and grocery money via PayPal (ain't technology grand?), sound advice and commiseration. Thanks for being awesome, everyone. Y'all know who you are.

   This too shall pass, like a kidney stone, slow and painful. ONWARD!

   And how are all of YOU?

 

dandelions

   I was going to do a post about compost today, but I was off work, and feeling lazy, and couldn't be arsed to find my phone to take the photos for it.

   Which is really too bad, because our compost this year is really amazing stuff and I can't wait to see the veggies it'll grow! 

   Instead, I'll simply say that I love, love, LOVE the humble dandelion. We have them all over our yard, and a couple of pots planted for human consumption as well, and every single creature here (excepting the betta fish, who are strict pelletarians) eats the SHIT out of them. I pick the greens for the rabbits and chickens at Squatter Workshop, I chop them into Isis's BARF diet dinners and put them in the cockatiel's clothespin-feeder, I eat them in salads and soups, along with their flowers...they're tasty (if you pick them before they flower--DON'T PICK THE LEAVES OF DANDELIONS THAT HAVE ALREADY FLOWERED, THEY'RE BITTER AND GROSS), super-nutritious, plentiful, and FREE! I have even, thank you Belinda, started putting dandelions in my smoothies. And last Summer's home-canned dandelion syrup is still delicious on (GF for me) pancakes.

   Yay, dandelions!

   And how are all of YOU?