Oh, Monday.

Yesterday I felt like I could not do a single thing right. I tried to drink coffee; I moved the cup so the cat wouldn’t knock it over, I forgot about it, it got cold, I reheated it in the microwave, forgot about it there, etc. etc.. Clearly I was not meant to have a good hot cup of coffee. Bitchface Cat would get up all in my face, on the desk, as if to say “scoot that chair back, woman, I need a lap!” and then I’d offer her lap space and she’d settle for less than a minute before she was up and off again. Clearly my lap was not cozy enough.

I tried to dye eight skeins of tri-color yarn, and only got to six because our old electrical wiring in our old house suddenly decided that I can’t use four crock pots, I can only use three (this house has a history of not being able to run so many things at the same time or we trip breakers, and yes, I get that tripping breakers is much better than the house just going up in a fireball, BUT STILL). Out of those six skeins, two of them absolutely refused to run clear, so I’m going to have to continue to soak them until they do. To add insult to injury, all six were of a color that I’ve been contemplating not making more of, because it doesn’t sell very well (I’m not, however, making a decision to nix any colors until after an event I’m doing this Fall, nor am I going to name the color, Catherine, so don’t even ask). And then when I pulled them all out of the pots as it was getting dark, it looked like one of the three colors didn’t even take at all (in the light of day, however, it is there, just lighter than usual). Clearly I wasn’t meant to have a productive yarn dyeing day yesterday.

I’d also had to make a call out to the vet, as she wanted to come get another blood sample from Princess Cat. Wait, did I ever even blog about that? About six weeks ago, we’d had the vet out for something, I don’t even remember what — they just kept sending me postcards about how one of my cats was overdue for something and so I went ahead and made an appointment to shut them up. It turned out that Princess Cat had lost more weight than the vet was comfortable with, and we have fleas (wait, this is Florida, is there ANY pet owner who doesn’t have fleas?), and Princess Cat was anemic and OH GOD THIS IS TURNING INTO A LONG STORY.

The vet had to take a blood sample twice while she was there, and the second sample was clotty by the time they got back to the office. So they asked me if I would bring the cat in, and this turned into a long fight. OK; not a looooong fight, because I just flat out said “no. What part of me having a mobile vet is difficult to understand?” because here’s the thing — if I wanted to shove my pets in a box and take them to a traditional vet, I’d have a traditional vet. And if you, a mobile vet, would prefer me to come to you in the traditional manner, then you are no longer offering the service for which I wanted you for; which means that if I’m using you as a traditional vet, I could just as well find a new traditional vet that isn’t a 45 minute drive from my house. So I got kind of bitchy about it. I’ve not gotten the best service from anyone either on the phone or at their desk when I’ve been out there — I hesitate to even use the word “best”, as the customer service I’ve received is more along the lines of “cursory”…. blargh. ANYWAY. It resulted in her coming back again a few days later to give me  a lecture on fleas and do another blood draw, and that resulted in much flailing of arms (on her part) as the cat is anemic and oh my god may drop dead at any moment let’s all run around in a circle and scream in sheer panic.

I’m not trying to say that I don’t love my cat, or that I think somehow that a cat’s health is not worthy of worry; I think what just happened with me is that the shittastic customer service I’ve received from the office staff coupled with her lecture on fleas and the Chicken Little attitude just… pushed me over the edge. Look, lady, I’m the one who will poke the dog if she’s napped too long, in case she’s died in her sleep. DON’T TELL ME WHEN TO PANIC. I can panic JUST FINE on my own. The more you TELL me I have to worry, the less I’m going to take you seriously. Perhaps my cat is underweight because she’s lost a lot of her back teeth, only we didn’t notice her not eating as much as normal because we have four cats and it’s not like we stand over each of them, counting the kernels of kibble. If that makes me a bad cat mommy, then fine. Whatever. We’ve beefed her up by switching her to wet food, which has been great for her because she loves it (and has put on weight) but bad for us because now she tries to trip us every time we walk near the cat room.

Needless to say I was really looking forward to calling her yesterday, HAHAHAHAHAHAH /end sarcasm.

But I had to call her, because – and this is getting so long already I’m going to put this part in another post – if I want to adopt a new (three-legged) dog, I’m going to need my vet’s recommendation for that. Which means I’d better play nice-nice. Or find a new vet quickly. There are no other mobile vets in town. So it’s this, or back to a traditional vet, and after 15 years of in-home vet care I can’t say I really am itching to going back to shoving everyone in a box and driving someplace. So I called her, and the first thing the person on the phone did, besides put me on hold for so long that I literally forgot why I had called, was to say that even though I was telling her that the vet had wanted to do another blood sample, that she could not find a record of that, so could she talk with the vet and call me back later? Yeah. Fine. Whatever.

So I spent most of the day yesterday wondering about my vet situation; do I want to keep this vet, does this vet want to keep me, what do I do if I leave this vet and don’t find another right away, why did Dr. Camp have to retire, is this vet going to lecture me about fleas again, what if she comes in and takes all my pets away and calls me a bad pet mom, blah blah blah blah blah.

So I got a call back late in the afternoon, for an appointment this morning (if, you know, I can’t just bring my cat in for such a simple procedure) and as I’m writing this in the afternoon of Tuesday, she’s been and gone. But that’s another long story, and my fingers hurt from typing. See why I don’t blog much any more? TOO MUCH TO SAY. I should look into one of those talk-to-text programs, heh.