Corner of Bourbon & Division

Today has been A Day, and I still have to go to work in about five hours. *falls over* 

I cleaned out all the quail enclosures today, as I had been doing only very basic maintenance since getting Covid, and they were pretty gross. The quails deserve a nice clean environment to live in, after all. I also noticed that the quarantine box in which I was keeping my lone male was disintegrating because of the water spilling out of his water dish. The cardboard had softened without my noticing before, and last night I saw that the box was sagging to one side, and the mesh over the "window" in the front was gaping badly.

So today I cut a hole in a new box, lined it with duct tape and plastic, and cut a new window in it so the poor birb isn't just completely in the dark. I couldn't leave him in the old box while I transferred the mesh over, however, so I decided to stick him in for a couple of minutes with the other quail. How bad could it be? I thought. He'll only be in there long enough for me to attach the mesh to the new box. HAH. No sooner had his feet touched the pine chips on the floor of the enclosure, he immediately sprang onto the nearest female, grabbed a bunch of feathers at the base of her head and swung himself onto her back like a cowboy at a rodeo. He was VERY rough with her, and she bucked him off, so he immediately did the same thing to the next closest female. A third female then flew at him and started pecking at him pretty viciously, so I reached in and pulled him out and put him in a bucket while I worked.

Good Lord and butter!

At least now I know that he is, in fact, the problem bird in the bunch. The other male is very gentle with the ladies: all their feathers are growing back, they're all laying consistently every day, and they all like to hang out and tweedle softly together, whereas the first male has been screaming intermittently for the past couple of days. So once I am done with my night shifts he will be turned into dinner. Only gentleman birbs get to hang out with my ladies! Everyone else gets to be eaten.

I then sent my resume to the recruiter who'd asked for it, and then it was time to gather all the pets to take them to the vet for their annual shots. I want to say it went smoothly, but that would be a lie. First off, Octavia decided to hide in the walls and refused to come out. I was able to get Juno in her carrier, and then the dogs freaked the fuck out, because CAAAAAAAAT! I wrangled all three into KK's car and got them to the vet, figuring I would just reschedule Octavia for another day.

Once at the vet, the dogs got their shots, and KK messaged me to tell me that Octavia had graced the living room with her presence. I asked her to put Octavia in her kennel and arranged to leave Juno at the vet's while I drove the dogs home and picked up my truant cat. When I got back, the vet had some very bad news for me: namely, that Juno had lost a lot of weight and that it was very likely due to her teeth rotting in her head. One canine was so loose they were able to just yank it out then and there with no issue, and her other canine is super loose as well. When the vet examined Octavia, he found a really similar problem. So both cats need dental surgery ASAP, and I booked them in for May 28th, which is TWO DAYS before we're meant to move. But honestly, they are in pain and not eating, and I don't want to wait any longer than I have to, especially since I don't know what the vet care situation is in Maxville. There is a veterinary clinic there (I used to take my pets there when I first moved to Ottawa) but I don't know if they're taking new patients, and immediate dental surgery might be a stretch even for them.

So for now we're switching them to wet food until after the surgery, and then we'll see if they can have kibble after that still or if they'll need to be on soft food for the rest of their lives.

I came home just in time to have a Zoom call with my parents, which I totally forgot about until they called me to ask where I was. OOPS. My parents, as usual, immediately told me I should euthanize the cats rather than spend money on surgery for them. My parents are delightful that way. Then my mother asked me how much this "joke" was going to cost me, and when I asked her what "joke" she meant, she listed the number of pets I have (two cats, two dogs). I understand that they are worried about my finances, but fucking hell, it would be nice if they eased up a little. It's not like I'm not going to deny veterinary care to my pets, and I will only give up my pets as a very last resort. 

Anyway, apart from that little unpleasantness, we had a nice, if brief chat. Now it's time for me to go get some dinner, and hopefully have a nap and a shower before work.

*falls over*

It really does feel like my days just zoom by, and I have nothing to show for them except working and sleeping. I haven't even been cooking much during the past couple of weeks because of my evening and night shifts. Yes, I ran a metric fuckton of errands last week, and to a lesser extent this week, and somehow I still feel like I accomplished nothing.

It's possible I'm being too hard on myself, but other people are out there doing the same job as me but also raising children and running Girl Guide groups and playing sports in the evenings and going on dates and tripes with their spouses. Several of the younger women here play hockey or socker or whatever else, and a couple of days ago they were talking about a game they played that started at 10pm. Just, no. If I'm not working a shift, at 10pm I am asleep. I don't leave the house after 7pm most of the time, let alone go play a freaking sport at 10pm. *shakes head incredulously* Now, to be fair, these young women are literally half my age--not a one of them is a day over 25, and maybe at their age I had a bit more get-up-and-go than I do now, but my get-up-and-go got-up-and-went a long time ago. I am tired just thinking about this, quite frankly.

Since KK was working from home today, I left my bedroom door open a little in case Octavia (my youngest kitty, who will be turning eleven this May *sob*) wanted to come have a cuddle. She doesn't get much unadulterated cuddle time anymore, because the dogs' crates are in my bedroom, and I have to keep the door closed for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that KK's dog Rika likes to come in my room and poop under my bed. The second reason is that if my dogs spot any cats coming into the room, they scream the place down, and no one gets any sleep. So the poor cats are exiled unless I'm working night shifts and KK is working from home and can keep the dogs downstairs. Normally either Juno or Octavia will come keep me company, but today there was no sign of Juno, and Octavia decided to come into my room and stand by the door and scream at me instead of cuddling. It was actually quite funny, but also I was a little sad because I would have loved some uninterrupted cuddle time with her. Ah, cats. What can you do?

Tomorrow is the monthly meeting of Ministry & Counsel, and we are discussing the State of Society Report. Our clerk sent us a draft that they had put together, and at the risk of sounding extremely mean, it was both incredibly lackluster and somehow also managed to make me rage at the same time. The latter was because the clerk wrote "the threat of Covid 19 has waned," and NO, I CANNOT STRESS HOW MUCH IT HAS NOT WANED. Fuck everything. This is a person whom I know is Covid-cautious, does not attend Meeting in person, is careful about masking, etc. WHY WOULD YOU WRITE THAT? I feel like I'm being gaslit. Anyway, I sent back much politer comments to that effect, and hopefully we will be able to get that sentence either stricken or altered, because JFC I will not stand for Covid minimizing in my community. I will NOT.

*breathes deeply*

ANYWAY. The rest of the report felt super flat, as if the clerk couldn't muster any enthusiasm for any of it. They wrote a better report last year, so I know it's not just their writing style, or whatever. I don't know if they are struggling or maybe a little depressed or what, but it felt like kind of a depressing read. I'm hoping that if we all provide some extra input tomorrow we'll be able to make it a little nicer. One of the members has yet again accidentally double-booked herself tomorrow, and I am trying to scrape some compassion from the bottom of the empty barrel of my soul. She has ADHD as well, and I get it--the struggle is real. But I for the most part (with one single exception) have managed to be present and on time for every meeting, and she is routinely late or doesn't show up at all, and she's usually late because she's decided to do something right before the meeting (like go to a busy restaurant with her husband), or lost track of the time, or didn't realize she'd booked a conflicting appointment. And another member keeps vanishing on extended trips with his wife or cancelling because he doesn't plan his freelance work gigs properly. Like, folks, COME ON. I am the youngest in our committee by about fifteen years and I am the only one with a full-time job that requires my presence in an office, and yet I manage to put things in my calendar and be on time. I'm not the clerk, so it's not my job to herd the cats, but it's incredibly frustrating to constantly have people missing the one hour a month we all committed to.

/end rant

I am apparently in a MOOD today. :P Sorry for the slight bummer of a post. I will end on a good note, and say that I renewed my community garden plot today, and received the good news that I am being moved away from Mosquitoville and to a better, more accessible plot! I am no longer relegated to the back corner where there was no sun and ALLLLLL the mosquitoes and the ground was full of roots. This is good news on so many fronts, I can't even begin to tell you. Trying to garden in that back plot felt like a punishment. Hopefully this year I won't have to have as many fights with my plot in order to get anything to grow in it. I will need to transplant all the perennials I put in my plot last year, but that's not that big of a deal, I don't think. I may ask for some friends to help me with that, particularly transplanting the asparagus that I carefully planted last year, so that I don't have to do it all on my own and risk damaging the plants.

If I have time tonight I will pull out my seed list (although it's missing a couple of things that I need to add from my seed box) and start planning what I want to put in my garden this year.

I've been preparing to host an "Un-Christmas" lunch since, oh, the beginning of December. I invited my parents and fearsclave and his wife, Carolyn, and started menu planning three weeks ago and cooking last week. Because I rarely entertain, when I do, I want it to be memorable. I flatter myself that today went really well, overall. My parents get along really well with fearsclave and Carolyn, and the four of them had a great time laughing about living "near the North Pole," etc. Carolyn got to see how well Maggie and Ben were doing (I adopted two of their cats over the past year, when they couldn't keep them anymore).

This morning I got up early in order to finish the last of the preparation: a last-minute vacuum/tidy of the house, then make the mashed potatoes, mulled wine, wild rice, and green beans. I didn't get it all done before the guests arrived, and we ended up eating about half an hour later than planned, but it all pulled together at the last minute.

The meal itself was a great success. I started out with a beet salad with goat cheese and candied walnuts. It's the only dish which I managed to capture in a picture. The rest of the food got eaten too quickly for me to be able to snap a picture, but there were lemon tarragon roasted cornish hens, balsamic glazed green beans with almonds and cranberries, tourtière, mashed sweet potatoes flavoured with maple syrup, and wild rice with raisins and almonds. For the cheese course we had brie with truffles, bleu d'Auvergne, and Oka, and for dessert I made apple pie and rice pudding (for the gluten-free guest). We finished it off with coffee, and I think all of us may die happily of food.


I was too busy running around trying to get everything on the table and everyone fed and taken care of to get many pictures, but I did get a few, and my parents took some as well. Hopefully between the three of us we'll have a nice record of the day.

I am due to write a year-in-review post, which I used to do regularly and then sort of forgot about. Tonight, however, I have a D&D game to prep, so it will have to wait.

It's not that I've forgotten LiveJournal exists. I come on here and read my friends' list almost every day. Few of you post that often, but enough of you post intermittently that I feel as if I'm keeping track of many of you. I suspect that may be a bit of an illusion, but that's okay. Social media is always a bit of an illusory beast.

I just saw slipjig link to a friending meme, and I think that it would behoove me to at least try to post more regularly. Sometimes I feel like my life is far too mundane to be of interest to anyone, but then, I love hearing about the little things that all my friends are doing. Going to work? I want to know how your day went! Planning a garden? Show me pictures of your squash! Taking your kids to school in the morning? Yes, please! Are your pets adorable? PICS, OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN! Etc. So if I'm interested in all these small, daily victories and disappointments, it stands to reason that at least some of my LJ friends feel the same way.

So, what have I been up to since the last time I posted? That was in February, I am a little horrified to see, when my computer keyboard bit the dust. I got it repaired, it's working fine now, except every now and then it... decides not to. It's always a bit nervewracking when that happens, but it's never for more than about 10-15 seconds, and it's happened maybe twice or three times. I'm trying not to worry about it too much.

( Quaker Stuff )

( Pet updates, with cute pictures! )

( The Parental Units )

( Work and gardening )

I don't think I could possibly catch up on everything that's happened since I last posted here, so I won't even try. That being said, there's stuff coming up that I may want to blog about in more depth, so making a bit of an effort now is in order.

First off, hi LJ Land! I haven't been posting, but I do read everything you write. <3

Anyway, have a bullet-point version of the past few months:

• I adopted three new cats in February. It was meant to be two, but then fearsclave was forced to rehome his kitties due to health concerns, and so I got his Maggie as well. Alas, one of the other two cats I got is not integrating into the household, so he will be vacating the premises and going to live with good friends of mine. So far all the cats mostly get along, with some spats and negotiating of territory still happening. Things are settling down slowly but surely.


• I am still volunteering in the soup kitchen at Shepherd's (I won't use the full name, because I don't want their media relations people reading all my posts), and have also started volunteering one day a week at their community garden plot, helping to grow and harvest vegetables for the soup kitchen. I still love it, although the work is often physically very demanding.


• I went on a trip to Barcelona with my parents in March, which was far too short but truly wonderful. I posted lots of pictures on Facebook, so anyone following me there probably saw them.


• The work restructuring continues apace. It is, as I suspected, a PITA, and has resulted in a lot more work being given to much fewer people. Those people are also the ones who are paid the least, not surprisingly. It appears every workplace is the same when it comes to penny pinching: the higher up you are, the less you feel the pinch.


• I also managed to escape to PEI for a while this summer, also with my parents. I've joked with them that we've seen more of each other since I moved to Ottawa than in the past five years I lived in Montreal combined. That's not quite true, but they have been making extra efforts to come out and see me (and vice versa!) since I moved.


• The past two years of commuting to and from work in Ottawa, as well as trying to run two households on one income, paying for private daycare, and then renovating the house in order to sell it, all took a pretty serious financial toll on me. The short, ugly version is that I accumulated a fair bit of debt in order to do that. So I've been tightening my belt (the two trips notwithstanding, although in both cases my parents were generous enough to pay for almost everything) and looking for extra sources of income. I'm currently trying my hand at being a mystery shopper. It doesn't bring in a fortune, and it's not super great work for someone with anxiety, but I'm hoping it will at least offset some of my monthly bills. Every little bit helps, right? I also need to get my act together and try to sell some of the "extra" furniture that doesn't fit in my new, smaller house.


• In happier, not debt-filled news, I have been approved by the Ottawa Children's Aid Society to continue with PRIDE training (Parental Resources for Information, Development, and Education) as well as a home study. The training starts on September 9th, and if all goes well I should be done with everything by the end of October. If I'm approved as a prospective adoptive parents after that, then I get to start the waiting game of being matched up with a child (or maybe children!) in need of a permanent home.

So that's me in a nutshell. I may be using this space to talk about the PRIDE training in September and October, so apologies in advance to everyone who finds that sort of stuff super boring. I promise to put it behind a cut if it gets overly long. :)

I know lots of you have been having a really rough year. I hope you're all keeping as well as possible under the circumstances. *hugs all around*

I remembered that I wrote a post about pets the other day, so I'm not sure how much more there is to actually say on the topic of the pets I've always wanted to have.

I'm still a little too raw over losing George and Pan-Pan (who's now been missing 22 days, not that I'm counting) to post any picspam of or stories about the cats.

I'm hoping elanya won't mind too much if I take a raincheck on a really long post about the pets. Instead, have some adorable pictures of the dog! I don't know if I should even try formatting these.( Sergent behind the cut! )

It has been All Birthday, All The Time at Casa mousme this week. We started with a wee celebration on Monday because I wouldn't be there for Bean's actual birthday on Wednesday. Then Bean had a special birthday celebration at school on Wednesday, complete with Monster High-themed cupcakes, and received some presents from pdaughter as well.

( It my party NOW? )

I know I still owe an entry about my relationship with the French language, but it requires more time and thought than I can devote to it today. It will probably happen this weekend. I know you're all waiting with bated breath.

Bean was much better today, after spending yesterday with a fever that wavered between "low-grade" and "high enough to be very uncomfortable." We can always tell when he's truly under the weather, because he sits still and is quiet. He also got quite clingy and latched onto pdaughter like a limpet, switching to cling to me only when she got up to go to the bathroom. In the afternoon we watched Casper (the live-action movie) together, and he seemed to enjoy it, though predictably about 50 minutes in he declared the movie "too long" and announced he wanted to watch something else. He was too lethargic to really protest when pdaughter told him we were going to keep watching, though, and the movie piqued his interest again a few minutes later, so all was well.

In spite of pdaughter's repeated attempts to get him to nap, he stubbornly stayed awake until about 17:30, when he dozed off in her arms. He roused briefly when she tried to stealthily put him to bed, but went down again pretty easily about half an hour later. pdaughter went out to get more Children's Tylenol (he got one dose before bed, but that was all we had on hand), and of course while she was gone he woke up crying for her. Luckily I was deemed a suitable alternative to Mama for the time being, and he settled again and was fast asleep—though coughing in his sleep, poor bunny—by the time she got home.

Because Bean had an early night, we actually managed to watch three TV episodes in a row! Though, in retrospect, the third one was probably a mistake, as we ended up going to bed later than usual. Still, we caught up on Castle and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which FINALLY delivered an episode that hit the right notes for me and didn't feel forced or boring or have only one good part) before watching the 200th episode of Criminal Minds almost live.

Today I packed my bags, took the dog out, got George's antibiotics from the vet, and drove to Ottawa. It sounds like very little for a day in which I seemed to run out of time for everything. Bean was, as I said, feeling much better, which was a relief, but also meant he was back to his very energetic and rather loud self. He was not 100%, but still greatly improved. He spent the morning making cards for me and pdaughter. He made hers first, and carefully and spontaneously labelled it "MAMA," which made her go all misty-eyed. It was adorable. He decorated both with aluminium foil hearts which we helped him glue on, and then drew very elaborate pictures on them. Mine had a toilet (don't ask, I don't know), green grass, several doors, and a picture of someone I believe is meant to be me, as well as the aforementioned foil heart and a foil triangle ("A mountain triangle!"). I have brought the card with me to Ottawa, and need to find a good spot for it in my little room.

Being a step-parent rocks. :)

Even though I have no money, I bit the bullet today and bought some new clothes, because all the ones I have that were suitable for more "casual" office wear were nearly 10 years old, faded, misshapen, and had become irreparably stained. No longer office-worthy at all. I managed to find a few items on sale for $9 and a few cute shirts for $19, and hopefully that will set me up for a while. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn't break the bank.

One of my self-improvement goals this year is to sit down and write out a proper budget. Then I need to stick to it and find a way to cut back even further on some of my spending. I think that some of the trouble comes from not having a strict budget when it comes to "extras" like presents and books and DVDs. (The rest of the trouble comes from trying to wrangle a mortgage, car payments, daycare, a 500km/week commute, and a frankly exorbitant monthly rent on an extra room to sleep in for my job, all on my salary and the contributions pdaughter is able to make, as well as some government money for daycare).

I think I'll save the money talk for a different post. I have Thoughts on the subject, and they deserve their own entry.

Does anyone local know someone in need of a cat?

Poor Smudge is not adjusting well to the dog.

Worse, the dog is not adjusting to Smudge either. The dog got into the spare room tonight where Smudge has been camping out, lunged up onto the furniture after him and tried to bite him. Or eat him, I honestly can't tell. He literally had his jaws around poor Smudge by the time I managed to intervene, and I nearly broke my finger getting them apart.

Since Sergent is here to stay and is fine with the other two cats, I think I need to re-home Smudge in a nice, calm place where there are no other cats or pets of any kind. He's a sweet, affectionate cat with people—it's just other animals he doesn't get along with. He hasn't had any behavioural issues in years: he always uses the litter box (even the whole time the dog was stressing him out, no less!), and cuddles with me and purrs whenever I go into the room.

As much as it breaks my heart, I think he would do better in a single cat household. Right now I feel like he's being punished for something that's not his fault or his doing.

Anyone in the area looking for a cat? Or do you know someone looking for a cat? If you do, point them my way, please. Smudge deserves a better life than the one he has now.

Eight days after the introduction of the dog, Smudge has made an appearance. I got home this morning from a work thing I can't talk about in public apart from making these teasing oblique references (I can't help it, sorry!), and after a quick in-and-out so the dog could pee, I brought him back in to feed the ravening horde.

As I was doling out kibble, I heard a very plaintive yowl coming from the basement that sounded exactly like Smudge. Yes, I have lived long enough with my cats that I can tell their voices apart (S. found this astounding, but to me their voices are as distinct as any of my friends' voices). I left George, Pan-Pan and Sergent upstairs to nosh on their kibble and went downstairs to check. Sure enough there was Smudge in the middle of the floor, yowling miserably at me as though he hadn't a friend in the world.

He seems none the worse for wear. I checked him over for signs of dehydration and starvation and found none: his skin is still elastic to the touch, no tenting, and he still has a healthy amount of flesh over his ribs. So he's either been sneaking upstairs for food and water when I'm not here/asleep, or he's found some other source of food and water.

We attempted a foray upstairs, but the dog showed a little too much interest in him, and so Smudge took to his heels. Unfortunately, he panicked so hard that he triggered the dog's chase reflex and it all went to hell pretty quickly. The cat is now gone once more. Oops.

Upside? He's healthy and not dead. There is hope.