October 1, 2010
HAPPY OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The month of Thanksgiving and Meredyth's 21st birthday!!!!!
Translation: a birthday celebration that will span two days and probably leave Mer with happy memories and blood alcohol poisoning.
Translation: the month where I prepare a ginormous family meal, everyone comes over, eats and leaves.
As in leaves me with the dishes.
Stephen says I get stressed out when I have people come over for dinner.
I disagree.
I get stressed out when people don't listen to me while I am in the midst of cooking turkeys and ham, surrounded by boiling pots and noisy microwaves, while dogs hover around me so close I feel as if they have been velcroed to my pants, cats jump on the counters hoping to score something, anything, but preferably turkey, with kids running in and out of the kitchen asking me when is it going to be ready? when are we gonna eat? how come it's taking so long, and my mother sitting at the table telling me she needs to go to the bathroom and my father is on the deck avoiding everything and everyone.
The dogs and their saga continue.
Today was their routine follow-up after their guess-what-we-have-fleas-visit.
While the scratching had lessened, at least for Frankie, Tikka was still beating the floor so hard it sounded like ten warrens of thumping rabbits had set up permanent residence in our house.
Tikka's scratching and thumping is so loud some nights she wakes me up.
Which is a good thing because then I remember to get up and continue the pee parade.
Apparently after two weeks of antihistamines that made them pee every two hours, regardless of where they happened to be, we were told they actually didn't have fleas.
Really.
Um. . . .
Our dogs have sarcoptic mange.
Trust me, it sounds as bad as it is.
And if it isn't bad enough that our beloved canines are harbouring small mites that burrow under their skin, and that this condition is contagious, we were given another delightful tidbit of information.
It afflicts dogs, cats, other animals. . . .
. . .and humans.
Those mites can jump from animal to human.
AS SOON AS Stephen heard this, he started scratching.
Then he and Meredyth, who was begrudgingly helping us by managing Tikka, cooked up an evil plan to convince their disease phobic step-son and brother that he was afflicted with sarcoptic mange.
Remember, this is the kid who refused to go to Toronto because he was convinced he would get SARS.
His first text to Mer upon hearing of his new affliction: "Can I still go to the party tonight?????"
That's my boy.
Priorities straight.
It is only by some intervention of fate that none of us are afflicted.
Not even the cats.
Okay, maybe not fate. According to the vet, the reason we aren't card carrying members of the mange club is because of Stephen.
More precisely, Stephen's obsession with cleaning.
Cleaning, vacuuming three times a day, washing everything in sight, even collecting laundry that may not actually be dirty, has spared us the indignity of being plagued with a skin condition that has also been referred to as canine scabies.
Tikka has it far worse than Frankie. Both, however, had to have blood drawn and skin scraped. Both found the entire experience traumatic.I found the vet bill equally traumatic.
I found the vet bill equally traumatic, and no one had any medication to make me recover from it.
$375.00 later, we were laden down with medications, shampoos, creams. . .
It is going to be a long two weeks to our next visit. We have to adminster antibiotics every twelve hours; 1.5 pills for Tikka, 1 for Frankie. Tikka has to take two antihistamines every twelve hours, and Frankie is limited to one.
That was our only request: that if possible, so long as it didn't mean he would suffer, we asked, begged, pleaded for Frankie's dose of antihistamine to be reduced to prevent the two hour pee parade from taking over our lives. For a dog with a bladder the size of a two liter pop bottle, medication that encourages him to drink water, any water, toilet water, puddle water, water for the cats, has proven to be hazardous for our health.
Our itching canines are completely unaware of their outlaw status. We have, out of caution, put off any further dog training with Annette-the-best-dog-trainer-in-the-world (http://www.barkbusters.ca/) until we after our next vet visit.
Which is just punishing me, since I so look forward to Annette's visits.
She makes me laugh.
Traumatizing vet bill, Mer's rent, my mortgage, the car payment, the too-long shitty weather. . I was feeling more than a little sorry for myself.
Mer's rent was justified.
I love her more than anything, but the child couldn't save a cent, even if her very existence was on the line.
Her apartment in my name and her rent coming out of my bank account has forced me to take drastic counter measures with Mer's money to ensure she has her share of the rent.
And this makes me unpopular with Mer when she wants her money.
To be fair to Mer, she is aware of her money challenged ways.
She has said to me, "Don't give me any. No matter what I say. No matter how hard I beg and plead."
Not a problem. I can handle that.
I have enough pent up frustration that saying no, maliciously saying no, is actually good for me.
But I was still feeling very sorry for myself. The how-come-I-work-so-hard-and-am-making-more-money-than-I-ever-have-in-my-life-and-I-never-have-any-money blues was permeating my every thought.
BB King would have been proud.
Thankfully, today was our day to volunteer at the Fredericton Community Kitchen: http://www.frederictoncommunitykitchen.ca/.
Which pulled me out of my poor-me funk very quickly.
Em came with me and Stephen, and she helped make salad, wipe trays, dry dishes and dole out desserts.
And after being at the Community Kitchen, serving meals to those in need, I really didn't feel that I had the right to feel sorry for myself anymore.
Sometimes, you just need a little perspective, or a kick in pants to remind you of what's really important.
Title Lyric: October by Fm Static
No comments:
Post a Comment