Diabetic cat follow up, other things
Yesterday the cat was still showing some disturbing effects from her trauma on Monday. She could hardly walk. She would take a few shaky steps at a time and then lay down to rest. However she was eating some and able to get in the litter box. This morning she was still walking funny but was able to do more of it so that’s progress.
After work I took Ali to the airport. It was sad to see her go. I know she is going to have to deal with an emotional mess up there with Pop Pop. Her flight on a new airline, USA 3000 went well. She arrived in Philly early and in one piece.
When I got home I had a ton to do. I was happy to see my hurricane-ready window unit air conditioner had arrived. I had to unpack my stuff, eat dinner, clean up, make Nicki her dinner and then tackle a mountain of bills/cc receipts. The bill paying process took over an hour and a half. I have redundancy in my record keeping which is good, but it makes things go slowly when paying bills. I pay the bills, normally online with my bill pay service. I record the transaction in the checkbook. Then I record the payments in a 3 ring binder that has all my budgeted categories. Then finally I reenter all those transactions into Quicken as well as any CC receipts. I only do this once a week so sometimes I get a pile to go through. Last night was about as much as I can remember having to muddle through at one sitting. Hurricane related receipts clogged my wallet. I finished up everything about 9:15.
About 10:15 I got a call from Ali saying her flight landed safely and everything was well. I am in a bit of a bind with dog care for this weekend. Before the vball tournament was cancelled the first time, our neighbors said they could come over and let the dog out during the day on that Saturday because we would be away most of the day. Since it was rescheduled, I called during the day yesterday and left a message on their answering machine about it, asking them to call me and let me know if they would be around to let her out this Saturday. When I got home last night I saw that they were home so I figured I would have a message on the machine. Nope. So I called their house again and they didn’t answer (they don’t like to pick up the phone) so I left another message saying how I was out dropping off Ali so if they tried to call I wasn’t home, but I was home now. I was doing that deliberate, drawn out type of message because I was expecting them to hear me and pick up the phone. Nope. They didn’t pick up and didn’t call back. This really buts me in a bind because if they can’t let the dog out I need to scramble and make some sort of other plans. It has me rather perturbed. I’ll try to get ahold of them tonight. Worse case I will have to kennel Nicki and pay 40 – 50 bucks to pick her up late saturday night. That would suck. Another side effect of Ali being away is Nicki has to stay home. I can’t leave her home for 11 hours without a bathroom break so I will be going home every day at lunch to let her out. When the drive is around 45 minutes each way it is a rather large pain in the ass. Luckily I have a very flexible boss and she is fine with it.
I got my first ever email from my Dad. It was rather strange. He and my step-mom just moved out to New Mexico to retire. After close to 40 years of working, my Dad finally has gotten the chance to live out his dream of retirement. I remember years ago my Dad talking about hopes of retiring by age 50. Well he is about 7 years behind schedule but I think it’s great all the same. He sounded very happy when I talked to him on the phone the other day. He actually has time to do things he wants now, even things like learn how to use email. It will be cool if he keeps with it. If he can use email, I will be able to communicate with him on a much more regular basis. The house they bought is beautiful.
I finally got to stop by the new World Gym that is under construction. They are selling memberships already even though they will not open for at least a month yet. They had blueprints up as well as pictures of the equipment they will be getting. It looks AWESOME! All brand new, state of the art stuff. Plus it will be cheaper than what I am paying at that dump, Powerhouse! The timing should be just about perfect as my membership is due to expire mid-October. Powerhouse is scrambling. The actually bought some new cardio equipment a few weeks ago and I heard reports they were closing for a few days at the end of the month to do further renovations. Too little, too late. All Powerhouse needed was someone that kept after the place to keep it clean and organized. Instead they have one person working there at a time that does nothing but sit behind the desk and surf the internet. Their fix for the chronically broken AC has been to buy 2 big, deafening industrial fans. They are in big trouble, this new gym will blow them out of the water. I can’t wait to join. The only negative to leaving Powerhouse is the few relationships I have with some of the regulars I see everyday. Hopefully I can convince some to jump ship with me.