:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Monday, March 10, 2003 ::

down and out cat
We brought Marbles to the vet today. He's been acting like he's in pain for the past few days, and we were starting to get worried about him. Granted, he's an 18-year-old cat. We had to put his littermate, Daryl, down two years ago after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Daryl had been diabetic already, and we treated him for it for years. We didn't want to put him through two treatment schedules everyday like that, though. It would have been too much stress on the old guy.

Anyway, the vet thinks it just might be arthritis flaring up. He took blood anyway to test for anything and we should hear about it tomorrow. He has some muscle loss on his back, which he thinks might just be the cat's age. So the vet gave him a mild steroid to help a bit with the pain mixed with some vitamins, and he gave us some medicine to help him. I hope that's all it is.

state of affairs
Well, my friend and I talked last night. We got everything worked out. YAY! I feel a lot better now about it, since we were able to work things out. We were watching some cartoons on CN for a bit, too. There were some odd ones, like "The Oblongs", and we watched an episode of "Futurama". They weren't bad, though I probably wouldn't watch them regularly. It's not like a Gundam series or something. We caught an episode of "Samurai Jack", too. I like it, but sometimes it gets really weird.

I do need to try and catch "Rorouni Kenshin" or some of the other new shows that are on. I've heard they're pretty good. My friend said that "Lupin III" was funny, just really badly drawn (worse than old "Speed Racer", "Gundam", or "Dragon Ball").

vehicle situation
Well, like they say, when one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. Dad brought the truck back home today. It's still drivable, but one of the cylinders isn't firing, it need tranny work, and the rear axle needs work (I think). He brought that home so that he could get the alignment done on my grandmother's car (which is the car he's been using). He's not sure if the deal with the other Bronco is going to work out, so he's looking at some other possibilities.

The guy we take the vehicles to has a Caravan for sale at the shop. Apparently, it had belonged to the shop owner's father. He just wants a lot more for that than the other guy wants for the truck. Dad's weighing his options.

Of course, now my car is starting to lose oil. We're not quite sure how, yet, so we're trying to figure that out on our own to save some money. I had to put 2 1/2 quarts in the other day and it hasn't even been 2000 miles since the last oil change. The guy didn't mention a leak when I got it done, and the back of the car doesn't get all black and filthy looking, so the obvious answers aren't coming to us. Plus, my brakes grind really bad (they have since we got it, but now they're getting worse). We used to think it was just the pads, that the guy put those really hard pads on when he did them for us. We took it back a few times while it was still under warranty and no one could find any signs of wear on the discs. But, the noise is getting worse whenever I hit the brakes. The car stops, so I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about possibly having more work (and cost) later if these things are doing damage.

lack of news
I haven't heard anything on the job front in a few days. I sent out some more applications the other day. I gave up on BnW. It's been so long, I know I didn't get it. I did get a letter back from SUNY SB, but letters are always bad things. It was a nice way of telling me without having to talk to me about how I didn't meet the requirements for the job. Then there was some blurb about them keeping my résumé and application on file, but we all know what file that is.

did something just drip on me?
Our upstairs toilet went nuts, too. Apparently, the handle sticks. This is a new turn of events. At first, we thought it cracked, because the water was coming out the back. The bathroom was flooded, and it leaked through the tile (which has been leaky for years... ^^;;), soaking the kitchen ceiling. We had to move the table (which was also soaked) and put out pots and stuff to catch the dripping water. Luckily, we have a shop vac that sucks up water, so we used that to clean it up. We can still use the toilet, we just have to make sure the handle doesn't stick, otherwise, it drains the tank and shoots water out the overflow holes in the back of the tank.

time to teach
Well, I'm going to grab a snack and then head off to tutor. I promised Evelyn I'd look over a Physics problem for her. I just need to remember how to add vectors... ^^;;