Not only are my idiot neighbours keeping me awake with their stomping and giggling, they’re blasting California Dreamin’ which means they are clearly calling me fat.

How rude.

I don’t lose things. In fact, I’m one of those obnoxious people who know where everything is – I can tell you where your keys are, where you left your wallet, the location of that one thing you had that time at the place. I know where all my stuff is, and most likely yours. I am the Google of the household.

So it makes it that much more hard to accept when I actually do lose something and can’t for the life of me find it, regardless of how many times I tear the house apart.

In the last three months or so I lost my favourite necklace. No idea what happened to it; it just vanished. Gone. Nowhere to be found. I’m fucking choked about it; it was my favourite necklace and a gift from Ed and I wore it often. I took it off after work one day, and it disappeared into the void. I’ve looked *everywhere*, and the only thing I can think of is that a cat – most likely Lemon – batted it off whatever surface I placed it on, and it landed in the garbage or laundry bag or pile of stuff to be donated, and it’s gone forever. It makes my stomach hurt to think that, but I just can’t find it.

And if I feel that badly over losing a silver necklace, just think how delighted I am that I absolutely cannot find my wedding band anywhere in the house. I know I took it off one day *after* I had taken off the rest of my jewellery, then placed it on some surface that is not my desk. I’ve spent the better part of the week searching for it, and tonight saw me on my hands and knees with a dustbuster and a flashlight. No luck. Can’t find it. Losing a necklace is one thing, but this is my fucking wedding band and I’m worried I’ll never find it and .. fuck.

This sucks.

Oh, and naturally because I’m starting to lose things, I immediately assume I have Alzheimer’s. Being a melodramatic hypochondriac is not nearly all it’s cracked up to be.

UPDATE: Still no luck finding my wedding band, but Ed found my missing necklace under the couch, wrapped around a Zombie Ninja. YAY! One down, one to go!

Tall, gorgeous, statuesque women are really frickin’ annoying.

The account rep for one of our vendors at the Lab is just that, and I’ve been hearing about her physical charms every time the topic comes up (which is surprisingly often). We recently had to switch to a different company, so she’s been trying to win back our business. I got to meet her today, and it was highly amusing –  and as a short fat feminist nerd with unfortunate Thursday hair, eye rolling and disgusting – to watch her flirt with my boss and my German in an attempt to get them behind her plan of making my life a living hell. Unfortunately for her, the short fat nerd girl with bad hair is, while not immune to the physical charms of an admittedly lovely lady, more interested in NOT increasing the work load of her staff (and is also not into tall blonde supermodels with French accents). While she was busy making my German blush at her outright plea of “is there anything I can do to get your business back?”, I was drinking it in and being smug about it all – so *that’s* how pretty people get their way. Huh. How ‘bout that.

I shot down her points and countered them with my own. I may not be gorgeous, but I know routers!

You know, I don’t think I won this round after all.

Choosing to skip the morning shower is an entirely different beast than being forced to go about your day unkempt and frazzled.

A water pipe in our building burst last night, and they had to shut the water completely off. We have absolutely no water except for the few bottles we had in the fridge. We used those for tooth brushing and face washing, but that doesn’t come close to taking a full shower. I have terrible hair today. My hat is doing little to disguise the fact that I am quite unclean.

I need sleep, badly. I just spent 5 minutes wracking my brain for the correct word meaning “the act of submitting”, as in handing in a form. Obviously the word is “submission”, except in my current state I was quite willing to argue with myself because “submission” is a dirty sex term, not a provisioning term! Tee hee! So that would make the proper word “submition”, right?

.. yeah. I need sleep.

My mom called last night to chat about her visit. She had a nice time, but her blood pressure was freaking out until she got back home. She also expressed amazement that we would dare have FOUR cats, and told me that while I may love Sasha she isn’t worth the vet bills. This is a prime example of why my mother and I don’t get along, but I knew that arguing with her would be pointless. She just .. doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get anything about me, and I think we’re both okay with that.

I DID ask her if she’s ever thought about getting a computer though, and her answer was a resounding NO. I guess I’m off the hook for getting her online, which is a relief but also a mild disappointment – it would have been hilarious, in a tragic sort of way.

I’m documenting things now. See the headphones? That means I’m documenting, so don’t ask me any stupid questions about routers.

Sasha has the urine of a warrior!

The vet performed some sort of pee wizardry and discovered that while Sasha does in fact have a urinary tract infection AND a kidney infection, the bacteria they magically grew from her pee sample yielded a very weak strain of badness so she should have no trouble at all vanquishing the bacterial foes. Sasha has been on antibiotics for a week, and I picked up a prescription continuation for her this morning. She’ll need to take the drug for another 3 weeks, but by that time the infection should be long gone and that is excellent news so hooray!

She’s doing a lot better. She’s just as loud as she was before (which was fucking LOUD), her appetite is disturbing and large, she’s throwing up so very much less, and she’s not having any unfortunate bathroom incidents. She’s feeling well enough to hiss warnings to the other cats if they get too close to her (except for Lemon, but only during food time – she actually lets him eat out of the same dish as her, which is nothing short of a fucking miracle) and she’s actively coming to assault me in bed in the morning if she’s hungry and I’m still asleep (given that it’s like 4am).

None of this, unfortunately, addresses the cancer. We’re still waiting to have additional blood work done, plus the ultrasound next Friday. I’m not looking forward to it, but right now I’m just so delighted at how much better she seems that I will play ostrich and just not worry about it until I need to start making some decisions regarding treatment.

All of this is stupid and expensive, but I love my cat and I keep thinking that it could always be worse. The donation page that Miranda and Jeanie set up is collecting at a steady rate (and thank you so, so much to everyone who has donated – you guys are incredibly sweet and generous and I appreciate it on 8 or 9 different levels), and I’m thinking about the things I have that could be sold to help pay for the vet bills. I love my electronics a little too much to part with any of them, but I DO have something else that might bring in some money – gooooooooold. I have a fairly substantial collection of gold jewellery in various karats just sitting around taking up space. I don’t know how much it would be worth as scrap, but it can’t hurt to find out. If I can get some money for the shiny things I don’t/can’t wear (be they broken, ill-fitting, or awkward to explain) that will go towards keeping Sasha healthy, then it would be the sensible thing to do. In a sick sort of way, it’ll be an adventure. Hooray for new experiences, even if they’re the kind of experience that usually comes right before selling a kidney or some plasma!

Anyone want to buy an egg? I have eggs!

So, how do you sell gold?

Holy shit, I’ve been writing this post since 10am. I really need to stop getting pulled into meetings.

There have been some naughty monkeys at work, and word has come down the wire that access to sites like Facebook and Twitter will be blocked. Boo! I rarely visit Facebook at work, but I’m on Twitter for most of the day. They’re also going to be blocking Flickr, which sucks. I’m not that concerned about it – I don’t use the sites much at work and if I really wanted to engage in some anti-productivity, I can either log into my PC at home or just use my iPhone. I do question how they came about the sites they’re blocking, though. If you really want to stop people from wasting time, why the hell wouldn’t you block YouTube? I see people on Facebook a lot, but I see them on YouTube more. Yes, I have a personal vendetta against YouTube, but that is neither here nor there. I don’t think they’ve blocked all the sites yet – I can still access Twitter and Flickr, but about a minute after I read the decree from above I got an email saying someone had sent me a picture via Facebook. I tried to look, but nope – blocked. Now I’m going to spend the day wondering what Mike tried to share with me. I must know! I cannot take the suspense!

The rest of January is looking to be fairly exciting. There are many exciting things on my calendar, including some that are yet to be confirmed but will be completely awesome if it happens. My next two weekends are booked – this Saturday is Indie I Do on Main Street, which I’m really looking forward to. I may not be looking to get married again, but I can still drool over all the things I wish I was able to incorporate into our wedding – and hey, who said you have to be getting married to doll yourself up in fancy gear? I scoff at the notion that I cannot be utterly decadent and fabulous simply because it is Tuesday. I love indie crafty things, and even though Miranda is making me work the event, I will sneak away to look at all the pretty things and covet anything covered in tulle and sequins.

I better get back to work before someone decides to block our access to Google.

It’s freezing in the Lab today, so I’m taking advantage of my lovely new gloves and wearing them while I type.

Gloves aren’t normally exciting in any way, but these ones are: they’re cashmere!

Every year I sigh with envy at all the lovely soft cashmere things, knowing I can’t possibly afford, justify, or wear without breaking out into hives. While out with my mom this weekend, I happened upon a pair of 100% cashmere gloves (at Old Navy of all places) that were on sale for $12. My hands are less sensitive than the rest of my body, so I can wear the gloves for a little while as long as I’ve taken an allergy pill to keep the itch away and don’t wear them for hours on end. I am reveling in the delicious softness and am generally amused by my crazy pink stripes. Plus, the gloves are thin enough that I can still type quickly and accurately. Score!

Yes, I am excited about gloves. I don’t get out much, you see.

I scooted into work for the first time this year. I’m a full 2 months ahead of my usual scooting schedule! I am either hardcore or insane. I think it is a little of both.

My mom has come and gone and I have not been committed to any sort of asylum, so I consider the weekend a success. It was pretty low-key; my mom doesn’t do much and doesn’t care for sightseeing or .. anything, really. We ate some good food, watched some hockey, did a little bit of shopping. There were a few awkward moments and my nerves were definitely getting frayed on Saturday, but for the most part I behaved myself and so did she. We’ll probably see her again next month; Ed and I are overdue for a Victoria visit. We’re also giving her our bedroom TV to replace the 19” piece of shit she’s been watching since around the time they invented talkies. We can live without a second TV, or perhaps eventually replace it with a small LCD for my bedroom viewing pleasure later this year when there aren’t so many urgent things afoot.

Also, no one peed in any buckets at all during the course of the weekend.

I am very tired. The bedroom was simultaneously too hot and too cold last night, and the many cats decided they would all take turns  disturbing us in a variety of creative ways. I don’t think I slept for longer than an hour at a time, making for a very sleepy Kimli. I also haven’t been sleeping well in general; worrying about Sasha is taking a lot out of me. I freak out at any noise in the night that might be caused by a cat in distress, and while 98% of the time it’s nothing (and the 2% is simply because it’s 4am and she’s hungry), I still can’t let myself relax. This week won’t be any easier, either – more blood work on Wednesday to tell us how badly she’s doing, and then it’s terrible decision time. To say that I’m not looking forward to it is the understatement of the century, but yet .. knowing will be a little bit of relief, as terrible as that knowledge will be.

Here is a picture of me and my mom. It is a bad picture, but you get the general idea: I have a mom, and here she is.

I enjoy carrying lunch to work in a lunchbox.

I do not enjoy making flow charts.

.. who am I kidding, I actually love making flow charts. Shut up.