an inconvenient floof

Posted in everyday kimli by

Lemon has never been the most affectionate of cats. It took almost 7 years before we got purrs out of him, and to this day they can only be heard if you press your ear up against his belly. He’s also a grumpy pain in the ass who hates almost everything, but does – albeit somewhat reluctantly – at least tolerate us.

Most of the year, Lemon finds somewhere comfortable in the house to sleep and everything is fine. In the winter, however, he apparently cannot sleep without being in total contact with me at all times – and he is the worst person I’ve ever shared a bed with. Basically, it looks like this:

Lemon insists on sleeping on my legs. He is a great big fat potato – I actually can’t move him when he’s in brick mode – and he radiates the heat of a thousand suns. I spend every night either squished up in a ball in the 1/4 of the bed alloted to me while Lemon takes over the entire bottom of the bed, or fighting him for leg room. On the rare occasion I fall asleep untethered, he’ll come to bed and take up his usual spot which means I wake up completely dehydrated, drenched with sweat, with cramped legs because they’ve been held in one position all night, and with an aching back because I couldn’t roll over.

These days, I’m getting three to four hours of sleep a night, and they’re not exactly comfortable. As a result, my brains are foggy, I can’t get my day started, I obviously feel like crap, and I am very grumpy towards the huge pile of bricks that refuses to sleep anywhere else on the bed. Look how much room there is! Dilly is in the corner, sleeping by Ed’s feet away from him. Hobbz isn’t even shown, because he is a pretty princess who sleeps on the armchair next to the bed. Lemon’s love and weight is reserved for me alone, and while on some level I appreciate whatever affection he throws my way, I am fucking exhausted. And sore. Is it summer yet?

My mother is coming to visit Halfwack today for the first time. Ed is frantically vacuuming the stairs, I’ve hidden most of the gay porn, and I have no idea what to do with her for the next three days. Wish me luck.

I am so tired.

Posted in everyday kimli by

“New series, coming soon: Coroner! They investigate the dead and solve their crimes!”

.. that’s not how it works. It’s not how CSI works, or Bones, or Criminal Minds, or any other of the hundreds upon hundreds of procedural TV shows in which the protagonists do every step of investigation, up to and including the persecution (and sometimes beyond! Why are you undercover in Rikers, forensic podiatrist? Get back to feet!). Don’t get me wrong – I love good crime TV as much as anyone else, but I often wonder how many people went into forensic science because they wanted to catch bad guys by looking at blood splatter or saying “enhance” at your computer to figure out license plate details from a 3 pixel traffic camera photo taken with the best technology 1994 had to offer.

I started to wonder if, as a technical writer, I could also start solving crime. The writer angle has been done of course, but they weren’t technical writers. Why couldn’t I work in a coroner’s office, documenting procedure or writing up instructions, but also have a knack for finding clues overlooked by actual professionals? It could happen. It doesn’t have to be my specific profession, either – a traveling salesperson peddles knives – and crackpot motives! A plumber, always in the right place – at the wrong time! Social Media Rockstar tweets as the voice of your brand – and of the newly deceased! Oh, yes. All of these are excellent ideas.

crimes were did

.. by me. what a twist!

I’m gonna start asking my boss for crimes to solve. Crimes other than the criminal lack of punctuation and grammar in my work, that is.

it was the blurst of times

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In just over 12 hours, we will officially stick a fork in 2018 and call it done. This is a good thing. This has been one of the most difficult years in recent history, and I am more than ready to wipe the slate clean and enter 2019 full of hope and Diet Coke and big dick energy.

That’s not to say 2018 was all bad, though. There were a lot of really neat things up in here, like:

  • Finally moving into our new home
  • Visiting Hong Kong just because
  • Not one but two trips to New York, again just because
  • London/Lille/Brussels
  • We really love our new home

It is amusing to me that my two recurring themes are at war with one another: travel and being at home.

Anyway. We had a lot of fun with friends and family, most of our cats are mostly healthy, and we are both gainfully employed. Really, what more could we ask for?

I could use a win or two in the health column, if I’m being truthful. For some weird reason, being stressed out for 10 straight months is somewhat detrimental to good health. While the stress has been temporarily resolved, I’m still dealing with the fallout in terms of anxiety, sleeplessness, and existential dread. And did I mention the temporary resolution? The whole thing will start all over again in a few months, and I already want to cry. But! Tonight is New Year’s Eve. The tears can wait. I have friends to party with, an outfit that requires multiple battery packs, and 4 litres of Diet Coke. Frankly, I have everything I need.

Regardless of how your 2018 played out, I hope tonight is everything you need and you enter 2019 full of wonder at the unspoiled potential stretched out ahead of you. Be safe, don’t forget to hydrate, and do you as only you can.

2018top9

a step forward

Posted in everyday kimli by

Still trying to stay positive. Last couple of days were really rough, but I’m still here so I guess that’s a win.

Today I donated money to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank in the name of my endless angst. I am grateful that I still have the means to do that, as I enjoy being able to help people without having to actually talk to them.

Want to know something funny? The entire reason I am so freaked out about not being able to find a job is that once, 16 years ago, I couldn’t find a job after a round of layoffs. It took 9 months for me to find any kind of work whatsoever, and it was a soul-crushingly horrible job that I still have nightmares about. I’m terrified of that happening again, even though I have no real reason to be.

No, YOU’RE irrational.

piccadilly circus

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This happened yesterday, but the happy carried over:

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squishy kitty

She looks scared, but only because Ed was making squealing noises at her. She crawled into my sweater herself and turned around to snuggle. She is the cutest.

 

fresh start

Posted in everyday kimli by

I’ve spent my entire summer worrying myself sick and unable to enjoy most things. Today is October 1st, and that stops now. I will attempt to post at least one good thing that I am happy, no matter how small, for each day in October.

So, with that in mind: today I found an online, Canadian source for the spicy gummy hearts that I loved from Sugarfina (which were discontinued). I also found a whole bunch of other awesome gummy flavours (spicy. chai.), so I placed a huge order for exciting yummy goodness.

Gummy party at Halfwack! Who’s in?

photo (22)

maybe we won’t soak them in everclear this time

i love these walls (i hate these walls)

Posted in angst by

September, you done me dirty.

It’s usually my favourite month of the year. There’s a lot to look forward to: the end of summer, the delicious start of fall, new iPhones, international travel, anniversary smooshes, peanut butter pumpkins, and skeletons getting all festive to ring the start of the spooky season.

September 2018, however, has been thoroughly lousy. I can’t wait for tomorrow to get here, to bring the promise of a fresh start shaped like October. I’m just so .. worn down. I’m having near-daily anxiety attacks because I don’t have a new job lined up, I’m still petulant about my vacation being cut short, I had to get my insides swabbed and was told I need a mammogram, Ed is super sick, I’m literally trapped in my house because jerks are moving in and have been blocking my entire garage door for almost 7 hours, and I’m getting a cold. I can feel it in my throat and sinuses. This all comes after finally vocalizing to Ed on Friday night how unhappy I was because of cabin fever and neverending stress, and hoping we could do something fun to take my mind off of government cheese and EI cheques. He got really sick almost during that conversation, so we couldn’t really do anything (fun or otherwise) all weekend. None of this even touches upon the news, which is a whole other horror story. I just want a break. From anger and disappointment and rejection and my unending feelings of worthlessness.

So, no pressure October, but I’m hoping you’ve got some good things in store for me and some maybe peanut butter pumpkins, because that shit is delicious.

 

drama queen

Posted in angst, everyday kimli, international kimli, kitties by

We came home from our trip a week early, because:

cominghome

Basically, something was wrong with Hobbz (oldest kitty and Ed’s one true love). In the weeks before we left, he had started peeing on the floor in the downstairs bathroom. We’d catch him in the act, he’d stop for a few days, then start up again. Nothing else seemed wrong – he would just very deliberately pee on the floor, then leave like nothing happened. He hadn’t done it in the few days before our trip, so we just hoped he was being a prima donna about the state of his litterbox.

Unfortunately, the floor peeing got a lot worse. Our neighbour and cat sitter both reported in that he was a veritable fountain of pee; hosing down the bathroom at all hours of the day and night. He was also being unusually skittish, wouldn’t let anyone touch him, and was looking pretty rough. All of these are highly unusual, but when pee started to appear outside the downstairs bathroom, we knew something was seriously wrong. We asked our cat sitter to please take him to the vet, which went about as well as expected: he fear-peed all over everything to the point where he had no more pee for the vet to take. Blood was drawn, then they were sent home so Hobbz could be put in isolation in an attempt to capture some pee for testing (didn’t work – puppy pads are REALLY ABSORBANT).

Meanwhile, Ed and I are in Lille and feeling like horrible cat parents and terrible people all around. We discussed it briefly, and made the decision that we would cut our trip short and fly home as soon as possible. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which complicated matters – but I searched through every possible combination of cities, trains, and airports and managed to come up with a return trip home that didn’t cost $2500 each, leaving on Saturday. It was Thursday at this point, so we left Lille and headed to Brussels as originally planned. We’d get a day and a half in Belgium (better than nothing), then leave from Brussels early Saturday morning to take a train to London and fly from Gatwick at noon.

Brussels was truly lovely, but both Ed and I were really distracted with worry about Hobbz so we didn’t get to see nearly as much of the city as we normally would. We made the best of a bad situation with many beers (for Ed), statues of small children peeing, crazy waffle concoctions, and huge epic castley things. I ate a weird taco. Pay toilets are both awful and great. Tourists are fucking rabid about Manneken Pis, which is surprisingly tiny. A great gay store named Boris Boy reminded me of my long-standing grudge against women’s sex toys and roused my outrage all over again. I drank the Diet Coke I smuggled into the country smugly. Angst aside, we had a lot of fun.

I was struggling, though. There’s a 9-hour difference between Brussels and Vancouver, and our cat sitter would arrive around 3pm each day so I’d be awake well after midnight, waiting for updates and passing along information for the vet. We had to be at the train station by 7am on Saturday for our train, so I was up at 5:30 to shower and finish packing and make sure everything was ready to go. Worry for Hobbz, stress about being so far from home, lack of sleep, angst over cutting our vacation short, and wracking internal sobs about having to return to the reality of my work situation a full week earlier than intended has taken a huge toll on me – I am not myself, something Ed has repeatedly noted over the last few weeks.

Still, we made it home. Our plane landed on time, all our luggage arrived, and by 4:30 we were pulling into our garage, desperate to see our cats.

All of whom were totally fine (and beyond ecstatic that we were home).

The vet thinks Hobbz has a slight kidney or bladder infection, or possibly a stone. Most (but not all) of the peeing has stopped, leading me to suspect he was being a complete fucking drama queen because Ed wasn’t home. We had to collect a urine sample from the floor to take to the vet, but that’s happening today and we’ll get a course of treatment for Hobbz .. who, incidentally, perked up a thousandfold the instant he saw Ed.

I am trying very hard to be pragmatic about our melodramatic diva of a cat, but there’s a liiiiiittle bit of resentment there. I’ve STILL never been to Amsterdam, damnit.

I know we did the right thing, and Hobbz isn’t out of the woods yet. Still, I can’t help but feel cheated out of what was supposed to be a complete distraction from the last few months – it kinda feels like I can’t catch a break. I wasn’t supposed to return to work until the 17th, but since we’re home and I don’t get paid time off, there’s no reason for me not to work the week. We’ll also need the money to cover the extra train tickets and flights home, because even though we had trip insurance, I don’t think it covers pet illness or emotional manipulation via floor urine. I haven’t been able to submit the claim yet, but I’m not hopeful. And I feel just weird overall – I’m glad to be home, but at the same time this is the last place I want to be.

I’m trying not to be all fatalist about this maybe being the last vacation we’ll ever take because once I lose my job we won’t be able to afford stuff like this (not to mention this trip was booked with proceeds from the sale of Sparta), but I am REALLY GOOD at being fatalist.

Pictures soon!

IMG_8636

two point two pictures

Posted in angst, everyday kimli, i'm an astronaut, international kimli, medical anomaly by

HELLO

I’M STILL ALIVE

Funny story: I haven’t written in a long time because I had nothing good to say – my life is a never-ending series of whines, rage tears, and vaguebooking. I didn’t want to make a triumphant return to my poor neglected blog only to complain about how awful my ridiculously priviledged life is, so I kept my head down and cried my sad tears and posted dumb little Facebook updates about my unhappiness and then guess what.

I sort of exploded from the stress, and desperately needed an outlet that wasn’t poor Ed talking me off the ledge. Oh, if only I had a safe outlet in which I could vent about my FEELINGS. If only there was a friendly, non-judgemental place where I could air my dirty laundry and extreme dissatisfaction at my lot in life and also throw in the occasional random reference to movies from the 90s. OH IF ONLY.

I never claimed to be as smart as I tell the internet I am

So, here we are. Strap in, everyone. I’m going to cleanse my soul the only way I know how: dumping it out onto the internet for the seagulls to pick through and poop on.

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