Little Victories

After three weeks of medicine and fighting - I took Mulan to the vets yesterday morning to have her life snuffed out. We sat in the waiting area, and two patients before us went in, and we would be after the jrt next to us - and Mulan just died. There was a horrifying moment when we were grabbing and snatching the dog, trying to find sign of life - even though we had taken her there to kill her. The jrt terrier owners were quite horrified by it all.
The fifty quid I saved on the needle in the arm - thats being spent on the cremmie. I have laid her out - in case she is off to Valhalla, she has a tea bag with her - as thats her favorite; and she was particularly fond of potatoes too - so one of those is going in the oven with her. Dear Mulan - a born mum - best mum I ever had.

 

My big success today, is I got out of bed and made it to work. That's about all that's going to happen today.

Actually I've taken another day's worth of Java programming online. Maybe one day I'll be fluent in that language, and gain the adoration of my coworkers and bosses....

 

No fucked up dreams last night.

Yay!

 

Wife and Daughter (age 15) are going to fly out West this morning to visit Wife's Sister and Brother-in-Law, leaving me blessedly alone for five glorious days of intense focus on research and web site programming.

(Given the recipes posted here recently, I might even make some no-mayonnaise potato salad.)

Daughter originally refused to go, wanting to stay here with her Blue-Haired Boyfriend. She was so adamant that we decided it was hopeless, and gave in, notwithstanding the waste of non-refundable airline tickets.

But Blue-Haired Boyfriend, perhaps not wanting to spoil our family plans, told her she couldn't come to Christmas at his family's house, because it would be "family-only".

(I'm pretty sure he invented this constraint on the spot. "Family," in his case, means Son, Mother, and Mother's Boyfriend.)

Instantly, Daughter's position reversed, and she packed her bags last night.

(We're Jewish, but Blue-Haired Boyfriend, and Wife's Sister and Brother-in-Law, are not. In a nod to tradition, I will probably go out for Chinese food with friends from the synagogue on December 25.)

 

Seventeen yrs ago. I had a friend who I trusted too much. I told her about my marriage problems. Little did I know at the time, she was feeding all of what I said back to my husband. My marriage nearly ended in divorce. I hadn't had a friend since (my choice).
So, my little victory is that I made a new friend and even went out for coffee the other day. Ridiculous little victory, I know, but it's mine.
This time around I just won't share everything.

 

So Hercules was looming over my trip to New York with @GeneticShift, during which we were supposed to see Phantom of the Opera with tickets I had purchased back in October. With the forecast looking downright shitty, we were compelled to postpone New York till March, leaving us at the mercy of Telecharge's draconian non-refundable ticket cancellation policy.

Little victories:

Telecharge exchanged the tickets for a cheaper matinee performance in March with better seats.

@GeneticShift got an extra day to stay here to wait for the roads to get cleared out.

We went to the National Zoo yesterday and saw elephants AND red pandas (among tons of other awesome critters), and @GeneticShift got herself an adorable red panda hat.

Yay!

 

I have moved from one apartment to another. Now I'm closer to work.

 

It appears that commercials for a certain make of car featuring a certain popular singer are no longer being aired. For me this could qualify as a big victory.

 

Noticed a feeling, and what caused it, and addressed it. Got reamed because Im not supposed to have feelings or failings.
Too bad. It was win for me and I takin it!! Woot!

 

I went to see my therapist for the first time in 9 months yesterday. Finally admitted that there are some things that I can't do alone.

Feels nice.

 

I accidentally closed the tab on an unpublished post I'd been working on for at least an hour.

...I didn't flip my shit, just as I would have a year and a half ago.

This is progress.

 

Very welcome news for those of us living on the Eastern Seaboard, @DamnitAll. I understand that Southeastern PA went to Defcon 3 as a precaution.

 

I managed to survive my first week back to work after the holidays.

Bonus: I felt like I had some direction.

 

I'm now 10 days into 2014 and we haven't had a family calamity yet. That's already an improvement over 2013.

 

One of the planks in our backyard fence is loose, and three of our four dogs got out; I managed to get all three of them back home in about 15 minutes. OK, a confession--Shelley the Cheetah Catcher was on her way back home when I found her.

 

Not my victory, but I spotted one of two Carolina wrens in my backyard this morning, which gives me hope that both of them survived the bitter cold last week. They're delicate birds, and though their range has steadily expanded northward, they are sensitive to colder weather and tend to die off with the remaining population of survivors retreating south after especially severe winters.

I love these little guys, especially because of this:
"A pair bond may form between a male and a female at any time of the year, and the pair will stay together for life. Members of a pair stay together on their territory year-round, and forage and move around the territory together."



/sap
/birdnerd

 

The oatmeal—Quaker's Old Fashioned, on the stovetop and sweetened with maple syrup—I made for myself once I finally dragged my ass out of bed this morning was pretty fucking delicious.

 

After weeks of procrastination and 2 sentence at a time updates, this presentation is as good as it's going to get.

 

After weeks of sustained effort, and despite all sorts of unexpected difficulties, I got the new version of my web site up now.

I still need to finish updating a section that hardly anyone looks at, but it was good enough this evening (Sunday) to post announcements.

I need faster disk. Either I should get the hard drive replaced in that laptop, or maybe just buy (yet) another laptop.