Chris & Joy’s Critterweb

No Impact Man has a good post, which includes the above-mentioned article as well as some other observations. There is a lot of good discussion in the comments as well. We’d heard about the GM antitrust prosecution before, in The End of Suburbia. GM was also responsible for killing the EV-1 electric car.  The auto industry has blocked the implementation of emissions and fuel economy regulation, resisted any attempt at regulation, seemingly deliberately stalled on developing alternative fuel vehicles, and of course lets not forget GM gave us the Hummer. And now they want a handout. If it wasn’t for the sheer number of people who would be jobless if the automakers folded, I would say let them rot; as it is I am not sure what the best solution would be. A no-questions-asked handout to bail out their sorry asses is NOT it.

I have been trying really hard to not be negative, but sometimes it feels like we are just cursed…

We took Winter to the vet for her chronic diarrhea last week. It wasn’t an emergency; it’s a problem she’s had off and on for a long time, and every time we tried to schedule a visit, one of the other animals ‘cut in line’ with a more pressing crisis. Anyway, finally we managed to get her in for an exam. We had them run a major blood panel — figuring if we were going to have blood drawn for a basic panel, we might as well go for everything so we would not have to put her through more bloodwork later.

The results came back today. Everything was more or less OK, with one exception - a fairly high positive on both feline coronavirus titers. This means that at the very least, she has been exposed at some point in her life. At worst, it means she is at risk for developing full blown feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) at some point.  And the others may be exposed, through her.

It’s not a cut and dry situation.  All the test shows is that she was exposed; (BTW this is probably not relevant to her digestive issues) but if I am understanding the articles (link above and another one here) I’ve read and the explanation from the vet correctly, the virus can remain latent for a considerable period of time, able to be spread to other cats or the carrier cat themselves can come down with the disease if their immune system is suppressed, or the virus mutates… it’s a weird virus because the disease is immune mediated, it’s not just a matter of being infected and then developing the disease like with most viruses . If/when a cat does develop full blown FIP, though, it is almost always fatal.

Even though we know that, statistically, up to 30% of house cats will show a positive titer for coronavirus, we can’t help but feel like we have 3 furry time bombs in the house. To say that we haven’t had the greatest luck with animals is an understatement, so the ‘remote’ chance that one of them will suddenly show FIP symptoms and die doesn’t seem quite so remote to us. We’ve had three cats with luxating patellas (common in dogs but not in cats), one die of toxoplasmosis, Nipsy’s asthma and heart tumor, Wednesday’s bladder stones and vaccine-associated sarcoma from the one vaccine she never should have gotten, Simon’s femoral head necrosis that resulted in two hip surgeries and a crippled cat (he also has feline herpes), Olive nearly dying of a reaction to benadryl (which, Ironically, she was given for a reaction to a vaccine)… and more. You get the idea. I think we have good basis for being a bit on the paranoid side.

As far as her bowel issues go, it looks like a food sensitivity or possibly irritable bowel disease… the latter of which has been known to develop into lymphoma. Yeah, rarely, but, well… see above.

Oh, and I found out today that stupid Motorolla charged us $725 on that fraudulent order after all! Argh!!!!! I spent an hour with them on the phone and apparently they will be refunding the money “within 7-15 days” but that doesn’t help our bank account now. The charge went through nearly two weeks after the day all that mess happened, and after the authorization on our account had already expired and been removed. I don’t even understand how they could have done that, when by that time there was no authorization hold and the card in question was closed?

Some days I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream, or just do all three at once.

Yesterday we were running errands and had to get something from the Staples down in Hendersonville. Since we’d been at the clinic that morning, we came up the back way along Howard Gap Road which avoided the worst of the traffic but also meant we had make a left turn at U.S. 64 which is near impossible on a Saturday.

The first green light brought us to the front of the line, but we didn’t make it through. By the time the light turned green again, a steady stream of oncoming traffic that was not turning prevented us from moving at all. There was a little green car behind us with a woman with ratted-out bleach blonde hair and she apparently blamed us for ‘missing’ the light; she got right up on our bumper, throwing her arms all over the place and inching forward like she was going to pass us.

The light turned green again…more oncoming traffic. Finally we saw an opening because one of the oncoming cars was turning right (64 is a one-way highway at that spot so there were two lanes to turn onto) and we started to proceed forward, but suddenly there was motion to the left as the psycho redneck b*#$@! behind us whipped around to try and pass us on the left by pulling into the oncoming lane. We found ourselves sandwiched between her car and the minivan that had been turning right, had to slam on our brakes to avoid hitting the van because she was forcing herself past us even if it meant us hitting her or the other van.

Hearts pounding, we made it into the shopping center parking lot and pulling in right ahead of us was the @##$&*% who had nearly caused a major wreck. Gee… her little reckless tantrum hadn’t gotten her very far ahead, had it? We were stunned and apalled to see she had two small children in her car, one in the front seat (a very small child, isn’t that very unsafe and I think maybe even illegal?) and one in the back in a baby seat. That was just the final straw for Joy, who was already furious over the whole scene. She pulled over, got out of the car, and stomped over to the woman’s open window.

“Thanks for nearly causing a three car accident back there, with your two childen in the car!” Joy said, then calmly turned around and started to walk away. The woman’s response? “Oh yeah? Well at least I ain’t SLOW, like you!” she brayed. And she continued to scream unintelligible curses at us to impress her fellow rednecks at the Wal-Mart gas station, as we drove off.

What a wonderful example she is setting for her kids; what struck us most was not the lack of regard or respect she showed for everyone else in pulling that stupid stunt, but how little respect she apparently has for her own children’s lives, by endangering them in that manner.

I have tried really hard through this whole House of Mold thing to be positive and upbeat and not have a cow over it. After all, I keep telling myself, look at all the people in the world right now who are facing much worse problems? What right do I have to complain because we’ve had to move after only 7 months and throw out half our crap… but this morning I just hit the last straw and feel that if I don’t have a ranting tantrum, then the top of my head might conceivably blow off. So you’ve all been warned. This entry is all about me wallowing in self pity so you’d be best off just closing the page.

We have now had someone out to service the furnace at the new house a total of six times. Well… actually the last time, (which I might point out, was just YESTERDAY) was a routine inspection to make sure everything was working right after the previous five repairs. We’ve had functioning heat for several days, the inspector that came out yesterday hooked up the kitchen duct (which wasn’t tied in to the heat system) and tested things out and pronounced the furnace healthy. We had 100 gallons of oil delivered and figured things were finally smoothed out and we could finish moving the last of the stuff out of the old house tomorrow (yes, there is still more to move) and work on getting settled.

So this morning, when I awoke after an uncomfortable, restless night to find the house oppressively HOT this time, and the furnace running full tilt even though the thermostat was set to 59… lets just say I’m running out of happy thoughts. I tried turning the thermostat all the way down to no avail, all along with me thinking "but that’s my $250 worth of oil that son-of-a-b**** furnace is eating!" We called the landlord, who called the furnace people, and then we had no choice but to leave for work since we couldn’t afford to miss any more of it and the clinic was short-handed. The landlord said she’d come out to let them in.

And then, halfway through the day, still having not heard anything about the situation, it occurred to us… ‘gee, maybe we should have left a window or two open, since it was 80 inside when we left?!’ I called the landlord who said she was on her way to meet them at the house, and she promised to open a window if it was really hot and to call when they were done. But I haven’t heard anything, I’ve left another message for her (four hours have passed) and I am starting to freak a bit. And we still have another hour at least to go at work, plus the half hour it takes to get home. Of course I am highly skilled at paranoia and conjuring up worst case scenarios, so at this point am convinced the house burned down… and feeling very sorry for myself — why can’t we just have some peace and normality in our lives? Why does everything always have to turn into chaos and calamity?

DISCLAIMER: this is a sleep deprived rant that probably won’t make any sense to anyone other than me, and probably not even me when I come back and read it later. Read it at your own risk.

Well there hasn’t been much in the way of posting from me lately… been busy with work, studying, and battling insomnia again. Last night was evenly divided between laying wide awake and fitful sleep filled with nightmares, mostly about the new neighbors.

The house we live in, which we have been enjoying very much, is actually a duplex, joined at the garage to an identical one on the other side. And when we moved in, one of my only concerns was the lack of a fenced yard or a divider between the two houses in the backyard. At first we had a very quiet plumber next door who was hardly ever home, and then for a while the other unit sat empty. It was very peaceful — this is a quiet neighborhood and it was nice sitting outside in the mornings and evenings… and then THEY came.

Let me say that I am well aware that a big part of the problem is my being perhaps somewhat obsessive about my personal space, probably because, growing up, I never had any. So the sudden influx of an as-yet undetermined number of small children, shrieking, squealing, and running across our side of the lawn has not sat well. I’m trying hard to adapt — but why can’t they at least stay on their own freakin side of the property? Officially there is a mother and two small children, but I have seen at least 5 or more and that isn’t counting all the beat up cars and trucks that converge on weekends, blocking us in our own driveway (no one has actually parked ON our lawn anymore since we complained) and the creepy-looking men that hang out around the cars and stare at us when we leave the house.  The kids come stare in our windows, traipse through the plant beds, and leave their bikes behind our cars, in addition to the aforementioned shrieking and screaming.

I guess if I go on about the loud soccer playing (the belches were a nice touch) outside our window, the small unsupervised toddler that chased the dogs when I tried to take them out to potty one day, the squashed ant-covered moon-pie behind my car on our side of the driveway and the grubby little fingerprints all over both cars, I will just sound like I am being a b*tch — and I probably am. If they want to trample down all the bedding plants on their side, coat every surface in blue silly string, leave broken toy parts, dorito bags, and other trash all over their lawn (or in the case of one plastic chair, halfway up a tree) I guess that is their business.  Maybe someday we will be able to afford our own place so we won’t keep ending up in situations like this.

This is our neighbor’s dog. Yes, I know, he is cute. But this is not our neighbor’s yard; in fact, I took this standing in my living room doorway, after I came to investigate the large commotion that resulted from aforementioned fluffy white dog on my porch barking in the window. He had felt he needed to chase away the cats that had the audacity to sunbathe on a windowsill in their own house. Note the lack of (a) a leash and (b) his owner.

This same little dog runs up and down the street at all hours of the day or night, barking like an idiot. One day last year he darted in front of a car to chase after Lindsy, Mojo, and I when we were on a walk. When I looked over to the house where he lived, to see if he’d maybe gotten out of his yard somehow, I was surprised to see his owner sitting on the patio, beaming like an idiot with that "isn’t he just adorable how he thinks he can take on the big dogs" look on her face. Argh.

One of the many new changes that have been implemented at my job (which I used to enjoy) is that we are now using the call ticketing system the large company that contracts our company to provide support for the city we work for uses. (if I lost you with that, here’s the translation: I have three levels of bosses). Never mind that what we do doesn’t really fit the model of what they do, and in fact we can no longer provide them with the reports they want because it doesn’t have that capability. No, they wanted us to use it, so we now use it. If I was leaving tomorrow (I can dream, can’t I?) here is an excerpt of the instruction manual I might leave for my replacement…

1. a Simple Password Reset

Scenario: - User has changed their voicemail password to something they thought was really clever on Friday, and now on Monday they have no earthly idea what it was. We do about a dozen or so of these a day, more after a long weekend.

The Old System:

Open new ticket, which automatically fills in the date and time the ticket was opened. Input phone number and verify address and location auto-filled correctly. Gather callback number if needed. If no auto-fill, gather contact’s location and address. Enter the problem, and the resolution, and select the problem type and the ‘Closed’ option under case status, which auto-fills the date/time that the ticket was closed. Save ticket.

Time spent: less than two minutes.

The New System:

Open new ticket. Input account number and hit enter to bring up our account, wait for address screen to come up (15-30 seconds). Now if this step didn’t work, you will need to open up a screen that shows you every single account the company has, click a letter to search alphabetically, scroll through several screens to find the right account, then select it. Once the location screen has loaded, cancel because the screen contains a listing for every switch, router and other piece of equipment the entire city owns and all you need is a simple address. See if the location is in the dropdown list (which by the way also scrolls very slowly, and is missing quite a few locations) back on ticket screen. If it’s there select it, if not type it in. Fill in contact name, number and issue. Hit save.

Click on timestamps for everything up to ‘Isolated’ and fill in Initial diagnosis, which would be "Password Reset". Click on timestamp over in Current Action and fill in the diary with details. Fill in something for the follow up time and action, because, even though there is no follow up needed, the form will not save without it. At this time, the Resolved and Closed buttons are disabled so you will have to save the ticket, close it, and reopen it two more times.

Find the ticket in the Trouble Ticket List and open it again. Click the Resolved/Fix Timestamp and enter the resolution of "Password Reset." The closed button will still be disabled so you will have to save the ticket again and close it - AGAIN.

Find the ticket in the trouble list and open it again. Now it will let you clear the follow up action boxes if you want. Click ‘Closed’. Save it one more time.

Time Spent: At least 10 minutes, a lot more if the system is particularly slow that day.

2. Searching Call History

Scenario: Caller says "I’ve called twice before on this same issue" or the always fun cryptic "I need you to do that thing they did last time to fix my phone."

The Old System:

Click in the field you wish to search on. Click the search button and enter the search text. Search.

The New System:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Dream on.

OK, if you are feeling masochistic, you can bring up a search form, enter your criteria, hit ‘Search’, wait for at least 5 minutes while the entire system freezes with an hourglass, and then close the error message that says the search timed out when it finally comes up. Seriously. This has never worked, not once. By then you are long off the call and have figured out some other way to find the info, or given up. If you are really desperate you can sort the ticket list by address and open every single ticket for that address and access the diary for each one, then scroll through all the notes for what you are looking for. Have fun.