An entry that starts bad but gets better in Well now

I am finding myself in a strange state tonight,
working hard to maintain a façade of calm,
attempting to exercise the ability to ignore the things that are truly unnerving me.

The numbers, oh heavens, the numbers are eating away at me.
It’s mid-October, just two paychecks from the end of the year attack on my sanity.
The quarterly house insurance and the yearly property taxes come due at the end of December, between the two a sum of nearly a whole month’s take home pay.

I have tried, desperately tried, to set aside money every month,
but it’s never enough, never,
and I cannot
cannot
simply can not
borrow any more.
The credit cards are,
in addition to being usurious and financial suicide,
nearly all maxed.
The family, well, I am unable to even go there.

Craft fairing is not an option.
Two years ago one big well-run fair saved me in November,
brought me in hundreds more than I put out in supplies and fees.
Last year I lost hundreds preparing for two badly run fairs
each costing $35 to enter,
each pulling in less than $100.
When I think of all the time I spent in making inventory
and all the money I spent on supplies to make all the jewelry,
it kills me.

I enjoy making the things I make.
People like the things I make.
They sell fairly well when there’s a steady stream of customers,
but I’m a horrible judge of what fairs are worth the effort
and I’m an awful self-promoter,
and, oh, I’ve just sort of given it all up
because it’s way too expensive a hobby to just make the things I make
for the fun of it.

So, despite the fact than I am barely holding it together with working the one job,
that I am crawling out of bed before dawn and collapsing when I get home,
I am simply going to have to find and take on a part time job,
muster up the energy to work longer days and longer weeks.
If I already loathe and am exhausted by work,
how much more miserable am I going to be with work and a half?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay.
That was real.
But time has passed.
Calm has been re-attained.

I’m fine.
I’ll be good.
Things will work out.

(See I’m back on the ignore the facts track and much the better for it.)

I am working on another more immediate problem tonight.
It’s another hard problem with a difficult solution
but I am game to this one.
I may not prevail but I shall fight the good fight.

I often assert that I am my cats’ lifetime jailor,
as in fact I am.
Tonight though, I am going to become a much sterner warden.

Lucy, my fifteen year old tuxedo cat, has gone completely off the litterbox
and THIS SIMPLY MUST STOP!
I was mildly miffed when she started leaving liquid deposits all over the bathroom floor
and then the hardwood hallway floor,
but I cleaned and disinfected and soldiered on
because you just do.
I know that Lucy started this when she had a UTI,
but I took her to the vet and she’s over that now.

• When cats get urinary tract infections,
  they associate the pain of urinating with the litterbox.
  They start peeing elsewhere.
  Eventually the UTI gets better and, with the exquisite logic of the feline mind,
  they feel they have solved the problem magnificently.
  .
  “It hurt when I peed in the box.
  It doesn’t hurt when I pee outside the box.
  The box is obviously evil and taking joy in afflicting me.
  I’m never peeing in that damned box again!”

Now Lucy is going cat “norms” one better and making liquid AND solid deposits
any and everywhere in the entire house.
I love the bloody damn cat, but last night was the last straw.
I rolled out of bed in the middle of the night
and stepped in two different sorts of nasty on the way to my own litterbox.
I cannot have my entire house become a toilet.

So Lucy is going into solitary confinement.
I’m making a Kitty Jail in the front room.
I’ve picked her favourite spot in the house,
the front corner with the two windows
and I’m caging that off.
I’m using the corner walls, a door, and two salvaged crib rails
to make Al-Kitty-Traz.

I’ve put down the plastic on the floor,
covered it with a sheet and moved in a low bench for lounging on,
a pair of small boxes for jumping in and out of
(not to mention the joy factor of viciously destroying cardboard with your fangs),
and several of her favourite towels and toys.

I have to a relatively small plastic container to put some nice fresh litter into.
Then I’ll just put the puzzle sides together,
catch the wily cat and toss her in.
(I wonder if I have enough Neosporin in the house for the aftermath.)

Truth be told, I am hoping that being confined in a small area
with a brand new litterbox that hasn’t previously offended her,
she might just reset and start using the new kitty-potty venue.
It is possible.
Cats are naturally neat and tidy about such things
and they do not like to offload anywhere near where they eat.
(I’ll place her food an water bowls on the bench as far from her box as possible.)

Hey, despite the first half (the gratuitously whiney half) of this entry,
I am actually something of an optimist.
If it weren’t for the willfulness of cats
and the stubborn refusal of the lottery people to pick my freaking numbers
JUST THE ONCE,
I’d be a god damned Polly-freaking-Anna!

Last updated November 04, 2017