Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Meet Buster


After days of being despondent, Duane suggested I should get a kitten.  Before we took Butterscotch for his final sleep, I held him to say a private good bye.  I thought about when we got the tuxedo twins.  Butterscotch was so happy to share his home.  Gave them welcome licks on the head and showed them where the food is kept.  It felt like he was saying he had a good life and I should give another cat a good life.

The lady from the ad on Craigslist said her neighbor found the litter of kittens in the backyard, dehydrated and dirty, three weeks ago.  She cleaned them up, bottle fed them, weaned them to solid food and litter trained them.  When I told her about Butterscotch, she said she had the perfect kitten, lovable and cuddly.

He is just that and more.  He's attached himself to Duane's chest.


Duane sits on the couch and Buster attaches himself.  Duane apologized that my kitten became him his kitten.     It's ok.  He did suggest that maybe I should get another for me.

Precocious little thing.  He's not put off by his grumpy aunties.  The girls fly into hissy fits when he comes up to them.  The past two days, he hides under things waiting to ambush them.  Not the least bit dissuaded by their hissing.  He is determined they will either like him or explode.

Duane said, "Great revenge for you, Butterscotch.  Come back as a kitten and go after them."  The girls weren't very nice to Mr. Scotch the past few years.  The timing isn't right for Buster to be a reincarnation. Maybe in six weeks, I'll take a scan over Craiglist and see if something jumps out at me.  Maybe.  Still waiting for the feeling like I've been punched in the gut to lessen.

Duane wrote a post about Buster.  He's much eloquent with his words than I am.

In other news, Duane had a lung cat scan in April.  The pulmonologist says that the scarring has not improved since his last scan in the ICU last year.  There are three holes in the center of his lungs.  They are looking into putting him on the transplant list, as his name wouldn't come up for three to five years.

This weekend, I joined Summer of Socks and Tour De Fleece, team Cranky Pants.  Hopefully it will bring back my mojo and there will be pictures.  I did get some nice quilting thread for my yoyo quilt on Saturday.  However, I can't find where I last put my fabric cutting scissors, so I sat down defeated for the moment.

Back to work today, when you'll read this.  Need to head to bed, 5 am comes way too early.

Thank you for all your comments of sympathy for Butterscotch.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

So Sad



I haven't been around much this year, so busy with work.  Along way, I'm so tired when I get home, I lost interest in my knitting.  Work is going well, though.  A woman at work makes yo-yo quilts while she's on the phone. I was thinking that would be a great way to use up my mountain of quilting fabric without much effort.  This weekend, I sorted through some of it.

This past weekend, our Butterscotch stopped eating and drinking very little. A few days before, instead of fighting me over my chair, he started sleeping on the floor in the corner next to my chair.

We took him to the vets.  His liver is completely shut down.  The vet thinks it's liver cancer.  They re-hydrated him and sent him home with us for a couple days.  Wednesday at 9am, we take him back to be put to rest.

He was born in my closet on Memorial Day, May 31, 1999.  A week later, I injured my back at work and was put on bed rest.  The kittens were just opening their eyes.  We laid in bed together, just staring at each other.  Butterscotch has been my constant companion, ever since.



He loved to sit and watch the birds. 



My chair thief.


Lover of catnip.


Such a wonderful gentleman.  In the mornings he would let the girls eat their can breakfast first.



My knitting and spinning wheel buddy.





Before we got Dammit bunny, he was best friends with our Lexie bunny.  They would curl up together in front of the bookcase.  He would take his big clumsy seven-toed paw and try to pet her head, just the way we would pet him. Lexie resides on a shelf in our closet now.  Soon, Butterscotch will join her, to keep her company again.


Butterscotch, May 31, 1999 - June 13, 2012

We will miss you!






Wednesday, April 11, 2012

RIP Emily Bird



We don't what happened.  Duane found little Emily at the bottom of the cage just as I came in from home work, tonight.  She's the all yellow one in the back.  We got her as a baby bird in the fall of 2009, just before we moved down to Tucson.

She was ok, hopping and playing with the other birds earlier in the day.  She is survived by her best friend Mr. Bird (the light blue guy, front right.)  No squabbles or fights were heard.  We just don't know what happened.  I think that's the hardest is the not knowing.


RIP Emily, you are missed.  Sept 2009 to April 2012.

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Happy Easter



My planter this spring.  It's what's to come to those of you up north and what's about to be burnt to an inch of it's life in a few weeks down here.  How did it get to be April already?  All work and no play makes Denise ......


Oh well, we'll just sit here and enjoy the flowers for short time.  It's all I have then I need to get ready for another work week.


We're taking bets how long the bunny and the gnome lasts before someone steals it.


Last time, I had promised to tell you about the new furniture and the bunnies.  This is the new sectional.  It's about twice the size as the one we saw in the store. Takes up the whole living room.

I had to straighten and move things to make room for it.  Which made alley's and tunnels for bunnies to run and hide.  Dammit and Betty had a fine time making plans that first night.


All sorts of alleys in that area.  Yes, I know it's a mess. See the vacuum?  I got half done then sort of tired out.  Have a mentioned I'm gone twelve hours a day, five days a week.

That first morning, Duane said Dammit and Betty ran around the cage, and the table, then the chair, and under the secretary in the corner.  It took him over an hour to chase them home.  At one point, Duane pushed the chair against the wall and Dammit jumped back and forth over the chair.

It reminded us of when Dammit was just a little Dammit.  The first time he was let out of his cage after his neuter surgery.  He led the two of us on a merry chase.  Then he dove onto the couch.  Duane shouts, "I've got him now."  Just Duane dove to grab the rabbit, Dammit jumped over the back of the couch, over the table behind it and ran under the couch.  That's when we said to hell with it and just let the little bugger stay out.  If he's that determined.

We can't do that now, as Nippit needs her turn out.  If let Nippit out when Dammit is out she goes right for hind quarters.  Just like the furious little Nippit she is.


I've been spinning again, since there is shuttle now and I don't have to walk two miles twice a day.  This is the second bobbin and it's almost since I took this picture.  It's the fiber my friend bought me for Christmas.  One more bobbin then I will ply it.  I'm anxious to see what the finished yarn will be like.  Also, I have 8 oz of CMF Walpurgis in BFL that Duane bought me for Christmas.  I'm dying to spin that.


I finished the socks, but they are too small for me.  That's what I get for not taking a minute out of my busy day to try them on as I'm knitting.  It's in the 90's F now anyway.  Too hot to wear.  I'll have to reknit them and hope they are finished by November when it's cool enough for wool.

Every thing that has been sucking for awhile, still sucks.  But, we won't talk about that.


Butterscotch walked by my sandals and noticed they smelled like me.  He made a pillow out them.  He misses his mom.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Rumors About Me......

wandering aimlessly in the desert, babbling incoherently have been somewhat exaggerated.  I wasn't wandering aimlessly.  I can't believe I haven't posted in almost three months.  A ton of boring stuff, much bus knitting, that all has to be re-knit.  Then tonight was a total fiasco, but I'll get to that later.



January, I really buckled down at work, earned a nice monthly bonus and switch in team leaders (rolls eyes).  She caused me much stress in the month of February.  Very nit-picky, she went through all punch-ins and outs with a ruler every day.  I was counseled for coming back from lunch one minute late, which wasn't my fault.  Much of February, I was sick. I was beginning to worry about a repeat of of last year with me in the ICU, this time.  Every time I called in to work, she called me at home to check up on me.  The worst part of it, she was from another department and had no clue what us lowly robo-trons answering phone had to deal with.  Ugh!


Duane bought me a Martha Washington geranium the week I was out sick. First time we found one down here.


For March, I have a new team leader who has been in the department for a long time.  She's so low key, we just nod and say hi when we pass each other.  She knows I'm not one of the problem children and leaves me alone.

February, also brought me two friends at work.  Actual, friends that I would consider having over for dinner.   If I didn't live in this slum, that is. Which is something, considering how anti-social, I am.  You know with the aluminum foil covering the windows and that hat I made with the scraps.

  One rides the bus with me.  This is the weird thing about work. There is a bunch of us riding the same bus every day.  We all sit in different sections of the bus, never speaking,  we all get off together, go into the gas station to get our human fuel, then walk our separate paces to work and back, never speaking while waiting for the bus.

This one guy that rides the same bus as me, sits two cubicles from me, never speaks to me.  Occasionally, we would nod to each other.  Then one day, I was waiting for the light when he came up and I started talking to him and we walked to the stop together talking about work.  After that, we would talk at the bus stop after work and on the bus home.  Which many nights has been great to have someone to vent to on the way home.  We groan about how there hasn't been VGH (voluntary go home) in months.  We are tres burnt out.

The other is an older woman who comes in by car and starts the same time I do.  She sits on the bench and has one last smoke with me before we head to our rabbit holes for the day.  Her sister is an RN that took the refresher course after being out of nursing for awhile.  Her sister works at a re-hab center like Duane was in.  She tells her all the time, tell that girl to hurry up and get her license back, I'll give her a job.  Hopefully, in September, I can arrange to take the refresher course.

Basically, I go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed.  Get up at 5:30 and do it all over again.  These twelve hour days our days are killing me.  I have bad eye strain headaches when I get home.  Last thing I want to do is look at a computer screen.  Which is the lack of blogging or blog reading, sorry.

March came a stress reducer and increase all at once.  They closed down the underpass we use to walk to work for a huge two year construction project.  ADOT put in a shuttle last week to take us back and forth. It runs once an hour three times in the morning and then once an hour three times in the afternoon.  I take the last shuttle in and the last one out.  If I miss either, I'm sunk.  That's Monday thru Friday.  I can't get there in time to take the Saturday shuttle and it doesn't run on Sunday.  So, I have to have weekends off.

Two weeks ago, I took a PTO day to go with Duane to the pulmonary Dr.  The head of staffing calls me at home.

"Sorry to bother you on your PTO day, but your the next one up for the shift bid.  Congrats on being number 25 for the Arizona department."

Me: "I need these hours and weekends off because of the shuttle."

"I'm sorry, that shift isn't available."

Me: "Congrats on being number 25, my reward  is I need to find a new job, thanks."

"No, no you don't, I just need to put something into the computer for you. I have Sunday and Tuesdays off you will only need to just figure out something for Saturday."

Me: "Put in whatever you want.  This is what I can work.  I can't just figure something out.  It's the bus or a cab.  The cab costs 25.00 one way now.  Once the construction starts with the detour it will be more."

It ends there and we go to the Dr.s.  Duane still has significant scarring in his lungs and high blood pressure.  The Dr. ordered a cat-scan of his lungs.  We find out the results in May.  It looks like he might be on oxygen for three to five years best guess, maybe life. Come home, 13 yr old Butterscotch had bloody diarrhea all over the living room. Have to call in to take him to the vet the next day.  Luckily, it's just irritable bowel syndrome and she gave me some medicine.  Wonderful vet just around the corner.  She does bunnies, too.  She said, she's not an expert on bunnies but she would be willing to call for consults if she felt she was in over her head.

Go into work the next day and see that I'm scheduled to work this weekend, after the shuttle starts.  Here we go.  I go up to the desk and talk to the head guy that had called me.  To make it short, he slid me around to where it's the hours I can work.  Told me when it happens again, to just come up and they will slide me around.

First day of the shuttle was last Monday.  Just as I was standing up to the leave for the day, the head of the department comes up behind me.  "Well, Denise,think you will make it out to the shuttle in time.  You've got ten minutes."

Wait, what! How does he know who I am?  He walks out with me to the shuttle.  He's the liaison between our company and ADOT.

Today, I noticed the first week in April they have me scheduled for the weekend and hours all over the place.  I went up to the desk.  The head guy wasn't there.  The ones that were up there gave me a bit of a hassle, but switched it to what I needed eventually.  I said, "That's another week I won't need to hand in my resignation."  My old team leader, (the one I really liked) was in earshot.  She said, "Wait, what!"  I told her I would be there until they didn't work with the shuttle or ADOT stops the shuttle, then I will turn in my resignation.  She said, that's not going happen. We'll see.  I'm taking one week at time. Of course, I'll make sure to hand my resignation to the head of department.

The people upstairs have continued to be arseholes.  A couple nights, I've had to call the manager because the mom wasn't home and the kids were running around yelling and fighting for hours.  It's like the Lord Of The Flies, up there.  The people over my next door neighbor, throw their cigarette butts in our patios. Piles of them.

Tonight was the last straw.  Duane calls me at my first stop.  The kitchen sink is over flowing.  Upstairs has been running water for hours.  He called the manager.  I call him back at the second stop to tell him I see the bus coming.  Get home now, water is running all over the place.  I get off the second bus and run for home.  My neighbor passes me with her truck as I get to the front.

I get home, Duane is out on patio.  The neighbors from both apartments are both out there yelling back and forth with him.  They have the water still running.  The punk above my neighbor is threatening to come down and fist fight.  With an old man on oxygen.  Geez.  A plumber is inside our kitchen bailing huge buckets of hot water as fast as he can.  It slows down enough that he can go upstairs and tell the idiots upstairs to shut the water off.  We were only washing a plate.  To which he said bullshit, and called the manager.  The manager was supposed to come down and never did. The plumber bailed water from two big buckets for over an hour. Our neighbor bailed with a pot and made a small pond in the courtyard.

 Oh, the manager moved out back at Christmastime.  The whole place is the Lord Of The Flies now.  Not, that he managed the place that great before.

I called him after I stopped shaking and calmed down somewhat.  Enough is enough, I'm looking for another place.  They go or I go.  I've had it. Four hour commute, 8 hours of people screaming at me at work.  I can't help it if their Dr. didn't call in the prescription or their insurance denied payment. Between the drug addicts calling Drugs-R-Us for their oxys and their xanax at work and the drug addicts up in this place, I'm fed up.  Instead of being in bed an hour ago, like I should have, I'm venting to you all.  Don't know when I'll be able to get to sleep, then have to get up and do it all over again.

My bus friend live a couple miles up the street from me, in a single house.  He says several of them come up for rent when the college kids leave.  I'm going to ask him to keep an eye out for a decent place in his neighborhood.



On the knitting front, I finished two pairs of socks, but have to re-knit them.  The feet are a half and in two small and tight around the top of the ankle.  It's ok, it's pretty yarn.  One pair was supposed to be my Mom's Christmas present.  I'm currently working on a rainbow pair, so I will send those to her instead.  It will be too damn hot down here by the time I finish them.



Talk about crazy weather.  Last week it was 80's down here.  Then a storm came in on Sunday. Monday, I was out on break with the older woman and we both said it felt cold enough to snow.  She's from Indiana, so she knows too. An hour later it did.  It was actually snowing in the valley.  Meanwhile, it was 80's back home in NY.  We are supposed to be up to 80 by Friday.  I'm not looking forward to it getting too warm, once it does it will be 110F 40C plus for months.



This weekend, I promise to tell you about Dammit and the new living room furniture.  Dammit gave Duane quite the hot chase Monday morning.  When Duane told me about it at lunch I was laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my face.   Had everyone staring me because cranky old broad never laughs.

Thanks for stopping by.  I promise a good post this weekend, I think, I hope.  Someone lock the neighbors in the closet, one far away from me, and throw away the key.





Monday, January 02, 2012

Happy New Year & Year Review

I hope 2012 is treating everyone right so far.  Me, I have had a great first two days.  Got to leave work early both days.  Last night we feasted on a side of prime rib roast beast.  Today, sunny and 75F, I met Duane at my connecting bus stop to have dinner out.  Back home forty-five minutes before I was scheduled to leave to work.

Last year started off pretty well.  Looking back I noticed I posted on the 2nd then. Last year, we had a clutch of new baby birds and I was nervous about them surviving.  Thirteen babies later, I can laugh at that.


Then starting on the 8th of January things started going down hill when Gabby Giffords was shot. I remained optimistic until Valentine's Day when we were both sick.  Then I had to call an ambulance and send Duane to the hospital.  Those who read and kept me grounded back then will remember things were pretty touch and go for a while. Some of you called me Super Woman, though my cape was torn, my tights had a run and I think I broke a heel.  Who knew you could bring bunnies to the ICU?



After forty-five days, we moved on to the nursing home/rehab center which brought many more challenges.  Finally, after three months, he came home.  More challenges over the summer.  We almost lost our Dammit Bunny (world's smallest Led Zeppelin fan.) He's back to his old spunky ways, by the way.

In August, trying to be thankful ad-mist chaos, I wrote a post and got some advice to freeze my curse. After which, things quickly got worse and immediately turned around for the better.  Working full-time for the first time in almost twelve years has came with it's own set of challenges. (that last post gets many Google hits from some weird people)

Babies were born, twice.  A very tense Christmas.  It was tiring year right to the very end.  My late ex-MIL used to say whatever your doing on midnight New Years is what you'll be mostly doing the rest of the year.  I was sleeping.  As tiring as last year was, I could use a year of mostly sleeping.  I won't wish for it though.  If you've read this blog for very long, you know what a peculiar sense of humor the Universe has when it comes to me and wishing things.

Through it all some knitting was finished.


Some spinning too.


The birds got a mansion to live in.


Lessons learned this year were lessons I had learned long ago, but are now more deeply ingrained.  Treasure good friends.  New friends that come along at the right time,  old friends and friends who you have never met in person but are just as special.  I would not have made it through this year without friends.  Be happy for the day you have, especially if you have what you need for that day.  Even if the it looks like your world might come crashing down tomorrow.  Very often, tomorrow will take care of itself.

Finally, I'll leave you with a couple sappy videos.  I'm going back to my knitting.  I'm making myself a pair of socks.  Would you believe I don't have a pair of hand knit socks for myself?




Have to have the Zep for Dammit.