Can only get better

(she says, knocking wood)

Tonight has sucked. At least primarily. Sparky's home for the holiday, so that's excellent. And my reservoir of "Don't Give a Flying Peanut" is full to overflowing, which might be good for tomorrow.

But one of our sweet guinea piggies died tonight, after a few days of being sluggish and just weird. And that precipitated a fight with Beast who felt it was up to him to hold Ruka till he passed, even though he (Beast) was cratered on painkillers and nerve-blocks. And because he was cratered, he wasn't capable of being lucid or seeing reason about going to bed rather than sitting and dozing hunched over a dying guinea pig. So then he wanted to argue, which is a losing proposition for everyone when he's in this situation; I know this because this situation happens easily once a week. That's an improvement on when he was drinking a fifth of vodka--or more--every night, but dealing with it is exactly the same: he's mean, nasty, incoherent, argumentative and just generally a big asshat.

So Sparky comes home, and once again gets to watch his parents fight. We can go weeks when he's gone without even raising our voices, but it seems like when he's here, Beast needs to prove he's The Man and...yeah.

It's officially 6 weeks now that he's been in pain nonstop. We've gone several rounds with multiple doctors, had 2.5 MRIs, taken 4 or 5 different meds...and still we are just now (yesterday) reaching the action stage. He goes in next week for a cortisone shot directly into his neck near where he has a herniated disk, and then since we're pretty sure it won't fix anything, he'll schedule an appointment to talk about surgery with the same guy who did his lumbar surgery about 4 years ago.

I'm at wits' end. He's a lunatic, emotionally/physically/psychically all over the map in any given moment. He goes from fully adult to age 4 in 20 minutes and I don't always know which person I'm dealing with at any given moment, though I'm remarkably good at judging his mood. By and large, we've been ok, but tonight--and to a lesser degree last Sunday night--just about did me in. He's pissed that I made him go to bed to be rested up for company all day tomorrow. So he went to bed...but when I went up to wake him for his last pill of the night he was still awake. Still steaming. No intention of going to sleep. Because that will show me who's in charge here. And tomorrow he'll be miserable and crabby to the 11 people coming for Thanksgiving. Perfect. Because I wouldn't let him stay up till all hours holding a dying guinea pig and ruining his sleep and his body.

I am, indeed, the Evil Queen.

R.I.P. Ruka.

Ruka (rt.) in happier days

Stuff and Things

I'm sitting here with one of the guinea pigs--Pinto, if you're keeping score--who was staring at the computer screen until I clicked on "New Post." Then he did a neat little somersault and is now facing my armpit with his

Pinto's eye

butt toward the computer, sniffing the air and debating making a run for it. I decided after he bit Beast's ear two weeks ago and tried to bite his stomach last week that the little Bean needs more socialization. I also just noticed he has eyebrow: three very long hairs over each eye. He also knows I'm talking about him: he just turned around to look at the computer. Since I haven't posted that picture yet, he turned around again. And back: now he knows I'm about to do it.

I'm feeling the need of a little silliness of this sort anyway because this week at work was seemingly nonstop insanity. We had:

• A creepy, staring-at-me guy while I was staffing the Reference Desk, to point of turning around as he walked toward the door. No, there was no food on my face--I checked multiple times.
• A knock-down, kick-down fistfight in the front parking lot, captured in lo-fidelity on our security camera a mere 5 minutes after a city cop had done a walk-through. One of the guys is one of our regulars who has had some issues in the past; never with us, but he seems to attract trouble. He was NOT the kickee, however.
• General crazy-busy periods followed by too-short calms seem to be the rule of the week.
• The realization that when I'm the only librarian in the building a) I'm in charge here, and b) I'm all alone in the back of the library at Reference with a lot of strange people.
• Magic: The Gathering. Really? People still play that? That started almost 25 years ago! And, STFU with your nerdiness, yo. You guys are even annoying the homeless people!
• The prototypical mom arriving at closing time for resources for her kid's paper, due tomorrow.  This did happen a lot more pre-Internet, but it never ceases to be amazing. Also, we have virtually nothing on Mount Kilimanjaro!
• Someone calling to ask if she should take the medication she just realized is moldy and whether it could've caused the rash she's has for a week. Seriously? Why not ask your doctor? She has an appointment today, but she wanted affirmation after both her pharmacy and the FDA (!! yes truly) were not nice to her.
• Cold temperatures outside leading to cold temperatures in the children's department, and a ceiling tile falling (overnight, thank God) to the floor; I ended up wearing fingerless gloves every time I was in there this week...which was a lot.

[OW! Dammit, Pinto, my finger is not edible, nor is my engagement ring!!]

• Someone calling to complain about an employee to the director.
• Horrific smell, probably a light ballast, for an hour in the children's room.
• ...and two older teens--male and female--in one of the public restrooms together alone for about a half an hour. Again, the security camera watched them canoodling just out of sight for a bit before they head down the hall to the restroom at 3:56; a patron came and got a staff member who 'interrupted' them at 4:30.

As to that last one, we don't know they were having sex, but based on the patron's comments and common sense, what else would they be in their together mak [Pinto on the keyboard: vgbjkbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbn         ] er, making the sorts of noises they were making? Mind you, this bathroom is probably 15 feet from the locale of the [Pinto again: mkkkuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuujkyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyhhhhhhhhhhhh,l.009]O] [and then he shut down the browser; thank God Blogger saves regularly now] previous incident of library inappropriateness.

Pinto is going back home now. He just bit the knuckle on my pinkie.

So, yeah, weird week. Also, Miss W has started to whine about the new director. Technically, I've been a little nonplussed by the lack of one-on-one communication to date as well, so it's good to have some confirmation of my feelings. Still, it's better than having someone show up every-goddamn-day by my desk asking how I'm doing. Especially since I haven't been doing much cataloging of late--no one ordered books in December and I've essentially been caught up since about mid-January. Lots of cleanup going on.

Outside of work, meh, not much going on. It's cold, as I mentioned above; I gave up memes for Lent; my former Fat Pants are too small; I spend too much time online overall, and not enough time reading; Beast is traveling a lot again.

New stuff: I love Spotify! And I've faded out bigtime on Goodreads, probably due to my lack of reading. And the Oscars are tomorrow night, after an afternoon of (yup) work.

Time to go to the grocery store. Or not.

Giggles

This ad makes me guffaw. Every time I see it:

Yes, I'm aware that I'm a HUGE dork.

Ruka says...

76wjedc v09wajq2 390P[[[[[ [[[[[[DVI9X-000 0000IIIII IIIIIIIIII IIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIV V -V VKJkkvvx vvvvvvvvvvvc jbbbcb nk4j

d-0l. .xcv wc .,, ,,,p 3['=w

So, there you have it, straight from the guinea pig's paws.

Summation

Japanese beetles stink when they die. Maybe they stink when they are alive, too; I wouldn't know. {yuck}

We have discovered Beast's mother's wedding dress. And her teenage diaries.

I have a new phone. It's red, and square.

Allergy season has commenced. Corn is here.

Lack of sleep brings on the cranky, in everyone.

Ruka--the guinea pig--has apparently developed a tapeworm. He squeaks for food non-stop, whenever we're in the room.

V. {from work} died on Tuesday.

Sparky is section leader in band.

Beast is traveling for 8 days starting next week. And then again later in the month, too.

Placeholder

So