piglet okay, van questionable

It's hot here, and the guinea pig I'm taking care of is up in a remodeled attic, full of nooks and crannies and not much circulation, very stuffy. Not good for a critter that evolved in the Andes. But there are window ACs in both kids' rooms, which are at right angles to each other, so I turned them on high and dragged the stand down to the hallway by the bedroom doors, and put the cage on top of it. The ACs ran 24 hours, and it was *so* much more comfortable up there tonight. I noticed that he'd consumed a lot less water. I've been giving him things out of the fridge--little pieces of watermelon (with rind), a couple of grapes--yesterday it was a baby carrot and some baby spinach leaves. Today I left him some more spinach and a piece of apple. He was quite thrilled about the apple and started munching it while I was still there. I turned the ACs off, to give them a rest, but I'll turn them back on when I go back tomorrow--24 hours on, 24 off. He should be okay. The cat watches everything with great interest, and every once in a while stands up to peek into the cage. The piglet seems unfazed; I suppose he's used to it and realized by now that the cat can't get to him.

The Illinois state legislature is adding to my stress level, sitting around down there in Springfield bickering instead of passing a budget, which was supposed to have been finished in May. They passed an emergency budget for July, but have decided not to do it for August, so those of us who get paid like next Friday have started biting our nails--and of course schools, social services, etc., are all stuck because they can't budget until the legislature gets off their fannies and stops playing games and passes a freaking budget.

Esp. since I wasn't quite sure I was going to get back to work after lunch today--the van did NOT want to shift into gear. I got out onto the side street and had all kinds of problems with it, so I finally put it into reverse, backed up about 50 feet, then shifted back into drive, and so the little old lady got back to work that afternoon.

But I was thoroughly scared, and after I got back to the office I started making phone calls--the bank--yes, I can probably afford this maroon van--my friend who volunteered her husband to come look at it, the service station I want to look at it. I've sent an e-mail to the dealer to see if we can go look at it Monday afternoon (yes, 3:30, and the blue van is still available as well). If my friend's husband okays either of them, I'm going to see if I can bring it back overnight (it's in a little town about 15 miles from where I live) to take to the service station Tuesday morning, and if they okay it, then I'll go talk to the bank.

Meanwhile, I hope the van will keep going another week. Then I guess I'll have to locate a scrap dealer.

I also have to find out how to get my CD player out of the old van and put into the new one, unless the blue one has a CD player; the maroon one doesn't.

*sigh* I don't want to do this. I don't like that van. But I've been searching for months, and it's the only thing that meets my minimum requirements (sorta) that I can afford and don't have to drive two hours to look at.

But this is a good time to do it--both my license plates and parking tag need updating by the end of the month; might as well put them on a new vehicle. And since it's a van, I can keep my vanity plates: GSD VAN 2 So if Dean and the service station give it a go, I guess I'd just better make up my mind to like it.


Taenzer: How do I get that ball out of there?

Timber: I'll help!

Timber: Yup, it's in there.

Taenzer: Maybe this will work.

Taenzer: Still in there


Timber: It's awful hot. I think I'll just lie here and chew on my jolly ball, 'kay?

Taenzer: GOT IT!!

I hate Mondays

I'm still eating ginger snaps and jello, and white chicken and rice. Although I did eat a few grapes and (*gasp*) a creme horn this evening, so we'll see how it sits. Still a little queasy.

And I have to clean the cat box and take out the trash. I don't see how one person can generate as much trash as I do...

Microsoft Office 2007 is absolutely the pits. It takes a certain genius to put together a program that's simultaneously dumbed-down AND more complicated and less intuitive. It took me 20 minutes to figure out how to just close a freaking document in Word. I couldn't find the reports linked to a table in Access at all; I'll have to set them back up, I guess. I've got too much to do to deal with this! Though it would definitely be worse if it was the first week of school.

Blackie the guinea pig freaks out if you pick him up, but he likes grapes and watermelon. Maybe he'll start getting used to me if I keep bringing him goodies. Albert is a really nice cat; he follows me around and watches everything going on--it's very Maine Coon and endearing. Way overweight--they've got him on 2/3 a cup of food a day, but I'd cut him down to half, then to a third cup until he got to a decent weight. But a very very nice cat. I'd take him in a minute, and I think he and the Ts would get along famously. One of their smoke alarms was tweeting, and it's a kind that's built into a light fixture and I couldn't figure out how to open it up, so I unscrewed it and put it in the fridge to try to muffle the sound a little bit. It makes me crazy and I'm only there half an hour or so; if I was Albert and had to listen to it 24/7, I'd be really crazy. I left his people a note so they'd know why a light fixture was in their fridge. *lol*

Got yummies in the mail today--the Apple Laine yarn arrived. It is yummy, yummy stuff--SO soft, and truly fingering, not almost-lace-weight. I'm glad I got it in the original format, before they change it. I just wish I could afford to get some more, now that the vendor has it on sale (and I wish she'd told me about her upcoming sale before I ordered).

This coloreway looks sort of wimpy, but I also got the pattern she designed around it, and the pattern really brings the yarn to life.

I got this one for my friend who wants some red--but also blue--socks. This particular dye lot doesn't have quite as much red as the sample photo does, but I think it'll work anyway. (Boy, it looks like there's more blue than red in there, doesn't it? Oh well--I still think it will work.) Um, no, I don't have a particular pattern in mind for it, but I've got time to think about it.

I would love a nap about now, but it's time to take the dogs out. Taenzer is catching on to ringing the bell really quickly. I've got it sitting beside the front door at the moment, and when we go in there, she trots right over and ding! So she gets to go out first. Hm. I wonder, since it's Timber I'm trying to teach this to and since he always defers to her, maybe I should let him into the room first, let him ding, let him out, then come back and get Taenzer. Maybe he'd pick it up faster if she wasn't there.

Oh, cool!

As I said--I'm so easily amused.

I get to take care of a very big (fat) Maine-Coon look-alike named Albert and a long-haired guinea pig named Blackie for a week.

Albert, other than being fat, looks like a completely gorgeous, nice brown tabby boy, and I'm looking forward to getting to know him. But I'm esp. excited about the guinea pig. I've never been around a guinea pig before, so I read up on them online this afternoon. They're apparently really nice critters. Blackie let me pick him up and after he knew I was going to hold him securely he started making those cute guinea pig noises at me. When I put my finger against his cage, he nibbled very gently.

Poor boy, he doesn't have any toys. Maybe I can find something he might find interesting. He doesn't have a little house, either, which I read they like--some place to kind of hide out in, which would make sense if you're a round edible morsel near the bottom of the food chain.

No, I'll be good, I won't go in and be Miss Know-It-All. But I am looking forward to laptime with both Albert and Blackie. I hope Albert will like me.

I'm so easily amused

You'd think sometimes I'm about 6 years old.

We have an "office fish." EJ is a beautiful beta, dark blue with long fins that sometimes show red. The other secretary brought him in and I was like, "oh geez, a fish, dandy"--unimpressed and unenthusiastic.

Well--he's a very social fish! I didn't know fish could be social. But he just droops and sulks if he's put in a position where he can't see people. He especially likes to be on someone's desk where, if there aren't people coming in and out, he can at least watch the person at the desk. So while she's out after some surgery, I'm "fish-sitting" to keep his spirits up; his tank is on my desk.

And being me, I'm incapable of being around a critter without interacting with it, esp. if it's one that shows some interest in being interacted with. He's so cute; he gets so excited when I come in in the morning (because it's breakfast time!), and about half an hour before home-going time he starts hanging around the top of his tank, because he knows he's going to get his dinner pretty soon (who knew fish had a sense of time?).

So this morning I dropped a crumb of food in and then I slid my finger into the water just a little bit, gently so as not to startle him, and waited. He kind of swam around it, and then came up and bumped it. Being a beta, he was probably seeing it as a challenger, but when he bumped my finger, I dropped in another crumb of food. Repeat, repeat. So I'm teaching him to bump my finger to get food. :) He blew bubbles at me (beta males make bubble nests).

I'll try to take a picture of him.

(One family I used to cat-sit for had an African frog named Alf--they're aquatic, so he lived in a 10-gallon tank. I used to greet him by name when I came in and he started responding to my voice by swimming to the top of the tank. Frogs get sticks rather than crumbs, so I taught him to take food sticks from my fingers. Cool. :)