Oh Em Gee, y'all. I am having a redonculous day. I awakened this morning to find a very sad little toy mouse on my chest. It was missing its tail and half its fur. I took this as a hint, and on the way home from the stupid early morning staff meeting that lasted an hour longer than expected, stopped at the pet store to acquire the needed toy (along with more cat food and hip + joint treats). Returning to work for my afternoon shift, construction traffic was twice as bad as I expected, especially considering it was the middle of the afternoon and they have paved the 11 mile stretch between this town and the next. I guess fleshing out the shoulders takes more work than I thought. I was five minutes late.

I did have the pleasure of watching the new Director deal with a blow-up of "challenging behaviors" in which his attempts to calm things down resulted instead in escalation (Hello, testing period. We haven't seen you for at least two months. Yay! (Incidentally, I'm not discouraged by the new guy's approach. I think he'll do.))

While cleaning the bathroom, the seat of my pants disintegrated. Lightweight summer cotton gauze pants. So I came out of the bathroom, told my female coworker "I have a slight problem, I think I need to go home." Then I turned around and flashed her. She cheerfully, not to say chortlingly, went to ask the Director if he could stick around long enough to accommodate my flight to and fro. Meantime I found a paper bag to hold behind my behind so as not to flash anyone else.

Really, the rest of the day went pretty smoothly once I returned to work. But on the drive home, I did rather hope that I wouldn't get pulled over for any reason, as I might have been unable to keep myself from laughing in the officer's face. Pride says that's better than crying, but common sense says not for getting out of a ticket, it ain't. Thankfully, my weird daydreams of having to explain my hysterical laughter to an officer of the law were just that, daydreams.

ETA: I am totally not correcting the spelling of ridonculous. I'm just leaving it.

OK, so I've been procrastinating having someone come and kill dead all the crazy jungle that has grown up in my yard. Lo and behold, today the people on the other end of the triplex had somebody come out and do just that--their yard (granted a little smaller and less jungle-y than mine) is now bare but for one tree. Dang. Huge bush and lots of weeds just GONE.

...would it be weird if I run out in the morning to see if the guys came back and ask them where they work and if I can hire them?

...would it be weird if I run out in the morning to see if the guys came back and ask them where they work and if I can hire them?

definitely not. And if they're not back, ask your neighbor for their number.

...would it be weird if I run out in the morning to see if the guys came back and ask them where they work and if I can hire them?

Nope. Ask for a business card. Or just info. But it's not weird at all.

What a day, Andi.

I don't think I can ask the neighbors, because they're renters, and I"m sure the landlord hired them. But I"m crossing my fingers the gardeners are back tomorrow.

Definitely try to grab them, meara. Not weird at all.

In Gray Cat news, this cone thing is horrible. He can hardly eat, I'm not sure he's getting any water, he's knocking over and spilling everything, and worst, he's scooping up food and cat litter with the damn thing and carrying it around through the house. The thing is already dirty, I don't want to think how filthy it'll be in six days. Or how much crap will be spread around my house. He keeps thumping the cone into walls and stuff, and it throws his balance off so he's falling when he tries to jump. I can follow his progress through the house by listening to the bashing noises. He's really being a good patient, though, except for the anguished wailing. I think I hate the cone even more than he does.

I'm sorry about the cat cone problems, Zenkitty. Is there a way to elevate the water so that the cone can go down around it? Or would he just spill it from a higher starting point? Poor thing.

Yesterday began with some tiresome nonsense at work that started at 7:30 (I usually start at 8-8:30), before the caffeine kicked in. But it ended with an evening with my book group, where I got to discuss Georgette Heyer and play with my favorite baby. And this morning I'm wearing a skirt that hasn't fit since I bought it, two years ago. So things seem to be on an upswing.

Zen, look for one of these in Petco or the like: [link]

The extra small fits cats and is much more humane.

Seconding that. Much less traumatic for you both.

Pix, that looks good, but will it keep him from rubbing at his eye? It doesn't look like it would. Or would he just not be able to reach his paw around it?

Not that he is trying to rub at the eye at all. And he's still managing to bash his face into things. Given that his method of self-soothing is to rub his face on things. Not sure how much good the darn thing is actually doing.

Sorry for fretting so much, y'all. Fretting is what I do best.