Busy & Interesting Day, Leading to Fairly Happy Ending

Today's been interesting for me to say the least.  First, my ferret, Stimpy, had a really bad morning from being overheated, since he can't seem to regulate his internal body temperature anymore. It wasn't too hot in the room, but he was covered in a blanket, and nearly went into a full-blown seizure. My daughter and I got him cooled down, and finally, after a full day of weakness and seeming misery for him, he's now up and about again, doing what he does best. Eating.

Stimpy eats with focus. He is a serious eater. It's one of his adorable quirks, actually. You can do almost anything around him when he's eating, and he will completely ignore you. When he was younger he would eat so fast he'd hiccup for about half an hour after. He was never deprived of food as far as I know. He just 'loves his foods'. He's eaten quite a few times today. 5 or 6 times a day is normal for a ferret, and he's almost hit that mark despite being behind on his 'work' because of his unfortunate episode. So, all's well that ends well there.

I did manage to talk to the vet this afternoon, and she thinks it's more likely a tear in his intestines than an ulcer, possibly from a tumour. It's possible to repair something like that, but with his prognosis it's not going to extend his life and will likely just cause more pain from what I understand. He's not long for this world, so we were discussing pain relief for him today, to make sure he's comfortable for his remaining time. I wouldn't want him to be completely unaware of things, since he's still pretty happy for a dying ferret, but I won't let him suffer either. He'll have to go in to the vet for a check-up, though, in order for her to give him a prescription for opioids. It wouldn't be ethical of her to do otherwise.

Today I also actually spoke to my new boss, +Steve Kovacs, on the phone for the first time. He's the host of the show I've just become the producer for. It's kind of a weird thing. That's the way things work these days, though. Technology can suck the voices right out of us until we're nothing but text on a screen. No emotion coming across, really, seeing as most messages online are short ones. It's not like you're going to describe every ounce of angst or happiness you might be feeling, whoever you're talking to, or be able to explain your thoughts adequately, in 140 characters or less.

Even on sites like FB, messages are usually kept pretty short, and quite frankly it's a lot more efficient to talk to someone, seeing as it's faster and they're hearing it at the time you say it. No waiting for them to read it, or servers to compile and send data to the other party. Text is all well and good, and non-threatening usually, but it's limited no matter how many emoticons you might use. I tend to shy away from using those things anyway. They were cute when I was in my early thirties, but at 41 they're just silly. I'll use the old style for happy faces and winks and such, but rarely, and never those irradiated-looking yellow balls or boxes.

So, first conversation with my new boss (and you can't tell him I called him that - it would ruin my image,) on the phone, and my lovely, free internet phone line seems it has decided to be a complete ass, or at least make me look like one. Making me feel like an incompetent fool, the program decides to hang up on him...several times. That was until I thought to unplug my stupid router that is on its last legs and has been cutting out on me for some time. It's fine for normal internet use, usually, but when on phone calls online those interruptions kill the call. Finally I plugged into the modem directly, and lo & behold a conversation was born. For some time things went well, but then the call dropped again.

When the floor didn't open up and swallow me, I sent an apology. Turned out a dead cell phone battery was to blame, so I was slightly redeemed. The worst possible time to have the program get funky, and it does, but I suppose it was likely the router issue. I called the vet's office twice after that and everything was fine.

We still had a good discussion about the show, which will only be of benefit to the viewing audience, and shortly after we talked he started forwarding some guest requests to me. Now comes the fun part of reading through them. We're likely set for guests for the show on the 13th, but until they're finalized there's no point in telling you about them. I'll save that for a future post. The request I have now will be looked through for future shows, and a couple look very promising. A bit of digging will probably help clarify whether or not they're good fodder for The Kovacs Perspective. I have some interesting work ahead of me.

Once I post this, I'm also doing a book review tonight. It's a good thing I'm a night owl, eh? I love working at night. A writer I follow on Twitter, Alex Myers, has published a new book called Time Change and sent me an advance copy for quick review. I also offered to write a review for him and post it on +SearchWarp where my regular articles appear. I'll be reading that tonight. I won't likely write the longer review until tomorrow night, though I'll at least be able to let him know what I think about it.

I've had multiple conversations with people today, where I've ended up getting a bunch of new ideas for articles, including one about my experience with CO poisoning. Seeing as I was pretty much dead, it's a fairly interesting thing. Out of body experiences happen, folks. I was two years old, with no preconceived notions about that kind of thing, and it happened to me. As to whether or not it was a paranormal thing, or just plain lack of oxygen in the brain causing hallucinations, is left up to the individual to decide. I'm looking forward to writing that one. My last article called Vastly Underrated Women in History is garnering a fair bit of attention still, so I won't write the CO article just yet, but it'll be soon.

So much to do, so little time as they say, but if you enjoy what you do it's no hardship at all. I'll yap my butt off as long as someone wants to listen, and apparently they do so I haven't shut up since September or so.

Now then, with little-man-Stimpy tucked up happily in bed finally, I'm going to take a bit of a breather once I post this, and then get right back to it. As miserable as it might be to be temporarily disabled by injuries, I love where it has led me. I'm home with Mr. Stimplesworth (Stimpy, yes), I'm doing many things I love to do, and I'm pretty darn happy. I'm still stuck on the little brain blip that desperately cried out for a dose of sodium amytal or sodium pentothal the other morning, which you can read about here, but I'm coping. Oddly, the mention of truth serum seems to have made that one of my most popular posts this month. I wonder what that means for the state of the world.