Not-So-Blue Monday

Today has just been one of those days, but it certainly isn't the most depressing day of the year either, despite what the pseudo-scientists from travel agencies might want you to think. According to some idiotic ad campaign this is the most depressing date of the year, and it's been called Blue Monday for that reason - in case you were wondering at the reference. I had to look up the term, but then I don't watch television either so I probably missed the commercials.

I have found out that I absolutely have to get my ferret neutered, or find another place to live. I wasn't too surprised about that one, but pissed off nonetheless. People are still smoking in the halls, illegally, and the landlord has yet to put up signs despite the fact that I informed her exactly two weeks ago that she was required to do this or faced the possibility of some pretty high fines ($5,000 per incident coming directly from her personal bank account).

Well, whatever the case may be, it had to be done, but I was hoping to wait until the end of next month, rather than doing it next week, seeing as the finances are already stretched so tightly. He's got an appointment for the 31st, so it's goodbye balls for my little man. My vet assures me it won't change his personality too much. I told her I wanted him to stay my little brat. I love my feisty boy.

Stimpy is my gentle boy, and Pepper is like one of those mischievous little boys that like lighting cherry bombs in toilets. Thankfully he has no access to pyrotechnics, and his nearly-opposable thumbs just aren't quite opposable enough to actually light anything up anyway. He gets into enough mischief without the fireworks, though. I love them both like mad, and don't want either of them to change at all.

I have also just run out of all my pills which means no pain relief for a few days. I guess I don't mind that so much either, since it gets me off the narcotics for a bit and lessens the likelihood of developing a real dependency on them. Since I don't like the way they make me feel, though, I don't see myself wanting to take them any longer than necessary. A few days of pain won't kill me, and I'll get back partial use of my brain in the meantime.

Finding a doctor is a priority now. It's too late in the day for those kinds of phone calls, so I'll have to take care of that tomorrow. I can at least make a list of numbers to call, seeing as I can search available doctors online. There's a database of them. Once I get a doctor I can be on prescription painkillers again, if necessary, which means they're covered by my disability, rather than buying them from a pharmacy. I'd rather be on Gabapentin, though, which actually gave me a normal life when I was on it instead of making me so sick that I have to take Gravol.

I spent so much money on vet bills for Stimpy, I ran out of money for my pills, but I'd rather take the pain. I'm going to lose him at some point, but it's my responsibility to delay that if possible, so long as he has quality of life. He's actually having a really good day today. He came out of the bedroom and has been playing in the boots and shoes, and he originally came out looking for some attention, which he usually gets in such abundance that he never comes looking for it (I've been trying to leave him alone because he's been tired and sick). He's fallen asleep again, which is typical for ferrets, but now he's sleeping in a fluffy coat beside me, content rather than limp and sick. There's a very visible difference.

My daughter's day started out crappy, too, because suddenly her PS3 wouldn't access its own memory database. I told her to Google the error message. She tried, but gave up after a while and reformatted her PS3. She was highly please to note that she did not lose her trophies, however, and her DLC (download content for the non-technical & non-gamers among you) through the PlayStation Store is still available for re-downloading. It does give her the advantage of clearing massive amounts of space on the HDD (hard disk drive). Hers is a bit old so it's only 80GB, so it's probably for the best. She lost some stuff that made her sad, but she's hopeful she'll finally be able to get her DLC for Fallout 3 working finally.

One day, when money isn't so much of an issue, we need to buy an external hard drive. At least a terabyte. The next level of memory technology will be petabytes (I looked it up today, actually) and by the time I have the money for stuff like that again I might be able to get that much storage. Cool. Looking into the technology a bit further just now, I discovered they're doing tons of stacks that contain a lot more than a petabyte of storage, so it's not far off.

I really wish my vet's receptionist didn't call it a castration when I booked the appointment, but I have to face the fact that it's exactly what I'm doing to him. His furry little grapes will be forever gone from the range of our vision. Maybe he'll get a bit better with the potty training now, and not feel he has to mark his territory so well. Maybe he'll even stop chomping on the cat.

Of course, there's been an upside to that, too. Every time the little 3-pound menace hops on the 13-pound cat, or tries to drag him across the room because he likes to hide his toys, the cat gets new life in him as soon as he's been rescued. Rabbit, my oldest cat, is about 17 now, I think. As soon as he gets a visit from Pepper, from which he is ultimately saved by myself or my daughter, Rabbit starts running around like a kitten again, playing with toys and cables and shoelaces. It happens every single time. A very strange phenomenon indeed. Hey, whatever keeps him young!

As much as this day might have been a pain in the ass, it will all turn out okay in the end,or it already has. That's typical of my life, though, and I think it's really typical of most people's lives. In general the worst that could happen isn't what usually happens, and often what does happen is better for us than it would have been otherwise. In order to get to that philosophical perspective, however, you have to have a bit of experience with things going wrong in your life. Boy am I experienced there!