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You Oughta Know
9 years ago
General
I've been putting off writing this journal for a while, because it felt like a chore and it felt like a list of excuses, which I never like to feel like I'm making. However, sitting here, really looking at this function as a "journal," I'm going to use it. You can read it, you can ignore it. I don't care. I'm not looking for replies or comments or even when it comes to it, pity. I'm just going to write this and get back to work. I'm also not going to proof-read anything. I want to get this off my chest, and move on. So please excuse the many spelling/grammar errors that are sure to follow, if you're a journal reading sort.
I've let many of you guys down, last month. I fully intended to have more commissions done by now, and even that YCH Costume party piece finished in time for Halloween. Full disclosure, a handful of you knew I was even working on a little side project for Halloween -- one that I could work on, on the go. I needed something to work on my Surface for, because late-ish-October, one of my wife's oldest friends came out to Germany, specifically to visit us, and explore Europe. I was not going to leave it solely on my wife to play tour guide, and so, went along for the week-long Eurotrip. It was nice, all things considered. Finally made it to Berlin (beautiful city). Went to a few other places, and all the while, I was still on target to get my side project done in time for Halloween. Wouldn't you know it though, I got sick. A really bad cold, made worse by being out of the comfort of my own bed, and doing my best to pill-up and go out exploring. There were a few days that I just couldn't do it, and stayed in the hotel. But anyway, I came back home with the cold in tow, and missed my self-appointed deadline for the YCH Costume pic. THAT will still get finished within the next couple weeks (hopefully, we're talking 5-7 business days), but the other project will just be tabled for a year. Don't worry though, if you guys saw some of the personal art I just stop working on and file away into obscurity, those who are really into my art would be real bummed out. I didn't even celebrate Halloween as I'd like to -- hard as it is to, here in Germany. At the very least, I like to bust out a double feature of Rob Zombie's Halloweens, and maybe some other holiday themed shows and/or movies... Batman vs Dracula comes to mind. The whole month was suppose to feel like my birthday celebration, and it just didn't, more and more... or less and less.
Anyway...
I come home from the last leg of our Europe trip -- Brussels -- still sick, and turn everything back on. What should happen? my computer dies on me. I really don't feel like going into too much detail on that, as I've gone over a few times with friends either on Skype, or FB. Basically, I don't know what kinda' viruses people still make for PC as Windows Updates already do a great job of crippling computers. Luckily, I keep backup HDs docked in my tower. I say "luckily," but we're still talking roughly 72 hours of diagnostic, repair, etc etc to my tower. Ultimately, I booted up the old drive, allowed it to update (because I never turned that automatic function off before moving to an SSD drive), and then rewrote my alpha drive with the info on the old one. So, I'm no longer sick, my computer is no longer sick... the cat gets sick. I'll get into that a little later.
Friday of that week (Not last Friday, but the week before), we get notified of something that required immediate legal advice. Even though I'm writing this journal for me, I still don't feel inclined to go into all the details. Suffice it to say, it meant stress going into the weekend (as was the notification's intent), getting that legal advice, spending too much time scanning documents and e-mailing them appropriately, etc, etc, blah blah. ALL before the Tuesday that followed (last week, now), going with the wife out of town to the UK,on one of her work trips. She travels a lot for work, and I don't often go with her. But I do try to squeeze it in when I can. Do I feel guilty that it takes me away from my own work? sure. Am I sorry? no. It often puts her at ease to have me with her. And as she is the most important anything and everything in my life, I won't ever make apologies for putting her happiness above anything else. SO, Tuesday, of last week, we go to Brighton, in England. It is a fun, coastal city. I took some photos that I'll put on my Instagram soon ( mrferv ). Also, gave me another excuse to get all gussied up in my kilt for a some dinner and dancing one night. The weekend was spent purely for vacation-esque reasons. A bit of exploring, eating too much, and just generally recharging. All things considered, I felt great coming back home after our stay in Brighton.
But now our cat is still sick. To be clear, when I say sick, what it really boils down to, is she's old, and getting older. We moved to Germany with 3 already elderly animals -- two dogs, Sugar and Celtic, and a cat, Panther. The two dogs have since passed; Celtic, just this year. And now Panther is right around the corner. She has a smaller appetite, but at least will eat that gross, smelly, wet food. She's skeletal and can't really walk straight. Worse of all, she's having bladder issues. Obviously there's the gross factor, as arguably nothing stinks in a home more than cat pee. Not that I need to set your mind at ease, but so far, I've gotten to all the spots in time. Her new room is now the bathroom, where there are tile floors, and I keep training pads on her bed, which have already paid off, as she's made use of them, opting to pee in her bed over going to her litter box, just a foot away. ALL that said, what makes it the worst part, is that, for any of my FB friends already know, Panther and I have a pretty close bond. When I first moved in with my now wife, Panther was the animal I connected with most (Even though, before that, I woulda' considered myself a dog person). She really helped me feel like I was home with my adopted family of her and her two dog sisters. I wouldn't change a thing, but it was a rough first month or two, or three. If I'm being really, truly, TOO honest, it was a big change for me, as my wife was my first ever roommate. I had, until then, even I was paying them rent, lived at home. And before just moving in together, we were only dating long-distance-like. It was a huge risk to just redefine what my life was. Again, I am so lucky, and blessed that I took the chance. But that reassurance came immediately from Panther. Sure, the dogs accepted me as their Alpha, and obeyed and were sweet and loving to me, as dogs should be. But Panther and I really became friends. We'd play and cuddle, and have those stupid, nonsensical conversations all day. My point is... if there even is a point here... -- Well there is, but I didn't need to write all this explanation before getting to it..... My point is, I'm sitting here, typing this, and my best-four-legged-friend is shut up in a bathroom (heated, I should point out), on a stupid training pad covered, pet bed, instead of curled up on me. Purring. Stretching her paws out ontop of my hands or keyboard making it difficult to even type this. She has everything she needs in the bathroom. Someplace soft and warm to lay down, plenty of training pads down so that she needn't worry about making a mess. Fresh water, gross smelling, but apparently to her, tasty food. She is comfortable, and will always be as long as she's still alive. But I'm just sitting here, cold, writing to myself, and Pantherless...
This is dumb. I'm gonna stop now.
ANYWAY, if nothing else can be taken away from this journal, I guess the point I NEED to get across here in all this rambling, is that I'll be getting back to work. I promise. If you read this, you probably shouldn't have wasted your time with all this blah blah blah. If FA gave out achievements, I'd say you all woulda' just been awarded one. I won't ever make a habit of being this open in my journals. But again, I think I needed to write this more for me than anything else. So... until next time. Have a great rest of the week, friendos.
I've let many of you guys down, last month. I fully intended to have more commissions done by now, and even that YCH Costume party piece finished in time for Halloween. Full disclosure, a handful of you knew I was even working on a little side project for Halloween -- one that I could work on, on the go. I needed something to work on my Surface for, because late-ish-October, one of my wife's oldest friends came out to Germany, specifically to visit us, and explore Europe. I was not going to leave it solely on my wife to play tour guide, and so, went along for the week-long Eurotrip. It was nice, all things considered. Finally made it to Berlin (beautiful city). Went to a few other places, and all the while, I was still on target to get my side project done in time for Halloween. Wouldn't you know it though, I got sick. A really bad cold, made worse by being out of the comfort of my own bed, and doing my best to pill-up and go out exploring. There were a few days that I just couldn't do it, and stayed in the hotel. But anyway, I came back home with the cold in tow, and missed my self-appointed deadline for the YCH Costume pic. THAT will still get finished within the next couple weeks (hopefully, we're talking 5-7 business days), but the other project will just be tabled for a year. Don't worry though, if you guys saw some of the personal art I just stop working on and file away into obscurity, those who are really into my art would be real bummed out. I didn't even celebrate Halloween as I'd like to -- hard as it is to, here in Germany. At the very least, I like to bust out a double feature of Rob Zombie's Halloweens, and maybe some other holiday themed shows and/or movies... Batman vs Dracula comes to mind. The whole month was suppose to feel like my birthday celebration, and it just didn't, more and more... or less and less.
Anyway...
I come home from the last leg of our Europe trip -- Brussels -- still sick, and turn everything back on. What should happen? my computer dies on me. I really don't feel like going into too much detail on that, as I've gone over a few times with friends either on Skype, or FB. Basically, I don't know what kinda' viruses people still make for PC as Windows Updates already do a great job of crippling computers. Luckily, I keep backup HDs docked in my tower. I say "luckily," but we're still talking roughly 72 hours of diagnostic, repair, etc etc to my tower. Ultimately, I booted up the old drive, allowed it to update (because I never turned that automatic function off before moving to an SSD drive), and then rewrote my alpha drive with the info on the old one. So, I'm no longer sick, my computer is no longer sick... the cat gets sick. I'll get into that a little later.
Friday of that week (Not last Friday, but the week before), we get notified of something that required immediate legal advice. Even though I'm writing this journal for me, I still don't feel inclined to go into all the details. Suffice it to say, it meant stress going into the weekend (as was the notification's intent), getting that legal advice, spending too much time scanning documents and e-mailing them appropriately, etc, etc, blah blah. ALL before the Tuesday that followed (last week, now), going with the wife out of town to the UK,on one of her work trips. She travels a lot for work, and I don't often go with her. But I do try to squeeze it in when I can. Do I feel guilty that it takes me away from my own work? sure. Am I sorry? no. It often puts her at ease to have me with her. And as she is the most important anything and everything in my life, I won't ever make apologies for putting her happiness above anything else. SO, Tuesday, of last week, we go to Brighton, in England. It is a fun, coastal city. I took some photos that I'll put on my Instagram soon ( mrferv ). Also, gave me another excuse to get all gussied up in my kilt for a some dinner and dancing one night. The weekend was spent purely for vacation-esque reasons. A bit of exploring, eating too much, and just generally recharging. All things considered, I felt great coming back home after our stay in Brighton.
But now our cat is still sick. To be clear, when I say sick, what it really boils down to, is she's old, and getting older. We moved to Germany with 3 already elderly animals -- two dogs, Sugar and Celtic, and a cat, Panther. The two dogs have since passed; Celtic, just this year. And now Panther is right around the corner. She has a smaller appetite, but at least will eat that gross, smelly, wet food. She's skeletal and can't really walk straight. Worse of all, she's having bladder issues. Obviously there's the gross factor, as arguably nothing stinks in a home more than cat pee. Not that I need to set your mind at ease, but so far, I've gotten to all the spots in time. Her new room is now the bathroom, where there are tile floors, and I keep training pads on her bed, which have already paid off, as she's made use of them, opting to pee in her bed over going to her litter box, just a foot away. ALL that said, what makes it the worst part, is that, for any of my FB friends already know, Panther and I have a pretty close bond. When I first moved in with my now wife, Panther was the animal I connected with most (Even though, before that, I woulda' considered myself a dog person). She really helped me feel like I was home with my adopted family of her and her two dog sisters. I wouldn't change a thing, but it was a rough first month or two, or three. If I'm being really, truly, TOO honest, it was a big change for me, as my wife was my first ever roommate. I had, until then, even I was paying them rent, lived at home. And before just moving in together, we were only dating long-distance-like. It was a huge risk to just redefine what my life was. Again, I am so lucky, and blessed that I took the chance. But that reassurance came immediately from Panther. Sure, the dogs accepted me as their Alpha, and obeyed and were sweet and loving to me, as dogs should be. But Panther and I really became friends. We'd play and cuddle, and have those stupid, nonsensical conversations all day. My point is... if there even is a point here... -- Well there is, but I didn't need to write all this explanation before getting to it..... My point is, I'm sitting here, typing this, and my best-four-legged-friend is shut up in a bathroom (heated, I should point out), on a stupid training pad covered, pet bed, instead of curled up on me. Purring. Stretching her paws out ontop of my hands or keyboard making it difficult to even type this. She has everything she needs in the bathroom. Someplace soft and warm to lay down, plenty of training pads down so that she needn't worry about making a mess. Fresh water, gross smelling, but apparently to her, tasty food. She is comfortable, and will always be as long as she's still alive. But I'm just sitting here, cold, writing to myself, and Pantherless...
This is dumb. I'm gonna stop now.
ANYWAY, if nothing else can be taken away from this journal, I guess the point I NEED to get across here in all this rambling, is that I'll be getting back to work. I promise. If you read this, you probably shouldn't have wasted your time with all this blah blah blah. If FA gave out achievements, I'd say you all woulda' just been awarded one. I won't ever make a habit of being this open in my journals. But again, I think I needed to write this more for me than anything else. So... until next time. Have a great rest of the week, friendos.
Good luck with your work I hope it gets more normal for you soon.
I had a cat like that once. I feel for you. I had no closure with mine and eventually had to make it happen by asking someone to paint him for me. Watching someone wither away is a terrible, helpless thing, but it is part of life and hopefully you being able to make him comfortable will help you with that closure.
It looks to me that you've given all your pets all the love and care a human being can possibly give. What motivates me with my pet, Yoshi is to make sure every day of her life is happy so that I would never feel that I didn't do enough when the time comes.
Yeah, don't know why people still make viruses for the computer. Not like you can make money off of it. Had a bad Trojan case once, disguised itself as an essential file so that it couldn't even be hard deleted. And that when we tried to restore it triggered a meltdown out of spite.
And hey, the time you spend with your wife is not time wasted. It's life! You've done right by me for so long that I would never consider prodding you about progress like an...i dunno, an angry stockbroker?
Take care, DF