Ride the Cliche - DIARY!

 5-13-12 “Mothers Day”

The bots kicks the door at 8am on the dot and I get up, letting the wife sleep in for Mother’s Day. I get on the couch and we watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, which I doze in and out for. Around 9:40 I get up and feed the hungry bots some pancakes (he’d already been munching on cereal all day! Hungry bots!) and check online stuff and update blog. The world is quiet and so I just putz around the house till around 11:30 I open the door to let bots wake up his mom. She gets up and we go to find a nice place to eat a Mother’s Day lunch. Opting for Logans, we head there. But its far too crowded with cars so we head on down the trail and try out this restaurant called Fire Mountain. She’d been trying to get me there for ages. We go in and it’s a nice buffet place like a Ryans or Old Country Buffett, but the food is really good. We get our fill and head back home. I lay on the couch for a nice hour and a half nap (I always get tired after I eat) and she is on bots duty.

Around 2:30, she wakes me up and heads to work. I get up, check my stuff again and get to work on redoing the couple pieces for the Video Game company. I finished them the first time around but I pulled the plug on them because I wasn’t happy with them. So I wanted another go around. I spent the rest of the day on that, as opposed to the cards, which I got a nice jump on the day before. I work on that and then clean the house, changing litter and doing dishes yet again. Around 7:30, I put bots in the bath and then put him in his Pjs. We sit and watch cartoons until its time for bed. I text with the wife to see if she’s into watching me drink booze tonight. She is, and I do a bit more doodling til she gets home. I drink Amaretto/sprite mix and Jagermiester and listen to metal. I check stubhub to see if there are any cool concerts coming up and the wife gets excited to see that her fav. Metal band Godsmack is coming to Mt. Pleasant. She makes a mental note. We party into the night and pass out to AVGN around 1am.

5-14-12

I get up to the alarm to get bots ready for school. While getting him dressed, he’s coughing up a storm and feels a bit warm, so I get the wife up to help me determine if we should keep him home. We opt to just keep him home. The wife hops online and reserves a hotel room and a ticket, locking her in to going to see Godsmack on the 21^st of July. I’m happy for her. Wish I could go but I am on Bots duty. Besides, I am not a huge fan of them and I want her to go hang with her friends and have a good time. Who knows though. If we can score a babysitter, maybe something can happen.

I am pretty damn hungry, so we head out to get McBreakfast, followed by a trip to Kroger for groceries. The wife and I are snipping at each other cause we’re tired as fuck. But we survive and head to the bank where I deposit a check into my business account. We head home and I barricade the wife into our room so bots don’t disturb her slumber. I attempt a nap on the couch of my own which doesn’t take as the bots keeps waking me up for this and that. Futile as resisting the borg, I get up and check online shit and start some chicken noodle soup made from scratch. The wife wakes up in time to grab a bowl to head to work with and I chow down.

After eating, I play with the bots some R2 spinner top and bubbles, as well as some toy guns I got and we watch some cartoons together. After that he starts laying around A LOT. He obviously really doesn’t feel good. I give him some of the medicine to help him out. I don’t know if it helps or not. Eventually he falls asleep around 6:30 and I put him to bed. I ink what is left of the video game commission and move on to penciling more DC cards. The wife texts to say that she did a lot of lifting at work and now is in pain. I scold her a bit and tell her she has to sit down and take it easy. She feels its bad enough that she calls her boss and he comes in to relieve her. She comes home, worried about her ability to fulfill her job duties. I try to comfort but I really have no answer. She relaxes on the couch and passes out to Jewelry. I put my headphones on and watch about 7 Doctor Who episodes while finishing my inking the 25 cards I started earlier. I finish around 1:40 and pass out with the wife next to me watching AVGN.

5-15-12

I get up at 6:55 and check on bots. He seems well enough to go to school, but he’s real quiet. I get him dressed and once he has on his book bag, he gets excited cause he knows he’s going. I get him on the bus, check online stuff right quick and look at my fish tank before hitting the bed. I am shocked to see one of my beloved dalmation mollys (one I affectionately called “OREO”) was floating dead at the top. I give him a Viking funeral in the camode and head back to bed, a little bummed for the loss of one of my fish buddies.

An hour later, the wife wakes me up getting ready to go to her doctor. I pass back out till 11:30. I check my phone to find a text from the wife saying that the school called her that bots might possibly have pink eye and he has to go home. So she leaves from her appointment to get him and grabs me a grilled chicken club sandwich on the way back. I check online stuff and see Shane is all excited and buzzing about the new Tenacious D album that is released today. I want to get the new Garbage album too, so I head to Best Buy to get them. I got the D, but they didn’t have the new Garbage album, Nor ANY Garbage album!! Defeated, I look for what else to get. I see Godsmack released a new live double cd today as well, so I get that for the wife as a present, along with some Reeses Pieces for the kid. (he loves those!) I get home, present the gifts and the wife heads to work. I sit down to check out the bonus DVD that came with my CD and chat with Shane online.

After a bit, I check on my fish again and the two larger ones (another dalmation named “Flurry” and one of the orange ones named “George”) are still missing. So I open it up and move some stuff around until I see both their recently dead bodies emerge and float. So that means three dead fish all in the same day. Bummed beyond belief, I give them a Viking funeral and do a water change and dump in some chemicals. The wife is gone with the car so I cannot take the water for a testing. I am at a loss to explain what happened. Brian Maze calls and we chat for an hour. Then the wife calls and wants me to book a doctors appointment for bots tomorrow. Our usual doctor is giving us some crap about a bill for not showing for an appointment but she possibly did get an appointment with them anyway. There’s all sorts of flack about cancelation fees and what not and I am left with my head spinning. But hopefully we got something for him at either 9:10 or 2:30 tomorrow.

I spend all day with bots as he is not feeling all that great. We watch cartoons together and I clean the house real good for the bed bug inspection tomorrow. Finally around 8:30 he passes out and I get to work on DC cards. I get a few penciled before its podcast time. I put the feelers out to Lee, who doesn’t reply again. So I decide to run a Chatter on my own. No one joins at first, so I talk to Walters on the phone and then decide to run a Chatter if Finland’s own Jarmo agrees to call in. He does and we run a show from 11:30-2am. Finally I am too exhausted to go on so we all decide to hang up and call it a night. I pass out shortly after that.

5-16-12 AKA “A Day of HELL!”

The wife wakes me up at 6:10 to take her to work. I am on sick bots duty, taking him to a doctors appointment (which doctor, I am not sure of yet).  I drop her off after getting her breakfast and head home to tend to a very sick and extremely moody bots. He is completely uncooperative and freaks out at the slightest drop of the hat. He obviously feels like total crap. Poor guy. The wife texts and says don’t go to the 9:10 appointment and go to the 3:00 one. The 3:00 one is with a doctor whom I got a major beef with. They are good but decided to hang a notice in their office lounge stating that March 1^st, any appointment not cancelled within 24 hours or a no show results in a $75 fee. We were unaware of this and we got no notice in the mail informing us of this policy change. And I am not in the habit of dropping by doctors’ offices to see if there are policy changes at random. So anyway in March we didn’t go to an appointment of his and we got a “warning letter” stating their new policy and next time we would get charged. Fine and dandy. Now I know. But a week later, I got a bill for $75 anyway. I called and emailed to dispute it to no avail. So now faced with a kid who has potential pink eye, I have to suck up the issue in favor of his health. I look forward to getting to the office to haggle this in person.

Also last week, we got a notice that today the apartment management are coming into our place sometime from 1pm-4pm to let dogs sniff for bed bugs. And that we are to have our place spotless and any pets removed or locked in the bathroom. So I cleaned the bulk of the house last night and left a couple things for this morning. Once I could put bots down, I cleaned the carpets real good and finished cleaning things. Bots would take out toys and I’d have to put them back. Also hide the food so no dogs eat them. I tried to take a nap on the couch, which does not take thanks to a moody bots. So I opt to finish all cleaning and around 12:30, try to get the cats into the bathroom, which proves quite a juggling act. But finally I get them in there and they are howling mad at me for it. (sorry guys) I wait around till 2:10 for the stupid inspection which doesn’t come. So I get bots ready and head out for his appointment and the fight to come.

I get to the doctors office and check in and they ask for the $75 before they will see him. I plead my case once again and I could see on the receptionists’ face that they could not care less about how it went down. They were gonna get their money. So I had no choice but to pay it. I wanted to rant and scream, but I was concerned for my little buddies’ health and I wanted to make sure he didn’t get crappy service because of any outburst I would do that would potentially sour his screening. So I gritted my teeth and let em swipe the card. $75 for nothing, down the drain. Happens all the time. Fucking fees for BS. (sigh)

Anyway, I get into the waiting room and the nurse does the checks and leaves us for the doc to come in. We wait, and wait and wait and wait. 45 minutes later, she finally comes in. By this point I am a volcano and feel like really letting her have it. “Hey, while you were gone, I made a new policy and stuck it on your wall here. That if a patient is kept waiting longer than 20 minutes, YOU owe ME $75! How about that???!?!?!” But again, I kept quiet and let my better judgement prevail (yeah, I hate getting fucked out of money, okay?). She examined him and confirmed, PINK EYE. Great. She prescribes eye drops and explains he’s highly contagious. I think back to the last couple days of him not able to go to school and how much I’ve handled him and touched him to comfort him… its quite likely I am a bigger germ farm right now than that monkey from “Outbreak.” Reacting quickly we check out and leave. As I check out, I grab TWO stickers from the free “Take one” sticker holder for kids on the counter. Hey, I was gonna get the kid SOMETHING for my $75!!

We speed back to Walgreens to pick up the wife and drop off the prescription. I tell her to get hand sanitizer as well to help us stop the spread between us. I text the boss at the den of sin to say that my family possibly has pink eye and to be sure that they have sanitizer and Lysol there to use around me… just in case! I was showing no symptoms, but my left eye has been sorta “gummy” feeling and a tad irritated. Not bad though. I presume its all in my head as we are all on red alert now! Anyway, she gets the eye drops and we grab food and head home. I eat and put on my uniform and head into my one shift for the week at the day job. On the way my boss starts texting me saying they prefer me not to come in and potentially spread the disease. I text back saying I am fine but she is insisting that I don’t come in. I call her and verify that she is certain. I am about a half a mile away from the place by the time I turn around and head back home. I am officially quarantined. I feel bad about it and I call work. My co-workers don’t sound happy with me. I don’t blame them. But its not my fault. They TOLD me not to come in!! I wasn’t wanting to call in. But I was told to stay away. Oh well.

I get back home and check out my fish tank. The one remaining orange fish has a huge red bloody spot on his/her gill and the filter is dirty as fuck. I take it out and clean it and put it back. Then I lay down for a much needed nap. Bots passes out around 8:00 and I am out till about 9:40. I get up and the wife is watching the final Ghost Hunters with Grant on it. I watch a bit out of nostalgia. I used to watch the show a lot until I read some stuff about it that kind of shows the BS that “may” be behind it. Grant was always my favorite on the show. The wife informs me that the fish tank lamp has burned out and that the big orange fish is attacking two of the smaller babies, one is close to death. I decide to give the big orange guy a Viking funeral. I feel bad about it, but he’s obviously sick and I cannot risk him killing all the other fish in there with his sickness. She flushes him and I try to mess with the lamp, figuring I might have got some water in the light when I cleaned the filter earlier. I see nothing and re-assemble it. I need a new light. Another $20 tomorrow! Great.

I sit down to blog about the worst day I’ve had in a long time (today) and the wife starts searching for the one cat we haven’t seen all day. Hobbes, our black cat is officially MIA. We search EVERYWHERE for about 45 minutes trying to find him to no avail. He’s just gone. So one of the following happened:

1-When the dog bed bug inspection was here, they ignored my warning posted on the bathroom door to NOT enter and entered anyway and hobbes ran out.

2-I could SWEAR I saw him when we came home and I opened the door. He was sitting in our bathtub. And he got out as I left for work and I didn’t notice (I consider this HIGHLY unlikely as I have hawk eyes for anything around me, especially a darting cat. Hobbes if he had darted out woulda scampered back inside scared of the outside).

3-He is still hiding here in a place only the Gods know of. We searched everywhere but bots’ closets. They were closed all day and he’s in there sleeping at this point. Its unlikely he’s in there but if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains however improvable must be the truth, eh?

I live with the mystery the rest of the night as the wife hits the bed around 10:30 and I opt to stay up and work on coloring cards. By 2:40 I got 22 cards colored and they turned out real nice! Finally, something good emerges from the crap day I’ve had! I pass out around 3am to AVGN.