Feaky noises, Libby, and horrible winter storms - Oh My!

I'm house-sitting for the H's tonight (my grandparents neighbors), and I'm completely freaking out. I've been out here two or three previous times, with no real mishaps, no horrific scary noises. However. Tonight is different. The minute I get out of my car, I hear these horrible screeching/squealing sounds. At first I was like, "OMG, who's there?!" Because the sounds almost resembled a squeaky belt on a car combined with squeaking wheels or something. Yeah, I realize my description suck, but you're just going to have to deal with it. Then I start thinking that perhaps it's just a screech owl. Another thought was something is dying. My scariest thought was that I was going to die some horrible Jurassic Park death from horrible monster-beast that was going to come crashing through the guest house. For a little while, this horrible sound was right by the side door into the guest house, which my bed sits right next to. It has stopped since I began writing.

But I'm still creeped out.

Now, I have a Libby update! I've been meaning to update y'all sooner, but I've been busy and had other posts that suddenly took precedent. If you're new here and have no idea who Libby is, please click here.

On, January 6th, Dr. J went back to re-fix Libby's knee. He put in a stronger suture around the knee-cap, which she broke the original, and also the suture to help realign her poor little leg. She stayed at the clinic for about a week or 10 days, with a cone on her head to keep her from getting at her stitches. It took a few days before she started setting her leg down, but she eventually did. I finally took her home to my house and begged Dr. J to let me take her on the road with me to visit her real parents while I delivered the publication. He agreed, so Libby got to go home for one night. Last Wednesday, Dr. R removed the stitches and had me put the dog back on the Tramadol (a bitter pain medicine) since she's still not using the leg. That worked for about two days. Saturday morning I took her to Town for Dr. R to watch her walk and get his opinion since Dr. J was out of town.

Dr. R and I had a nice discussion - he thinks we should just do surgery on the other leg. She's not really using either hind leg at this point, one because there's no support, and the other because it's possibly still painful. Oddly enough, if it was painful, she wouldn't let me stretch her leg out and rub the muscles. I did make a point of reminding him that after the first knee surgery, that Libby was in fact using that leg. I spoke to Dr. J today at work and told him the conversation I had with Dr. R, and he told me he's had similar thoughts. He also is worried that Libby is now just plain used to walking on her front legs (she's become an acrobat), and trying to fix that could become the next problem.

In the meantime, I had Libby until this past weekend, where I went back to Redding again, this time for a dentist appointment. I got Dr. R's permission to let Libby go home, and he thought we should try the Metacam instead of the Tramadol because that is so hard to get down her. Metacam is an anti-inflammatory/pain med and it's given via a syringe orally like a many antibiotics - which is much easier to get down her.

So, for now, our traveling acrobat, Libby, is at her real home with her real parents and my cat and I are happy to be back to normal. Until Sunday. My parents and Libby will invade to celebrate my birthday early, since I have to work on my birthday. They will also visit with Dr. J and maybe Dr. R to see what the options are at this point and to see what they would like to do.

So, here's a bit of what Libby and I did for a week together:

 Libby's first time at Lake Almanor

 Libby and I watching Princess Diaries. Don't remember which one . . . 

 Libby helping me at work.

We also had some very nice weather recently. The word "nice" is dripping with sarcasm. We finally got some good old fashioned winter storms. A week ago today (Wednesday), we had massive wind storms blowing snow off the mountain. It was not easy to feed that morning. I don't usually feed on Wednesdays because I have to be at work at the Sticksville clinic at 8am. However, K had to be on the road that day, so I covered for her. Needless to say, the wind nearly blew me and Papa D over a few times. I had to pull off whole bales at a time off the truck so the wind wouldn't blow all the hay away from the hungry cows.

 I know it may not look blustery, but believe me - it sucked. I had to take my work clothes with me and my hair dryer because I wound up being a sweatball under my hat. Miserable.

My pass was okay on Saturday morning - I headed out for work early because I figured it would be icy or still covered with a layer of snow or something. I was right. It tried snowing off and on all day in Town. It would cover the ground and melt away an hour or so later. And repeat all day. Until it was time to go home. Naturally.

As I started climbing the mountain more snow kept piling on road. I took a quick picture before it got really ugly.

 You can see by this picture that the road is completely covered and I was not so fortunate as to be able to follow in anyone's tracks. Well, not on my side of the road. About a mile ahead of this, visibility reached about 20 feet, and there had to be at least two to three inches of snow on the road. I only knew where the cliff was (directly to my right at all times), and where the mountain was (directly to my left at all times). What did not help matters once I started the real climb was that I had 200lbs of cattle mineral in my trunk for my grandparents. My car is front wheel drive only. Yeah. I'm really wishing now that I could have afforded the All Wheel Drive version of my car. Smalls got me home safe, although I was white-knuckling it the entire way.

The next day, Sunday, I caught a break in the storms and drove to Redding for my dentist appointment and to take Libby home. My pass was still splotchy, but way better than Saturday. The next two passes were clear, although it did start snowing over my third pass, Big Valley Summit. The snow got heavier and heavier as I made my way to Burney. My parents had texted me saying that Hatchet (my fourth and final pass) was clear. I got about half-way up the mountain and I thought, "um. this isn't clear".  Evidently, the CalTrans picture they were looking at was at least two hours old. As I reached the summit a snow plow pulled out and I gladly followed him a little more than half-way down the mountain.

 By the time I got to Redding, it was pouring down rain. But Monday was all sunny again.

Go figure.

Thanksgiving weekend. Plus some extra.

I hope that all of my American followers had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I myself had a nice relaxful one. My grandparents were awesome and gave me the day off, so I didn't have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to go feed some hungry cows. That and I was still a little limpy on Wednesday. I slept in until like 9:30. OMG. It. was. freaking. awesome. K's parents came over for dinner - the traditional turkey dinner with stuffing, cranberries, corn, green bean casserole, roles, and the like. With pumpkin pie for dessert.

I've had a few things I wanted to post about, so this is going to be a hodge-podge of stuff. You know you like it. ;o)

A couple weeks ago, it was freaking cold. And snowy. And it snowed the day before I drove over our lovely mountain to go to work on that Saturday. Which meant the road was . . . well . . . white when I went over it. The speed limit was listed as 35mph (about 55kph for my international friends), so it was icy.

Yes, it was as cold as it looks.

The entire pass looked this way, both sides. Luckily it didn't look anything like this on the way home.

When I made it over the hill to work, the temperature had dropped significantly. Oddly enough, our little valley is about 10* warmer in winter, but 10* cooler in summer than Town on the other side of the hill. Very strange. So, this is what my temperature gauge in my car said (and it's pretty accurate):

Yeah. 7*(F), which is about -14*(C) for my international friends. The parking lot at work was pure ice. I sprinkled ice melt all over the parking lot. I skated while doing it. And I'm no skater. Just sayin.

Luckily, it hasn't really snowed since, so most of the snow has melted. At least in the valley. But it's only a matter of time before it comes back.

Now, also, a couple weeks back, I had two very large dogs come in to be neutered. Now, this gal had brought in a dog the week for that, and she was at least 100lbs. She'd never been off the ranch so the woman and I had to literally carry the dog inside the clinic. Well, when she brought the two boys, they were larger and just as determined not to go anywhere. She'd loaded them in her two-horse trailer, and it took her, myself, and the tech that came with the injured doctor to carry these two monsters into the clinic. When the tech and I had to do it alone after they'd been sedated, we could hardly do it. The injured vet who isn't supposed to lift anything, had to grab the middle with his good arm so dogs wouldn't become frozen in a permanent "U" shape. They were so sweet, but seriously, WHO needs dogs that freaking big??? Okay, I understand that these dogs are great at fending off coyotes (which can be a problem for those that raise smaller livestock like sheep or goats, but geeze!

Anyway, the two boys slept the entire day, like comatose sleeping. They were just content and couldn't be bothered. I finally went in and snapped a picture of them sleeping to show you how big they are. Now they don't look like they each weigh 125-150lbs, but trust me, they really do.

They are Akbash/Kengal crosses. The one in front looks like a polar bear!

And the weekend after Thanksgiving was busy! On Friday we weaned the calves in our spring herd. There were quite a few, that in the end we had to split them into two groups for feeding and space purposes. We moved the fall herd to a new pen and that went swimmingly, and they even got a bull put in with them. All went off without a hitch. Then it was time for a quick spot of breakfast.

There was our problem. By the time we got to the spring herd to move them, they were no longer that hungry and therefore were not so interested in the feed truck. So when we hit a nice spacious pasture, they decided they'd go spread out and graze and ignore said feed truck. K and I were the herders on our ATV's while Papa D was driving the truck. I know K cursed a lot, because I know I was cursing a lot. We would just get the cows to start going the right way, when one cow bold said, "Whatever", and went the opposite direction, so then every other cow followed her. K and I whipped around on our ATV's and when that didn't work, we jumped off and ran after cows with whips, screaming "SHOO!" or whistling. (Now just for clarification, the whips are not used to beat the animals with, they are used as a tool to block a hole to hopefully prevent said cows going through said hole. Often times just swinging it and using it to make a noise to get the cattle to move where we wish).

Now, I'd only been walking normal since Thanksgiving, the day before. So there I was running around these fields trying not to twist it again by slipping on a cow-pie, or stepping in a hole. Again. Eventually grain worked to entice them, but by then they were completely scattered. But, K and I were finally able to keep them in a group and once in the lane to the corrals, it went perfectly. Then we sorted the cows from the calves, which actually went pretty smoothly. Then we started working the calves - they needed three vaccinations and a few had lost their ear tags, or had mean mothers and couldn't be tagged, so needed new tags.

We filled up the syringes, and K and I both wound up piercing ourselves with new needles. I later went and got a tetanus shot to be safe, since my last one was when I was 16. The swelling is already gone and it's only slightly tender.

K and I got into a really good rhythm of getting a calf into the chute, handing off syringes, and sending the calf on it's way. We worked until about 12:30pm and then it was clean-up and splitting the calves into two groups. That went really well, too. Then we finally had lunch. Sitting down never felt so good.

Sunday was a busy day as well. K proclaimed it a perfect day to do yard work, so that's what I did all day. Well after feeding the cows, that is. I borrowed some old laupers from K, and trimmed my roses back. Papa D brought over empty protein tubs for me to put my yard trash in, so then I had to chop up the roses even smaller to fit them into said tubs. Then I raked my front lawn to get rid of leaves, and put them in a tub as well. I washed my front windows, swept my front porch, and cleaned off cobwebs off it, too. Then I set to work in the back yard, in which I raked up pine cones. I also pulled out my Christmas decorations and started working on that. Somewhere in all that I had a spot of breakfast and lunch. I was soooooo sore at the end of the day.

Me after my day of yard work. Yikes - no makeup!



I'm thinking winter is here . . .

I have been trying to not freeze to death for the past week. Seriously, it went from 60s and 70s to a balmy 30 degrees (F) with some snow scattered in. I think the highest high this week was maybe 45. Yep, it's gettin' cold 'round these parts.

The vet that had the quad riding accident is already back at work. His left arm is in a sling, and he's in a neck brace, but he's doing surgeries and seeing patients. Apparently, he only took one whole week off before working half-days. While he can't do too much in the large animal arena, he can do most small animal stuff, as long as he has a tech with him. Last week he came to the Sticksville clinic with an extra tech in tow. Which I was ecstatic about, considering I had a 100lb dog to spay and I had absolutely no idea how to get that dog on the table by myself. At first I thought I could lower the table and have the dog jump up on it, and raise it for the doctor. Then the dog showed up. The owner and myself had to literally drag the dog out of the back end of the truck, carry it inside, and then push it through the clinic and into the kennel. Um, call me crazy, but there was no freaking way I was going to get that dog to jump onto anything. So when the doctor arrived with an extra tech, I was nearly jumping for joy.

The new doctor was on this past weekend, and she tried my cell phone while I was driving over the mountain to work. Naturally my so-called smart phone didn't buzz me that I had a missed call or voicemail. So she walks up to me at the clinic with a Starbucks cup in hand, and says, "It's Starbuck's Saturday. You didn't call me back, so I got you a Chi Tea." When I looked at her funny she told me she called my phone. Yeah, there's no cell reception on the pass I climb to get to work every weekend. I tried the tea. Bleh. Next time I know she's working a Saturday I'll text her and ask her for a hot chocolate without the whipped cream. It's only thing I will drink from Starbucks. Because coffee is gross.

I had one of my uncle's over as a house guest this past week as well. He was on his way home from a hunting trip and stopped in Sticksville to visit, and was convinced to stay the night. K texted me and asked me if he could use my spare room. After dinner, my uncle came over and we watched part of a movie on TNT before bed. He asked me to get him up at 7am when I got up. I got up and knocked on his door, and didn't get a reply. So I pushed open the door, and he wasn't there! K told me later that he had shown up at their house to help with feeding about 6:30. Sheesh.

Now, if you don't mind, I am going to sit my butt in front of my heater and try to get warm with a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

Postcards, Weather, & Construction

Just a reminder:

If you'd like to join the Postcard Campaign and start receiving postcards in November, the deadline to sign up is October 31st - which is Monday. After that, you'll have to wait for December. And trust me, you don't want to wait.

The Postcard Campaign is simple - we take turns sending and receiving postcards so that we get a nice little something in the mailbox each month. Because I don't consider bills and junk mail to be nice little somethings. If your curious, please check out the Postcard Campaign page - link up top.

I hope everyone was able to receive their postcards from Mynx! I haven't seen too many posts about them, so hopefully the Postal Service didn't sweep them under a table.

I'm not sure about the rest of the planet, but it got freaking COLD here recently. It was 20 degrees yesterday morning. There was ice on the front steps to work. While I'm cool with the bundling up deal, it's like Mother Nature just decided for a few nights it would be in the 20s if we were lucky. And then to have it not get above 45 degrees just so we never quite get rid of the chill that's lingering in the air. Helloooooooooooooo hot chocolate. And the heater. And my blankets. And my electric blanket.

Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes, my fuzzy socks. My thermal undies and socks. My insulated ranch gloves. And scarves. And my slippers. Both pairs.

I heard from Mom the other day that the wall frames have been put up at their house (around my room and bathroom for the extension), and the trusses were delivered yesterday so the roof will start going up! I will be home this weekend and take pictures, plus I will post the pics Mom sent me from her cell phone. As long as the weather holds out (we're begging, Mother Nature . . . .), progress can continue!



"Muddy Cow Shit, meet JDay. JDay, meet Muddy Cow Shit. Y'all play nice now."

****There would be pictures with this post, but for some reason, Blogger won't let me. Apparently there are some technical difficulties here. Photos will be uploaded as soon as I can.****

Alright y'all, we knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. I was actually hoping later or never, but obviously my hopes have been dashed. You guys kept assuring me it would never happen, while I figured it was bound to, just because that's how I roll.

March 4th, 2011 marks the day I face-planted in muddy cow shit.

Now, the day started off relatively normal. I'm starting to get the routine down. However, today we were mixing it up a bit. We have a pen near the barn with calves in it, weaned and everything. My grandparents had been waiting for decent weather (and my grandfather wanted to wait for me to be here as well) to vaccinate, de-worm, and de-lice the calves. Then we'd separate the heifers from the bulls. My grandmother has let my grandfather keep some bulls this year, as he wants me to learn it (they were in the pure-bred bull business). So, we strayed from our normal routine and didn't feed those cows until after we were done.

We fed the Spring herd first, nothing out of the ordinary there. No new calves yet.

We fed the Fall herd after that, nothing out of the ordinary there. From there I tested the electric fence for that pasture, and then tossed some hay into the calf feeder. This area is a place just for the calves to get hay without their mothers getting all greedy and shit and eating it first. There are two little doorways that are just big enough for the calves to get in and out.

Next we had to get the chute ready - you know, break up the snow that had stockpiled in there. We separated 5 or 6 calves at a time to take into the chute. We had our syringes ready and our topical de-wormer/de-licer. I was in charge of walking up and down the chute to bring the cows up to the squeeze chute where they were to receive their treatments. At one point, when my grandmother, K and I went in to get more calves to bring into the chute, we were in some pretty mucky/muddy/shitty areas, and she called out as we were to run after the calves to keep up with them, "Keep your mouth shut" as the cow shit-mud combo goes flying. You might think that this was when I decided to get down and dirty. Oh no. I held my ground.

We finished with the cows, and we needed to move the bulls from the pen to the pasture across the drive. My grandfather, told me to go around and get the bulls out of the corner and out of the pen so K could whisk them across the drive. I could tell it was pretty deep shit-mud, so I was trying to be careful.

I failed. Miserably.

This was my moment. There were just a couple bulls left, and as I was walking in the suctiony shit-mud, my left foot didn't move, but the rest of me kept on going. My right leg was out far enough in front of me, that my thigh mostly prevented my actual face from meeting with the shit-mud. That and my hands, which thank God, were still in their work gloves. I attempted once to get my sorry ass up, but found that my left foot was half out of the boot, and the boot was in shit-mud up to the brim. And technically, most of my weight was on my right leg, bent completely, and if I could stand, I would have been standing on my tip-toes. Papa D had to get the last couple bulls out, one of which wanted to start coming my direction. Luckily, these guys aren't full grown, so I shook my rattle-paddle and hollered "shoo!" and he took off out of the pen. Papa D started coming to me and I told him to finish. My one attempt at getting up told me this shit was quicksand.

Just in case you ever wondered about it, it is rather humbling to be sitting in shit-mud up to your knees and technically your ass. You reach a moment where you realize, "Shit happens. Literally." And it's slightly embarrassing. I mean, the shit-mud obviously kicked my ass.

K had been on the phone with her brother who called at the most inopportune moment, because as she answered I fell. She asked if I was injured, I hollered back with no, and they finished getting the bulls across the drive. 

Just for future reference, mud-shit in March is fucking cold. K was able to help me keep my left boot on - which was perfect because I really didn't want mud-shit between my toes. Not as appealing as sand on the beach. Once my foot was back in my boot, then she had to help me get my right foot out of the mud. I was only inches away from the "safe zone" (meaning the mud wasn't like quicksand). Once I got my right foot in that footing, then we hauled my left foot out of the suction of the mud-shit. I did manage to get some shit on my face as during one of our attempts to free me my gloves slipped on the rattle-paddle and smacked me in the side of the face. Remember, my gloves were covered in cow shit and mud. At least I didn't eat it.

My grandparents finished up, and we walked up to the house. I slightly remember walking a little funny as I had cow shit-mud from my knees down, and on my ass. We washed our boots off, and then Papa D played photographer. Now, trust me, if he had had his camera on him during this whole shitscapade, he would have been clicking faster than any other photographer ever. K had to take my coat and scarf off, I had kicked of the gloves (which were unsalvagable), but I had cow shit-mud on the cuffs of my sleeves,  so she had to help me out so I didn't get  my coat off. She let me borrow a pair sweatpants (which had to be rolled up about 4 times as she's like 6' tall) and a pair of socks. She was totally awesome and washed my pants, my coat, my socks, and my scarf for me.

I then got a ride home from Papa D (and had to borrow shoes from K as well) so that I could take the world's hottest and longest shower. I will say this, my legs were green. I'm sure my ass was, too, but I'm not that flexible. Nor was I inclined to look at my own ass in the mirror.

Oddly enough, I was never mad over this whole shitscapade. Okay, well, not fully. The second it happened, I was little miffed. But then I realized, there was absolutely nothing that could be done without assistance. I'm just lucky that once the bulls were in their pasture, they didn't call out, "THAT'S LUNCH!!!" Yes, my grandparents were laughing at me. But I was laughing at myself, too, so really, it's all good.

I'm just lucky it wasn't a true faceplant, although, I'm pretty sure, that too will happen at some point.

Because that, folks, is how I roll.

I am now officially a member of the Phi Beta Shit Club. 

My First Week of My New Life

My first week of being in my new town of Sticksville, USA was rather busy. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this is one of the previous posts I've written regarding my life alteration, but my grandparents put out a monthly publication as well as run a cattle operation. I moved up here just when the paper was sent to the printers, so they had that weekend to help me get settled.

We picked up the paper on Tuesday. A nice scenic two hour mountain drive. There is a lot of history in this area that I have yet to learn. I grew up in and around the area, but there's always that local history that's not often taught in classrooms. There's also a lot of tourist-type things around here that I haven't seen. I'm hoping when the weather gets better, I might be able to slowly start frequenting those places and provide all of you with beautiful pictures of the things to see and do in Northern California.

Anyway, I digress. The printer is actually in Oregon. I was able to walk into the room where the printing press is. It was huge. Like, two story huge. I would actually like to see it in operation, but I doubt that will happen.

After picking up the paper, it was time to get me outfitted for winter ranching. We bought me some long-johns, wool socks, work gloves, two work coats, a hat, and a pair of insulated muck boots (or Bogs is the brand name I think). They also bought me a small microwave for my house as the one that was in there wasn't quite up to snuff.

On Tuesday, it was time to start distributing. I've learned all the routes except for one. Bad weather was supposed to hit by Thursday, so while my Grandfather and I did one route, my Grandmother did another. Once the bad weather passed, my Grandfather and I did the last route, which I believe will become my "regular route". Not only do my grandparents write stories for this publication, they sell the ads, put it all together, send it to the printers and pick it up . . . but they also distribute it themselves. We have a delivery van that is packed with bundles upon bundles of the paper. There are lots of stops, some towns have more than others. Plus my Grandfather likes to stop by many of the advertisers to hand some off to them so they can see their ads and maybe pass a couple out.

Luckily, my "regular" route is Redding, and I know that town pretty well. Considering I grew up there.

However, there are several small California towns that I hadn't been to, until my Grandfather and I went to deliver papers. It's beautiful countryside. I will divulge some of the towns we deliver to, but for now, I will be keeping Stickville's real name under wraps. Here are some pictures from our drives. Enjoy the rustic scenery.

On the way to Susanville.

Eagle Lake

Between Old Station & Shingletown (my old stomping grounds)

Same road (Old Station/Shingletown)

 On the days that we delivered the papers, I didn't help on the ranch. We had to be ready to go early, like 8am, so trying to teach me the ranch stuff, then let me go shower and dress was basically out of the question. I am a girl, after all, and I have primping to do.

So, it wasn't until Thursday that I finally had to get out and help feed the cows. Now. Let me show you a picture of my town the day before I went to feed. *ahem*

This continued for about half of the day it was taken, all through the night, and well into the next day. That "next" day was my first day on the ranch. My first day on the ranch was about 25 degrees with a nice brisk wind, snowing, and about a foot of snow on the ground. I was able to snap a couple pictures on my cell phone. I wish to inform you my fingers nearly froze off just taking the pictures. But I'm willing risk it for my peeps.  :o)

Yes. It's as cold as it looks. I promise. And just so you know, even though my Grandfather had the heater on, the windows were cracked so we could hear my grandmother say "stop"/"go" as she was pulling hay off the flatbed behind us.

You can't see it, but there are icicles on the cows. I. Swear. To. God.

And now, I give you the best picture I've taken thus far. Everyone has enjoyed it. Thoroughly, I might add. I'd like to remind you, that yes it was as cold as it looks. 

So. Without further ado . . . *sigh* Here is the best picture. Ever.

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I know you're laughing. And that's okay. Why? Because I knew looked funny, and then I laughed my ass off when I saw the picture of myself. So, I want you to know it's okay. Keep laughing. 

 

Half-Assed Weekend 1/29/11

In true Simple Dude fashion, it's a half-assed weekend post.

This morning I went to Saddle Pals to freeze my ass off for a few hours. Luckily for my frozen ass I got to leave early, as they had plenty of people for the last lesson, so I climbed in my car and turned the heater on high.

My first lesson starts at 10am. When I get there a few minutes before, there's an independent rider who is just finishing up. Nearly every time he sees me, he "meets" me. As in, "Hi, I'm (insert name here)". I reply with my name. Every time. Seriously. But that's okay, because I've never actually worked with him. This morning he was quite talkative, and was telling a joke. I didn't hear it the first time because I was listening to someone else say something. He came over to me and asked if it was funny. I apologized for not hearing his joke. He was eager to tell me his joke.

Why does a chicken coup only have two doors?

I don't know. 

Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan.

Well. I laughed. Because it's just corny enough.

Happy Weekend. I'm back to packing and cleaning!

Another Weekend, Another Half-Assed Post

By way of the Simple Dude, it's another Half-Assed weekend post.

I wrote yesterday about the pain I was in. For whatever reason, my body just so bad. Well, several Tylenol and 12 hours of sleep later, my body is back to normal. Which means, pain free. However, I now have a new gripe. What? Like you're surprised?

Okay, well, it's not a full gripe, maybe a half-gripe . . . I mean, this is a half-assed post, so maybe that makes it a half-gripe.

Moving on.

I opened my front door this morning only to be blasted my a burst of freezing air. Literally. I was on my way to Saddle Pals to get my horse fix and walk in circles for a few hours. It was 37 degrees. And cloudy. Cold enough to snow. Although it doesn't really snow in Sacramento. Like, ever. I dressed in layers being that I know it's cold, and being outside for several hours I didn't want all of me to freeze to death. I had on like 5 shirts. And a coat. So not kidding here. When I left Saddle Pals 4 hours later, it had only warmed up two degrees. So, now it's near 4pm and it's still barely 40 degrees outside. Seriously cold.

I've been permanently chilled to the bone. I'm still buried in my layers of clothes, including a nice warm hoodie, buried under two blankets (one of them made of down), and turned up my heater, and my cat sleeping on my feet. Every part of me is still freezing. The tip of my nose may fall off at some point.  I keep leaning over and sticking my fingers under my cat, because she's so damn warm.

I may have to haul her up to my face so I can feel my nose again.

Time With the BFF

Today was definitely a good day. It started out extremely early . . . but that's what you get when you pass out at 7pm because you've been up for nearly 24 hours. (God, I love working graveyard). Being that I wound up in bed so early, I was up at 5am. Itching. Itching like I was before I went to the doctor and got anti-itch pills and cream. So I got up in the dark and put the cream on my hands and crawled back into my warm bed (courtesy of my electric blanket) with my kitty and laid there. Awake. For another hour.

I finally dragged my ass out of my nice warm bed and made it to the couch in the cold living room where it was the nice temperature of 62. You bet your ass I turned on the heater. And curled up under the two blankets on my couch and went strait for my laptop. I had several hours to kill before the highlight of my day: lunch with my BFF. Which was at 1pm.

I met up with my BFF in Vacaville for a late lunch today, as it had been far too long since we'd hung out. While it was super awesome catching up with her and laughing about our inside jokes and the shit we go through with our jobs and stupid/crazy shit that happens to "only us", there was a second highlight for me. Our waiter.

Fortunately, he was more my type than hers so there wouldn't have been a fight if he'd been the least bit interested. I stared at his butt every time he walked by  (and trust me, there was lots of that), and loved listening to his southern accent when he asked how we were doing.  (sigh) Luckily there was good food to be had, so he probably assumed that the drool was for the food and not him. That was just the cherry on top of me getting to spend the afternoon with the BFF.

I was finally able to talk face to face with her about my "opportunity" and possible life transition from (never-wanted-to-be) city chick to Sticksville chick. If I move, I would  be approximately 6 hours or more away from my her. Which, for us, really wouldn't mean the end of a beautiful friendship. It would just put a hamper on how often we could see each other and how accessible we would be. Currently she lives in the Bay Area and I live in Sacramento, so we're about an hour and a half from each other (and that really depends on the day of the week and traffic). We often meet in the middle and easily kill an entire afternoon and evening just talking about everything. If I move, easy won't be in the vocabulary. Of course, we do know we have telephones/cell phones available to us, as well as email and Facebook.

But it did hit me hard when I realized just how much distance the possible move would put between us. An entire world, so to speak. While she understood my apprehension to having that much distance between us, she reassured me that it wouldn't have an adverse affect on our friendship. At this stage, we both know too much about each other (i.e., blackmail material) to not be friends. So, we're basically stuck with each other. Besides, she's one of the few people I can count on to help me bury the bodies. In the end, she's behind whatever decision is final. But she, like just about everyone else, thinks I should go and give it a whirl.

The one thing that's not so wonderful about today, is the fact that I'm currently sitting around waiting to go to work. And what's worse? I have to work with the person for whom I have pretty much no respect for. Trust me, there's a possibility for another blog series regarding psychosis, however, it shall wait for the day I am no longer employed at my current job. I'd really hate to have to explain this shit to HR. (Which reminded me to charge my Zune so that I have music tonight as I simply cannot work 8 hours alone with that woman without the headphones to prevent her from talking to me).

However, I am going to try to stay focused on the positives from today. Good times with my BFF and the hot southern waiter with the nice ass.

Numb Butts and Frostbite.

Fun: Taking yourself to a movie on your day off. Hanging with a friend. Shopping. Reading the blogs I follow. Splurging your precious pennies for a pizza and salad.

Not Fun: Waiting around in a doctor's office for 3 hours. 'Nuf said.

Guess which of those happened today? Obviously not "taking yourself to a movie", as I'm waiting for the new Harry Potter. (One more week baby!) Definitely not "hanging with a friend". Not enough money to do damage for "shopping". However, after my not fun incident, I decided to splurge on my first Round Table Pizza in two months. My God. It never tasted so good. After gorging myself with pizza and salad I was able to catch up some recent blogs. And now this.

Some of you may have read my post about eczema, well, I finally went to my boss regarding my little skin irritation. It got to the point where my hands were just itching constantly, and more spots of this crap kept popping up. My hands look diseased at this point. I filled out an incident report, and talked to our gal in our headquarters for health services and she told me where I could go to see a doctor if I felt I needed to. I said I did, and she called ahead and informed them one of their employees would be coming in and had forwarded the necessary paperwork.

I finally find the clinic buried in some building. I walk inside and I swear to God I could see my breath. I mean, it was probably like 50-55 degrees outside. It was much colder inside. I fill out my paperwork and then promptly sit for over an hour in the waiting room. Freezing. My. Ass. Off. Luckily I'd brought a book, so I was semi-entertained. However, at some point I lost feeling in my feet due to the cold. I thought my nose fell off. And I swore I saw the beginnings of frostbite on my fingertips. Plus, to make matters worse, my butt was numb. Not from cold. But because the of the stupid chairs. I worried how I'd look when they finally did call my name. Falling flat on my face would have been embarrassing.

Luckily that didn't happen. After what seemed like an eternity, a guy opened the door and called my name and took me to a tiny room and took my vitals and asked me a ton of questions. Now, I've never had a male M.A. before, so it was only slightly weird when this strange man asked me some of the standard questions like, "How much do you weigh?" and "Are you pregnant?" and "When was your last menstrual period?". No man ever actually wants know the answer to of those questions - unless you and he are staring at a pregnancy test. Otherwise, nope. Never. And it's not something I ever just tell a guy. Not even guys I'm dating. Seriously. There are somethings they never need to know. After asking said standard questions, he finally turns to me to take my temperature and my pulse. Would you like to know my body temp? It was 87 degrees. He kind of looked at me funny when he told me and I simply said, "Um, you're waiting area is kind of freezing." He should know how cold I was considering he touched my freezing arm to take my pulse. Then of course came the super fun blood pressure cuff.

He leaves and I'm left contemplating my freaking navel. For a good 20 minutes or so. At some point, I see this on the back of the door.


Suddenly there's a loud knock on the door and it whips open and in blows this tall, lanky, blonde doctor with aquamarine colored glasses, and tan Velcro shoes on. She came across as the human equivalent to a tornado. She immediately introduces herself and hesitates before shaking my hand. I politely said, "Don't worry, I'm not contagious." She laughed and muttered something about not wanting to hurt me. Riiiight. So then we enter the next freaking 45 minutes of my life. She badgers me with questions about my little "lesions" as she calls them. Makes me sound like I have Ebola or something. It's freaking dermatitis folks. It's not like it's going to kill me. I tell her how long I've worked for my job, what type of gloves I use (which is what I think caused my "lesions"), and what I've used to try to treat it.

Once we got past the basics and I had to actually describe what she can physically see on my hands. My irritation, which is technically a form of eczema, beautifully stops where my gloves stop. She then says that she's basically stumped. She figures it for an allergic reaction, and she was quite surprised to find I was having an allergic reaction to Nitrile gloves. For those that don't have to wear gloves for their jobs, let me explain. We all know about latex and that there are a lot of people who are allergic to it. I am one of those people. I don't have a horribly bad reaction to latex, but if I wear gloves for awhile, my hands itch. So, I use Nitrile gloves, which are latex free. However, those are not completely devoid of giving people allergic reactions. Not to mention my job over the summer decided to find cheaper gloves and so we changed brands of Nitrile gloves about 4 times before they found one cheap enough to suit them. So I told her my boss as of last night switched me to Vinyl gloves and the health services gal in Maine is having someone ship me an extra special kind of glove that no one can remember the name of.

After the doctor flew out of the room to get a dermatitis book and flew back into the room, she still wasn't sure exactly what was going on with my hands nor exactly how to go about treating it. She flung herself out of the room once more leaving me once more to contemplate my navel - which by then had been contemplated on enough. Awhile later I hear this light knock on the door and a hesitation, so I say, "Yes?". Some random M.A. comes in with two bottles of meds and sets them on the counter saying the doctor will talk to me about them. Again I'm left to contemplate . . . the Earth's axis. The doctor flings herself back into the room, sees the meds on the counter and says, "Oh good! They set them in here - I was looking all over for those!" Um. Isn't that why you have the M.A.'s? So they can do that stuff for you?

So she hands me two bottles of meds - they are prescription strength Benadryl (for bed time, because it'll make me sleepy) and Claritin (for when I'm at work, because it's not supposed to make me sleepy). And wrote a prescription in some of the worst doctor handwriting ever for some topical cream. The best part? When I put the cream on my hands at night she'd like me to then wrap my hands in saran wrap.

Yes. You read that right.

Here's my problem. I live alone. I get one hand wrapped, then what the fuck do I do? Use my teeth?! I don't know a single neighbor and I'm pretty sure that it would not be a great way to meet them. "Oh hi, I'm your neighbor. It's so nice to meet you. Would you wrap me in saran wrap? Ohhh. You must be his girlfriend . . . " I don't think so, Tim.

After all that, I wait patiently for the poor over-worked receptionist to type up my report whilst answering phones and helping the folks in the waiting area. And she can't even read the doctor's handwriting. Eventually, with the help of another receptionist, they finally figure it out. Although I nearly ended up with "must provide cabbage" or "must provide garbage" on my report to give to my boss. That is how bad the doctor's handwriting was. I'm finally given everything I need, and they make an appointment for me on Friday morning to make sure the medications aren't killing me.

I then hop in my car and run off to the local pharmacy. Which was so conveniently located next to a Round Table Pizza. And I was starving. You do the math. So I walk in to the store only to be hit over the head with the strongest cinnamon smell on Earth. Seriously. I had to hold my breath it was that strong. And I love the smell of cinnamon. Anyway, I get to the pharmacy and this older lady comes over to help me. I said I needed to drop off a prescription and handed it to her. She saw the "worker's comp" box checked and asked if they'd filled anything for me for workers come before. I said that "No I hadn't used their pharmacy before." She then asks if they've ever filled anything for me before. Um. No. Didn't I just answer that? She then asks how to pronounce my name and proceeds to say it American style and then Spanish style. Um. I'm sorry. Do I look Hispanic to you? I'm about as white as they get! But I guess you just never know anymore. I fill out some paperwork and she says it'll be 15 minutes.

So I sauntered over to Round Table. I hadn't purchased a pizza in over two months. My mouth was watering at the mere thought of a tasty Ulti-Meat pizza and a salad drenched in Bleu Cheese dressing. I sauntered back over to the pharmacy, and the lady gave me my meds and had the pharmacist go over the meds with me. Dude. It's prescription cortisone basically - as long as I don't eat it or stick it in my eyes, I'm pretty much good to go. But thanks for spitting in my general direction. I went back to get my pizza and the guy there was a moron. I said I had ordered it about 15 minutes prior so I wasn't sure if it was ready yet. I gave him my name, then he asked if I had called it in. I held up my receipt and said, no I came inside to order it a few minutes ago. He asked me two more times if I had called it in. I nearly slammed my head onto their counter. Really?! I finally get my pizza and make my salad and go home.

I got out of my car, and walked around to the passenger side to grab my pizza and salad from the floor. Where I notice my baby's first scratch. I nearly fell over. My new car finally got a scratch. All down the side of the rear passenger door. My stomach lurched. I tried to take a picture, but the sun glared on it wrong so all I got was my reflection and no scratch. I get upstairs to my apartment and dig in. My pizza . . . I'm pretty sure it tasted good. I sort of devoured three pieces. However, before I started devouring, I did notice something.



So, that is how I got to spend my day off today. All I can say is that the only good thing about seeing a tornado of a doctor on worker's comp. is that it's free. Otherwise it's a lot of hoopla and a lot of numb asses sitting around contemplating their navel.