Blurred Line

Sometimes, you have bad days - the weather's gloomy, your hair won't stay put, people eat your lunch out of the work fridge - that kind of day. Well, today, I had the mother of all bad days. If you'd like to skip a paragraph or so of me whining and complaining, and kill some time some other way, you can go here.

Anyway, I woke up to a rejection from Strange Horizons. All in all, I can handle that pretty easily (though I was a little unhappy that it was just a form letter), but it was just an omen of things to come. My cat hadn't eaten anything for the last three days, so I figured he was just being finicky about not having a perfectly clean bowl or something. Anyhow, I got him a clean bowl and gave him an additional bowl filled with some of his favourite treats to get him to start eating again. Then, I set off for work, and got wet in the rain, then spent eight and a half terribly boring hours at work (unfortunately for me, that's pretty typical). I got home and decided to check with my landlord to see if I'd get reduced pricing if I went back on a one-year lease. I've really been hurting for money lately, so I figured that having my rent reduced by $50 a month (like it was when I signed a lease in the first place) would be great. Well, she told me that they don't do that anymore. So, now I'm preparing to move. And I hate moving. I got home to see the cat acting completely lethargic (just laying on the kitchen floor, staring at his food), with the bowls of food and treats untouched. I poured him some milk, since that's something he gets about once a year and really enjoys. He sniffed it and then slumped over on the floor. So, a trip to the vet was in order. Unfortunately, I don't have a regular vet and, being a little bit concerned for my cat, I decided I'd take him to the Animal Emergency Clinic. I got there and was told that there was a $113 charge for emergency cases, which I paid a little unhappily. I then waited. And waited. For two hours. I talked with someone who had brought in a cat the previous night with the same symptoms as mine. She was back to find out the test results. She returned to the lobby in tears. Needless to say, this didn't exactly put me in good spirits during the wait. Anyhow, I finally got in to see the vet, who told me that she wasn't exactly sure what was wrong, except that my cat was pretty sick. It could be dehydration, or it could be kidney failure. She wasn't sure, but $600 worth of testing, plus $150 for every day he stays at the vet would figure it out. Now, all of this would have been painful enough, but of course my car had to break down in the vet's parking lot. I'm pretty confident that it's a problem with the transmission fluid (I had a similar breakdown about four years ago). I managed to get the car to the garage, though, so I'll have the word back on both my cat and car tomorrow.

So, not the best of days, I'm afraid.


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Thursday, June 01, 2006 - Bad Days Sometimes, you have bad days - the weather's gloomy, your hair won't stay put, people eat your lunch out of the work fridge - that kind of day. Well, today, I had the mother of all bad days. If you'd like to skip a paragraph or so of me whining and complaining, and kill some time some other way, you can go here. Anyway, I woke up to a rejection from Strange Horizons. All in all, I can handle that pretty easily (though I was a little unhappy that it was just a form letter), but it was just an omen of things to come. My cat hadn't eaten anything for the last three days, so I figured he was just being finicky about not having a perfectly clean bowl or something. Anyhow, I got him a clean bowl and gave him an additional bowl filled with some of his favourite treats to get him to start eating again. Then, I set off for work, and got wet in the rain, then spent eight and a half terribly boring hours at work (unfortunately for me, that's pretty typical). I got home and decided to check with my landlord to see if I'd get reduced pricing if I went back on a one-year lease. I've really been hurting for money lately, so I figured that having my rent reduced by $50 a month (like it was when I signed a lease in the first place) would be great. Well, she told me that they don't do that anymore. So, now I'm preparing to move. And I hate moving. I got home to see the cat acting completely lethargic (just laying on the kitchen floor, staring at his food), with the bowls of food and treats untouched. I poured him some milk, since that's something he gets about once a year and really enjoys. He sniffed it and then slumped over on the floor. So, a trip to the vet was in order. Unfortunately, I don't have a regular vet and, being a little bit concerned for my cat, I decided I'd take him to the Animal Emergency Clinic. I got there and was told that there was a $113 charge for emergency cases, which I paid a little unhappily. I then waited. And waited. For two hours. I talked with someone who had brought in a cat the previous night with the same symptoms as mine. She was back to find out the test results. She returned to the lobby in tears. Needless to say, this didn't exactly put me in good spirits during the wait. Anyhow, I finally got in to see the vet, who told me that she wasn't exactly sure what was wrong, except that my cat was pretty sick. It could be dehydration, or it could be kidney failure. She wasn't sure, but $600 worth of testing, plus $150 for every day he stays at the vet would figure it out. Now, all of this would have been painful enough, but of course my car had to break down in the vet's parking lot. I'm pretty confident that it's a problem with the transmission fluid (I had a similar breakdown about four years ago). I managed to get the car to the garage, though, so I'll have the word back on both my cat and car tomorrow. So, not the best of days, I'm afraid. Cavan blogged at 9:50 PM \| 3 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart