It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. On November 27th I took my beloved cat, Bastet, to the vet for the last time. When I got up that morning she was lying on the kitchen floor in her own mess. She had thrown up all over herself the night before and had frightening convulsions that clearly were painful. She wouldn't drink her milk or even eat a piece of cheese, so I wasn't able to medicate her. Her front legs would twitch and quiver as she was lying down and her back legs just didn't function anymore. It was time.
I can't go into detail right now. She was euthanized and I stayed with her throughout the procedure. She is buried next to her brother who died October 26th. She spent most of the summer laying under the tigerlily fronds like a big lazy jungle cat. I really miss her. I miss them both.

The steroid shot that Bastet got last night has done a world of good for her. She's not leaping and racing but she is able to walk, albeit shakily. She has gone to the potty each time I wheeled her bed over to the tray, she is eating well, and the pill was history hidden in a lump of extra sharp cheddar. She's a sucker for a piece of cheese. So was Goliath. I am hopeful that she will be back to her old self in a couple of days. For now she is sleeping in the bottom half of a large pet carrier. We took the top off so she wouldn't be so secluded and we roll it from room to room so she can be a part of what's going on. When she gets done with her business she gets right back in on her own so I guess it's pretty comfortable for her. I ripped open a brown paper bag, her bed of choice, and lined the bottom of it. She seems happy enough. I even caught her purring last night. I went over her vet records this morning when I was waiting for the taped joints in the floor to dry. She has had a bunch of steroid shots over the years. She used to get them for her skin condition. At $20-$24 bucks a pop they sure added up. That's alot of money for a cat you can't really pet. They never seemed to help her skin, though. I also tried feeding her a special diet provided by the vet for a couple of months. Cha-Ching. No help. The only thing that helped was eliminating fish from her diet. That's pretty tough to do considering fish is an ingredient in nearly every canned and bagged cat food on the market today.
I fed her Alpo dogfood tonight as I ran out of her usual brand and there was no fish in it. She hooved it down. Unfortunately, dogfood doesn't have taurine in it and she needs that.

We started laying tile in the sunroom today. I ran out of tape for the backerboard joints so dh picked up another roll when he went to Lowes for the rest of the tile. I taped and "mudded" the joints, then we had lunch and then the fun began. The room is really out of square so we are having to fudge the spacing a bit between the tiles. I had hoped that we could just use my little 1/4" spacers but that won't work on all of it. This is the first time I've set 12" tiles. I tiled the bathroom vanity and tiled the big custom walk in shower at Tunstall but that was with 4" tiles. I've also laid a few 6" quarry tiles. I'm hoping that the 12" will be super easy since there is less of them. We've encountered a few high spots already due to the floor not being quite level. I'd love to pound that asshole contractor in the mouth.
I'm hoping that we get most of the floor done tomorrow. I would like for it to be grouted and the walls and ceiling spackled, sanded, and painted by Thanksgiving which means I'm really going to have to pour it on in the next few days. My hands hurt!

She's sliding down the slippery slope. Two days ago she stopped walking. At first she tried to get her legs under her but only one was able to support her so she kept falling down. Yesterday she quit trying and dragged herself from spot to spot. She made her way to her food dish and also to the potty tray. Today, however, she couldn't make it. We got home after running errands all day to find her laying in the hallway. She had taken a crap and it was stuck all over her. I got the cat carrier out of the barn, the same one that her brother died in two weeks ago, and loaded her up for a trip to the vet.
She suggested euthanasia. I couldn't do it without trying something else first. Bastet still enjoys a snooze in a warm patch of sunshine, she'll purr and purr, kneading the air with her paws. She also looks forward to her meals and a warm cup of milk at night. So we opted for a steroid shot this evening to see if that would help with any inflammation she may have in her joints. I've got pills to give to her for a few days as well. If they don't help her I don't know what I'll do. The vet also said that Bastet had a heart murmur.
My poor old cat.

I worked there as a cocktail waitress while I was in college. I got paid $2.01 an hour plus tips which were very good because I was fast and I worked my ass off. After the punters left at 2:00 a.m. the waitresses had to clean up, wrap silverware for the lunch shift the next day. By law we were supposed to be paid minimum wage after 2 because we couldn't earn tips to supplement our pay but we never did. In fact, at the end of the night we had to pay a percentage of our tips to the bartenders who made more money than we did and didn't have to clean up. They sat around drinking while we worked. I started work at 4:00 and usually got off at 3:00-3:30. I busted my ass for nearly 12 hours for $25 day after day after day. To add insult to injury we also had to chip in a few dollars each to give to JellyBean and Shirley to clean the kitchen and mop the floors. Lots of times I refused because I couldn't afford it. I was paying rent, tuition for classes I couldn't stay awake thru, and groceries for my alcoholic boyfriend, who, btw, was one of the bartenders.

The other bartender who worked the happy hour shift, damn, what was her name...doesn't matter....she worked to socialize and would never mix my drinks for me. I had to go behind the bar to mix my own and then serve them. That's how I learned how to mix. At the end of the shift she was always there with her hand out waiting for her cut. I stopped tipping her. She turned me in because I was too young to mix legally. Didn't matter. The boss didn't want to lose me because I sold ALOT of drinks and I actually checked ids. I was the first person in town to prosecute someone for drinking underage with a fake id. It was a very big deal since the town fought liquor-by-the-drink so hard.

What am I rambling on about? After I had been there for over a year and had seen a complete overhaul of the staff a couple times over the manager decided that the restaurant needed a supervisor for the cocktail staff. I was all over it. I was senior staff, the big money maker, and even worked parties at the boss's house. I could step in behind the bar and was always willing to come in at any time to work lunch, or serve dinner. So one night when the rest of the cocktail staff showed up, around 9ish, the manager called us together for a meeting. The bartenders and bouncers were there, too. (Oh yeah, Jane A. that was her name and her daddy was one of the rich folk in town).
Anyway, Rodney, the manager started talking about the new position and what it entailed and then said, "the new cocktail supervisor will be Berkley C. B. III. He doesn't know anything about the job but he'll learn." And Berkley, who often came to my apt to get drunk with my boyfriend, and got the cocktail waitresses to put long island ice teas in the walk-in freezer so he could drink on the job, looked right at me and smiled. His parents had the biggest, poshest house in town. He didn't need the job but he was friends with the manager and his parents were friends with the restaurant owner. He didn't know the job, didn't know the first thing about ABC laws, but he got the job. The staff congratulated him on getting the promotion and when I asked the manager, later, why Berkley got the job and I didn't, he told me 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I left.

It's funny how some things in life keep recurring over and over again. You bust your ass doing things to make it right, to make everybody happy, and you get shit on. And if you dare ask 'why?' you get told 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I'm tired of giving so much and then being treated like I'm nothing. I'm tired of people smiling to my face and then stabbing me in the back. I'm tired of pouring myself into something and then someone else taking the credit. I'm tired of being called a bitch because I'm not a lemming.

You know what's funny? People used to try and make me feel guilty for not contributing to JellyBean and Shirley because they were "mentally impaired" and were broke all the time. We did most of the cleanup for them anyway. After I left I heard that JellyBean and Shirley got busted for selling steaks and booze out the backdoor of the restaurant when they were supposed to be cleaning. I guess they were cleaning up, in a way. Funny, the new cocktail supervisor, who was also responsible for the liquor inventory, didn't notice the thefts and apparently they had been doing it for some time.