Random House in Packrat

Cat Last night I had an awful scare; my cat suddenly flopped over, did her business on herself, and couldn't move. She was limp like a rag doll when I picked her up, and her breathing was more like panting. The tip of her little pink tongue stuck out. I freaked and called the vet (whose office, fortunately, is just over the hill from me); I cried so hard I could barely tell him what was wrong. By the time he examined her she was already breathing normally, standing on her own, swishing her tail as if very put out by it all. She never liked riding in the car and complained all the way home (but the ride lasted only a minute or so).

His official diagnosis is that she's old. She's 17 going on 18, and he thinks she had a mini stroke. Otherwise, she's very healthy. There had been no indication that a stroke was coming; she ate her breakfast and supper per the usual, had water, jumped around - she's still very spry; in fact, I have another old cat who would seem more likely to have that happen.

He gave her a shot of B12 and gave me a nutritional supplement to give her every day. She fought me on that this morning. I also give it to my other old cat.

She usually sleeps with me but has been sleeping in the living room where it's cooler; last night, I slept in there with her. I'm grateful to all the powers that be that she's still with me and healthy.

Dr's appt I went to a doctor's appointment this morning and heard news that I'm not thrilled about, but in the end it all worked out okay - like the vet, he prescribed vitamins rather than medicine. Like my cat, I'm just old! haha

Cell Phone My cell phone is dead. Long live my cell phone! I hung on to an old one for years because I didn't want to be hung up on all its gadgets; I needed it only to make calls and send texts. My brother gave me one for Christmas, and I finally activated it - and I keep playing with it, recording wolf howls to use as a ringtone (but the delay from the time a call came to when the wolves howled was too long, so I had to drop that - bummer), receiving and sending out pictures of my niece, checking facebook a couple of times. I bought a little case for it since I've been carrying it around; usually I leave it in the car.

Finance I hate budgets. I worked on mine yesterday. It's done except that I don't know my funding source, but apparently no one does because finance doesn't want the staff who handle the governmental compact I'm under to have the financials. They can't even make a guess as to how much carryover there will be, and that's what funds me. The person who told me about all this mess had told me months before that it was coming; otherwise, I'd just have named the source I've been coming from. She thinks that there will be money for my program, but there has been no official word. I emailed the treasurer, chief financial officer, the woman who wants to be in charge, and cc'd my supervisor, the chief, and the committeeperson, who is my liaison, to ask where I'm to be funded. Fun.

Just got an email from the new CFO that says all departments are to now pay for our own telephone, insurance, utilities, etc., that previously came out of our Indirect Cost. I scrape by on a bare bones budget already, and how am I to know what these costs are when I've never paid them in the nearly 30 years I've worked here?

Matchdoctor I created a Matchdoctor account eons ago (30s? 40s?) but never use it and it's been dormant for years; like a volcano, it has awakened. Nah, not going there.

Yawn I wanted to exercise my writing muscle by providing y'all with sleep aids, aka the current story of my life! haha