yow

[dragonlady7]

My calves hurt me so. They do, really, hurt me so. Tired legs, tired me. Wound up earning under 15% of my sales tonight, which bums me out. Most people were reasonable so I don't know why I wound up so short in my total tips, but one particular dire old hag sticks in my memory for making me run back and forth four or five times, to get her and her daughter drinks, and she left me not one penny, and I knew she wouldn't, and yet I was still nice to her, so I better get out of at least five minutes of Purgatory for that one.

I guess I'm glad I didn't call in, but really, I remain so very tired. And yet I really want to go out tonight.

I got home, and Z asked how I was, and I glumly moaned a bit about how my legs hurt and I was tired, and he said "then sit down and I'll make you dinner!!" Which was said in a highly adorable fashion, and so I am lounging happily with my Internet, and my feet in the air. It's kinda nice.

I am happy to hear that docbrite has retrieved over half of her cats, and her snake: I guess what happened is that one of the Animal Rescue people was in a house with a whole bunch of cats in it and noticed a big box of Poppy Z. Brite books, and mentioned it to his wife, who was a fan, and so she e-mailed her, thus letting the cats be reunited with their owner-- very fortuitous string of events, eh?

She also brings up the same point jennnlee did in an earlier post: What to do about the series of novels she's writing that are set in New Orleans? She admits that when 9/11 happened, she had to pretty much ignore it, because in real life her characters' just-opened restaurant probably would have gone under in the aftermath (a lot of restaurants did). So she's wondering how on earth to continue with the series, with New Orleans under several feet of water and at a virtual standstill for months-- how are her Everyman characters supposed to continue their everyday plots with that sort of thing, unless one takes time out to write a book about Dealing With The Hurricane? (That last bit is my speculation on how I'd cope. But really-- how is one to come up with something like that?)


In other life news, little to report. Waiting for the 'weekend' so I can actually get something done-- I am so far behind on everything in the world I've no idea when I'll ever catch up. And I'm just so tired. I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow. I'm at that stage where I'm starting to daydream about good reasons not to go to work. (What if I broke my leg? I could get out of work for a couple weeks at least! It'd be awesome!... I'd go so far into debt I'd never get out.)

Yay! Dinner, on another topic entirely, is nearly ready. I go now to eat it.

Comments

[silverwerecat.livejournal.com]

I am happy to hear that docbrite has retrieved over half of her cats, and her snake: I guess what happened is that one of the Animal Rescue people was in a house with a whole bunch of cats in it and noticed a big box of Poppy Z. Brite books, and mentioned it to his wife, who was a fan, and so she e-mailed her, thus letting the cats be reunited with their owner-- very fortuitous string of events, eh?

I am so happy to hear that! I hope she'll fnd more of her babies. This story has been haunting me for days.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Me too. It's been one thing that really brings home to me the sense of there but for the grace of God go I-- the real horror of actually contemplating what to do.
I mean, at the moment, I only have fish. And they're betta fish. If I had an hour's notice, I could throw them into three jars-- hell, even three jars with lids-- and the little bastards would survive for weeks. But at various points in my life I've had up to two dozen pets, most of whom I would have no way of saving on short notice. What would I have done if we'd had to leave my home when we had two horses and three guinea pigs and two dogs and three cats and fourteen chickens? It would be a case of trying to evaluate who to leave to fend for himself, who to take, and who to just kill humanely before we left. (I believe we probably would have released the horses, if it were summer; they have good survival instincts, except for roads, but if the roads are reasonably empty, wouldn't they be all right? I don't know, and what about feral dogs? but we had no trailer, and thus no real option, unless to attempt to evacuate by riding the horses-- but the chickens would all be killed within the week, by raccoons and weasels; perhaps it would be kinder to kill them ourselves?) God, what a decision. (The cats we didn't have carriers for. They would go in the car, but along with two dogs and four kids? Perhaps not. At least ours are indoor/outdoor cats, well accustomed to hunting for themselves. I feel terrible for all the indoor-only housecats with responsible owners who couldn't bring them.)

I am sure you've gone through much of this thought process, but there you have mine. It makes me think: next time I own animals large enough to have collars, even if they don't wear the collars I will have tags with my name and phone number on them, and I will definitely, if I ever have cats again, train them to like getting into the carrier, so I can get them into it right away and take them with me. (Scout doesn't like her carrier, but she will get into it if you tell her to. She will be sad, but she'll get in. But then, she's a dog. Dogs are different. Cats have to want to.)

Ahh, but I wibble on. Poor docbrite still has something like ten missing cats, and she described the reunion as bittersweet, but to have so many of them rescued is better than she had hoped. (and from the sound of it, her house must not be too heavily damaged, if the books were recognizable. Perhaps the rest are safely under the bed.)

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

Trevor and I trained our cats to love the cat carrier for one reason: fires. It would work for hurricanes too, but generally the idea was: what if we wake up in the middle of the night with the fire alarm blaring and flashing? The cats will panic and hide under the bed, and how will we get them out before we all die of smoke inhalation?
Solution: First, we had to make sure there was nowhere in the apartment that they could get to that we could not extricate them within ten seconds. So the sofa is okay (one person can lift it) but the bed was not (it's a waterbed). So we blocked off the under-the-bed by putting this little hinged door on the only way under the bed, and closing it. The cats can't open it (in fact, I can't really either). Of course, if we lived in a real house this would be trickier because there would be so many places for them to hide, but in a two-room apartment there's only about three places they can go.
Step 2: we taught them to love boxes. Put boxes out for them to jump into, put treats in them, etc. That was easy. Then we got one of those cardboard, foldable, pathetic cat box and put that in the middle of the living room and let them play with it. We take it out and unfold it every so often for them. At first we put treats in it every time, so now when we put it out they jump in right away. No worries. We actually don't use the box when we take them to the vet, so that they don't associate it with bad things.
Now I grant you this is rather crazy of us, to go to all this effort, but I never had cats before these two and for awhile after getting them I lived next to a crazy old man who kept setting fire to our shared wall. So I was worried. It's much easier with a dog: you say come and it runs up to you, fire or not. But I could just see our little kittens hiding somewhere where we couldn't get to them, or fighting to get out of our arms when they saw the box, and running back into the fire...if it was just one cat, the two of us could probably wrap him/her into a towel and carry him/her out, but I know from having had to wrap Puff in a towel to give him eye drops that it takes two people and some extra arms to manage it. We wouldn't be able to manage two.
If we ever had to go to a shelter, we'd hide the cats in our bags. True, the deceit wouldn't last long, but I doubt they'd kick us out. Preferably, we'd just drive somewhere safe in our car and then wait it out in the car if no one would let cats in.

[silverwerecat.livejournal.com]

I am sure you've gone through much of this thought process, but there you have mine.

Actually I've made my mind on this long ago: if I cannot get them all out and take them with me, I'd rather stay back and die with them. It's that simple.

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

Interestingly (to me, anyway), Sherrilyn Kenyon, the author I was talking about, hijacked the LiveJournal of one of her characters, acheron_p to address the things I was wondering myself about how she'd address the hurricane. Here I thought I was being insensitive by just mentioning it, and people had been writing her with the same questions. (She's planning to address it, and make it a part of the series. And in the context she mentions, it makes a lot of sense and should be a very dramatic and heartbreaking narrative, since the character's POV she'll be writing through is a NOLA native who's already lost everything...)

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

Oops, journal is at acheronp. That's what I get for posting without verifying. Ah well.