(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡 ┻━┻

^Did someone yell out "Stairway to Heaven" during your Jazz fusion set again?

 

Seriously, FU orchid grower, for not providing a better photo of this new "orchid with the face of satan":

http://phys.org/news/2016-07-orchid-demon-species-devil.html

In all seriousness, though, this is actually pretty cool.

 

Not trying to stir up the cat/bird debate again. Simply posting this because: topical.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/15/health/cats-chicago-rat-patrol/

FUCK RATS.

 

^ and next thing ya know they'll have to bring in dogs to get the cats...

It's like that old Sumarian proverb -

"There was an old woman who swallowed a cow,
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die...

There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
She's dead—of course!"

... A lesson for all ages.

 

I'll remember not to swallow any live creatures, JP.

So ummm... Fuck vet bills?
Yesterday my boyfriend and I were walking our dog and I'm piloting both phones at once catching Pokemon when suddenly OUR DOG STARTS PEEING BLOOD. We both just stare at each other for a moment and go "HOLY CRAP" and Jon picks up Bruiser and takes his phone back while both of us make a beeline for home, and I call our vet. They can't fucking take us because they're booked and ask us if we can drop him off in the morning.
Fuck no, so he can pee more blood?!
No.
We end up going to an emergency veterinarian. We were there for 5 hours. Bruiser went in for a whole battery of tests, and we were able to rule out kidney stones and cancer. They also found an ulcer on his eye that we were completely unaware of, because it looked like a dot on a permanent scar he has on his eye. (We thought it was just a thicker part of the scar.) We're basically told that they don't know why he's peeing blood, and won't know until the urinalysis and culture come back, but he has to be put on antibiotics in the meantime in case it's a UTI.
Finally we get Bruiser back and then the bill and meds. This is where shit gets crazy.
One X-Ray for $250? A tiny tube of what is pretty much Neosporin for eyes is $30? Putting a UV liquid in my dog's eye and then looking at it with a light is $50?
All together we paid $1500 for all the tests and treatments.
$1500. That's more than goddamn monthly rent in most places.
Fuck medical bills. Fuck random blood pee.

But thank goodness my dog is feeling okay otherwise. If it was cancer, I don't know what I would do with myself. He's only 2.

 

I'm glad he's feeling better. Hopefully, the results will provide insight into something that is easily fixed.

Vet bills can get expensive. I paid around $700 (I think) for a doctor's appointment with x-rays for my turtle. It just showed that he was really old. Poor guy lived for 25 years, so he had a good life.

The lobby in my dog's vet is full of pet insurance flyers. I don't have any yet for Declan (the dog), but I'm wondering about it now. You never know when a crisis would arise.

 

I can't recommend pet insurance more, we've been using VPI for years now and we love them. I personally think VPI is best for people that have multiple dogs or for people who spend a lot of time at the vet and want basic stuff covered too (covers yearly exams, heartworm prevention, dentals, etc.) I recommend Healthy Paws for people that just want emergency coverage. A friend's dog swallowed a mini tennis ball and had to have it surgically removed, and with HP, it covered all but $700 out of a $5,000 bill.

We had 5 dogs on VPI, now 4 dogs on it. It has covered all of the emergency visits, and having 5 exams and dentals per year, plus the heartworm meds and misc. random visits for random medical stuff, it has been totally worth it. 1 chihuahua (11), 1 chi/italian greyhound mix (9), 1 black lab mix (6), 1 pit/rotti mix (almost 3), and formerly 1 staffie mix (age 2, sadly had to be re-homed recently due to irreconcilable differences with the rotti mix, she had a massive bee up her butt about dominating the rotti and the attacks got to be too much despite training between the two broke our hearts completely) Luckily she's in a wonderful new home being trained as a service dog and they love her.

I'm really sorry about your dog ;-; Vet bills are rough, and I hope it's just a UTI!! <3

 

Where's the vomit emoji when you need it?

Thanks for all the kind words folks. We do have pet insurance, but only with our primary care vet. We get free checkups and yearly dental, all that good stuff. Sadly they were booked and couldn't take us (it was late in the day, two hours before they close) so we had no choice but to go to the "animal emergency room."

Great news though, two doses of antibiotics later and he has stopped peeing blood. We are beyond relieved.

But guess what, there's more FUCK YOU fun to be had.
Today I'm on a trip with my mom to pick up her car from the repair shop (I came along just to grab Pokestops because I can't drive... Long story short, I have serious driving anxiety) when my boyfriend texts me that his dad is in the hospital. Apparently he felt extremely weak and it wasn't going away. Turns out his heart rate was dangerously low, so he is having surgery tomorrow to install a pacemaker. He's in perfect health despite being in his mid 60's, so this was a huge shock to us.

To top it all off, I was a bit miffed because I was being nagged about laundry and I was clearly worrying so much about things that I had forgotten to move my clean clothes. My sister walks in and says "Why are you yelling? You sound like a child." I tell her that she has no idea what I'm going through after thinking my dog might have cancer yesterday, and now finding out that my "Delaware Dad" is in the hospital. (Jon's mother died a few years ago, so I am terrified of losing his dad too.)
And you know what she does? SHE FUCKING LAUGHS AT ME.
I know I need to leave and disengage asap before I blow up, so I say "I'm not cleaning up these dishes, I need to go." I meant it as an apology to my mom who was in the room, like "I'm sorry I'm leaving this plate from lunch but I have to go right now" but my sister says "Not cleaning up after yourself? You know who does that? A child."
Well, I fucking blow up and start screaming that just because SHE has never experienced loss of any kind doesn't mean that others can't worry, and that she's learning to be a damn unempathetic asshole from her douchey boyfriend.
I storm out, cry with my dog, get cold and sleepy after crying like I always do, pass out for 5 hours.

Fuck the saying "blood is thicker than water."
I don't know how she can be so cruel when she knows how concerned I am about the health of loved ones. I guess she should go tell people at funerals that they're being childish too.

/endrant -deep breath-
...yeah.

 

Fuck everything.

Urinalysis came back. If I understood the doctor correctly, our pup had a UTI which somehow caused minerals in his pee to crystallize in his bladder... Thus causing the terrifying stream of blood that scared us half to death.

He has to go on a low protein, low magnesium, low phosphorus prescription food...
Probably for the rest of his life.

I dont know how I'm going to afford everything, but one thing's for sure, I'm probably going to have to sell more of my collection or not buy another toy for a very, very long time.

On the bright side, Jon's dad is out of the hospital. The pacemaker surgery was a success and we're at his house for the weekend to help him cook and do chores since he can't drive or do any physical labor for a week. Our dog also hasn't peed any blood since going on antibiotics.

 

You have your priorities straight hellointerloper! My dog has given me more joy than any collection ever could.

 

Thanks, I just hope this new diet will be the answer and it won't happen again. Blood is... Not supposed to come out of there. My poor little guy.

 

Fuck Apple.

Jon bought a Samsung Galaxy S7 today.
ALL TEXTS FROM IPHONES ARE STILL BEING SENT AS IMESSAGES SO THEY AREN'T BEING DELIVERED.
The AT&T people tried to fix it, they concluded it must be on Apple's end.
We go to the Apple Store, the guy says we have to go online and deregister his old phone from iCloud.
We do that when we get home.
ALL MESSAGES FROM IPHONES TO HIS NUMBER ARE STILL SENT AS IMESSAGES.
We do more digging.
Commence convoluted deregistering method that includes swapping SIM cards.
We open the SIM card trays to do the thing.
SIM CARDS ARE NOT THE SAME SIZE.

FUCK YOU APPLE, YOU MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO LEAVE

 

I get the whole concept behind Apple's (or anyone Cloud for that matter) iCloud where you can seamlessly have access to anything on any device without transferring it over etc etc BUT honestly it's a fucking shitshow money making data scam IMO. Sometimes you just don't want access to everything on every device, and why would you? Some apps will never work right on certain devices and like you said with messages- its so inter-connected that it screws things up! People love to give up control of their own digital world- not me. I purposely switch off any kind of 'cloud' bs the minute I get a device. If Apple already has a card or paypal account connected to your apple id then it's so easy to automatically bill you the second you go over whatever limit they put on your 'cloud'.

 

@toothaction
You're a long way from the SOTD thread, pardner.

I recognize that one from the samples but not the music. During a certain period the folks I associated with listened to that manner of stuff, but I never really got into besides going with to the festivals or whatever. My very good friend at the time started making electronic music (I think he still does) and we were together so much that I was often around while he was working on his tunes (which was like all the time), so I kind of ended up advising and giving input here and there, which i guess was a little odd, since I really wasn't into that scene. I made two cassette tapes with stuff I thought he could use for samples (I collected a lot of weird audio at the time). He didn't use one damn clip, though. I think he kind of thought of them as complete works or something, I don't know.

 

Seeing this quote circulating around Facebook...

"Hey, is your refrigerator running? Because I'd vote for it. REFRIGERATOR 2016."

 

Fuck my health.
Been feeling like shit both mentally and physically lately because my house is like a prison. Headaches, migraines, fatigue, insomnia on the physical side, and loneliness, inadequacy, anxiety, and frustration mentally.
Managed to raise $180/$750 of my half of Bruiser's vet bill so far, and though I have so much of my own artwork to sell, I just can't get around to glazing it. Something always gets in the way like a migraine, my sister's obnoxious boyfriend coming over (he's one of the most putridly unpleasant people I have ever met, so anytime he's over I just hide), my sister starting some kind of bullshit fight with my mom resulting in a ton of screaming (and subsequent headache/anxiety for me)...
I also can't drive (terrible driver's anxiety) and it's too hot to walk anywhere lately, so I don't have the freedom to just leave most days.

My sister moves out on the 14th of August. It's my only hope for a shred of sanity.
It's gotten so bad that my boyfriend is developing anxiety himself and has started to have nightmares. He's considering quitting his job so we can move in with his dad in Delaware instead of continuing to live in CT with my parents. I told him HELL NO. He needs his job... and Delaware is nice to visit, but I would go mad having to live there. It's so damn flat and commercialized. It's either corn or giant retail stores.

Rant rant rant rant... Sorry for the "woe is me" ranting. Just sick of this shit.
I know it's all situational and will pass, but for fuck's sake, does it suck in the meantime.
I need a new body and a good state or two's distance between my sibling. At least one is possible.