Fun and not so fun

We went to the trade show in New Orleans this past Saturday. By we, I mean NewBossLady, MsPitbull and me. In NOLA. On a Saturday. At the Convention Center. Fucking yay. Wasn't too bad, traffic was crazy, but since I drove we made it in about 80 minutes. Yes I have a lead foot and a piss poor attitude behind the wheel. No I'm not a defensive driver. I prefer to think of myself as an offensive driver. And by offensive, I surely do mean shouting "You stupid fucking moron, park that piece of shit SUV and walk!" out of an open window. So that part was amusing, at least for me.
We get there and I discover the true meaning of hell. I have never seen so many women in one place at the same time in my life. It wasn't clouds of estrogen, it was a goddam smog, a sea of surging hormones. And Diet Coke.
It was fun though, once I got past all that. NBL and Pit are a blast to hang out with, we looked at some great stuff. This trade show had lots n lots n lots of jewelry. Lots. Of. Sparkly. Things. Also, cooking stuff, cleaning stuff, clothes (OMG I actually had to stop and look, some of the stuff was great. And I bought a shirt. The other two tried to talk me into a belly dancer's outfit but I had to draw the line somewhere), luggage, knickyknacks, you name it somebody was selling it. We bought a bunch of stuff for the store, took business cards to make appointments with vendors, looked at everything, touched most things and did a good bit of personal shopping.
Lessee, I bought jewelry for me, jewelry for T, clothing for me and the nieces and best of all knives. Umm, I bought 5 knives. 1 big ass blade as long as my forearm and 4 smaller ones. My favorite kind of sparkly stuff.

Today a jewelry guy came by the store to see NBL. Pit and I helped select some jewelry for the store and bought ourselves some sparklies of our very own. Nice to get stuff at cost and be able to help pick stuff out. Between the 3 of us we have a pretty wide range of tastes so lots of different kinds of things to play with now. I really liked this necklace, chunky pieces of smoky quartz. A little to big to suit me but I loved it.

We have been crazy busy but it's all been pretty fun. I like working in such a light hearted atmosphere. Other than the former crazy owner/boss lady (who has been renamed Satan's Psycho Cow) coming around everything has been great. The other ongoing problem is our main distributor for books. Their order site has been down since Saturday morning. So we are unable to look up or order books and our order has been delayed. yippee fun joy for me.
We are dealing with it but it does add a touch of aggravation to the day.

Anyway, I'm doing ok. I'm loving work, T came home this morning to spend Thanksgiving, I talked to both brothers and both parents in the last few days and everything is going well.

Oh, the not so fun? That was this evening. Turning into a total klutz. Tripping and falling down my stairs. Busting my knee and my face. The knee can be hidden under jeans but I think it's gonna be pretty hard to hide the humongous fat lip I've got. And the bruised chin. *sigh* Oh well, at least I didn't break my glasses.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my favorite Troublemakers! Hope y'all have a wonderful Thursday.

P.S. Pit brought me a can of coffee beans - the brand is Kicking Horse and it's the KickAss dark - anybody tried this stuff before? It smells good, I haven't tried it yet. Gotta love a friend who knows your weaknesses.

Skye's great, thanks dearhearts (you know who you are)

Thanks for caring, y'all are the bestest.
Skye's surgery was yesterday. So it was a get outta bed, throw on clothes mad rush to the vet's office before heading off to work. And waiting to hear back.

She did just fine. Spayed and two lumps removed. Kinda scary to find out that 2 lumps had come up in the short time since the last surgery. Definitely made me think I made the right choice.


I picked her up this morning (did the mad rush thing again). Had to leave her at home while I went to work, and of course I felt horribly guilty. I really don't think she cared though, since she was drugged outta her little head. Min-pin on pain meds, kinda funny akshully.


And yeah, I'm keeping her a little doped up because she is so damned hyper. When I came home tonight, she tried doing her usual dance routine. Never mind the 3 sets of stitches, happy dance is a must. So, another pain pill and another chew treat (as a distraction).


And I wanted to share this pic:

Yes, I left a note.

More time, dammit!

I need more hours in the day. I'm working 10 - 12 hour days, 6 days a week and still can't get everything done. AAAAHHH!!
Exhausted doesn't even begin to cover the state I'm in. I'm so tired I'm loopy and so wound up I can't sleep.
Yes, the store has been sold. The new owners took over last week. No, we are not completely rid of the schizoid former BL. I am setting up the new POS system, not getting call backs from tech support (lazy bastard assholes in AZ), handling customers, running errands and pretty much all the rest of it. The upside - new owners are MOST appreciative, incredibly nice and generous people. They brought me a coffee pot, have bought my meals, pay me on time, reimburse me when I use my money for store stuff and so forth. I hear "thank you" and "you are so wonderful" all day long. I'd forgotten how great it is to work with real decent human beings. I'm not even going to talk about all the shit the former BL has pulled in the last week. We aren't moving to the new location until after Christmas (whew!) and I've been asked my opinion on layouts, stock and pretty much everything else.

Skye's surgery is Nov 5th. Found another knot on her belly. All pre-op test results were good. She is fine and we are fairly optimistic.

Went to that wedding, had fun, saw my niece and nephew and some good friends, got my leg humped by Bonehead, kissed Big D and came home.

Took some pics I'll eventually get around to posting on flickr.

Trying to survive massive allergy/sinus attack caused by taking pictures of fall flowers.

I've made Halloween goodie bags for my babies and now I'm going to bed.

I'm still not married, still haven't set another date, still haven't gotten an oil change and missed garbage pickup this week. And I haven't even looked at the mail or bills or email or blogs or pretty much anything that wasn't work related or dire emergency. Amazing that with all of this I'm still usually in a good mood and enjoying the insanity. Yes, I really really really like my new bosses.

adenocarci -WHAT?

If you are one of those people who responds with "It's just a frickin' dog!" please go the hell away now. Really. Just go away. Cuz it's not just a dog, it's my dog. My 11 year old, incredibly cute, sweet as all get-out, been around longer than 2 husbands, dog.
Last summer I noticed Skye had a knot on her belly, right by a nipple. About the size of the tip of my thumb. Took her to the vet, had it removed and sent it off to LSU Vet School to be tested. Biopsy results: Benign tumor, completely contained within sample. Whew!
But it gave me the horrors so I kept an eye on things (honestly, I think the dog got more tit checks than I've ever given myself).
This August, two little pea-sized knots popped up, neither in the same place as the big one from last year. Back to the vet we go. Skye was not thrilled about the extra visit even if it did mean crunchy treats from Dr. Lisa. Doc was a bit concerned since the benign tumor, if it recurs, comes back in the same spot. We scheduled another surgery, which was a bit nerve wrecking considering Skye's age. She did fine other than expected soreness from 2 incisions. Sent those off to LSU and waited for biopsy results. And waited. And then got smacked by Gustav. And waited some more.
Finally, finally got results today. Dr. Lisa called me at work to give me the results. Adenocarcinoma. At least I think that's what she said. I went deaf right after she said malignant. Shit. She gave me the complete name and I can't remember it. Whatever the $50 name is, it's breast cancer.
The good (??) part is that the tumors were "completely contained within the samples submitted" according to the report. Also, this type is considered a Grade 1 malignancy (I guess that's the correct phrasing). Which means that it may come back but it's not a super aggressive and quick spreading type. Going into heat seems to be causing them. So my options are:
A)keep checking constantly to see if any more tumors pop up. Hope they don't and if they do, have them removed. In other words, surgery once a year probably. And hope that the cancer doesn't decide to set up shop anywhere else. Umm, no I don't think so. Not much of an option at all in my mind.
Or
B)have Skye spayed immediately and as soon as possible. This seems like the best idea. The only concerns I have are her age and having this surgery so close to the last. She's 11 and I've been warned that anaesthesia is pretty risky at her age. As is any surgery that involves opening the body cavity. (The tumors were just below the skin, so the removals were surface incisions)


I'm going to see Dr. Lisa tomorrow to talk things over and schedule the surgery. I'd rather chance the anaesthesia than cancer if it were me, so I'm making the same choice for Skye. I'm pretty worried about my girl though. I've already bawled all over a couple of friends (thanks y'all) and T and putting it on here too. Some people may decide I'm overreacting, getting this upset about a dog's health problems. I really couldn't care less. It's helped me calm down which keeps Skye from getting to wound up. And that's really all I care about.

Update: I stopped in to talk with Dr. Lisa today (Friday). Definitely getting Skye spayed. I'd already decided that and Doc said not only did she think it was the best thing but the pathologist who did the biopsy told her it was the smartest thing to do. There's a good chance spaying Skye will prevent any more tumors from forming/growing/spreading into other areas. BUT. Skye is over 11 years old and this is major surgery anyway. So Doc wants to do a whole set of blood tests and an EKG before we schedule the surgery. Once she gets all the results, we pick a day for the surgery. I have to talk to BL and new BL to make sure I can take a day off in about a week or so for the pre-op stuff. That's gonna be fun, since I'm not quite sure who I'll be working for next week. Doesn't really matter much, I'm taking the day off no matter what.

I used to work for Dr. Lisa so that has really helped the whole situation. She's straight up with me, doesn't try to soften things and quite willing to explain anything. She's fairly optimistic about the whole thing and I know her really well, so I trust her. Plus Skye likes her so that's one less thing to worry about.

Something else happened

Remember I said September 30th was the day, unless something else happened? Well, something else happened. T is working in Texas and the job site got hit by Ike. They thought it would be okay, but apparently not. It didn't help that a guy quit and another guy had to leave because his wife has to have surgery. So they are behind schedule, short-handed and now finding out that there were more problems than they were originally told.

So, no, I'm not getting married tomorrow. We thought T might be able to drive up tonight but he found out this morning that leaving is impossible right now. And truthfully, even if he had been able to, I wasn't really comfortable with doing things that way. Coming in early Tuesday morning, getting married, taking a quick nap and turning around to get back in time for Wednesday night did not seem like a great idea. So I called him about mid-morning and told him I'd rather wait. Turns out he was trying to figure out how to tell me we had to wait because they have run into some pretty serious problems at the job site and he can't leave. We talked about the situation for a bit and decided to hold off. I told him the next time he was home we would pick a day far enough in advance that we could actually plan something. And far enough in advance that his boss will be able to schedule someone else to work those days. I'm not really all that upset by the situation. The back and forth uncertainty was driving me crazy. Once the decision was made I felt a lot better. I took today off anyway just to get some thinking time and rest a little.

And no, I still won't agree to 9/11.

Not too bad

Gustav wasn't too bad for me, other than the week without power. Taking ice cold showers by flashlight was a pain.

I took a few (fairly bad) pics. If you want to see some great pics, go over to Amy_D's flickr page. She's an awesome and incredibly talented photographer (she's also a great friend).

(That's not a river, that's the ditch alongside the highway)

(The trail riders' pavilion, the day after the storm)

(One of the many trees down)

That's the closest anything came to falling on my house - the end of the big branch in the background ended up a few feet from the back corner of the house. Guess that wind was good for something.

The bug that got in my house while the power was out. Creepy lil bugger, took me forever to catch him and put him outside.

I missed a week of work because of Gustav, so I've put in extra hours and brought work home to make up the time. Since I had that as an excuse, I haven't done the stuff around the house that needed to be done. Like yard work, which I hate. It worked out pretty well though. My younger brother, Toothpick, called me this morning and offered to do the yard work. Yay! So he cut the grass, hit the corners and such with a weed-eater, cleaned the porch and even helped pull down and untangle the windchimes. Thank heavens for my little brother with the big heart.

(Toothpick, hard at work)

I've still got a box and a half of audio books to work on, not to mention the other stuff. Guess I'd better get back to work.

And, yes we did have to push the wedding date back because of the storm. So now the big day is September 30th. Unless something else happens.

Bits 'n' Pieces

Just some random thoughts floating around my head. I'm too tired and brain-numb to sort them out. My brain is jumping around like a flea on crack. Maybe if I just unload some of it here I can get it to settle down.

I've shared my views on politicians before. Obviously, I don't care for them. Political stuff doesn't excite (or incite) me. I just wish all politicians were required to live on the average income of their constituents. No matter how low it is. It won't make much difference to some, but maybe it would discourage a few of the more unscrupulous and greedy ones. Plus, I think it would be as amusing as hell to watch Senator Porker and Representative Swine try to get by on $32k a year. Of course, if it ever happened, there wouldn't be anyone holding public office in Louisiana. All we've got are the unscrupulous and greedy.

If I hear BL refer to the moving sale as her "last big hoo-hah for good customers" one more time, I'm probably going to lose it. I'm sure she means "hoo-rah" and it's taking every last bit of my self control not to bust out laughing. I'm not the only one who's amused, I caught a couple of customers snickering the other day.

I'm as prepared as I'm gonna get for Gustav. The only thing I'm really worried about is something I can't do anything about. There are a lot of trees around my house, mostly pine. Every time the wind gets stronger than a breeze, branches fall. Lots of big branches. Needless to say, a hurricane makes me a little nervous, waiting for a big branch to come through the roof. Or maybe a whole tree. Yeah, that'd make my week.

I'm going to resort to drugging Skye, if and when we get hit by Gustav. Storms make her really nervous and jumpy. Since she's just had surgery, nervous and jumpy is a bad thing. I really don't want her busting either set of stitches. I'm gonna give her some Ace and hopefully, she'll sleep through it.

There is a pet evacuation center at DCI. The local officials have finally figured out that a lot of people will not leave their pets behind. After Katrina, DCI was used as a shelter for a lot of rescued animals. It worked so well, it's being done again. Oh, DCI stands for Dixon Correctional Institute. Yep, the pet shelter is the local prison.

One last thing. I hate when hurricane season overlaps with lovebug season.