Today's Winner

I recently spent dozens of minutes creating a detailed set of instructions telling editors exactly how to create a tearsheet and submit their corrections to me. I then held a meeting where I went over the instructions WITH visual aids. I demonstrated why the tearsheet was important and what it needs to show.

Moments ago I was handed a stack of crappy photocopies with corrections scrawled on them from an editor who announced he didn't "feel like making a real tearsheet."

he's officially lazier than me! woo!

My sister is coming to visit this weekend. Who knows what we will do. Oh, forget it I know exactly. I will worry for days about how to entertain her, what to feed her, and how to make her comfortable. She will arrive, borrow a set of keys, and take off to party with her young and energetic friends until post-subway-hours, then sleep until noon. rawk!

It'll be fine...we just have very little common interest wise.

cat gone. bummed out.

Deathwatch: Cat

Here's some sad news. The poor cat, the Nighttime Howler, is kind of on her last legs.

When we came home from Shelbyville in December, we realized that she was completely deaf. She couldn't hear the kid howl and made no sign that she could hear us anymore either. Since then we "call" her by stomping on the floor.

The next thing that happened was we took her to the vet for her checkup. She had lost weight and was very thin. The vet took blood, which is a horrible ordeal for both the cat and anyone listening to the cat. Turned out she has some thyroid problem. This is on top of her existing kidney problem that we've known about for years.

So now we give her a little pill every day. At first we wrestled her down and stuffed it in her mouth. Then I found that you could just hide it in a treat and she would scarf it down. The vet said "see you in six months!", which implies of course that the cat will live at least six months.

But her appetite is very low, and she hardly ever eats her food. I wouldn't either, it is gross, but she used to eat it. She is very thin and light.

The other night she tried to walk across the room and her legs wobbled and slipped. She had to lie down and take a rest halfway between water glass and couch.

So we've been feeding her cat junk food, petting her, and letting her in the bedroom at night (previously forbidden after the broken glass incident). She sleeps all the time. I carry her to her food dish so she can eat three little kibbles.

Octuplet Dazzle got that cat when she was just eleven years old. The cat was, by all accounts, a very cute kitten. We inherited her when my mother in law went on one of her long trips to India, and we just never gave her back. That was seven years ago. So, I'm bummed out.

poor puppy

The drug ads on TV with the cartoon puppy make me inexplicably sad. The puppy! and the boy! Drugs came between them! Now they are alone! it's very sad, if you think about it, and if you are insane.

There were a rough few hours this weekend while our computer was dead. But I got a part and fixed it, and we can all relax now, constant stream of internet into the household is restored, now wikipedia can recommence sending stupid information into our brains.

I didn't grow up with any internet but I can't imagine how you do anything without it. A phone number? Instructions for the coffeemaker? Why does the baby do that? Shopping? Oh, series of tubes, how would we ever live without you.

I am done with snow. Snow? You can suck it.

Lousy Smarch

DAMN it is cold outside.

I know everyone thinks it is stupid to have dst early this year but, as someone who doesn't have to be at work until nine, I am excited. sorry, early birds. But you have that whole worm thing going for you, right?

My Secret Identity

There is another person living nearby named Shirky McLazy. (that is, she shares my first and last names). She chooses not to have a home telephone or maybe not to list her number (did you know it costs extra to be unlisted? fuck that, sez me, I'm cheap). This creates a certain amount of annoyance for me, because anyone who looks her up in the phone book gets me and calls me and asks to speak with me and then informs me that I have a dentist appointment or offers condolences for having lost my job or other very alarming things.
Once I got a call from my cousin Amanda McLazy and she said she was in town, wasn't that great, and we chatted for a few minutes before I realized that both us Shirkys apparently had cousins named Amanda and this one was not the accomplished lobsterwoman from Maine that I had supposed. She was embarrassed but I tell the story at every family gathering, it amuses me so.
I have begun getting emails from the other one's mom (you'd think that your mother would know your effing address). Mom is obviously new to email cause she sends the kind of horrible, horrible forwards that I really should only come from your grandmother. I've emailed this woman a few times now gently explaining that I am not her daughter, I am not from Pittsburgh, stop emailing me crap poetry and urban legends, but maybe Bizarro Shirky has a wacky sense of humor cause Bizarro mom keeps coming back with "Ha ha! You're such a kidder! Love Mom!"
I wish I could use this whole situation for hilarious pranking but I can't really think of anything funny.

Someday I will run into the other one, and I can give her a bunch of messages. Until then...hope she doesn't rob any banks.