Ramblings of the Reymonkey

I don't know what to feel right now, apart from scared. I don't know how she got so sick so fast. Maybe it's just a combination of the aftereffects from being spayed plus an upper respiratory thing, and maybe I'm paranoid, but it's not just because of losing Squeaks. The cat I had before her got sick like this, just after we adopted her, and she survived weeks of bad respiratory illness and a long high fever, but it fried her brain so that she then had violent seizures and had to be put down. I only had her a few months. Sooo... yes. I'm scared.

But she still purrs. She purrs so loud it makes her drool and sneeze.

I've been doing sort of okay for a while, busy, overwhelmed a little even, but no longer feeling like I was drowning and being kicked in the head. Then the car developed two oil leaks, one of which they had to take the transmission out to fix, and I started feeling like a money pit again. I worry about the car a lot, because it's now reaching the two-year limit from having the transmission replaced, which is about how long the mechanic said it could probably go before something else major goes wrong. If the car dies for good, we're well and truly stuck. It puts a truly severe limit on job hunting when you have no reliable transportation. The bus system around here is notoriously terrible. We can barely afford to keep the car going, so getting another car is out of reach.
The car was at the mechanic from Monday morning to Thursday evening, because apparently the engine is an unexpected jigsaw puzzle. I guess the mechanic isn't used to working on '84 models anymore. I was glad to have the car back, especially since we have a bunch of appointments this week, and starting the end of this week teenager-sitting that includes taking him to and from school, and then after that dog-sitting... they're jobs that require the car, and they're desperately needed money.
Sunday I talked to my grandmother and my mother both. My grandmother, who has been having eye problems, now has MRSA in her tear ducts. She's on a major course of medicines and eyedrops and daily doctor visits, but if it gets into her sinuses and brain it could easily kill her. This is what Jim Henson died of. If it hits anything important, it kills very quickly. I used up all the minutes on my phone talking to them, to the point where it cut my call with my mother short.
Monday, went for a walk, got a little drawing done, and went out to get lunch. We bought our food, got back in the car... and it wouldn't start. Of course I didn't have a working cell phone to call for help. A very nice employee at the restaurant let me use my cell phone to call first Bridgie's father, who couldn't help because he was on his way to take the terminally ill dog for her cancer shots. Then the guy offered to try jumpstarting the car, but he didn't have jumper cables. I ran across the street and bought a set, only to find that even that wouldn't work. We got some lights on the dash, but the engine wouldn't even turn over. Extremely helpful and amazing employee let me use his cell again to call my mechanic, who in turn called a tow truck.
The good part there was that the truck driver had a big generator thing and managed to successfully jumpstart the car, which meant I could drive to the mechanic and spare us the towing fee. I'm not forgetting that in all of this obnoxiousness there were a couple of guys who were absolute angels.
Car has been at the mechanic overnight, and I need to walk down and get it now so I can get to my therapist appointment on time. I sometimes wonder if it's necessary to see one when the reasons I'm depressed seem so terribly obvious.

No sketch today, definitely no sketch tomorrow. We have a funeral to go to. Nobody we're close to, but the wife-of-a-few-months of a cousin Bridgie was close to growing up. Sketches will resume Sunday or Monday.

Last night... oh god. It was a night. There was some thunder earlier, and one of those periods of ten minutes of pouring rain, in which I ran out and rolled up the car windows. Came back in, wondering over whether Squeaks was out or in. When there's thunder, Squeaks usually goes straight under the bed. The rain didn't last, and there was RP and stuff, and we didn't think much of it. Then it got later, and there was more thunder, and more rain, to the point where it seemed necessary to shut down and unplug the computer. Aaand couldn't find the cat. A thorough investigation of under the bed and all over the house and there was no Squeaks, and I figured she would have come in during the gap between thunderstorms, so I was worried. Worried enough to go out in the rain and call for her... and call, and call, and wander the neighborhood. Most cats don't come when they're called, I know, but she does, very reliably. my cat is not very catlike, I know. After getting soaked down to the underwear, we came in and sat waiting out the worst of the storm. She'd been gone for probably three or four hours by then, which is really unusual, and I was imagining her running across the road in the dark and the rain and getting hit by a car. She's been hit by a car, once that we know of for sure. When the rain had let up to a light drizzle, we went out again, calling, jingling keys (she responds to the sound of my keys), circling the back of the house and checking trees, even looking under cars. By this time I was half looking for a body. At one point I went by to check the porch again, which I'd been doing regularly... and there she was. Looking like a drowned rat. She even ran off the porch into the rain again to get to me.
It took a while for her to get dry again, but I sat up with her purring and demanding my attention until after five in the morning. Woke up today with a terrible headache and I think the day is pretty much shot. That was... stressful.

Yurgh. So, this feels anticlimactic or something, but some art.
Forgot to upload this before, but here's the full image of bartender Thorny for the Dark! plot. Couple of icons got made from this. Just your friendly bartender.
Been trying to photograph this for a couple of days. I totally made a doll. Actually I started it a long time ago, but the drawing thing wasn't working real great lately, so I started working on dolls for the sake of still doing something creative. Random jester doll.
I've also been working on a Dirk Gently doll but I'm a little stalled on the jacket.

Anyway, there's your update of the whenever. I'm gonna go pet the cat some more.

So, we're on night two without Spider. Basically the blood tests were inconclusive, but it's narrowed down pretty well to a couple things. Three things. One is hyperthyroidism, which they're running a new test on and we should hear the results tomorrow morning.
Everyone cross your fingers and pray that comes back positive, because it can be maintained or even cured, and the other two possibilities give her a pretty short time left ahead.
Even though she's staying overnight again, they brought her out to the examining room after the long talk to determine what test to do next, and she sat on Bridgie's chest and bashed her head into and bit her chin, which is exactly where she's happiest. It was kind of painful to then have to hand her back to the vets. Still, they said she's eating well, and alert, and she seemed basically herself, right down to blowing snot bubbles again, which is second on the list of Spider's hobbies, first being sitting on Bridgie's chest and biting her chin.
We're really, really hoping it's hyperthyroidism.

There hasn't been much online-ness because we've been trying to keep the phone line free for vet calls, which is why I'm only now updating here. Apparently they have people there until fairly late into the evening, and we don't want to miss any necessary information about her. I know there's some stuff OOC in the Dark City comm and family members will get to it when we have the chance.

Aaand art. Which I can't bring myself to be as enthused about under the circumstances.
Sketch for a watercolor pencil painting of Maggie
Sketchpage full of mostly Jareth, for any Labyrinth fans out there.

Things learned in the past two weeks:

There is a lot more fog than you'd expect, in Richmond of an early morning.
No matter how alert I can be at 4:30 in the morning, my stomach does not wake up that early.
Eating when my stomach is not awake is a bad idea.
Maps can be deceptive, no matter how good you are at reading them.
Finding someplace you've never been before in an unfamiliar area is much harder in the dark/fog/hours so early you can't stop and ask for directions because nothing is open yet.
Even the most laid-back of drivers can be induced to a continuous level of mild panic under the right(wrong?) conditions.
Bending over and kneeling and getting up and down all day is hard on the back and knees no matter your age.
There is such a thing as a job that is worse than being unemployed.

I came home Thursday night, after getting lost both ways, being late because of it, and basically had a minor meltdown. At which point I found out that without telling me, everyone around me has been saying I should just get the hell out of the job. My coworkers seemed to mostly be angry annoyed people who complained about the job. I realized that everyone of all ages complained about the physical toll. My superiors seemed to be deeply unhappy people. I was spending almost as much in gas and tolls as I was making.

I angsted over the decision, all the same. I feel like it's a slap in the face to the people offering financial support to quit a job, but that last part about the financial balance is kind of a breaker. I quit, as nicely as I could, on Friday, and returned the laundered shirts and namebadge and all this morning. I returned them to the woman who creates the schedule, and when I told her my reasons for leaving she said I couldn't have been on Southside all that much, and I must have been scheduled for Colonial Heights on accident. I should have asked her if scheduling me for hospitals and asking me to my face drive three hours away alone for two days in my first week was also an 'accident'. I wasn't mad until that point.

I am, again, jobless, but looking hard.

Because we are not under enough financial and emotional stress, we have just discovered that Spider has worms. We had made a vet appointment because she acts healthy but is ridiculously skinny (and snotty), but I hadn't seen a single sign of worms until this morning. And I'd been looking, in case. She doesn't even go outside except once in a while for ten seconds to eat grass beside the front walk, with one of us standing over her. We're taking both cats in to make sure Squeaks didn't somehow give it to her, although calling Squeakers skinny would be... well she's not truly overweight, but she's built like a tank.
The good part is Spider is acting fine apart from trying to kill Bridgie for strawberries and going up on the counter after the crockpot. Actually I guess that last part is healthy, if aggravating. She plays with string, tries to get outside, rolls around and meeps and is generally herself. And she's always snotty, so...

Yeah.

Agh.

Life? Please, please, please give us a break sometime soon? Please? We've filled our quota of misery already, okay?

Um. Geez. I don't make two posts in one day for no reason. The high from the feature on DA is nice but it won't pay bills. I'm still trying to figure out how to make my art do that.

Bridgie lost her job.
We have enough for rent, and bills for now I guess. I'll help her do the unemployment thing. Lots of jobhunting going on. She's got more marketable skills than I do.

I just don't know right now, and I wish I had the answers. She's got a cobra rider on her insurance until the end of March, but she needs the insurance to pay for the meds that keep her functional so she can work so she can have medical insurance so... yeah. It's a cycle and now it's broken.
At this very moment, there is no source of income here, at all. We're counting on her last paycheck, and tax refunds, and whatever unemployment will give her.

If we someday vanish off the net at least you guys will know why? It drives me nuts all these advice things I keep seeing about budgeting. They talk about cutting down the cell phone, the cable or satellite, the credit cards, the gym memberships, all things we don't have. We've already been living on the financial edge for years. We have heat, electricity, phone line, rent, food, and ten bucks a month for dial-up. We're not living to the excess here.

Suggestions? Anyone? Please? Especially suggestions on getting a damn job. And don't anyone suggest 'move to Canada' or I will e-slap you.

I will still give meme answers below, because I ned the distraction, damnit.

( Blah blah blah very sick etc. )
At the risk of making this even longer, here’s Shiri’s commission, which I ‘finished’ about a week ago. I was reluctant to put it up because I still want to fudge around with the background/grate on the floor, because I feel like the whole thing looks half-assed. That’s a really sad thing when the foreground turned out so amazingly well. If you ignore the background, this may be the best digital work I have ever done. Ever. I’m not someone who usually likes their own work. The image is a scene from one of her Transformer fanfics, which can be found on her DA account. I give you a moment in the fight between Broadcast and Scorponok. Flattery welcome, as always. ;) I would like to point out this is my first attempt at drawing mecha.
I could use good vibes, I am about to turn the age which, according to my parents and Bridgie’s, you can’t trust anyone over, I am jobless and sick. On the other hand, there is shadow puppetry and book illustration in my future, and I have wonderful people around me, and as sucky as finances are we’re not in danger of losing our place or anything. Plus, Hallowe’en! I need to get decorations up. Might cop out and do pirate this year again, because I own so much stuff for that costume. I want a real cutlass some year when there’s more money around, just to add to my sword collection. There’s a gorgeous basket hilt one in an old catalog I’ve got that I still lust after. I wonder what the weighting is like, I’ve never tried one.
I must be getting better if I’m thinking about swordfighting again.
Will catch up on RP threads/posts as my brain lets me, I still have brainjuices leaking out my nose.

Okay, first off is late birthday art for revyrie! I'm sorry this is late, it should have been a quick easy drawing, I was totally going to do a background. It took four days and... ergh. Anyways, good old Tammieboy after the booze and Christi catching him at it. My drawing skills have improved since we did the RP... but I can see a lot of things wrong with this. My drawing skills are not up to par this week.

Unrelated, I came across this, which is horrifying. Michiganders may have trouble voting if they're in foreclosure. This can't be legal. That doesn't mean it won't manage to clog up the polls so that it doesn't get sorted out until it's too late. I happen to have family in Macomb Township, although I don't think any of them are in foreclosure. This is just... ugly. Spread the word, in case there's a chance to stop the mess before November.

Did a bunch of dream journal updating.
'Box of Dreams' (What, is that a euphemism for something? *snicker*)
Come see the whales (nightmare)
Juvenile Delinquent (obvious loss of job stress)
Mysterious Air Force Maneuvers?(Patrick Stewart WTF?!?)
Budding Witch? (Very Gaimanesque)

I try very hard not to rant on this journal much, but life is really, seriously kicking us in the head right now. Repeatedly. I feel like we have no chance to get ahead, and every time we think we might at least unbury ourselves a little, WHAM something else comes up and hits us. I want to scream. Bridgie is home today. Might have to up/alter the meds and incur more doctor bills. We are technically in debt right now, which is to say we have bills that need to be paid and not the money to pay them with.
I can usually say that no matter what crap is going on, as long as I can still draw things aren't completely awful.

Right now I can't draw.

I have not had a single job interview.

At this moment my world feels like a sinking ship with nothing on the horizon.

Because this is the order I grabbed the links in...
The arts:
Commission from Shiri for her friend Domon of his character Owen Matthias. Man, that's just a cool name.
Long awaited and finally colored, DBear's Warcraft character Biancamane.

I guess I hadn't advertised it, but I now have a gallery on Artspots. Expect more furry art. I have ideas, but commissions come first. Working on your sketch next Shiri, and then Dina's wedding portrait.

The sobering:
Our friend Wendy is very involved in Roma activism, and she's been posting some scary stuff. Spread the word. We really don't need another holocaust.

The obnoxious:
The weekend Mel and her mom were here, our car went very seriously downhill. Haha. Or rather, downhill is the only way you can get Reverse to work. It was acting up intermittently before that, but last Friday it had to be pushed twice just to get it unstuck from spots where going forward was not an option. In an apartment complex where it's almost all streetside parking, this is a serious problem. It's probably the transmission, which costs more to replace than the car is worth, so... we may soon not have a car, again.
My parents actually offered to help pay for a used car, which would be awesome, except that I had to basically say 'wow thanks that's great but I can't just say absolutely yes.' The car we have is not technically mine, and I am not paying the insurance on it. If my parents help/pay for a car, it would be mine, and I don't want to agree to that and then be unable to pay for the insurance. At all. Which I can't right now, because... still jobless.
Did I mention that although I have been approved for unemployment, reported with information of the jobs I'm applying for, I have yet to see a single penny from them? I went online today with my jobhunting records all ready and was told that my claim has expired. WTF. I'm getting close to the wire here financially, no one will call me back for an interview, I have a dental appointment I may or may not be able to pay for, the car is potentially dead/unsafe to drive and... yeah.
I'm gonna stop there.

Good things:
It's Friday evening...?
I still draw fine, and have commissions to work on.
...I have my health?

Oh yeah, new Red Dwarf stuff will happen! I have no idea how I will ever get my hands on it, but it's cool news.