Did I mention that I hate cats?
Posted on February 26, 2008
Filed Under Anxiety, bitching and moaning, debt, dental disasters, dogs, kids, parenting, pets, snark, suburban joys, vacation | 13 Comments
So resort week is officially over and the whole relaxation thing but a memory. No matter how hard I try to vacation, how completely I shake free of the anxiety and the pet hair and the mundane worries of the day to day, somehow all these things catch right back up with me upon return. So it’s the same old gripes, you’ve heard them before, but this blogging thing is like a marriage, full of perennial arguments, the same complaints. It just feels therapuetic to pick the scab every once and awhile and let it bleed.
There’s no mild segue back to obligation and necessity in my life, it’s just one giant muddle of minor mishaps that bundle up and make me want to keen and rant and flee to dark corners. I suppose it began before we even left, when I retrieved the luggage from the attic only to find that one of the fucking cats has been using the L.L. Bean Duffle bag as a litter box. (Have I mentioned how much I hate my cats?) Both felines were sternly reprimanded. The cat box was thoroughly cleansed and fresh litter applied just in case the cat in question was objecting to the general condition of the facilities. But then I remembered that the little one, the black and tan whiskery runt, once shat on my daughter’s sleeping bag that we kept beneath our bed to accommodate childish night wanderings and the need to sleep close to parental looking people in order to fool the Boogie man. Before our flight, a new piece of luggage was purchased at Marshall’s to the tune of a $100. (We gave up on the sleeping bag idea a long time ago.)
And then there’s the dog that, while kenneled during our vacation, was diagnosed with Lyme disease and administered antibiotics that must be continued for at least a month, twice a day, at $55 a bottle. When I inquired about the efficacy of the Lyme disease vaccination I seem to remember paying $64 for back in September, I was told that no vaccination is one hundred percent effective. “Oh I see, I see,” said the dumb blond, realizing she’d been fleeced by the over-entrepreneurial veterinarian.
With the all pets accounted for and expensive, it’s on to the children who both have dental appointments next week. Dental appointments? Wasn’t it just weeks ago that I was writing posts about extractions and nitrous oxide? Upon checking the dates, I have confirmed that it has been six months since the last frightfully expensive trip to the dentist. Time to steal ourselves for the next installment in the ongoing saga to save my son’s teeth.
This appointment is ill timed to coincide with some other major expenditures: the kids’ piano tuition is due today – we pay for lessons up front, their ten week tennis clinic must be paid for on Friday (after all, tennis is a life-sport), if O wants to play Spring baseball he must register and pay by week’s end though practices don’t start until April, my niece has a birthday tomorrow, my sister-in-law turns forty next Monday and my step-mother-in-law will be the big five-0 in six days, (both adults expect significant gifts, the child will be happy with a book). Oh, and the car won’t start and apparently needs a new battery, the plow company has just sent the bill for clearing our significant seasonal snowfall and the country club that we already can’t afford has sent notice that the membership dues have been “reassessed”, which is their refined way of saying bend over while we stick this bill up your arse along with your mortgage company and your insurance company and every other organization that has raised its rates in the first quarter of this new year.
And, and, and… I could go on, but let me just share the kicker.
This weekend, while playing Madden Football on the Wii (have I mentioned just how much I loathe the Wii?), O stepped backwards on one foot while shaking his numchuck furiously and cursing at the screen (which is apparently how all Wii games are played, sort of tipsy and wild, half blind with frustration), just as the dog was slipping along behind him. Ass over tea kettle he went and came crashing down on the coffee table, snapping it in two. Legs splintered (the table’s not his), the whole mahogany, antique thing of it unsalvageable.
I didn’t adore the table but it was old and finer than anything we could have bought on our own as it was inherited from my father-in-law who upgraded to a cushy, sueded, ottoman-type of coffee table sometime back. I’ve done the research and a replacement table of the same period and provenance as the one now dismembered in my basement will cost between $500 and $1500. For now we will make due with the table we bought at a yard sale back in ‘92. It has been in storage for just such an occasion, (the complete destruction of all things finer) and anxiously awaiting a relaunch. It is tired and worn and completely too modern for our entirely antique home, in other words, it’s a design disaster. But it’s seen some action. It was the sole table in our collegiate flop pad and having served the needs of five delinquent academics, I think it can handle anything the Wii, my children and my three pets have to offer. Just don’t expect an invitation for coffee anytime soon.
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