Thank you!
Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was a good day despite not being the best of times for me.
It started with a phone call from AIL saying that they saw my resume online and wanted to know if I was still interested in finding work. I told her the thing about AIL is if you actually read my resume, I worked there for 14 years before being fired, and she was all "oh...uh, never mind then," and we both hung up.
I gave Poppy a bath to help with the fleas. She was not appreciative of my efforts as the gouges in my arm prove, but it got done. Afterwords she got over herself (mostly because she was wet and shivery) so she decided that wet and shivery was a perfect state to be in when she crawled into my lap to lick herself dry.
Frustrated with the fleas, I did a little research and found something that was relatively cheap, and I didn't have to buy it online, I can get it from a local store. And the best part is it's completely natural and non-toxic. You can put it on the animals, you can put it around your house, you can put it in your yard. You can even feed it to your animals to kill intestinal parasites or eat it yourself, that's how safe it is. It's a pain in the ass if you breathe it in or get it in your eyes, but it's not dangerous.
"Diatomaceous earth" if you want to look it up. Just make sure you get stuff that's labeled food-grade. If it's not food-grade then that might actually have toxins put in it for whatever reason, but food-grade is the stuff you can put anywhere and everywhere. Just don't get it in your eyes or breathe it in. It feels like flour or baby powder, but microscopically it's like a million razor blades that works its way into the fleas' exoskeletons and just cuts them up and kills them. That's also why it irritates the crap out of your eyes and lungs if you get it in there.
After that I went to the store and splurged on soda and ice cream. Upon returning home, I made the mistake of coming in through the back door (like I usually do), and Z, my sweet baby Z, decided to run out into the driveway and lose himself in the bushes. I threw the ice cream into the freezer and went back out to get Z, and I could not find him. I was literally beating the bushes trying to get him to move or cry or something or anything so I could figure out where the hell he was. I went all around my house, I even asked my neighbors (who were outside) if they'd seen my little siamese cat.
Nothing...nothing whatsoever. So I went back inside, hoping he would do the same thing Poppy does, which is to hang around outside, go through the bushes and then realize she's not getting fed. So going back inside and waiting for the cat to get fed up does not work on Z. I went back out, it was getting dark, still no Z. I went back out again at full dark which was when I found Z.
He'd been underneath my car the whole time.... and I still had to use treats to get him out from underneath the stinking car just so I could grab him and get back inside. Still, I went from thinking I might have lost one of my cats on my birthday to realizing he just learned a new trick to annoy me... on my birthday… The little shit is lucky I love him.
But all's well that ends well, and I have ice cream. :D