Unfortunately, I have a few political rants that will probably not even see the light of day because they’ll be old news by the time I get around to posting them! Grr!

OMG, there has been so much going on! Hence my not posting for a week+. Ok, lessee, going back to pre Memorial day…

We did an art door for the Decatur Arts Festival again this year. The door garnered $80 for the Arts Alliance, which is a good price for a “non-artist” entry. The “real” artists such as Erin Smith and James Dean (Pete the Cat) get hundreds for their doors, but everyone else’s usually go for around $50. I’m pleased. Sadly for me, the extra door that was propped against the side of the carport got caught in a breeze and bashed in the OTHER fender of my poor Honda. So, the right fender must be replaced to the tune of $200 or so. DAMMIT! As far as I’m concerned, the Arts Fest cost me $200 this year. Grr. Needless to say, I’m NOT painting the Honda right away, for fear of something else happening to the poor thing. ::sigh::

I also got some bad news last week. Andy called to tell me that Hobbes is sick. He has feline fatty liver syndrome and it’s pretty serious. I’m worried to death. There’s lots of info about fatty liver syndrome (google it), but the bottom line is that Hobbes must be force fed to stop the liver from clogging up with fat and if he does not get enough calories, his liver will fail and kill him. On top of that, force feeding by hand is not very effective, so most cats must be admitted to the hospital and fed through a tube to reverse the problem. So far, Andy is trying to feed him at home, but from what I’ve read, the odds of that working are not great. The thought of poor Hobbies having to be in the hospital for weeks just makes me cry. It sucks balls to be all the way over here when they need me in CA. It. Just. Sucks. ::sob::

Today has been a whirlwind of running between the two Moons, meetings, TRAFFIC and almost missing payroll. I didn’t realise that it HAD to be in by 4:30pm when I got home at 3:30. By the time the Payroll1 server would let me in, it was 3:45 or so. I had to do the normally 1.5-2 hour payroll in 35 freaking minutes. Now I’m tired and stressed out.

On that note, I am outta here. I need to have a glass of wine and decompress a bit.

Yes, there is much discontent and foul humour in the ranks recently. There appears to be a malaise going around, actually a couple of them. There is a personal one that involves depression, loss of direction and a general BLAH – which is trying to get me – and there is a couples one that involves unhappiness, fights and breaking up. That one doesn’t affect us, natch. As always, we’re happy as bugs in a rug!

It’s hard to be of any use whatsoever to our friends who are having couples issues when we’re doing great and have never really had the issues that these other couples have. We watched the movie Closer last night and I think that’s what’s gotten me to thinking about the nature of couples and how completely STUPID people can be when it comes to relationships. We were watching this movie about 2 couples who are deceitful and duplicitous to each other for no good reason and marvelling at how much like real life it was. If they weren’t being mean, then they were totally in denial about the relationships they were working so hard to ditch and/or create. ARGH! Why do people have make things so damned hard? Why do people insist on denying the truth rather than just addressing it and getting to the heart of the issue?

I’m am not lying when I say that I’ve only had one relationship in my life that was based on feelings that were not anchored in reality. One. That’s all it took to make me realise that any relationship based on less than total honesty to oneself and one’s partner will, 100% of the time, end up in the crapper. You simply MUST be honest about what you want (or not) and if this person you’re with will do that for you.

I guess the biggest issue is that most people live in the Land of Denial and simply will NOT be honest with themselves. If you know in your heart of hearts that you want to breed, then why would you choose a partner that has no interest in that? If you know that you have certain issues that require certain actions from your partner and your partner is not capable of fulfilling the task, why try to force the issue? If you are with a person who treats you like shit and berates you, then why on EARTH would you want to continue putting up with that? Why would you rather deny the truth and get whacked with it when you break up than be truthful up front and avoid harsh confrontations? It just doesn’t make sense.

I dunno, I’ve always felt that if you don’t take care of YOU, then how can you have anything to offer someone else? Relationships are not to complete you, they are to enhance and bring out the best in you. I’ve been lucky enough to have had lovely boyfriends who always taught me something and made me better. I’ve never been in an abusive relationship or even a destructive one. Even the Greek, who was a HUGE asshole, treated me well and didn’t drag me down. And now I am partnered with a wonderful man who has taught me a ton of things and who has definitely made me better in SO many ways.

I’d like to think that my truthful nature has something to do with that. It’s not always pleasant to hear the truth about yourself, but it is always good to hear it and OWN it. Believe me, I know my faults and I try very much to correct them, but even if they still run rampant, I OWN them. They are MINE. I think Nick will agree that it’s far more useful to burn energy getting through an issue and owning it than to deny it and pay dearly later when it bites you on the ass.

Well, anyway, I wish everyone who is suffering from the current round of malaise the best of luck. I hope that everyone can find his or her bliss and be happy again soon! If there is anything that I can do for anyone, please just ask. :-)

Nick’s birthday was last Wednesday the 10th. We went to L5P for his free Vortex meal. Red Heather went along – she’d been pressure washing the deck all afternoon so the least we could do was feed her!! It rained all day and was still raining when we got there. We sat and got beer then the power went out. We thought it was great fun even though we didn’t get our food for another hour or so!

The rest of the week was all about getting the Moon out of my hair and shopping for the party on Saturday. As usual the day of a party, I did food prep and Nick got the yard ready for the party. Dave and Ben showed up around 5:30pm but the rest of the crowd didn’t start to trickle in until 7:30-8pm. Big shout out to everyone for coming! We had some new faces and some peeps we haven’t seen in a while. There was a small drama that I won’t go into, but you know who you are and we need to talk about it!

We had a great crowd! Everyone had a great time and our Nick got hammered and fell into the bathtub! Toooo funny! He was so toasted that he kept telling the story to anyone who’d listen, “And I got drunk! And I fell in the bathtub! And Angela came and got me out! And I got drunk! And I fell into the bathtub! [endless loop]” He was very apologetic for tearing down the shower curtain and the towel rack, too! Ah, that boy is too cute for words! I got some of it on video, but the lighting is bad and you can’t see much. Henceforth, Nick’s foray into high gravity beer will be called The Shower Curtain Incident™.

Lessee if I can recall any highlights:
– Chopper Dave made it over from SC
– Dori came out for the party
– Lisa brought her new hubby Doug (and a Warsteiner keg! Sweet!)
– Kimber from the Vortex made it out
– Quinn tortured me mercilessly (I’ll GET you my pretty!!)
– Barry sat through at least 4 tellings of the Shower Curtain Incident™
– We ended up with MUCH more beer and booze than we started with!

Although it started late, the party ended (read: we crashed) at around 4am. Not bad! Most of the crowd started leaving after Nick got into it with the shower curtain. I guess they figured, UH OH! Party Foul!! Heh! I’m still giggling! Nick + High Grav Beer = Shower Curtain Incident™!!

Thanks to Heather for the peirogies and the YUMMY cinnamon rolls for Sunday. Thanks to everyone who brought food and beer. Thanks to everyone who brought gifties for my sweet boy. He loved EVERYTHING! It was a grand party and we look forward to the next one!

July 4th, anyone? We can cook out and then go see Decatur’s fireworks! :-)

Just a reminder to drop by your local comic shop tomorrow to get your FREE shwag! FREE comic book day is but once a year! Don’t miss it!

We’ll be at Criminal Records in L5P.

See ya there!