The Cat’s Meow

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

Cat Video

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

Just to warn you, it’s a little over 30 MB so if you’re on dial-up, it might take too long to download.  Also, I took this with my compact camcorder and the video quality isn’t as good as my other camcorder.  This video also has not been edited at all.  It was my cat’s one year birthday and I had been meaning to put this video up before, except I had planned on editing it, but I haven’t really had time to mess with it.  So I uploaded it ‘as is’.

Video_of_My_Cat

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

I had started writing a post about some of my classes which I am finding very interesting and about some other things I felt the need to rant about. But I’m finding that I just don’t have the energy right now to finish that post so I’m posting this one instead and will finish the other one tomorrow if I can. We do have a tropical storm (Ernesto) which is heading straight for us. It always seems that the storms seem worse when they come from the west instead of the east. Supposedly the wind isn’t going to be as bad as they first predicted, but I’m sure we’ll get hit with lots of rain and winds of 40-50 mph at least.

I spent most of the day stowing and putting away things outside that might blow around and cause damage. The university has canceled classes tomorrow, which disappointed me. I was really looking forward to class tomorrow night. I have another class on Thursday and the storm should be done by then. That’s the class that only meets every other week. The other half of our class time is done online. That is my Legal Research class. But I’ll go into more detail about my classes in my other post. I’m just so exhausted right now.

Part of it is that I’m so broke and I’m worried about bills. It’s hard to do other things when you’re worried about stuff. I’m waiting on my financial aid still and I had hoped I would have at least my short term advance by now. I’ve had to put off some bills but now this week is the final, no more extensions week and of course it isn’t a week that hubby gets paid. On top of that is the approaching storm which meant I had to get a few other things I hadn’t planned on, just in case. Consequently, the bank account is overdrawn and my unemployment check isn’t even going to cover it. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the bank hadn’t processed the debits the way they did. Several came through on the same day and the very last one that we did was for the car insurance bill because it couldn’t go another day otherwise they would have canceled us. So I knew it was going to overdraw it, but the other ones we had, which were for gasoline and groceries should have gone through with no problem. But even though the insurance was the last one done, they put it through first, which caused the other debits to incur charges as well. So instead of one overdraft charge, we were hit with several. I hate banks. I know they do that on purpose. I have no problem with paying an overdraft fee when the account is overdrawn. I just have a problem with paying several of them when if they had processed the debits in the order in which they were made, we wouldn’t be paying over $100 in friggen bank fees. And of course this is at the worst possible time because I have to pay two other bills by Friday that add up to another $500. My unemployment check would almost cover that, but if I don’t try to cover the bank deficiency, then they add $6 a day as well for each day the account is overdrawn. My financial aid advance was supposed to be available last Friday and of course it wasn’t. Then it was supposed to be today, but that didn’t happen. Now I’m being told it should be tomorrow. It’s $600 and would easily cover the bills I have to pay, plus I’d have $100 left over. After all that, and my unemployment check arrives probably Thursday or Friday, I still don’t know if I’ll have enough to cover the bank deficiency, but I hope so. Of course that means I won’t have any money at all for a week for gas, food or anything else. At this point if I can just pay those 2 bills and stop the increasing deficiency in the bank account, I’ll be happy. Originally that $600 was going to go to help fix transportation, but now it’s having to be used for damage control. All of this is simply because I cannot bring myself to ask my mother for help. I know I’m getting financial aid and will have a little over $1000 left after tuition so I know I can pay her back if she were to give me a short term loan. I just don’t want to go through having to hear her bitch incessantly about why hubby can’t take care of all of this. I felt that overdrawing the account was the lesser of the two evils. Hubby’s working two jobs right now, one full time and one part time (when they need him). He’s exhausted when he gets home and many times I see him for a very short period of time where we eat dinner, then he goes to his second job, comes home, takes a shower, and is in bed and asleep by 9:30 because he has to be up at 5 a.m. to drive an hour to work.

Until we can get our transportation woes taken care of, there isn’t much point in me accepting a job offer unless it’s very close by. We only have the one vehicle running right now. I get it the two days I have to go to class and he takes it the rest of the time. If I need to go anywhere during the day, I have to ride the bike. I’ve already managed to get caught twice this month in torrential downpours on the Interstate. Lots of fun. I had to slow down a lot just to be able to see and then I was worried about someone coming up behind me and hitting me. It’s hard enough to see taillights on cars when it’s pouring. Try seeing a single motorcycle taillight in a storm. So I don’t really feel that I have ‘reliable’ transportation at this time.

I did get a call about the Demon today and the guy is supposed to come Friday or Saturday to look at it. He asked me about making payments on it. I didn’t really want to do that, but I’m in desperate need of funds that I told him I might consider it. It would have to be a lay away type of deal, though. I’m not about to let someone take possession of the car until I have all the money. I also don’t want to be waiting forever for the rest of it. I can understand if someone needs to split it up between a couple of pay periods or something like that, but I really don’t want to go any longer than a couple of weeks or so to get the rest of it. That money is hopefully going for a downpayment on a newer vehicle so we can get rid of the truck that is starting to have major problems, needs tires and gets 18 mpg tops on the highway.

I just am tired of worrying about money and bills. We were stretched thin enough to pay the bills before, but now it seems like every single bill has either doubled or gone up from a year ago. Gasoline is much higher than it was and because of the fuel costs, our electric bill is double what it used to be. It’s not that we’re using more, either. I looked at the amount we used last year versus this year and we’ve actually used LESS, but yet it’s costing more. Our water bill went up, phone bill went up, and even our grocery bill has gone up. That’s because it’s costing more in fuel to get things to the stores and the costs get passed on to us. The only problem is that while all of this stuff has gone up, salaries have not. Salaries are very stagnant down here. Hubby’s company is having a freeze on any raises or new hires. If you account for inflation, salaries have actually gone down, not up. That means there are more and more people who are having trouble making ends meet. I know we’re not the only ones in this predicament. We have many friends that are having similar difficulties. I just wish there was some way I could get a loan against what I’m expecting to receive in financial aid. I thought about asking my Mom and telling her I’ll pay her back an extra $100 along with whatever I borrow. But it wouldn’t matter how much ‘interest’ I paid her for a loan, I’d still have to hear her bitching and even then I still don’t know if she would help me out at all. So I might have to listen to all the bitching and STILL not get any help.

Well, I wasn’t going to get into ranting about this but it appears I did anyhow. Sometimes it just seems it’s taking all you have to keep your head above water and then when the waves of unexpected expenses, higher bills, vehicle breakdowns and delayed funds happen, you just feel like you can’t take anymore and it would just be easier to let yourself drown.

Anyhow, sorry this is such a downer of a post. I’ve been worried a lot about it, and it doesn’t make it very easy to get good sleep. I’ve been so excited about my classes yet all this has really put a damper on my good mood regarding my courses. Oh yeah, and to put the icing on the cake, Aunt Flo came to visit this week as well. Another night of being up until 3:30 or 4 a.m. Joy. Guess I’d better go and at least get the little bit of sleep that I can get. I’ll try to finish that other post tomorrow about my classes, that is, if I still have power or Internet connection with the eye of Ernesto aiming right for us.

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

Since my full name is printed on the degree, I had to edit it so I put my nickname on it for the picture. I put the picture behind the cut since this gets crossposted to LiveJournal. I started the new semester at UCF this week and so far my classes are very interesting. One class is completely online, one is half and half (we meet face to face every other week and the rest is online), and one class is entirely face to face. I will post more about the classes tomorrow. I managed to wrench my back somehow and I’ve been in constant pain so I’ve been on muscle relaxers. They tend to make me feel like I’m trying to move through thick molasses. I think it’s time for me to go to sleep anyhow.

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

http://www.vidilife.com/video_play_296787_Barking_Cat.htm

This post is password protected. You can read it at The Cat’s Meow, where it was originally posted. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

This meme has been going around some and I thought it was hilarious. So, I snagged it.

The name of the game says it all…. all you have to do is copy this bulletin into a new one. Take the name of a movie and replace one of the words with PENIS. Don’t forget to put your name on it so that we can all see how perverted our friends are. NO REPEATS!

• Jennifer - Pulp Penis
• Cara- Gone with the Penis
• Monica - Dude, wheres my penis?
• Ivy-Alice In Penis Land
• Jennifer — Crouching Jenna, Hidden Penis
• Amanda — Lord of the Penis
• Jennifer– Harold and Kumar go to Penis
• Luis– American Penis
• Ginny–The Penis
• Angela - Bridget Jones’ Penis
• Melanie - The Penis Trap
• Annie - Penis Mountain
• Amy-cheaper by the penis
• Mandy- Dirty Penis
• Katina- What Penis May Come
• Donna - Robinhood: Prince of Penis
• Roxanne- Escape to Penis Mountain
• Will ~ Night of the Living Penis
• Mandy - The Passion of the Penis
• Tessa- Willie Wonka And The Penis Factory
• Wayne - Penis of the Caribbean : Dead Man’s Chest
• Hunter - Wild Wild Penis
• Adam - Snakes on a Penis
• Nic - House of 1000 penises
• Rachael - Big Mommas Penis
• Kristy - Diary of a Mad Black Penis
• Melanie~ Get Penis or Die Trying
• Lisa- Ace Ventura; Penis Detective
• Amanda - Grandmas Penis
• Brian-Saving Private Penis
• Kelli ~ For Your “PENIS” only
• Jayson- Along Came Penis
• Aubrey~How to Lose a Penis in 10 Days
• Ern~ Finding Penis
• Crystal - Mr. and Mrs. Penis
• Josh - Million Dollar Penis
• Travis - The Hunt for Red Penis
• Ash- Meet the Penis
• Jason - Die Hard With A Penis
• Joel - Crimson Penis
• FLo-phantom of the penis
• Seb-a-You’ve got Penis
• leilani lei– 101 penises
• Jenn-Penis Junkies
• Jason-Penis in 60 seconds
• Erika- Raising penis
• Jaime- Penisface (Say hello to my little friend!)
• Rebecca- Penis Gump
• Jeremy-South Penis The Movie: Bigger Longer and Uncut
• Brian - Top Penis
• Brian - Penis 49
• John - The Penis Collector
• Claudia ~ Penis Juice
• Miguel - Scent of a Penis
• Heather~ The penis and the tramp
• Tiffany~ My favorite Penis
• Chad~Edward Penishands
• Kerri~Oh Penis, where art thou?
• Erik: A Penis on Elm Street
• Lisa: Attack of the 50 foot penis
• Joy: ST II: The Wrath of Penis
• Sarah: Teenage Mutant Ninja Penis
• Kristi: The Longest Penis
• Crystal: The Neverending Penis
• Trika: Three Men and a Penis
• Sorcha: A Midsummer Night’s Penis (okay, one more: Indiana Jones and the Penis of Doom)
• Catgirl: Me, Myself and Penis

I also thought of a few more:

• Ghost Penis
• The Taming of the Penis
• The Big Penis
• A Few Good Penises

Originally published at The Cat’s Meow. You can comment here or there.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the moment, but I think my site may be functional again. Please let me know if you have any problems navigating the site. A big thanks goes out to Orb for her help. It was a problem with permalinks and changing to the default cured it. The only thing was that then any incoming links were screwed up so I had to redo my .htaccess page and a few other things. It still has a few quirks from the admin side of things, but seems to be functional from the user’s point of view. I guess now I can actually work on something that I should be working on…

I just uploaded about 30 pictures to my scrapbook in case anyone is interested.

A stolen meme:

#1
Comment with a letter, and I have to find five songs beginning with that letter.

#2
01. Comment here and I’ll pick one of your LJ interests and make you an icon.
02. You have no say in what I choose.
03. Put this in your journal along with the icons people make for you.

#3
Alphabet meme

A is for age:  40

B is for beer of choice: Sea Dog Blueberry Wheat Ale, Michelob Ultra, Spaten Optimator

C is for career right now: Student.  Want a legal career.

D is for your dog’s name: Buddy.  He was hit by a car a few years ago.  I still haven’t gotten over it, totally.  I don’t have another dog right now.

E is for essential item you use everyday: Hairbrush or comb

F is for favorite TV show at the moment: I don’t watch much TV lately.  Maybe Family Guy, Moral Orel and My Name is Earl…

G is for favorite game:  Poker, as far as card games.  Football for major sporting event games.

H is for Home town: Born in Fairfax County, VA

I is for instruments you play:  Piano, flute, guitar, bass guitar, violin

J is for favorite juice: Orange or Tomato

K is for whose butt you’d like to kick: Hmm…

L is for last place you ate:  Home

M is for marriage:  Yep.  Already did that.

N is for your full name: How about…N is for No Comment…

O is for overnight hospital stays: Too many to count

P is for people you were with today:  Do cats count as people if they think they are?  Other than my cats, I was with hubby today.

Q is for quote: “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named ‘Bush’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Colon’.”
– Chris Rock

R is for Biggest Regret: No comment

S is for status: Unemployed?

T is for time you woke up today: 8 a.m.

V is for vegetable you love: Green beans.  Oh, and red, yellow, orange, and green peppers.  (I make good stir fry with those)

W is for worst habit: Taking things too personally or being too impulsive and not thinking before I act or say something

X is for x-rays you’ve had:  Again, too many to count.

Y is for yummy food you ate today:  I really didn’t.  Unless you count strawberry protein shakes…

Z is for zodiac sign: Pisces (the fish)

I had to redirect traffic from my domain here to my LiveJournal temporarily.  I’ve been having some site problems and am trying to get some help from WordPress support.  Until I can get it straightened out, I figured it was better to send people here since none of my categories or comments pages were working on my site anyhow.  Any WordPress gurus out there that want to take a stab at helping me out, leave me a comment and I’ll explain in detail what’s going on.  I wasn’t going to bore everyone else with the details of my website woes here.

Sheesh, I felt rejected many times as a kid.  Hell, I still do at times.  These kids are not going to be prepared at all for real life, though.  Everyone doesn’t win, everyone doesn’t get invited to parties or groups, and criticism is heard far more than praise in the real world.  Here’s the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/08/08/parenting.protecting.ap/index.html?eref=yahoo

I wanted to let people know that I’m still alive.  I’m having huge problems with my website right now.  It started a while back when I was beginning to get weird script popups when I’d go there and then my virus software went nuts.  Then it quit doing that and everything was fine for a while.  Three days ago none of the pictures or images would show up on my site and then starting yesterday, all I’m getting is a total blank page.  My cpanel still says everything is there, but it’s not showing up.  I have a post in to support because I have no clue what the problem is and I just haven’t had the time nor the inclination lately to try to fix it.  So until then, I guess I will have to post here.

I haven’t been in a very good mood lately anyhow so I just really haven’t felt like posting in the first place.  It just seems that whenever things seem to be falling into place and getting better that something always has to throw a monkey wrench into it and screw it all up.  And that’s what happened last weekend BIG TIME.

First of all, I got let go from my job.  No real reason given except that it just wasn’t working out.  After talking some with friends and thinking about it, I’m fairly sure I know what happened.  I was hired to help out the real estate paralegal but when I interviewed, I didn’t interview with her, but 2 of the real estate attorneys.  She and I didn’t click too well.  She was always frazzled and stressed and gave out those vibes all the time.  She had too much work and that’s why I was there.  The only problem is that she was too busy to take time to show me how to do what she needed, and if I asked questions, she’d either snap at me or tell me she didn’t have time to answer right then.  I never talked to anyone about it because I was afraid she would get angry at me if I went over her head, so instead I tried talking to her.  I thought things were better for a week or so, but then she was right back to not having time to show me anything or answer questions.  So I think she ended up talking to the attorneys and telling them I wasn’t working out because I didn’t have the commercial real estate experience and she didn’t have time to train someone.  They specifically hired me because I had not come from another law firm and they felt that they would not have to untrain me from a different place and then train me on how they wanted things done.  

So it sucks and I’ve been very depressed about losing that job.  The place was great and I was excited to be working there.  I do feel that they are going to have a problem with anyone that has to work with that paralegal because she isn’t much of a ‘team player’ in the first place.  And even someone with commercial real estate experience from another firm will have to be trained on the procedures at this firm.  I hope they don’t have to ask her too many questions because if she snapped at people like she did me, I’d be surprised if they stuck it out as long as I did.  

Well, there’s more than just the job, but I have to fix dinner now so I’m going to post this and perhaps I’ll have time to write another entry later.