Freeway has been slowly gaining weight again. He's eating, not a ton but little bits here and there and that's what counts. He's sitting on the couch grooming himself. He had stopped grooming himself when he wasn't eating much so it gives me hope again. We've got a little digital scale & weigh me, then him & me. We've been doing it for about a week. Yesterday he was up to 4.7 kilos. He doesn't look like he's gained weight so I'm glad we are weighing him, so I tell he's doing better.
I'm ok. It was a tough week last week. Work got pretty unbearable. And it's not fun when issues you are dealing with at home come up at work and vice versa. It felt like everywhere I turned I was being attacked. Just not fun.
Checking the PO today, our 10/2 Lab order should be here, along with some decants I was expecting last week. And I hope Sharon's Possets order makes it this time. She's kindly reshipped since it should have been here by now and wasn't. Fingers crossed. We are seeing Sharon tomorrow and I can give them to her then. And we are seeing Joan so if the Lab's box is here that means I can give her the Muse she ordered.
We put in an order yesterday, got Hexennacht 08 on it and I hope that works for me. Most of the order was for Carol this time. I put Ebisu Making Love on for me, the reviews sound intriguing. And I put an imp pack on for me. I chucked a GLowing Vulva on because my counsellor really liked it so I can give her a decant. I want to pull a few decants out then Carol can use it. She liked it, not as much as others, but I wanted to be able to decant some.
Ah well, finish coffee then off to the shower. Busy today, PO then the pet store to look for some clumping litter, then the fruit/veg markets out in Massey for fruit for tomorrow. What else? Oh. Bills. I'm a week and a half behind doing them. Must Do Today. And gardening (lawn is up to my knees!) and housework. I'm glad this is a 4 day weekend!!
It was Mr Way's fluid night and it didn't go so well to start. My first attempt at sticking & he let out a little meow & hunkered down to try to get away from the needle. It was only half way in so I pulled it out, thinking I'd maybe gone in wrong. I pulled it out and tried again, same response. I decided to push it in all the way, start the fluids & see how it goes, knowing I could get them started and we could stop them if he seemed like he was in pain too much. He did well, settled down and purred while I scratched his chin. He got anxious towards the last 20 or 30 mls but he did well. As soon as he was done I took him in and gave him some jellymeat (wet food). Usually I give him some dry food but this time I thought he deserved something better (he does like the dry food). He ate. He came and settled on my lap, purred for a bit and was sooky.
It's nice that he's come and settled. It helps me feel better. He was resting his head on my arm as I reached around him to type.
PO this weekend. I got my Ebay Bed of Nails last weekend, the Etsy cases for Carol and Kelly and a couple decants (Smiling Spider & Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree). Smiling Spider did not like me and I was expecting something different. It's put me a bit in fear of the Mort De Cesar lunacy I bought, hopefully it's not quite that...strong. I really liked Bed of Nails. It is similar to Mechanical Phoenix but not quite as 'harsh' or metally. It's nice. I had that on today. And Ted went way out with the frimps, it was great! I really appreciated it all. I've got some goodies to send but want to get some mroe things.
I thought I'd get my feet wet and put in for some Ebay BPAL from the Lab. LOL, I was outbid within minutes on Nuclear Winter (I was ready to go up to $20, it's almost $38 now). I've got a bid on Trick: Tp'd Tree. I'll see if I get it but it's close already. It would be nice but I don't HAVE to have it.
I do see Bed of Nails which sounds intriguing. It's under my threshold right now but would it stay that way? And I feel bad, 'sneaking in' and putting a bid in to take it away from someone else. How bad is that? Did I just say that I don't want to outbid someone?? That's half the fun, the chess game that is bidding and getting something. But BPAL is different. I don't feel like I'm taking it from some anonymous individual, I feel like I'm taking it away from my best friend. I don't know, maybe I'd feel different if I really wanted a scent, maybe then I'd be more cut throat. Or maybe not.
I am amazed at how high the prototypes have gotten, althought I shouldn't be. I've seen discontinued LEs go for close to $100 so non-released one of a kind prototypes bringing in $180 and $190 is nothing. But it's interesting, 4 prototypes and 2 are going for $50/$60 and 2 for $180/$190. Why? Is it the notes? The name? Or what? Makes me wonder.
Still really down. I'm having a hard time with Freeway not eating much. I worry about him. He ate a bit more tonight because I put it on my finger and encouraged him. I'm exhausted. I'm worried. But it was nice to see him get a little playful when I put the catnip around. He even played a bit in the box with Morgan, a bit with the possum ball.
So it's good to see him play but I think I'll still worry because he just isn't eating much and he's not in a position to loose much more weight. Tonight we did try to feed him first then pill him, in case pilling him was putting him off his food.
Another day, another hill to get over.
I just ordered a cookbook from this company: Good Books. Yes, the site & company is based in NZ but they ship globally (I emailed and checked). Delivery is included in the price you see, which is a bonus. And you help Oxfam out because 100% of the profits go to Oxfam. How cool is that? Buy a book, help a non-profit! "....delivery worldwide is completely free, and with over two million titles in stock our range is one of the largest you will find."
My love of reading + my desire to Make A Difference = PRICELESS
They've got some music too, but the search function doesn't seem to work with music and they don't have a lot right now.
Check them out. Setting up an account & ordering is easy. They use secure encryption. And like I said, delivery is included in the price you see. So unlike Amazon.com you don't have to tack on a hefty (for us) fee to get your package delivered by Slow Boat. Lovely.
They are still growing, they may not have everything but check their selection first.
Go on, ya know you want to. Grab a book for the beach (for those of you going into Summer) or grab one to curl up in front of the heater with (for those of us going into Winter).
Yes, I has them.
Regularly too.
Since we've gotten our first BPAL order in Dec I've had dreams about the scents, the names, the bottles. Sometimes the whole dream is about BPAL, sometimes it's just a component. It makes for interesting and far more pleasant dreams than usual since they aren't work-related or about family or anything.
Last night's was cool, I dreamt that I'd woken up and gone onto the Lab's page to look at some of the scents (since I still haven't read about all of them yet) & instead of the Krampus image there was a grayscale image. I can't remember what it was, maybe a grayscale fluffy bunny or something like that, but done in a Victorian/Goth kind of way. The whole site hadn't been updated, only some of it. I can't remember the names of the scents, I think they were vaguely baby-related.
Yes, I am offically a BPAL adict!
Feeling pretty low & needing a BPAL lift. I'm hoping our 7/1 order that I got the CnS for is at the post on Sat. I've got some decants and imps coming but I don't think they'll be here quite yet. Maybe SH's Vampire Tears but that's all. She's so excited about it.
3rd night of my Baby's sub cutaneous fluids. He meowed tonight when Carol put the needle in. She didn't want to hurt him & couldn't do it so we switched out. He meowed when I put it in too. He was ok through most of it, struggled a bit at the end. He didn't want anything to eat after but I gave him some brushes & he seemed to appreciate that.
I've been going over our BPAL wishlist on my Excel spreadsheet & refreshing the decant circle forum & watching the LJ swaps page. Not only do I want to pick up some LE decants from our wishlist instead of ordering because of our new expenses for Freeway, but I know I'm trying to help myself feel better, trying to find That Perfect Scent or Those Perfect Scents that will bring me some comfort while I go through this.
I sent an email out to my enabled coworkers, the ones who ordered the last time, and gave them the links to the updates. I let them know I'll be putting an order in early to mid-Feb and that I won't be able to do any big orders for awhile after that. At the end of the day, SB came up and asked if I had my 'samples' (my imps). I told her no but that we were hoping for an order this weekend and if so I'd bring some in. She's got 5 imps on the 11/1 order.
I'm also looking forward to some decant supplies I ordered off an LJ person. They are 1ml rollerballs and some pipettes. I figured I can either give a rollerball/pipette to each person who ordered a bottle or decant 1 ml for them to have/carry around if they want (SH I think said that she wasn't comfortable doing it herself so I offered). I think they'll all appreciate that, they can then safely carry their imps and not loose their bottles.
Down. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday but it's going to be a busy day for me. I'll have to just get through and I have a 3 day weekend. Tomorrow might be another Western Diamondback day.
I wore Troll today. We knew we had an announcement at work about how majorly the teams will be impacted. Our team is being moved to another area and will be in line later for these changes. First waves though are my friends, my coworkers and previous team members. 60% of their jobs are going.
Of 239 people in the general center, 99 will have a job in the center still and 140 of those jobs are going to India. Those people affected will have 3 choices: apply for one of the few jobs staying, apply for a lower-paid "customer-facing" role (which means they won't get pay rises going forward until the base salary of the job they are in catches up) or go somewhere else. That's just our center. THere is another center that is equally affected. And then the area my wife works in and the one I will be moved to will be impacted in the future, sometime next year. From this I can guess that when they hit our area we'll be looking at 60% job loss.
Really ridiculous. The at least admitted that they're paying the Indian staff 75% less.
They are being profit-minded, they don't care that most people will be forced into lower-paid roles within the company. Our employer has been one of the higher paying organisations, however some organisations are starting to pay equivelant or slightly more for some similar roles.
I'm really pissed off about it all. I feel that they've been lying to us all along, having been told they would "take care of" us, that there were plenty of comparable roles throughout the organisation for people who wanted them and that there would still be roles in the center.
We got a CnS for our Mead Moon and Hay Moon order. That will be nice, to get that and sniff. And hopefully the Life Shit that has hit the 2 people I ordered CD IV & V decants from will get sorted and we'll be able to sniff the newer of the 2 CDs. I managed to get some Bezoar, Pickled Imp and Clemence from someone else, that was cool. Bezoar & Clemence had been on my bottle order but I don't think they are quite what I'd hoped. Pickled Imp is a possibility and I really really want to sniff Hand of Glory. I won't be able to get much but that's fine. I haven't pushed my sales/swap list and maybe I can swap for someone's unloved bottles.
*sigh* I'm really looking forward to our 2 week vacation from the 23rd, and to seeing my friends that I haven't seen for about 4 years. They're here for only a week from the US but that will be nice.
Not a good day. Feel like poo because I didn't do something yesterday and I got a bit of shit for it. I'm tired and down. Of all days not a good day for something like that, I feel worse for it. And I've been feeling nostalgic, missing my step mom. At least E called to say Happy Birthday.
We got an order today, it was mostly for everyone else. There was a bottle of Rose Red for her & an imp of Coyote for me. That was nice. I expected it to smell a bit different but it's still nice.
Going to bed now. end to a day
My BPAL week hasn't gone great. Maybe some planet is in retrograde or some Fate has been tempted?
I lost out on 2 of the Lab's Ebay scents, one of them seconds before it closed.
Ok, I can take that. Wasn't meant to be.
Saw Three Witches for sale on the forum. ZOMG! I got an empty sniffie of this from Wren08 and it was lovely, now I want some. I PM'd but managed to miss it. Darn. Another one gone. Maybe it isn't meant that I buy BPAL this week.
See a post on LJ about from someone with a CRF kitty, a sales post to raise funds. I see Alone! Maybe it is meant to be?? (see below for my spills, copied/pasted from the spills thread). Maybe I wasn't meant to buy the other things because I can get another Alone bottle and help a fellow CRF kitty owner. I've PM'd but no answer yet. Another one missed?
Just when I think it can't get worse I got the CnS of d0000m. CnS's are usually "YAY" posts. But this one said it was going to Australia. Not that I don't mind enabling and sharing but a 9-bottle/2 imp pack order to Aussie? Nah, I'd rather it come here. I forwarded it to the Lab and Bill was able to track it down before it left the building. It's on it's way to me now. Whew. But it was a tense evening/day while I waited for an answer 'cause 2 of the 3 backordered bottles are on that one.
Checked the PO today. Yay I got 2 of my decant packages, but none of the big Shunga/Lupercalias yet. And the one Ocicat mailed on 7/2 (imps) hasn't shown up. And the Possets I ordered for a coworker (with a bottle of Cadmium Orange) is late getting here. Hopefully it's due to bad weather in the US when it was sent.
And the spills. Oh, the spills. The horror. Copy/pasted so if you've read this from the Spills thread you can ignore the below.
Laugh. Please. Because I'm trying to....
Tuesday: In the Bathroom. Alone. And with Alone, my new favorite. Apply. Apply. Apply. Decide I need a bit more on my fingers so I can run it through my hair a bit more (my baseball caps smell nice!). I hold the bottle and run my fingers down the glass wand. When I set the bottle down and pulled my hand back the bottle stuck to a finger and dropped off, dumping Alone on the bathroom counter. I ran into the bedroom and grabbed a pipette (advice to Newbies: Invest in pipettes even if you don't plan to decant!!). I got most of it up. Bathroom = Alone.
Thursday: In the livingroom, at the kitchen table (we don't have a dining room, tiny place). November. Not a favorite of mine or my wife. I was getting some imps together to send to a friend in the US to enable her. I decanted into a rollerbottle and thought "hmmm, maybe a bit more". Picked up the bottle, sucked up a bit more of November's flowers and leaves. Went to set bottle down. Same thing: bottle stuck to a finger and when I pulled my hand back I ended up with about 1/2 and imp's worth of November on the table. Sigh At least I had the pipette in my hand. I got most of it up, wiped the majority of it with a napkin and cleaned the rest with a Cancer Society bear. Carol remarked that as late as yesterday the table still smelled nice.
This morning: (you can start laughing now, really....) Decided to decant some Satyr for same friend I'm enabling. She said she'd be interested in trying it. We were on a chat at the time so I asked her if she'd prefer a rollerbottle or regular imp. She said regular imp, she's a bit of a clutz. I laughed and told her I am too. Decanted Satyr into the rollerbottle and as I was pushing the rollertop bit on the bottle shattered into about 4 big pieces and some tiny bits. (Really, laugh now). It was 8am, I hadn't had a full cup of coffee. I know I'm a bit strong but really, not that strong! I sucked up a little bit of the oil but was worried about glass so didn't really suck up a lot. Wiped up the spill. Picked up the second rollerbottle. Sucked up more Satyr. As I was pushing the second roller top bit into the bottle base I hear a light crack and see a line run down the bottle. I gently pried the top bit out, a bit of the bottle broke but I was able to pour it into rollerbottle #3. Which mercifully didn't crack. Or shatter. Or do anything but sit and hold the oil. I've used these rollerbottles about a dozen times, this was the first incident.
The table now smells like November and Satyr (not in the same places).
Alone has faded from the bathroom.
Laugh, really, go ahead.
The year really can't get any worse. It got so bad tonight that I've slathered not only Western Diamondback but also Banded Sea Snake. Work. Relationship. Stress. Gender. I won't go into it. I won't do an emotional vomit here.
And while I didn't know him, we've lost another guy to suicide. He's the second NZ transguy this year. I didn't really know him well, had read his posts on the board. It brings all my own transangst/issues/Darkness close.
Debating between Western Diamondback tomorrow or Alone. Both are comforting. I've got a roller bottle of WDB at work so if I go with Alone I can still slather in the afternoon.
I pinged a friend on Gmail. She's in Colorado so was getting ready to go to bed but took a few minutes to chat and I really appreciate it. I re-read my pm from Beth here saying she knew things were tough & to keep my head up. Both those things helped.
It's late. I'm exhausted after the day & night I've had. And I woke up suddenly at 3:30, was up for about 15 minutes trying to get back to sleep.
I'll look back on all this one day and see how far I've come.
Tomorrow is our first full week at work in 2 weeks. We've had 2 short weeks due to the holidays and our most of my team has had the time off on annual leave. I'm not looking forward to a full week at work and I'm not looking forward to most of my team being back. It's been nice and quiet without most the people there. Yeah, I've missed one or two but the rest of them can be a nuissance.
And there is one in particular that isn't going to be fun. It's partly my own fault for the situation but she holds blame too. I noticed that she has on occassion left work. She's had her reasons but it seems that the harder stuff is left behind for me to pick up. I didn't do most of her training but when I have offered to show her some of the more complicated stuff I've heard things like "I'm not a morning person", "I'm too busy", "I've got it written down somewhere", "I'm not having a good day", "I'm tired", "It's too late", "I learn better by doing" (but when I offer to let her do so she can learn then she's got one of the other reasons). When I talked to her last time about how it seems she takes a particular type of easy stuff she said it was the way she was trained (which is odd because I know the person who trained her and I know she didn't do things that way). I thought it was resolved until I started noticing again some of the more difficult types of work were left behind and work from certain geographical areas was being left behind. And someone in one of those geographical areas that I never seemed to see work from made a comment along the lines of "Oh, I guess I should have asked X to do it". It was random, especially given that up to that point we hadn't divided into geographic areas.
Then, one day just before Xmas I was finishing up a complicated request I had picked up. It was afternoon time & I noticed there was a complicated request that came in while I was engaged in it. This other person left it. Ok, not too bad as there is the chance that she didn't see it when it came in and it was too late for either of us to pick it up. The second day we had meetings and stuff that took up part of our day. On top of that I had some documents returned in the new stuff that I had learned. It was complicated and someone else was helping me sort it. Between that and the stuff I'd already had to do for that day, I wasn't able to pick up anything new until that afternoon. And yes, it was still in there. I was stressed and peeved. It had sat in there for 2 days and I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it at that point. I put it in my work queue because I konw there was no way in he!! she would at that point. Being upset and stressed I grumbled to 2 people in my old team about it. There was my mistake. I grumbled to someone about it instead of locking it in. One of these 2 people went and told her and she went to the team leader. I was told in my monthly meeting that I was "slagging her off" to the old team. No, not quite. Then the team leader made some comment about how certain work takes priority. WTF? Like I wasn't doing that work too?? WHATEVER. I knew it was no use saying anything but I did say that I told one person (I later remembered telling 2). I couldn't figure out how it got to my team leader. Both the coworker and team leader went on vacation right after this. I didn't learn 'til relatively recently that the person had been told that I'd said something & went to the team leader about it.
So now I have people I know I can't trust that I used to trust.
I'm not sure what BPAL I want to wear tomorrow. I'm considering Blood Lust because I feel like I've got to go to battle when I got work now. I could consider Dragon Claw, for the "sharp" factor. Or I could go with something more 'sophisticated'/masculine cologne-y like Mechanical Phoenix, the Music of Eric Zahn, Titus Andronicus or Black Forest.
Wow, didn't realise I had that many choices. And we've still got an order to put in tomorrow night. I'll give my Diwali away because it went really nasty on my skin. Like, along the lines of cigarette butts soaked in coconut and burned on a rubber tyre pyre. Yeah, that good on me. I've held off our order in case the person I'm giving the imp to likes it & wants a bottle.
On that note, I should get to bed. I haven't been sleeping well and got grumpy today. I am sure lack of sleep contributed.
"white chocolate, dark chocolate, apple blossom, honeysuckle, frankincense, allspice, nutmeg, black tea, tonka, and sandalwood."
Hmmmm, do I? Don't I? I don't do foody usually, don't do chocolate, apple blossom or honeysuckle. But the rest of it (barring the tonka?? not sure about that) I do like. The fact that a Wildlife refuge gets some of the funds too makes it even more interesting so I'm leaning towards a possibly yes.
Besides, it's been forever since I've bought a bottle for either of us unsniffed in some form. Yes, I know that getting decants or sniffies first is best, that way we can spend our (limited) funds on what actually works instead of guessing and hoping that something might work and finding out it doesn't.
I did put an order in. I would have left it but the fact that some of it does go the refuge put me over the line on the "ok why not" line. Besides, it might be the next Glowing Vulva. I never thought we'd like that (or that it would have become so popular).
Work has been particularly bad. A really, really shitty week. Other stuff going on, sickness/flu and it all adds up to still trying to find the strength to get up each morning and put one foot in front of the other. I've got a couple job apps in, really leaning towards the second one that closes on Monday than the one that closed last week. It would technically be a step back but it would be a lot less stress and that's really what I would appreciate right now. I'm tired of playing with other people's money but more so I'm really tired of being responsible for millions of dollarsNZ getting (or not) into the right account at the right time yet making sure the right conditions have been met adequately. All with a rapidly reducing level of staffing.
Snake Oil was my saviour today, what I could smell of it. Western Diamondback yesterday.
My team leader was really really nice. I went up to her to tell her have a good weekend. She thanked me for coming in when I was sick. She told me this morning that my productivity level was 112%. And I'm sick. So that means I either fucked up a hell of a lot of accounts or I busted balls big time. At least she appreciates it and let me know. She wrote a note to Carol when I was talking to her tonight: "Carol can you please look after Alex (one of my favourites) as he has not been feeling well. Really appreciate his committment. He requires lots of TLC. Thanks. R"
I thought it was really nice.
Following after the death of Sir Ed Hillary, NZ has lost another good man. Hone Tuware has died. I don't know a lot about him but have read some of his poetry and have a cd with some NZ artists speaking/singing his poetry.
Here's one of his poems. I hadn't read it before but it seems appropriate. Haere Ra Hone. May your ancestors greet you in the Afterlife singing Haera Mae Haere Mae Haere Mae.
Toroa ~ Albatross - Hone Tuwhare
Day and night endlessly you have flown effortless of wing
over chest-expanding oceans far from land.
Do you switch on an automatic pilot, close your eyes
in sleep, Toroa?
On your way to your homeground at Otakou Heads
you tried to rest briefly on the Wai-te-mata
but were shot at by ignorant people. Crippled.
You found a resting place at Whanga-nui-a-Tara;
found space at last to recompose yourself.
Now, without skin and flesh to hold you together
the division of your aerodynamic parts lies whitening,
licked clean by sun and air and water. Children will
discover narrow corridors of airiness between,
the suddenness of bulk. Naked, laugh in the gush
and ripple — the play of light on water.
You are not alone, Toroa. A taniwha once tried
to break out of the harbour for the open sea. He failed.
He is lonely. From the top of the mountain nearby he
calls to you: Haeremai, haeremai, welcome home, traveller.
Your head tilts, your eyes open to the world.
I'm going to go slather some Western Diamondback and lie down.
I'm sick and not happy about that. Worked my ass off last week, went in when I was sick because of work that needed to be done.
Went home early yesterday. Stayed home sick today.
Found out just now that they announced how much of our area they are off shoring to India.
60%
Flippin Hell. It will be a ghost town in there. I'm officially depressed and sadly the Creme Brulee chocolate just won't cut it. I am going to withstand the temptation to hit the fermented stuff. Really really don't need to be compounding my problems right now. I've emailed my team leader to see if I can get more info. I've emailed Carol and asked if we could talk about moving our accounts out of the bank we work at. They dont' have loyalty to us, why bother? Besides the biggest argument they had about keeping our accounts there was that it kept our jobs safe. Yeah, right. Not anymore. Besides, the only way the CEO is going to have an idea that this isn't a good idea is when the money starts walking. If we hemorrhage profits then it will hopefully offset any "gains" from offshoring.
Fliping idiot <---- insert much stronger language
