Less Stress Please!

WOWIE ZOWIE have the last few days (with the exception of the weekend) been intense!

First, Fri I found out some sad news from a close friend about her hubby's friend's family and her dog (I won't share...not my place).  Then I battled with our mortgage company to have them explain WTF they are doing...they are morons.  We pay our bill, they show it paid, then they show it unpaid...no particular reason!  Finally, I was in for drinks with a friend and that was lovely (Thanks to the lovely Red, who had the impossible task of calming me down - well, her and the margaritas!!)  And then friends came over for burgers and that helped.

The weekend was grand! Met Busted Kate for mani/pedis, then lunch with her and her hubby (finally got to meet the illusive Adam...he rocks!) at Old Chicago watching the USA vs. England game (I know little about soccer), then home to grab J for our visit to the movies to watch The A-Team.  We were both huge fans as kids, so we had to go and I will say it rocked!  Plus, Bradley Cooper is kinda beautiful and he was half naked a lot, so I was in heaven!  After the movie, we tried a new place for dinner that Busted Kate had recommended by the theater and it was great.  (I will interject that a little stress came in here because some old friends walked in that we haven't seen for ages and kinda had a falling out with, but we sucked it up and said hello and it ended very happily!  Now I get to call them friends again!).  Then home to hop in the jacuzzi and chat with my hubby.

Sunday, I swam (YAY ME!) and then ran errands, cleaned stuff around the house, finally set up my sewing machine that I think I bought in April, and figured out how to hem my own pants for the first time ever.  It only took me an hour or so of getting the machine set up and figuring out how it all worked different than the one at my Mom's that is 5 years older than me!

That brings us to Monday.  I can't elaborate a lot because I can't talk about work stuff here, but let's just say some sad stuff happened at the office and now some other stuff will happen too.  I gotta stop there.  On my way home, I stopped at the jeweler that I had dropped my ring at that I blogged about to see what the estimate was to recreate it and...are you ready..............................sit down...........................it will cost................................$8,600!  Now it will have real diamonds, real gold and look AWESOME...but essentially that is the cost of IVF!  So I don't think we'll be doing that anytime soon.  Anyway, I came home and had 2 glasses of wine.

And then today...OY!  Every-so-often, I can afford to have our housekeeper come and today was that day.  To say I stopped cleaning the house about 3 weeks ago because I knew she was coming, is an understatement.  I let it go!  Anyway, the lovely lady showed up at 8:30 am just as J was leaving and I let her in happily.  She started stripping our bed and going to it.  I heard our kitty (nicknamed "Psycho Cat" by my in-laws) hiss at her once - which, sadly, is normal.  Then I heard it again, and again, and again, and growling!  So I bolted upstairs, to find my poor housekeeper on the bed with the cat trying to get her feet from under the bed!  And the cat was making noises like you would believe...somehow, she became a lion! And a pig!  And a snake!  OY!  Scooted housekeeper to a different part of the house to let kitty simmer down, but she just wouldn't.  And she wouldn't come out from under the bed or let ME near her.  I gave up!  I went down and got J's welding gloves and a yard stick and poked at her until she ran out from under the bed.  It sounds horrible, but I had to be able to get her.  Finally, got close and she ran downstairs and jumped on top of our cabinets.

Now picture this, me with huge welding gloves on, standing on a step-ladder trying to grab the cat that is spitting at me, growling at me, grunting at me, hissing at me, and lunging at me!  After about 30 minutes, I was near tears and sweating like I was in the desert (and outside) and had to call the cavalry.  I called J and begged him to come home.  I begged.  He flew home (and I should note here that J is our kitty's favorite person in the world...sometimes I think she tries to bump me off so he can be all hers - when I get out of bed, she crawls into my spot beside him!) and began to try to calm her down.  After another 45 minutes of random things (i.e. talking soothingly, giving her more meds, spraying her with water, him wearing the gloves) he was able to convince her to jump down and somehow got her to crawl into her kitty carrier.  I told our housekeeper she could come out from hiding and finish...kitty wouldn't kill her.  But neither of us could walk by the carrier for the rest of the day without hearing hissing!  J went back to work and so did I and so did our housekeeper - God love her for staying and making my house look AWESOME!

Kitty has calmed now, but will be sleeping in exile for some time (being the guest bathroom) until we figure out what is wrong.  Seems J had lowered her drug dosage (yes, she is on Paxil) and he went too low.  Plus I freaked her out with the gloves and yard stick, and housekeeper must have scared her or something because she has NEVER done this!  She's been bad, but this was terrifying!

So I am now heading downstairs for my wine again, and some dinner.  And hopefully some relaxing.  It's been an OY kind of day!