Saturday, January 22, 2011

What a week....

So, my sinus and nasal infections are pretty well cleared up. I threw away all of my balms and ointments and nose sprays, and have to buy new, because there's just no telling where the nasal infection came from, and I NEVER, EVER want that to happen again. Even if it was caused by the drainage from my infected sinuses, there's no way to know that for sure, so I am taking measures.

It was excruciating. Now the tissue inside my nose is raw and tender, so when I blow my nose, it still hurts and bleeds a little, but that's because it's healing.

I missed 2 days of work this week, one for being sick, and one for a minor ice storm. The roads were impassable Thursday morning, so Dave stayed home, and strongly advised that I do the same.

Fortunately, at my place of work, if you have a FEELING you might not be in to work the next day, if you tell your supervisor before you leave, it's not marked against you as an unexcused absence if you don't come in the next day.

In the case of the bad weather we had, we were all advised to fill out time off request forms on Wednesday, and give them to our supervisors, if we thought there was a chance we would decide not to drive on the ice covered roads the next morning.

So, while it sucks that I had to take 16 hours of time out of my bank this week, at least only 8 of those were unexcused.

One is only allowed 4 unexcused absences in a year before one risks losing one's job, and the year does not start with your start of employment anniversary, it starts with your first unexcused absence, and then rotates to mark the next one as "first," once that anniversary has passed. Clearly, the company has the advantage.

I now have three, because my first one was last March, my second was July, and you have to be clear for a year AFTER your most recent one to be totally clear. So the only way I will have zero on my record is to NOT TAKE another unexcused absence until after a year from now.

They really do try to trip you up. Thankfully, I get sick VERY rarely. I used to get checks at the end of the year from my old job because I didn't use my paid sick time, which is something this company doesn't offer.

I didn't know about the loop hole, though, of telling my supervisor if I thought I might not make it the next day because I'm not feeling well. She just told me that during my review last week. Good to know. Wish I'd known that a year ago.

Anyway, most of the ice cleared away by afternoon, which was good, because Jack the cat, who had been to the vet last Saturday, was going through his worst bout of constipation to date.

He did great for the first 3 days after we saw the vet, but then, his poops got smaller and smaller, and then by Thursday, they stopped altogether, and he was hiding and even crawling away when I would try to pet him. NOT like him AT ALL.

Thankfully, we had already seen the vet for this a few days before, so they got us in that afternoon.

Jack has been there ever since. He finally had a bowel movement yesterday around 4 pm, which was 48 hours or so since his last one. He's normally a twice a day kind of kitty. They gave him laxatives, and fluids, and special food, which he finally ate after he pooped.

Ultimately, they had to give him an enema. The vet really didn't want to have to get that invasive, but he just wasn't doing it on his own....I think, probably because of stress.

I HATE that he's had to be there all this time, and that they had to do an enema to get him to go. Of course, now he has the runs because they over treated him before the enema, and now all of that stuff is clearing him out entirely.

There is NO EVIDENCE of any kind to indicate why this happens to him. Everything about him is perfectly healthy. His blood work is FINE. His two abdominal xrays look FINE.

Sigh......

So, we get to pick him up this afternoon, and hope that his diarrhea stops shortly thereafter! ew.

In other news, we were sleeping peacefully just before 3 this morning when the rednecks upstairs started one of their "altercations."

They were all three screaming at each other, literally, at the top of their voices, and stomping feet/maybe physically fighting. The dad would pound on a table of counter top for emphasis with every word he spoke.

They were in their kitchen, which shares a wall with the neighbors behind them, who have a baby, the neighbors next to them, who work nights, and shares a floor with us.

I woke Dave up and he determined it was bad enough to call security. Again.

This is the third time we have reported these people. When we made our first report, in person at the management office, we were told they would give the tenants a written warning, and that, if there were further complaints, they would be told told to leave after the third one.

This was the third one....so we'll see.

We are going to start house hunting for real one day pretty soon. Need to get the pre-approval process done, first, and I need to speak to my investment counselor about what monies there are left in my inheritance from my Dad that might be accessible.

The amazing thing is how cheap real estate is down here. We are talking a really nice house for payments that would be potentially $200 LESS A MONTH than we pay in rent.

Anyway, off to do an errand or two before we pick Jack up.

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