Thursday, May 28, 1998
10:45 AM
Which came first, the Kitten or the Egg? I guess you'd have to ask Ginkgo about that. You see, I'd been reading her journal a week or two back, and while I was poking around her site, I came across her Cyber Pet Adoption Agency. There were a number of pets who really caught my eye, but I wanted to do my site redesign before I went adopting any pets.
Now that my redesign is done, and I happened to be at Ginkgo's page for a new mailing list she started, I stopped by the adoption agency. There, I found China, the adorable little kitten sitting here on the page. She's a Siamese Easter kitten, and unlike real life kittens, she came from an egg, which you can see on the right. I've given her a home at the bottom of my index page, and I'm sure she'll enjoy having visitors come and see her. (She's a cat, so of course she thinks people are coming to the page to see her, and not to catch up on my life! *wink*) If you'd like to adopt one of Ginkgo's cyber pets, just click on one of the images, or the link in this paragraph, and follow the directions on her Adoption Agency page.
Now that China has been introduced, I'll tell you about my 'fun' day yesterday.
I was up until four the night before, so I did sleep in yesterday, 'til about 9:30 or so. When I got up, Mom had just left to do a few errands, so I messed around online and such until she got back. She wanted to go out to Wal-Mart, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see about getting more contact lenses. I'd meant to check into it Monday, but because of the holiday, the optometry center closed before I got a chance to get in and ask. So we went to Wal-Mart, and I asked. The lenses themselves would have been cheaper to buy there, but then I'd have to pay a $25 sitting fee to see their optometrist before I could get them, even with a prescription from my own (which I wasn't even sure he would give me). That would have added up to about $105, so it would have been cheaper to go pay my optometrist the $95 he asked for for the next six months' supply of lenses. I told the lady in the shop that I wasn't interested in being fitted right then, thanked her for her time, and wandered off into the store.
I was mad, plain and simple. It wasn't Wal-Mart's fault, of course, but I was still upset. I went looking for mom out in the garden center, and the section in the parking lot with nursery stuff, but she wasn't there, so I went back inside, and headed toward the back toward the craft section of the store, looking along the aisles in hardware for Mom, who was also after upholstery tacks, but she wasn't there.
Since I was near the crafts section, I went back there and looked around, trying to find something fun and quick to do, that might improve my mood a little. I gave up, deciding that I really didn't need any new projects to start when I had so many going already (I'd hardly touched my dragon cross stitch in at least a week), so I headed back up toward the front of the store, making a long detour in the electronics section. I didn't find anything there either, and I finally headed up to the exit, where Mom was waiting at one of the benches.
I must have really looked pissed, because she asked what was wrong. I managed to explain what was the matter without getting too upset, but then she said something about going in to my optometrist and 'talking' to him. I really hate when she does things like that, and I told her that I absolutely refused. She said that I didn't have to go in, she just wanted to talk to him. I still protested, but as usual, she didn't listen. I had to go downtown to return my slightly overdue (1 day) library books, so I didn't say anything when she headed that direction. My optometrist is also in the downtown area, and of course, that's where she went first; but as luck would have it, they were closed.
I was glad, because I was still angry and getting angrier over the whole fiasco, and I knew she could probably talk the doctor into feeling sorry for me and giving me a break (at least in his mind) and giving me the rest of the lenses which I thought I'd paid for in the first place. If she had, I would have had to go in, submit to the exam and the whole thing, which I really didn't want to do, in the state that I was in (angry, and fighting back tears). After that, we went to the library, and I returned two of the books, and asked if I could renew the third, Byzantium. The librarian took care of it for me, and I headed back to the car.
Back at home, I found I was still angry and upset, and part of me wished I had a baseball bat that I could take out back and swing at the trees a time or two (we have a bunch of huge cedar and walnut trees in the very back of the backyard). I just wanted to hit something, or throw something, or just do something! I hopped online and wrote Jev a message, asking if he could call if he wasn't too busy, but I never did get a response out of that.
I stayed lurking online, on ICQ and in IRC, and one of my friends messaged me, asking me a question about Internet Exploder. She also said she'd adopted the "Official ICQ Webring" and was in the process of checking out all the sites and making sure they had the code, no offensive content, etc, etc. She was looking for volunteers, and since I really needed something to take my mind off things, I offered to help. Sucker for punishment, aren't I? Anyway, she gave me a block of 100 sites to check out, and I spent a good deal of the afternoon and early evening working on that. I got through about 60 of them, complete with detailed reports, though I did take a break to watch back to back episodes of Babylon 5, during which I worked on the cross stitch.
Just as I called it quits for the night on the ring, Jev showed up online, and we chatted for a little bit. I was tired and he asked if I'd rather talk. We decided that sounded good, and after I was settled in a nice hot bath, he called me and we talked for a little while. After my bath, I came back and hopped online a little longer to chat on IRC with friends, then went to bed around midnight or so.
This morning, Mom finally got a call back from the company that does the air duct cleaning. They charge $500 to do a house our size, which neither Mom nor I can really afford at the moment. But, they said that because of my health problems, if my doctor would write a prescription for it, my insurance might cover part of the bill. Just what I wanted, more fun dealing with doctors and Medicare and all that. I know we should probably have it done; we haven't had the air on since my little episode, and today it's supposed to get up to about 90. It just feels like another big hill to have to climb, and I'm not looking forward to it.
I worked on the cross stitch for an hour or so this morning, then started surfing and wound up at the page where I found China. I think that pretty much brings everything up to date for now, so I'll wrap this up and get my new cyberkitten settled in. Take care...
2:19 PM
Wow, I just got the nicest little cheer-up present from Ginkgo. She made a special waterlily egg for China, in hopes of brightening my day. It's definitely done that, and I'm very glad I chose to adopt my new kitten. Thanks again, Ginkgo!
|| Previous Entry | Next Entry | Home | Journal Index ||
