tuesday, august 28, 2001
rough day

i am not having a good day. in fact, i am having a pretty sucky day overall, and it's probably a good thing i didn't plan to do much today (i mean, we have a blank page on the planner).

this morning i found out my cat died. mercedes (named after the author mercedes lackey) apparently suffered something, possibly a stroke, that made it so she was unable to eat. she's been staying with saxy's parents (who have taken wonderful care of her), so they took her to a vet where she's been a day or two. the vet tried to feed her and she aspirated the food into her lungs. they managed to get the food out of her lungs, but the long and the short of it was she could not eat. they have no idea why and had no way to save her. so she was put to sleep this morning.

saxy's mother called for him and wanted him to tell me, but he has been out trying to get things settled to register for school (finally!). she called again 5 minutes later and finally told me, and i had to tell my kids and des'tynie. we all fell apart. saydes (as we called her for short), may not have lived with us because the housing property doesn't allow pets, but she visited and she was my baby. i've so missed her and i didn't even get to say goodbye.

goodbye saydes. i know you are now in less pain and the option taken was the only one that really made sense. i wouldn't want you to be in pain. but i have missed you since the day i had to hand you over to someone else to take care of you. and i am sorry i wasn't there to hold you. rest well, my pretty kitty.

from there the day went from grieving to absolutely frustrating.

my son is supposed to be getting respite care and it hasn't been happening since september. why? well, the nurse he had suddenly had some kind of licensing problem. as a result, he had to stop taking care of my son on saturdays. the respite care didn't have any other male nurses and my son just doesn't do well with women for some reason. most of them aren't firm enough and let him get away with things. (and then there was the really strange one who wanted to watch him at her house. ummm..noooooo, i don't think so!) then there came 3 different i.r.c. workers, so no one had any idea what was going on with his case.

yesterday, the case worker thing was worked out and i got some things rolling to get things some things done. but i had to call the respite care and make arrangements on getting that started again. well, they called today and said he was released from their case load in december! i call his worker and she's not in...AGAIN! over the last few days this woman is not only impossible to get a hold of, but she doesn't call back.

bad day will continue to tomorrow. oh joy.

then things go from frustrating to down right depressing.

it has come to my attention that my youngest girl is stealing money. she's only NINE and she's stealing money from us and her sisters so she can buy ice cream and chalk.

it's not like we haven't had problems with her before. she takes other peoples' things, often breaking them. like most adhd kids, she can't get to sleep at night. she's been recently diagnosed and so has only just started her medication. we don't even know what medication will work for her yet.

but stealing? i swear, i didn't raise my kids this way...i really didn't.

so now i have phoenixcat moving in with jewel and am putting shebop in her own room. a room away from other people's things. a room she is responsible to keep clean. and now, if we find her in someone else's room when they aren't in, we know she doesn't belong and is getting into things that aren't hers. there's not much else i can do.

but now i have phoenixcat mad at me too.

what an absolutely lovely day.