What made you happy today?

[IndigoErth]

Grats to you both!

[The Deadman]

My horror themed Switch pro controller skin shipped.

[IndigoErth]

Finally got to surprise my nephew with this little project I've had up my sleeve for weeks. Very happy that it was a hit and went over like I hoped it would.

I boxed them up (the plush ghost I made, the card, and the jar of "ghost treats"), put fake address labels on it and let him believe he got mail from this mysterious "Ghost Keeper" character I made up.



Also, that's our cool, if rather arts and crafty, cardboard spooky house we made last year, which you know who just happened to be lurking in the attic at the time of the pic. lol

The ghost's name is... Barlow. Or Marshmallow. Fluffy? A few others I can't recall? He hasn't fully decided on it yet. Hopefully he'll get a permanent one soon.

[DarkFell]

The little haunted house was a great idea. I bet that you two had fun that day!

[IndigoErth]

Thanks!

Happy maker... this guy.



Had looked at him on Amazon last week and considered getting him after our cat passed, but when I looked for it again that evening after losing our pet, it was sold out. Clearly popular for Halloween, as indicated by the reviews.

Really thought I may have to wait a while but he was "in stock soon" on Wednesday and able to be ordered, and low and behold I already just got him today.

Once my Halloween decorating is put away he'll probably find a nice spot on the top of our small piano and keep us company there in tribute to Tim, his brother the plush shares a similar sounding name to, and all the others before them.


edit: Nice plush and worth it for the $20. Tim's 18-year-old father (belongs to my sister) is still alive, if on borrowed time himself. My uncle, who lives with them right now, adores that cat... I may have to get the orange tabby version (there are a bunch of colors) of it for them/him when the cat passes.

[Leo656]

Settled a month-long miscommunication problem with the main company I wrestle for, and apparently things are back on the same page finally.

It's amazing how much you can solve with two stinkin' minutes of face-to-face conversation after a month of ghosts and mixed messages from multiple people.

[IndigoErth]

Nephew finally old enough to sit through and enjoy the animated adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree, one of my faves.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

We got to dress up at work today, so today I am Bast, goddess of cats! Been getting a lot of compliments on my costume !

[IndigoErth]

First a little background.... Many years ago a couple across the road, the most well off people here, on the advice of their lawyer moved away and built a big new house to do something with some of their money. Something something taxes... I was still young, that's the gist of what I got back then. They were pretty much the kind of people who you'd never think they had the sort money they did.

However, they kept the house and decided to rent it. Unfortunately... they rented it to this crappy woman who we put up with for 25+ years and all the trouble she, her relatives, and other people associated with them brought with them. Why the hell they put up with her/them for so long, god only knows. Far as I know they had decided to rent it section 8 to try to help her. >.> Nice of them an all, but their former neighborhood did not appreciate the trouble she brought with her.


This week we'd seen them busily moving things out. Though not unheard of given the people who have come and gone often over the years, this seemed like a bigger deal than usual.

Sooo... the happy maker as of today is the fact that we found out that not only are people in that house leaving, but that piece of work woman is OUT too.

We were suspecting that maybe our old neighbors, who are really getting up there in age now, might have decided to sell (cue fears about who we might then end up stuck with), but it's the best possible news that their grandson, who my mom was already just speaking to, has been given the house, though only 20 it will be both he and his mom.

As expected the place, that used to be REALLY nice inside when I was a kid, needs work after what all these other people in there have done to it, but I'm glad after all this time this has finally come about.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Ah! If only our upstairs nutjob of a neighbor would follow suit! She was whooping and hollering all day yesterday with her front door and window wide open for all the world to hear- over NASCAR. Seriously. This woman gets sooo excited just to see her favorite driver complete another lap in first place. One can imagine how irritating that gets after a while. Literally yelling and clapping at EVERY SINGLE LAP some guy driving in a circle finishes. Yeah, she's one of THOSE.

[IndigoErth]

lol If she gets that excited about driving in a circle, she aught to get a cat and some good toys for it. The entertainment would blow her mind.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

NO! Absolutely NOT. That numbnuts couldn't even keep a guinea pig alive. She went away for a weekend and left her heater on high and literally cooked one in her apartment. She also had another one die of basically malnutrition and flea infestation. She had a puppy for all of three weeks before it got taken by animal control for neglect. She does NOT need to be keeping any kind of animal. She barely even takes care of herself. I've seen roach larva sacks and maggots in there more than once, and SHE was the source of our bedbug issue a couple of years ago. She belongs in a care home, because she clearly can't handle living on her own. I can't even count how many caregivers she's gone through. They all end up quitting.

[IndigoErth]

o.O Good god, why leave the heater on like that and leave. She sounds like a fire hazard. Hoping for you that they'll hurry up and evict her!

Yeah, and the get a cat thing was not a literal suggestion, it was just a joke based on entertainment factor, that is all...

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Ah, yeah, I know, it's just a very bad idea in her case. Besides which, our own cats dislike her, probably for that very reason. Cats KNOW....

[IndigoErth]

Oh they definitely do. With one we used to have, who was not really the lovable sort, if she liked someone who was visiting I usually told them they should feel honored, because she was very much a like you or hate you kind of cat and her feelings about people were rather accurate.

[Leo656]

Bit of an eBay snafu that all worked out for the best.

I ordered another Hogan figure off of eBay last week, long story short the seller accidentally put the wrong shipping label on the package, so the figure I bought got sent to someone else and I received a video game I didn't order or want.

The seller replied to my PM within two minutes and has been very prompt with replies throughout. He didn't want to take any chances so rather than wait for the original figure to get back to him from the person he sent it to by accident, he went ahead and purchased another one direct from the distributor and had it sent to me directly. He also refunded the money I had to pay to send the game back to him.

I got the figure today, and it's great. So a headache turned out alright in the end. Grateful I got a good dude, some folks would have turned this whole thing into an ordeal.

[IndigoErth]

Last night, probably around quarter to 2, I heard a really strange and initially unidentifiable sound and laid there in bed asking out loud "What...the hell was that?"

Then just barely heard a few whines through the closed window. Started guessing maybe it was a fox? Maybe a parent and a young one? Have never heard those sounds though, I'm just used to them screaming at each other sometimes.

Peeked out through the blinds and a fox was sitting there on top of a pile of stone with a tarp over it (over the pile not the fox) in the neighbor's driveway. Must have heard my blinds touch the window as it was looking this way. Wish I could have gotten a pic. Sitting there looking cute on the little mountain the human left for it.

He/she went off toward our front yard, so I went to look out the front window, just curious if maybe there was a parent and a young one together. Was hard to see but spotted movement after a moment. Over there chowing down on leftover dry cat food we'd put out for the birds or whoever. Then realized there were two. Turned on the outside light...3 actually. One got shy and headed into the shadows and hung out over there. But no, wait, a 4th showed up.

I don't know if they were a whole little fox family out for dinner with kids, er, kits that are close to grown, but first time I've ever seen more then two together... and even then it's usually two just yelling at each other, not being all happily together like this group.

[Leo656]

Awwwww.

Sh*t like that is what I love about living in the rural/suburban Northeast. I could never be a City Mouse. I'd shoot myself in the goddamn face after like a week of not seeing any squirrels or whatever.
------------------

SO. Looks like we're getting another dog.

Kind of a long story going back over a week, and it started off horrible but it seems like it's all working out.

Little over a week ago, our dog Riley was acting REALLY out of sorts, to the point where it was scary. Couldn't stop going to the bathroom all over the house, couldn't sit still or stop panting, his back legs weren't working right and he kept falling over constantly. Like he simply would not lay down and kept frantically trying to walk around the house but every few steps his back legs quit on him. And he refused to eat anything at all, even his favorite treats. Like he'd take it and then drop it. It was REALLY scary, because he's never acted like this; luckily, our vet is right down the road two minutes away so we rushed him over there.

By the time we got him to the vet, he actually seemed to be getting over the worst of it, whatever "it" was; he was more calm, not panting quite so much, and would occasionally sit still. They checked him out, and the "bad" thing is, they couldn't figure out what the heck was wrong with him. COULD have been any number of things - could have been a minor stroke, could be a brain tumor, could be an inner ear infection - but without a very expensive CAT scan and/or MRI, they couldn't tell. But the vet did not seem incredibly concerned and didn't push the tests as a huge priority, and I'm sure she would have IF she thought there was great cause for concern. She did say that whatever was bothering him was something most likely neurological, based on how he kept tilting his head to the right and walking in a circle in that direction constantly. So she gave us some medication, told us to keep an eye on him, and let them know if he was still acting off after two weeks. They didn't charge us for the visit, only the meds, and that was nice. I think because he'd just been in for a check-up a few weeks before and they'd cleared him.

SO, to update on THAT part of it, he took his pill like a good boy, spent a lot of time napping for the next couple days, and now he seems about 98% again. He stumbles just a little now and then, but the other day he was tearing ass full-speed around the yard and that's a pretty big deal considering how on that day he couldn't take three steps in straight line without falling on his ass. He's also eating better again and he seems very, very happy.

So anyway, when we had him at the vet that day, there was a picture taped to the wall about a female German Shepherd/Lab mix who needs a home, preferably one that already has a dog. I took a picture and brought it up to my wife and her mother; basically, the consensus was "Well, maybe, but we need to make sure Riley's gonna be okay first."

So once Riley started getting so much better a few days ago, my wife started texting the lady who put up the notice; turns out her husband passed away, and this girl (Zoe) is just too much dog for her to handle all by herself. So today we made arrangements to go over there and meet Zoe. My mother-in-law's been kind of back-and-forth on the whole thing, but she seemed okay with us going over there, so I guess she made peace with the idea.

So we went over there, and THIS DOG, you guys.

We did have some treats as an ice-breaker, but that seemed like an afterthought. We ended up spending like two hours over there, talking to the lady and getting to know this girl, and I'm not kidding, she seemed to "adopt" both of us immediately. I have NEVER had a dog just instantly come at me with so much affection; within two minutes she was climbing all over me and smothering me with kisses, having me rub her belly and wanting me to play ball-catch with her. And it just didn't stop. I asked if she's like this with everyone, the lady said "No, actually," she said she's always friendly but not THAT friendly with anyone else.

So, on Sunday she's going to bring Zoe over here to her new home, and Riley's going to have a little girlfriend.

She's a BIG girl, but very gentle. Hyper, but very aware of herself and her surroundings, so she's not a bull in a china shop. SUPER affectionate, like none I've ever seen. She's a barker, but she listens to commands. She's going on 5, she's fixed, and she's had all her shots. Perhaps most importantly, she apparently loves other dogs. The lady said she just really wants her to have a friend.

We were all a bit emotional, and I honestly hate to take her away from someone else. But her current owner is moving soon to a place she can't take Zoe with her, and she said she trusts us to take good care of her, especially after seeing how she took to us immediately. We told her, we want her to come visit Zoe anytime. It breaks my heart to see them separate even though it's for the best, I guess. And of course, it works out great for us. It just makes me sad, too. I could tell it's going to be hard for her to say goodbye.

So, three days for everyone to get their respective affairs in order, and then a new journey begins. I'm super excited about it. I cried on the way home.

We *think* Riley understands. We're a bit nervous about him adjusting; he's only ever lived with my poor cat Nique, he never lived with another dog even though he gets along well with the neighbors' dogs through the fence just fine. Obviously it will be an adjustment, but we keep telling him "We're gonna bring you home a little girlfriend, buddy!" and he gets so excited and happy. He smelled her on us when we came home and he got all excited and gave us both a ton of kisses; when we brought him outside, he kept looking around like he was confused that he was the only dog there, like he expected her to be there. So I *think* it's gonna be okay.

She's like twice his size anyways. Even if he gets grouchy at someone new in his territory, I think he's gonna get over it quick. Especially since it's a girl; they're both fixed but he does love the ladies. He'll bark a little but I'm sure he'll adjust really fast.

We told her Mom about everything and she was surprised we didn't bring her home today. So I guess it's all been decided.

I'm emotionally exhausted but so, so excited. I get to have the TWO best dogs in the world. I can't even believe it.

[IndigoErth]

Grats on the soon to be new family member! And thank goodness your first is okay, that sounds scary. Whatever it was, hope for you guys that it doesn't happen again and these two can get to have some good years together.

How odd how that turned out though, that this girl may not have been found by you if your boy didn't need that emergency vet trip.

[Leo656]

I know, I literally just got done saying I feel like he only got sick so we could take him to the vet and see that picture. It's crazy. I do often feel like things happen for a reason.

Very emotional time. I really hope Riley adjusts okay. I'm so worried about him feeling like he's being replaced or nudged aside; we're gonna be working overtime to make sure he knows better. He seems like he understands - he keeps looking expectantly at the door and around the yard like he expects someone - but you never know, y'know?

Pretty sure it'll be fine. I just can't wait. Riley's already the best... but so is Zoe.