Yesterday I received a sympathy card and a Rainbow Bridge letter from the emergency vet clinic. My heart broke all over again.
On Sunday evening, Dan and I went over to our neighbor’s house. I showed him the photos and the vet bill, and described finding the kittens and how awful the whole situation was. He expressed a lot of remorse — he honestly didn’t connect the dots between feeding strays and providing them with places to mate and nest with abandoned, dying baby kittens. He agreed to stop feeding them immediately (and true to his word, he took up the dozen or so dishes and hasn’t put them out since), and offered to help me catch some of the cats. The problem cat is the mother cat — Big Mama, as he calls her. She’s a nasty one. I know that firsthand, with the way she spit and hissed at me Sunday morning.
I have made several calls and sent several emails to local agencies, so I should have some humane traps within the next few days. I plan on catching as many strays as possible, and taking them in for spay/neuter and release, or, euthanasia if any particular cat is sick or diseased.
I didn’t do much of anything on Sunday. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. Monday wasn’t much better, though I did take care of several errands.
Tuesday was the same, though I was up early for an appointment. I have to be up even earlier tomorrow morning: I have to be at an appointment at 6am. Since the drive to get there is almost an hour, my alarm is set for 4:30am. Ew. Here’s to me getting to sleep tonight before midnight! I’m hoping that staying up late and dragging my ass out of bed early this morning and maybe a dose of Nyquil in a few hours will help me nod off.
Alyssa’s love for Hello Kitty is continuing. I bought her Hello Kitty sheets last week, and at Target the other night we picked up a little Hello Kitty wallet from the One Spot, and $10 wall decals. I love those adhesive wall decals. They’re sticky enough to stick, but not enough to adhere permanently or damage paint, wallpaper or stained wood. I also picked up a (new!) Shabby Chic smocked duvet for $40 on eBay. Her room is looking pretty good right now!
We’re making a little more progress with Ryan’s communication. He still isn’t talking beyond mimicking “uh oh”, sounds like ma-ma, da-da and ba-ba, and coughs, yawns and sneezes, but he is starting to gesture a bit more. If dancing in front of the fridge or cabinet and holding his hands above his head and going, “Uh! Uh!” counts as gesturing.
When I was a kid, I remember my mom saying that there aren’t enough hours in a day. Another thing she used to say is that you have money but no time, or time but no money. Both are quite true. For me, there really aren’t enough hours in a day. I have a lot of work to do right now, and I set myself at the task of doing it around noon today, but I did some housework, made some calls, did some more housework, started on dinner and making something for dessert, and here I am at almost 7pm, with almost nothing done!
I had a horrible scare late last night, and I have Dan to thank for it. We were on our way home, and were arguing about a few things. The topic turned to money and the supposed waste of it. At this point we were almost at a four way intersection, and instead of going straight, I made a left. Dan asked where we were going, and I said we were going back to the store to return everything we had just bought, since it was obviously all such a waste. He said something like, “No, you’re not”, and I responded with something along the lines of, “Yes, I am, just watch me!”
You know what Dan does? You’d probably never guess, so I’ll just tell you. HE ENGAGED THE EMERGENCY BRAKE. I was going, oh, maybe 35-40mph? It was terrifying… it was like my car accident all over again. Only instead of plowing into another car and spinning to the side, the car jerked from the suddenly locked tires, fishtailed a bit, and then threw itself into a horrible spin out. We slid sideways and finally came to rest almost 180 degrees from our original direction.
Fuck. I was scared shitless. I’m pretty sure I screamed something at some point during that five or ten second loss of control that had me so shaken up that I dropped my phone twice when I got out of the car (once it came to a stop near the ditch along the side of the road), and it took me three tries to pick up all of the pieces (phone, back cover, battery). I could smell the burned tire rubber on the road as I made the half mile trek home (there was no way in hell I was getting back into that car with him), and it took me several minutes to stop shaking.
What a fucking idiot. Seriously. What we were arguing about and who was right and who was wrong had nothing to do with the fact that he did something VERY stupid and VERY dangerous that could have had horrible consequences. If there was a car or Amish buggy on the other side of the road we could have hit it. We could have hit a telephone pole. We could have gone a bit further and slammed into the earth that rose up alongside the road. We could have had one of those freak things were the tires lock up cause the car to buck, flip or roll. At the very least, the car could have sustained damage. I’m no expert, but I have a sneaking suspicion that engaging the emergency brake while the car is in MOTION and going FAST is not good for the tires or the e-brake system itself.
Let’s see… what else is going on. I’ve been busy with work. Last Saturday night Dan and I took the kidlets to a local fair. We enjoyed boardwalk fries, funnel cake, cotton candy and lemonade, Alyssa went on a few of those bouncy rides, and we enjoyed fireworks at the end of the night:
Lastly, thank you to everyone who commented on the last entry, talked to me via Twitter, emailed and IMed. Before those five kittens I had never before seen animals that were suffering. It was traumatic and a very emotional time for me. I’m so glad those kittens are out of their misery. I only wish I had found them sooner. 
I think it’s great that your neighbour now realizes that, despite his best intentions, he was causing more pain to the animals than good.
I would have flipped out over the emergency brake thing too… But luckily, you didn’t hit anything and no one was seriously injured, so that’s the bright side.
And I really love the photo of Ryan looking down at his glow stick. And are those chocolate chip cookies on his shirt?
Wow, wtf @ the emergency brake?! Did he at least apologize for doing that? That is a really stupid STUPID thing to do while you’re driving… you’re SO LUCKY that no one got hurt.
I’m glad your neighbour is being cooperative about all the stray cats, that must make things to much easier than having to deal with somebody who doesn’t want to know about it!
Wow, I would have been really angry about the emergency brake too! I didn’t even realise that certain cars even came with those, obviously I’ve never been in one!
Oh. I just realised that an emergency brake is the same as the hand brake. LMFAO! I thought it was a different thing. *smacks self over head*
Seriously, please smack the shit out that husband of yours for us all out here for putting you both in danger as he did with that little stunt. My husband and I have had our fair share of arguements in the car, but never to the point where someone pulls the e-brake or even worst yet… makes a grab at the steering wheel, etc. That’s just so freaking insane. What the fuck was he thinking when doing such a moronic thing? I wouldn’t let him give you any freaking petty excuses either since that was a VERY dumb move on his part. Dude, that just boils me up inside that he allowed his anger to come out so strong that he put yalls lives at risk over something so freaking petty. I really hope that his after thought of the event made him feel like utter shit, too.
I know all about the whole money issue talk
Been having that myself lately, well I should say, it’s been having me. Although, the worst thing to happen is me crying or him yelling, NEVER would he do something like that. I’m just glad that you’re both okay. Regardless of how stupid, I’m just glad you’re both alright.
Lovely Fair photos :D. And I hope that Ryan continues to make progress.
wow. the emergency brake?? My husband has talked about showing me what happens when you pull it but I won’t let him. I hope he never tries that on me!
Btw, your camera is really good. My firework pics are very sad looking and you actually can’t tell that they’re fireworks at all…
I can’t believe Dan did that! You’re right, you could have hit something. Luckily you didn’t.
Oh, I’m so glad that your neighbor finally listened. That is so great to hear. I hope you are successful in catching all those strays.
Wow, I’m really upset that Dan would do something like that. I really hope he never does anything like that again. That is pretty dangerous and horrible.
Beautiful firework photos!
I woud have freaked out if someone pulled the emergency break while I was driving. Heck, even if I was a passenger I would have flipped.
Your firework photos are amazing. Mine always come up looking like a blurred mess.
Its great that you made your neighbour realize what he was doing before more kittens had to be “put down”. I hope all goes well with the stray traps.
That duvet cover it too cute!! *wants*
My driving instructor pulled the emergency break once, and even though I knew it was coming it was freaking scary. It’s actually part of our driving lessons here, part of the training we do to be prepared for wintery roads.
I’m glad your neighbour took it like he did, instead of ignoring you. I hope you won’t be having issues over the next few days/weeks with cats coming over to find food, then make noise when there is none.
OMG I am glad you guys are okay. I am glad you got to talk to your neighbor about the whole situation.
I know that I bring this up whenever anybody has a bad driving experience but it’s because it helps SO MUCH: Take a Car Control Clinic.
When you go to them, at some point during the day, your instructor will pull the E-Brake to purposely force you into a spin. They do it for a few reasons but the main two are:
1) So that you’ve experienced it before and don’t freak out as bad when it happens in real world driving experiences.
2) So that you understand what your car will do in a spin and you can learn how to properly drive yourself out of having one. (Most people react by INSTANTLY turning the wheel sharply in the other direction when actually, you should steer INTO the spin at first till the car stabilizes THEN turn the wheel in the opposite direction).
I’m sorry you had to experience out on the open road like that. My first spin was HORRIBLE and I actually ended up facing the WRONG WAY on a freeway onramp after having slid through about 50 feet of mud. I was shaking SO BAD afterwards that while changing my tire I could hardly hold the tire to the car and I kept dropping the lugs. It took me about 20 minutes to change it and normally I can change a tire in about five minutes flat. It wasn’t my fault, my tire blew and I was on a pretty fast turn, but I’m very certain that now that I’ve taken that class and been forced to learn how to drive out of a spin, that fist horrifying experience would have gone much differently because I know how to react to them now.
This doesn’t mean that Dan wasn’t an jackass for pulling it though. That’s SO EXTREMELY DANGEROUS to do out on an open road like that.
*hugs you*
Oh so sorry
I’m glad you have the cat thing worked out. I love cats and I hate to see someone treat them bad, along with any ohters.
To Angela, Maybe you need to be slapped for saying such thing? Maybe your husband needs to be slapped for marrying your buck teeth looking ass? :shock:
that’s a good thing, that you talked to your neighbor and he understood the whole situation and stopps feeding the cats now!
hopefully this kind of drama will never happen again :confused:
Lindsey, what the hell?? Angela didn’t say anything that was out of line. My husband was a dickwad, plain and simple.
I still think it was kinda funny. Although I was mad at the time, I wouldn’t have done it if I would have seriously put anyone at risk (IE: the road was empty, we weren’t going *that* fast)
Besides, what do you think an e-brake is for? EMERGENCY STOPPING. Fit the bill pretty well there I’d say.
Think of it this way, how fair is it for you to take me hostage and take me somewhere I didn’t want to go?
Knowing how upset I was over what you did, I’m surprised and disappointed that you would admit that you found the incident funny. But then, considering your reaction to other things I have told you, I shouldn’t BE that surprised, should I?
And last time I checked, taking you “hostage” back to a store isn’t the same as doing something as drastic as pulling the emergency brake while the car is in motion.
My point is: I think you’re over-reacting to what actually happened. It’s not like I ran the car off the road or anything. Now if I had slammed the gearshift into park to stop you, THAT would be disasterous.
Oh, another point… you tend to see the emergency brake as just something you have to engage while you’re parking. But that isn’t what its true purpose is. It’s really there as a mechanical backup to the break system in case your main breaks go out. So using it to stop your car while in motion is actually what it’s designed for.
You’re entitled to think I’m overreacting. I, on the other hand, do not feel that I am. It was a scary experience for me, and you won’t be able to comprehend that, since it was happening to ME, not you (as in, you knew what was going to happen, you initiated it, etc.).
And don’t talk dumb to me. I understand the true purpose of an emergency brake: a mechanical way of stopping the car, if it’s your only choice. It doesn’t mean that it’s risk free, since as we experienced the other night, the car can go out of control, across the road and spin around before it comes to a stop.
I don’t see how that justifies pulling the emergency brake on your wife. Was there any danger that you absolutely NEEDED to pull the emergency brake? It’s called an emergency brake for a reason, not a tool to use in a fight.
Extremely immature.
When you pull the E-brake in an actual emergency you do it in a controlled fashion, like you do when you put your foot on the normal brake. You don’t just yank it up at full force or… you spin. Common sense.
And you don’t EVER pull it when somebody else is driving unless they’ve passed out or are incapacitated and for some reason aren’t able to control the car. It doesn’t matter that you were on an empty road. If Jenn had jerked the wheel too hard or hit that bank, the car could have easily rolled. I don’t find any kind of humor in that at all.
Before this goes any further, I want to make one clarification: Alyssa and Ryan weren’t with us. So Dan acted like a dickwad and endangered our lives (or at the very least, our healthy, non-injured bodies), but not those of the kidlets.
You should take pictures of Alyssa’s room so we can see. You can get quite a bit of awesome stuff on Ebay Hello Kitty wise. Sydney used to be in love with it.
About the car. I’ve heard that’s really bad to do for the cars sake at least. Throwing on the e break or throwing the car in another gear while driving is not good on any part of the car.
Ok, ok. I know it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and I’m sorry for doing it. And I’m really sorry for scaring you Jenn. But I DO still feel justified in doing it considering what we were arguing about just seconds before.
I’m really glad to hear you worked things out with the neighbour, and they are making a conscious effort to help.
As for the car thing… it sounds really scary. I nearly crapped myself when I was driving with my dad, we were arguing and he grabbed my wheel and pulled the handbrake, so we halted in the middle of a busy road with cars beeping all around me. I’m only a Learner driver! I don’t want to say any more since it seems you and Dan have had some words about this… but I hope you won’t have to face any more dangerous moves in the future.