— पञ्चसहस्राणि चतुःशतानि त्रयोनवतिः | —
So far, taking Guru to the vet yesterday afternoon seems to be a nothing burger. A very expensive nothing burger: it cost $234, because we're getting blood work done, and that alone cost $165. The results may reveal it to be a little more than nothing, I suppose, but based on the examination alone, the vet seems to think Guru's coughing may just be athsma. Cats get athsma?
This didn't fuck up my budgeting quite as much as I'd feared, because I had a $175 line item for getting new AirPods, which I can wait a month and a half for—Shobhit suggested waiting for possible sales on Thanksgiving weekend. Apple never does huge Black Friday sales, but some places that sell Apple products do. It's still worth waiting for, even though my current AirPods—last replaced just after Christmas in 2019, when I left them on the bus on my way to Olympia—are very close to shot. I actually googled the lifespan of AirPods, and it's "two to three years"; my pair are now four years old. I fucking hate planned obsolescence, but, whatever. These AirPods have the right side go dead after
maybe an hour of continuous playback, and only that much if starting from a full charge.
In any case, I took that line item out of my budget, which had a projected balance by the end of next week of just a few dollars over $50—a pretty comfortable position to be in. Replacing it with the $234 vet expense, my projected balance is now -$5. I can live with that. Especially since that includes an estimated $50 for going to dinner and a movie at Central Cinema with Tracy next week and I'll probably come in under budget for that. But we'll see.
Oh, wait! Shit. I forgot I bought a ticket for Shobhit to see
Killers of the Flower Moon with me on Saturday, and I hadn't put that into the budget. That's another $10.59, so my budget projection is now in the red by about sixteen bucks. Still something I can live with.
That said, we have a $10 off $50 member deal at PCC that I need to use by next week. Maybe I can just fold that into the budget for the following pay period. I do a lot of creative accounting here anyway, with a portion of the month's first check earmarked for paying the HOA dues; once that gets combined in the next paycheck, the line items for my budget right now will no longer have negative figures anyway. I'm sure you're just riveted by all of this!
Oh wait. I forgot about buying a tofu snack at Seattle Center with Shobhit on Sunday. Now the balance is $-24.35. Goddammit! Still workable. I just double checked my credit card and bank statements so I know for sure now I haven't missed anything else.
We'll see what kind of expense comes from Guru's blood work results. The vet wants me to send her a video of Guru coughing, which is going to be a challnge: he only coughs every two or three days, at least while I'm home;
and I need to have my phone handy to open the camera quickly. We'll see how that goes. But, she said she'll be able to tell immediately whether it's "just" athsma or not, and if it is, there may not be much to do besides let it ride. I'm not getting a fucking $200 cat-inhaler, which was actually broached as an option. Get real.
— पञ्चसहस्राणि चतुःशतानि त्रयोनवतिः | —
— पञ्चसहस्राणि चतुःशतानि त्रयोनवतिः | —
Shobhit drove to the office to pick me up at 2:30, so that's what time I left yesterday. After the vet appointment, Shobhit worked a shift from 5:00 to 9:00. He did deliveries and he sent me a couple photos through a window at a high-rise apartment building downtown, of which there are now countless.
I spent the time he was gone working on calendars. Last night, particularly, on a special themed calendar for Alexia—something Shobhit actually suggested, because she takes care of our cats when we travel. I take care of hers too of course, so in my mind we're more than even. Although Alexia keeps bringing treats back for us from travels, which I think makes Shobhit uneasy, like she's doing more for us than we do for her. Well, either way, I like the idea of giving her a Christmas gift for the first time. She'll almost certainly cat sit over Christmas, so I can just leave the wrapped calendar for her to find on Christmas Day! I love it.
I'm doing a special, personalized one for her that I'm calling, "Last Year's Memories." About half the month photos are of things we did together over the past year; the other half photos that she's texted me from places she traveled to—including London, where she's been the past week. I like to include information about what the place is, where I can, with text on the photo itself, which I edit in the Apple Photos app. One particular photo from London took a kind of inordinate amount of time to research. Things like that made just this calendar pretty time-consuming last night. But I'm not complaining! I actually enjoy working on the calendars. They just take a lot of time. And then I have to fork over way too much money for them to be printed and mailed to me. Oh well! People love them and I love giving them.
I do find myself wondering how much longer I'll keep making them every year. I'm up to 17 calendars I'll be ordering this year, although the people I give them to changes very little (Alexia being a newbie this year notwithstanding). They go to my parents; my siblings; my nieces and nephews; Shobhit; my cousin Jennifer; and now Alexia. I put birthdays for all my grandnieces and grandnephews on them, though, and we're getting into territory where it's hard to keep track. Anniversaries are especially tricky. I've got one nephew I only realized last night I've failed to put his and his wife's anniversary on the past two calendars—they got married in 2021—and another niece who is apparently now separated from her husband. Do I remove that anniversary from the calendar? Maybe not until I hear definitively that they are broken up. Ugh, romance and politics!
Right around the time Shobhit got back home from work, I watched this week's episode of
Loki. Last week's was a mess but charming. This week it just seemed like a mess. I texted the group chat that it's the plotting equivalent of white noise.
— पञ्चसहस्राणि चतुःशतानि त्रयोनवतिः | —
We have an unseasonably warm today, forecast high of 68°. I really thought last week would be the last of my bike commutes for the year. But, I saw the forecast this morning, when it was already 53°, and I thought, what the hell! I'll bike to work. I probably will tomorrow too. After that it gets iffy, unlikely. Beyond the potential for wet weather, it's also dark when I leave for work now. That'll change again after daylight saving time ends in November, but by then it'll be reliably too cold in the morning. I have a feeling this is it, for real, finally, this week for bike commuting.
— पञ्चसहस्राणि चतुःशतानि त्रयोनवतिः | —
[posted 12:31 pm]
