So I watched "Knowing" tonight with Nicholas Cage. It would have been a decent sci-fi flick but was ruined by some pretty stupid religious hyperbole. ( ...minor spoilers ahead, plus rant... )

Oy. What a week. First the fridge-and-freezer started acting up: the ice-cube maker stopped making ice. Then the whole thing broke down completely: it wasn't getting cold and the fridge part ended up room temperature. We lost around $50 worth of food for the month because it thawed before we noticed and could do anything about it. Worse, it was about $150 for the repair.

Luckily, we were able to salvage some of what we had in there thanks to the small standing freezer we own, which a friend and I had to haul from the old place using my car, in which the freezer did not fit -- so we lashed it to the trunk with coax cable.

Yesterday, we bring the cat in to be declawed before bringing her to the new place, but the vet calls and tells us the pre-op bloodwork shows she has diabetes, which is also why she's been peeing everywhere: can't help it, bladder isn't working right. And she has an infection because of the diabetes and the uncontrollable bladder.

Good chance this is all fixable with insulin and antibiotics and regular vet appointments. But it's another $200 this month. Not including the eventual declawing, which will be another $150.

Topping it all, my daughter's guinea pig died. It wasn't eating, and we figured that was due the stress of the move (new place, anxiety, etc), but then we noticed night before last it had developed eye gunk and labored breathing. All of it added up to classic upper respiratory infection. I'd hoped to get her to the vet in the morning for antibiotics, but she didn't make it that long.

My daughter was crushed: bawled her eyes out the rest of the day.
And Jen made me tell her.

Still haven't finished moving everything since dad didn't help on Monday like he was supposed to. Now, supposed to go today with one of our friends to get the last few big items out, as he's bringing his truck over. My back is killing me already.

I'm also terribly behind on my latest illustration contract: three noir-ish supernatural horror pieces.

On the bright side, dad brought some new stuff for the house the other day -- a nice pair of end tables, some tools for my workshop downstairs, a whole new bed for my oldest daughter rather than just a mattress, and a much needed bookshelf -- and we're making steady progress with unpacking when shit isn't raining from the heavens.

And my daughter's lazy eye is better. It's possible she may not need glasses in six months if it keeps improving. Though I realize now I forgot to give her the eye-drops this morning. Arg.

Son is on a new med regimen that will hopefully help him get his remaining (and worsening) behavioral issues under control. Had to pick him up from school once this week because the teachers couldn't handle his outbursts and disruptions. So the doc dropped one med that was likely causing his increased mood swings, agitation, and hyperactivity. Hopefully, this will stop him from driving everyone nuts.

Got to play Cthulhu for a couple hours last night. But it comprised too much wandering around with nothing happening. Remind me to write about the importance of scene structure in an investigative horror game some time, and how it should not be similar to "carefully mapping corridors and kicking in doors", like D&D or video games.

Part of what threw me into a recent depressive low was Johnathan talking about death and fear over in his LJ. Much of what he says there is exactly how I feel about the subject.

"I still find it incredibly unfair, no, more than that, UNJUST that we are given such a precicious gift as the experience of life and then it gets cruelly snatched away."

I agree with that, and more, the whole concept of death seems eminently wasteful to me. I mean, what a lousy design! You spend your entire life trying to get things figured out, and then you bite, and another person has to come along after you and do it all over again! Incredibly wasteful. Like reinventing the wheel.

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