Let's see.... first off, hope everyone had a lovely Beltane yesterday. I, unfortunatly, spend the majority of the day and night, wimpering in pain with yet another migraine that left me in hell and pretty much disabled again. I can't keep dealing with this shit. I need medical attention and medication for these things, but I don't have the money to see a doctor, let alone the fact that a prescription of Imitrex is $240 for nine pills without insurance. Yeah, they're $30 a pill. Not to mention, I can't even afford the visit to the doctor. I can't get insurance on my Love's policy because you have to be married (which we're not) and I can't afford to buy it on my own because the last policy I had through my company was still over $300 a month for the premuim (of which I had to pay half) and that was on a GROUP HMO plan, not even just a single person going for a rate. (They give discounted rates to groups, so it'd be even higher then that to get it for myself). There's no fucking way I have that kind of money a month for insurance. It's crap. I hate the fact that a few big businesses can determine who does and does not get the medical attention they need. Migraines are not just "bad headaches" nor can taking a couple asprin help you. It's a condition that can be managed but it can't be cured and it can't be left just "oh well, deal with it." It's like a person with asthma. They need to have an inhaler for when they get an attack. The inhaler doesn't cure the asthma, it just halts the attack. Same thing with the migraine medications. They won't cure migraines (there is no cure), but they will halt an attack. It's just as medically necessary as the inhaler for the asthma sufferer, but insurance companies refuse to accept that and many primary care doctors remain ignorant to that as well(handing out prescriptions for other pain relievers or sedatives when they won't and don't do a thing to halt the attack). Even my friend Rand's mom suffers from them and even though she has insurance, her insurance company will refuse to pay for a renewal of prescription if she fills it more then once every 30 days. Keep in mind the prescription's only for NINE pills and you generally have to take several per attack to halt and then kill it. That is just SO terrible! How can they deny a person the medication that they need and that their doctor has deemed necessary for them? It's ridiculous that we let these fucking companies get away with shit like this!

Finally got some sleep last night - I took two naps during the day yesterday in an attempt to stave off the migraine, but it didn't help - and woke up feeling better (thank gods). I also have some problems with my RoadRunner yesterday - seems either my network card is going wonky or something because I guess suddenly, when it's requesting an IP, it's trying to get a static IP and so yesterday, it tried to get an IP that had already been leased by another machine and it wouldn't just take any, and so I lost my connectivity. I already checked the TCP/IP settings and it's set to get "any" IP (not looking for a specific one only) so it might be going bad or I might need to reinstall my drivers or something. RR gives me a virtually static IP - it just doesn't change often, I generally renew the same IP for days or weeks at a time - but it's not truly a static IP. So...at any time, when I go to renew my IP lease, I could lose my connection again. If I disappear, that's why. *grumbles* Though I got RR to give me a week worth of credit on my bill since I told him I couldn't resolve any hardware issues for a couple days and that I shouldn't have to pay for a connection that I can't truly count on to use. Groovy that he agreed. :)

Mika's doing well; she really settling in and getting happy to hang out with us and is starting to seek me out for attention sometimes which is nice. She jumped up on my lap while I was sitting in my pc chair yesterday, sticking her tail up in my face and putting her paws on my keyboard, purring at me and generally just demanding some love. It was really cute and sweet. I turned the webcam on really quickly to try to get a shot and though the light was really poor, it's still cute and it looked a little something like this:


That's about it for now I think. More later perhaps.

[note] it totally fucked up while trying to post this, crashing out my FTP program AND IE and luckily I had just enough time to save my entry before it happened. fucking piece of shit connection. grr.

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 5/2/2003 12:24:53 PM ~ ~

Headache. Tired. Off to bed with me. Have to get up and go over to Rand's mom's house tomorrow for more ACT! training. She wanted to get together last week but I was too much of a wreck and then she wanted to get together today, but she ended up having errunds to run and such and wasn't going to be home until like 3pm. So...tomorrow it is. Meaning I need to get some sleep and try to get over this headache so I can get up and be productive tomorrow and make a few bucks.

I'll get around to a real update again soon. Mika's doing good by the way and is a cutie. She's just so much more hyper then I'm used to, but it's cute so it's all good. Still miss Kush; still cry over him when I think about not having him around, but I'm getting by. I'm learning that having another kitty helps remind me that there’s always room in the heart for new love and that new love doesn’t invalidate or make any less of those we loved before.

On that gushy note, I'm off to go to bed. Night all. Take care of yourselves and the ones you love.

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 4/30/2003 02:39:35 AM ~ ~

Wow...how do I get into this...? It feels so weird; I'm both very happy and very sad all in one. Yesterday, my Love, my friend Rand and I were out and about and we ended up driving over to the SPCA. I had been looking at their website the night before and saw a cutie brown tiger tabby named "Mittens." When I got there, sure enough, I ended up gravitating over to her and both my Love and I really liked her. This was her description:

Looking for a very sociable 3-year old spayed female who is all ready to go home with you today? Look no further, you've found me! I'm MITTENS! I have short fur with tiger markings and white, and I have big green eyes. I'm extremely friendly and love human attention! I love being picked up and riding around on people's shoulders! I am also fond of looking out the window, using my scratching post, sitting on your lap and purring, playing, and just about anything else involving human attention and love! The only thing I'm not too fond of is being put back in my cage at the SPCA when playtime is over. I'm a people kitty and I want to be where the action is! I'm ready to go to a new home of my very own, where there are no cages and where the shoulder rides are unlimited! I'd love it if you'd come in to visit me today: Remember, Mittens is my name, loving people is my game!

Needless to say, we ended up taking her home. (Saw that coming, hu?)

I didn't even mean to get a kitty so soon and I'm still mourning for Kush-ka, but at the same time...she just kinda clicked with me. I'm happy because she is just a sweetheart - she even came and slept on the bed with us last night (her first night in the apartment!) - and I'm sad because of course, I still miss Kush. I have silly worries like thinking people are going to think I just didn't care about Kush and I got over it without problem, or that I didn't really love him since I got another kitty so soon, but...like my mom said, I just have room in my heart and love to give for animals and there's no reason that I shouldn't share that love with another animal. My Love reassures me that it doesn't make me look like a bad person to get another kitty so soon and that no one would think that I have stopped missing, mourning, or loving Kush, but it still twinges in the back of my mind.

Anyway....we didn't like the name "Mittens" (just so generic and she didn't even respond to it anyway), so after a lot of searching last night, we found the name "Mika" and that ended up being it. It means a lot of things in a lot of languages from "wise little racoon" in India to "new moon" in Japan. We're pronouncing it "me-ka" and she already seems to have starting picking up on it. She's a vibrant thing (I've forgotten that a three year old cat is much more active then a thirteen year old one!) and has these big, beautiful eyes I haven't been able to get a good picture of as my camera sucks without the flash and she squints her eyes when I use the flash. (D'oh) She's a BIG girl - coming in around I'd estimate 15lbs or so. She's an even larger cat then Kush was at his prime. I thought if I got a girl, she'd be a small little thing, but not Mika; she's a big girl (with a little head. *lol*)

So far, I only have a couple silly pics but today I'm going to try to get a better shot of her face (which is hard because our apartment is shaded 24/7 by trees, so there's no natural light in this place which makes getting photos taken hard). Enough of the babbling, here's a pic of her playing with some catnip.


Introducing Mika

Strange, hu? It's weird, because I haven't even gotten back Kush's ashes yet (sometime next week) and I was still crying even last night (I seem to do that at least once a day for a good 20 or so unbroken minutes a day, but it feels good to let it out) over him, but she's just such a darling and she's already so loving, it's really nice to have another kitty around to keep me company.

Ok, enough babbling for now...I'm a weird rollercoaster of emotion today (and good old Aunt Flo ain't helping things) so I'm gonna go hang out with Mika for a bit. She's out on the couch having already set her claim to the one. More later.

[edit] I just realized I can show you her pic from the spca site which is teeny, but does show her pretty eyes:

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 4/28/2003 02:32:43 PM ~ ~