The corn and peas are touching... They're touchingthey'retouching they'retouching!

Is it really blogging if I don't do it regularly?


I let everything get derailed over the last few weeks because of this happy little girl and her mother.



This happy little girl is a festering cesspool of disease... which might be normal except for the fact that, in addition to thrush, what she has is Aeromonas bacteria in her stool and sweet baby jebus only knows if she's got it anywhere else.

Let me rewind a bit and give you the readers digest condensed version... sort of. Right. Like I'd be any good at that.

I've known her Mom off and on over about two years. Little Girl's Mom is a graduate of the foster care system. She's got the emotional maturity of an 11 year old if we're all really lucky. She also probably is suffering with post-partum depression. I can't even say half the shit that's going on because, quite frankly, it's a real big monster ass mess.

Okay. Short version. Stay focused. Shortly after these two came to stay with us my lovely neighbor gave us tickets to see the California Philharmonic at the L.A. Arboretum. That night apparently my sweet Molly Dog coughed so hard she passed out and possibly had a seizure. OHMYHELL. The coughing had just started in the last 24 hours and had apparently gotten very very severe.

We were an hour away from home. Bless my neighbor who gave me the tickets and her sick husband, they took Molly to the emergency hospital where she stayed two nights. No more seizures, but it looks like she picked up a lung infection while at my vet's office the day she had the cardiac ultrasound. I'm still trying not to think about what this cost. She's worth every penny of it.

I'm glad that I did have Little Girl's Mom here because we might not have known what happened, and the outcome could have been much worse. *SHUDDER*

My DH had to leave on a Wednesday to go do Army Reverse, er, I mean Reserve, stuff. He was gone until Sunday. Wednesday night Little Girl's Mom goes out telling me she'll be back shortly after I get home from my Stitch N Bitch meeting. She has Little Girl with her and never calls, and doesn't answer my calls to her cell phone until late the next morning.

When I get up, early for me, to give Molly her anti-coughing medicine I find my beloved agoraphobic Peekaboo kitty is in the bottom of his cage/home, there is bloody goo all over and his breathing is loud, labored and just sounds ragged and awful. His mouth is bloody. He sees me and meows loudly but horribly once, in a way I've never heard in my life and hope to never hear again. He seems to be begging me to help him. It was awful. I don't have words for how awful.

I quickly medicate Molly, throw on clothes and help my Boober into a travel crate. My only thought is to get him to the vet (not even open yet) and end his suffering. He died shortly after I got there. If I had known he would pass so quickly I would have stayed home and just held him.

Little Girl's Mom comes back later in the morning. My landlord actually steps up to the plate and offers a supportive ear in the meantime. Necropsy on Peekaboo shows that he likely had horrible lung cancer. For a long-ass time. I feel even worse. All these years that we thought he had horrible hairballs that he couldn't quite get up he was literally trying to hack up a lung.

This doesn't seem like the shortened version, but trust me, IT IS.

Days later I discover that Little Girl's Mother (whom I'd discovered was drinking heavily and at the very least smoking weed) has brought Marijuana into my home. HOW DARE SHE! In retrospect I should have confiscated it, had the cops come get it, but allowed her to stay her while I quietly contacted Children and Family Services. But DH and I decided that she needed to go, and the sooner the better.

There WAS drama with the police, drama with DCFS and more drama just for drama's sake. It's not over, but she's not welcome back unless she's willing to abide by prision-like rules. We've offered repeatedly to care for the Little Girl while she sorts things out. She has convinced herself that I would kidnap little girl. Right. Whatever, crazy. I am not even going to try to wrap my damaged brain around addict logic.

Both Molly and Merlin now apparently also have Aeromonas, I was sick with it for a few days after she first got here (and am worried that I may need to get my stool cultured too, ew ew ew ew ew ew), and I'm worried about the birds.

But... if you've read all this... you should know you that two good things have happened. First is that after the last few weeks I no longer doubt our ability to become good parents someday. AND... I've been accepted into the Pituitary Tumor Protocol at NIH. More on that good news later.