I am stuck in one of those places where there is no good solution.

In our house, I am the slob. That does not mean I am a slob, but my threshold for dirt/messiness is somewhat higher than Rich's. Very seldom does the house make it to the point where I feel like cleaning. And frankly, I dislike cleaning. I don't mind putting things away as much (books on the bookshelf, clothes in the closet, cat toys away, etc.), because  everything looks so much neater when you're done, but the actual cleaning, which makes less of a visible difference, I hate. And I hate it twice as much when someone makes me do it when I don't think it's necessary. Rich will occasionally announce that we need to spend the next hour or so cleaning, which I never want to do. He likes to get everything done in one big push; I have more of a "5 minutes here, 10 minutes there" approach. Interspersed with rewards for myself, if I'm doing it all in one day.

Furthermore, I was raised by a woman whose philosophy was, "there are some things it's worth paying someone else to do, and cleaning is one of them." Hell, yeah.

Right now, he's stressed out about the upcoming fireman's test, and the house does get on his nerves when it's messy, so he asked me to help him stay on top of it for the next month. Which I totally understand.

So, now that my raise finally came through, I'm more than willing to get someone to come in and do the cleaning stuff every week or two weeks. Except, Rich hates the idea of a stranger coming in and cleaning. I think it sounds like the best thing ever. I wouldn't even mind being there wile the person is cleaning, since he can get remarkably paranoid, though I wouldn't mind handing over a key to someone who came vouched for. But the main point is, he wants me (and himself) to do it, and I'd really prefer someone else to do it. Because I hate it, and frankly, when you force me to do something I hate, I do a freakin' half-assed job anyway. So if I pay someone, not only will I be happier, but it will get done better. But bringing someone in will just stress him out more, which is the last thing I want to do right now.

Sigh. I hate cleaning. This sucks.

Just had a woman in here to complain that her grandson was watching pornography at the library yesterday, and what were we going to do about it. I explained that we have a web filter, but it's only on the children's computers and does not catch 100% of inappropriate content, and that's all we can do.

She wanted an assurance that it wouldn't happen again. I re-explained about how filters aren't perfect, and told her a determined kid can always find something that the filter doesn't catch. I ended by saying that it's the parents responsibility to supervise their child, and if they don't want the kid using the computer when they're not here, they should take away the library card.

Her response? "I think it is the library's responsibility!" Uh, no. I am not the parent. It is not my call whether any specific item is or is not appropriate for your child. That is a PARENT's responsibility. You don't like what you kid's up to, then supervise them more. Don't tell the school or the library it's their job. It's not, and there are a lot of other parents who would take serious umbrage if they were to try.

Oh, and she also thought that the filter should be on ALL the computers - I explained that adults have the right to look at whatever they want, but she didn't much like that statement either.


ETA: Look, a comic on just this topic!

This morning at 11:30, I held my sweet little kitty in my arms as they put him to sleep. I'll miss him so much.

The chemo was going relatively well (the vet said she could feel a size difference). Unfortunately, he stopped eating. At all. So, we put in a feeding tube. It's not like with people - he's not attached to a machine or anything - it's not last-ditch, like it is usually with humans. He's just got this really pathetic-looking collar which anchors the feeding tube that goes right into his trachea, and we can put food (and medicine!) straight into the tube.

So hopefully that can get us over the hump where the chemo makes him feel better enough to eat again. meanwhile, we don't have to wrestle him to give him medicine, which is a real selling point. Neither of us is talented in medicating cats. There's a knack.

I can't believe how much money we're spending, and yet I can't bring myself to say, "no we can't afford that". Good thing we paid off all the credit cards in January.

Prospero has lost a lot of weight recently (2 pounds!), so Rich took him to the vet today. He said there might be some kind of lump in his abdomen. He's getting an ultrasound tomorrow.

I hope whatever it is can be taken care of really easily.

I'm trying real hard not to think about it so I don't break down at work. I need to be here for another 2 hours before I can go home. And my poor kitty won't even be there - he's at the vet's overnight.

I went on a little spree at Amazon, and I have now purchased presents for everyone on my list except my mother and father. Mom claims she doesn't want me to get her anything, but I can't do that - though I might break down and do a gift card, which I generally do not do. And I'll just get Dad a sweater or something.

I have next week off, and there are one or two things I want for myself, so I'll force myself out on Monday when most people still have work and the stores aren't too bad.

I'm determined to get myself at least one nice cosy sweaterdress while they're "in" - anyone know who has cute ones? With shape?

Best title spotted today:

To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him
 
Well, I can think of multiple books to go with that title. Fiction and nonfiction both.

There are Christmas decorations up in the neighborhood where I work. It's just wrong. Merchants need to realize that the earlier they try to get me "in the holiday mood", the more I resist it, saying "no, no, it's too early!" I found myself last year realizing that it was the 18th of December, and I hadn't yet started playing carols on my mp3 player.

Listen up, retailers - we do not need to be "in the Christmas spirit" for a full sixth of the year. Early November is too early. Let's all agree to the day after Thanksgiving, the way it used to be.

And I really didn't appreciate seeing the Christmas decorations up when I went shopping for my Halloween candy.

Copy this sentence into your LiveJournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

To my utter non-surprise, the Sex ID test has determined that my brain is more male than female. I scored much closer to the average male score than the average female score. I was pretty sure that was going to be the result before I started. But still entertaining.

Looks like Mark Morford is actually a silver lining kind of guy (who knew?):

To be honest, there really are some genuine upsides of a recession. We use less. We become more aware. We drive less, walk more, produce less crap we don't actually need, churn out fewer pollutants, become highly attuned to waste and excess, dial into opportunity, travel locally, skip vacuous trends, become less fickle, appreciate bargain wines, breathe cleaner air, save, appreciate, savor.

It actually is a good way of looking at things. A little more reassuring than total panic, a little more calming than "everything is going down the tubes!" No, we're just learning to be frugal (which does not mean cheap; it simply means avoiding waste - using the whole cow and so forth), to be efficient, to appreciate alternatives. And that's actually a good thing for society as a whole. Like the new appreciation for alternative energy sources, for better gas mileage, for staying home instead of traveling, etc. I guess we have to have a cycle like this at least once a lifetime, so the lessons don't get completely forgotten.

Oh, life is wonderful at the moment:

I just paid off my credit card (again)

And then bought more stuff, since a top I wanted was finally back in stock

I met an online friend for coffee, and we ended up hanging out for 4 hours, having a great time (hi amalthiakt!)

I'm getting an ARC of Horizon from the Strand, 3 months before the release date (and less than $10)

My brother's visiting his girlfriend at the CIA (cooking school, not spies), and I'll see him tomorrow

And it's only the second day of my week off! (I restrained myself from !s after every line!)

The only downside is that I'm abut to have a grumpy husband, since Rich is out having a root canal right now (his vacation, not going so well)

My right eye started hurting *very* badly Wednesday night (to the point where I laid in bed face-up, feeling the tears stream down periodically - and nearly screamed when I turned the light on in the bathroom halfway through the night - very photosensitive). So I got to spend part of my day off at the opthalmologist. Luckily, the verdict was "inflamed" (well, I could have told you that), but not infected. Yay.

Now I get to wear my glasses for the next week. I don't mind glasses so much, but I do really miss sunglasses, since of course I've never invested in prescription sunglasses. And it is really gorgeous and bright today, which is making me a touch less happy than usual. I want my sunglasses!

I got home to find a package waiting, which I assumed was for my birthday. And it contained jewelry! But not any indication of who sent it. And it wasn't sent from a store, but from a woman in California.

Sooooo, do I try looking up this woman's number? Ask everyone I know if they sent me a sapphire ring for my birthday? Wait for someone to ask if I got my present?

I am in a foul, foul mood. Vacillating between angry at the world and the verge of tears. I really shouldn't be at work, because someone is going to tick me off, and my response is probably not going to be professional. Let's hope I can keep a grip on myself.

And if one person looks at my face and says, "Smile!" ... the result will not be pretty. I can't stand that even when I'm in a kind of neutral mood. Today ....

I had to go to the DMV yesterday, since my license is expiring in 3 weeks - and I only had to be in there for 45 minutes! I thinks that counts as a win. And a new picture, too - though I didn't get to actually see said picture yet, so I don't know if that's a pro or a con.

I like the way they do it at White Plains - the DMV is a lot more tolerable if you can sit while you wait for your turn. It would seem twice as long if you were actually standing in line.

You know how I complained that LJ redid a lot of their code and messed up my style sheet? Turns out one of the changes is that even unpaid members can have a tag cloud now, instead of a plain old list. I love tag clouds. So I went back and tagged all my LJ entries (and corrected a bunch of spelling, while I was at it). It was kind of fun to go back over all those posts - incidents I had forgotten about. The tag cloud is much more indicative of me now.

I have to admit, it was kind of disheartening to see all the posts with no comments. Especially the big ones (no one commented when I got engaged! I guess they all called on the phone).

I love working in a mostly residential neighborhood. Two kids have set up an honest-to-god lemonade stand down the block. In front of the post office - I think they got some marketing advice from a parent. The last one I saw was in front of a house off the main drag, but this will work much better.

Hey, anyone else on LJ use the custom CSS option? Anyone else notice that they renamed almost every class and ID on the freakin' page a few days ago? I couldn't figure out why my style sheet was suddenly not working at all, until I opened up the source and really looked at it. So I spent a pretty large part of today figuring out how to make it look like it used to (actually, a little better, hopefully). And it wasn't as easy as renaming all the classes and IDs in the sheet - they reorganized some stuff, so it wasn't nested under the same things and ended up in a totally different part of the page.

Although, I'm actually pretty happy - now I evidently get to have an actual tag cloud instead of a simple list. Maybe I'll actually start tagging. Retro-tagging should keep me busy at work for a few days (it's really slow right now). And, all that tweaking definitely taught me a bit more CSS. I know a lot more about relative and absolute positioning, which I have avoided until now, preferring to let things flow.

Still, I find it amazing that I haven't seen more people remarking on the changes. I guess almost no one does their own CSS instead of just picking a theme. I wanted mine to match my web site, and it mostly does (apart from the sidebar having to have a solid background instead of sharing the gradient - saaaaayyyy, I should test out that possibility with the new changes).

ETA: Hah, what do you know, I can make the sidebar with the gradient! Actually, I think I could have before and just didn't realize it.