Mondays

Mondays are just hard. They just are. I JUST got home, and it is 10 p.m.

I did manage to get that beast of a reply brief done--well at least to the secretary so that it is formatted, and will be proofread and filed tomorrow. The hard part is done. Two days late, but I have worked on it non-stop and that is what it took. And it was too long according to Supreme Court Rules, so it had to be cut down to fit--which brought my thoughts on this case down to just under 100 pages, which is way more than is ever called for. It is the best we could do though.

Just getting that monkey off my back is a huge relief. Now back to my other really big project, but at least it is not this one. I have been so deep in the one I am finishing for so long, that it is hard to know whether I have been coming or going.

Today is Slater's gotcha day--we have had him seven years today. It is hard to believe he is seven years and three months old. I still think of him as a baby, and in fact, mostly call him Baby Alligator. He is a senior citizen in the dane world, no matter what I call him. I can always count on him to make me laugh, and to take a nap with me. What more can you want in a dog?

It is also my dad's birthday. Mom and I took him to St Clair to the Olive Garden where Carole met us for dinner. It was a pretty typical trip on the way there, and a pretty typical meal where he could not see the menu and kept asking for a spoon, even though the waitress had brought him spoons repeatedly and they were laying right there on his plate. I feel bad for him, but worse for the waitress who must think she was crazy since he just kept asking for them. On the way home was more typical, in that he who cannot see, kept telling mom where to turn so as to avoid stop signs. This caused us to end up in a town we had no need for--now how can you get lost on a route that you can drive in your sleep, I ask you? Well we can do it. And since it was his birthday, he insisted on picking a fight with me. I try to not respond to it, but after so long of the pick pick pick, I just cannot stand it. Now do not think that if it was not his birthday, he would not have picked a fight. He would have, I just would have told you it was because it was Monday, or because it was getting dark, or some other such excuse. This one was about the truck brakes, and involved the forty-second retelling of the same damn story, in which he got his way even though it was not his truck, his money or his concern. Somehow it turned into a diatribe about how I put off things, and something and Ned and the First Reader, and I do not even know who in the hell Ned is.

Good times. Why he gets to me so much, I will never know. I love him, but he wears me out.

So we get back to town, and I went to the farm to feed. I had asked Madison to bring Nita in, because she has lost so much weight since it got hot. She did so well over winter, staying in a pasture that was grained every day, even though the hay this year was not great. She did pretty well when I moved her to the hay field, and continued to grain her. Then, all of a sudden, it started dropping off. Now she looks like the walking dead. The only thing I can figure is the heat combined with being in the pasture with the mamas and babies is kicking her ass. I put her with them because there is such great grass there. Since Madison is feeding, I cannot be sure that she is ensuring that Nita is getting her share. Probably she is, but for whatever reason, Nita has lost a couple hundred pounds. NO exaggeration. She really probably should just be put down. She is 28 years old, what am I asking her for? But she is happy.

I told Barry I would have it done this week, and he suggested I move pastures and put her with a smaller group that would be more willing to let her eat. Then monitor it more closely, and see if we can get her to put the weight back on. I agreed but I have to admit that seeing her in the stall tonight made me wonder if it is fair to her.

I wonder though if I do this--deal with one decision I do not want to make, like Tequila--and then immediately go looking for something else to fret about? Not that Nita is not clearly in need of something-- a blind man could see that--but she pulled this last summer as well, and then beefed right back up again when she moved pastures. So am I looking for drama? It would hardly be the first time that I did that--that very thing has also been the subject of many of my dad's diatribes. Which does not mean it is wrong, just cuz he says it--just harder for me to admit it.
Other thing on my mind-are Simba's potty meds working? I do not really know. Isn't she pretty? She is the best cuddler

In good news--another of Barry's reimbursement checks showed up. Hot damn, we are on a roll. And two days from finding out if I am getting paid or not. All of this worrying about money and who to pay and who can hold in the event I do not get paid makes me wonder again about my need for drama--what am I going to worry about next, once this is dealt with?

He also moved into his apartment--or at least a temporary unit until his furniture gets in on Wednesday. It better be a damn nice apartment for $1800 a month, that is what it better be.

I sense I am getting wound up and I totally do not have the time for that tonight. My plan to get on the program today fell all to hell, so tomorrow again, I start over. I swear to all that is holy I am going to the morning spinning class, then I am seeing the Beast over lunch. I have to get it together, because I feel like hell.

This is going to be a good week I hope--several social occasions in it, the first day for the new wife and Barry is coming home this weekend. Now if I can just live through it