The Boy Shadows

 The vast majority of the snow has all melted now, as temperatures have been up in the 40s and 50s (and brushing with 60) this week. There's not a lot that was really heavily affected by the snowstorm for more than a day or two at most, and thankfully those were end-of-week days. 

I have an eye appointment at the end of March to get my prescription checked and updated. I'll likely get new lenses put in at least two pairs of my older, more premium frames, and then get another swath of new glasses from my normal glasses website a few days/weeks later. Having a FSA card is a wonderful thing. 

Daisy and I both have doctor's appointments a week or so before we leave for NC, with a new doctor in a new network (unfortunately), to have physicals and to get prescription renewals set up. I'm also going to ask for a prescription to Chantix (or whatever the generic equivalent is now, I guess) so that I can possibly, finally, get off the nicotine and quit vaping. 

Tomorrow afternoon we have our furnace inspection done by the utility board folks. I will need to be awake earlier than usual for it, though this generally isn't a problem. I doubt it will take longer than a few minutes, but it is what it is.

Friday, I get paid.

Saturday morning we take Dolly in for her final shots and final checkup before she's done for the next year. At that time we'll likely have to set up appointments for at least one or two of the other cats for their next round of yearly checkups and vaccines, as the Double Trouble Boys™ will be due in soon. 

Hank's eye is, regrettably, looking pretty rough. There's a large cloudy patch covering most of it at this point; it's not a bunch of little spots there anymore but one big, white, cataract-on-the-outside blob. We have temporarily discontinued the steroid (which is, primarily, to clear it up and keep it clear after it's already healed) and have switched back over to the saline and antibiotics for the time being to see if we can stop this in its tracks and get it to clear up. Apparently, even on steroids, flare-ups like this can happen and are considered fairly commonplace. It's just frustrating though, that after fighting this off for nearly a year and finally getting it to completely clear up to where we could say he was at about 95% normal and recovered, to now have a big setback in it with a new flare up. 

We also don't know at what point, if it doesn't get better, we should try to get him back to the eye doctor. He has an appointment already set for end of April, but we may have to bump that up if he doesn't improve -- adding to an already busy March where, in the middle of that, we'll have a trip out of state for a week. 

Adding to this, this time around it seems like Hank's eye is actually bothering him, where before it seemed like he was just normal Hank with a clouded eye. This time it seems more sensitive and he has been clinging to us for love and support. This is very sweet, of course, but it makes me sad. There's not really anything we can do for pain if his eye actually hurts. The flare-up, by all literature we've read on it, just has to basically run its course and then we treat it with steroids again. We do want to get him in though if it seems like it's not getting better, because maybe there is an alternate treatment or an alternate steroid they could put him on for it. It just takes time, however.

I'm not going to complain about the extra love, though. Hank spent the entire night upstairs with Daisy a few nights ago, kneading on her and kissing her and wanting to be held, completely interrupting her sleep for the night. He's been sleeping with me every day in bed too, usually right next to me in Daisy's normal spot but also sometimes a little closer, or at my feet, and he has really enjoyed what I call "quiet Dad time" in my office with me when none of the other cats are around much more as of late -- this is time where he can be the center of attention and get all the love and rubs, eat as much food as he wants from the bowl on my ottoman, and then pass out and rest peacefully without anyone else around him. I can tell he's not liking the eye thing, and I'm sure he doesn't understand why it's happening. I feel so bad for the big orange man.

Gary has also been incredibly loving and close with me as of late -- he has essentially become my shadow. Now, it was never a secret that Gary was a Daddy's Boy™ -- he has been since we adopted him. While he really loves Daisy, it is quite clear that he is absolutely my son. Wherever I am, he's my shadow. If I'm working, he's in the room with me. If I'm in bed, he's either on me or on the cat tree where he can see me. If I'm in my office, he generally wants to be in here, and if he doesn't, he's in the hallway outside my room so he knows when I come and go. He is an incredibly sweet little man. 

He also really loves Dolly and wants to spend as much time with her as he can. He cuddles with her, he plays with her, he grooms her, and he frequently sleeps with her or next to her. As Dolly likes being the center of attention, this is great for her. It's a win-win. 

Dolly is very clearly a Mama's Girl™ though. She loves me a lot, but her love for Daisy is something else, something powerful that I've never seen in any other cat other than Pete when he was still with us. She is very strongly bonded with Daisy and it is approaching Pete levels of bonding. It's going to be devastating for her when we're gone for a week in North Carolina; I don't know what Dolly will do with herself during that time. Likely she'll just bond closer with Gary and Charlie, but still.

Anyway.

Our taxes are done and have been done; we have already received the state refund and are expecting the federal refund over the next few days. This is the first year in a few years that we haven't had to owe and are actually getting a substantial refund. It's not a lot -- it's not life-changing money or anything, but it's nice. We've been struggling a little here and there when it comes to bills and groceries -- not horribly or anything, we're not at "either we can eat or pay the electric bill" levels, of course, but we've been tightening the belt line a lot and have been living far more paycheck-to-paycheck than usual. The tax refunds will help with that, and so will the fact that Daisy has two big bonuses coming in -- and got a raise that kicks in at the beginning of March. 

I looked into when I am eligible for a merit-based (read: longevity-based/cost-of-living-increase) raise, and because I started when I did, I've got another full year to go before I qualify. Anyone hired during or after March 2025 is not eligible for this go-around. Well, I don't think my first day at this new company -- even though I'm doing the exact same job I've been doing since 2014 -- was until mid-March, so I don't qualify yet. However, I should be getting my chunk of my quarterly bonus on this coming check or on my next one. That's usually a few extra hundred dollars or so. It's supposed to even out to $2500ish a year for bonuses (pre-tax) based on my contract. So, when it hits, even after taxes, it's nice. 

Life otherwise is mostly status quo. I just want to survive the week to get a little downtime. I so desperately crave the weekends for some peace and privacy these days, more than ever before. I am getting seriously burned out at work, to the point where I just don't care anymore, I can't care, about these people or their problems or their crises -- or office politics or following process or even answering my phone. I'll sit there and stare at my phone and watch it ring -- if it's important, they'll leave a voicemail...or, like they should have done in the first place, they'll send in an email. None of it matters. 

I had a phone conversation over the weekend with my big boss, my executive director, where I essentially asked him "you're reaching retirement age, why do you keep doing this to yourself?" in a more indirect way. He responded that his position pays him enough to where he can go buy stacks of laptops and tablets from pawn shops and thrift stores and donate them to kids in foster care or otherwise wards of the state in, I guess, orphanages and the like, so that they have computers and can better function in normal society. If I didn't know this man as well as I do, I'd think that he was making it up, that it was complete bullshit -- but I know he's telling the truth. Many people have tried to villainize my executive director over the years, for one reason or another, and usually for reasons outside of his control. After all, we are always going to be the villain in someone's story, and I am not immune to that either -- I know several people offhand who would call me the villain in theirs. But, in reality, this man is not a villain, but one of the most upstanding individuals I've ever met. I am proud to work for him and with him; he has saved my job on numerous occasions, and I wouldn't be where I am in my career today if it were not for him. Is he perfect? No. None of us are. But he tries. He tries really hard. 

That does not change the challenges of his job or of mine; I am still chronically understaffed and greatly overworked, doing the jobs of at least three -- if not more -- people every night I'm on shift. That's a systemic issue, it's a budgeting issue with our new company. While I like this new company more than the last, it's primarily because they pay more and are far less intrusive in our daily lives than the old one was. With that detachment, however, comes issues with staffing and resources. I'm sure the same can be said for any number of companies out there in similar fields. But I will say, it just wears me down after awhile. I was built for this shit a decade ago; I am not now. My boss -- who started a couple weeks after I did and we worked our way up through the ranks together -- has been a director since long before Covid happened, has been my boss for about 7-8 years at this juncture, and is just as fed up as I am, maybe more. He's looking for ways out, looking for ways to get certified in different fields so he can move up in the world. And I don't blame him -- he would excel in a technical job because while he is good at those things, he is admittedly a piss-poor manager of people. 

And I...just have no desire to move up in the world or learn new things, get new certifications, none of that -- I don't have the patience and mental capacity to do that anymore, and I certainly don't want to try to cram my head full of new knowledge that I just don't care about to try to get a "competitive edge" or some other happy horseshit like that. I am tired. I feel so much older than I thought I would at age 43. 

Omaha Snowpocalypse 2026, Part II

 So, we got nearly a foot of snow. I don't know exactly how much because of drifting. But it was a lot. 

I fell asleep in the mid-afternoon hours on Thursday; it was halfway planned and halfway not. My sleep schedule has been very weird, and it gets weirder when I have what I like to call "unplanned" time off. When my list of responsibilities thins out, my body's need for rest takes over. It was not snowing when I fell asleep.

By the time I woke up, a little more than two hours later, there was already probably two inches or so on the ground and structures. Daisy was just getting off work for the day and every time we looked out the window, the accumulation was worse -- and unrelenting. 

We had dinner, watched the new episode of Starfleet Academy, and looked out again. It wasn't stopping.

We finally went back to bed around 11 -- it was still coming down quite hard. Everything was covered. I could not tell where our yard and driveway ended and the street began. The main road (which we can see from our house) was also covered, and any traffic on it was slowed to a crawl. 

And then I went to sleep. 

When I awoke in the morning, it was bright and sunny -- not a cloud in the sky -- and there was nearly a foot of snow on the ground. On the roof of our back porch, which I can see clearly out my office window, the drifting made it hard to calculate exact amounts. There was about 5-6 inches at the edge of the roof, where the winds would hit it and make it drift the most, to nearly a foot where the roof meets the side of the house. In the driveway, it was about the same, with a lot higher totals closer to the house than to the road.

I wanted to get up and shovel it immediately -- I have far more energy when I first wake up than when I do in the mid-afternoon and evening hours, when I tend to crash out. Daisy is the opposite; she wants to wake up slowly and peacefully, get up, and get something to eat before she feels like a person again. On my days off, that is not me -- I'm the kind of guy who wants to roll out of bed, heavily caffeinate himself until fully awake and energetic, and then be go-go-go until the afternoon hours, when it's time to retreat back to my cave for hibernation. When we run errands on weekends, Daisy never wants to do it when I want to. I want to get out of the house at like 8am, do everything that needs to be done, and then be back home and done for the day by 1-2pm. Daisy would rather leave the house at 1-2pm. We're not the same at all in that regard. 

Someone once asked me if I'd benefit from a really early first-shift working schedule, like a 5am to 2pm or something like that, and I laughed and said absolutely not. I am naturally wired to be this way; if you were to put structure around it, it would become work and would become a prison, and I would hate it. 

It's things like this that make me wonder if I'd ever actually write professionally if I were suddenly able to do so, freed of all other responsibilities and jobs. I don't know what my answer is -- because when the hobby becomes a profession, it becomes work, and I am very opposed to work. 

We did, eventually, shovel the driveway. We were helped by the sun, which was warm enough (despite below-freezing temperatures) to melt off a good bit of the bottom half of the driveway and part of the sidewalk. It maybe took us an hour to fully shovel everything. The worst part was the stubborn accumulation and ice right up against the garage door, where the sun never hits. That was tough, and required liberal application of ice melt to get it to break up and burn away. 

The rest of the night was uneventful; we came inside and showered, then ate dinner, and I started getting really, really tired -- like the shoveling had sapped all my strength. I didn't and hadn't felt like that even before dinner, but I certainly felt like it afterward. I had to force myself to stay awake and pay attention to the last ten minutes of The Pitt, although even now I'm not sure I actually remember what happened. We finished it, I took my plates out to the kitchen, gave Daisy a kiss, and five minutes later I was in bed. 

This was 6pm-ish. The sun had barely set. I went dead to the world and was out, sleeping harder than I have slept in recent memory.

Understand, of course, that it is difficult for me to get really good, really deep sleep. I struggle with it on a daily basis. I have mentioned this here before in the past -- it is a rarity for me to get more than 3-4 hours of sleep at a time anymore, even when I'm completely physically and mentally exhausted. My body and circadian rhythms are used to shift work; they're used to sleeping a few hours where and when I can and then being back up and at it for the next long slog of whatever is ahead of me. The last time I slept for a very long stretch was last fall when I accidentally drank NyQuil instead of DayQuil, and it essentially put me into a coma for about 18 hours. 

I'm exaggerating a bit there, but it really was like eight hours of solid sleep, awake for an hour, another three hours of sleep, awake for an hour, repeat until it was all out of my system. It basically burned most of a weekend and made me a zombie for the time it didn't burn. 

This is partially why I avoid NyQuil unless absolutely necessary, but will drink DayQuil like water when I'm sick. There's too much daily bullshit I have to deal with to be able to sleep for long stretches of time like that.

Anyway.

The first time I awoke, it was very dark. Daisy was in bed next to me and she'd just turned on the night light (a small booklight we keep on the bedframe). Mable was curled up next to me at my hip. I started to reposition myself to get comfortable and Daisy made sure to tell me Mable was there so that I wouldn't disturb her or fling her off me like a slingshot when I rolled over. I only have a vague recollection of all of this, and passed back out. 

When I next awoke it was an hour or two later. Daisy was dead asleep next to me and no cats were to be found anywhere. I got up, finally, and tried hard to wake myself enough to function. I had laundry to do and some other light around-the-house duties to accomplish. It was around 1am.

By 3:30 or so, I texted Daisy to let her know I was going to lay back down for a bit to see if I could get some more rest -- and that if I wasn't awake by the time she got up to make sure she got me up. We had plans for Saturday that we didn't want to alter. I watched some Tiktok videos for a bit and then, when I felt myself dozing, turned it off and slipped into sleep in my chair.

What happened next was truly terrifying.

I dreamed that I was downstairs at my desk working, I had my music on, and it was any normal night. My phone lit up with a text message from my mother, saying that my dad didn't feel well. I acknowledged it mentally and made the mental note that once I was done with what I was working on, I'd pick up the phone and text her back. I had the phone next to me on my desk when I could hear my mother's voice calling my name through it, as if a call had connected without my knowledge. 

I picked up the phone and said "Mom? Mom?" trying to see if she could hear me. She could not. The phone seemed locked up, like I could not figure out how to get it working. I could hear a commotion and background noise on the call, yet the phone wouldn't let me access the call. I remember, in my dream, thinking that if I got up and went to the next room, maybe I could get a better signal or better light to look at the phone or something of that nature -- I can't recall now, of course. I walked into the kitchen and heard two loud bangs, as if someone were knocking or pounding on the door or walls in the living room. This was incredibly startling and -- in the dream -- I immediately filled with a sense of panic and dread. I walked back into the living room to see the French doors right next to my desk open by maybe six inches or so, and in the yard behind it what appeared to be a pair of leather working gloves and a set of tools that looked like bolt cutters laying in the grass.

It was at this point where my brain was like nope, you're waking the fuck up now and so I did, alone, in my chair in my darkened office, in peace and silence. According to the clock on the wall, I'd been asleep for less than forty minutes, and in that time I'd not only passed out hard but had slept hard enough to have a full fledged nightmare from which my brain had forced me back awake. I was groggy, I didn't know what was real and what was dream at the time. I immediately picked up my phone to check the cameras outside, wondering if the pounding or banging was real and I'd heard it through my dream, and to check for text messages from my mother. Of course, there was nothing, and the cameras outside showed our street and porch at night, peaceful and serene -- with a perfectly shoveled driveway and sidewalk. It took me a few minutes of panic, in real life, to realize that yes, everything had been a dream.

I tried to go back to sleep again after that, but adrenaline was coursing through my body and that wasn't really happening.

I don't know, for the record, what that dream means. I stopped trying to interpret my dreams a long time ago. I'm sure I could look it up and there would be any number of cryptic messages I could glean from a dream like that -- but, to me, it is but one of a string of nightmares I've been having recently.

I normally only have nightmares about once or twice a year. Sometimes I remember them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'll remember them for a few minutes after I awaken and they will fade away to the ether after that, sometimes I will remember them for years, and sometimes I will only know I had them but would not be able to provide any details or context once awake. 

Well, as of the past couple of months -- since Christmas roughly, give or take a few weeks -- I have been having 1-2 nightmares per week, instead of per year. Nothing has significantly changed in my diet, my meds are exactly the same as they've always been (and none of them are brain meds anyway), my caffeine intake hasn't really fluctuated a lot, and my stress levels are about the same as they always are. So, honestly, I don't know the cause. I don't go to sleep thinking I'm going to have a nightmare or worrying that I might -- they're just dreams and they come and go randomly. Rarely, if ever, have they ever been a concern for me. The only time I can remember having consistent nightmares was about fifteen years ago when I was trying to quit smoking, and was using the nicotine patch. I had consistent nightmares when on the patch, and apparently that's a known side effect. 

It is what it is, I suppose; I can't really do anything to control it.

Anyway.

So as the day went on, more of the snow melted and cleared, little by little. Most streets -- including ours -- are dry and completely clear. Neighborhoods and side streets are still a little iffy and have varied between some slush and sheets of solid, packed ice. How do I know this? Because I left the house today for the first time in a while. We went to see Daisy's parents for an hour or two and then made a very quick Costco run to pick up a few essentials. 

In the winter, I don't leave the house. I do not like going out in the cold and snow and ice. When it's in the 70s in winter, as it was for a few days last week, that's different. When it's not, that is a different story. Today it was in the teens, which is weather I don't like to venture out in, but I will if we have to. 

Note: the original plan for the day was for us to get up early and clean out Daisy's closet, spending the day fully reorganizing everything and making it more accessible. It's something we've wanted to do for years and has such become more of an overwhelming task with each passing month. This weekend we had nothing on the docket whatsoever and the cold and snow was keeping us indoors anyway, so on Friday we made the plan to finally tackle the closet together -- take the full day, completely disassemble it and reassemble is, sort through stuff for giveaways and to just be able to say we did it. 

However, I had to do a Walmart delivery order for this morning for bread and some other vital essentials that really couldn't wait, and the Catsitter had gotten back to us and wanted to come over sometime in the afternoon to discuss changes and timeframes for trip to NC -- as well as to meet and interact with Dolly for the first time. She had never met Dolly; she last watched our cats in October, and at that point Pete was still with us. She really liked old man Pete, and he really liked her. All of our cats really like the Catsitter. She is sweet, kind, and patient with them and they are very receptive to that -- she puts them all immediately at ease when she's there. 

So, anything we did for the day would need to be scheduled around those things. In addition to this, Daisy got up and had almost zero energy after the shoveling of the driveway, and she didn't know if she could devote herself to cleaning the closet for the full day. She also wanted to see the parents and was concerned about them as she could not reach either of them via phone. 

"If you don't want to do it today," I said, "we don't have to. It's okay. It's not going anywhere."

I am very patient with Daisy on tasks like this because I love her and because I need to be supportive. I understand how difficult it is for her and how time-consuming and stressful it is and can be for her. I have mental and physical hurdles like that too, and it can be really rough. So, if she tells me she doesn't have the capacity to deal with it at a certain time, even if we've planned to and set aside time for it, I don't push her on it -- I just shift gears and assist where I can. 

The visit with the Catsitter was fine; she got to meet Dolly and we gave her the rundown on all of the med changes and routine changes for foods and the like. We also had to inform her, sadly, that Hank's bad eye has clouded over again -- over the course of about 24-48 hours -- and he's back on the antibiotic drops and saline for the foreseeable future. 

So, there's that. That was the story of the Omaha Snowpocalypse 2026. I doubt we're done with snow; there's already some rumblings about snow/rain/ice later in the week making an appearance again, but, we shall see.

Onward.

Omaha Snowpocalypse 2026, Part I

 Well, here we are.

Today is February 19. After a week of temperatures in the 60s and 70s, even flirting with 80 one day, out of relative nowhere we are scheduled to get a snowstorm tonight and tomorrow that will dump an up-to-now unseen amount of snow on us for the season.

This is new. This was not a thing a few days ago. Three days ago it was almost eighty degrees here in Omaha. Today? Snow is coming, m'lord.

I'm not sure how much I believe it, honestly. We've been lucky so far this winter in that most snow has been light and fluffy and very, very infrequent. We have had to shovel the driveway only once, for one other storm in December or early January (honestly, I can't remember when, that's how long ago it was since we had any actual meteorogically-significant snow). 

It comes during a very weird time for us personally-speaking. Yes, we normally get a decent snowstorm sometime in February, so it tracks weather-wise, but it's odd for us personally. This time last year, Daisy was just getting ready to start her new job and I was about to start my leave between jobs for two weeks (something I did on purpose to get some downtime). This year, at my new job, Presidents' Day on Monday was a holiday, and I worked it normally -- which means I got yesterday off as my "comp day" for it. Today is a day to "get shit done" around the house, so to speak, for me. Tomorrow will be too, since it's now apparent we'll be snowed in, so...I feel sort of like I'm in a bit of limbo downtime, unscheduled and unexpected. 

I was supposed to have a follow-up dental appointment tomorrow afternoon, something we'd scheduled at the beginning of the month. That has now been canceled and we have not yet been able to reschedule it -- they'll need to call me. Apparently, and as expected, a buttload of people have called to cancel their appointments for tomorrow, making a logistical nightmare for the dental office ladies to try to reschedule things for everyone. I told Daisy that I wanted to call it early, even before the snow started, because I knew this would be a thing, and it would be difficult to get it rescheduled because of that. 

Please note: if it doesn't get rescheduled immediately, it's not a huge issue -- I have two more appointments already on the calendar for said dentist over the course of the next year. I'll be fine. 

For Daisy, this storm also comes at a strange time as she and I now have our weekend days off together for the first time in a very long time, due to a recent schedule change on her part. Fridays is now when we take care of our errands, doctor's appointments, do our shopping, visit the parents, etc. This storm coming tonight is going to throw a wrench into any plans we had for that this weekend. Luckily, we do have a new episode of The Pitt and a new episode of Starfleet Academy both dropping today, so as long as the power doesn't go out, we should be able to have a pleasant evening and day off together tomorrow.

And then we'll have to shovel ourselves out.

The last big, significant snowstorm we had was about a week or two into our new jobs last year -- we got a snowstorm in early March that started out as rain, then quickly turned to ice and blizzard conditions with snow and high winds. It knocked out our power for hours in the middle of the workday, and because at the time I was on days at the new job and was still getting accesses to things and working through trainings, I just came upstairs and took a nap with all of the cats -- who, because it was cold, decided to all come and lay with me:

That was back when Pete was still with us, when Mable didn't hate Emmy, and when Charlie was still a baby. This picture was taken when the power was still out, as evidenced by the fact that the clock on the far side of the room is still dark. It is dated March 19, so yes, it is still possible and sometimes even probable that Omaha gets snowstorms well into March. 

Today, eleven months later to the day, we may be put into the same situation.

Well, minus one cat and plus another, anyway.

I am not a fan of these "surprise" snowstorms that prove that weather can change in the midwest at the drop of a hat. A month from now we'll be readying for our trip to North Carolina, and something like this is the absolute last thing I want to happen before we leave or while we're gone.

 By daylight this morning, all of the schools around the area had already closed for the day because of the incoming storm -- hours upon hours before the first flakes would fall. It is now almost noon, we are now coming up on the start of the Winter Storm Warning, and it's 29 degrees and sunny outside. You'd never know there was a storm coming if you didn't check the weather forecasts. Normally I can smell it in the air, normally I get a bad nosebleed right before the storm hits (worst mutant power ever, by the way) and so far, nothing. 

Will we actually get the snow they're predicting? Who knows. We frequently get forecasts for snowstorms that turn out to be nothing, or a dusting. Then again, we've had forecasts where the weather people have been like "oh, it'll be 2-4 inches" and we get nine. With thunder and lightning. So, it's really a wait and see scenario, I think.

What else is coming up? Well...

We got a letter in the mail last week that since we had a new furnace installed, the utility board people need to come out and perform an inspection. I called and set that up, and it's set for a week from today (when hopefully there won't be another snowstorm happening). It'll be from 2-4pm, somewhere in that window, and I told Daisy I'll handle it so she doesn't have to worry about taking extra time off work or anything like that. There's almost no scenario where I wouldn't be awake by 2pm on one of my days off, so it's not a big deal. The inspection is "free" in that the cost of it was covered in the furnace installation costs, and as it's a brand new furnace I don't expect it to take longer than a few minutes. 

Two days later, on the last day of the month, Dolly goes in to get her last set of shots -- and then, unless something unforeseen happens, she is free and clear for the next year when it comes to vet visits. The little girl is growing like a weed and I fully expect her to have very high amounts of Maine Coon DNA in her once we get the test results back.

She and Gary are also in love. 

Gary adores the little girl and they cuddle frequently, usually after a long sparring play session. She in turn very clearly adores Gary as well. I call them The New Lovers because, obviously, Hank and Emmy are the older, much more established couple of the household.

To be fair, she does cuddle a lot with Charlie too, and plays hard with both of the boys -- but Gary has bonded strongly to this little rugrat and loves to be with her. He has little trilling cries he makes when he's trying to find her. It's adorable. Aside from us, nobody loves little Dolly more or spends more time with her than Gary. This is, honestly, what I expected from the beginning.

Anyway.

Last weekend, I dove into my, shall we say, professional writing and worked on a short story I've had rolling around in my head for years. It is not complete yet, but my goal is to try to get it complete this weekend. When it comes to my actual writing, I'll start with a premise I want to explore -- an idea that I've usually written down far in advance, and then I'll start from there. Sometimes the story goes where I expect it to as I'm writing, and other times it absolutely does not -- it'll veer off course into something completely different. For this one, the original premise I came up with years ago remains mostly the same, but the story itself has tightened and has gone off in a much more focused direction. I told Daisy -- after I had written fifteen pages of it in the span of about six hours -- that it had changed so much from what I originally had envisioned for it that at this juncture, I do not know where it is going to go next or where and how it's going to end. It is also going some very creepy places that I did not expect it to. When the muse strikes me and I just keep writing, I have to make sure that a) I'm not just writing trash, and b) I let it take me where it needs to go. When I'm writing my stories I am not so much a writer as I am the vessel for the story to unfold through onto the page.

I'd also like to say I'm not generally a genre writer, but this book I've been working on here and there for a few years now is very much a genre book of genre stories, generally horror-ish in nature. Well -- I'll rephrase that -- they're not horror stories per se, but a lot of them dip into that category, whether it's a toe or foot or a whole-body. I'll put it this way -- a lot of what I write would work really well as episodes of The Twilight Zone. TZ isn't really horror, though some episodes of it certainly could be classified as horror, but it has been a huge inspiration in my storytelling style over the years. My stories don't usually have a twist ending, but they do tend to gravitate towards a "zoom out so that the reader can see the whole picture" sort of ending vibe to a lot of them. It's complicated to explain.

At the same time I don't pretend I'm a better writer than I am. I've read stuff from my peers -- even stuff they'd written when we were all in grad school well over a decade ago -- that blew my own writing out of the water. I just want to be me; I am not trying to live anyone else's dream but my own. I don't compare myself to my peers in any meaningful sense because taste is subjective and a rising tide raises all ships in the water. I want my peers, my friends, to be successful and to follow their own writing dreams too, and many have -- I have, on my desk across the room, three different books by people I know and know well, one of whom was in my wedding. They are not the types of books I want to write but they are very good and their authors are successful in their endeavors, and I applaud them, laud them, for being able to accomplish their goals. It is hard to write a book, and even harder to find someone who wants to publish and print it, to take the gamble on spending that money for what will likely not be a huge return on investment in the 21st century. 

But, I do think I have talent, and I do think my writing would be well liked in a lot of circles. I'm sure many others would call it hacky and a waste of time, and that would also be valid. Not everyone has to love me or praise me. If people dislike my writing, or me, oh well. Let them. 

Daisy is currently reading a book called Let Them and has been telling me about parts of it, and it basically covers this concept and addresses people like me, who are control freaks about a great number of things. I don't agree with a lot of what the book says -- it perpetuates a lot of myths and logical fallacies that are easy for people of our intelligence to pick apart -- but as of late, I've been doing a lot better in learning how to just let shit go. Mind you, I've never been a "people pleaser" in the first place -- primarily because nothing I ever do seems to please anyone and long ago I stopped trying -- but I do like the concept of letting go and letting people drown in their own shit, so to speak.

Anyway. Onward. 

Love is in the Air

 Today is Valentine's Day 2026.

Thirteen years ago today, in the kitchen of my little rundown rented house in Newton, Kansas, I proposed to Daisy. We'd been together for about eight months and officially together (yeah, there's a difference) for about four. She accepted, of course, and let her close friends and family know that night. I did not tell my parents or close friends, personally, until the next day.

Thirteen years later, we've been married for almost twelve years, and live in our home in Omaha -- that we own -- with our six cats. Both of us have good, stable jobs, bills are paid, we are happy, and neither of us would say that we wish we were married to anyone else. In fact, I frequently say that marrying Daisy was the best decision of my life -- and it was, by a long shot. 

Because I proposed on Valentine's Day, it has always been special for us since we've been together. However, for many years it was a dark day for me. Whenever I was younger and far less mature, I used to call it "Black [insert day of the week here]" because, when I was single, the day felt like an attack. I could not be happy for other people or celebrate platonic love between friends or any of that. I was also surrounded by a lot of other immature people well into my 30s, people who would call it "Singles Awareness Day" or something along those lines. 

The irony and reflection here is staggering, as in my adult life -- meaning, since I turned 18 -- I have only been single a handful of times for short periods. I am 43 years old now, and since 18 I have really only been single for approximately seven years of that time, mostly from 18 to 23 or so. It's wild to think about how bitter I was back during my single years, and how I thought that having a partner would somehow complete me as a person or "fix" that bitterness. I was incorrect, and that was one of my major personality flaws when I was younger -- the thought that someone else could somehow fix me or save me. 

Yes, I used to have the "I can fix her" or "I can change her" flaw as well, not to leave that out. I was wrong there too, multiple times. With age comes wisdom.

Daisy didn't "fix" me. I matured, I evolved, I became a better and more stable person because I wanted to become that person for me and for us. 

Yesterday, to get out of the house and, per Daisy, "feel like a human again" we went hiking over in Iowa. I was very low-energy all day, but I pushed through that and ended up very much enjoying our hike and our day together. It was, essentially, our Valentine's Day present to each other -- getting out into nature and just being us, together. 

That is the majority of what our relationship is, even all these years later -- just us, together.

Daisy has told me many times that Valentine's Day is her favorite holiday. I don't necessarily understand why, and I have never really questioned it -- it was her favorite holiday long before I was in the picture, so her reasoning for it doesn't really matter to me. We always try to do something sweet for one another, but it's never really been a gift-giving holiday for us or anything like that. It's an anniversary of sorts, but neither of us really treat it that way. I don't expect any grand gestures from Daisy on Valentine's Day, nor does she from me -- anything that would "prove our love" for the other person. That's fluff, that's superficial. We prove our love for one another every day in all the little (and sometimes big) things we do.

I've always wanted to get her this bear, though:

Maybe next year. 

We have no real plans for the day other than to likely see the parents this morning and then have dinner together this evening. Daisy mentioned that she wanted to bake banana bread, but that's about it. This is, essentially, another Saturday for us. Daisy and I both return to work tomorrow, and I'm covering the Presidents' Day holiday weekend Sunday/Monday overnight shifts -- because, yes, my new company considers those paid holidays the teams get off. We're at normal staffing for them because none of our overnight folks care, and because they'd like to get the eight hours paid plus their normal wages -- when you work overnights you want all the extra money you can get. 

I don't get anything extra, of course; I am salaried. If I am lucky I will see if I can get Wednesday night off as my "comp day" for working the holiday, and thus can extend my weekend. This would be nice, as I have yet another dentist appointment on Friday that I am dreading. 

Anyway.

Dolly has fully settled into the house and has really bonded with the boys. She likes to cuddle and play with Charlie and Gary, and I'm pretty sure Gary is in love with the little girl. She is comfortable around everyone and while she'll still jump and hiss if one of the other cats spooks her, she is no longer frightened of any of them, nor are they of her. I've watched Hank and Emmy playing with her, even. She likes Mable and wants to spend time with Mable, but Mable won't cuddle her or mother her, really. Mable is patient with her but won't even really play with her -- Dolly is high-energy, and Mable is really, well, not. Not since her hip surgery, anyway. 

She plays hard with Charlie, but also loves him so much -- and the feeling is mutual:

Yes, she is getting giant very quickly. 

Dolly sleeps with us at night most of the time if we're in bed together; she did not last night, interestingly enough, but usually she sleeps between our pillows so she can be there and feel safe with both of us. Mable, who was always a mama's girl, has taken to spending a lot more time with me, and when I am in bed will find me and sleep on my legs most of the time. If I take a nap in my chair and she's in the room, she'll lay on the ottoman with me as my protector.

All of this, from both of them -- it is very Pete-like behavior. Also, the way that Charlie loves us and purrs really hard and wants to be held is very Maggie-like behavior. 

"Did you ever think," I asked Daisy, "that our new cats would end up being a girl Pete and a boy Maggie?"

"You have a Sadie too," Daisy said, referencing Empress -- who is, at times, very Sadie-like. Probably why the two of them got along so well when Sadie was still with us:

I'd also like to add here that Gary has become very loyal to me, to the point where Daisy has conceded that he is absolutely a daddy's boy. And he is; always has been, really. He loves Daisy a lot, but he always wants to be around me and wants to know where I am, keep me in his sights, etc. When I'm sitting on the couch or working at night, he's always there next to me. 

Anyway.

We still don't know what's in Dolly's DNA; the results are not back yet. They likely won't be back until after we're home from North Carolina. It takes them quite a while. As mentioned, I am expecting a very high percentage of Maine Coon, based on her looks, personality and talkativeness (Dolly is a talker, big time -- she is very vocal), as well as her rapidly-increasing size. However, any other breeds she may have in her bloodstream is at the moment a mystery to us.   

Preparations for the North Carolina trip continue, slowly. I'm basically fully-packed as is and could jump on the plane tomorrow. There's not a lot I need for such a trip, honestly. My concern, like most other trips, is using money that isn't put on our cards for most expenses. To those ends, I have pulled out cash after almost every grocery purchase and have a nice wad to use while there, and one of my cards was racking up rewards points I didn't know about -- enough to get us a $100 Walmart gift card for free. So, that arrives sometime next week.

As mentioned, I'm going to pre-ship some stuff down to NC from Amazon before we leave, to save the need of purchasing it there or lugging it up my parents' massive staircase once we are there. Part of it is that I also want to "bring" some stuff for the parents and the dogs and that's just the easiest way to do it. We're not there over their birthdays or the holidays, so doing something like this is special to me. 

So that's where things stand now. We'll see how everything slowly progresses. 

In Preparation, Part III

 The new suitcase is mostly packed. I'll add a few other small items to it between now and when we leave, but it's done. It's only half full. I don't expect much more to go into it between now and March.

My big canvas backpack has all of my pills, my phone/vape charger, and three extra vapes packed into it -- along with a spare pair of shorts and a shirt, travel tissues, nicotine gum, and a few other little odds and ends. I'm not nearly done there yet. I have to plan for almost all possibilities when I travel or my anxiety goes haywire, so it's quite possible the backpack will be mostly full before we leave.

The rental car is booked. I don't know what Daisy booked for us, but she usually gets a "full size car," which last time was a Volkswagen that we weren't huge fans of, but was very pretty. Whatever it is, it will be fine. 

Almost all of my cosmetics and toiletries are packed and ready to go. I plan for almost every situation and most of the time my toiletries bag is more like a first aid kit than it is a toiletries bag. It contains over the counter medications for almost all ailments, band aids, flossers, Q-tips, allergy meds, sinus meds, stop-pooping pills, ibuprofen, L-Lysine, deodorant, tattoo cream, Noxzema, spray cologne (if you must know, it's "Dirty" from Lush) and other little emergency items like a spare pair of earbuds and a spare wall plug charger. I don't like leaving things to chance.

When we have about 2-3 weeks left before the trip, I will be pre-ordering and shipping some supplies to the island -- energy drinks, snacks and goodies to share with the parents, etc -- so that we don't have to purchase those things while we're there and so they'll be there when we arrive. I should have thought of this on the previous three trips down there to visit, but I did not. 

At the same time, there is a great contrast happening -- my parents, on the beachfront island in North Carolina, are currently experiencing the strongest snowstorm the North Carolina coast has ever seen.  Maybe the entire state, I don't know. The live feed videos and live storm coverage are harrowing and remind me far more of midwest and West Virginia snowstorms than anything else I've seen in recent memory. It will likely take weeks to melt off and for power to be restored for a lot of areas after this passes. The south had a crippling snowstorm last week too, for those of you who weren't paying attention, and large chunks of Tennessee and Kentucky are still fucked by that. The continued ungodly cold temperatures down there aren't helping either.

My parents have told me that the island isn't built for extreme cold weather and snow; it's built to withstand the bulk of tropical hurricanes, not blizzards. Most people's pipes aren't really insulated and may actually be exposed in a lot of places under houses and decks and the like. The state of North Carolina shuts down when there's even a dusting of snow; this storm could drop 5-10 inches on the actual island, let alone the rest of the state. So, for them, this is a nightmare scenario. It is also a historic one; while they have had some snow there in the years they've lived in North Carolina, it has never been anything like this. Records are being broken all over the state for cold temperatures and snowfall, and I'm guessing there are a lot of power outages. My parents, thankfully, have underground power, so that is far less of a concern for them than it would be for, say, us here in Omaha were a storm like this to roll through (don't worry, it has before, and it will again). 

Still, what a fuckin' mess. I am guessing even when we're down there in March they'll still be feeling some of the effects of this. 

Also, welcome to February. January has, finally, ended. The next two weeks up here in Omaha are looking...somewhat pleasant, interestingly enough. Highs in the 40s and brushing with 50, lows in the 20s and maybe high teens. This is what winter should be. I am not a snow denier; I know, of course, that it'll be really cold and we'll likely get at least one more big snowstorm this winter, but I am certainly not going to complain about some mild and more seasonal weather here in Nebraska for a few weeks. 

The wife and I have some goals for the next few weeks -- we plan to begin our slow return to the gym, we plan to start systematically cleaning out her office little by little, followed by the closet (and once it gets warmer, the garage). I've begun slowly hoarding a little cash for the trip to NC to try to stifle what we spend on our cards, and I'd like to do another hard run-through of my closet for clothing donations. All of this takes a lot of work and time, and more than that it takes intention. We have to do these things with intention or they won't get done. It's hard to work up that motivation every weekend when we have a new season of The Pitt, a new season of Bridgerton, a new Star Trek series that's streaming, and a new Game of Thrones series that we haven't even started yet. I fully admit that I am a toad; in my downtime all I really want to do is eat, watch some television, and sleep. It's hard for me to break out of patterns like that when I'm low-energy in the winter. 

I do have some good news, though -- it seems we have finally mostly eradicated fleas from the house via our vacuuming and laundering of blankets and pet beds and combing the cats out. Daisy hasn't combed a flea off the cats in days, and we're staying completely up to date on all of their Frontline doses.

It also seems that Gary's intestinal troubles are finally becoming more regulated. We spoke to our vet about him when we were in last week to get the girls checked out, and he told us that -- essentially -- we're doing everything right (or at least trying our hardest to do so). He also told us that it won't hurt Gary to, essentially, be on the liquid medicine we have him on to help regulate his bowels indefinitely if it seems to be helping him (it is, a lot). We're still working to figure out his allergies, and they could very well be food-related or they could be environmental. We don't know. He seems to eat pretty well. We got a novel protein diet for him that we're going to mix into the food in the feeders -- it is made from black fly larvae. 

Yes, I'm serious. It's apparently a new thing, a new type of food -- new as in, it hasn't been tried before by pet food companies and our vet hadn't even heard of it, but was excited for us to try it with them and see how well it worked. 

Naturally, it's a Canadian company who makes it -- Canadians continually chasing actual innovation as always.

Anyway, Gary and Dolly seem to love it (I am mostly convinced that Dolly will eat damn near anything) but it'll be a slow process to kind of back off the chicken we've been giving all the cats and slowly transition over to the bugs. My hopes are that by the time we go on the trip to NC, he will mostly be eating bug food (as will the others) and it'll settle his stomach a bit more -- because, honestly, it's likely going to be hard for our Catsitter to squirt the medicine down his throat while we're gone.

Dolly's DNA test has been performed and is currently in the mail on the way to be processed. It can take up to two months, maybe more, for the results to be sent back to us. I am of the mindset that she's got a very high percentage of Maine Coon in her, with a possibly high percentage of Norwegian Forest Cat as well. She could also have a lot of Ragdoll in her because wow does that cat like to be held and loved. Aside from that, I have no idea. She's growing so quickly and some traits she had are sticking out more (mainly the Maine Coon traits) and others are starting to fade. It is very unlikely we'll know what she is before we leave for NC, but I'd love to be able to tell my parents all about it when we're down there.

Yesterday, Daisy finally found herself a suitcase. 

There was a lot of planning involved in this; she looked at different luggage on countless websites and retail stores online trying to find something that was either deeply on sale or spoke to her. By the time this weekend rolled around, we'd made plans to go out on Saturday and get a limited number of groceries (again, budgeting) but also to go to places like TJ Maxx and Kohls to look at suitcases physically in stores to see what was there. 

Again, I'm low-energy in the winter -- the thought of going to multiple different stores and walking around for hours when it's brutally cold and I'm super tired was not something I was a fan of. However, I wanted to be there for Daisy to support her, and if she needed me there for moral support and to stave off any decision paralysis, then I was going to show up and be there.

We went to TJ Maxx and within half an hour found a very nice teal soft-side Samsonite suitcase that she really liked, for $119, and purchased it. She was concerned that it was a lot smaller than the one she had that she was replacing, and I thought it was smaller too -- but it's put together and organized a lot better than her old one, in my opinion. 

Not to be outdone, we then went to Kohls and walked up and down the aisles of their luggage collection -- yes, after we'd already gotten a suitcase for her -- to see what they had. What they had was not on any sort of discount whatsoever and prices on anything above child-sized luggage started in the $300 range and only went up from there. We did, however, on the way out find a Columbia backpack cooler for $11. Eleven dollars. Similar ones on Columbia's website start around $60. So, we bought that, and returned home.

Comparing the new suitcase to her old one...we found that the new one is not smaller; it is, instead, much bigger. The new one is 29". The old one was 26". It towers over her old one (which to be fair, slumps over and has seen far better days at this point) and has better wheels and a taller handle. I think my new neon green suitcase is ever so slightly smaller than her new one. 

So, that's one of our biggest to-do-list items off the list -- we now each have new luggage. Daisy's old suitcase will be saved and used for storage, as a bag-of-holding for organizing items in the closet of the spare bedroom (read: Daisy's office). 

Valentine's Day is coming up -- now that it's February, after all. Valentine's Day holds special meaning for us, as in way back in 2013 that was the day I proposed to Daisy in the kitchen of that little rented house in Newton, Kansas. Thirteen years later, we will celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary this year. We don't really have any Valentine's plans, which is good because that weekend they're already starting to make some rumbles about that being the next possible giant winter storm for our area. February is a short month, and bills already sting a little harder in short months anyway. It's also a month that we have to get all of our proverbial shit together because right after it ends, we'll be diving right into "vacation mode" and will be heavily prepping for the trip to North Carolina.

Finally, tomorrow morning -- an hour after I get off work -- we will be driving across town in the cold to have our yearly dental appointments/teeth cleanings. Do I want to do this not only on Groundhog Day but before I can even sleep for the day after a full night of working? Absolutely not. Will I do it anyway? Yes, unfortunately. It takes a year to get rescheduled when you have to move or cancel an appointment with our dentist. My last one was in November 2024, and we couldn't do it for some reason, so they rescheduled me for more than a year out, and set it for February 2, 2026. 

Yeah, that's a thing. 

So tomorrow morning, we'll be doing that -- after a full night of work and no sleep for me until after I get home. I'm going to be frazzled and exhausted and I just have to prepare myself for that now.