work, damn work! and some good news too

So do I whine about work first or share the good bits.....hmmmm.

Good news I think: I had two calls today who between them have covered the remainder of Andy's vet bills. So now anything that comes from the chocolates is going to be used to buy food and dewormers, which Children of Fire boss will distribute in Slovo, as she says none of the recognised pet-helpers really do much in the camp. I'm hoping for close to another R1000-00, which will deworm and feed a couple hundred cats for a while. Yay. I am overwhelmed by the way this has just 'happened', all along. Andy showed up, I had to help, but I was really expecting that it would end up being just me and a big vet bill. To see the way that other people have willingly chipped in has been great.

Although it was not my intention originally, I think I might look at whether it would be possible to keep the Andy-fund running in some way. Especially if I can abuse Bronwen as a distribution service - she knows the whole structure of the camp, the people, the animals etc. It's more ambitious than I had thought of, but if I can get a couple of hundred rands worth of food and meds in every month.....WOW!

Work was good and bad. And long. I ended up spending 8 hours there, which is way longer than I am used to! And the Nardil postural hypotension bit has kicked in big time, so when I sit for a while and then try walk across the room, there is some serious disconnection between brain and body. The one time, I was trying to talk intelligently at the same time, and I was seriously wondering whether I was going to fall on my face before I reached something I could hold on to. Interesting, but not the most fun drug abuse I've ever had!

There might be more work that I will have to do. From everything I know about being a damn good DBA, the new site take-on is an important, deserving of care project. But it doesn't justify a full time on site person for two months (which the guy who wants the two month contract is telling them) and another application DBA person as well. It's about a half day position most of the year, with 3 months of an hour or two, and 3 months of full day. Not 2 or 3 people! It's the sort of site that I have run on my own most of my life, and to me, the big reason for outsourcing the DBA services is so that you never have to rely on only one person knowing the site, and so that when your prime DBA goes away, you have someone available for day to day stuff.

The good news is that they still want to keep me, the bad news is that they want to make it more formal, by making me go through a contract house. On the other hand, at least that should remind me to bill every month!!

So now, I need to check on baby Miky the mynah and his two pigeon friends, the snake, who I gave blupper to just now (what do you call it, when you only get fed once a week??), the ten little mice who don't know yet that they have just joined the food chain and are busy running around being so cute that I might just quietly release them instead, the sick pigeon, and the very sick owl who has bad trichomoniasis, which is what owls who eat pigeons that are carriers get, and which is why people say pigeons carry disease. He is really really sick - nose and throat full of maggot eggs, big plug of yuckky mucus wedged in throat (takes about 1 month to 6 weeks for mucusy hole to heal), so has been cleaned up, given two different antibiotics, traumeel, fluids only until he is stronger.....I have put him in the kitchen rather than the clinic because I don't want him infecting my healthy pigeons. Can't wait to use that line, as normally it's the other way round!

And apart from all that, I realised today that there is actually only one thing that I am staying alive for. Might sound dumb, but I figured today that there is one man who I would like to kiss - and apart from that I can't think of any good reason for staying alive. The rest of everything - work, family, animals, birds, day to day stuff is just that. Stuff. None of it justifies wasting this much oxygen, none of it justifies sticking around. Guess the saddest bit is the man concerned is not someone I would ever actually approach, it means either I drag on until I give up wishing for that, or I just die knowing that I'm doing it without achieving the sweetest thing out.

Or, in my dreams, the meds start working, and the psychotherapy makes me confident and happy and the pigs flying past the window all wave their fat little trotters as they pass...