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You know, I never honestly thought about memory loss, until my dad had his stroke. His stroke knocked out all of his memories in a heartbeat. Even then, it wasn’t something I thought about in particular. I mean, it was a sudden loss of memory. Not at all like my Aunt Erma. My Aunt Erma’s memory loss was a slow, excruciating process for herself and her family. Aunt Erma had Alzheimer’s. Her life ended in a nursing home where she didn’t know her sister (my mom), her husband, her children, or her grandchildren. My greatest comfort is that now that she’s gone, she’s with those she loved and that she knows them all again and is happy and whole. But it has made me very much aware that we really need to get more research done and keep advancing on the treatments for Alzheimer’s. That’s just one reason that I support the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk.

If I could, I’d captain a team myself, but there never seems to be a walk in a city close enough to me. So I have to content myself with making sure that everyone knows about the walk and encouraging people to participate. I’m hoping this year to be able to at least donate money to the cause. Alzheimer’s affects so many lives and it does not discriminate. They may be finding “genetic markers” for it, but I know several families who only have one Alzheimer’s patient in the bunch. I encourage you, if you can, to join with the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk. Help make a difference. Captain a team if you can. If not, just walk. If you can’t do that, donate. If nothing else, spread the word. Together, we can make a difference.

Now I’m all for spaying and neutering your pets. It goes without saying that the shelters are too full. However, I draw a BIG line at people complaining that feeding stray cats is causing problems with the population. Stray cats will get food wherever they can. I have tons of strays in my neighborhood. Guess what? I also don’t have any MICE in my neighborhood. My neighbors “feed” the strays, usually but tossing out their leftover human food. But you know what? There are only maybe 3 strays that I see regularly. The rest come and go. There’s actually a Siamese stray - gorgeous chocolate point no less - that I’d love to catch and keep, but has obviously never been a house cat because it shies away from people.

Where I live, strays cannot be taken to the local animal shelter and animal control will not deal with stray cats, only stray dogs. They do not catch cats at all. If you happen to catch one and take it to animal control, they’ll take it, but if it doesn’t have a collar on it, they’ll euthanize it straight away. Most people don’t even bother to catch the strays, they just feed them. I only feed them if I have cat food that my cat won’t/can’t eat and that my best friend’s cat won’t/can’t eat. When it’s gone, I don’t feed the strays anymore. Then again, I’ve only seen ONE litter of kittens around my apartment in the 2 years I’ve lived there and there’s ALWAYS been a ton a strays there.

Just a note - I HATE working 10 hours a day. It sucks. I’m ready to drop by the time I’m off work, and truly, I don’t do a whole hell of a lot. All I do is activate radios and listen to people bitch because they can’t remember to call in and update their credit card info when they get a new card and they get shut off because we couldn’t bill them. *rolls eyes*

Add to that being bored stiff due to having anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes between calls and yeah…. pain in the ass. Bleh.

Due to people who can’t keep their mouths shut about things that they really shouldn’t be commenting on, all comments on this blog are deleted and comments are closed on all posts and pages until further notice.

I have a few decisions I am going to have to make in the next week or so, depending on what my paychecks look like over the course of the next month. After finding out that they’re garnishing me for over $1000, and that it looks like the judge is not going to grant me the hearing the paperwork stated I was entitled to, I may be forced to give up both my tables and my laptop. I’m hoping not, since the laptop is my only means of getting on the internet at this point, but if it is, so be it.

The worst of it is, I TRIED to work something out with the company. However, they’re not willing to work with me on a solution. I offered $100 a month, they said only in posted dated checks, all of which would be in their possession. Great, except I don’t have a checking account anymore. I closed it a few months ago. Aside the fact that hello, I don’t have to deposit the check into the account, so what makes them think that would be a solution anyways?

So they said to do a wage assignment through my job, but my employer will not do those. Then they said they’d settle for like $850 cash, lump sum. Sure, and I have that just hanging around. No problem.

I tried again for the $100 a month, reminding them that they can still just start the garnishment if I’m not paying. Again, post dated checks are the only way they’ll let me make those payments. So they aren’t willing to make any sort of attempt to work with me, they’ll only give me options they know will not work for me. They don’t want me to pay them because I’m trying to make good on a debt that I didn’t even know still existed, they want to take the money from me by force. And our lovely legal system is going to let them do it. Go figure. I try to do the right thing, and I am the one who gets punished.

Isn’t that just typical of the American system? I remember being in history class and it being said that one of the reasons that the pilgrims came here was to escape being hounded for and sent to prison over DEBTS. So here we are, 400 years later, using the legal system to hound people and in some cases, send them to prison, over DEBTS.

I did find one point interesting though - the lawyer’s office sent the garnishment paperwork over to my employer but yet doesn’t know who I work for. FIVE people in that office that I have spoken to have all asked me where I work. You sent the paperwork to my employer and don’t know where I work? WTF? How is that possible? Honestly.