Let's try again

I am feeling better. I think. At least we had a good time at the beach for my birthday. It was the first time that we left the cats alone overnight, but they were fine. I am trying to decide just how long I would be willing to leave without a pet sitter. 2 nights maximum maybe? I don't know. 3 nights may be pushing it, if not for the food (I can leave plenty of dry food down and they really don't eat any more than usual just because its there), but the litter box may not be able to go more than a couple of days without attention. I scoop twice a day when we are here, and I really don't want to test out just how long is too long. I don't want to ruin our perfect track record of never having an accident to clean up. I did buy this really neat little gadget for litter though. Its called a litter locker, and its basically a diaper genie for cat litter. You scoop the used litter into the gadget and turn a handle and it gets locked away in a microban plastic bag with no mess or odor. I bought one, used it for a week and have ordered a second one because we have litter boxes in 2 locations now with our pride of kitties. This thing is really helpful. I can't say enough good things about it.

Bruce got up Friday with this red spotty rash all over his torso. It doesn't itch, and we went ahead on to Atlantic beach. But it was worse this morning. He decided to go to the doc. The only med center open on Sunday here is Med Direct which is an extention of our ER. He was there forever. It was so busy that they sent him over to the ER just because they were so far behind. I almost had a heart attack when he called to say he was on his way to the ER though. He sat in the ER for another eternity. He did see an intern, who said it looked like a viral thing. He didn't think it was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (our biggest fear) because that generally presents with a sudden high fever and flu-like symptoms. Bruce feels fine, other than the rash. They wanted him to wait for the resident Doc to take a look, but after waiting another hour or more for that to happen, Bruce got completely fed up and walked out. Just like that. I can't say that I blame him. It's ridiculous how long they keep people waiting for treatment sometimes. If I didn't feel pretty certain that I was about to die, I would walk out too. So, we will see. If it keeps hanging around maybe he will go see our regular doctor this week. The one thing we did determine is that I changed soaps this past week, so I guess it could be an allergic reaction. I went out and picked up some of our regular kind just to be safe.

Our washer died tragically today. We heard a loud squealing sound and I walked in to water leaking out on the floor. We are going to have to shop and buy one quickly, because I head up to visit Stephen and Hannia this weekend (I am so excited. I can't wait to see their new home and town!!!) and I really would like clean clothes to take on my trip.