Because it must be said every year:

Screw you, Super Bowl. Puppy Bowl ftw! I mean, I’m not a fan of our Four… or rather, Five Pups of the Apocalypse (we’ve taken in Evil Stepfather’s mother’s chihuahua because she’s in the hospital, most likely on the long-term), but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy two hours of cute puppies playing in a football stadium-styled enclosure.

Of course, my favorite part’s the Kitty Half-Time Show >_>;

—–

Mother and Evil Stepfather have run off again without telling me where they’re going. Especially odd considering the ogre has a bunch of munchies on standby for Super Bowl.

A bit frustrating… I don’t exactly need permission to go to House Cantlay (but avoiding questions is another matter altogether, since mother doesn’t quite get that Bren need not be there in order for me to go over), but I at least let her know when I’m leaving and keep my phone on while I’m out. Sheesh. -.-;

Also it looks like Mr. Cantlay (I’m sorry, I just can’t bring myself to address him or his wife by name… putting aside the double-entendre for Mr. Cantlay… well, I wasn’t exactly RAISED to be polite to “neutral yet socially-superior” adults, it was just something I picked up along the way I suppose) confirmed the “bad case wiring” theory about Synergy– one of the power wires had snapped off so he soldered it back on. Now, we won’t know if that actually fixes the booting issue until I can get over there, and all morning I was all “FFFFFF MUST COME UP WITH AN EXCUSE TO GO OVER THERE” until I realized that mother and Evil Stepfather ran off somewhere. Too late to contact House Cantlay to rescind the “delay until Monday” order, too.

Yar.
Puppy Bowl!

You know… I’m not a fan of the Four Pups of the Apocalypse. But I’m having one of those “be careful what you wish for” moments…

…one of them has pneumonia. 50% survival rate. Since this is the favorite of the four (Snowflake, the Puppy Rider of… Death, ironically), mother is especially going to pull out all the stops to save her.

Um, yeah. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I thought of downsizing. Oof.

On a more selfish level… I don’t enjoy looking forward to the RAGING DRAMA QUEEN and thus being on the receiving end of puppy-kicking, regardless of what happens, because surely mother is going to find some way to take it out on me. Mew…

It’s getting rebooted on the 8th. I get to play at Rancho DMV again… and while their parking lot is made of stupid, it’s better than the alternative: Fontana DMV, which is clogged until the 29th.

….the 29th.

If Fontana were the ONLY local office, that would get a HELL NO and a massive tirade on how disgustingly inefficient the appointment server is, and how I’d rather just chance having to sit in the DMV all day to get it sooner. But, the 8th is a little more tolerable.

Seeing as how my brain has taken to likening this backwards process of getting my Yoshi Car to Mario terminology… I feel like I’m having to walk into Bowser’s Castle to buy a continue, with the risk that I’ll walk out and realize I just bought three Poison Mushrooms instead.

—

In other news, I am a bonehead for ever offering to eat all the veterinary expenses. Even WITH pet insurance. I stepped up since I thought doing that was, you know, the “good, responsible daughter” thing to do, since Evil Stepfather makes it otherwise far too harrowing than it would be worth to otherwise contribute to the household.
But if I’d known that this enabled mother to go nuts in her puppy lust, I would have said “NO I AM ONLY COVERING CATS.” (or more selfishly, only cover Kestine… aw, who am I kidding, Daisy is too cute to leave hanging in the wind)
But… would that have worked, or would it have just pushed mother into Raging Drama Queen mode and caused her to whine and cry about not being able to afford vet bills and such and have her guilt-trip and shred me even more than she already does?

Now two of the Four Pups of the Apocalypse have cherry eye (a Bulldog-specific ailment). And mother keeps going on about “oh, why bother filing insurance claims? They probably won’t cover it.” FFS, let me file the papers, if there is any chance I can get a penny back for everything I spend fixing your ailment-prone wiggly puppies, I’m going to damn well pursue it. >_>;

On top of this potentially hampering my Christmas plotting (I WILL pull off at least OMFGBOX, though)… I wanted to avoid having to lop off a bit of my Wells Fargo CD in January if I could help it. But complications with getting my license, any kind of non-retail employment, and now mother running up vet bills like it’s a shopping spree… yeah, I’ll have to nibble a bit of my CD so I have enough to cover the next car insurance payment and such. -_-

Ya, there’s that secondary payout that Robert mentioned, but I don’t expect that to get here before January.

Mother is, thus, banned from accusing me of spending too much on myself. Looking over my ledger, over half my money went to either Rancho Regional or other stuff related to the Four Pups of the Apocalypse. And then there’s my own medical expenses, car insurance…. yeah. Don’t take this as me complaining about expenses of life, I know that comes with the territory. My beef is with mother acting like I’m still ignorant about it on the basis that I choose not to make a giant fuss about every little thing. :P

and ohgod I need food. @_@

16/15 allowed minor errors. YOU LOSE THANK YOU COME AGAIN

Bonus prize: Voided Permit

….

Um, yeah. There goes any hope of being able to drive by the end of the year.
I don’t have to drop volunteer service, but… well, I won’t be able to do any Christmas shopping or any such stuff.

I want a power that will just… make Evil Stepfather and the Four Puppies of the Apocalypse just GO AWAY, I seriously can’t deal with this “you are lower than puppies” sentiment that’s going on here (mother’s promises to train me more are a crock, she is so wrapped up with puppy obsession that she was only able to train me once since the last attempt, and neither of my siblings want to come get me lest they trigger her Raging Drama Queen mode).

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

O hi, Christmas commercials already? Well, I’m not complaining. :P
Speaking of which, I should probably pick a Snowscheme… I’m leaning towards “Numair’s Cookie House” since while I was sorting books, there were a couple about Christmas decorations and… Christmas baking. >_> And here I thought it was dangerous for me to sort Children’s because I would get distracted by old stuff I read as a kid.

Also… little Snowflake (puppy #4 for those who are keeping track) had surgery today to correct Cherry Eye and also to get spayed. Except for some reason the office decided to close an hour earlier than they’re supposed to. Helloooooooo Raging Drama Queen mode. -.- I don’t get why I’m being yelled at because the vet office staff decided to shove off earlier (and they called me, like, 10 minutes before I got off volunteer service). But I was able to defuse most of it by buying dinner. >_>;;;
Need to pick up the puppy tomorrow morning…

…tomorrow…

…oh, right, Fontana DMV tomorrow. If either I screw up, or I get slapped by a technicality… I’m pretty much screwed until January, due to how much the appontment server is made of FAIL and gets clogged all too easily. And I’ll most likely have to drop volunteer service, since I’m what’s keeping mother from finding work, it seems…
No pressure, right? >_>;

I just kinda feel… I dunno, a bit of resignation, that despite best efforts something can and WILL go wrong tomorrow. This whole process has been debilitating on my self-confidence as a whole (moreso from being slapped with technicalities as opposed to screw-ups on my part). It’s not that I don’t want to get my license– seriously, I really need this because with Bren gone until, what, June and my mother being a Raging Drama Queen about anything relating to siblings and having practically no RL friends that I could reliably poke, it’d be a drastic understatement to say that any prospects of doing anything even remotely fun is NIL. And being stuck here with Evil Stepfather and the Four Wiggly Puppies of the Apocalypse will nuke ANYONE’s sanity. No. DO NOT WANT. Must get out, even if it’s just during the day. ARGH.

I still need to take my laptop in to have her monitor lid checked out… red snow and distorted colors at most angles is creepy. If this is indeed the strike 3 that triggers an exchange under the service plan, that effectively translates to a free upgrade… but if not, well, I’ll just use the opportunity to trade in for Dinah 2.0* and request as much reimbursement as I can get as my Christmas loot.