Last night we got a call from Banfield pet hospital. I’d set an appointment a few days ago to take Cobb (Mr. Cobblepott, our yellow cat) in today for a checkup, and they told me to have him there between 7:00 and 9:00. They called yesterday evening and said they needed him there at 7:15, which sucked. Since Amanda had to do a bag run for work today anyway, she said she’d get up a little earlier and take Cobb with her. She was pretty frustrated by the effort because nobody was at the front door and she had to fill out a few sheets of paperwork. Banfields, you see, are in PetSmarts, and those don’t open until 9:00 or 10:00. We’d been unaware of the pet drop-off door.
Today was a pretty nice day of work. I was kept pretty busy but not at a stressful pace. I also got a job going that I’d been working on for about a month, so I was happy about that. Today was one of my didn’t-take-a-lunch days, but for some reason I wasn’t very hungry anyway.
Amanda was going to pick Cobb up from Banfield, but when I called to make sure he was ready to come home they said they’d just finished with him and he was just now waking up from his anesthesia. The pat care plan we have him on gets him all kids of extra diagnostics and treatments, some of which, apparently, they had to put him under for. Anyway, they said he’d be ready at 6:45, so I told Amanda to come on home and I would go get him later.
Once home, Amanda put some leftover Stouffer’s lasagna in the toaster oven for dinner. It took a while and I ended up leaving before it was ready. Once I got to Banfield I actually had to wait a while even though Cobb was ready to go. The doctor, who was very friendly, gives each patient’s owner a rundown on how their pet was doing. Cobb was doing fine.
So here are my feelings about Banfield Pet Hospital. The people are nice, and the doctors I’ve talked to, particularly the one from yesterday, really seem to care about the animals. The problem with them is that they take so long about everything and are pretty inconvenient about it. Why was it a must that we get Cobb there by 7:15 and then not have him ready for another eleven and a half hours? We were told he’d be ready at one time then we had to wait until nearly two hours later to get him. And then when I went to go get him it was probably another twenty minutes before I could actually take him. There have been times when I’ve dropped him off in the morning after making an appointment where I’ve had to wait forever before I could go.
Another plus though is the pet care package we’ve got. All the work that was done on Cobb yesterday totaled up to nearly $800. Now, I’m sure most of it is optional work and they padded the costs with as much as they could, but for that service I think we pay about $20 per month. Not a bad deal since we didn’t actually pay a cent yesterday. So you weigh those pros and cons. We get a little frustrated every time we take him in, but we do seem to be getting good care and value for our money. I think we’ll be keeping Bruce with Dineen for now though.
When I got home I ate my lasagna and some garlic bread that Amanda toasted. We caught up on some TV then watched How I Met Your Mother, which featured the marriage of Marshall and Lily. After that we watched last week’s Scrubs, which I think was better than the last few have been, then we watched Heroes. Heroes had a number of plot questions, which my friend Jason and I usually discuss at some point during the week, but it was a pretty good episode nonetheless. They’re building up to the big explosion that destroys a significant portion of New York City that has been talked about throughout the whole series so far. This episode was good in that it showed a much more human side to Sylar, the main villain, and explained some of his motivation.
Amanda went to bed after Heroes. I struggled to stay awake while catching up on a few of the shows that only I watch, but I was in and out of it for a bit before coming upstairs.
On the Michael job front, Michael decided a couple weeks ago to go with Starbucks which, for the insurance alone, I think was a good choice. He told us last week that he was meeting with a manager, who was going to take him to a few different Starbucks to find him the one to work at, or something of that nature. We all thought he was going to do that today, but he’d put it off, as he told Amanda, because it was cold outside. Well, that got Amanda pretty frustrated. See, the thing is he’s a little excited about working again just so he can make more money, but he’s not doing anything to show anybody that he wants to work. When he went in for his initial interview he was told to be there between 1:00 and 3:00 and he wasn’t even out of bed at 1:00- he went towards the later part of the time, but it’s not like he had anything better to do. Then he tells Amanda (and later his mom, who called to ask how it went) that he didn’t have to go in today, so he was going to do it tomorrow. He’s just not showing any gumption.
I had quite a bit of communication with family today. Andra Dotsey, the baby sister, called to see if I could whip up a logo for a business for a class she’s in. Later, my first sister, Erin Dotsey, called to see how things were going. (She’s dating a 36 year-old!) Then, when I was bringing Cobb back from the vet I talked to my grandparents, Andy and Jane (or, as we all call them, Baba and Pap) Dotsey. They sounded pretty good. Pap sounded a bit more peppy than the last time I talked to him, which is a good thing.
Zach Dotsey