Universal Chat Thread

[Karo]

I hope thing go as well as they can too Night Lord and I do hope thing get easier for you at that job cause that seem like a really nice bonus check to be looking forward too. :3

I wonder if there is a british store in my area or maybe even an Australian store where I can go down under and buy one of them aussie brand of snacks.

[Moonface]

There might be a British store by you @Karo since there's a couple around me, plus Publix just outright has an area for British food in their stores so it seems to be a popular enough thing in general for it. Given you live in Florida there's surely a Publix near you and they would at least have some British stuff in there, although it is a very limited selection.
I can't say I've ever seen any Australian stores or food about but I've also never gone out of my way to look. I expect it'll be rare because of the large distance to get that stuff imported, which likely puts a lot of cost on that makes the stuff hardly worth selling.

[Dragon Lord]

@Moonface The bonus check is just something this company does. They have a 40% profit share, so at the end of the fiscal year, they take 40% of their total profit for the year and split it among all the workers based off of how many hours you worked. Last year my take home from the bonus was a bit over $3,000, and that was with two months of the fiscal year still being part-time. This fiscal year I'll have been full-time for it all, and they are on pace for another record profit year, so my take home should be around $3,500 at least, maybe closer to $4,000.

Pretty much the only thing that makes it worth working for this company. Well, that and the fact that my hourly pay is much better than pretty much any where else I could find a job at as well thanks to the $3/hr bonus pay that overnights gets.

[Mr EliteL]

@Dragon Lord : Yeah hope today goes alright, no matter which way it goes but it was good to hear your cat didn't have too many problems in the past week leading up to the next visit. Dang that's a good bonus, my company's stopped bonuses, it was to make up for the increase in pay we got though. We only got about £100-£200 or some meagre figure like that anyway so up to $4,000 is brilliant.

@Moonface: Ah, so that's what the random X I saw on Twitter is about, confused me but I didn't bother to find out why, but yeah Musk is a moron. Keeps me glad I never joined...X before he got his hands on it, now even more so.
Also it's cool you're finding other Brits over there, even ones from our county.

Parts of my body have been aching a bit, so it's time for some exercises and stretching.

[Dragon Lord]

Thanks Elite. Three more hours to go until her appointment and I can feel the nerves working up (my stomach is letting me know that big time). Going to bed yesterday was a bit tough, because while I was trying to fall asleep I just kept having the fact that it could be the very least time I went to sleep with Zoey next to me, which made it extremely sad and hard to actually fall asleep.

Today is going to be a hurricane of emotions regardless of which way it goes. I'm probably going to take the night off of work because of it, because the last thing I want to do is have to deal with customers when I'm emotionally unstable.

[Moonface]

@Moonface  The bonus check is just something this company does. They have a 40% profit share, so at the end of the fiscal year, they take 40% of their total profit for the year and split it among all the workers based off of how many hours you worked. Last year my take home from the bonus was a bit over $3,000, and that was with two months of the fiscal year still being part-time. This fiscal year I'll have been full-time for it all, and they are on pace for another record profit year, so my take home should be around $3,500 at least, maybe closer to $4,000.

Pretty much the only thing that makes it worth working for this company. Well, that and the fact that my hourly pay is much better than pretty much any where else I could find a job at as well thanks to the $3/hr bonus pay that overnights gets.

Meanwhile I got told today that raises in my job are now "percentage based" calculated from a combination of your evaluation and your current hourly pay, and that there's a very high chance nobody will even get a dollar raise, despite the fact we now only get one raise a year. It doesn't seem to have made the rounds to a lot of workers yet but if it turns out to be true and word starts spreading about it, I can't imagine many people won't be pissed off about it.

Also it's cool you're finding other Brits over there, even ones from our county.

Oh the guy at the car place actually knew our town outright which to me was wild. He even said things about it I knew you would only know by knowing the place so I know he wasn't just fluffing things up to try and vibe with me more. XD

Thanks Elite. Three more hours to go until her appointment and I can feel the nerves working up (my stomach is letting me know that big time). Going to bed yesterday was a bit tough, because while I was trying to fall asleep I just kept having the fact that it could be the very least time I went to sleep with Zoey next to me, which made it extremely sad and hard to actually fall asleep.

Today is going to be a hurricane of emotions regardless of which way it goes. I'm probably going to take the night off of work because of it, because the last thing I want to do is have to deal with customers when I'm emotionally unstable.

I'd highly recommend taking the night off work even if everything went 100% perfect at the vet, just so you can actually relax and release all that built up stress and tension. Just because things turn out fine doesn't mean all of the emotions are instantly negated, especially for a case like this where your mind could be picturing "What if?" scenarios of a future case where things go worse.
As for having trouble sleeping, yeah, it sucks whenever there's something that makes you "clock watch" so to speak, even when you know doing it is bad but the circumstances are too prominent to ignore it. I wish I had any advice on ways to cope when it comes to this stuff but all I can really think of is to just allow your feelings to happen rather than try and suppress them or something.
Is Zoey the only kitty you have or do you have others? I could've sworn you have more than one but once again, my memory is being shit.


Had maybe...three hours of sleep last night due to not getting home until 1am, and having to be awake at 4:10am for work. The concert was delayed by like 90+ minutes last night because of Florida's stupid weather. x.x

[Dragon Lord]

We normally only get one raise a year at my job too, which is usually something insignificant. I think I got like a 40 cent raise this past year. The bonus is the only thing they do that is way different from a large majority of other companies.

Yeah, I have three other cats. Leo, Eli and Emma (brother and sister). Leo is the one I have to be worried about if I don't come home with Zoey today, because she's been with him since the day we brought him home as a kitten, so I worry about how hard he might take losing his best friend. He gets along with Emma and Eli fairly well now, but he's not super close to them like he is Zoey.

We're heading out for the vet appointment now, so I might be back in a couple of hours or so to update everyone, or might just wait until tonight when I wake up if things go the worst case scenario. Might not have the oomph to get on the computer when I get home in that case.

[Moonface]

Yeah the company I work for stopped bonuses years ago for everyone, as well as a few other perks and as far as I know never replaced any of them nor gave any decent reason for stopping the existing ones. This new approach to raises just sucks because it used to be twice a year, and you'd likely get 50c each time if you were doing your job well and your manager isn't a dickhead, then it went to once a year to streamline things but the raises would aim to be equivalent to what the two separate ones would have been (which for me it was). Reducing raises to like, 50c a year (which my coworker told me is probably not even going to be reachable and suspects it'll be more likely below 40c) is basically a pay cut for no reason except greed and asking to rub people the wrong way. This from a company that likes to preach it's "dedicated to the dignity, value and employment security of our associates".

Oh wow you have four?! I always thought three was the max you had when I could remember you having more than one cat. XD
I've heard that showing a cat the body of a deceased cat they were close with helps them understand quicker what has happened to that cat, but that only works if you plan to bury the cat instead of having it cremated. America gives me the impression that burying animals is barely a thing (excluding small things like a fish or something) whereas in the UK it felt like if someone had a garden they would bury their pet unless it was something like a huge dog that would require digging a hole so big you'll start being suspected of hiding something shifty.

However it goes, I hope it goes as well as it possibly can and the vet tries to help make things as bearable as possible should the outcome be rough. I'll be keeping you in mind for sure but by all means don't rush yourself on here for mine or anyone else's behalf. Your needs come first at this time.

[aerodynamik]

Hi everyone! How's it going?

Just noticed UG has been online on MyBB for over 5 years past month. Great accomplishment!

[Dragon Lord]

I'll post what happened today in a spoiler for those who don't wish to read it, because the floodgates will probably open in the process:

Spoiler

Sadly today ended in what we feared the most -- we had to say goodbye to Zoey and put her down.

They took an x-ray of Zoey, and you could see the outline of a mass in her body that wasn't an organ (the vet pointed out her organs to show they were all accounted for). There was still a decent amount of fluid inside of her, so it made the x-ray a bit hard to see, but the vet also showed us an image from an ultrasound that showed the mass better. They're not sure what caused the mass, but she was pretty sure that it was the cause of the fluid in Zoey's body and was also the cause of Zoey not eating. At her age and weakened state, there was no hope of removing the mass.

Our choices came down to two things.

1) We take Zoey home, continue to put her on medication, plus have to put her on an eating stimulant in hopes that she'd start eating again. In the end this would have just been an attempt to make her comfortable through the discomfort and pain, but would not stop the inevitable from happening. The vet put it plainly that Zoey's time would come up sooner rather than later, whether it was a few days, a couple of weeks or a month from now. This would be putting her on hospice care and hoping she wouldn't suffer too much to the end.

2) We put her down and free her from it all.

Obviously we went with the second option, because the first option provided no hope of recovery, and she would still die. We didn't want to be selfish and prolong it all just to have more time with her, despite how much we really didn't want to say goodbye to her. She was an amazing cat and gave us 12 amazing and wonderful years, and we felt that she deserved to be able to rest in peace, and not live out the rest of her life in misery.

In the end it was a very hard decision. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for the end of my time with her, but once that moment came, everything just broke down. I just felt so guilty that there was nothing I could to make her just better, even though I know it was nothing I could control. I find myself still blaming myself for it, telling myself over and over that I failed her. Maybe if I would have noticed something sooner. Maybe if I had more money. Maybe this, maybe that. I just can't seem to tell myself that this stuff just happens some times, and there's nothing you can do about it.

It was so hard to leave after it was all said and done. Even though I knew she was gone, I just didn't want to leave her. During the process of her being put to sleep, I just knelt down on the ground next to the table and put my forehead against her head and just stayed there like that the entire time until the vet said she was gone. I just kept telling he over and over again how much I loved her, how grateful I was for the years she gave me, that I'll always remember her. I just wanted to do everything in my power to make sure she went knowing how much she was loved, how much I'll always continue to love her, and how much she meant to me and always will mean to me. Even though as a cat, she had no understanding of anything going on, I just didn't want it to feel like we were giving up on her. I wanted her to go out feeling as loved as the day I brought her home as a kitten and every day in between. 

The hardest part of all of this is sitting here thinking about how when I go to sleep today (if I can even sleep), she won't be there to curl up beside me any more. When I wake up, she won't be there to say good morning to me any more. When I come home from work, she won't be there to greet me after a long night any more. Even just sitting here in my room typing this right now, I keep looking around just waiting for her to pop out of wherever and come over to me and meow for attention, and it's just... empty. I don't know how long it'll take for me to stop looking for her, to stop waiting for her to come pounce me for loves, or to stop seeing the images of her still being around in my mind, and it just sucks and hurts. I thought to myself that letting go this time would be easier than it was with my first cat, because this time I succeeded in giving Zoey a full life, but it's just the exact same.

Anyways, sorry for the long sob story. This is why I put it in spoilers, because I knew my emotions would take over and I'd go on about the pain of it all. As you can probably tell by how I talked in my previous posts this past week and especially this one, I am one who gets extremely attached to my pets. Way beyond the human-pet relationship. They are literally my entire world, and Zoey being gone feels like I've lost half of myself as well. There's just a huge void in myself right now. She was my baby girl, one of my best friends for the last 12 years, and I just don't know what to do without her. I don't show emotions really at all, but the loss of my cat is enough to completely break me down to this extent because of how much they mean to me. So if I seem kind of doom and gloom for a bit, please forgive me, I'll likely be in a pretty bad place mentally for a while.

Thank you all again for the well wishes and concern you showed to Zoey this past week. I will always appreciate it very much. Also thanks to anyone who read this entire post to this point. Thanks for letting me just open up and let it all flood out. I know it's definitely weird to see me like this, but this is how much my babies mean to me. I'm not going to be right for a long while.

I think that's everything I wanted to say. Or at least what my brain can think of right now. As I mentioned before, I did get someone to cover my shift at work tonight, so I have the night to sit here, process my emotions, cry it out, do whatever to try and help me come to terms with it all. It's going to be a very difficult night for me, that's for sure.

[Karo]

I'll post what happened today in a spoiler for those who don't wish to read it, because the floodgates will probably open in the process:

Spoiler

Sadly today ended in what we feared the most -- we had to say goodbye to Zoey and put her down.

They took an x-ray of Zoey, and you could see the outline of a mass in her body that wasn't an organ (the vet pointed out her organs to show they were all accounted for). There was still a decent amount of fluid inside of her, so it made the x-ray a bit hard to see, but the vet also showed us an image from an ultrasound that showed the mass better. They're not sure what caused the mass, but she was pretty sure that it was the cause of the fluid in Zoey's body and was also the cause of Zoey not eating. At her age and weakened state, there was no hope of removing the mass.

Our choices came down to two things.

1) We take Zoey home, continue to put her on medication, plus have to put her on an eating stimulant in hopes that she'd start eating again. In the end this would have just been an attempt to make her comfortable through the discomfort and pain, but would not stop the inevitable from happening. The vet put it plainly that Zoey's time would come up sooner rather than later, whether it was a few days, a couple of weeks or a month from now. This would be putting her on hospice care and hoping she wouldn't suffer too much to the end.

2) We put her down and free her from it all.

Obviously we went with the second option, because the first option provided no hope of recovery, and she would still die. We didn't want to be selfish and prolong it all just to have more time with her, despite how much we really didn't want to say goodbye to her. She was an amazing cat and gave us 12 amazing and wonderful years, and we felt that she deserved to be able to rest in peace, and not live out the rest of her life in misery.

In the end it was a very hard decision. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for the end of my time with her, but once that moment came, everything just broke down. I just felt so guilty that there was nothing I could to make her just better, even though I know it was nothing I could control. I find myself still blaming myself for it, telling myself over and over that I failed her. Maybe if I would have noticed something sooner. Maybe if I had more money. Maybe this, maybe that. I just can't seem to tell myself that this stuff just happens some times, and there's nothing you can do about it.

It was so hard to leave after it was all said and done. Even though I knew she was gone, I just didn't want to leave her. During the process of her being put to sleep, I just knelt down on the ground next to the table and put my forehead against her head and just stayed there like that the entire time until the vet said she was gone. I just kept telling he over and over again how much I loved her, how grateful I was for the years she gave me, that I'll always remember her. I just wanted to do everything in my power to make sure she went knowing how much she was loved, how much I'll always continue to love her, and how much she meant to me and always will mean to me. Even though as a cat, she had no understanding of anything going on, I just didn't want it to feel like we were giving up on her. I wanted her to go out feeling as loved as the day I brought her home as a kitten and every day in between. 

The hardest part of all of this is sitting here thinking about how when I go to sleep today (if I can even sleep), she won't be there to curl up beside me any more. When I wake up, she won't be there to say good morning to me any more. When I come home from work, she won't be there to greet me after a long night any more. Even just sitting here in my room typing this right now, I keep looking around just waiting for her to pop out of wherever and come over to me and meow for attention, and it's just... empty. I don't know how long it'll take for me to stop looking for her, to stop waiting for her to come pounce me for loves, or to stop seeing the images of her still being around in my mind, and it just sucks and hurts. I thought to myself that letting go this time would be easier than it was with my first cat, because this time I succeeded in giving Zoey a full life, but it's just the exact same.

Anyways, sorry for the long sob story. This is why I put it in spoilers, because I knew my emotions would take over and I'd go on about the pain of it all. As you can probably tell by how I talked in my previous posts this past week and especially this one, I am one who gets extremely attached to my pets. Way beyond the human-pet relationship. They are literally my entire world, and Zoey being gone feels like I've lost half of myself as well. There's just a huge void in myself right now. She was my baby girl, one of my best friends for the last 12 years, and I just don't know what to do without her. I don't show emotions really at all, but the loss of my cat is enough to completely break me down to this extent because of how much they mean to me. So if I seem kind of doom and gloom for a bit, please forgive me, I'll likely be in a pretty bad place mentally for a while.

Thank you all again for the well wishes and concern you showed to Zoey this past week. I will always appreciate it very much. Also thanks to anyone who read this entire post to this point. Thanks for letting me just open up and let it all flood out. I know it's definitely weird to see me like this, but this is how much my babies mean to me. I'm not going to be right for a long while.

I think that's everything I wanted to say. Or at least what my brain can think of right now. As I mentioned before, I did get someone to cover my shift at work tonight, so I have the night to sit here, process my emotions, cry it out, do whatever to try and help me come to terms with it all. It's going to be a very difficult night for me, that's for sure.

I'll put my reply in the spoiler too.

Spoiler

I don't think there really are any right words to say during something sad as this Night Lord. I'm extremely sorry for your lost. I know you said your having trouble telling yourself that maybe you could have done more, but seeing your love for Zoey I'm honestly sure that you did. I'm sure that she know that and as she was leaving for whatever happens in the afterlife she felt comforted and love that you were with her as she left and that you did all that you could and never gave up on her. One of the cruelest things about life is even all the riches in the world cannot stop age and time and from what the doctors told you even if you caught it sooner they probably wouldn't have been able to operate it. I hope you'll be kinder to yourself cause I don't doubt that you did everything for her even if it doesn't feel that way right now.

Be sure to give yourself all the kindness in the world right now it always okay to take as long as you want to grieve and grieve in anyway that you want because there is no right or wrong way to do that. You'll always have your treasured memories of her. Those moments can never be replaced or taken away Night Lord. Thank you for giving her the best life you could. I'm sure she was extremely happy to be part of your family.

[Mr EliteL]

Darn, so yes it really was for the best to let her go now than to wait it out with medication. May she rest in peace, little kitty. I had to stop reading the spoiler when you got to a part I wasn't able to do for my cat, but it was to avoid seeing my cat bleed because her veins weren't big enough to take a needle anymore. I finished reading the rest of that, and yeah you gave Zoey a good life. I was similar in wishing mine would appear again like the event didn't happen, or doing stuff out of habit when my cat was still about. I know it's one less now but there's still those other 3 cats that need you still and they can keep you company too.

[Moonface]

Just noticed UG has been online on MyBB for over 5 years past month. Great accomplishment!

Yeah, it's crazy how fast time flies.

TW: Death

I already gave my condolences to you over your loss DL, but I just wanted to add that you shouldn't blame yourself over anything that happened. Kitties are very good at hiding problems they're having, and I personally like to view that as a thing they do to avoid showing distress to their owners as a show of love. Same that I personally believe that kitties (and other animals) are very capable of understanding love, especially considering animals are capable of showing grief too. Cats and dogs wouldn't show grief over the loss of their owner or other animal companions if they didn't understand love, because as God of War Ragnarök put it, "to grieve deeply is to have loved fully". I don't handle loss well myself either (not even just in a loss of life sense, but just losing anyone in any form), and the kitties I had when I lived in England were both with me for over 15 years, starting with halfway into my primary school years, through secondary school, college, and university. It was almost hard to remember a time without them when I first lost each of them, and while my love for both of them has never diminished I did find that the loss was easier to think about and process as time went on, which isn't something I thought would ever happen at the time. Time is a cruel yet generous thing; it gives us the time to spend with things we enjoy and those we love, and it will also end bring those same things to an end one day too, but then time will come around again to give us however long we need to heal from what it gave and took.

If you ever need to just vent or get anything off your chest about the matter, you are more than free to continue to do so in this thread. And although no one else is going through this thing right now either, the same applies to anyone here. If you need a place to just vent emotions and/or just talk about something, this place is always open to it. I would much rather have here be open to that than make anyone feel a need to keep anything to themselves that they're struggling with or just want to get off their chest.

[Dragon Lord]

So my night of relaxation and de-stressing turned into a night of being stressed and annoyed as hell. We got hit by a huge storm that knocked our power out at about 11:30 PM Tuesday night and it took the power company almost 20 hours to finally get it back up, at around 8 PM Wednesday night.

So instead of being able to take my mind off of things with some gaming and chilling with friends, I ended up sitting in the dark all night with nothing to do but think about all the shit I wanted to get my mind off of. Pain. Then to add insult to injury, yesterday was a heat index of around 100-105, so with no power that of course meant no AC, which meant no sleep for me because it was way too uncomfortable. I ended up staying home from work (completely unintentionally), so I guess this is my relaxing night.

Spoiler

Also thanks you guys for the replies to my long, tear-filled post. Like I said, I don't really open up like that, but it all just came flooding out when I started typing. I guess as part of my way to grieve. I once again appreciate all the kind word and positivity, it means a lot. While it's still hard coming to gripes with the fact that she's no longer here with me, I am trying my best to tell myself that she wouldn't want me to be depressed about it, and she'd want me to be happy. It'll take time to fully eliminate the demons in my mind telling me it's my fault, I didn't do enough, I failed her, etc., but I think I can get there eventually. There's always going to be things I blame myself for, or ways that I felt that I failed her during her life (things I felt I should have done better/could have given her even a better life). But I think those are regrets that every pet owner has at the end. You always think back to the times when you could have spent more time with them, played with them more, gave them more love, and in your time of grieving they just come to the front of your mind and make you feel bad. I just need to learn not to beat myself up so badly over things like that. Yes, there are things I could have done even better, but I need to believe that I also gave her a great life despite times where maybe I didn't give her as much attention as I should have, or spent as much time with her as I could have. I guess it's kind of like how a parent feels when their kids grow up and go off to college -- they think of all the little bits and pieces of time that could have been used differently, but weren't. Unfortunately it's always been the way my mind works though, I hyper focus on the "you didn't do this good enough, you should have done this better" instead of just sitting back and going, "You gave her a great life full of love, and while there were bad days, you never stopped loving her and making sure she knew it up the very end." A personality trait that I really need to work on, because it sure would help me not feel so bad about myself in times like this and would help me move on much faster.

I've always been my worst critic though, so it's not surprising that I'm once again finding it hard not to judge myself for not having been the absolute most perfect pet owner 24/7 365 days a year. Maybe it's just a flaw that I'm always doomed to experience in my brain.

[Moonface]

Oof, it was 20 hours in the end @Dragon Lord? Did any of your food spoil or did it manage to all hold out for that long?

As for the flawed ways of thinking, therapy is a good way to learn how to view things from a better perspective or at least not allow negative thoughts to impact your mood or self esteem heavily.