good night, sleep tight, don't let the--oh, hell

I've been lax in posting since I got back (and of course, failed miserably in my attempt to post while gone!). But I feel I am slightly excused by the traumas that met me on return. It began slowly, with a defunct showerhead that took almost a week to fix, and then heated up with a very sick cat and a rush to the emergency vet, followed almos timmediately by the thrilling discovery that my apartment is infested with bedbugs. Oh, yes, bedbugs. As a child I thought these were sort of like the boogeyman, something grown-ups tried to scare you about, but nothing real. How very, sadly, wrong I was. I was bit so badly in the first day that I thought I had a rash on my arms, some freak thing, and went in to the health center. Then I saw the first bug and smushed it, leaving a bloody streak on the wall. *shudder* There are few things in life so unsettling as sitting in bed realizing that while you slept, tiny blood-sucking bugs have been crawling all over you sucking your blood. The exterminator is coming in, but before he can treat, I have to remove everything fabric from the apartment except for the furniture, wash it, and keep it out until after he's treated. Which involves the rental of a storage space in addition to assloads of washing. Not a happy girl. Can't write more, too depressed.