Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes yesterday! I had a totally lazy day, caught up on my TV-watching, played several hundred games of Words with Friends, and did lots of kitten-snuggling. That’s the perfect day, if you ask me.
Fred made my birthday cake – a Black Forest Torte, the best cake on EARTH – over the weekend, and there’s still some left (but not for long!)
Suzy, the black cat (with a little white – I don’t think she was actually a Tuxie, I think she just had a few small bits of white on her, but to be honest I don’t remember and there aren’t any more pictures of her that I’m aware of – this was almost 40 years ago, when digital cameras didn’t exist. And if they did, they would have been the size of a Mack truck.) in the picture yesterday, who was my 6th birthday gift, ended up having a litter of kittens a few months later. One of those kittens was an orange tabby named Charlie, who kicked off my life-long love for orange tabbies. Suzy went to live elsewhere, and Charlie eventually ran away – again, almost 40 years ago. I don’t think there was such a thing as indoor cats back then, and we lived on Guam.
ANYway.
Later today I’m headed to the other side of Huntsville to have an abdominal ultrasound. I’m perfectly fine, my gastroenterologist just orders an abdominal ultrasound once a year to keep an eye on my liver. I saw him last week, on Thursday, and had blood taken and I expect that the blood tests and the ultrasound will show that everything’s normal. I feel fine, he felt nothing untoward in my livular area, same old same old.
I really only see him for about five minutes twice a year, and this time around he walked in, asked how I was doing, then said “What are we on for medication, still the Urso?”
“No,” I said. “You took me off it six months ago!” And he tried to play it off like he was just testing me. UH HUH.
Then he felt my liver and looked me over, then said “Well, you’ve lost weight.”
Well, I haven’t lost weight. In fact, I’ve gained weight. Every single time I have surgery, I gain 10 pounds. It sticks around for 9 months or so, and then drops back down to where I was. EXCEPT that this time, right around the time that 10 pounds would have started dropping back down? I had surgery again, and put on an additional 5 pounds. Since I had surgery in February, I’ve gained fifteen pounds, THAT’S RIGHT. And know what? I’m not thrilled about it, but I expect that in a few more months it’ll drop back down. I’m not worried, because IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE SURGERY.
You might offer that it’s just swelling (it’s not) or that it’s all that downtime after surgery (don’t think so), but I think it’s the general anesthesia messing with my body.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Anyway, he said “Well, you’ve lost weight.”
Then we got into this dumbass argument where he insisted that I’d lost weight and I was all “NO I HAVE NOT WHY DOES YOUR NURSE ALWAYS WEIGH ME IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO LOOK AT THE NUMBERS”, and he finally said “WELL YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE”, and it wasn’t until I was walking to my car that I realized I probably DO look like I’ve lost weight, since I no longer have all that extra skin hanging out under my chin.
Oh well.
So I have an ultrasound today, a visit to my gynecologist on Friday for my yearly physical, and an appointment with my general practitioner later this month. January’s the month I get all my yearly appointments done and over with (note to self: make an appointment to have my eyes checked), as an anti-birthday gift to myself.
HAPPY UN-BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEE.
God. My ultrasound’s at 11:00, and I can’t eat or drink anything ’til afterward and I am dying of thirst. WOE IS ME.
So, dropping Charlie and Patty off at Petsmart on Friday was SUPER fun, as it always is. Making it even worse was that they both seemed to sense that something was going on when I brought the carrier out a few hours before we left, and they were nervous and wouldn’t let me near them. I had to lure them into the guest bedroom and shut the door, then chase them down and put them in the carrier, and they both frantically tried to dig their way out of the carrier, and 93 times during the whole process I thought “Hey, 15 cats isn’t THAT many” and “They’ve fit in so well!”, but 15 cats IS too many for this house, and the fosters always fit in so well, and if I want to keep fostering (which I do), I’ve got to stop keeping cats even though I want to keep them all.
I mean, of course it’s hard and I hate it. I get all the fun stuff, the loving on the kittens, the sweet snuggling and purring, the way they give me the Eyes of Love, watching them go from scared, ratty little kittens to sweet, healthy, beautiful cats. What makes me think I get to skate through life without doing the hard stuff? After all, I’m taking them to a place where they are safe and well-fed, where they get attention, where someone will come along and fall in love with them and give them a forever home.
But, still. Not fun, y’know?
I got to Petsmart and got them set up in their cage and they did what kittens ALWAYS do, they went right into the litter box to hide. Oh, I hate that so much. I went to go do some errands and came back by Petsmart afterward to see how they were doing, and could see nothing but the tips of their ears in the litter box.
::sigh::
I got word from Lisa, who did adoptions on Saturday, that they hid in the litter box most of the day, but Charlie came out a few times on his own, and Lisa took Patty out of the litter box early in the day, and Patty stayed out for a while on her own. This is normal for kittens in the first few days after going to Petsmart, I know they’ll be fine.
Not a Pepper was adopted over the weekend, unfortunately. I’ll keep you informed on that front, you better believe.
I snapped a few pictures of Patty before we left for Petsmart.
Checking out a lady bug crawling across the floor.
“HI MISTER JAKE! HI! I LUB YOU!”
“THERE ROOM IN THERE FOR ME, JAKIE?”
I looked away for a moment, so I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I can tell that Patty’s giving Jake the “What’s YOUR problem??” look, so I imagine he told her to back off a bit.
The Sons are going to be neutered on Thursday! They’re thrilled, as I’m sure you can imagine.
“I don’t need to be tutored. I’m smart enough already.”
Jax always looks so happy. He flirts with his toys, I swear.
They always love this trackball so very much.
Sweet Tig.
Tig in the giant Croc slipper.
Tig in the sun.
Sweet Opie.
So, the boys are now getting more room to roam. We have a gate/ half-door across the end of the hallway so that they can go into the bathroom if they want to, and my room. After I’d first let them out and left them alone for a while, I went up to see how they were doing. They’d all gone back into the foster room to snooze. On the second day, they decided that my room was a pretty cool place to hang out, and that’s pretty much where they head now when I open their door.
They’ll get that amount of space for the next few days, and then on Friday I’ll let them out into the rest of the house.
Jake and Elwood can jump over the half-gate (or rather, they can jump to the top, pull themselves over, and jump down on the opposite side of the door), and they do that several times a day. The Sons are pretty familiar with them now, and Jake alternates between head-butting them, and showing them who the boss is. Over the weekend, Miz Poo wanted to go into my room (she likes to hang out in there), so I took her in with me. The tuxies ignored her, but Jax went all big and puffy and hissed at her a few times.
She wasn’t fazed in the least. Miz Poo has no use for kittens, and they don’t scare her. She just ignored Jax, but it was funny to watch him puff up.
Poor Tommy. Look how resigned he is. What you can’t tell from this picture is that Elwood was purring up a storm, and kneading. He sure does love his Tommy.
When I saw that Elwood had kicked his rear leg up on Tommy, I laughed and laughed.
Tommy finally got fed up, and Elwood was like “Wait! Where are you going?!”
Previously
2011: (“It’s my biiiiiiirthday!”)
2010: I told them I loved ‘em and to stop being drama queens, and then left.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: And my Self said “Wow, that sounds like a pain in the ass.”
2006: “I had a double serving of beans last night/ and I’ve got some hard gas going on/ Pull my finger, baby.”
2005: Back from Maine!
2004: My parents’ Christmas decorations.
2003: And yet, show me a zit and I’m on it in two seconds flat.
2002: “IF YOU WERE THAT FUCKING INTERESTED IN HOW MUCH EVERYTHING COST, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION WHEN SHE WAS RINGING IT ALL UP!”
2001: My body gave me two birthday presents yesterday – my period (a day early) AND a mild return case of conjunctivitis.
2000: In his narcotic cough syrup-induced haze, he nodded sympathetically and hacked a big green chunk of lung onto his plate.