5/17/05

reading: Death in Blue Folders, by Margaret Maron. From my comments: Where are you getting the out of print Margaret Maron books?!?!? Please tell me! I’ve been scouring the used book stores looking for them! I got all of the Sigrid Harald books online, either at Half.com, or from sellers on Amazon. It took me about a year to collect all of them; some of them were more expensive than I expected. On a side note, Margaret Maron has a new Deborah Knott book coming out in August!

* * * So, I believe I’ve mentioned in the past that Spot has started over-grooming, and basically groomed all of the fur off his belly and the backs of his legs. We tried a few different things – the vet said at first that Spot must have fleas, but we checked, and NO FLEAS, thank you, then we tried some other medication, and it made him sick. We bought hydrocortisone lotion to put on the areas where he was overgrooming, thinking that maybe he was continuing to groom because those areas were itchy, and it improved his skin, but he was still overgrooming, even though he clearly didn’t care for the taste of the lotion we were putting on him. A few weeks ago, we started him on immunoregulan, which oddly seemed to make him worse rather than better. So much worse that he was CHEWING on his back legs ’til they bled. We stopped the immunoregulan, and in a fit of desperation, Fred remembered that we had a bottle of Elavil left over from when we thought Miz Poo’s big, puffy upper lip was caused by excessive grooming. We kept her on that for about two days and then took her off it because it completely removed her personality. All she did while she was on it was sit around and stare into space. She wouldn’t play, she wouldn’t snuggle – she was just a big ol’ zombie, so we stopped giving it to her. So we decided to start giving it to Spot (and by “we”, I mean “Fred”, because I can’t give medicine to cats worth a shit), and within a couple of days Spot stopped chewing at his legs, and on top of that, he went from being his usual neurotic self to being a really laid-back cat. I mean, it used to be that whenever we so much as glanced in his direction, he’d freeze and then run away, then have diarrhea for two days. Now, not only does he not care if we glance at him, I actually walked across the room and stepped over him, and instead of cringing and running away, he DID NOT GIVE A SHIT. It’s like a fucking miracle drug, is what it is. After a few more days, we noticed another change in him. Anytime anyone at all was in the kitchen, near the kitchen, or thinking about the kitchen, Spot was RIGHT THERE, demanding that we give him food. He’d make his straight-from-the-depths-of-hell squeaky meow, and keep on doing it until we gave him something to eat. If we ignored him, he’d come closer. And if we still ignored him, he’d SMACK AT OUR LEGS until we gave in. It usually never got that far, because go watch this movie I made (movie will only be up ’til the end of May). Is that not the saddest look and sound he’s giving me? HE’S STARVING TO DEATH! How could I not share with him? “I think the medication is giving him the munchies,” I said to Fred. “Maybe so – I can’t believe he’s so demanding. He used to be so quiet and shy!” So we continued to feed him when he asked for it, and then a few days later, Fred said “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen Spot eat out of the bowl of cat food at ALL in at least a few days.” So we started watching him, and while he was in there all the time, sitting by the bowl of food, we never actually saw him eating it. “Maybe he doesn’t like the food,” Fred suggested. We switched to Science Diet food a few weeks ago in hopes that Miz Poo was allergic to the Purina ONE we had been feeding them, thus accounting for her big, puffy lip (oh, did I mention that her lip has puffed up again? It has. Everything we’ve tried has worked, but only for a little while before her lip puffs up again.). While I was out running errands the next day, I picked up a small bag of Purina ONE, and when I got home I dumped some of it into their food bowl. Spot came running, then ate a few pieces of the food while I watched. Mystery solved, we thought. A few days later, Spot was limping, so Fred took him to the vet (it NEVER FUCKING ENDS, people!). The vet looked at Spot’s paw and declared that he had an infection and prescribed antibiotics for him. While he was there, Fred asked the vet to look at Spot’s teeth, because we’d noticed that Spot wasn’t much chewing the food he was eating – he was pretty much swallowing it whole – and the vet looked at Spot’s teeth and declared that they looked nasty and sure could use a cleaning. Fred made an appointment for me to drop Spot off yesterday so the vet could clean his teeth, and the vet’s assistant told Fred that Spot needed to have no food at all after 6 pm the night before. When we went to bed Sunday night, we put the bowl of cat food in the closet and shut the door. As you can imagine, that went over like a lead ballon. The cats – especially Spanky and Mister Boogers – kept trying to lead us into the bathroom, and when I went in there to pee, all four of the cats sat and stared at me. While Fred and I read ’til 9:30, Mister Boogers ran around like his tail was on fire, howling and grumping and bitching. He took out his frustrations on the other cats, and there was a lot of hissing and growling and smacking of the Booger. We turned the light out, and Mister Boogers REALLY got wild, running around in circles, making his grumping noise, and teasing Miz Poo. When something bothers Mister Boogers, he does NOT hesitate to let you know. Fred went to bed, and I read. The entire time, Mister Boogers wandered through the house grumping and howling and singing of his woes. I finally yelled “Booger, SHUT UP!”, and he did briefly, then I could hear him downstairs, howling and grumping and singing. I went to sleep, and ALL FUCKING NIGHT LONG was visited by cats who wanted to just let me know that there was no food. Spanky came and climbed up on me, then put his ice-cold paw on my face. When I rolled over to dislodge him, Spot jumped up next to me and sat there, staring at me. When I turned the other way, Miz Poo and Mister Boogers got into a fight ON MY FUCKING HEAD. At some point I sat up and held the can of compressed air out and sprayed it around the room. There was a stampede of cats hauling ass out of the room, and a few moments of quiet before they started it up again. Fred put Spot in the cat carrier before he left for work, and I took Spot to the vet at 7 and dropped him off. At the vet, they asked if we wanted them to perform pre-anesthesia bloodwork (this is where they perform bloodwork to make sure the cat will make it through being knocked out okay. We never opt for it.), and they gave me the “My god, you are such a bad pet owner. I can’t believe you don’t want to spend $100 to make sure your cat will be okay. Even though he’s been under anesthesia before. Bad pet owner. BAD BAD BAD. How can you live with yourself?” look. Fred called mid-morning to let me know that Spot was okay. They cleaned his teeth and had to remove a side tooth, because they just touched it and it bled all over the place. Fred picked Spot up on the way home, and Spot was groggy, but one of the first things he did was go into the bathroom and eat; we could hear him chewing his food. Fucking cats. They sure are a money pit. Good thing for them we love them so much! * * * 24 SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION. Dear 24: There are many times when 24 has stretched the bounds of credibility. I mean, I may be a dumb housewife, but even I know that everywhere in LA is NOT 5 minutes from everywhere else. Jack leaves one place and shows up at CTU five minutes later. He leaves CTU and arrives at his destination five minutes later. It never takes longer than 5 minutes to get anywhere in 24-land. I mean, President Pissypants gave orders that all his cabinet members should be brought to the White House. And 12 minutes later – TWELVE MINUTES LATER! – they were all there. Come on. 12 minutes to locate the entire cabinet? Horseshit. So, the bounds of credibility are stretched every week on 24. I’ve come to deal with and accept that. But last night, my friends, you went so far over the line you couldn’t even SEE it anymore. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. When you had the Speaker of the House utter the words “Doesn’t the public have a right to know the truth?”, those bounds of credibility snapped so hard I could hear them smack Jack Bauer in the ass as they went by. I’d be willing to bet no Speaker of the House has ever ever ever uttered those words. Please. We’re not idiots. We’ll buy for the sake of entertainment that you can get from that warehouse to CTU in 5 minutes, but we DO have our limits. Love ya anyway, Robyn PS: When Richard Heller was crying to Audrey, his voice went so high that he sounded JUST LIKE Miss Piggy. PPS: Where the fuck is Behrooz?? * * * She’s funny looking, but I sure do love her goofy ass. ]]>