9/3/09 – Thursday

New month, new banner!

This one comes from Aly, my usual banner lady, who – god, SOME people! – had the nerve to be recovering from bi-lateral non-malignant breast mass removal surgery on Friday, and a PICC line put in yesterday, so she was a day late in rolling out of her sickbed and getting a banner done for me.

(Seriously. She APOLOGIZED. Crazy woman!)

Thanks, Aly – you rock, as always!

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Tuesday, I realized that after Elwood had used the litter box, he was walking around making sad little “Ow, that hurt” noises, and I glanced in the litter box and then at his behind, saw that things were not as they should be, and called Fred. I convinced him to make an appointment for Elwood with the vet later in the day, and then I thought that maybe I was jumping the gun (we tend to rush off to the vet at a moment’s notice for issues that will resolve themselves if given a little time. We’re not as bad as we used to (ie, the time we took Spot to the emergency vet because he “didn’t look right”, but we still need to learn to wait and see a little more, I think) so I told him not to make the appointment. We decided we’d continue putting powdered Slippery Elm bark on Elwood’s food and hemorrhoid cream on his behind (yes, it’s perfectly safe to put hemorrhoid cream on your cat’s behind) and see what happened.

Then around 4:00 in the afternoon, he went to the litter box, and then afterward I wiped his butt with a baby wipe, and he screamed. I insisted Fred come inside and call the local vet, the one who’s about three minutes up the road. He called, but the vet had left for the day. I decided to call the vet in Ardmore, the one who does all the Challenger’s House cats and who I like so much (the only reason we don’t always take all the cats to her is because it’s a half-hour drive one way and that drive can put a hole in your day), told the woman who answered the phone that I could be there in half an hour if they could fit me in, she told me to come on up, and I headed up there.

I don’t know that Elwood’s ever been anywhere without his brother. Fred said Jake was very vocal for several minutes after I left with Elwood, and Elwood seemed deeply confused on the drive to the vet.

We got there, and they took Elwood off to get a fecal sample. That poor boy screamed like nobody’s business, and I heard the nurse say that she hadn’t really gotten anything and she was going to try again, and apparently she lifted his tail and he screamed again.

“I’m not even touching him!” I heard her say.

She brought him back into the exam room where I was waiting, and he huddled up against me, and he gave her the DIRTIEST look I’ve ever seen from a kitten. I felt bad for him, but that look was SUCH a Mister Boogers look that it made me laugh out loud.

They checked the fecal sample while the vet came in and looked him over, and in the end she prescribed Panacur and a prescription cat food for a little while.

When I asked what I could put on his poor swollen behind, she suggested one thing I’d never heard of (and don’t have on the premises), and then said that hemorrhoid cream works just as well.

We’ll see how that goes. I can tell you that Jake and Elwood were SUPER happy to see each other when I walked through the door. It was almost cinematic, the way they ran toward each other and then Jake bit Elwood on the neck.

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Would you believe that until recently, I had never had much to do with avocado? Sure, I’d had guacamole in the past, and I’m sure I’d tried a slice or two of avocado here and there, but I’d never bought an avocado from a store, and I’d never eaten any avocado at home.

That changed the first time I made quesadilla pie. I just happened to buy an avocado to have as garnish with the quesadilla pie, and HOLY COW. Avocado is good, isn’t it? (Isn’t THAT the understatement of the century!)

How come y’all never told me of the tasty magic that is avocado? We had quesadilla pie Tuesday night, and I had avocado pieces with that, and then I had scrambled eggs in a tortilla with avocado and tomato for lunch yesterday.

DAMN it was good.

Except that now I’m out of avocado and we’re having leftover quesadilla pie for dinner tonight. I guess a run to the grocery store is in order. For many avocados. I’m going to have avocado for lunch, avocado with dinner, maybe I’ll BATHE in avocado.

I guess you could say I’m now a fan of the avocado; in fact, I’m even a Facebook fan of avocado now. That’s how much I love it!

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Canned thus far this week: two quarts of green beans (they’re still coming in, but verrrrrry slowly) and six pints of sweet pickled jalapenos.

The first year we had the garden, I pickled some jalapeno slices for Fred. He didn’t really care for them, so they ended up on the compost heap the next summer. Earlier this summer, he asked if I’d try pickling them differently, sent me some suggestions. I did, and he loves them. So far I’ve made something like eight pints of pickled jalapenos, and he’s gone through two of them already. He puts them on just about everything.

Last week, he said that he thought that maybe sweet pickled jalapenos would be good. His stepmother gave us a recipe for pickled summer squash and he likes those. He suggested that jalapenos in the same kind of pickling brine might be good. So I told him to pick jalapenos, and I’d make him some.

(I’m suddenly realizing that Fred’s bright ideas seem to be making more work for me. How have I not noticed this before now??)

The biggest pain in the ass was slicing all those jalapenos, and the seeds going everywhere. Otherwise, it was pretty simple (the more I can stuff, the easier it seems to get, go figure) and by the time he got home, they were cooled down enough that he decided to open a jar and give ’em a try. He thinks they’re so good that we should grow more jalapenos next year and sell some sweet jalapeno pickles, he says.

We’ll see about that.

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I took Bill, Hoyt, and Lafayette to the vet yesterday morning and left them, and then went back in the evening, arriving there about 5:15 with Sam in tow. When I walked in, they told me that one of the kittens had been operated on and was up and about, and a second kitten was currently on the table. They took Sam from me and carried him into the operating room so the vet could get a look at him, and she said he was doing just fine.

(Yay!)

I sat in the waiting room with Sam on my lap, and the other lady sitting in there, a big dog sitting next to her, said “I don’t come in here very often, but every time I do, you’re here!”

I laughed.

She said, “You must be in here every day!”

I said, “Not really, though sometimes it feels like it!” We talked for a minute about Challenger’s House before the nurse called her and her dog back, and in retrospect I should have given her the Love & Hisses url, maybe she would have liked reading about my babies!

The cat who was on the operating table turned out to be Bill. I’m sure the surgery for him took longer than she expected. I’ve probably mentioned before that Bill’s eyes are pretty bad (he and Terry are the worst). I sat in the waiting room with Sam, and eventually they brought Hoyt (who’d been done) and Lafayette (who hadn’t) out in their carrier.

“That little brown tabby was yelling his head off when he came out from under,” the vet tech told me. “He didn’t want to be held, didn’t want to eat – he didn’t quiet down until we put his brother in with him!”

That’s Hoyt, the big mouth. I was surprised to see that both of Hoyt’s eyes had been operated on. I was under the impression that he had one normal eye and one bad eye, but I guess she found a spot on the “normal” eye.

Eventually, Bill’s surgery was over, and they waited for him to wake up. When he did, he came up swinging. They wrapped him up and cuddled him, and he growled and yelled. Eventually they put him in his carrier and put the carrier on the drier (where it’s warmer), and he calmed down. They brought him out – he was still pretty shaky – and told me if I was comfortable taking him home in that condition (the vet thought he’d be fine), I could take him.

He was super groggy, but purred when I petted him, so I got his medication and loaded both carriers in the car (I put Sam in with Hoyt and Lafayette) and headed for home.

Lafayette’s going back on Friday to have his eyes done. I’m hoping to get Sookie and Terry in next week.

So we got home and big-mouth Hoyt wanted OUT of that carrier, so I let him out to eat and drink and use the litter box and sniff at his brothers and sister. Bill had no interest in going anywhere, so I left him in his carrier and put him in a corner of my room for a few hours.

At bedtime, I let him out of his carrier, but he was not interested in eating or drinking or using the litter box, just sat there and looked groggy. I snuggled him for a good long time, and then put him in a fluffy bed in the bathroom (where there’s a litter box, water, and food) with Hoyt, checked on them a few times through the night, and this morning he was a little more with it.

Hoyt, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to know that he’s had anything done at all. He’s like Sam was, racing around, playing, eating like nobody’s business.

Bill was using the litter box when we went in, and he came right over to have his snack with everyone else. He’s getting around well, but oh do his eyes look sore. He fought having his medicine, but before I left the room I saw him jump on a toy.

I don’t have pictures of Bill and Hoyt yet, but I’ll be sure to snap a few today and post them tomorrow. I’m relieved at how well they’re doing, and that I got the thumbs-up from the vet for Sam, too. With three kittens done, we’re halfway there – and after Lafayette’s eyes are done tomorrow, we’ll be 2/3 of the way there!

She’s just a sleepy, sleepy girl, our Sookie.

Terry with his paws in the AIR, like he just don’t CARE.

That’s Bill in the back, the day before surgery. Sam in the middle, Sookie in the front. They were napping and I rudely woke them up by walking into the room.

“Helloooooooo, good-lookin’!”

I put these mirrors up last week, and the kittens are enthralled.

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I love how it looks like the crack in the cement started at her head. Like she landed so hard, it cracked the cement. In actuality, she flopped down and rolled back and forth like the happy girl she is.

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Previously
2008: When the cleaning bug strikes, you don’t ask questions!
2007: Bob Goodlatte fights the good fight against his opponent Joan Badespresso.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: “She looks… she looks.. she looks like a PIRATE!” he gasped. I started giggling.
2003: I guess Spike TV really IS television for men.
2002: When married characters are that cruel to each other, all you can think is, “Why the hell are they married if they hate each other so much?”
2001: Gatlinburg pictures!
2000: No entry.