Help Rebel!!! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Since I had to cut through Tennessee to get to the vet clinic to drop off Terry yesterday morning, I stopped at one of the gas … Continue reading “9/10/09 – Thursday”
Since I had to cut through Tennessee to get to the vet clinic to drop off Terry yesterday morning, I stopped at one of the gas stations I pass to get a couple of Powerball tickets. I buy lottery tickets if I happen to be in Tennessee, but I don’t think I’ve ever made a special trip to get tickets.
(The vet clinic is actually located in Alabama, but I get there faster if I go up the interstate into Tennessee and then up the highway back into Alabama.)
The gas stations I pass on my way through the small section of Tennessee are kind of depressing inside, each with tables for people to sit at and scratch their scratch-off tickets. Some of them have notes warning people not to stand at the counter to scratch their tickets. It makes me sad to think of desperate people crossing the state line to buy their scratch-off tickets and not even wanting to take the time to go over and sit at the tables provided to see if this is the time they got The Big One.
I think sometimes that dreaming of what we’d do if we won the lottery is more entertaining than actually winning the lottery would be.
(Of course, I’d like to be able to test this theory for myself if you don’t mind, lottery gods.)
So what would you do if you won the lottery? We’re going to take for granted that – like me – you’d make sure all your siblings had their own houses (or their houses paid for) and your younger family members – children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren – would all have college funds set up and you’d buy your parents their dream house or a trip around the world or something along those lines.
That stuff’s a given.
What else would you do, though? What FUN things would you do?
I can pretty much guarantee that Fred would quit his job. We’d get him that boat he wants, and a good truck to pull the boat with so he wouldn’t have to worry about his truck breaking down on the way to or from the river.
I’d donate a huge amount of money to Challenger’s House and other area pet shelters.
We’d buy 100 acres somewhere around here, and build our dream house (don’t be too surprised if our dream house looks pretty much exactly like this house and hey, we’re multi-millionaires so it’d probably be bigger, so we could have a few more rooms dedicated to fostering cats!).
I’d totally hire someone to clean the house a couple of times a week. Because god knows it doesn’t get cleaned a couple of times a week NOW.
I’d trade in my car for a Prius.
Vacation home on the coast of Florida – not a huge, fancy one, but a decent one.
I’d start a foundation to spay and neuter cats and dogs. If I came across a sign that said “free kittens”, I’d stop and offer have their mother cat spayed, at my cost. And if the owner didn’t jump at the offer, I’d PAY THEM to allow me to spay the mother cat. If they still refused, I’d hire a ninja team to steal that fucking cat. Because if you’re giving away free kittens and you’re not jumping at the offer of a free spay for the mother cat? Come on.
I’d take a photography class so I could get pictures of my foster kittens half as gorgeous as the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee lady’s pictures.
Wow. I really expect a few million bucks to go pretty far, don’t I?
That’s it, that’s all I can think of at the moment.
I left Ike at the vet clinic when I dropped Terry off yesterday, and the shelter manager told me that another foster mom had stopped by to drop off her fosters for spaying and neutering, and grabbed Ike up to foster for herself. She lurves the babies (really, who wouldn’t love Ike??), so I know he’s in good hands.
I won’t lie, though – I kinda miss the little guy!
And speaking of Terry – no eyelips for him! They called early afternoon to ask if I minded if they waited on the eyes. Terry’s still a little guy, and the hernia repair along with the neuter was going to take a while, and they don’t like to keep them under for such a long time. I told them that was fine with me – I wasn’t looking forward to having him recover from the neuter AND hernia repair AND eyelips all at the same time. Hopefully he’ll be going back next week for his eyelips. And if that meant he has to stay here a little longer than his brothers and sister to recover, well darn. Wouldn’t that be horrible?
(Fred said last night, after I went on and on (and on) about how much I love Terry, “We are NOT keeping him!” and then after a long pause “But if we had twelve cats, that would make figuring out the pictures for the calendar for next year a lot easier!” and I said “Well really, you can’t have Jake and Elwood in separate pictures on next year’s calendar because they’re always snuggled up together. We’d have to have thirteen cats to make it come out right!” and he said “We are NOT keeping him and we are NOT keeping two!” Heh.)
Terry was one unhappy little guy last night. Between the hernia repair and the neuter, he couldn’t get in a comfortable position, and so he mostly just sat there, hunched over. He’d allow me to pet him for a moment or two before he made a grumpy “That’s enough” noise. His brothers and sister were so kind to him – they’d be racing around like wild things, then come over and sniff at him, lick him on the face, and then go racing off. If they got too vigorous with the licking, he’d make his grumpy noise, and they’d back right off.
This morning, I opened the door to let the kittens out of their room, and Terry came right over to me, sat on my foot, and bit my leg.
In other words, I think he’s back to normal.
Sam, a week and a half after surgery.
Lafayette, five days after surgery (not that you can see anything!)
Bill, a week after surgery (he doesn’t care for the camera flash, thus the squint).
Previously 2008: Torturing the Toms. 2007: Google is THE SHIT.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry. 2003: “Fuck it!” I said. 2002: “Stinky?” I said. 2001: I stole this survey from Noreen, but I’ve seen it all over the place recently, and god knows how much I love to be one of the cool kids! 2000: Look! It’s nay-chuh!
A Day Without Cats? I say a day with nothing BUT cats! If you can’t get your daily dose of cats at Cute Overload or any of those other cat-boycotting sites, you know you can always get more pussy than you can shake a stick at here at Bitchypoo and over at Love & Hisses! … Continue reading “9/9/09 – Wednesday”
I say a day with nothing BUT cats! If you can’t get your daily dose of cats at Cute Overload or any of those other cat-boycotting sites, you know you can always get more pussy than you can shake a stick at here at Bitchypoo and over at Love & Hisses!
I got up yesterday morning and medicated and eye-ointment’d Sam, Hoyt, Bill, and Lafayette. As I put the ointment in their eyes, I cast a worried look (as usual) at all the eyes, and they seemed to be doing okay. I spent some time playing with them, and then I got out the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed their room.
It’s funny, I always assume kittens are going to be terrified of the vacuum cleaner, but it’s not always so. The majority of the True Bloods aren’t terribly scared of the vacuum cleaner, and a couple of them – Sam and Terry – actually act very interested in it and what it’s doing. I wouldn’t be surprised one of these days if Terry tries to jump on and go for a ride.
I put the vacuum cleaner away, and then I picked up Bill to look closer at one of his eyes, which seemed from a distance to be kind of goopy. I decided there was a little eye goo, but nothing to be worried about, walked into the kitten room and sat down. Bill followed me in and sat next to me. I snapped his picture, and then I looked at him.
His right eyelip was bloody.
I’m only surprised that I didn’t scream and faint or start running around in circles. He didn’t seem to be in pain, he let me gently wipe the blood away, but more blood came to fill the spot I’d cleaned. I immediately called the vet and asked if I could bring him in. It being the day after a holiday weekend they were pretty busy, but told me to bring him in and leave him, and they’d figure a way to work him in.
As I put Bill into the carrier, I looked down at Hoyt, and decided on a whim to bring him along for the ride. He had a little spot on one of his eyelips that seemed a little raw to me, but mostly I didn’t want Bill to be alone, so I thought Hoyt could keep him company.
I dropped them off at the vet, told the receptionist what was going on, and left my number for them to call when the vet had checked them over.
They called at 3 and said I could come get them, so off I went. I talked to the vet briefly, but basically she just said that both Bill’s eyes and Hoyt’s looked good. Perhaps Bill bumped his eyelip on something, which caused the bleeding.
And actually, she theorized that the fact that it was bleeding was likely a good sign – that it meant that the graft is taking, that there are blood pathways forming between the graft and where the graft is attached. She told me to keep going with the antibiotic and ointment, but to her they look good.
What a relief!
Maybe Bill just thought I didn’t have enough to worry about?
I’ll be leaving in a little bit to drop Terry off at the vet. I won’t lie, I’m going to worry about my little guy. His eyes are far and away (in my opinion, I’m no medical professional) the worst of the bunch. I’ll be glad to see him with his new eyelips, though, so that he won’t have hair rubbing against his eyeball. It hurts just to see that!
Also leaving with Terry and I will be wee Ike, the most adorable three week-old you’ll ever see. It has been such a pleasure having him here, he’s such a sweet little guy.
Yesterday, after his morning feeding, he snoozed for a few hours, then I brought him out to play. He likes the occasional belly rub, I’ve discovered. And since I had just vacuumed the kitchen, I felt okay about letting him crawl around on the rug in there. Ike can move when he wants to! At one point he got off the rug onto the hardwood floor, and I swear I could see the little question mark over his head as he thought “Now, this is NOT what I meant to do!”
After another nap and some more bottle, he took a lap around the living room rug while I watched last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta (don’t judge me!). I’m pretty sure at one point he looked at me and said “Is that lady with the wig really singing ‘Don’t be tardy for the party’, or is my hearing not quite up to par yet?”
Really, there’s nothing like a sweet little purring kitten. My favorite part about feeding Ike is that his little ears WIGGLE as he’s sucking. I had completely forgot that their ears wiggle, and how I did not pass out from the cute, I’m still not sure.
So, say goodbye to Ike – he’s going to the shelter, where the shelter manager will love him and care for him, and hopefully give him a sibling or two so he doesn’t grow up to be weird (always a possibility with single bottle-fed kittens).
(You can click on any of these to go to a larger version over at Flickr.)
Honestly, look at those little pink toes and the up-against-the-wall position he likes to be in when he’s eating. Is he not the MOST adorable thing??
Previously 2008: “I SEE YOU HAS CORN GIVE TO ME NOM NOM NOM” 2007: Who needs a stinkin’ appendix, anyway?
2006: No entry. 2005: (I shot a man in Texas, just to watch him die.)
2004: No entry. 2003: So basically I paid twice as much for a keyboard as I would have on my own for no good reason, all thanks to that Staples employee, may he rot in hell. 2002: I hope that leaf doesn’t give me a damn yeast infection.
2001: No entry. 2000: I’m not sure what happened next. I believe I blacked out.
Did you hear that there are new Dumbversation video podcasts up? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * We have someone visiting us! We’re calling him “Ike” for now, I don’t know that that’ll end … Continue reading “9/8/09 – Tuesday”
We’re calling him “Ike” for now, I don’t know that that’ll end up being his name, but he’s only going to be here ’til tomorrow morning. Another Challenger’s House foster mom rescued him at the emergency vet clinic. She didn’t have room for him at her place, so I took him, knowing that we’d figure out a way to fit him in somewhere. Luckily, the shelter manager told me that she’d have room for him after today, so he’s just passing through.
He’s three weeks old and (obviously) he’s awfully cute. He’s a pudgy, active, bright-eyed little guy. When I feed him, he purrs. When I kiss him, he purrs. When I clean him up, he purrs. When I put him in the big carrier with the heating pad and a big stuffed cat and a smaller stuffed bear, he crawls around and examines everything, then conks right out. He’s an active sleeper, this one. I’ll look at him (he’s in the computer room where I spend most of my time) one second and he’s in one position, then I glance again, and he’s in another position entirely. He moves onto the heating pad if he gets cold, then he moves off the heating pad if he gets hot.
He’s no dummy.
Apparently he was abandoned and found by the person who brought him to the clinic, but he mustn’t have been alone for long, because he’s in really good shape. (He was kind of nappy and flea-ridden, but the other foster mom who took him home cleaned him up and he’s an awfully pretty little thing.)
Don’t get me wrong – if the True Bloods didn’t have the whole surgery and recovering-from-surgery thing going on, I’d be glad to keep him. But with their surgery and their recovery and all the time I spend worriedly peering at them thinking “Is that eyelip going to pop right off his face and go bouncing across the room, or am I imagining things?”, I’m afraid he wouldn’t get enough attention.
It sure is hard to stop kissing his purring little face!
Since it was a holiday weekend here in the U.S., and since it was one of those holiday weekends where everyone grills out, we decided that Sunday we’d make a big grilling-out type meal of burgers, potato salad, three-bean salad, and I wanted to try Pioneer Woman’s/ Pam Anderson’s Best Baked Beans Ever.
Holy. Moly. She is NOT exaggerating when she says those are the best baked beans ever. They are SO good. And really, SO easy. I made them, put them in the oven, and then ignored them for two hours and voila! Yum!
And now… ::sigh:: It’s Fall, isn’t it? We go out every evening at dusk to lock the chickens in their coops and give the pigs their evening snack, and whereas at the middle of the summer it was after 8:00 when we were out there, we’re now done and back inside by 7:15 or so.
I’d complain, but to be honest it’s still so nice and warm that I don’t have a whole lot to complain about. It just seems wrong that the longest day of the year is in mid-late June, and then as the rest of the summer goes by, the days get shorter and shorter. It still feels like summer out there to me, the days should still be long, shouldn’t they?
I went out to the garden Sunday morning to pick the tomato plants bare. It was my intention to pick all the decent tomatoes and then have Fred pull up the tomato plants – this has been a very disappointing tomato year, let me tell you – but there were so many tiny green tomatoes still on the plants that we figured we’d just let them be. Either they’ll grow bigger and we can pick them, or the plants will die, and we’ll toss them to the chickens and pigs. Whatever happens, happens, right?
I have plenty of green tomatoes to make fried green tomatoes, in any case.
Jake and Elwood are truly making themselves at home, let me tell you.
Exhibit number one:
Do you see how close those boys are to Spanky? And do you see that Spanky is just laying there sound asleep, unbothered by their proximity? Do you know how often Spanky lets other cats get this close to him? Try NEVER.
Do you see that Jake is eating
OFF
THE
SAME
PLATE
as Kara? Do you SEE this? Do you see that Kara is neither hissing nor smacking nor stomping off in a huff? DO YOU SEE THIS? It’s like we’ve entered another universe completely. Kara does NOT like other cats all up in her shit. At Snackin’! Time!, she might occasionally get so excited that it is Snackin’! Time! that she accidentally rubs up against Tommy, but that’s okay because he’s the Ambassador of Love, and no one can hate having Tommy near them. Other times, she gets so excited at Snackin’! Time! that she accidentally rubs up against Spanky, but then an alarm goes off in her head and she thinks “MAYDAY MAYDAY AN INTRUDER CAT HAS ENTERED MY PERSONAL SPACE” and she hisses and smacks him first with one Paw o’ Doom and then the other.
But here, in this picture (let me refresh your memory):
Jake is all up in her shit, eating off her plate, and she just keeps on eatin’. Jake is NOT the first kitten to attempt to nomnomnom off her plate, and always before she has squeaked and then hissed and then double-smacked, and the poor subject of her rage has gone running.
Tomorrow, Terry goes to have his hernia fixed, his bits neutered, and possibly – hopefully – his eyes done as well.
I won’t lie, I will be so glad when all these babies have had their eye surgery. I’m going to drag Bill and Hoyt to the clinic with me tomorrow when I pick up Terry and ask the vet to give them the once-over. I think they look good, but reassurance from a real vet goes a long way toward calming my worrywart nature.
(Trick sentence! Nothing will stop me from worrying!)
Look who’s being greedy! Sookie doesn’t know if she wants to play with the mink tail or the packing strap, so she’s claiming both of them as her own.
Waiting for the feather toy to come juuuust a little lower.
Look at Sam back there, all sitting at attention! I can’t decide whether he looks more like a rabbit – you know how they sit up at attention before they go bounding off? – or a meerkat. A squirrel? Whichever, he’s such a cutie that pardon me, I must go pick him up and kiss him right this minute.
Previously 2008: Yes, more chickens.
2007: No entry. 2006: I think that “Proven to be beneficial to livers” should be Fred’s new tagline. 2005: Give me some of that, Barbara Bush, you ignoramus.
2004: No entry. 2003: Because believe it or not, it never once occurred to me that the Walton family was comprised of hillbillies. 2002: Look, I drink a gallon of water a day. I need to know that I can pee when I need to, so stop rolling your eyes at me.
2001: No entry. 2000: Can I tell you how much I loathe Bret Easton Ellis?
Copper Black Marans rooster. I love how it looks like he’s wearing feather shoes.
The small coop (the first one Fred built for our original 12 chickens) is now the maternity ward for broody chickens. See the buckets on the floor of the coop? We bought those at the flea market last weekend. They originally held buttercream frosting, and still slightly smell like frosting. I like to think that the chickens are sitting on their eggs thinking “Why do I keep craving birthday cake…?”
Happy pigs.
Michelle the rooster. His two lone tail feathers crack me up.
Rhode Island Red rooster.
The turkeys have been moved to the back forty. They’re not sure how they feel about chickens.
Dancing rooster.
Amish rooster.
The Roadrunner. Isn’t he the gooniest looking thing? He’s all leg! (Fred’s pretty sure he’s a Cornish.)
Happy George.
Happy Gracie.
George comes to investigate the situation.
“Hey, lady! You has the snackin’ for us?!”
I think this is star jasmine – anyone know for sure? I trained it to go up the fence because I thought it was clematis, but it’s definitely not that.
I think this is a newly hatched batch of assassin bugs. They hung out on this leaf for two days before they scattered.
The kittens are continuing to do well. I spent a lot of time hanging out with them this weekend, and more than once I was pinned to the floor by six snoozing kittens. When a kitten falls asleep on you, it’s bad luck to wake them up. True story! All you can do is lay there and maybe snooze along with them.
::slurrrrrp::
::slurrrrp::
Hoping that feather toy comes low enough for him to grab…
Bill has such a serious little face. I always say to him, “Billy, don’t be a hero.” He doesn’t appreciate my humor.
Previously
2008: No entry. 2007: Pretty good for kittens I was absolutely positive would be unadoptable due to their feral nature when I first saw them, ain’t it? 2006: Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straightened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin’? 2005: I didn’t get any pictures of it, but last night the stank coming off Rambo’s hindquarters was so strong that we finally gave in to the inevitable and gave him a bath.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry. 2001: IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WHO IT IS. 2000: Am I not an ass-kicking WalkAerobics diva?
I had to have blood drawn yesterday (they took four fucking vials! This was regular blood work ordered by my doctor to go along with the physical I had last week.) and it made me think of a question – how come when you have blood taken, they sometimes tell you not to lift anything … Continue reading “9/4/09 – Friiiiiiiiiiiday!”
I had to have blood drawn yesterday (they took four fucking vials! This was regular blood work ordered by my doctor to go along with the physical I had last week.) and it made me think of a question – how come when you have blood taken, they sometimes tell you not to lift anything heavy with the arm they took the blood from for a few hours? Will my vein pop out and go shooting across the room or something if I lift my purse (in which I regularly carry 45 pounds of change)?
Can everyone see the names of the cats under their pictures in the left sidebar now? Any other flaws in the design you guys notice, or does it look good enough?
I’m glad I’m not the only avocado lover – you guys and your suggestions were having me drooling yesterday! Using mashed avocado in place of mayo? You KNOW I’m trying that! I had another scrambled eggs, chopped tomato, and chopped avocado rollup for lunch yesterday and holy COW was it good!
My only question – exactly how does one grill avocado slices? It seems like they’d be too soft for that. Would you use a veggie basket or something similar?
I’m sure the other book you enjoyed that was written by a blogger was Fred’s book, right?
This was in response to something I said in my comments the other day – that I find that books put out by bloggers, except for Dietgirl’s book – which I thought was fabulous – (and possibly one or two others I couldn’t remember at the moment), tend to be kind of boring. I don’t think, for the most part, that blogs translate to books very well. I used to buy almost all books put out by bloggers to Support! the! Cause! (“What cause?” you ask? The cause of Shut Your Face, is what cause.), but I got burned so often that I don’t any more.
And yes, of course I enjoyed Fred’s book – is it sad that I didn’t even think of his book when I typed that? (But then, I don’t think of him as a blogger, either, I just think of him as Fred!)
When will the Crooked Acres Jams and Hot Sauces be available again (and yes, I’m on the auto mailing list, but I have friends – and friends of friends – that want to know.) :)))
It’s my goal to start jamming and saucing it up ’round these parts on or around October 1st. It could happen sooner, but it’ll definitely start that weekend. I need to stock up on canning jars and sugar and fruit and such, but once I start making the jams and hot sauces, I should have enough habaneros to keep going for a good long time.
I also intend to start experimenting with Splenda this time around, too.
Which of the cats are still outdoor kitties? You don’t talk about the older ones much any more. For instance, how is Sugarbutt’s foot doing? Hope he’s out of his collars!
Most of them – except for Stinkerbelle and Jake and Elwood – are allowed out into the back yard. Other than that, Maxi and Newt are our “free range” cats who aren’t confined to the back yard. Newt is always around, and spends his days wandering in and out of the house. These days, he likes to hang out on the chicken processing station (which has been cleaned since it was last used, let me assure you):
Maxi’s been around less and less lately. I think the fact that she and Joe Bob hate each other so much is keeping her away from the house, I’m sad to say. She stops by the side porch every once in a while during the day to eat (and at Snackin’! Time! I put a plate out there for her), but we can rarely get her to stay inside at night. I believe she’s spending a lot of time hanging out with the kids two doors down.
Sugarbutt’s foot is FINALLY – thankyajesus! – healed. We went from the two-collar system to the Bite-Not collar paired with a “boot” made of gauze and tape to cover his foot. When we found that he was leaving his foot alone, we kept the “boot” off and when his toes were healed, we took the Bite-Not collar off, and he’s been racing around like his ass is on fire ever since!
I think the current great minds of usability say that users can choose to open links in a new window with a key or click (or mouse action, for advanced users), so there’s no reason to dictate that action in the code. It really only gets done these days on bad commercial websites that don’t want users abandoning their pretty, pretty ads, and invariably mess it up so that every page of their site starts opening in new windows and gah, that sucks.
CTRL- (or Command-) click is your friend.
Myself, I’m fond of right-click/ open link in new tab but I may have to give this fancy new CTRL-click a try.
In a perfect world, I’d be able to find a WordPress plug-in where, if someone wanted the links to open in a new page, they could check a box over in the sidebar. I haven’t found it yet, but I also haven’t spent a lot of time searching, either.
Edited to add: OH JESUS CHRIST. Did you know that if you hover over a link and then click on your scroll wheel (on your mouse) that it opens the link in a new tab? DID YOU KNOW THAT? I did not! Fred just called and mocked me for not knowing that, but I ask you – how the fuck am I supposed to know this stuff if no one ever TELLS ME?!?!?
Have you ever heard of the cat breed Chartreux, otherwise known as the smiling blue cat of France? I swear your boys have the look!
I had never heard of the Chartreux. I actually think they look more like the Russian Blue, they’re built sort of long and sleek. Their eyes are more yellowish than the accepted Russian Blue, and I don’t think they have the wideset ears of a traditional Russian Blue. Actually, I thought yesterday that they’re long and sleek, and they are in the body, but they do kind of have short legs. It’ll be interesting to see what they look like when they grow up!
I recently read that they can do DNA testing on dogs to figure out what breed they are, but I haven’t seen the same thing for cats. Too bad, ’cause I’m certainly curious to know what their genetic background is comprised of. of what their genetic background is comprised.
I have had people ask me if my Sookie was like this or that because she was a Calico. I don’t think people know that Torti and Calico are coat colors and not breeds. I find it fascinating that people find them to be more vocal. I haven’t found it to be so with my Calico(s) but my Siamese it has always been true.
It would probably be sexist to point out that Calicos and Tortis are female and thus more prone to talkativeness, wouldn’t it?
I agree with the point about Siamese – I’m pretty sure both Spanky and Stinkerbelle have Siamese in their backgrounds, and they are some TALKERS when the mood strikes ’em!
After my RNY WLS I was still allowed to take anti-inflammatories (I’d been taking them for about 3 years for back pain), but had to take them with a Losec tablet (not sure what Losec is called in the USA) and some food like yoghurt first to line my pouch. It took about 5 months for the back pain to finally stop and I don’t take them any more. Just thought I’d say that these things are possible, despite what the Drs say!
Very interesting! A Google search shows that Losec is another name for Prilosec. I’ll have to discuss this with my doctor, because if I could take an anti-inflammatory, I bet it would help my elbow quite a lot!
Your toe in the turkey poop story made me laugh out loud. The other morning I was up early in the computer room when my husband walks in and tells me he thinks our dog puked in the bedroom. I happen to be right in the middle of eating and I am chewing as I get up and walk in the bedroom. I look at this small, palm-sized object laying at the end of the bed. As I look closer, I realize it is just one of her rawhide chew toys and I proclaim, “Hey! It’s just one of her rawhide chew toys!” and I go to pick it up. Unfortunately, my fingers slide right through the “toy.” It IS puke! Thank god I am a nurse because it didn’t even phase me and I continued to chew my food as I went to wash my hands. Three years ago, I would have puked myself. Eeew!
Isn’t it amazing what we can get used to? I could probably get up from dinner, go scoop out a super-nasty litter box, and sit back down to dinner without missing a beat.
I do make a very loud (profanity-laden) exclamation of disgust when I step in a pile of cold cat puke, though.
So I am just curious…how much bacon do you get from one pig?
I actually had to ask Fred for the answer to this. He said that it depends on the size of the pig (of course), but an entire pig would bring about 20 – 30 pounds of bacon. That’s a lot of bacon for two people! (We’ve given a lot of bacon and pork cuts to various family members, which is the only reason we have ANY room in our freezer!)
It’s a constant, low, howling noise that the cats make when they feel the need to announce that they’ve caught something. Here’s Miz Poo doing it a few years ago (you really have to crank your sound to hear it, though):
Just wondering…do you have pet insurance for your own cats? I took my one cat, Snickers, in for a checkup,and rabies shot this week and it was $80.Considering that I only have one cat, that’s not too expensive, but your crew would cost a fortune, especially when other health problems come up once in awhile, too.
We don’t have pet insurance on the cats, though we’ve discussed getting coverage for them as they reach a certain age, maybe 10. (Hopefully there’s no qualification physical, because Miz Poo would never pass!)
Do you realize you and Fred have the perfect life ~ the “American Dream”? You are lucky in love, staying home taking care of the homefront, the garden, the kitties, the cooking, the internet writing – as you happily make your way through the day. While your brilliant husband makes enough for you and him to live moderately and creatively and happily! Congrats and thanks for sharing with us and letting me dream of what you do!
I do love my life an awful lot. I know it’s not everyone’s dream, what we have, but it’s the perfect life for me, and believe me – I’m grateful every day for it!
So, after I went back and looked at the pictures of Sam the day after he had surgery, I’m thinking that Bill’s eyes look about right. I didn’t remember Sam’s looking so red and sore, but they certainly were.
I also decided that the fact that Bill’s been so quiet and is mostly sitting around watching his brothers and sister play is completely normal – because that’s what he did before surgery. He’s always been a quiet observer, whereas Hoyt has always been the spazzy bigmouth. They both seem to be healing just fine, feeling okay, and that’s all we can ask for!
And now I’m about to leave to take Lafayette to the vet for his new eyelips. Send good thoughts in his direction, would you?
Sam, a week after surgery and lookin’ good!
Hoyt, a day after surgery. Fred came upstairs to help me with medicating Hoyt, Sam and Bill last night, and he picked up Hoyt and looked at him and said “This isn’t one of the ones who had surgery yesterday, right?” and was surprised to find out that he was. That’s how good he’s looking!
Bill, one day after surgery.
Bill, still squinty. He may just be a squinty kinda guy. Maybe I should have named him Clint Eastwood.
Previously 2008: GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. 2007: I can’t help it if giant forks make me happy. 2006: Does it make me strange that I can handle the thought of field mice in the house, but the idea of ants in the house just REALLY infuriates me?
2005: No entry. 2004: My Gram. 2003: If I had a brain I’d be dangerous. 2002: What I’ve been doing. 2001: I’m wise to your stalker ways, Margaret!
2000: No entry.
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 … Continue reading “9/3/09 – Thursday”
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sorry, no entry today – I’ve got stuff to do! There might be an entry up at Love & Hisses later, depending on what I get done this morning. See you tomorrow!
Sorry, no entry today – I’ve got stuff to do!
There might be an entry up at Love & Hisses later, depending on what I get done this morning.
Okay. More housekeeping notes: I moved the “Get me a random entry!” link down the sidebar so it’s under the “journal” heading. Can everyone see it there? If not, let me know and I’ll get Fred right on it. (Poor Fred.) I changed the pictures in the sidebar so that they shouldn’t be blocking the … Continue reading “9/1/09 – Tuesday”
Okay. More housekeeping notes: I moved the “Get me a random entry!” link down the sidebar so it’s under the “journal” heading. Can everyone see it there? If not, let me know and I’ll get Fred right on it.
(Poor Fred.)
I changed the pictures in the sidebar so that they shouldn’t be blocking the words underneath. Are they blocking the words for anyone still?
And since enough people have mentioned it lately, I’m taking a poll as to whether y’all want links to open in the same window or a new window. I’ll leave the poll open for a week, and majority’s going to rule on this.
That is, assuming there’s a WordPress plugin that will encode the links so that they’ll open in a new window, because I am NOT hand-coding all the links I do on a daily basis. I don’t love anyone that much.
Alternately, if anyone knows of a WordPress plugin that will allow the reader to decide whether links open in a new window or the same one, let me know, would you? Thanks.
Why are so many people searching on “Dooce” all of a sudden? Seventeen searches over the weekend? Really? Is this about the BOYCOTT MAYTAG thing?
For the uninformed:
Dooce had issues with her washer, got no love from the repairman, called upon her million-plus Twitter followers to boycott Maytag.
Sundry considered that an abuse of power.
Dooce’s followers were all “OH NO SHE DI’IN’T!”, Sundry’s followers were all “YEAH SHE DID! EAT THAT!”
Jon Armstrong was all “HEATHER INVENTED MAYTAG WHEN SHE WASN’T BUSY INVENTING BLOGGING AND BEING THE FIRST EVER TO EXPERIENCE NATURAL CHILDBIRTH.”
Snarkers were all “Ever heard of a laundromat instead of letting your nasties pile up in the corner and stank up the house or are you boycotting the obvious as well?”
Various people were all “Blah blah blah we have no excitement in our lives, let us discuss the holy motherfucking shit out of this, COME ON EVERYONE, LET’S ALL WEIGH IN ON THE TOPIC!”
People with a life are all “What’s a Dooce?”
Frankly, as an internet slap fight, I found it lacking. I give it a C minus. Where were the personal attacks, the insults about each others’ appearances and mothering skills, the snide comments about each others’ spouses? WHERE?
Were y’all searching to find out my super-important opinion on the topic, is that what those searches were about? Because come closer.
Lean in, now.
My opinion on the topic is that… I kinda don’t really give all that much of a shit.
Does Dooce have a point? Sure. No help from the Maytag repairman after repeated visits, who wouldn’t snap?
Does Sundry have a point? Sure. When you’ve got a million people dying to read the words from your Twitter, maybe you have a responsibility to watch what you’re saying.
(Please note: I do not follow Dooce on Twitter. I do follow Sundry, which is the only reason I had any idea any of this was going on.)
On the other hand, if even one person who follows Dooce on Twitter was juuuuust about to go out and buy a Maytag appliance, and they read Dooce’s post to Twitter, and they said “OMG! Dooce says do not buy Maytag! Must. Not. Buy. Maytag. LOL!”, then I would say Maytag dodged a bullet on that one.
Who wants, as a customer, someone who is such a blithering idiot that a Twitter post calling for a boycott of Maytag would cause them to NOT buy the Maytag appliance they were just about to buy? And what kind of blithering idiot would immediately NOT buy that Maytag appliance instead of maybe putting it off the purchase until they found out what exactly the issue was?
Not a blithering idiot you’d want calling the service desk all the time, is what I’m saying.
Okay. Now I’m going to stop talking about it before I bore myself, and y’all, straight to death.
Someone asked in yesterday’s comments if Sam can close his eyes. He certainly can – in fact, we had a bit of a scare on Sunday when we walked in to give him his medicine, and his eyes were mostly glued shut by, I guess, post-surgery gunk (I noticed that his eyes were tearing a little on Saturday). We put some drops on the outside of his eyes, and soon enough he was able to open his eyes and he hasn’t had the problem since, thank goodness.
He’s not one of the kittens who couldn’t close his eyes completely before surgery. Terry and Bill are the ones with so much of an upper eyelid missing that when they close their eyes, you can still see their eyes. Sam’s eyelids weren’t nearly as bad as that, though with the pieces of eyelid missing, he had fur rubbing directly on his eyes every time he blinked. Now, his eyes are protected from that abrasion.
I’ll try to get some more pictures of him later today so you can see how well he’s doing. From a distance, I’ll say that he looks like he has completely normal eyes, it’s not until you get up close that you realize something’s different.
He had the last of his pain medication yesterday morning, and today he’s perfectly fine. When I went to let them out of their room, he came running right over with his tail sticking straight up in the air, let me squirt medicine down his throat, put ointment in his eyes, and then ran off to play.
Now, however, we’re going to talk about another of the True Blood 6, someone who doesn’t get his picture posted nearly often enough.
I speak, of course, of Lafayette.
Lafayette, being a black cat, is kind of difficult to photograph because he tends to show up as a dark mass in pictures. I can take his picture with the flash on, but his fur is so shiny that it reflects the light and looks terrible. Yesterday, as I was visiting the kittens (I visit them many times a day, as you can imagine), he flopped down in the sunlight, and I managed to get a few good shots of him.
“O crystal ball, when will I get my fancy new eyelips?” Soon enough, sweet boy, I promise.
Cheesecake pose.
Casually considering whether to chomp on Sookie’s foot.
Happy boy in the sun.
He is not only a good-looking boy, he’s super-sweet. He’ll come over and press up against my leg and wait for me to notice him, and then when I speak to him, he purrs and purrs. He likes to be held on his back like a baby, and when I give him a belly rub, he starts off cleaning his own paws, and finishes up by cleaning my fingers.
Previously 2008: I know. I’m an unreasonable monster.
2007: No entry. 2006: The truth is, Fred has been excitedly pricing tractors every minute of every day since our offer on the house was accepted. 2005: Ahhhhh, smell that fresh, crisp autumn air! Why, it’s down to 90 degrees today. I almost need a sweater. 2004: She turned 86 last Thursday. She’s the only grandparent I’ve ever really known. 2003: (and you KNOW he insisted on it, was all temper tantrumy, screaming and beating his fists on the floor, wailing “ACTOR AND NOVELIST! ACTOR AND NOVELIST!”)
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
Okay, the new design is done and up. I don’t think I’ll be messing with it any more because I think it looks good enough, you should be able to see the banner at the top of the page, and I don’t know why the links in the body of the entry are in blue … Continue reading “8/31/09 – Monday”
Okay, the new design is done and up. I don’t think I’ll be messing with it any more because I think it looks good enough, you should be able to see the banner at the top of the page, and I don’t know why the links in the body of the entry are in blue and NOT underlined and the ones in the sidebar are black and underlined. I personally prefer the blue/ not underlined look, but after all the help Fred uncomplainingly gave me this weekend getting the fucking page to look the way I want, I’m not going to ask him to do one more thing with it.
(This week.)
The threaded comments – where you can reply directly to another comment if you want to – are back, and that’s another thing Fred fixed for me, making it look like I want it to.
Fred has put up with a lot of shit from me lately. Thank god for patient geeks who put up with difficult women.
I made a few changes in the sidebars. Jake and Elwood are now listed under permanent residents and even have their own page. I moved Mister Boogers’ picture over there to the right under the search box because people keep wandering through, seem to be surprised to find that he’s died, and do searches to find out when and how. If they click on the picture, it’ll take them right to the entry where I wrote about him.
I can’t believe it’s been two months.
If anything looks particularly wonky to you, let me know!
Why have you not been demanding Jake and Elwood updates, people? Do you not adore the Jake and the Elwood? Have you fallen out of love with their sassy ways?
Well, NOT THAT YOU ASKED, they’re doing just fine. They each have their own little personality. Jake’s a fighter prone to making the Mister Boogers face, and Elwood’s a lover who’ll purr his goofy little head off if you so much as glance in his direction.
We let them out of the guest room for good on Friday (until then, we’d been allowing them the run of the house during the day, then putting them in the guest room at night), and Elwood jumped up on me during the night several times. That was fine, as long as he jumped up on me and went to sleep or just quietly lay there, I had no problem with that. When he decided to attack my feet, though, that was when the can of air came out.
Jake and Elwood have developed a healthy respect for the can of compressed air.
The two following nights, I don’t know where they spent the night, but it wasn’t on me.
They are both such sweet monkeys, love to be picked up and petted and kissed. They’re both verrrrry interested in the foster kittens, and if it weren’t for the fact that the fosters will all be recovering from surgery at one point or another, I’d likely let the Blues boys in to play with them. As it is, I don’t quite dare, and so they have to be happy smacking at each others’ paws under the door.
In case you haven’t been over to Love & Hisses, Sam’s the only one who ended up having surgery on Friday. You can read the day-after-surgery entry here and then the day-after-the-day-after-surgery entry here.
So far, Sam’s doing fine. His eyes looked a little rough to me yesterday, and I made Fred come upstairs and swear to me that they looked okay and his eyelids weren’t going to come popping off and go bouncing across the room (also, he referred to them as “eyelips”, and I laughed and laughed). Sam’s acting like he does not know WHAT the fuss is, please stop LOOKING at me and go away lady unless you have food for me.
I still worry that he’s going to not heal right, but so far things seem to be going well so I’m not too worried.
This is how the kittens feel about Mondays.
(My favorite part of this picture: Bill in the background, slumped over with his foot in the air, looking very Bill the Cat.)
Previously
2008: No entry. 2007: I don’t get the Winehouse lurve, but y’all just rock on with your bad selves, I s’pose. 2006: That part where McMurphy is trying to take off her scrubs and the back of her shirt is glued to her back with dried blood brings me to tears every single time I watch it. 2005: Is it just me, or does Eric Schaeffer play an inordinant number of characters named Sam? 2004: My day, in progress. 2003: This entry is comprised of nothing but cat pictures, because I’m clearing off the memory stick to start September fresh, with an empty memory stick.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry. 2000: He said “Maybe you’re losing slower than me because you BELIEVE you’ll lose slower than me!”
Put some money in the jar for the babies. Don’t be a Heartless McGee! *Edited to add: We’ve received over $2,950 in donations in less than two days! That’s more than enough to pay for the surgeries for ALL of these kittens, thank you all so much! You guys are so amazing!!! * * * … Continue reading “8/28/09 – Friday”
Put some money in the jar for the babies. Don’t be a Heartless McGee!
*Edited to add: We’ve received over $2,950 in donations in less than two days! That’s more than enough to pay for the surgeries for ALL of these kittens, thank you all so much! You guys are so amazing!!!
Warning: I’ll be working on my site design over the weekend, so if things look wonky ’round here, that’ll be why. I’m likely going to go back to the updated version of this theme. I’m having issues with this version because it’s so old, and when I used the updated version a few months ago, my only problem was that some of you couldn’t see the entire banner at the top of the page. I promise you I’ll do my very best to fix that problem, but when it comes down to it, it may just be something you have to deal with. With the current version, I can’t even edit my right-side column because according to the theme editor, there’s no such thing. Grrr.
On the up side, we’ll get back the feature where you can reply directly to another comment! Yay!
I’m generally awakened around 5:30 by Fred, who’s in the downstairs bathroom. He doesn’t intentionally wake me up at 5:30, but he blows his nose so fucking loud that elephants in the deepest parts of South Africa pause, lift their heads and say “Was that Bob?”
Since I’m awake, I roll out of bed, toss on my nightgown, and then go to the bathroom to pop my contacts in. I stumble down the stairs and into the kitchen. Usually by the time I’m to the bottom of the stairs, Fred is out of the shower, and he joins me in my journey to the kitchen. He goes through the kitchen and out the back door into the still-dark morning, while I stay in the kitchen and start preparing medicine.
A few minutes later, he comes back into the kitchen with The Maestro.
The Maestro.
He noticed, about a week ago, that The Maestro was holding one eye closed. When he picked her up to examine her, he realized that she was wheezing pretty badly and had an upper respiratory infection. We started her on a twice-daily regimen of Terramycin in her eye and a liquid antibiotic down her gullet. He always holds her so that I can apply the ointment to her eye – you can imagine how much she enjoys THAT – and then hands her over to me, and I hold her while he shoots the antibiotic down her throat. And I’m sure you can imagine how much she enjoys THAT, too. Then he takes her back out to the coop.
While he’s out putting The Maestro back in the coop, I prepare another syringe of medication. A few minutes later, he comes in with Hjonkie in his arms.
Hjonkie.
Less than a week ago, Hjonkie stopped acting like himself – he wouldn’t make the sound that gave him his name when he saw Fred, and he wouldn’t jump up on Fred’s arm. Also, the feathers around his neck were sticking out instead of laying flat. According to Fred, that’s an issue and he was afraid Hjonkie was getting sick. So he start Hjonkie on a twice-a-day antibiotic regimen, too.
I think you can imagine how a big-ass turkey fights having antibiotic squirted down his throat. I get to hold the damn bird while Fred does the squirting. Then Fred takes Hjonkie back out to HIS coop, and I begin preparing more medication.
Fred comes back inside and wrangles Jake and Elwood, then holds each of them up so that I can squirt medicine down their throats. Elwood’s usually pretty good about it, but Jake acts like an ass, fighting and kicking and make a face like he’s being tortured. (It’s kind of entertaining, to be honest, he’s such a little drama queen.)
Then, while the other cats meow and twine around my feet, I prepare Snackin’! Time! plates for the foster kittens. They’re healthy, but still kind of having litter box issues, and the thing that seems to help the most with that is powdered Slippery Elm Bark, both sprinkled over their wet food (they get a mixture of Gerber chicken and gravy baby food and Iams kitten food in the morning and in the evening with a healthy sprinkle of powdered Slippery Elm Bark mixed in with it all) and some extra given to each of them in a syrup (“syrup” = powder mixed with water and heated until it’s thickened; can be refrigerated for up to a week) via an oral syringe. So I get the syringes and the snacks ready, and then Fred goes upstairs with me to assist. We put the plates down on the floor the kittens surround the plates, and then Fred picks up the kittens one by one and holds them as I squirt the syrup into their mouths.
Then Fred leaves for work and I go off to take my shower and by the time I’m showered and dressed, it’s light enough so that I can open the maternity coop and turkey coop without fear of nighttime predators (possums, raccoons) coming along and eating a chicken or two.
So, that’s the first 45 minutes or so of my morning, every morning for the past week. The excitement yesterday morning is that when Fred brought Hjonkie into the kitchen, he first hissed at the kittens (I had no idea that turkeys hissed!), and then he registered his displeasure by shooting out a great big Turkey poop on the floor.
“Thank god he got it on the floor and not on the rug,” was my only response. And then Elwood ran over and began vigorously sniffing the turkey poop, and I was afraid he’d start eating it (cats are just the nastiest creatures on earth), so while I was holding Hjonkie and Fred was trying to pry Hjonkie’s beak open, I reached out with one bare foot to push Elwood away from the turkey poop. And managed to SCOOP my big toe through the poop and then at the far point of my kicking trajectory, the poop that had attached itself to my toe plopped off and landed on the rug.
Luckily, it was somehow a DRYish kind of poop, and with a cleaning rag and the application of some cleaning spray, you can’t even tell it was ever there.
Will you make turkey bacon from your turkeys eventually?
Though of course I’ve learned to NEVER say “never” (see: “Oh, we’ll never have dogs.” “Oh, we’ll never have more than, say, 20 chickens.” “Oh, we’ll never have more than 5 cats.”), I can say that at this juncture, I do not plan to make turkey bacon.
(At his desk at work right now, I suspect that Fred is cackling and rubbing his hands together. I’m sure he has OTHER plans.)
Kate is just being phony and playing it up, the left behind, innocent, sweet person who did nothing to make him want to leave. That’s what I see. I can’t see her being that different that easy. Yes divorce hurts and is rough, but I doubt that she is just little miss sweet butt all of a sudden now. Just for the camera of course.
I think that Kate realized that she was coming across as a complete bitch, and decided that she was going to remedy that by being Upbeat! and Positive! and Happy Shiny Kate! and it rings completely false.
Does Miz Poo “talk” a lot? I have a torti cat {for almost a year, come October}, and she is the chattiest cat I’ve ever met!! I’m wondering if it’s the breed?
Miz Poo is the talkingest cat I’ve ever known. If something disturbs her (and EVERYTHING disturbs her), she’s gotta talk about it. And talk about it. And talk about it some more. She’ll follow you around and howl at you. She’ll pick up a toy and carry it from one end of the house to the other, keening the entire way. It’s been my experience that calicos and tortis tend to be talkers more often than other cats.
A funny note… I was wondering how “the one who invented blogging” was staying in business because I had not seen an ad on her page for nearly a year. Imagine my surprise when I fired of Firefox and saw all the ads. Also, I didn’t know PW had ads on her site either, they were not showing up on my dinosaur version of IE. I must say, I could do without the ads… especially the ones that scroll down the page as you go. Annoying!
If you read her in Google Reader, you never ever have to see the ads. 🙂
Our dear older cat, Kitterz, is 19 years old. He’s actually in pretty good shape, has a full set of teeth, sleeps a lot (isn’t that his job?), but can still jump up on to the couch, and he likes to go outside in the backyard to sit in the sun. Eating and drinking are normal.
Last time I took him to the vet for a check-up, I half-jokingly mentioned that I am planning to get new furniture as soon as our cats go to kitty heaven, and the vet said, “Well, don’t plan on it for awhile…”
The only thing is that he has slacked off in the grooming department over the past couple years, and I know that is normal for aging cats. But he smells a little off these days … and I don’t know what to do. It’s not a urine odor (he’s not incontinent at all) and not really a poop odor, just a musty old-man cat smell. We’ve never really bathed him, as he’s always kept himself very well groomed … and I’m afraid if we tried to bathe him now, he’d have a stroke or something.
Any suggestions?
I really like Jen’s suggestion:
We have an older cat with grooming issues too. He’s not as old as Kitterz – a mere 13 and most of Fred’s problems are due to girth. He’s a bit of a chunk and simply can’t reach most of his back. He can get a bit niffy sometimes in summer – though he washes the bits he can get to really well.
Our 3 cats have a ‘loves and cuddles’ session before being shut in the kitchen for the night. I started brushing Fred as well as stroking him and when he’s chilled out, use an old face cloth (folded and stitched so its a bag to put your hand in, like this he can still feel my hand and your body temperature keeps it warm) and dampened with warm water, to wipe him over with. Depending on his mood, I might only get to wash him installments. He doesn’t get soaked and dries naturally. And smells better.
He’s only had one experience in getting wet and soapy- after my son, who was 3 at the time, decided to coat the cat in butter ( a whole pat, rubbed well in – picture toddler and cat loose in the kitchen, lumps of butter everywhere – on child’s PJs, in hair,all over the floor and rubbed well into cat fur – good morning mum, did we wake you? here’s some fun for 5am ). It took 4 baths that day to get it all out. Fred still remembers and won’t willingly go into the bathroom.
I can’t even imagine having to give a cat 4 baths, Jen – you have my sympathy!
Anyone else have suggestions for keeping Kitterz clean?
Thought of you and wondered if any of your cats would be so patient!
I actually think that Tommy might be pretty patient, at least for a little while.
What’s surprised me in the last week is that Jake and Elwood have gotten the hang of Snackin’! Time! (it generally takes perhaps three days before they completely understand what the Snackin’! Time! call means), and so I’m giving them their own plate of snack. But if I’m not fast enough with their plate, they’ll belly right up to the plate with Kara or Spanky, and I am AMAZED that neither Kara nor Spanky hisses or smacks or reacts in any way. Unheard of!
So we have a strange situation going on here. Tell me what you think is going on. We are in the process of taking out a Home Equity Loan to do replace our deck and also roll a car loan into the loan for a lower rate. So We get a call from an appraisal company to set an appointment for a walk through appraisal. No biggie, we were expecting it. They are supposed to come today. Last night we get a call from company B appraisal company trying to set up our appraisal appointment. Hmm, we already have an appointment with company A. We called the bank and they do not know anything about company A and only deal with company B. The bank is concerned and company B is concerned and frankly we are really concerned. Anyone else ever have this kind of issue? We are thinking we are getting scammed. Bank thinks so too. Question is, how did company A know what we were up to?
I was all kinds of freaked out on your behalf, Elaine, ready to scream “Fraud!” and “Scam!” and “Identity Theft!” but then Hannah came along and had to be all reasonable about it:
To answer Elaine: Maybe you shopped for the loan with more than one Loan Officer and the one you didn’t choose didn’t know they aren’t doing the loan for you so they ordered the appraisal?
Or, when you applied for the loan, the credit company (Kroll Factual Data) sold the info that you are shopping for a mortgage (inquiries into your credit record what kind of credit you are shopping ie: car loan, revolving credit, mortgage.) It’s common for them to sell this “lead” to a company – this is why you may get people calling you even if you only ever spoke to one company about your loan. Perhaps the appraisal company buys these leads and knew you were shopping. I think the first option is more likely.
Help me save a trip to the Dr. – Did the Dr. say what to expect from the tendinitis? I imagine the pain patches will help – but will it resolve itself? My elbow has been hurting for several months. I am wearing one of those straps around the forearm and it helps a lot. But man, one day without it and my world comes crashing down from the pain. It probably doesn’t help that it is my ball-throwing arm and I simply can not let down the dog on her weekend runs.
I just don’t know what the Dr. could do other than prescribe more medications. I am ready to amputate! Anyone else have any suggestions (aside from not throwing the ball! Other things make it hurt too – any lifting or grabbing. There are many times when I can not even lift a can of soda. Pathetic!)
She said that wearing the elbow strap would allow the tendon to “heal”, so I assumed (though she didn’t say it directly) that it would resolve itself eventually.
Fred actually stumbled across this article yesterday and told me to order a couple of those rubber bars. He’s got the same issue – he takes an anti-inflammatory for it; I can’t take anti-inflammatories in pill form since I had weight loss surgery – and if a simple exercise will solve the problem, we’re both all for it!
Any other tendinitis sufferers out there with words of wisdom for us?
Why do they have to have your car for two days? I don’t like being without mine for any length of time either. One time I put it in on Thursday and they were going to try and have it back by Friday. It turned out to be Tuesday! And over the weekend I had a horrible time getting people to come and get me to do things.
They had to keep my car for two days because they had to do an oil change, check to see why I had a leak in the leg area of the passenger’s side (under the dashboard), and checked to see why my engine was running in fits and starts (when you put it in reverse, it almost always acts as though it’s going to stall. In fact, sometimes it does stall.).
We took it to a new (new to us) place just up the road, one run by a couple of brothers, and they did the oil change, fixed the blocked hose that was causing the leak, and told us to put some of that engine cleaner stuff in the gas tank. For this, they charged $60. The “big” place we usually use? We’ve never gotten out of there for less than $200.
I think we’ll keep going back to that “small” place.
You guys are AMAZING. By 3:00 yesterday afternoon, you had sent donations to Challenger’s House that totaled almost $1,100. When Susan told me that, I was floored. You guys are THE BEST. Thank you so much for your donations and your blog, Twitter, and Facebooks links!
*Edited to add: We’ve received over $2,950 in donations in less than two days! That’s more than enough to pay for the surgeries for ALL of these kittens, thank you all so much! You guys are so amazing!!!
Once the first couple of eye surgeries are done we’ll know better exactly how much the surgeries will cost, but this vet is willing to do them for a very low price, and I think that with the donations Challenger’s House has received, we’re about covered.
And the kitties would like to thank each and every one of you. Or at least they would, if they had any idea what was going on. They’re kind of busy running around like their butts are on fire, though, so I’ll thank you in their place.
Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you!!!!
(I’ll do my best to get you an updated total donations by Monday!)
Did I mention they’re busy racing around like wild things?
Terry can’t decide whether he wants IN the bed or OUT of the bed. He’s afraid he’s going to miss something.
They LOVE to chew on these cat beds. Something about the fabric must feel good between their teeth.
Bill is cross-eyed – which you can never usually tell in his pictures, because 99% of the time his eyes are mostly closed. Doesn’t slow him down, though!
The Beast Between the Pillows pops out to show Sam who the boss is. (Hint: it’s not Sam who’s the boss! In case you wondered!)
All day long, they claw their way up the comforter to my bed. I imagine that one day I’ll pick up one side of the comforter, and it’ll just disintegrate into a million pieces.
Okay, we’re off to the vet, Sam and Hoyt and Bill and I. Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well, would you? I’ll post over at Love & Hisses first thing in the morning to let y’all know how it went.
Previously 2008: Who knew we’re such cranky motherfuckers? 2007: On my way back home. 2006: And I thought Fucker, at least they don’t leave me to cool my heels for over an hour without bothering to let me know they’re running late.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry. 2003: These kids need someone to come organize their lives is what they need. 2002: “What the hell?” I said, amazed. How far could the fucking thing have gone? 2001: Gah. I’ve got that unsettling panic-causing “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling, and I don’t know why. 2000: “An E-scort. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of those. I wonder if they’re new.”
