Monday, July 26, 2004 Geez, I can’t believe it’s been so long since the last entry. Man. Time flies when you’re bored out of your gourd and don’t feel like doing anything.
Okay, to catch up. Miss E is doing well. She showed up Wednesday morning. Mom got her into the house and called me to let me know. I told her she should get Miss into the vet’s as soon as she could. Well, her vet only worked half day that day and he wouldn’t be opened and they advised her to take Miss to a different vet. I told mom we’d take her to the place we took Ciara earlier this year when she had the runs so bad (that was on a Sunday and my vet wasn’t open). I went over to her house and Miss had hidden herself under mom’s big bed. It’s hard to describe. The headboard is massive, but everything is on the floor. But the headboard has a mirror, built in radio (my dad was into that sort of thing) and the headboard has an open space below all the fancy stuff. This bed is very heavy to move, most likely because of the mirror and because of the mirror, you have to be very careful when you move it. We ended up getting the bed a decent amount away from the wall and I was able to see Miss using a flashlight. Her left eye was horrible. It looked really, really bad. I ended up using a broom to kind of push Miss from under the bed.
She ran to the other side and I had warned mom to close the door and I was able to get Miss in my arms. There was no fight. Mom had the carrier out and I put Miss E in the carrier and picked it up. It almost fell apart. Over half of the screws that held it together were missing. *sigh* Mom figures when she lent it to her neighbors who moved to Palm Desert, they took it apart for some reason and didn’t replace the screws. Fat lot of good that did now. I was getting irritated, which didn’t help mom’s state of mind at all. She was nervous as it was. We ended up using weedeater line to tie it together. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
After waiting over an hour at the vet clinic (they took Miss E right in for examination), we were finally called into an examining room to speak with a doctor, without Miss E. There was something putting pressure on Miss’s left eye from behind. It could be an infection, it could be the start of glaucoma. They needed to run tests. If it was an infection, they’d have to drain it. I said if it were my cat, I’d do the complete blood panel and treat her problem aggressively. My mom said then that’s what she’d do.
It turned out that Miss had some sort of abscess that started in her mouth, maybe by chewing on something that poked her in the gum (her teeth are in good shape). This turned into an abscess that hadn’t drained and was now putting pressure on the back of her eyeball. They ended up keeping her for two nights after operating on her. She had the drain in her neck to let all the yuck drain out. And she was on IV antibiotics. She got to come home Friday afternoon. Mom wasn’t sure she’d be able to do the medicating, but I told her to not be afraid of Miss E. It was something that had to be done and Miss wouldn’t get better without it. I tried to put her in the frame of mind where she had to be in control of the situation. Miss would get a liquid antibiotic twice daily and eye drops thrice daily. To feed her only wet food (the infection was so bad, that it hurt Miss to chew, it hurt her mouth, it hurt her eye) and keep her in until her meds were finished. Mom and I went shopping for food before we had picked Miss up and the only can that Miss liked was the Nutro Veal Pate. Unfortunately, they only had one can. Mom didn’t want to drive to a petstore (too much traffic) so Brian and I picked up a couple of cans on Sunday and dropped them off at her house.
So, mom was able to do what she had to do (yay mom!) and Miss is all better now.
After catching the same possum three times in the trap, I gave up. Then I thought maybe putting tuna in the trap in the morning would be a better way to go. Especially after seeing two young possums eating, as well as mom. With three possums out there, there’s no way in hell Little Bit would go in at night, not when the possums beat her to it. I tried the tuna. Made a trail to the back of the trap. All the tuna outside the trap was eaten. Not a bit inside. All I got for my efforts was ants. And we all know how much I hate ants.
I gave up. Brian said something about using a net and I said “you do it”. Right now, Little Bit is so far along, I hate the thought of aborting her anyway. I figure this time, if the same thing happens that happened last time, I will use the kittens as bait. Put them in a carrier behind a set trap. They’ll cry, the only way she can get at them (or so she’ll think, I hope) is through the trap. I just hope she stays over here to have this litter. She’s been going across the street to the Heartless Bastard’s house a little more than I’m comfortable with.
I moved furniture around in the living room again. I moved the loveseat back over by the sliding glass door and the cat trees and furniture over to where the loveseat had been. I did this because I felt that it was too easy a mark for the cats to just walk into the living room and spray the loveseat. I figured the marking would go down considerably if it wasn’t there to be marked. This was really close to the front door, so the smell would hit you when you walked in. So far, it’s been a good thing to have done. There has been minimal marking on the loveseat since I moved it. I also washed covers and used my upholstery cleaner to do the cushions. I really need to do it again and this time, I need to rinse. The material feels really icky. Not something I notice since I’ve got it covered. And having moved this stuff, I once again started looking at the fish tank. I finally decided to do something about it. You may recall, the cats ruined the canopy and light fixture by jumping on it just right when we had the bedroom furniture in the living room when we were doing the bedroom remodel; the canopy was in six pieces. I had tried superglueing the canopy together, but it never completely held.
Last week, I finally got ambitious about replacing it and, what do you know? The name of the canopy and manufacturer was in the canopy. So, I searched online and sent them an email about my predicament. I got an email response from one of their distributors, who gave me the number I’d need for the hood. Well, I did a search on the website and found that the light fixture (hood) wasn’t the same thing as the canopy. The light fixture was $54.99. The canopy was (hold on to your hat) $79.99! Ack! Way, way too much money. I had to think on this. I finally decided to go with the light fixture and would deal with the canopy later.
Well, the hood got here, without a bulb (geez, for that amount of money, the least they could do was supply the bulb). Saturday, while Brian was working, I did our weekly shopping and got the bulb ($9.99 at Petco). And I also got some longfinned danios. The tank looked pretty nice with the light and the new fish. And I once again turned my attention to the canopy. I dragged the pieces in from the garage and searched for something to glue it back together. I had nothing here that would work and I made my way down to the local Rite-Aid where I bought two tubes of superextra strength glue. I had washed the canopy pieces before I left and I glued them together. It looked as if this time I used enough glue that it would work. But you could see the glue marks and the fixed cracks. It looked bad. Really bad. But not bad enough to spend over eighty bucks on a new one. I’d just see if there was something Brian could do to cover it. Then it dawned on me. Contact paper! Contact paper works on just about anything. I remember in high school (Desert High School on Edwards Air Force Base), my best friend Beverly and I papered the inside of her little car with pink flowered contact paper. I searched online for paper and found black. I didn’t want to wait, so when Brian got home, we went to WalMart where I bought some black with blue marbleing. They didn’t have plain black. I papered the canopy Saturday night and it looks pretty good. You can see the bumps where the glue is if you know to look for them, otherwise you’d never know. I’m happy with it. And it didn’t cost close to eighty dollars to do.
And the cats like it. *grin*
I don’t know if I mentioned that I’d started giving DeeJay fluids every day instead of every other day. Well, I have to say it’s made a big improvement. He’s a lot better than he was. Knock on wood. And there is always some Sensible Choice food covered in water available. Soft food so he doesn’t have to work so hard at chewing (bad teeth). He’s very, very slowly putting weight back on. Last month, before fluids he was under six pounds. Now, before fluids, he’s six pounds, seven and a half ounces. This is so great. It’s nice to see something I do finally make a difference.
Benny finally got his annual trim last week. He was originally supposed to go in on Tuesday, but I forgot about the appoinment and didn’t pull up the food. Since he has to be sedated to work on, he can’t eat beforehand. I had to reschedule and he went in on Friday. The other cats were glad when I got back from taking him in, because they got to eat. See, if one cat can’t eat, no cat can eat. His main is a little shorter than I like, but it’s a lot more comfy for him. He’ll just lay on his back, paws in the air and purr.
I finally got my own cell phone. It was Brian’s idea. We had an analog phone that we hardly ever used, heck, we never even charged the battery. It had an attachment for the lighter and that’s what we’d use. So, Brian said to exchange that one for a new phone and get it all set up. Now, keep in mind, we had four analog phones. One in Brian’s work truck, one in the Ranger, one in his personal truck (all three of these are hard wired, you can’t take them out of the vehicles) and the portable. It was the portable I was to switch over.
I made the call, placed the order and when my phone got here, called and made all of the necessary arrangements. Except I cancelled the wrong analog phone. I cancelled the one in Brian’s work truck, the one that’s used the most of all of the phones. Oops. He couldn’t call out. He wasn’t happy. I quickly called my provider back and explained the situation. No problem, I was told. Except, there was a problem. They don’t normally offer analog accounts any longer. She had to find one. Luckily, she did find one. He gets more minutes a month (he didn’t use what he had) for fifteen dollars a month. So, with the new service on my cell (I can call all of California, Arizona and Nevada for free, as well as night and weekend free long distance) and his modified service agreement, we’re only paying five dollars more a month.
Geez, you’d think Rachel was in heat the way Jackson has been all over her. And it’s not just Jackson. There was Marco, then I’ve seen Georgie on her. *sigh* I just called the vet’s office to see if it’s possible that she’s in heat at three and a half months and the vet said that would be pretty early. I said I was just concerned because I caught Jackie doing the deed and when I saw her smoking a cigarette afterward, well, you can just imagine how I felt…..
Rachel and Ross will both be getting fixed next month, as soon as they hit four months old.
It looks like the catnip is a hit! I’ve gotten quite a few requests for free samples and then orders after the cats went nuts for the sample nip. And I’ve also had some orders for the notecards. I’ve put up some new ones since my last entry here.
Now that the housework is caught up, it’s time to catch up on paperwork. It shouldn’t really take that long to do, but I do have a couple of forms that need to be filled out (like for the rebate on my new phone), so I’d best get to it. Summer finally hit here, jumping right from June gloom (which started in April) to August humidity, heat and mugginess (we bypassed July weather altogether this year it seems; July is usually in the high eighties/low nineties with low, low humidity….livable). I started laying out last week and I intend on laying out this week. But I can’t do it when I’ve got work to do.
So, until next time (which will hopefully be sooner than last time) au revoir and just keep smiling.
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