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      Monday, August 11, 2003



07:13 AM - 08/11/2003

The topic: Ack!  I’m alive!
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Monday, August 11, 2003  Everything’s fine, it’s hotter than hell!  I do stuff that has to be done in the morning (laundry, paperwork, etc) and the rest of the day I’m by the pool.  The office is the hottest room in the house in the afternoon and I don’t hang out here much at that time. (Check the “Daily Data” on the weather page; yesterday, it was cooler back here, but I had ants in my pants and couldn’t sit still long enough to post anything.)  I will make a longer entry later this morning, but right now, it’s time for us to go for our walk.

Later.

Okay, I’m back. So far, I’ve made out payroll and gotten myself down to the vet’s office, Junior in tow.  He got his stitches removed.  They were due to be removed last week, but he was licking that back incision area and I didn’t want to push it.  There was some slight bleeding this am, but that was from the stitches being removed themselves, not the incision.  Junior was thrilled to come home and be back in his yard.  Kept following me around, making me nuts.  Then he left two nice sized poops on the lawn and he’s been resting ever since.

The fleas are back.  Yesterday, I treated over half the cats with Advantage and today, I’ll do the rest, the ones that I can.  I might possibly be able to get Jackie tonight at dinner.  I did the easiest cats first, of course.  Oliver, Georgie, Benny, Mystie, Richie and Opie, for instance.  Richie was stretched out on the sofa, he barely moved. But he did move enough to roll over on his back and when he finally got up, I was glad I had the sofa covered.  The covering is in the washer right now.  He got that Advantage yuck on it, a big greasy looking spot.  And he also left a couple of fleas, exhibiting flea death throes.  *heehee*  I saw fleas walking on Oliver’s ears, trying to escape.  Funny thing is I rarely see any fleas when I do my examinations for them, but put the Advantage on and boy, do the fleas start appearing.  I had to buy more Advantage this morning, this should be enough to get us through the rest of the summer.  We’ll do Junior after he gets a bath.

I’ve lost almost 35 pounds.  A half pound short.  Next weigh in, I’ll be there for sure.  Fifteen more to go til my fifty by fifty.  Then I’ll have sixteen more to goal.  We’re walking five days a week, almost up to two miles a day.  When it cools off, maybe we’ll start earlier and walk farther.  Too hot right now.

What else?  Oh, yeah, Ciara has started peeing in the bed again.  Not as often as she did in the past, only twice this past week, but it’s annoying, to say the least.  She’s acting fine and I don’t see any signs of aggression.  I guess I’ll try spraying Feliway all over, that might help.  If not, she’ll be back on Buspar, I guess.  At least until she quits doing it.

The driver’s side window doesn’t work in the Bronco II.  Sweet.  And if you drive more than five miles with the air conditioning on, the vehicle overheats.  Sweeter.  Another one of the reasons I did most of my running around the past couple of weeks in the morning.

For some reason, I’ve been using a huge amount of bandwidth.  Last night, I started looking at my logs and find out that there are some websites out there using some of my little emoticons and my backgrounds on their sites.  I don’t have a problem with them using them, but they’re linking them from my domain, so every time someone looks at an image that is on my server, my bandwidth goes down by that much.  Every time someone loads a page that is using one of my backgrounds, that lessens my available bandwidth and if I go over what I’m alloted, I have to pay.  So, I went through and put up some code that prevents using my images on webpages that aren’t residing on lisaviolet.com.  I’d like to be able to figure out how to put multiple domains in that code so that I can post my images on my other domains.  I’m pretty sure there’s a way, but I certainly haven’t figured it out yet.

I was kind of worried about OC yesterday.  I didn’t see him in the morning.  But he did show up last night for dinner.  You just get used to seeing them at a certain time of the day, then they don’t appear.  OC is looking mighty thin lately.  I hope he’s not got some really bad illness, maybe it’s just the heat.  Repete still goes after SpotTee, but it’s not as bad as it had been.  And Little Bit spends many hours a day over here now.  And we can walk right by her and she doesn’t run off.  As a matter of fact, if she or KittyMeeze are under one of the vehicles, we have to shoo them away if we have to leave in that particular vehicle.

Last week, I came across a picture of me at Disneyland last year.  Yuck.  My hair looked horrible.  All flat around my head.  I got this brilliant idea to do a try-on perm.  I’ve got one here, but just one and I wasn’t able to find them elsewhere.  I did a search and found Ogilvie temporary perms and I ordered three of them. Then I started reading the box of the perm I’ve got here.  Don’t use on frosted hair.  There was a time in my life when I figured shut up, I’ll do what I want, but the memory of that troll hair sticks with me.  Then I started doing a search for hairstyles for round faces and found some suggestions.  One being don’t have big hair at the side of the face, but having big hair on the top will give my face some height.  And don’t part it in the middle and don’t have blocky bangs.  So, I grabbed some newspaper, went into the bathroom, got out my scissors and started cutting.  Now, I’ve got short hair on the sides and crown.  I mean short.  I can barely get a curler around the top (I was playing around) and not on the sides at all.  I left the back long.  The only drawback was that my roots were very visible, but a new frosting kit took care of that in no time.  The whole thing from start to finish was less than three hours.)  I’ll probably do another perm, too, just the top, for body, in the near future.  I have to say I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.  And it’s so much nicer.  It doesn’t flop in my face when I bend forward.  I don’t have to keep pushing it out of my eyes.  Yeah, cutting it was a good idea.

I’m giving up on snapdragons.  I don’t know what the problem is, but some of them start to die, then the entire group goes.  Some are doing wonderfully, but when they go, they go fast.  The leaves are wilted in the morning and the next day, they’ve got the color of yellow plant death.  Plants three feet away, same soil, same conditions are fine.  Well, I’m tired of replacing them.  I’ve found marigolds seem to be hardy and they’re very colorful.  I’ll be planting those as the snapdragons die out.  I hope I don’t lose them all, because I’ve always really liked them.  I did find mass worms on the plants, eating the new growth.  I got some liquid sevin, but it didn’t work.  We got some Spectracide insecticide yesterday and I sprayed all the flowers liberally this morning.  Then I saw Daniece laying on the flowers and I about had a cow.  I was yelling at her to move and she just laid there, doing her cat blink at me.  Gah!  I had to go after her to get her to move her dainty little catbutt.

Last week I picked up some Purina One Senior formula for DeeJay, just to see if he liked it.  He loves it!  I have a bowl of it in the exercise room for him and if he wants some, he goes to the door and meows.  I open it and let him in, closing the door behind him.  The only drawback is I forget he’s in there.  And I’ll walk around the house, trying to find the cat who’s crying.  *sigh*

I guess that’s it for now.  I think I might go start doing some sewing.  I’ve got lots of material (did you know Wal-Mart has material for as little as a buck a yard?  I found some really nice floral flannel and other cotton blends) and some kewl patterns.  And I also got some felt.  I’m gonna try my hand at catnip mice.  Found a pattern for them, all I have to do is cut them out, sew them together and sell them online.  It’s ucky outside, overcast, not a day I feel like laying under the sun.  Its nice inside, the A/C is on (usually I don’t turn it on if Brian’s not home) but it’s so darned humid without it.  It’s a nice day to do something inside and I think sewing is what I’ll do.

      Saturday, August 16, 2003



11:20 AM - 08/16/2003

The topic: It’s been so hot!
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Saturday, August 16, 2003 It’s been so miserably hot.  Lots of moist air coming from somewhere, high, high humidity.  With the cloud covering that came with it, it wasn’t much of a week to do anything except try to keep cool.  Even walking as early as we did (we start around 6:15 am), I’d be dripping by the time we got home.  Ish.  An hour after a shower, I’d feel all sticky again, even though the A/C and fans were on in the house.  I hate that kind of weather.  Obviously the cats didn’t like it much either.  Cats who usually spend all day outside, were in the house, stretched out on the tile floor or on the tiled window ledge.

But this morning, there are few clouds and the humidity is much lower.  Last week was so bad, I couldn’t even lay in the sun. That’s pretty bad.  But today, I may be back my chair, on my towel, reading my trashy paperback novel.  I’ve already sprayed the plants this morning.  More insecticide.  I added a few more plants earlier this week (about a quarter of a million marigolds; now there’s a happy sounding name for a flower) and found a big fat worm on one of the new plants yesterday morning.  I have been watching closely and there is a lot of new growth on the plants I sprayed earlier this week.  Hopefully, I won’t have to spray for a while.

DeeJay had a bad day yesterday.  Well, it was mostly in the morning.  He puked on the sofa yesterday afternoon and I had to wash the covers and the pillows.  It was so watery, I also had to shampoo that part of the sofa.  The work I did in the garage sure paid off when I got the shampooer out.  It was there, all nice and neat, waiting for me.  All I had to do was plug it in.  He’s feeling much, much better this morning.  It seems he puked up whatever was bothering him.

My big shampooer is fixed, so I’ll probably go pick that up this morning. 

Right now, the sofa cover for the living room is in the washer and I just spot shampooed part of the sofa itself.  The pee pads I’d put under the cover did a pretty good job, but some urine got through.  It should dry quickly.

Angel is spending most of her evenings in the family room with us.  She likes to cuddle up next to me, or get on my lap.  Sometimes she’ll go over to Brian, but she’s got to get used to him again.  Right now, she’s more comfortable with me.

And it pleases Autumn that I climb the ladder to give her chicken in the morning.  She has cried to me on occasion to hurry up and she lets me pet her for a few minutes before she becomes antsy.

Well, that’s about it for now.  Got lots of other stuff to do around the house and I don’t feel like sitting in front of the computer.  Maybe I’ll post more later if I think of anything worth posting.

      Thursday, August 21, 2003



12:12 PM - 08/21/2003

The topic: I have no ambition
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Thursday, August 21, 2003  I have absolutely no ambition.  I don’t want to do anything.  I think I’m just bored.  I’ve got so very much I want to do and I just can’t get started on any of it.

You know, I’ve got all that stuff to finish sewing from years long gone.  My excuse was “it’s tooooo haaawwt….” if it was cloudy and muggy, and if the sun was shining brightly “I should be out by the poooool”.  Today seems to be perfect, it’s cloudy and it’s still cool, it would be a perfect time to start doing some sewing.  Then there are all the CDs I want to make.  I like doing my own compilations and I’ve got a list started.  I want to make duplicates of the CDs I really like, so I’ll have one in each of the vehicles and keep the originals here in the house.  I found this weekend that my MusicMatch program will print the playlist to labels.  Which is pretty cool, I think.  It will format it and everything.  Of course, I have to input my own compilations, but if it’s a regular CD, MM looks it up the CD info on the internet and I don’t have to spend the time typing it all in.  And there is software that is made for use with MM, so I ordered that.  I’ve got all those blank CDs I ordered years ago, when I first started burning my own.  When I got my Dell, where I can burn my own computer CDs, I got a spindle of disks and ordered a bunch of jewel cases.  Then I found a place where I could buy different styles of jewel cases.  I bought a couple dozen of them that hold six CDs each.  Then I got a thirty disk spindle of Memorex Music CD-Rs from Office Depot.  I think to myself ‘that won’t be enough!’, so I found spindles of fifty, I got two of those from Page Computer.  They should be here today.  Now, I need to get off of my butt and go start making CDs so that I can come back here and sit on my butt and make labels.  It sure would be nice not to be dragging CDs in and out of the house.

When I was burning CDs last weekend, Katie decided she wanted to help.  And she found a cat toy in the closet.  Heh heh heh….  When I found the toy down the hallway (it’s one of those I don’t want them playing with by themselves; too easy to get wrapped up in it and hurt) I put it in the exercise room.  Well, Katie Boo doesn’t know this, so she spends quite a bit of time looking around the entertainment center for it.  I think she thinks it’s on the very top, which she can’t see, but she sure tries.

Last Sunday, Brian went up to the sticks in the morning and when he came home, we went shopping.  One of the places we went was to Good Guys.  I love that place, it’s like a candyland for me.  We bought a new CD player for the Bronco II, the old one will eventually be going into his ‘69 Bronco.  And I got some nice new headphones for the big stereo.  My old Sony headphones still work, but the earpad covers had rotted.  And according to the salesman, that part can’t be replace.  Brian about choked when he saw the price of the phones I picked out.  I was like ‘shut up, they’re the same price as the Sony’s were years ago’.  He’s surely no audiophile.  We set up the installation for Tuesday morning. When we came home, he says “now, I don’t want to hear any complaints when I buy the new system for my truck when it gets done” (you know, the truck that had the transmission go out?  The one that’s still in the shop?  The one he’s gotten so much more stuff than just the tranny fixed?  Thousands of more dollars than originally planned?). And he asks me what the difference was between the new stereo I got and the next step up (besides the $100 more price tag).  As far as I could tell, the only diff was the ability to download programs from the internet and change skins and stuff in the CD player, something he wouldn’t be doing at all.  Heck, it’s not something I’d do.

We’ve been spending time out by the pool in the late evenings.  Depending on the temperature, we either go swimming or have just been watching the stars.  Well, I figured it would be really nice to have the chaise lounge lawn chairs down there, so Monday, I took the ones from the patio and scrubbed the heck out of them.  I rinsed them well and took them down poolside.  I figured they’d be plenty dry by Monday night.  They’re kind of old, have been outside for years.  Sure, they were somewhat under cover, but they still got weathered.  They’re foam covered fabric.  And Monday night, Brian laid back in his, I sat down in mine.  And I heard a ripping sound.  Ack!  The fabric was rotted.  Because of the way it was held together, I was able to sit in it, but Tuesday morning, it went out with the trash. 

On my way back from the stereo installation (why can’t I hear the back speakers?  This is so wrong!  All that money and they still don’t work properly, that’s why we got a new one, doodoo, I’m gonna have to call them and find out why this happens) I picked up the carpet shampooer that I’d brought in for servicing (boy, am I happy we had coverage, the price would have been real close to $250 to get it fixed, the even replaced the motor; I didn’t know there was a problem with the motor) and figured I’d hit K-Mart to see if they had any end of the season lawn furniture sales.  I found a couple of Martha Stewart lounges for $31.99.  More than I wanted to spend, but there’s not much I’m going to find this late in the summer.  I was pleasantly surprised to find they were on sale, ten dollars off each.  That wasn’t bad at all.  Of course, when Brian called and I told him about them, he came unglued.  *here we go again*  Brian, those stupid banana chairs are ten bucks at Rite Aid!  This isn’t that much money.  Anyway, he wasn’t so upset once he saw them. They’re pretty sturdy.

Then I got busy messing around with my hair.  I got out the flowbee and trimmed it up, making it even.  Then I permed the top.  It took about two hours to do.  I only used twelve or thirteen rollers.  Next time, I’ll use the next larger size because I look like a poodle is sleeping on my head.  But I’m pretty sure it will have loosened up my October.  I just don’t want it looking so awful in pictures.  I hate that flat look, it just doesn’t go with my beachball shaped face, yanno?

We got a letter this week from Brian’s brother and sister-in-law who live in Colorado, the bro he visited last Thanksgiving.  Joann has told me often how much she’d like to see me come visit.  Back in July, she mentioned the last week of September would be good, or one of the first weeks of October. Well, October will have us at Disneyland for my birthday, so that’s out.  And with any help from the weather, I’ll be spending time outside in September, swimming, a last ditch effort to de-lump my legs.  *lol*  Of course, there’s always the issue of a petsitter.  Becky had said that it wouldn’t be a problem.  Well, Brian and I kinda decided that I’d like to go back on Thanksgiving, in hopes of seeing some snow

So, Tuesday, before I shut down the computer, he reads out a phone number.  What?  He said “call it, it’s Stephen and Joann’s.  *sigh*  I pick up the phone, punch the numbers on the dialpad.  A woman answers.  “Is this Joann?” She says “Yes.”  “Well, this is Dianne.”  “Dianne?  Dianne S?”  Yep, it’s me.

There’s a little “what a surprise” conversation, then somehow I mentioned coming to visit them in November.  She was very happy and it looks like we’re going.  We’ll take the Bronco II.  We’ll leave the Monday before Thanksgiving day and be home by the following Tuesday.  I called Becky first thing Wednesday morning and she’d be happy to sit.  I thought there might be a problem, seeing as it’s a holiday and all, but I guess not.  She said there was no need to have my mom come over and do counter and litterbox duty, she could handle it.  But I know my mom likes to feel needed and she likes to come over and clean up.  Well, she may not really like it, but it’s something she can do for us and it gives her something to talk about to her friends.  *lol* 

Later, we went out to enjoy the new chairs.  It was kind of cool, so Brian wore a sweatshirt, I wore a long sleeved thermal shirt and we kicked back and watched the stars.  I saw two satellites and three falling stars.  The first one I saw was huge!  It was really close, so close the tail wasn’t solid looking, but we could actually see the many little parts as it broke up.  And it wasn’t white, it was a yellow orange color.  Pretty darned impressive.  I’d already gotten some of the cats in for the night, so we weren’t covered in cats, but there were a few walking around on us.  Junior laid between us, once we got him to understand we didn’t need his licks, that we understood that he loves us, just like we love him.  We came back inside about 9:30.  It’s sure a nice end to a day, sitting under the stars.

Last week, over on Cat Fights II, I mentioned DeeJay throwing up about once every couple of weeks.  Someone posted that many CRF cats respond well to a quarter of a Pepcid A/C tablet on a daily basis.  So, we bought some Pepcid A/C (that stuff isn’t cheap!) and I came home and quartered some pills.  A bottle should last well over a year, if DeeJay is the only one taking it.  It’s been close to a week and he does seem more relaxed.  His appetite has perked up and I haven’t heard his tummy rumbling since I started him on the Pepcid.  I can’t feed him in the exercise room any longer because I just forget about him.  The door shut is a normal thing for that room and I don’t wonder “is there a cat in there?”  So, I put his food in my bathroom.  And if I stick to just feeding him in there, hopefully the other cats won’t start trying to open the bowl.

Pete’s keeping his distance from me.  I grabbed him the other night and tried to comb some of his mats out.  He didn’t appreciate being restrained and he didn’t appreciate my help at grooming him.  He’ll come to me in bed, but he won’t let me near him any other place.  Silly cat.

Georgie had blood in his urine, so he’s back on amoxicillan.  It seems to be helping this time.  Poor guy.

      Tuesday, August 26, 2003



09:38 AM - 08/26/2003

The topic: It’s Tuesday!
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Tuesday, August 26, 2003 It’s Tuesday and August is almost gone.  Many kids are back at school this week.  Where did the summer go?  Daggum, the older I get the quicker time flies. 

And this infernal humidity is making us all crabby.  Humans and felines alike.  I don’t mind the heat so much, but you just can’t cool off when it’s humid.  Sunday, I spent part of the day in the pool and in the middle of the afternoon, dark thunder clouds rolled in.  They went about halfway cross the sky, barely in front of the sun, let off a few claps of thunder, enough to shake up Junior, then, within fifteen minutes, the sun had burned them all off and away they went.  It was really weird.  This whole summer has been really weird.

Annie isn’t getting any smaller.  I guess what I’ll have to do is just quit putting food down here in the office.  I’ll slowly move her food dish down the hall.  If she wants to eat, she’ll have to leave the office.  She’s just put on so much weight.

Something really magical happened earlier this month.  With all the flowers around the pool, we’re getting more insects.  Among those insects are dragonflies.  There are a couple of different kinds, the big red ones and the smaller blue ones.  They’d fly over the pool and rest on the palm fronds by the pool.  Well, I got into the water and watched them fly.  The blue ones would go right over my head, checking me out.  What kind of plant was I?  Anyway, standing in the pool, I’d hold my hands up in the air.  And they’d light on my fingers!  Never more than one at a time, but it was really fun to watch the dragonfly on my finger.  I’d slowly bring my hand down to my face and get a closer look.  Alas, they were only around for a matter of day.  I think I saw one earlier this week, but I haven’t seen it since.

I did some sewing last Saturday, got two shirts finished, three shirts repaired.  The shirts I finished, I started back in the late eighties!  It’s been a while.

Honestly, it’s been pretty quiet around here.  I think the heat has a lot to do with that.  Georgie is back to normal after finishing up his course of amoxi.  No more blood in the urine.  DeeJay is kind of crabby, but I think the heat is getting to him.  We’re just all doing our best to stay cool.

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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

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