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      Tuesday, January 05, 2010


otherstuff
12:31 PM - 01/05/2010

The topic: First time this year
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I'm sitting here with my hair piled on my head, having put some of this in my hair.  (I bought two boxes, a must for my length, at Rite-aid last month, anticipating freshening up my do.)  Even though it’s “non-permanent”, my hair definitely stays lighter after use, long beyond the time specified on the box.

I haven’t done my hair since last September.  I wasn’t going to do my hair and I could probably get away with not doing it again, but I like the white having a little blonde in it, you know?  The roots were probably about five and a half to six inches in length. Brian trimmed about an inch and a half off a couple of weeks ago, making my hair a little happier to have the dried ends gone.

We started walking again yesterday, after not walking for a month because of my tumble down the hill. Well, I did tumble, but not down the hill, I stepped on a piece of loose asphalt and my left foot went sideways, spraining my ankle.  I had an ankle brace on my left ankle and my bunion brace on my right foot.  Nice.  Real nice.

But it was good to be walking again.  I needed that.  A new year, a new outlook.

And we’ll be hitting Disneyland sometime in the next two weeks because our passes expired on Christmas day and you cannot renew them online if they’ve expired.  I understand if you go to Disneyland and renew them there within a month of their expiration date, you’re still entitled to the $20.00 per pass. And when the passes are over four hundred dollars each (the rewards from our Visa Chase cushioned that blow), we want our forty bucks. 

And my hair will be fresh!

      Friday, January 08, 2010


otherstuff
09:34 AM - 01/08/2010

The topic: I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions
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But there are a couple of things I’d like to get done this year.  One of them was to clear out the pantry, top and bottom and rearrange it.  Every couple of months I’ll go through and put canned goods back where they belong and take bulk items that we get at CostCo out of their wrappings, like chili, canned tomatoes, or refried beans.  We’re supposed to do that as we put them away, but sometimes it’s late and we’re lazy and it doesn’t get done. 

This is something I’ve needed to do, let it slide for too long, but Brian said to hold off on it. Because he wanted to fix the shelving. The shelving is old, it’s the original and it’s just particle board.  Over the years, it’s become bowed from the weight of cans and other stuff.  He’s really wanted to fix it, but I’ve been reluctant because it just seemed like too much work.  But after the holiday season, the pantry really, really needed to be cleaned out.

I told him earlier this week I was going to work on it. He had business Wednesday (yay!) and we set it up for yesterday.  I wasn’t aware that he wanted to do the entire thing, so I only cleared out four of six shelves.  When he got home yesterday from buying the wood he needed to shore up the bowing, he looked in and wasn’t happy that he hadn ‘t gotten Contact paper.  I’d gotten some last year to use in my bathroom, but hadn’t done it yet. I showed it to him, he proclaimed there was enough to do all six shelves. (I have a tendency to buy more than I’m going to need, because you just never know….)

He ended up taking everything from the bottom shelf, some cleaning stuff and a bunch of candles I bought when I first went online. Cleaning that bottom shelf was on my list of things I wanted to get done this year.  He got everything out and I started putting it elsewhere for storage.  Worked out nicely, by the way.  And then I asked if he could paint inside.  Nice, huh?  He sighed and said he could. 

One of the shelves was so badly bowed, that he couldn’t just force it up with a stick of wood. He actually went out and got a car jack to push the shelving up.  He finished shoring up shelving, then started painting (a long time ago a can of tomatoes exploded) and it took three coats to cover it up.  Then was time for the shelf paper.  He wasn’t sure how to go about cutting it.  I told him how I’d do it. He said “okay, go ahead, cut six pieces” and left the laundry room.  I started cutting.  When I was done, I let him know, then he went back into the laundry room to finish putting the Contact paper in place.

When he was done with that, I started putting all the stuff away that I’d pulled out earlier.  I got the kitchen counters cleaned off about eleven last night.  I still need to arrange one of the shelves, it was late and I was getting tired of going up and down the step stool. I’ll do that today.

This morning, I started going through the appliances in the kitchen cupboards that I’m moving to the pantry. I have an incredible amount of crock pots.  All sizes.  Those I’ll put in the very back corner of the cupboards.   The two I use most will be accessible.  And the other appliances are going into the bottom of the pantry.  If I can get to them, I’ll use them.  At least that’s what I’m hoping.  Appliances like my food processor, my ice cream maker and the blender.  

But there’s something that I found that I’m wondering about.  Because it’s something I’d most definitely been using if I’d known I had it.  The entire reason for this entry.

When did I get this citrus juicer?

ohoh

      Thursday, January 14, 2010


foodstuff
10:45 AM - 01/14/2010

The topic: I can’t help it.
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I love to cook. 

I find it very relaxing to be in the kitchen and working with food.  I don’t even mind the cleanup (funny, I don’t mind cleaning up after myself, but I don’t care to clean up after Brian).  Especially when the closets are all organized. It makes it so much easier and a lot more enjoyable to not be digging through the cupboards, looking for this tool or that.

And I love a full pantry and freezer.  It’s so nice to open them up and find the ingredients for something yummy.

Last night I asked Brian if he had any preferences for dinner. Some sort of chicken. 

There was a while I made my own marinara sauce, but after cooking about thirty pounds of lasagne for a family reunion decades ago, I lost my will to chop onions and peppers and crush garlic and make my own.  So, I started buying jars of it.  Lots easier.  CostCo carries a couple of different brands and I picked up the Classico brand.  The size is a little bigger than I like, I eventually end up tossing about a third of a jar out after it sits in the frig for weeks.  But it’s still more convenient than making my own.

Last month I saw that CostCo now had Classico Alfredo sauce.  A three pack. I bought one.  A couple of weeks ago I cut up some chicken breasts, grilled them and put them in a crockpot and dumped a jar of the Alfredo sauce over them.  I didn’t know if Brian would like it or not, sometimes he’s really picky about food.  But he liked it, his only complaint is it wasn’t ridden with peas.  (In his world, peas are one of the four food groups.)

So, for dinner tonight, we’re having chicken alfredo over noodles. With peas on the side.

A simple yummy dinner because I’ve got a ton of paperwork to do today. 

I’m thinking about looking at my ice cream maker recipe book and see if there’s anything I can do with pudding.  I used to really like those frozen pudding pops…..

      Friday, January 15, 2010


foodstuff
12:02 PM - 01/15/2010

The topic: If Brian goes up to the property this weekend
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And I think he might, because we’re do for some heavy rain the next couple of weeks and he can’t do much when the soil is saturated, I’ll make this Sunday, so he can have it when he gets home.

It sounds really, really good.


otherstuff
02:53 PM - 01/15/2010

The topic: Back from a little shopping
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I got Gain fabric softener at Walmart and Biz bleach at Von’s.  I’m not low on laundry supplies anymore.

Life is good.


catstuff
06:55 PM - 01/15/2010

The topic: Well, I have to do it again
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click for a larger pic

I had made an appointment for Miss Elizabeth to have her teeth cleaned and any bad teeth extracted last Tuesday.  She’d not been eating dry food, she loves Kirkland kibble but was just letting it drop out of her mouth and not eating any.  She was pawing at the sides of her mouth and doing that weird chewing thing, like she was chewing on a rubberband.  And it wasn’t just one side of her mouth, it was both.

When I made the appointment I mentioned that I did want her to have the pre-anesthetic blood panel, to make sure it was safe to put her under, that it wouldn’t put undue stress on her organs.  She’d been diagnosed in the beginning stages of renal failure last year, so there is a concern.

I withheld food the night before and dropped her off at 8:30 Tuesday morning.  At 11:30, the phone rang.  Caller ID was the vet’s office.  It was the vet.

“This cat has lost about a half a pound since the last time she was in.  And her creatinine has gone up, it’s 3.3.  I looked in her mouth, can’t find any loose teeth or any indication she needs a dental at this time.  I don’t feel it’s in her best interest to have one.  I think what we should do is start giving her fluids twice a week. You know how to do fluids, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

I just gave her 120cc of fluids.  She took them quite well.

Right now, she’s on Brian’s lap.  She absolutely loves Brian.  I don’t think she got much love from my mom, I think my mom just tolerated her, so she’s making up for all those years whenever Brian’s home. I handed him a washcloth to wipe down the fluids from her fur (sometimes there’s a bit of leakage, it’s common). 

My poor little Miss Elizabeth, she’s such a brave girl.


click for a larger pic

      Saturday, January 16, 2010


catstuff
03:29 PM - 01/16/2010

The topic: Flea prevention
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Don’t ya just love it?

I’ve been saying for months now that I really need to put Advantage on the cats.  After that night there was a flea crawling on my scalp that came from Ollie.  Last month, I bought a six pack (and got one free) of the large dog Advantage. 

Well, earlier this week, I noticed how terrible Captain’s ears are.  I put ointment on them (Bacitracin) and then I dosed them with mite killer.  And today, for good measure, I started dosing the cats with Advantage. So far, I’ve done twenty-five cats. I know I won’t get them all. But I also know that the fleas don’t necessarily live on one host.  They might jump from cat to cat.

So, of the cats left to do, I really want to get Katie because her fleas might come from Jackie (who I’ll never get this stuff on). And the fleas on him, might come from Little Bit (another cat that won’t get any).  Pete’s fleas might jump on Marco.  I’m hoping to get Ron Howard.  I know I’ll be able to get Charlier, Ross, Gracie and Angel tonight.  But I don’t know about Monica, Joey or Autumn. 

Oh, well, I’ll do what I can and not obsess over not getting all of them.  Since Little Bit’s been here, I’ve never gotten all of them.

      Monday, January 18, 2010


otherstuff
12:10 PM - 01/18/2010

The topic: Computers.  Feh.
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So, Saturday I think “gee, maybe I’ll try setting up the remote desktop” function.  Because I get tired of going over to Brian’s computer to fix the damned weather station reading.  For some reason, it adds rain at nine in the morning and again around four-thirty in the afternoon.  According to my weather station, we’d gotten over thirteen inches of rain since the middle of last month. Very annoying.

So, I upgraded the software, hoping that would fix it (it didn’t, we got .34 inches of rain at 4:40 yesterday afternoon). So, late Saturday I started with the desktop remote set up. 

Couldn’t get it to work.  I never “saw” the other computers, couldn’t connect. Very, very disappointing

And then I couldn’t see the live cameras.  I was very, very irritated.  I didn’t know if it was my virus software (it has some sort of remote, too and I tried setting that up).  Or what it was.  Turns out it was the java update.  It wasn’t running with the new java, but eventually it did. There’s a popup, saying “this isn’t secure java, are you sure you want to run it?” Yeah, I’m sure. It’s just a word scroller and streaming video.  My router has a great firewall and only the ports the cameras run on are open. So, yeah.

But I just hate it when something else happens, not at all related to what I’m working on, when I’m messing with programs.  Because what I’m working on shouldn’t be affecting what’s seems to be affected. 

Anyway, I gave up on the remote desktop that comes with Windows and went with the freebie at LogMeIn.I don’t need the printer or chat or any of those things. And now, when we’re away from home and I’ve got the laptop and the catcam quits running, I can get it running again.

And it was a whole lot easier to set up and get running than that damned Windows remote desktop.

      Wednesday, January 20, 2010


catstuff
09:09 AM - 01/20/2010

The topic: Okay, that’s ENOUGH!
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During the night and early morning, we heard some kitty repeatedly throwing up.  I’m pretty sure it was Mystie, saw some fur in the piles. 

Miss Elizabeth was hungry this morning, I added to the soft food left from yesterday (leftovers are refrigerated).  She ate every bit.  And threw it right back up.  Ate way too fast.

Then, Kirby wanted to eat, opened a can of Fancy Feast, added a scoop of L-Lysine powder to it.  Put him in the bathroom on the counter. Checked on him once, he was still eating.  Ten minutes later, checked again.

Vomit all over the floor.

No more!  Quit eating so fast, no more puke today!

Thank you.

      Thursday, January 21, 2010


otherstuff
07:03 AM - 01/21/2010

The topic: Stormy weather…
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That’s what we’ve got.  We’ve gotten a half inch of rain since midnight.

Wake up this morning to strong winds and rain and it’s supposed to get worse as the day goes on.  This is what could really be considered a “weather event”, not the occasional drizzling morning (which always made me laugh). 

Tuesday afternoon, our power was out for three hours, which sucked because I’m on a quest right now on FB Fish Wrangler.

Our trees are loving this. The strong winds are cleaning out the needles (and nice that this storm, they’re blowing in the direction of our house, not the neighbor’s).  And there is the occasional small branch coming down, as well as pine cones. When they hit the roof it’s very loud, scary.  The cats aren’t happy with it either.

These storms aren’t pleasing the cats because they’re stuck inside.  And poor Bart, who I believe isn’t sliding, but diving into his dotage, will sit by the door and cry to go out.  He can hardly get around (I was slacking on his MSM) and he wants to go outside?  Sorry, I can’t let that happen.  He’s already got a cold.  His nose was runny, but this morning the output has turned goopy.  Probably start him on antibiotics.  

Looks like we’ll get a break on Sunday and Monday, then a possibility of more rain next week.

Amazing.


otherstuff
05:47 PM - 01/21/2010

The topic: So, we’re watching the news tonight
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and a report comes on about the robber bankers on Wall Street.  Goldman Sachs.  They’re giving out salaries and bonuses over sixteen BILLION dollars this year.  After the bailout. They made record profits last year.

To put that amount of money in perspective, it came out to close to a half a million dollars per employee.  Now, you and I both know that Rachel, the receptionist or Annie, the adminstrative assistant, won’t be taking home that kind money.  That’s going to the top of the pyramid, the top thieves, those people who think they’re entitled.  Well, screw you, I’m entitled, too, I’m an awesome Fish Wrangler on FaceBook, where’s my share?

Anyway, Brian said we should call tomorrow and ask if they have any job openings.  Doesn’t matter doing what, we’ll wash windows, scrub toilets, whatever needs to be done.  And, hey, you don’t even have to pay us!  Just give us that half mil bonus at the end of the year and we’ll be happy.  We could live for ten years on a million dollars, you know?

Rat bastards.

      Friday, January 22, 2010


salestuff
08:42 AM - 01/22/2010

The topic: What I made last night
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A removable vinyl wall sticker!  It’s about three inches high and it’s twenty-five inches long.  I hope to be selling these for around ten bucks in my store.  I’ll have a variety of available colors. 

I was so pleased with myself and at how well it turned out!


catstuff
09:27 AM - 01/22/2010

The topic: Okay, so far one drawback to
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five straight days of rain.

The cats can’t potty outside.  Litterboxes are filling up twice as quickly as normal.

Feh.

      Saturday, January 23, 2010


catstuff
03:14 PM - 01/23/2010

The topic: Tired of the pokey laptop
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I'm reformating it. Or whatever it does, I'm not doing it with disks, but with these instructions.

I don’t think this is going to be much fun.  But I just can’t stand how slow it’s gotten. I keep it in the extra room by my fancy sewing machine I’ve never used.  The one that embroiders from what you’ve got on your computer.  I’ll not be putting much back onto it.  Bare minimum.  No games or stuff like that.  An ftp program, a graphic editing program, printer software, a couple of different browsers and Disney Ridemax. 

I’m not looking forward to the work, but I am looking forward to speed.

      Sunday, January 24, 2010


otherstuff
07:51 AM - 01/24/2010

The topic: I was surprised at how smoothly
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The reformat of the laptop went.  Of course, if you went to the link I provided yesterday, you would have seen that it restores the system to the original state, with all the software installed. Including bloatware.  Like the AOL crap and the Earthlink crap.  I went through and got rid of all the software I don’t want, like the pre-installed music software, photo editing software, etc. because I’ve got my own that I want to use. And one of the first things that I took off was the Norton virus program and installed TrendMicro’s virus software.

I took care of this while I was cooking dinner.  After dinner, I came back to the office, took my FishWrangler skips (that was down a good portion of the day yesterday; one of the reasons I decided it would be an opportune time to clean up the laptop) and shut down.  And I went back to the family room to start watching some television while I finished up with the laptop.

I did the dishes (but not the pots and pans, I like them to soak a little….the soaked more than a little, they soaked overnight…real easy to clean this morning) and set the dishwasher to go off in four hours.  We went to bed around eleven last night, Brian was up an hour before me this morning, back on his computer.  When I got up, I fed Miss Elizabeth in the bathroom (she’s doing great, has a wonderful, wonderful appetite) and gave the rest of the cats their morning kibble.  I got breakfast dished up for KittyMeezer.  Heated that up and took it outside for him.

Then I went through the house and opened up the blinds.  When I did the laundry room, I noticed the floor by the door was soaking wet.  I keep a pee pad down there with a disposable pad on top, since Marco likes to pee there. But this wet was beyond anything Marco could do.  Nice.  I called out for Brian to come in there.

He came in from the office and looked at the floor.  “Man, that’s a lot of pee!”  I shook my head and rolled my eyes.  “It’s not pee. It’s from the dishwasher.”

So, he has to pull out the dishwasher and check the hoses.  It would appear there’s a split in one. 

A couple of weeks ago, there was a spill from the dishwasher, which was because the door wasn’t completely shut. But there was water in the kitchen and the laundry room that day. This morning, it was just the laundry room. 

Oh, the joys of home ownership.

      Monday, January 25, 2010


otherstuff
01:35 PM - 01/25/2010

The topic: So, we had dental appointments this morning.
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Brian’s was at 8:00, mine was at 8:50. Teeth cleaning. The dentist office is less than a half mile from here, so it’s not a major driving issue.

Brian asked me before he left if I was going to make his lunch. I said “nope, I didn’t know you’d need it; you should have given me more notice. I still have to take a shower and get ready to leave.”

Which I did. Made sure the cats were situated, everything where it belonged, took four skips in FW, gave me an hour and fifteen minutes until I needed to fish again. I grabbed my jacket, slipped my cell in my pocket, checked for Blistex in the pocket, grabbed my wallet, the keys to the Escape and was out the door.

Walk out to the driveway. No Escape. The Ranger’s still there. He took my car to the dentist. Damn it! Why? I stomp back into the house, extremely annoyed. Put the Escape keys back on the hook, grab the Ranger keys. Stomp back out to the Ranger, slamming the gate behind me (I can be such a drama queen). I open the door to the Ranger, the floor mat is off the floor and over the driver’s seat? WTF? I fling it to the passenger’s side and climb in. I start it up, turn on the wipers to clean the dew off the windshield and I’m off. Muttering the whole time.

I get to the main drag and I see Brian in my Escape. He smiles and waves at me. I growl at him and give him the finger. He makes the turn and does a U turn. He follows me to the dentist’s office. I park first, then he parks. I’m yelling as I get out of the truck. “Why’d you take my car? Why?” Brilliant response from him. “I dunno…” Grr….

He asks for his keys. I hand him my keys to the truck. He follows me into the building. His teeth are cleaned, but they found a cavity when he got X-rays. I was still fuming when I went in. I started complaining to the hygienist and I heard him laughing in the other room. I yelled at him again.

My teeth cleaning went smoothly, but when the doc came in afterwards to do a quick exam, he found one of the old fillings was cracked and advised getting it replaced because saliva could get down into the tooth and cause decay. Lucky for me, the next appointment had cancelled because he was “snowed in” and couldn’t make it. So, I got my cavity taken care of today.

For both of us, it was just under eight hundred dollars. Brian’s was more because of the X-rays. But we’re good for another six months.

I drove the Escape home

grin

      Wednesday, January 27, 2010



08:31 AM - 01/27/2010

The topic: Saw Bart in the hallway this morning
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and, oh joy, there are no cats on the bed!  I can quickly make it.  Easier without cats, you know.

When I’m done, I go into the kitchen and get some paper towels to clean up the pee by the front door.  I throw them away, then go back into the office.  I glance into the bedroom. Bart isn’t on the bed.  Hmm.  I start looking around for him.  Look in the living room, not in the litter boxes.  Look in the dining room, not at the feeder. Look out by the fountain on the patio (he likes to drink that water), he’s not there.  Okay, where is he?  I go back into the bedroom and look at the feeder in there. Nope, not there.

Panic sets in.  I go into the office, pulling off my socks as I go.  I told Brian “I can’t find Bart” and I’m out the door.  Once outside, I look down by the pool.  He’s sitting at the edge of the pool, by the steps.  Crap, crap, crap.

I walk down to the pool area and Bart stands up and walks over to the steps that go up into the yard from the pool.  “Bart! Bart! What are you doing?”  He’s been watching me and he stands up and before I can go down to the steps, he’s walked over to them. And he pretty much ran right up them!  Wow!

I was amazed at how much better he’s walking.  I got this stuff for him last month, but only started giving it to him on a daily basis last week when his cold was so bad and I was shoving amoxi down his throat (he had yellow/green goopy snot).  I’m supposed to put it over his wet food, but he doesn’t eat that much at a time (only needs a quarter of a level teaspoon).  I started packing #00 gel caps (beef flavored) and it takes two of those to get close to the correct dose.  I’ve been giving him one in the morning and one at night. 

And it looks like it’s working!  The vet told me that it will just keep getting better for him.  If he does this well in a week, how good will he be a month from now?  It will be so nice to see him walking pain free, you now? And this stuff doesn’t have any bad side effects, either and it’s not extremely expensive.

Oh, the stuff is Synovi-MSM, if any of you want to discuss this with your vets.

      Saturday, January 30, 2010


catstuff
10:59 AM - 01/30/2010

The topic: I could do without mornings like this one
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First off, no sign of KittyMeeze for breakfast.  We went to breakfast ourselves and when we got home, he still was nowhere to be seen.

Then I saw him, down the street and across the street at the corner house. I guess Gilligan must be there and not be feeling well.  Kitty has always been protective of his friend cats and we think that’s what he’s doing, taking care of Gilly.  He did come here to eat, but then left again.  I expected to see him up on the bank, but I saw him walking in the driveway of the house on the corner.

Then Miss Elizabeth wasn’t really thrilled with her breakfast.  I had to pull her away from it early since Brian was ready to go and I’m not going to leave her locked up in the bathroom.  When we got home, she wanted more to eat, but just nibbled a little, then wanted out.

Kirby was being a royal PITA, and I almost tripped over him a couple of times getting him fed.  He ate half a can of Friskies and I put Oliver in the bathroom to finish it off.  Ollie does this gawdawful howling when he eats, I have no idea why, I used to think it was because he was finished, but he wasn’t.  I looked in on him, he was done, as a matter of fact he’d puked everything he’d eaten back up (he eats waaaay too fast).  I cleaned that up.

Then Bart came walking in from the living room.  He’s the one who’s been peeing by the litterbox, he doesn’t always make it in, but gets on the stool just fine.  Pees standing on the stool, real nice. Fun clean up.  Anyway, I don’t like the way he’s breathing and I pick him up.  His back paws are wet (from the pee he was standing in on the stool, pee that he put there) and I cleaned those off.  I put him on the bed and he walked to the corner, which means he’s expecting some food.  I got his AD and grabbed the water bottle and sat on the bed keeping the other cats away from him as he ate.  He didn’t eat as much as I’d have liked, but he did eat some.

He walked to the head of the bed and curled up on my pillow and started to sleep.  His breathing looks the same as the other cats, so I guess I was just being paranoid.

Now my tummy is upset and I’ve got a headache.  My sweatpants are all in the wash and my jeans are uncomfortable after breakfast (a veggie scramble, I didn’t finish the meal, there is always too much food) and I’m in jammie bottoms.

Blargh.

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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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