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      Saturday, May 15, 2004



04:27 PM - 05/15/2004

The topic: So.

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Saturday, May 15, 2004  So, here I am.  Did ya miss me?

Okay, here’s what’s been going on.  At the end of March, I started this thing to help out a wonderful internet friend.  I’ve ‘known’ her for about as long as I’ve been online.  She’s a really sweet, wonderful woman who started having a lot of personal problems.  Her husband, who had fairly recently been diagnosed with diabetes, started having other problems.  Dizzy spells, couldn’t walk, poor circulation, for example.  And they couldn’t find out exactly what the problem was. They treated him for different things, hoping against hope something would help. At one point, they were even talking cancer. After running myriads of tests, they finally found that he had an infection in his spine, one that the doctor could only find twenty documented cases of worldwide.  She just recently found out how very close to death’s door he was. 

She’s his only caretaker and besides her daytime job, she cares for an elderly woman at night.  And last year, she lost three of her cats to disease.  It’s been a really hard time for her, yet I’d never seen her complain about what she was going through.  We posted our hopes for her husband’s improvement, our sorrow for the loss of their furkids.  But what else could we do? 

Then, she posts that a neighbor came over to her house and showed her a notice in a newspaper.  The gummint was going to auction off their house for unpaid taxes.  She was floored.  She had no idea they owed anything.  She researched it and it was for taxes never paid on a home they hadn’t lived in for years.  And the tax bills were going to her old home, not her new home.  Yet they were going to auction off her new home.  She didn’t have the money and she didn’t have the resources to get it.

So, I put up a private bulletin board with the idea of people sending me goodies for her, I’d rewrap them all nice and purrty and send them off to her in a package.  The wonderful people of the internet, all of the people she’s known through the years, wanted to do more than send presents, they wanted to send money to help stall the gummint from taking their home.  A terrific woman, Judith, stepped up and offered to take care of any and all monetary donations, while I would do the presents.  And within a month, we collected over $3800.00 for Andrea’s taxes, which less her with a balance of less than a thousand.  Judith sneakily found out Andrea’s work address and had a cashier’s check FedExed to her in time for the first installment.  Andrea had no idea.  She had been forewarned that some funds were on the way, but she had no clue it would be so much.

And the packages started rolling in to my house.  Everyday, there were three and four packages or envelopes.  This went on for three weeks, at least, then I did my thing and got six huge packages FedExed to Andrea in time for her birthday, which was May 5.  We called the entire thing “Springtime for Andrea” and you can see it in action here.  I took pictures of the packages in the exercise (ha!) room and what I went through to get them wrapped and loaded up and off to the shipper.  There were six good sized boxes.  It was pretty fun and it did Andrea a world of good. Even better, it helped perk up her husband quite a bit and he’s doing much better.  While we were waiting for the “Magic Bus” (as we affectionately called the trip), we had some fun on the Magic Bus”.  That’s where you’ll see the pictures I took.

The weekend after I got the packages sent, I did a thorough cleaning of the floors throughout the house.  I scrubbed and rinsed and re-rinsed.  I washed walls.  I was a very busy woman. 

And, that weekend is when Little Bit moved her kittens to under the car.  Needless to say, I spent hours on my belly watching them (don’t get much surfing in when you’re outside on your belly looking under a car watching baby cats).  And feeding them.  Last Saturday, my buddies were coming down from L.A. to help trap the kittens and possibly, Little Bit.  They were supposed to be down between ten and eleven, but got stuck in traffic.  I went outside and the kittens were walking around. 

Now, I’d been out so much the previous week, they were getting used to me.  I’d picked an occasional kitten up and petted it.  No problems at all with hissing or trying to get away, they had no fear of me at all.  And Little Bit didn’t say much, either.  She’d look at me and hiss, but she really liked the Sheba food I was hand delivering.  I’d lay quite close to them while they ate, kittens and mom both.  So, when I decided to try to get them, I set up the bathroom, and got some beef Sheba on a paperplate.  I took it outside and placed it under the car, right at the edge.  And kittens came.  And kittens got grabbed.  I got four within minutes (two at a time).  One of the little calicos was the last to come eat and was very leery of me, seeing as her littermates were now gone.  She went over to the other side of the car and I could see her right under the car cover.  I reached down and got her.  Brought her in and fed all of the kittens, shutting the bathroom door.

Amazingly, Little Bit was nowhere to be seen when I did this.  Saturday, she’d spent more and more time away from the nest, almost as if she knew what was going to happen.  I felt really sorry for her the next couple of days because she was looking for the kittens.  But now, she’s back to normal.  And next week, after she’s had two weeks to dry up, we’ll start setting out both traps in the hopes of catching both her and SpotTee to get them both fixed.

My friends got down here around one o’clock and we had a great visit.  They checked over the kittens, pronounced four little girls and one, a little boy.  Also, the kittens had big bellies, which was a sign of worms, pretty common for kittens.  The kittens got dewormed, all five got Advantage on their necks (they had hardly any fleas, though, mom did a very good job of keeping them clean).  And the three calicos were packed off and left for the Los Angeles area.  The last I heard, they were doing fine.  I haven’t heard since Wednesday, though.  I would like to get an update. 

Okay, so three went up to Los Angeles.  Is there any question what happened to the other two?  I guess not, huh?  Without further ado, meet the two newest members of our family.

 

 




Ross






Rachel
 



See, in my conversation with Jen, she mentioned how very difficult it was to find homes for black kittens and cats.  For some reason, people just don’t seem to want them.  But calicos have no problems finding homes at all.  So, Brian and I discussed this and I was able to beg him into letting us keep two kittens.  Two because one would be too much for the adults here.  As many of you know, I’m a firm believer in adopting at least two at a time.  *lol*  I originally wanted the little calico with the mask, but after reflecting on the adoptability of calicos, I decided it would be better if we kept the little stripey kitten. Brian mentioned the other day that she reminds him of the tortie we got fixed last year at Easter time. 

Then there was the process of naming them.  Ideally, a brother/sister naming would be best.  For a male I really liked Bubba, Spike or Tom, but Brian said “nay” to all of those.  To which I replied “fine, then, you name them”.  At first he came up with Ross and Monica, but I felt that Monica would be too hard to shout out when the kitten was doing something wrong.  Rachel would be much easier.  So, Rachel it is.  But Monica might have been a better fit because I caught her covering up Ross’ poo in the litter pan and I also saw her licking the floor in the bathroom (a little goat’s milk had spilled).  *grin*  But, Rachel it is.

The other cats were curious about the kittens and spent some of their spare time sniffing under the bathroom door. Marco took it a step further and spent hours laying in front of the door, occasionally sticking a paw underneath the bottom of the door.  A few times the kittens got out and I watched in horror as Marco grabbed Ross by the neck.  He quickly let Ross go, Ross shook it off and ran down the hallway.  Another time, Rachel’s tail disappeared down Marco’s throat.  But he never did anything to hurt either of them, it looked much worse than it actually was, as neither of the kittens said a word when it happened.  Thursday evening,  Brian put up a barrier (which I’ll take pictures of) at the opening to the entryway so that the little guys have more room to run.  I shooed out most of the cats in this part of the house and let the babies out.  As the bigger cats have expressed interest, I let them stay.

And Marco loves the kittens.  He loves to clean them.  He loves to lay in their carrier.  Wally loves to clean them.  Potter and Katie like to play with them.  There’s a little bit of hissing and spitting (Oliver actually went after Ross and I picked Ollie up and put him outside), but really not all that much.  I think right now, the cat I’d be most concerned about hurting the kits is Oliver.  So, I’ll have to slowly introduce them and make darned sure that the kittens are never alone in a room with Ollie.

It amazes me how much these guys can eat.  I tried giving them NutroMax kitten food, but Rachel got diarrhea really bad with it. I started them back on Sheba, but I’m going to slowly re-introduce the Nutro kitten food, since I feel it’s better for them.  And along with the large appetites comes the frequent poops.  Oh, well, I guess it’s part of having kittens.

Ciara has the sniffles.  I think the prednisone has affected her immune system.  *sigh*  So, I’m trying to make sure she doesn’t get too close to the babies.  Other than that, she’s doing okay.  She has eaten some of the food I’ve put out for the kittens and got a little bout of diarrhea, but that seems to have cleared up. 

DeeJay isn’t putting any more weight on.  Right now, he’s down.  I really don’t like this.  He’s acting okay, but he’s just not keeping on any weight.  I hate this part of their lives.

This past week, I was looking over some of my websites and their hosts and found that one of them has this awesome deal.  I think it’s great for first time website owners.  You get 250MB of space, 5G of bandwidth, your own domain, plus lots more for only $35.00 a year.  It’s a great entry level option, in my opinion.  When I first got my own domain, I paid about fifteen dollars a month for only 50MB more of webspace.  And that didn’t include my own cgi-bin (for running stuff like this journal).  And it didn’t include my domain, which I paid thirty-five dollars a year for.  So, I think this is a really good deal.  If you’re interested, check out Mister.Net.  I was so excited about this new deal, that I paid to upgrade to the new offering.  And once you’ve got it, it’s yours for as long as you keep their service.

I also found that one of my other hosts has a really good deal, if you pay two years in advance.  Of course, it doesn’t include your domain name.  I was planning on letting lisaviolet.net die, just not renew it, but I went ahead and renewed it and moved it to another host.  I’ll be moving all of my pictures to that website which will free up quite a bit of space here at lisaviolet.com.  I doubt I’ll ever have to get another website as long as I live.  Which, hopefully, is a very long time.  So, if there’s a problem with broken images here for the next couple of months, don’t be alarmed.  I’m just moving things.  Hopefully, the transition will go smoothly.

I’ve been pretty tired this past week.  I attribute that to how busy I was the previous two months.  And I think I might have some sort of low level fever going on.  Or it could be my allergies.  I’ve had headaches off and on this past week. We’ve also got a plethora of mosquitoes in the house.  I have absolutely no idea where they’re breeding.  I was getting bit more than six times a day, more than I’ve been bit in years.  And itch?  Boy, howdy, do these things itch.  I’m sure I’ll have scars.  *sigh*  I’m kind of curious if maybe my tiredness might also have something to do with these bites.  Maybe some sort of infection.  It was really bad earlier this week, but yesterday and today were better.  To let you know how bad it’s been, how tired I’ve been, Thursday morning I went out to check out my flowers around the pool.  I had on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, but bare feet.  I sat down on the concrete to play with Potter and I ended up laying down flat on my back, my feet trying to warm up in the sun.  The next thing I knew, I was waking up.  I’d slept for close to an hour.  Hour naps are rare for me, I usually take ten or twenty minutes and wake up refreshed. 

And I’ve been eating crap again.  I think part of my lethargy can be attributed to my diet.  Last night, I figured enough farting around, it’s time to get serious again.  I can’t keep eating like I’ve been eating.  The pants that were loose last October are tight now.  And this is unacceptable.  The only one to blame is me and the only one who can change this is me.  So, this morning I started counting points again.  And at the end of the month, I’ll weigh.  I’m afraid to weigh now.

Well, that’s about it for now.  I’m going to go bug Brian.



I found out that if you put a paste of unseasoned meat tenderizer and water on a mosquito bite, it stops itching and the swelling disappears quickly.  The enzyme in the tenderizer neutralizes the stuff the mosquito leaves in the bite.

Posted by Trudy @ Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 5:03:05 PM


I hope you don’t have West Nile down there. I would be worried about that many bites around here.

Posted by Norah @ Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 8:28:05 PM


Lisa, you do amazing things.  Helping out an internet friend like that, and keeping those 2 kitties.  I hope whatever is ‘ailing’ you goes away soon.  I have fibromyalgia and what you describe is how I feel all of the darned time.  Bless you.

Posted by Nancy @ Monday, May 17, 2004 - 8:55:05 AM


Whaaaa!!  All I see are 2 rex x’s for Ross and Rachel’s pictures.  LOL my son in law’s name is Ross, anxious to see the little guy!

Posted by Nancy @ Monday, May 17, 2004 - 8:57:05 AM

lisaviolet's avatar

Check it now, I thought I’d changed the code, guess it didn’t save.

And I have been feeling a little better each day.  I think I just wear myself out, then need to recharge.

Posted by lisaviolet @ Monday, May 17, 2004 - 9:08:05 AM


love to you and your new babys . good luck to your friend. you are a great person to help like that . it was a good thing that you did . if more help is needed let me know i would love to help. love bcat

Posted by bcatsrmine8 @ Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 7:34:05 PM


OH They are so cute!!!

I bet it is a blast having babies around.

My husband and I have had bad allergy attacks lately too,it must be something in our San Diego air right now.

Posted by melanee @ Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 2:54:05 PM


I agree, you do so much for others!  There is a special place in heaven for people like you! Big Hugs!!! :D

Posted by DonnaB @ Friday, May 21, 2004 - 9:12:05 PM


Trying to catch up with you after months away. Our diaries sound alike—sick cats, old cats and feeling fat and tired…lol.  Hope Ciara and DeeJay have many good days ahead of them.  Bless you for all you do to make the world a better place.

Posted by laura (alaska) @ Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 5:38:05 PM

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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.

In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.

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