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      Monday, August 09, 2004

12:32 PM - 08/09/2004 The topic: I’m alive!  I’m alive! ---------------------------------------------- Monday, August 9, 2004  I’m really and truly still alive!  *Hahahahahaha!* Not that it’s funny that I’m alive, just that it’s been so damned long since I made an entry.  I often wonder why it’s so hard for me to just sit down and start typing.  Granted, I’m older and more absent minded…..  what was I saying?  *lol* Yeah, wondering.  So, I think it may be because I’ve just got so much other stuff that I need to do and instead of putting it off like I used to, I do it now.  And I’m not spending nearly as much time online.  Sure, the cameras are running, but that doesn’t mean I’m sitting here at the desk.  And business is picking up at my little online store.  The catnip is a hit (if you didn’t get your free sample, you still can) and the notecards are selling fairly well.  And, I’ll be honest here. When I found I could no longer gossip about family with impunity, it stopped being as much fun.  I don’t feel safe venting about things I used to freely go on about here in this diary.  I don’t know why it should matter, though.  She hasn’t spoken to me in almost three years now.  It should no longer make a difference, but as long as she’s still a member of the family, I’ll just hold my thoughts.  But if she ever leaves this family…...  *grin* The last Thursday of July, I had a Workman’s Compensation audit.  It went pretty smoothly.  The house was clean, the chair cushions freshly laundered (good thing, too, the audito had on black pants), smooth jazz on the stereo and a few sandalwood candles burning.  I had everything she needed in nice organized piles and she was out of here in under forty-five minutes.  Last week I got the results. We don’t owe any money.  Everything checked out perfectly.  I like it when that happens. On August 3rd, I didn’t see Little Bit at all.  I did see her on the 4th, she’d lost weight.  A lot of weight.  Kitten weight.  I haven’t seen the kittens, she’s got them up on the bank under the Bird of Paradise.  It’s a good place.  Speaking of kittens and neutering, I just called and made appointments for Ross and Rachel to get done next Tuesday.  Brian and I have talked about changing vets, going someplace not so expensive.  Like maybe the place where we took Ciara earlier this year.  The same place I took Mom and Miss E. But upon further reflection, I’d just as soon stay with my current vet.  I had to get Miss E’s prescription refilled and it was over $35.00 for the liquid amoxicillan.  My vet doesn’t charge that much.  And when I have an emergency in the day, I can just take the cat over to my vet’s office and drop him or her off.  When we took Miss in, we waited for hours to see a vet.  I really didn’t like that.  And I really like the people who work at my vet’s office.  I really, really like them.  So, Brian might not be happy about it, but I’m sticking with my vet.  Besides, he’s really close. I don’t have to deal with as much traffic and steenkeeng red lights. DeeJay is doing okay.  His weight is holding steady at about six and a half pounds.  I wish he’d put more on, though.  I noticed last night, his fur feels better and his skin is a little thicker when I give him his fluids (which he’s getting everyday now).  He’s a food beggar and when he stops begging, I’ll know he’s on his last legs.  But beg he does, every chance he gets.  The last couple of nights, he’s been a little pissy when getting his fluids.  I don’t know if it’s just the heat.  It’s been miserable.  I hope that’s all it is.  I haven’t found any poops in the laundry room the past couple of mornings, which might indicate he might be constipated.  I gave him a little Petromalt this morning.  He absolutely loves it. Ciara still has that damned cold.  She slept on my pillow last night.  I didn’t realize that until she started cleaning my head in the middle of the night.  I don’t mind her sleeping on my pillow, I do mind her peeing on us while we’re sleeping.  That’s a real rude awakening and it’s been happening more often that I like the past few weeks. I’ve been very bad about keeping the grass cleaned up from around the pool this year.  We bought a flat of flowers a couple of months ago.  I figured if I had the flowers, I’d have incentive to pull the grass.  It didn’t happen.  Most of the flowers died in their containers and the grass florished.  We finally got the gardener over here last week.  It took him two days and he got rid of most of the grass.  It’s absolutely amazing.  Now, we have to figure out what to do with the bare dirt.  We finally broke down and went with a vegetation killer for around the streambeds. That grass was growing in the cracks of the rocks that Brian places and cemented in and it actually started going up throught the stream beds and now they badly leak. He put it down yesterday afternoon when it was really hot and the cats were all sleeping elsewhere.  This stuff is safe for animals and humans once it’s dry. I don’t think the cats are pleased that all of that grass has gone, they can’t play hide and seek in the grass and they don’t have the grass to sleep in. We talked about which way to go as far as ground cover. Up at Disneyland, they’ve got some really cool looking grass called “Mondo” or “Monkey” grass.  I looked for it online and everything I read about it said it needed partial sun or shade.  I’m reluctant to spend hundreds of dollars for something that will just end up dying.  When we go for our morning walks, there’s a house with this really nice clumping green stuff in their front yard.  It gets full sun during the day and there’s nary a weed in sight.  We happened to see some of this at Home Depot on Saturday and it’s the way I’d like to go.  It’s called “Irish Moss” and I think it would work where we want something. It takes full sun, you can walk on it and it looks okay. Brian said he didn’t really like it, but I just don’t have the ambition to take care of flowers beyond watering them.  I hate pulling that grass and Brian said that he’s not going to do it.  I don’t like bark, it’s hard on bare feet.  I said as much to Brian. That our options are limited for that area.  We’ve had a problem this year with the pool filter clogging more often than in the past and I think a lot of it was the grass that had gone to seed around the pool.  So, I think we’ll have that Irish Moss before too long. Well, I’ve been working on this for three hours and I’m not getting much more done.  I do have to vacuum today, having dusted and done laundry yesterday.  Then I’d like to lay in the sun.  I really like laying in the sun.  I keep promising myself to make entries more often, I just keep getting sidetracked.  Somewhere along the line, I found a life off of the internet.  I’m curious how this came about.  I certainly wasn’t looking for one.  :jester | Permalink

      Tuesday, August 10, 2004

08:23 AM - 08/10/2004 The topic: About the cameras ---------------------------------------------- Tuesday, August 10, 2004  It seems that some of you are having problems viewing the cameras.  I’m really sorry, but there were a few webmasters who were pulling images from my site and posting them on their webpages.  Instead of people coming here, to lisaviolet.com to see the cameras, they were viewing them on other websites, websites that I had no way to access.  So, I enabled the option to prevent hotlinking in my camera directories.  I want people to see my cameras from my website, not on someone else’s.  And this was using large amounts of my allotted bandwidth. In doing so, it appears that the camera images are not viewable by all.  I understand this is a browser problem.  For instance, people using Opera and early versions of Netscape are unable to see the images.  The only thing I can advise is using Internet Explorer or a current version of Netscape. I pay for my bandwidth and I had to do something to stop the theft of it. I’m really sorry for any inconvenience. | Permalink

      Friday, August 13, 2004

11:00 AM - 08/13/2004 The topic: Wacky weather ---------------------------------------------- Friday, August 13, 2004  Strange, strange weather we’re experiencing this summer.  June gloom started in May and lasted until the end of June.  July, usually a hot dry month, was hot and humid.  Uncomfortable.  August weather.  Now, in August, we had a couple of hot dry days and then some hot humid days and now, it’s a little on the cool side, due to cloud cover.  There’s a tropical storm down in Mexico and the edges of it are hitting here.  Strange because it’s cool, where you expect tropical storms to be warm.  Maybe it’s just the cloud cover.  If that burns off, it’s going to be miserable.  And you can take that to the bank.  And it really sucks because our air conditioner is about a thousand and four years old and is extremely energy inefficient, as well as not working well.  Not well at all.  We ran it about four or five days last month (set at 78?) and our electric bill this month is up about seventy five dollars from the previous month.  *sigh*  So, I sit and swelter.  I’ve seriously considered taking one of my movie coupons and hitting a theater. We were going to get the Irish moss for the pool area, but it was too expensive.  So, Brian found some nice no mow fescue, that grows to about six or eight inches and just lays over.  It looked pretty cool in the picture, reminded me of beach grass.  I ordered some online, requesting that it be delivered next Saturday, the 21st.  Unfortunately, there is none available.  They won’t be harvesting anymore until the middle of October. That isn’t acceptable.  We need something soon to keep that damned crawling weed grass from coming back. Most of the flowers I planted last year are gone, victim to that grass. Jesse, the gardener who was here last week (he’s a Mexican, works for eighty dollars a day and a carne asada burrito), said that we really needed to use chemicals on the grass to make it go away for good and I reminded him we can’t do chemicals because of the cats.  Then he said we should put white rock down.  Now, I’ve been after Brian for years to put that black plastic down.  In previous years, we had bark in the area, but it’s really hard to walk on.  And Brian nixed the idea of the white rock.  So, after finding out we can’t get the real grass for at least two months, he went online and started a search for fake grass.  Heh heh heh.  That’s not gonna work.  That stuff sells for $36.00 a square yard.  We’ve got about 400 square feet we need to cover.  We absolutely can’t afford this.  *sigh* I did find some Irish moss seeds for less than twenty bucks for 10,000 seeds, which would cover 1000 square feet. But it will take to long to get going.  That creepy crawly grass will come back before the seeds can start growing enough to push out the grass.  So, Brian says last night “I guess I’ll have to get some black plastic”.  And this morning on our walk, in a voice so low I barely heard it “and white rock”.  Hahahahahahaha!  At least, this should help kill that damned grass so that we can eventually plant something nicer.  I will have to get some stepping stones for the rock, because I hate walking on that stuff.  On one of our morning routes, we go past a place that has white rock where you’d expect a sidewalk and even with shoes on, I’ll walk in the street.  I put up some more pictures in the family album if anyone is interested. I got an email from someone who is having major problems viewing this site since I implemented the hotlink prevention.  I don’t know why this is happening, the only thing it should do is replace one image with another. She said that lisaviolet.com was shutting down her computer and that she didn’t think she should have to download a different browser, that the latest versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer should be good enough.  And I agree.  I use Internet Explorer all of the time, I have for years.  Out of curiousity, I downloaded Netscape 7.1 yesterday and I had no problem viewing any of the camera pages.  I did see where http://catcam.lisaviolet.com was badly formatted and I fixed that.  It now looks the same in Netscape as it does Internet Explorer.  But beyond that, I had no problems bringing any of the pages up.  So, I’m at a loss.  I doubt I’ll remove the hotlink protection, though. Brian finally gave me the go ahead to order a new 4DTV receiver earlier this month.  It should be here today. Our old one really frustrates us.  You go to change it to a different satellite and the dish moves, but the numbers don’t change (they are the guideline for where the receiver needs to move the dish, they’re set when the receiver is initially set up).  Then, for whatever reason, in a half hour or so, it works. Except the numbers are off (when you try to move the dish, it moves a little bit, but the numbers don’t; so you’ve moved it about ten clicks, but the number still says 4798, instead of 4808 and this throws off the entire system).  I’ve spent hours and hours this year, reprogramming the numbers only to have them messed up by the end of the day.  I finally got Brian to be able to fine tune in a satellite, but when it won’t move at all, there’s not much either of us can do except wait.  Hopefully the new receiver will fix the problem.  I also ordered a dish tune-up kit for Brian to get up on the roof and reposition the dish.  Neither of us can see paying someone else hundreds of dollars to do this when it’s not getting done properly.  The guy we used in the past is more interested in working with the small dishes and doesn’t even have the necessary tools anymore.  Plus I don’t really think he knows what he’s doing.  He sold us that new actuator earlier this year when I moved the dish too far (trying to set those damned numbers).  Well, I did it again a few months later and Brian went up on the roof and physically moved the dish and it worked just fine after that.  And it didn’t cost a cent.  With any luck, by next week, we’ll be as good as new. The cats are doing fine.  DeeJay threw up the other day.  When the other cats throw up furballs, they can be as big around as my thumb and about four inches long.  DeeJay’s are about as big as a large pea.  You know, I was obsessing about him gaining weight.  Earlier this week I had to get more fluids for him and I noticed on the invoice that his weight when he was first diagnosed with kidney disease was six pounds, two ounces.  He weighs a little more now, so I guess that’s not too bad.  It’s been almost two years.  I was really surprised.  It was nice the other night, I got him to eat an entire jar of beef baby food.  I couldn’t believe that he did. I’d very much like Ciara to be well. Little Bit comes down to eat.  I’m sure curious how many kittens she had and if there’s any color besides black in the litter.  SpotTee is getting a little less anxious around us when I feed them in the morning, he comes a little closer. And KittyMeeze is doing okay, still hangs out here in the day.  I do get nervous when I can’t find him.  Well, that’s it for now.  Friday is laundry day.  And it’s calling my name. | Permalink

      Saturday, August 21, 2004

catstuff 02:01 PM - 08/21/2004 The topic: Damn dogs ---------------------------------------------- Saturday, August 21, 2004 Damn dogs.  Damndogsdamndogsdamndogs.  Damn dogs. Yesterday, the neighbor’s daughter brought her dogs over for dog sitting.  This isn’t the daughter with the oh so adorable little cutie pie Papillion breed, but these are big dogs, like an Irish setter and some other mixed breed mutt.  It was early evening, I’d started to get the house closed up in anticipation of getting all the cats in for the night and shutting the computer down.  Brian was at his brother’s house, helping him load the truck (he’s moving his shop now, the house stuff is all moved).  Those damn dogs rushed the fence.  Cats scattered.  One cat hit the screen door.  Damn dogs. I got up from the computer to see if everyone was all right.  I found Marco in the family room, unable to walk, not putting any weight at all on his left rear leg.  Damn dogs. It was about 7:30, I called Brian’s mom’s house, the head of my fan club answered the phone.  I asked her if Brian was home.  She didn’t say anything.  I asked for Brian’s mom.  She put her on the line.  I asked Brian’s mom if Brian was there.  She said ‘yes’ I asked if she could please get him to the phone.  I heard her tell the sister in law that it was me and that there must be something wrong, to get Brian.  I heard her yell for him at the door, then I guess she took the phone out to him.  He got on, I told him I needed his help, we had to take Marco to the vet.  I got the carrier out, put Marco in it and started getting cats in because I had no idea how long this would take.  I saw the woman next door out in her yard, I asked her if she’d seen anything, she said ‘no’.  I was able to get Daniece in and Brian and I left.  I signed us in around 7:45 and was told it might be an hour before we saw the vet.  I conferred with Brian and he said that was okay.  After fifteen or so minutes, I told him to go and I’d call him when I was ready to come home.  Fortunately, he’d grabbed my cell phone.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t grabbed anything.  I had no money, no wallet, and no reading glasses.  This was going to be a long wait. Marco didn’t seem to be too uncomfortable.  There weren’t many people in the waiting room and I put the carrier on a chair and I sat on the floor in front of it.  I opened the door and petted him and scratched his head.  He purred for me.  His eyes looked good.  I got water from the cooler and put it in a little paper cup for him and he drank quite a bit.  I was called into an examining room where Marco was weighed.  A big boy at 18.8 pounds.  That was all and Marco and I went back into the waiting room. Finally, around nine, I called Brian and told him that I hadn’t gotten in yet.  He said he was finished for the night (he’d gone back to his brother’s) and he was coming back to the vet hospital.  Did I want anything?  (Yeah, to be out of here and home and have Marco be okay.)  I said I’d like some water.  They locked the door at nine and Brian got there about a quarter after.  And we waited some more.  Finally, about ten thirty, we were finally called into an examining room.  Then we had to wait some more, the doctor finally came in, I took Marco out of the carrier and she checked him over.  She said that the best thing to do was to not mess around with the leg, but to just take x-rays and be sure.  We put Marco back into the carrier (he wanted down off of the table and walking wasn’t an option at this time), where he was more comfortable.  About eleven or so, the x-ray technician came in and took the carrier and Marco into the back.  We heard Marco’s protestations when he was being positioned for the images.  It wasn’t pretty.  By eleven-thirty, my fears were confirmed.  Marco’s leg was broken.  Unfortunately, the surgeon didn’t work on weekends, it would be Monday before they could operate.  Marco would either get pins in his ankle or a plate.  It would be up to the surgeon.  (Damn dogs.)  The doctor said she’d get the estimate ready and we could go up to the front and check out for the night. Brian had mentioned bringing Marco home earlier and after we found out how bad this was, I had the impression they’d be keeping him there at the hospital.  When the clerk got our bill ready, she handed me some torbutrol.  Why?  I asked.  I said “Marco is staying here, isn’t he?”  She didn’t know, she thought he was going home with me. I’m thinking ‘what the hell am I going to do with him at home?’  Sure, I could put him in my bathroom, but he pees in the sink.  That’s not a problem for me, but he has to jump to get up there and jump to get down and it’s sure as hell going to be a problem for him.  We don’t have a huge crate to put him in, I looked at Brian, can we use Mark’s?  Nope, Mark was using his now for his dogs since they’d moved.  A few years back, I’d suggested we get one of our own, but Brian said we could always use Mark’s.  I guess that’s another instance where you shouldn’t speak in absolutes.  If we had our own, we could take Marco home.  But we didn’t.  It was my feeling that being home would be too stimulating and stressful for Marco.  Sure, he’d be on pain pills, but he’d probably not just sleep, but want to see the other cats and get upset at being locked in the bathroom.  We decided to leave him there.  For his own safety and well-being. The estimate was $1600.00 to $1760.00. That didn’t include the $200 we paid last night.  And it doesn’t include the additional three nights of hospitalization at fifty bucks a night.  *sigh*  And I just got all of our credit card debt paid off Thursday afternoon.  Almost twenty thousand dollars paid off and here we go again.  We had to leave a deposit of at least five hundred dollars.  Thank you citibank. So, you sit at a vet’s office for close to four hours, you’re the last one to be served and you hear and see a lot of different animals, people and stories. One of the most amazing stories was the story of a young kitten maybe three or four months old, the cutest little brown tabby, who’s head, between his ears, was all stitched up. The stitching was in a U shape, from ear to ear to above his eyes. The hospital crew was walking around with him after the place had pretty much cleared out. His story is nothing short of a miracle. He was brought to them by a pet rescue organization. His previous owners had taken him to a vet to be euthanized because of a hole in his head (lots of this tale is sketchy because they didn’t have all the information). This vet euthed him, giving him three times the normal dose for him to be killed. Then he was put into the freezer. The next morning, he was still alive! Rescue somehow got a hold of him and brought him to this clinic, where they operated on the hole in his head. He looked alert and happy, they said there doesn’t seem to be any damage from what happened to him. One of the vets wants to adopt him. They named him “J.C.” I guess you can figure out why. We got home about a quarter til midnight.  I had changed the sheets so we both needed to take showers.  I had to finish cleaning my shower because I’d scrubbed my bathroom yesterday and was letting the Comet set on the bathtub porcelain.  I rinsed the tub, got the rest of the cats in while Brian fed the outfronts.  Once all the cats were in, I fed our cats, gave DeeJay his amoxi tab and then his fluids.  I took the first shower, then he took his shower.  We finally got to bed a little after midnight. Damn dogs. So, we’ve decided that Brian will be covering the rest of the chain link fencing with wood.  I hope he does it tomorrow.  I found a huge sheet of cardboard back in his shop and have it against the fence right now.  I wish I had more.  I’m even thinking about pinning old sheets up against the chain links so those damn dogs won’t be able to see into our yard and annoy the cats.  If Brian doesn’t do the fence tomorrow, you can bet your ass I will be out there with old sheets and a box of safety pins, appearances be damned.  Just like those dogs. Poor Marco. Damn dogs. Ross and Rachel came through their surgeries with flying colors. I took some pictures of them when they got home, I just have to upload them. Little Bit moved her kittens to the yard next door to us (not to the damn dogs house).  It looks like those people are on vacation.  If she holds true to instinct, she should be moving them again in the next few days.  Brian put the old car cover back onto the Mustang, with the hope that she’ll bring them there.  I sure hope she brings them someplace back here.  She’s here on schedule for food and you can hear her purr when she eats.  She also verbalizes, which isn’t common for a feral. Well, I had planned on cleaning the house today, including scrubbing the floors.  The only problem is I don’t have anything comfortable and cool to wear, shorts wise.  So, I’m going to Wal-Mart and look for some cheap stretchy shorts, then come home and get busy. Oh, I called the vet hospital earlier and asked about visiting Marco.  I was told Saturdays are pretty busy, but that early Sundays are better.  So, I’ll probably go see him tomorrow morning. And we’re also going to get a large crate tomorrow, to be ready for when he comes home next week. If you want to donate or buy something from my store to help out with the costs of Marco’s injury, feel free. Damn dogs. | Permalink

      Thursday, August 26, 2004

11:12 AM - 08/26/2004 The topic: Heh. ---------------------------------------------- Thursday, August 26, 2004  I guess that’s my state of mind right now.  Heh.  Doesn’t say much, does it?  Now for the updates. I noticed yesterday that Ciara’s breathing has suddenly gotten better.  I thought maybe it was a fluke, but this morning, she’s still breathing quietly.  Last week, she was sneezing quite a bit, snot flying all over.  I thought to myself “maybe it’s finally breaking up and she’ll be over this soon”.  Looks maybe that’s what happened.  It’s sure a relief to not hear her hacking and coughing and swallowing hard. Last Sunday I came online to find out my catler.org website was down. At first, I thought it was the server, but this website and my other ones were working.  It turned out that sometime after midnight, my website got really busy, so busy that it was using up 96% of available CPU and they shut me down.  Now, if you aren’t familiar with this, think of having a big communal generator for power.  Everybody shares the power.  You get one house that’s pulling 96% of the power, that only leaves 4% for the rest of the community.  My site host did the only responsible thing.  I don’t fault them for shutting it down.  But I wanted to know why this happened.  The only thing I had on catler were two forums, one run by dcscripts, the other a variation of Matt’s WWWboard, and a chat room.  It was the WWWboard that was pulling the power.  What I think happened is that I was hit by a denial of service attack.  See, on that WWWBoard I’d been getting quite a bit of spam.  Drug spam and porn spam.  The porn spammer would leave close to a hundred really nasty spams each time.  I think it was some sort of bot script that was doing it.  I fought back.  I denied the IP, I reported the abuse to the ISP of the spammer.  I did this each time I was spammed.  Anyway, it seemed odd that a script I had been running for three or four months would all of a sudden get really busy at a time of day when the majority of my users were fast asleep. Fortunately, they didn’t suspend me forever.  I think when they understood that it could have been an attack on my site, they didn’t hold me accountable.  Unfortunately, all of the logs were lost for the two days the site was down, so there’s no way of investigating the cause.  And I think that’s another reason they didn’t shut me down permanently, which is what they usually do.  I’ll never know with a certainty what happened, but I’ll go to my death believing it was an attack. What we did was disable the WWWBoard scripts (I did this on all instances of it on all of my sites) and now, my only running forum is at Benny’s. But that’s fine, I always preferred Benny’s because there are so many options for both me and the user. I have to be honest, I was surprised that so many people made the move.  For years, it seemed that most of the posters on the WWWBoard forums were resistent to registering to be able to post, but over at Benny’s, there are multiple levels of forums, private, registered and open.  The forums that you have to be registered to post on are busier than the open ones.  This will make it much easier to prevent spammers. Now, I bet you’re wondering how Marco is doing?  First, I’d like to thank those of you who donated money or bought something from the store.  This went towards the crate and litter box we got on Sunday.  It’s a good sized crate, plenty of room left for Marco to lay down in even with a litter box. I called Saturday to see about visiting him, but they were really busy and didn’t have spare rooms, but that early Sunday would be a better time to come in.  And I was also told how much they had all fallen in love with him, what a great cat he was.  Sunday morning, I went in to visit with Marco.  He looked good and purred for me.  They brought his breakfast in and he ate a little, but after about ten or fifteen minutes, he started getting restless and wanted down.  I had to let them know he was ready to go back into his cage.  I didn’t want to be responsible for him getting worse. I called the vet’s office shortly after 10:30 Monday morning.  I was told to call back between six and seven Monday night to find out how he did.  I called back between six and seven Monday night and he still hadn’t been in surgery.  Finally, at 9:30 Monday night, the phone rang.  It was the doctor, Marco had come through the surgery without a hitch.  They’d cleaned his teeth and fixed his leg.  No cast.  I was to call after 10:30 Tuesday to find out when to pick him up. So, I call Tuesday.  Marco could go home.  I can pick him up at any time.  Cool!  I’m on my way. I get down to the office and it’s packed.  Not only that, there’s a lot of construction work going on in the parking lot and it was hard to get a space.  A woman came out of the building and said she was leaving, I could take her spot.  I parked, went inside, signed in and waited.  A half hour into the wait, one of the construction workers came in and asked the person who owned the green Bronco if they would move it.  That was me.  They couldn’t move their equipment.  I said (and loudly) “now you know how we all feel”.  Anyway, I got the car moved, then went back in and waited another fifteen minutes, at least.  Marco was ready, but they didn’t want to let him go because they all loved him so much.  ON his check out sheet, they’d put a little heart by his name.  It was so sweet. Marco is on a pain medicine three times a day for six days, an anti-inflammatory twice a day for nine days and an antibiotic for five days.  His sutures come out in two weeks, he has another x-ray in a month and a followup x-ray in two months.  And he’s to be crated for eight weeks. Eight weeks!  Gah!  Eight weeks will be over when we get back from our annual Disney trip!  I called Becky, our sitter to tell her about Marco (after all, she gave us Marco).  She’s going to come visit with her kids, they’d like to see the cats they had to give up.  I told her the dates we’d be gone and that because Junior wasn’t here any longer, she wouldn’t have to spend the night.  If DeeJay is still here, he’ll need to be given fluids, but that’s it.  I told her that she could take the kids swimming if they wanted to.  But I don’t like the idea of him being crated without us being home.  The vet called last night, a followup call. Asked me how Marco was doing.  I told her that he’s eating, drinking, pooping and peeing.  That he seems as comfortable as he can be, considering the circumstances.  And I asked if that eight weeks in the crate is written in stone.  I told her about our plans for October and she said we could do the second x-ray early and see how well he’s healing.  It’s possible he could be out of the crate earlier. I also had asked if his knee had pins or plates in it.  He has intramuscular pins.  He’s not liking the crate.  I hope he gets used to it soon.  I let Ross in there yesterday to keep him company.  Ross just ate his food, then wanted out.  *sigh* Since Marco has been laid up, Oliver has stepped in.  He spends the nights in the bedroom again.  Last night, though, he was being very, very aggressive towards the other cats.  Brian went to bed, then there was a fight in the bedroom.  Oliver had Daniece pinned on the floor.  I ended up finding the ovaban I got earlier this year for when Oliver got aggressive towards me and he got one last night.  Calmed him down.  I think he’s trying to reassert his authority since Marco isn’t able to.  It’s funny, Marco doesn’t seem all that bossy, but I guess he’s good at keeping troublemakers in their place. Well, that’s all for now.  Marco needs medicating. Oh, I almost forgot.  Brian will be putting up wood fencing over the last 80 feet of chain link.  It should be up by the end of this coming weekend.  This will give me more privacy at our pool and prevent a repeat of the dogs rushing the fence.  If they rush it after the wood is up, I hope they knock themselves out.  The neighbors tore down a little storage area they had yesterday.  This area is on the other side of the top corner of our property, next to the bank where the cats like to lay in the grass under the pine trees.  In doing so, a piece of wood that was between the top of our front fence and the chain link was removed.  This removal left a considerable size gap between our front fence and the chain link.  Big enough for a cat to get out.  They never said a word to us about it.  Then they left.  I freaked out when I saw it, saw Pete checking it out.  I paged Brian and told him about it, then I turned on the sprinklers on the bank, to keep the cats off of it.  When Brian got home, he and his brother were able to slide a plank of fencing up there and block off the opening.  Brian screwed the wood to the existing part of our fence.  When the neighbors got home, I heard his surprise at seeing that new piece of fencing up.  I guess he had to change his plans about how to put up new wood on the chain link that goes across to his house. Too bad.  From the stack of wood he has out there, it looks like there’s only enough to do across the front, not enough to build a new little storage area.  One thing about it, it sure opens up the area, letting a lot more light in.  That won’t last long though.  My nasty side is grinning, thinking about the loss of breeze that will happen when Brian gets the fencing up.  How it will just cook between the fence and the house.  I get great pleasure out of considering this.  Great pleasure. I’ve thought about all of the crummy things they’ve done as neighbors.  And there’s been quite a bit.  They both drive too fast, he’s quite the tailgater.  I’ve stepped on the brakes more than once to get him off of my ass. Their daughters had friends who loved to come over and toilet paper the house.  Problem was, they always got the wrong place. The got our house, not the girls’ house.  And Brian always went out and got as much toilet paper as he could reach off of our trees.  The last time we got papered, we heard the kids doing it.  Brian yelled out that they had the wrong house, they were papering our trees.  The kids stopped on our trees and did the right house.  The next day, the only time this happened, one of the daughters was cleaing toilet paper out of our trees.  And it was the last time either house got papered.  One time, the kids behind the neighbors were playing some really annoying music.  The next door neighbor went to the back of his yard, turned on some really obnoxious AM station, as loud as his radio would go, then he left.  There was no one at his house.  What he did affected everyone around him.  It was a really nice day and I had to close up the house to mute some of the noise.  Their grandson would come over to the fence and throw things at our dogs.  He’d yell and spit at them.  He yelled at the cats.  He’s one of those screaming kids. Then there were the dogs.  They had beagles. And these dogs howled and barked incessantly when there was no one home. Which was often.  I’d go out and give them biscuits.  I’d talk to them.  I’d try to calm them down.  When they’d get out of the yard, I’d chase them down and put them back in.  When our dogs went nuts barking at the dogs behind us and kitty-cornered to us, Brian put up wood fencing so they wouldn’t see the other dogs.  And that cut down on a lot of the barking. Shortly after we lost Buddy and Junior had been diagnosed with diabetes, we walked over to Brian’s mom’s house.  It was around Thanksgiving. When we came home, Junior was soaking wet.  It would appear that he had barked and gotten hosed for doing so.  Now, Junior never liked the hose.  He’d run from it.  Thinking about it, they must have teased him to get him to the fence to hose him like they did. They aren’t good neighbors.  Nope, far from it.  I’ll be glad when the fence is up.  Good fences make good neighbors.  Because you don’t have to deal with their shit. Damn dogs. | Permalink

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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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