Drinking from a firehose

We had to have this brave little fellow put down tonight. Ironically we also received a condolence card from the vet's office for his sister Esme in today's mail.

He was infected with Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). We are going to have to thoroughly clean the house and wait at least six months before bringing another cat into the family.

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(If the big version of the memorial card refuses to load, click here to open it in a new tab).

We found the wrong way to celebrate.

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(If the big version of the memorial card refuses to load, click here to open it in a new tab).

jebra sent me this video this morning and I immediately thought of you. Perhaps you've already seen it ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA3iHurul9g ) but I thought it was worth sharing. Clearly cats have an advantage over humans when it comes to climbing walls.

It's been a busy few weeks, and not all of it pleasant. Near the end of 2012 we discovered a small growth on the bottom of one of Hamish's feet. It didn't seem to bother him and the vet told us to keep an eye on it as it was likely to grow very slowly and there was no hurry in getting it removed. This remained the case until four days before Easter when I came home from getting my hair cut and found bloody paw prints all over the first floor of the house. We took Hamish to the after-hours emergency service and paid a boatload of money to have the vet examine the wound, bandage it, and tell us to go to our usual vet for further care. Being Easter weekend and the start of heartworm season, getting in to see our vet turned out to be difficult, but we got him in on Saturday for an evaluation and returned on Monday to have his toe amputated.
He came through surgery well and didn't succeed in pulling off his bandage until tonight while I was off at the knitting guild. jebra is now on his way back home from shopping for bandages. I'd like not to return to the vet until our appointment on Saturday, when he gets his sutures out.

On Sunday I finally managed to clear out the garden beds. Most years I try to get this done before leaf collection ends for the year but obviously this didn't happen. At a minimum I wanted to clean up the front garden and rake up the leaves in front of the garage door and on the path to the pond. I did those things, plus stirred up the compost and got enough finished compost from the bins to make room for the new debris. I also worked so hard that I wore myself out and took a tumble. I'm not sure how I did it, but I fell forehead first onto the concrete. My forehead is abraded and my nose is still tender, but that was the totality of my injuries.

In knitting news, I've now finished a half dozen Mother Bear Project bears and sent them off the to the Mother Bear Project today.

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First, maddiec24 Thank you! I opened your gift this morning and I love everything you sent. I also taste-tested both tins of sugared pecans. Yummmmmmmmm. Are the pecans from your trees this year or was the harvest too small?

Second, as soon as I stop typing and we load the car, we're off for our traditional late Christmas/New Year's Eve excursion to Indiana. We'd be on the road already if it weren't for an unexpected need to take Hamish to the vet this morning. I spotted a red lump on his foot a few nights ago and felt we ought to have it looked at before we left. No telling what it is yet -- the advice was to keep an eye on it for a few weeks to see if it's growing. If it is, come back soon. If not, we can put off surgery indefinitely.

Happily posting before midnight (it's been one of those days)...
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After work on Friday we had a quick dinner then fetched Sharon & Darby to go see The Philadelphia Story at The Redford. Apparently I've seen the movie before but the only part I recognized was the drunken swim.

Saturday morning I went to Nia, and had a fairly miserable time. This was not the fault of the instructor; it was entirely because I was so stiff and sore I could barely move. I don't know why I hurt so much, I'd had my morning dose of motrin and it's as though I'd done anything overly strenuous since the previous class.

After class I came home, took a welcome shower, got dressed, and remembered to post odogoddess' birthday card. I puttered around on the computer until Jebra got up and was ready to go. When he was, we went to the McDonald's by Detroit Metro and waited for my mom to say they had arrived and were ready to be picked up. That went swimmingly, and they were hungry, so we took them to our favorite Swedish restaurant, the one with an incredible gift shop (Ikea). Neither mom nor my brother Rob had been in an Ikea before, so that part was doubly fun. And now Rob understands why Diana has been trying to get him to go (she'd been to the one in North Carolina). We wandered around the store for a while, trying to find the exit, then drove to our work, which is where we'd left mom's car.

Mom, Rob, and Diana left for home, but we stayed so that I could repair the pair of jeans I brought in two weeks ago with the intention of mending. As it turns out, I suck at patching jeans. I managed to sew a corner of the front pocket to the patch in the seat of the jeans. I cut that out, sewed the pocket shut, discovered I'd added a new crease to the inside of one of the legs, and managed to sew the front of the jeans to the patch. I used a seam ripper to open the leg back up but added a new hole to the front while I was at it. I mended over the new hole, but what I'd hoped would be invisible repairs on my good jeans turned into visible repairs on jeans more suited toward yard work.

After my sewing misadventure, I was extremely grumpy and all I wanted to do was go home. So we did, and we checked on our Hamish beast, to see if he (and his brother) were okay. Since Hamish was forced to wear the cone, he's managed to knock it off, chew holes in it (still haven't figured out just how he managed to do that), tear his fingernails bloody scratching at it, and just this morning, managed to get the gauze tying the cone closed wrapped tightly around one fang. I have already called the vet to see if it is at all possible the cone might come off early. I was told the preferred wait is ten to twelve days before the stitches come out and we're not quite to seven. I did, however, receive permission to take the cone off tonight with the provision that I keep a very close eye on him and that if he shows any interest in the incision I put it back on. I'm hoping that he'll be so happy to be out of the cone that he doesn't notice the nice thick sutures coming through his skin -- but I also think that is an extremely unlikely scenario.

Sunday I slept in, had breakfast, then went outside and tackled the late fall yard work -- raking leaves, chopping down the New England Asters, trimming the yews, and mulching the front garden bed. About mid-way through I noticed I was starting to shake, and came in to have some lunch and drink some water. I was pretty sure the shaking was entirely due to a drop in blood sugar, and I felt a lot better after a bowl of couscous, so I went back out and finished up. I'm happy to be done with that job as today it's raining and the city will be doing leaf collection on our street on Wednesday.

I was inside the house and in the shower before it got dark, but I must not have beat sundown by much as it was fairly dark when I got out and the sun was down before I started the laundry. Other than working on the laundry, I caught up a bit on email, LJ, and DW and spent the remainder of the night catching up on the things I'd recorded the previous two days.

Our very unhappy kitty is at the surgery today. We get to bring him home after work today, but the poor guy will have to wear the cone of shame (Elizabethan collar) for a few days.

Not Dr. G who does autopsies, Dr. G the veterinarian. Hamish's blood sugar is a tiny bit high (152 where 150 is considered the top end of the normal range) but everything else came back as perfectly normal. We're to keep giving him Metronidazole twice a day until his tummy settles down.

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p.s. That's our cat Hamish in the photo I used to make your card. He's curled up beside me and purring, I think he must know it's your birthday too.

jebra was sitting on my corner of the couch this morning, scritching one of the cats behind the ears, with the other at his side. He asked them, "What would you do if Audrey bought home a puppy?" His question was answered by twin streaks of black as both lads fled the living room at warp speed.

Who says cats don't understand English?

jebra was sitting on my corner of the couch this morning, scritching one of the cats behind the ears, with the other at his side. He asked them, "What would you do if Audrey bought home a puppy?" His question was answered by twin streaks of black as both lads fled the living room at warp speed.

Who says cats don't understand English?

Last weekend was frustrating. I spent my time trying to wrap up a bunch of projects but didn't knock a single one off my to-do list. By the time we finally got home Sunday night (we'd gone in to the office since I needed lots of table space for what I was working on), I found myself wishing I could rewind the clock.

This weekend I didn't expect to get anything done. For one thing, it was SEMGS. Plus I wanted to catch up on sleep. Contrary to my expectations, I managed to get some sleep, to catch up on dishes and the laundry, clean the upstairs bathroom, and knit the equivalent of one Jayne hat. Plus I managed to take a decent photo of our incredibly-difficult-to-shoot cats.

( Click here to see a scrapbook page for Hamish and Hector )

I gave one of my felted fish to a friend to give to her kitties. She made a video for me. It's on youtube.

I gave one of my felted fish to a friend to give to her kitties. She made a video for me. It's on youtube.