april 1, 1998 If it's true that April showers bring May flowers, then we are going to be overrun. It rained over 3/4 of an inch last night and its dark and nasty this morning. And we have a little thunder and lightening to make it even more fun.

Got my computer fixed. Finally. I have music and it sounds GOOD. Great, as a matter of fact. This new sound card is phenomenal compared to my old one. The older one was from my second system, which we bought in '93. I called the tech last night and left a message telling him how much better it was and thanked him again. I compared the systems to the little am transistor radio we used to get as kids to our stereo system (a good one) now. Such a huge difference. As I said in my last entry, I downloaded crescendo last week and that makes it even nicer. I really should see how my RealAudio sounds with the new card. Too busy replaying my older midis, though. They sound so different. The first version of Over the Rainbow gives me goosebumps.

The vet's office called me last Friday to let me know that Georgie's food was finally in. I had already gotten a four pound bag from them, so I'm not in a hurry to get over there and get the rest.

Lucky has been extremely affectionate lately. She has been following me around and is sitting close to me now. I just looked at her and she made a little sound as if to say "What?". She is such a cutie pie. She's eleven years old now and doing fine.

Rusty is the only cat that I let go outside at night. That's because he comes back in when I call him. Sometimes he will go out a couple of times. I don't mind letting him, because I hope that he's peeing outside. And what he does outside, won't happen inside. Its a good theory, anyway. So, last night when we go to bed, Rusty didn't follow as usual. I didn't really think much of it, knowing he would be in later. I woke up at 3:45 and still no Rusty. I start to think (a big problem for me) that maybe he didn't come inside. I start walking around the house...*Rusty* *Rusty buns, where are you?* I looked in his favorite sleeping places. No Rusty. Oh, my God, I must have let him out and he didn't come back in. And it's been raining. *sigh* I grabbed my robe and went out. Woke the dogs up, calling Rusty. He was no where to be found. Man, this isn't good, I'm thinking. I go back inside and I hear a cat jump onto the climber that hangs on the hall closet door. Its Rusty. He was sleeping on the spot over the television. Good, now I can get back to sleep, knowing he's okay. And he came in after me and I put my arms around him and went back to dreamland, Rusty purring in my ear.

Remember, last Monday I went swimming in our unheated pool? Well, Sunday we went for a drive in our local mountains. It was snowing!!! It hasn't snowed this much in years. I took many, many rolls of film, ran out as a matter of fact, bought two more rolls in Julian. They were $7.50 a piece. Next time, I'll remember to bring my own. If I don't need them, it's no big deal. I sure hope they come out. I took many of them out the truck window. Brian was really helpful, he would slow down so I could get a better shot. And he would warn me when a bush was coming up. LOL!!

Got an email notice last night that A T & T, my provider, is getting rid of unlimited usage. Going to 150 hours a month for $19.95. Well, I guess it's time to change. Shoot, that's about ten days for me. And no way am I gonna cut back.

april 3, 1998 Got a new ISP. Access1.net. They charge $99 a year for unlimited usage and by paying in advance, you can lock in this rate for three years. I paid for it with my A T & T card. Ha. I found out from A T & T that there is no proration of a credit for early cancellation of their service. I'm tempted to just dial in and leave it there until the month is up. Fortunately, I have an iName e mail address and they do the forwarding. All I had to do was change the forwarding address at iName. Don't have to notify anybody else. Well, yeah, I have to change the one at GeoCities. I think. I'll see what they have as my address.

Buddy has been barking up a blue streak. Probably making up for lost time when it was rainy out. I had to put his collar on him yesterday. I sure wish he didn't bark so much. It has gotten worse since he was at emergency years ago. We think all of the drugs he was on did something to him. Other than that, all of the dogs seem to be doing fine. Sandy has recuperated well from her surgeries.

Red came up and rubbed against my legs this morning. That isn't something he often does.....awwwwwwww........

Lonee is being lovable, too. I wonder what it is? Had to laugh (or be grossed out) yesterday. Lonee had her butt stuck right up to Junior's face and he was licking and licking her. Brian said "she likes that". I've never seen her do that before. I think she might have had diarrhea (I know one of the cats did) and Junior was cleaning her off.

I revamped my midi page. And I downloaded Crescendo, the streaming one. Pretty nice. If you're interested, the link is at my midi page.

Picked up the film (six rolls) yesterday. There are some good shots of the snow and a few great shots of the cats. I got one of Bart, sleeping on his back and his paws looked really weird, he looks deformed. Well, I know he looks deformed anyway, because he's a polydactyl, but this one shot makes his leg look broken or something. Got one that Benny looks like he's reading the paper. He was really looking at Georgie, who was hiding behind the paper. And upon closer inspection, the newsprint is upside down. But I doubt if anybody will pay that close of attention. I think the nature shots will make good lake effect cards.

It's supposed to rain today, but it sure doesn't look like it. Looks like it will be a really nice day.

Taxes are plodding along. Almost done designating what the checks written were for. If I did this as I wrote them, I would have been done by now. Well, what can I say, I am a procrastinator. Hopefully, I'll be done by the end of next week. Afraid to find out the damage, I guess.

april 7, 1998 Yippee!!! Taxes are done and gone. And we don't owe a cent, as a matter of fact we are getting some money back!!! My new ISP is doing a swell job and if you are in the southwestern US, they serve Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and the San Diego area, look up their website at http://www.access1.net and find out if they have what you want. (I like the $99 a year for unlimited service.) If you go with them, tell 'em lisaviolet@access1.net sent ya. You get a free month with everybody that signs up because of you. Their newsgroups are a little slow, but I'm hoping they can take care of that.

I think Lisa might have an infection. She's been licking her bottom frequently and she has been peeing with me watching. I started her on baytril and if that doesn't work, I'm taking her to the vet. Baytril is what she was on for her first infection a couple of years ago.

Georgie has started to spray again. I hope that isn't bad news. That's usually one of the signs that he's being reinfected. Darnit. I hope he isn't. I just can't stand it. He still likes his prescription food. Remember that the local VetSmart didn't have it and my vet said that they could order it? Well, it didn't come in when it was supposed to have. So, my vet's office called another vet and said they would like to purchase a 10# bag. Then my vet's called me, and said they had a bag of food for me. I went to pick it up, but it was only a four pound bag. They said that the other bags were on order. I asked about paying for it and they said just wait til the other stuff comes in. Okay. Fine with me. Anyway, the next week, they get in two ten pound bags. I drive over to pick them up and pay for them. It was $44 and change. I asked if they remembered the four pound bag. Well, it seems that when my vet's asked the other vet's about paying for the four pound bag, the other vet's got snotty and said "We don't sell four pound bags of that food". So, since my vet's weren't charged for it, they didn't charge me. Don't I have a great vet?

Yesterday, I took some fresh catnip and rubbed it vigourously over a toy mouse. Rubbed that fresh catnip oil right in to the fur. Boy, that mouse ended up soaking wet from the cats licking it and rubbing their faces on it. I'll have to do that with all mousies from now on.

Lonee is letting me pet her more often now, and she barely flinches. Red has started to sleep in the TV room when we aren't in it. I took a nap yesterday afternoon and he came in and crashed in Brian's chair. Gee, I wonder if by sleeping in something so heavy with Brian's scent, that Red will finally let Brian pet him? That would be so great.

The dogs started barking continuously yesterday afternoon and upon checking, I find out that the neighbor's grandson is out yelling at them. I'm just not able to punish (punish? ha!) these guys for barking when they are being teased. The barking is really annoying to me, but if I see they have a legitimate reason to bark, then go ahead. Buddy ended up in the shop last night because he was barking so much. I opened the door for him this morning, but he's nice and cozy in there, doesn't want to come out.

I'm pet sitting again. And this time, one of the cats has a stomach/bowel problem and is on a special diet. To make it easier on me, they said to feed all of the cats the same thing, since it won't hurt them. The cans are only the 6 ounce size. And they have three cats. I'm supposed to split two of these cans between the three kitties. Geez, our cats would starve on that.

One of the cats in the yard behind us is missing. It was a pregnant tortie. Last week, somebody's dogs were running loose. I hope they didn't hurt her.

I revamped Postcards From the Cathouse. I added twelve more lake pictures and twelve more cat pictures. There are now 36 lake photos to choose from and seventy-two cat photos (a couple of cartoons are included in that) as well as a page to compose your own card, by adding your own music and images. And I added more music to select from. I think it's coming along nicely. Now, if people would only use it.

april 9, 1998 DOGS!!! They just have this way of making me crazy. I was petsitting for our neighbors with the three cats and the Sheltie. The last time I sat for them, the dog ranranran into the house and piddled on the floor. She has since had some major training, even spending a week at a trainer's to be retaught that she was a dog. I guess she forgot and thought that she didn't need anybody, because she always had food and water and shelter without humans. Until she learned differently. Anyway, yesterday, I let her out of her run and picked up her food dish. I opened the door to go into the house and she beat me inside. I put the dish in the kitchen and followed this little brat. She had gone into their daughter's room, jumped on the bed and flat out peed. I know it's a nervous thing with her, she's one of those dogs. I picked her up, dismayed at what she had done. I took her outside and put her down. She's so cute that its really hard to be mad at her. And being mad wouldn't solve any problems, anyway, it's a waste of energy. I went into the bedroom and stripped the bed. And the pee was soaking into the mattress. Oh, man. I couldn't even believe this. There's no way I could just let it set. The smell would never come out. I grabbed up the bedclothes, went home, started the wash machine and put the comforter in. I got our little green clean machine, a spray bottle of enzyme cleaner and back I went. I cleaned the spot the best that I could and then was very generous with the enzyme cleaner. It was really wet and I was hoping that it would dry early enough for me to remake the bed. Fortunately, it did. So, Sabrina slept in a clean bed last night. I did find out that it was a brand new mattress. Great.

I'm going to work on the Disneyland page today, I think. I already took off the stuff about meeting there sometime during January through March. Hubby is just way too busy right now to make any plans like that. I am going to do the Indiana Jones heiroglyphs page. That should be fun for people who like to decipher things.

Doris, of Dorissimo's Domain said she would make some cards for the postcard page. That's great, because she is so creative and talented. Now, I will also have special occasion cards available. She did the O'Drool's card and sent my first birthday card yesterday. It's just adorable.

I was looking for a Raider's of the Lost Ark tune to put up on the Disney page and I noticed a tune with the name of Echoes. I decided to listen to it, and I have it playing on my Crescendo right now, it's been looping for an hour. I really, really like it. One of these days I'll just go through lists of midis and listen to them. I'll have this one up on the midi page later.

Buddy has been more interested in us. I think its because we got some biscuits. We hadn't gotten any for so long, but we found some *diet* dog biscuits and all of the dogs really like them. Buddy ended up sleeping in the shop last night because around 9:30 pm he started barking non-stop. If it was something to worry about, the other two would have been barking, also. But they weren't.

The cats are all doing fine. The birds are nesting in the light fixture right outside the front door again this year. Boy, the cats are so interested in this. They sit there for hours, looking up. I took some pictures yesterday. One with Kirby hanging on the screen, trying to get closer to that nest. LOL!! His little head just pushes against the corner. *I know I can do it, I just know if I push hard enough, I can do it.*

Gee, I really, really like this song.

april 11, 1998 Well, I got the photos up of the glyphs that were the most readable. I know there are more someplace in this house from a couple of years ago, but I'll be darned if I can find them. The page is accessible from my Disneyland page. I have some more pictures to put up. One is of our truck from the monorail. You know how they always say "play the game of trying to find your car?" We did and won!!! And the burn mark in the lawn from dog pee that looks like a Mickey head.

While looking for pictures, I found a microphone. And I though, hey, I can use this on my computer. And since I was cleaning so much yesterday (washing walls, floors and woodwork, trying to wash all of the urine off of them) I realized the perfect thing to record. Click here if you have sound. The first file I saved through my Windows recording application had something like 692000 bits. Whoa, way too big. So, I did a search and downloaded a toolvox from the multimedia page at http://32bit.bhs.com/default.asp (a great site, by the way, lots-I mean lots of freeware, shareware and trialware programs) and got it working. I didn't save in the VOX format, I just used the wave. It dropped the amount of usage to below 60,000. I still used the Windows editor to trim stuff off that wasn't necessary and to give it more volume, but it wasn't hard at all. By the way, you can access your windows 95 recorder by choosing *Accessories* in your program file, then choose *Multimedia*. It should be there. Don't forget you will need a microphone, too.

We were in such a hurry last night to get the cats in, that I didn't do a head count. I had been cleaning, Brian mowed the lawns. At bedtime, I asked "have you seen Lisa?" Nope. So, I went to look for her. When I went into the office, Maggie was crying at the door. We left her out. I let her run into the office and she immediately started to eat. I shut the door and went outside to look for Lisa. Maggie got upset that she was shut inside the office, back inside I go, open the door to the hallway and away she went. Back outside, I couldn't find Leese. I called her and she answered. Brian had shut the garage without getting all of the cats out. She was a little bothered by the light, but purred all the way into the house. Even gave me a little lisa kiss on my nose. Remember, headcounts are important.

After my search for Lisa, I wasn't sleepy anymore. Tired, yes, sleepy, no. And I had five cats at least around me in bed and I got out of bed and went to lay down on the couch. (This happens often.) There I only had Bobby sleeping with me. At about one am, I woke up and went back to bed. This morning, when I got up, Brian was gone. I went into the TV room, and there he was, sleeping in my spot. I asked what happened and he said he woke up at two, tossed and turned until three-thirty, and the cats were just all over him. He said "I'm sorry for you, if this is what you go through all of the time". For some reason, I usually have more cats on me in bed, than he does.

It's supposed to rain heavily today. It's a little after seven and I see the clouds starting to come in. But the rest of the sky is sunny and blue.

Tales of my internet access woe. Well, my new ISP has newsgroups, but they are slow and so far, seems as if they are read only. Nobody seems to see my posts. I wrote to them last Monday about it, got an auto-respond message that I would be hearing from someone within 24 hours. Yeah, right. Which 24 hours? It's now Saturday and not a word from them. I re-mailed them this morning.

april 13, 1998 Welp, my newsgroup problems have been taken care of. I found another service that offers newsgroups only. Http://www.randori.com has different levels of access. Since I'm not interested in binary newsgroups (the kind with pictures) it's costing me $48 a year for access (it's a spring break special, it's normally $60 a year) and boy are they fast. My posts show up immediately. And I did a deja news search for my name and found out that not one of the posts that I made since I had them as my newsgroup server showed up. Not one. Grrrr...... So, even with the additional four dollars a month, my charges are still under what I was paying A T $ T. I'll be saving over a hundred dollars a year.

Georgie peed on Brian's head last night. It was really hard not to laugh, sick I know, but it's happened to me so many times. Not on my head. Anyway, Georgie was on the entertainment center behind the sofa (earlier I had been sitting on Brian's normal side then he laid down on my normal side) and he sprayed the bookcase. But it overshot and got hubby. Brian jumped up and ran into the bathroom to wash off his face. I said, let's just go to bed.

I have to finish house cleaning today. And I have alot of laundry to do. I'm still washing the couch covers. Get rid of all of that cat fur.

april 15, 1998 Tax day was pretty quiet. No cat fights, Sandy was a little nervous, who knows why. It rained a little this morning, but has stopped and is sunny, but on the chilly side.

I don't think Lonee is feeling quite right, her eyes look funny. I hope she doesn't get sick, because it will be very hard to pill her. I do think we have a problem with the cats drinking out of the puddles left by the rains. Maybe that's what's wrong with her.

I'm doing my mother-in-law's hair tomorrow. I hope Pepper doesn't try to jump in her lap.

I worked on the midi page today, added a couple of nice mide files. I sure wish I could find a *jukebox* that played song after song, not just one at a time.

april 18, 1998 I heard from a friend that cancelled A T $ T, that they told her she could get a "corporate account" and still have unlimited usage for $19.95. Guess they are losing a lot of people. Ha. Serves them right for being greedy.

The weather is finally getting nicer. And the cats sure like it. They are outdoors much more often and it's great to have the doors and windows open. I like that fresh air.

Gracie, for some reason, is going after Lonee every chance she gets. And she's pretty aggressive towards the other cats. Last night, she was chasing Kirby. Kirby was obviously playing, but Gracie wasn't. She was puffed up to the max. I didn't know she had that much fur.

We have some runny eyes, too. Not continuously, but I think that there might be pollen or something and when the cats play on the bank, they get it in their eyes. And Benny has a sore eye. I'm putting medicine in it and it looks a little better today, not gunky like it was. But it still looks sore. *sigh*

Junior is ripping my aloe vera plants apart, leaf by leaf. That stuff is really nasty tasting so I don't know why he's doing it. I wish he would stop before the plants disappear.

I worked on my midi sites and put up one of the midi players that plays a different song every time you reload the page. Then, I found a little *remote* player, a standalone player. It's a little popup player and by reloading the little player, you get a different song. So, no matter where you are surfing, if you have the little player still open, you can keep hearing music. So far, I have 105 midis loaded in it's directory. You can find it on my midi index page or my postcard index page. Click on "music to go" if you are interested in using it.
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lisaviolet is fifty 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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