Monday, March 04, 2002 Well, I just got back from the vet's office. Took Lola in for her bloodtest and I also took Lucky in for a geriatric check up. Blood panel, the whole works. I knew she hadn't been to the vet in years, so I figured it wouldn't hurt anything and it was probably a good idea.

Lucky, taken yesterday

Well, Lucky cried the whole way to the vet. Lola was very good, she only talked a couple of times. But Lucky didn't like the trip at all. She wasn't as scared as Annie last week, though. I parked the truck right up front (in what I refer to as *my* spot) and took both carriers out. Walked in and told Liz that we were here. She looked up Lucky's chart and couldn't even find where we'd ever taken her in. Well, when we stopped letting the cats free roam, I quit doing the vaccinations. That was back in '94. We got Lucky in '87, after my dad died in May. She was spayed and vaccinated by my vet, but I guess when they moved their office, something happened to her record. Liz had to add her to our roster of kitties. I had a little bit of a wait and I took both cats in. I told Kelsey that Lola just needed a blood test and that Becky was the only one who could do it without problem. I underscored the fact that Lola can't see the vet. If she sees him, she'll wig out. Kelsey told me that Becky was in with the vet, maybe Charlene could do it. The times that he's drawn blood, he's had to sedate her. But they don't have that problem when the girls do it. Lola was weighed (she's lost weight, but that's understandable with the heat we've been having; the only one in this house who's not having a problem eating is me). I heard them. I heard Lola yelling. I heard her fighting. She wasn't happy. She most definitely wasn't happy. Then she stopped for a few seconds, started back up. Great. Then I heard someone singing her song..."Lola...lo lo lo lo Lola..." (by the Kinks). Shortly after that, Becky came in, Lola draped on her shoulder. She put Lola in the empty carrier and told me that she heard the noise in the back. I don't know if someone asked her to help or what, but when she walked out of the examining room, she saw Lola and quickly put her hands over Lola's eyes so that she wouldn't see the vet. Then she told them that she (Becky) is the only one who can do Lola's blood. I guess they tried it first with Becky holding Lola and Charlene tried to draw the blood, but Lola wasn't having any of it. So, they switched places, Charlene holding Lola and Becky drawing and she got the blood on her first try. I sure hope Becky never quits.

Anyway, the vet finished with the client in the other room and came in. I had Lucky up on the table and he started looking at her. He thought he was looking at Lola. Uh, no, this is Lucky. He asked how old she was, about twelve? I said no, she's fifteen. He checked out her teeth and they're pretty bad. Her remaining bottom canine was loose (she lost her other one about eight years ago) and her gums were pretty bad. He said other than her teeth, she looks pretty good for her age (same thing he said about Annie; must be the good food), but he was concerned about her teeth. The bottom canine needs to be extracted and he was also concerned about her upper canines, they seemed bad. He advised the pre-surgical blood panel (which wasn't a biggie, figuring I'd brought her in for blood testing, anyway) and having a dental. He told me they'd try using this stuff on her upper canines that will kind of cement them in or something so hopefully, she'll be able to keep those. He said the stuff dries yellow, so it may look like her teeth weren't done, but not to worry about it. So, when I left, I left with Lola and Lucky was left at the clinic. I should probably be able to get her at four. The vet did ask me had Lucky been sneezing (not that I remember). I get home and of course, my mind takes off. I hope that it's as simple as a teeth cleaning. The older torties both got cancer (Pepper and Lola). I hope that Lucky doesn't follow in their footsteps. One thing that has me thinking she'll be okay is the fact that her upper teeth also have problems (with Pepper, it was her bottom teeth). But what about the question about the sneezing? Does she sneeze and I just haven't noticed? Lord, here comes my headache back.... I'm gonna be nuts until she comes home.

Annie

Annie is being terrific about getting pilled. She doesn't like it, but she doesn't fight me and she doesn't run off after getting the pills. She did miss one dose, she went to bed early and I couldn't get her to come out from behind the bed. But since then she's been fine. What I do is get out both pills and wait until I see her, then give them to her. Thursday night, I had them on the coffee table. Annie came into the room and I looked over at the table. Mystie was on it. I went to get the pills and it appeared that Mystie ate the ammonil (which is liver flavored) and spit out the amoxicillan. Crap. So, I threw out the amoxi and learned a lesson. Don't leave pills out. I figured when I went in Friday morning to pick up the additional ammonil (I was seven short for a week's worth) I'd ask for an extra. Well, Elena gave me twelve and didn't charge me. Cool. But I'm very careful to keep the pills where Mystie can't get to them. Who would have thought? All these years, I have to force these pills down the cat, even if the pills are supposed to be yummy, chewable, delicious to cats.

Kirby does the strangest thing. He rolls in ants. I may have mentioned this before, but it just really seems odd to me. I caught him Friday having a blast. He rolls his face where he sees a trail of them, then he'll stand up, shake his head and scratches the ants off. Then he'll do it again. I saw a couple of the boys doing this too. I wonder what it is about the ants?

Our plum tree is already in blossom. It's way too early. I'm going to try to take pictures on a daily basis as it blooms.

Saturday, I stripped the bed. I thought I'd be able to get by with just doing the bedclothes and sheets, but I found pee on the mattress pad by the headboard. For the first time, when I had the mattress pad in the laundry, someone peed on the mattress. On my side. I soaked it in OxyClean, then used my little cleaner on it to suck up the excess moisture. I even used my hair dryer on it. It was dry enough by the time I made the bed. I have to say, I was pretty annoyed.

Then this morning, Boney woke me up by putting his claw in my face. He drew blood. And I rolled over and wouldn't you know? Pee. Usually, I know that Ciara is by me and I'm able to chase her away. I guess I slept through it this morning. Arrgh!! My clean sheets!!! Needless to say, I got out of bed.

Here are some recent kitty pictures. You'll notice I've started putting my watermark on them. I was using digimark, which is invisible, but they started charging (a lot) for over 99 images. Well, I've got lots more than that, so I had to come up with something else.

Sammy

DeeJay

Rusty

Well, Brian is starting to pull up carpeting in the tv room. Guess I should go supervise. We were going to do it yesterday, but I didn't feel well. We had dinner at a new restaurant, "On the Border", Saturday night and something didn't set well. Messed up my intestinal flora. I'm wondering if maybe I'm having bad reactions to cream sauce. At Mom's by Disneyland, the meal had a alfredo sauce. The food Saturday night had a sour cream sauce. Both meals made me sick. Yesterday, I didn't dare leave the house. Brian had to go shopping by himself, poor guy. What's not going to be fun is rewiring the house for the speakers. Right now, the wires are under the carpet. With tile, we'll have to come up with something else. Brian just cut all of them. *sigh*

Tuesday, March 05, 2002 Well, Lucky is home. The vet had to remove two teeth, an upper canine and a lower canine. And she's on antibiotics for a week. The bad news was her BUN value is 56 and her creatinine is 3. Normal levels are 30 and 2. This indicates kidney problems. Now, back in '99, DeeJay had elevated values, but not to this extent. And his are fine now. I can only hope the same happens with Lucky. The vet said that they used to treat this with a low protein diet, but since then, there is another school of thought that lowering the cat's protein intake can lead to other problems, because cats need protein. He told me to just watch her carefully, her water intake, her urine output and if they increase, I should bring her back in.

Well, most of the carpet is out of the tv room. And Brian said he'll have to pull down the wood paneling that was here when we moved in, sixteen years ago. It sticks out from the wall about four inches and it has the shelves for the cats to climb. Today, I have to dismantle the stereo and video systems and put them where they won't be accessible to the cats. I figure I can move the components to the exercise room. But first, I have to straighten up the exercise room, to make room for them. I am absolutely not looking forward to this. For years I taped movies off of HBO and the movie channels and I told my mom this morning that I would throw them out. She said not to, that she'll take them. Like she has the room. But if she wants them, their hers. I'll just move the box out to the shop, where Brian's moving quite a bit of stuff. I took down the VHS tapes I had over the room divider to the dining room and since Brian had taken down the speaker and books on the shelf over his chair, the cats had a new place to check out last night. DeeJay surely did. The cats aren't being too bad about this, not so far. I guess if we just go room by room, it will be easier on them. One problem we did have was while Brian was pulling out carpet, he put one of the larger cat condos in front of the television. Well, little Ciara got behind the tv and couldn't get back out. So, Brian had to remove the wood. I kind of got on him for leaving the condo where he had. And last night, after he had finished for the evening and the cats were in, poor little Petey couldn't find his condo. I said something to Brian and Brian went out to the garage and brought it in, put it where it had been. Pete was back on it in a matter of seconds, curling up for the evening.

But I digress. So, after I get finished with what I have to do today, Brian is hoping to get the wall and the entertainment center ripped out this evening. He hopes to be finished by seven, so then we can watch NYPD Blue and after that, Gilmore Girls. After the wood is gone, he wants to paint the ceiling (cover up that nasty stain from the icemaker line leak last year) and the walls. He may have to tear out some drywall, but he's not positive on that. He's going to put a sealer on the walls before painting them. We're going to do all we can to make this house as urine proof as possible. I can help paint the walls. After that, the tile will be put down and then we can start bringing the furniture back in. One of my concerns is the wiring for the speakers. I asked last night if we'll be having some sort of baseboard and he said yes, so we can most likely run the speaker wire behind that. We'll figure something out. I'm going to take my little camera and do a 360 of the tv room today. Before I start taking the stereo down. Then, I'll do another one after the paneling and entertainment center are gone. So, I'll have a record of before and after. I have a really hard time remember before and after, I need visual reminders.

Well, Boney is driving me nuts. I guess I'll feed his little butt.

Thursday, March 21, 2002 Well, I'm still alive and nothing horrible happened to me. We've just been really busy at the house. The remodel page, which I'll keep updated.

Cats aren't real happy about the changes. The garage is full of buckets of paint and stacks of tile. I had been sleeping on the sofa so that I could try to protect the satellite receiver and television from curious cats. They've finally gotten used to how it is, so I can sleep in bed again. I think I did something to myself jumping off of the sofa and going after a cat who was messing around the tv. Every once in a while, I get this sharp pain where my leg attaches to my trunk. I'm pretty sure it's just a pulled muscle. But because of how I walk to keep it from hurting, I'm not walking normally on my foot and now it's hurting. *sigh* I got over this stuff so much quicker when I was younger and not so heavy.

We only have one half of the sectional in the tv room and it's tight at night. Last night, both Brian and I were on it, plus six cats. I got up to get a drink of water, came back and my spot was gone. Brian threw his recliner out and we'll also be throwing this stuff out. One of the local furniture stores, Jerome's, is having a interest free for a year sale. So, we'll be hitting that this weekend. We've done the same thing with Sears and Home Depot.

About Sears. I got my washer and drier. One Sunday morning, we went to breakfast, then to Home Depot to get a piece of equipment that Brian needs to cut the tile. From there, we went over to Sears to see if they had any good deals on front loading machines. Well, we found out that Maytag has a price guarantee and that you'll NEVER find a sale on those machines. The salesman told us about the Sears Outlet store that sometimes you can find really good deals there. Used machines, machines with cosmetic damage, machines that the customer didn't accept because they didn't have the room.... So, down we went and we found my machines. We got about a thousand dollars off on the set. Some of the stuff was missing, like the electrical hookup for the dryer and there were no manuals. And the rack for the dryer wasn't there, either. Not that I ever used it with my old machine, but still. I ordered the manuals and they got here yesterday. They don't have a delivery service and we had the wrong truck to bring them home that day. So, we went home and we decided that the laundry room should be painted before he brought them home Tuesday. Tuesday morning, Brian pulled the old washer and dryer out and I took everything else out (if you watch the patio cam, it wasn't working that day). And I painted my laundry room bright white.

Brian and his brother brought the machines home that night and I was doing my first load by seven. I really, really like them. So quiet and the clothes are so clean.

The medications I had Annie on for her bladder infection didn't do it. She was off of them for three days and the blood was back in her urine. So, the vet prescribed Baytril and that seems to have taken care of the problem.

Lucky has been very affectionate. I'm sure she was miserable with those bad teeth. She's almost back to when she was young and all we had to do was talk to her and she'd start purring up a storm. And she's putting weight back on. That was one of the things the vet said to watch for, was her weight. Ciara has been acting strangely. She will follow me around the house and she wants to be held, much more than usual. I'm wondering if she's feeling okay. When she was younger, the only time she wanted me to cuddle her was when she was sick. Rusty has been a little under the weather. And it seems like it's really hurting him to walk. We did have some cooler humid weather. And I know this remodel has him upset. He'll just stand in the middle of the room, not understanding. If we're lucky, he'll just curl up on the couch and sleep.

Boney can be a real pill. When Brian was painting the ceiling, Boney would cry and Brian would put him out into the garage. Boney would go out the door, around the house and in the living room. Back into the tv room, where he'd start yowling again. Brian would stop painting and put him back out into the garage and Boney would just make his circuit again. Finally, after getting tired of hearing Boney yell, I shut the sliding door to the living room, opened the sliding door to the office and shut the office door into the house. So, if Boney wanted to be inside, he had to be in the office. I didn't want to take any chances of him getting hurt, either by Brian accidentally stepping on him or by getting paint on him. So far, we haven't had too many problems with the paint, even though the ceiling was done twice and the walls, three times.

This morning I brushed the polyurethane on the wood that Brian stained last night. It's for our baseboard, which will match the furniture. I have to say, that I think I'm going to like cleanup on the tile. Some cat peed on part of it the other night, part that had already been grouted. All I needed was a wet cloth and I wiped it right up. Nice. I know that we'll have to be careful of dropping things. Tile isn't as forgiving as carpet. And I have heard that it's hard on joints, like for people with arthritis. I hope it won't be a problem for us.

Today, I'd like to get the house dusted, it's a mess from the mudding last week. This fine white dust over everything. And I'd like to vacuum. The house is a real mess right now and even though we've moved just about everything from the tv room into the living room, so it's pretty crowded. I don't think this will be fun, but it needs to be done.

Well, that's about it for now. Real exciting.

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.

Web lisaviolet.com

website design by

© 1996-2014 lisaviolet
Photographic images are the property of the photographer,and may not be copied, printed, or otherwise reproduced on any other site or used in any other publishing medium without the written permission of each individual photographer and kennel/cattery owner. Cathouse privacy policy.