Monday, May 07, 2001 Well, heck Pete, the month is already a quarter over and I've not made one entry. What on earth am I doing with my time? I must be entering a lot of fugue states or something. Oh, I know, I found a great Disney website with really fun forums at the Laughing Place. I'm finding out lots of stuff about Disney I never knew. The first morning I was there, a Saturday, I spent over four hours reading one thread. Could that be considered a fugue state? Maybe?

Okay, let's see if I can remember all that's happened. Not that much has. Let me go back to last month's diary and see where I left off....dumdeedumdee....ah, update on the little tortie feral. She's been back and eating. We've not had much luck catching any others, though. We didn't even set the trap up last Thursday and I'll tell you why.

Thursday morning, I noticed Kirby down by the pool. He had just come out from the tall grass and was walking like it hurt. Then he stopped, sat down and began to clean himself. I thought to myself that he's been doing this for a couple of weeks, having problems in the morning. So, I figured I'd just watch him and see how he did, not bug him or stress him in anyway. Well, late Thursday morning, I put some catnip out on the patio, let the cats have a little nip party that went out live over the internet via the patiocam. Kirby joined in, then went around the side of the house. I followed. So did Mickey. Kirby squatted to pee over by the left side of the gate. Mickey went to the right and did the same. Mickey peed and walked away. Kirby was still in the same position, no output. I called the vet and explained the situation and was told to bring him in. I did. I called around five thirty to find out how he was and the vet wanted to talk with me. The vet had had to sedate Kirby, a little stronger than the last time. Kirby wasn't blocked at all and there was no incidence of the mucoid plugs he's had in the recent bouts of blockage. His pH was right where it was supposed to be. But he was full of struvite crystals. Great. The vet gave him fluids and put some DMSO in Kirby's bladder. The vet said there were a couple of ways to go. Have Kirby get fluids twice a week. Change his diet. Well, that diet thing set off all sorts of bells in my head. It was after the switch to Sensible Choice that he started having problems again. I mention this to the doc and he said even the smallest change in formula can cause some cats' systems to do what Kirby's has been doing. So, we're back to NutroMax, as Kirby did well while we were on that. I really liked the idea of a human grade food for the cats, but I don't like the idea of Kirby having problems. I went in to pick Kirbs up and he was still way out of it. Stupidly, I let him out of the carrier once I got him home. Bad idea. Real bad idea. He was going nuts, walking all over. He wouldn't settle down. His balance was way off and when I caught him trying to go into the rafters, I scruffed him and tried to get him down. He objected mightily, howling and screaming at me. I have a nice scratch on the inside of my left arm and it's a little bruised. Brian was yelling at me to let him go, it wasn't worth getting the crap scratched out of me. We got Kirby into the house and closed the garage door. I finally got him back into a carrier and put a towel over it. I set it on the sofa. Around three in the morning, I heard him crying. This was the first sound from him since he fought me earlier and I figured he had come out of the anesthesia enough to let him out. He was happy. And he didn't hold the earlier incident against me at all.

Of course, he wasn't real thrilled with going back to the vet's on Friday afternoon, but like I told him, it's for his own good.

We'll be giving the outfront cats the rest of the Sensible Choice and we bought Nutro yesterday. *sigh*

Well, I have more to put in here, but it's getting late and I'm tired. I've had a long day. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. I promise.

Tuesday, May 08, 2001 Gosh darn it. I had started my entry for today and Brian came home. I've been asking questions on a Ford website for him, hoping that he can get some answers so that the dead truck can be brought back to life and I didn't save what I'd done here. And then the system froze. Spit. I'll just start over, I guess. What else can I do?

It was hotter than snot here today. And because of the energy crisis, I won't turn on the air conditioner. The office is the hottest room of the house, so I wasn't back here for part of the day. And this morning, when it was cooler, I was doing paperwork for the company. It's always something, ya know?

I took Kirby in this afternoon for his fluids. I got out the carrier, set it on the ottoman in the living room and went in search of Kirby. He was stretched out on the freezer in the garage, a very cool place to stretch out. He knew. He saw me and he knew. He jumped down and made a dash for the cat door. I grabbed him before he was all the way out and reeled him back in. Put him in the carrier and he cried. Something he doesn't do often. But he was good at the vet's, didn't fight with them at all. The entire ordeal was less than fifteen minutes. Good.

Well, I had my teeth cleaned yesterday. I've been noticing that on the right side of my mouth, if I get something like a sesame seed (like from a sesame seed bun) between the molar where I had my root canal a couple of years ago and the top molar, I get a shooting pain through my mouth. It's hard to tell if it's the top or bottom, though. I mentioned this to the hygienist and they took x-rays. So, she starts working on my teeth and the doc checks out the x-rays. He wasn't very happy. I guess my root canal went bad. He said he'd have to refer me to a specialist, an endodontist. *sigh* Now that I know what's going on, that darn tooth is starting to hurt. Remember how bad it was before? I sure don't want to go through that again. I get home, irritated that we're going to have to pay somebody else to fix something that's already been fixed. I sat here with the referral card, trying to make up my mind. I finally called and was told that it would be a while before they could get me in. Well, it has to be done, so I was put on hold while she checked for an appointment availability. Apparantly, someone had cancelled an appointment and I'll be able to go in on Thursday afternoon. After we hung up, I paged Brian and told him the bad news. He's going to go with me. I think he wants to find out how responsible the other doctor was. I mean, it was over twelve hundred dollars the first time, why did it go bad? Is this common? Me, I would most likely say "fix it". I said something to Brian about just pulling the tooth, but he said that if they pull the tooth on the bottom, they also have to pull the top tooth. If it was a top tooth, they wouldn't have to pull the bottom. And what really sucks is now that I know there's a definite problem, it bothers me more than ever. *sigh* But, guess what? I have the x-ray!! I have to take it with me to the endodontist on Thursday. I scanned it and here it is, you lucky people!! You get to see my rotten root. And here it is!! Look at the bottom of the lighter one. You should see a darker shaded area. I think that's the infection. Groovy.

Okay, what else? Oh, Brian went up to Ranchita Saturday and started clearing brush. He widened the road and then he'll dig a ditch for the water tank. I guess it has some leaks and they have to be welded. He doesn't want to do that by himself, though, and his brother can't go back up there until August, his schedule is so full, so I don't know that Brian's going to do.

Well, I guess that's it for now.

Monday, May 14, 2001 So, I'm home and I'm tired. Got that root canal done this morning, I was there bright and early at 7:30. Had a rotten night's sleep last night. That antibiotic I got last Thursday, when I went to the endodondist, is really messing up my system. Blech. I either have an upset stomach or diarrhea. Luckily, I didn't get it this morning. He numbed my mouth real good and after he was finished, he said don't eat or drink for thirty minutes. I waited forty five, got a bowl of cereal and proceeded to chew the hell out of my cheek. *sigh* I was so hungry.

Brian went up to the sticks Saturday and spent the night. He got the septic system in for the clubhouse. That's a start. Sunday morning, he calls. He was on his way home and he asked "what's for breakfast?" No "hi, how are you" or any small talk. Just "what's for breakfast?" I had a hankering for French toast and I told him that's what I was going to make. Unfortunately, we only had two heels and one slice of bread. We had bacon, eggs and potatoes instead. I really wanted French toast. After breakfast, he washed my truck, then we went on the Mother's Day rounds. We got his mom first, then mine. Then we did a little grocery shopping, then came home and kicked back.

Boy, my gum hurts.

Tuesday, May 15, 2001 And the throb goes on. Boy, that thing hurts. I also have a very bad headache. I took some Aleve not too long ago. Hope it makes something feel better.

When I was little, my mother used to affectionately tell me "if you had a brain, you'd take it out and play with it". When I recall this, it's fondly. *chuckle* And lately, I'm beginning to believe the woman was right. I can't believe some of the bonehead things I've done recently.

First, there's Kirby. Now, remember, the vet wanted me to bring him in for a month, for fluids twice a week. At least that's what I thought. When I took him in last Friday, I had a heck of a time catching him. He ended up under the bed, where I store my yarn. I had to pull out a bunch of stuff and crawl to the back. And boy, was it nasty. I didn't realize they've been pissing under there. I got Kirby and put him in the carrier and latched the door. Then I took my shirt off and washed my arms and neck and put on a clean shirt. We got down to the vet's and Kirby was taken into the back. He was shortly brought out to me and I was told he was done. Huh? But the vet told me a month. So, the receptionist double checked. "No, it was only for a week." I left, shaking my head. How could I have gotten a month from "for a week"? Then it hit me. He never said "month" he said "week". And when he said "for a week" I heard "four weeks" which I turned into a month. Duh. Well, it's nicer for all of us to be done with the twice weekly trips. When I got home, I blocked entry to under the bed (it's a pedestal). The yarn is in plastic bags, so it should be okay from cat urine. Even if some of it it did get hit, granted, it will be gross to work with, but it will wash.

Then, this past Saturday, I tried my hand at getting the remote java working for the backyard camera. Every once in a while, I check the forums for Webcam32, the software that runs all three cameras, for anything new and exciting. I've tried many times before to get the remote running without any luck. Well, something happened when I was trying things out. See, the remote works via my serial port. And so do my two digital cameras, the Hewlett Packard and the Olympus. So, I have a switchbox. And to run the remote, I have to have the remote turned on, via the software and the hardware. Well, something happened. Something bad. The patiocam no longer worked. I spent hours (it's funny how I spend hours trying to fix bonehead mistakes) trying to find out what the problem was. I checked all of the connections. I uninstalled the camera software, then reinstalled it. Then I noticed that my zipdrive wasn't working either. Oh, man, I broke my computer. The USB wasn't working at all!! That's what runs the scanner, the zipdrive and the patiocam. This is horrible!! I was really worried. Now, keep in mind, I have quite a few things that run on the electricity here. I've got two heavy duty power strips, plugged in to my main power box. The power box has switches for Master, computer, monitor, printer, auxilary 1 and auxilary 2. Auxilary 2 is for the remote control arm. When I turn that off, the remote won't work. Auxilary 1 is for the power strips. When this kind of stuff happens to me, I get cold sweats. It's not like we have money to throw away because I did something stupid. Anyway, I started looking at the power supply. I turned things on and off and they weren't getting any power. It was when I tried the fan that I realized that it's most likely something very, very simple. It was most likely a power source. I followed the cords for the strips and I figure out they don't go to the wall, the go to the power box. Auxilary 1, to be exact. Which is switched off. Damn. All I had to do was turn on the power and everything worked again. I put a label on it, so that I know it's to be on, always. Figure this is probably the first time in years I even turned it off. Whew. Now, where did leave my brain the last time I was playing with it?

I've put Ciara back on the buspar. She's gotten really bad at peeing on us in bed. I don't know what her problem is, but it's not making either of the humans happy. The other morning, she peed on the comforter on my side of the bed at about five ayem. Then at five thirty, Brian started cussing. She peed on his feet. We think she's doing it because she wants us to get up and let her out or feed her or something. I don't know what it is, but I don't like it. I hope we can stop it.

Darn Pete was outside this morning when I let the cats out and fed them. He was in. I know he was in. I saw him. But I couldn't find anyway for him to have gotten out, so he must have slipped out when another cat came in. Dang. Now, for the next month, I'll be doing triple headchecks before I go to bed. He came in, ate, then went back outside. *sigh*

The cats are doing well on the Nutro. I think it may even be helping Mickey's dry skin. I'm glad there hasn't been a rash of puking and diarrhea. That would be no fun.

Oh, if you have Internet Explorer as your browser, if you go to the backyard page, you can now play with the remote. If I have it on. It most likely will be on unless I'm laying out by the pool. And I called 3com about the lines in the camera. They'll replace the camera, I just have to send them the one that's broken. So, the backyard cam will most likely be down for three weeks later this summer. Bummer, I know, but that's the way the mop flops. It won't cost me, though, to get a new one. I'm thinking that what might have happened is it was pointing at the sun and something cracked inside. I usually try to not have it facing in that direction, but I forgot and the sun's path was right in the lens of the camera.

So, I guess it's been pretty uneventful around here. That's the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it.

Monday, May 21, 2001 Well, I had a little scare Thursday and Benny's been on some adventures. But I don't know if he'll be writing about them. His secretary hasn't been keeping up with things like she should be. Slacking off, she is.

Anyway, let's see. Over at the Surveyor.com website, the place where I got the remote arm, they have a discussion board. I found last week that there is a software put out that allows you to run more than one 3com camera on the same system (see, most systems can only see one camera per driver, so, you can't have more than one of the same camera), up to nine of them as a matter of fact. Well, the camera that was on the roof is a 3com, so I just found the cheapest one from shopper.cnet.com, found that they also had free shipping until the following day at midnight. I ordered it. The new camera showed up the next day. I had figured I can send the messed up one back and get it replaced and now, the next time a camera dies, I'll have a new one already to go. Brian installed it yesterday. Yay, no more yellow lines. And the remote now works with Netscape, so go ahead and play with moving the camera, if you'd like. To get there, click on the backyard cam or the weather page, they're the same thing, and once there, go to the live video.

Then, Thursday, I had my regular monthly chiro visit. My blood pressure was not good, not good at all. It was almost as bad as it had been originally. Scary. And there was no reason for it to be so high. The doctor checked my system and the problem was my calcium. Well, were using the same brand we had been, only recently had gotten a new bottle. A huge bottle from CostCo. The calcium was calcium bicarbonate. The doctor wanted me in again Friday and told me to bring in my calcium. So, I did. And I brought a bunch of other stuff in. The first thing he tested was the calcium. My body didn't need any. He couldn't understand it. Then, he read the ingredients. It was crap. They had changed the calcium. They were now using oyster shell, totally useless for the human body as a calcium source. Imagine eating sand. Think your body can utilize that? I don't think so. He got some of his calcium and tried that on me. I need five pills a day. So, I bought one of his bottles. We tested the other bottles and I didn't need to finish the Keflex antibiotic, I didn't need garlic at all, or St. John's wort. But I need the Coenzyme Q10 and kava kava and valerian root. It was pretty interesting. I go in again this morning. Well, it was up at first, but he got it down. Not much, but better. It seems that right now, my kidneys are the problem. Remember, the problems show up in the weakest link. It was my calcium intake, now it's my kidneys. No salt and at least sixty four ounces of water a day. I can hear myself sloshing already. Good thing we bought more toilet paper at CostCo last week. I think I'll be needing it. I used to be so good about drinking water, too. I just got out of the habit.

Well, little Benny is my sweetest boy in the whole world. He's so mellow and cool. Gee, even when he was trying to find his way back into the yard Saturday..... Yesterday, he got back on his own. Hiss spit. I have no idea where he got out. Both Brian and I walked the fence with no luck. It's on the side with the pine trees. So, if we leave for any length of time, Benny has to be put up. Either in the shop, or in the house. I can close the door to the garage so the other cats can still come inside the building, but not into the house. Just setting the cat door to in only doesn't work, because Benny can pull it towards himself to get out.

Maybe it's his new lion cut that's making him more adventurous. And, oddly enough, once he's in at night, he climbs up on the couch, curls up and goes to sleep. He's not crying at the doors to go out, which is nice.

Lola has an appointment tomorrow for a blood test. And I'm getting some powdered glucosamine for the animals. I just couldn't find it in powdered form anywhere. Remember, I was given information that it should help Kirby's bladder. I took a couple of pictures of Lola, but she's just not photogenic at all. Not inside, anyway. Here's one I took of her snoozing on the couch. Doesn't she look comfy?

As for Kirby, he's doing great!! (I just knocked on wood.) I think the change of food back to NutroMax made a big difference. I watched him pee this morning and he had a fine strong stream. I'm so glad. It's nice to not be worried about him.

Here's another picture of DeeJay and Mystie. It was so cute. He just fell asleep on her. He was pissed that she was in his spot and he just kind of took it back. She didn't seem to mind.

And here's one of little Mystie herself

She's sure getting big, isn't she? Her mom is pregnant again. We really have to trap her. And Little Guy had her kittens. Brian doesn't think they survived, because she's over her for hours every night. She's awfully thin. She's been coming over much earlier than the other cats and we've been giving her a can of Nutro kitten. She eats that, then she chows down on the food we put out for the other cats. She's much darker than Katie, but she has the same sweet face. She's a talker, too. I think we're going to keep her once she's trapped and spayed. Because she talks, I think she has the possibility of becoming a socialized cat.

Saturday, we didn't do much. Friday night, we fell asleep on the sectional in the tv room. And the breeze from the window felt so good. I went to bed, Brian stayed on the couch. Saturday, Brian pretty much stayed right where he'd ended up the night before. He didn't set foot outside of the house. He went into the kitchen once. That was about it. I made French toast for breakfast and I drove down to Arby's for dinner. Talk about a restful day. I also got the ingredients together for spaghetti, which always tastes better when it's had a while for the flavors to blend together. We had that Sunday night.

I keep going out to check on Benny. That's my job until we find out where he's climbing out. One of our fears is someone will follow. If it's Mystie, I'll be okay. But if it's Peter, I won't. Pete doesn't come when called. Well, Benny is starting to cruise the yard. I have to watch, but not let him know I am. Because if he knows, he won't try. Gotta go..he's on the move.

Oh, yeah, before I go, I almost forgot...my tooth feels normal!!

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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