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Tuesday, May 23, 2000 Well, I paged Brian and he said he wouldn't be able to make it to the bank. Then he called back and asked if the drive through was open until five and I said yes. He said he could do it. So, I started getting the stuff ready, along with the payroll deposit that was due a week ago. When he got home, I took him by the hand and showed him the stuff I bought. He started yelling when he saw all of the muffins. And the pie. He just shook his head, disappointed that I bought so much. I told him I had planned on freezing the muffins and splitting up the bag with the English muffins and freezing those, too. I came back into the office when he noticed the big bowls. There was another roar. Laughing, I cringed, here my desk. He started yakking. Yak yak yak yak yak. I made my hands yak to each other. I heard him walking down the hall. I put a hand up and yakked at him with it. Then I told him the bowls would be great for potato salad. "How much are you gonna make?" he asked. See, there were four bowls. "Well" I said, "I can make a bunch and give it to people as presents!!" He was so disgusted. I decided that I wouldn't mention the cool pens and scissors. LOL!! Some things are best left unsaid, wouldn't you agree? *grin*

We had baloney and cheese sandwiches for dinner, then Brian sliced the pie. The crust didn't look completely cooked, but what's dough anyway? Shortening and water. I wasn't really impressed with the pie at all. Not too much later, my stomach really started to bother me. Which I know I should expect because the same thing happens to me with hot dogs and what is baloney but flattened out hot dogs? Brian said his goodnights and I took some antacids. I went to bed a little later. This morning, around four, I woke up and noticed that Brian's bathroom door was closed. He was in there and I asked him if he was okay, if maybe my viral thing hit him again. While I was talking to him, it hit me. Good thing we have two toilets. We figured it must have been the pie, because hot dogs and baloney don't bother him. Needless to say, the pie is gone.

I had a little excitement this morning. I ran the vacuum cleaner and started some laundry. I was cleaning out the litter boxes when I realized I hadn't seen Pete in some time. I spent an hour and a half looking for him. The shop door was open and he was in there, most likely sleeping. What scares me is Brian has a stack of tires that reaches almost to the ceiling. I worry that a cat could get inside of there and fall or something. What I should do is ask him to put a piece of wood between the top two tires. To find Peter, I opened the big garage door then opened a can of junk food. I think the junk food did it. Then my mom came over and I gave her a tube of Advantage and the other stuff she would need to make multiple applications. When Pete heard her, no way was he coming in the house. She left and now he's back inside, purring up a storm and loving me. He's so happy he's drooling.

Well, Kirby is down to one pill a day now. He hates me. He sees me coming and he heads for higher ground. I miss playing stick with him. Maybe he won't be so bad with just one pill a day.

Boy, something scary just happened. I did something very rookie. When I saved this page, I saved it as may0.html. Wrong. It should have been may0a.html. I overwrote the first page of the diary. Scared, I called my server and they said sure, they have backups. It would cost $150.00, though, to find it. Yikes!!! I figured it had to be someplace on my harddrive, so I went into my system find and typed in file name *.* (both wildcards) and search for text Monday, May 22, 2000. It took a while, but it was in my internet cache file. I can't even believe I did that.

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Thursday, May 25, 2000 My butt still hurts. It was doing so well until Kirby got sick. Have a doctor's appointment today. You know, I've mentioned my blood pressure and how I tell my body that 110/70 is normal. The doctor told me that's for a twenty year old female, but what the hey? My body won't know that unless I tell it, right? So, I'm watching our local tv news yesterday and a doctor was taking the BP of the news anchor. This guy is in his forties, he's on the air under hot lights. His BP? It was 100/60. I couldn't even believe it. Man.

Yesterday, I had to type a couple of invoices and get them faxed out. The damn fax machine kept not feeding right. I started getting really frustrated, because it was chewing up paper and I had to reprint out the invoices. Last night, when Brian got home, there was an invoice that needed to be sent out right away and the same thing happened with the fax machine. I got really irritated, called it a piece of "spit", and tried to open it. Brian was getting annoyed with me. We got it opened and what popped out? A piece of cat kibble. Cat food was keeping it from feeding properly. LOL!! Boy, did Brian start grumbling at me.

Thunder woke us up this morning around one. I got out of bed, grabbed my robe, went outside and put Buddy and Junior into the shop. Buddy was ahead of me, he wanted away from that sound. We didn't get rain, it's been drizzling all day, though.

If I can't sit better by this weekend, I guess I won't be going to the sticks with Brian. Oh, I'm getting an email set up for ranchitaranch.com. And I now own lisaviolet.org and lisaviolet.net. Signed up with virtualave.net for both of them. I had to get them because I didn't want anybody using the name lisaviolet for a porn site. Yuk.

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Saturday, May 27, 2000 I'm stressed, what can I say? Brian has really pissed me off the past two days. He thinks I'm going to Ranchita one day this weekend, well, right now, I think that's highly unlikely. For one thing, my back/butt is hurting, badly. I'm even getting an occasional pain down my leg. I have my back on ice right now. But I can't imagine being stuck in a sitting position for an hour or so, then walking around the property or even just sitting in the clubhouse. And it's gotten worse since this morning. The other reason is because, for some reason, I'm ready to rip Brian's lips right off of his face. Right now, I don't even want to see him. I'm really, really angry with him.

Okay, what he said last night wouldn't have been so bad really. I could have lived with one idiot remark. See, you know how hard I've been trying to keep the house clean and neat this past week, right? Heck, I vacuumed Sunday, Tuesday and yesterday, I ran the sweeper the other days. Yesterday, I dusted all rooms of the house. The laundry had been done and put away. And when I've cooked a meal, the dishes were immediately done. The litterboxes are being cleaned out on a daily basis. I've washed the sofa covers in the living room. Now, I'm sure all of this work isn't helping my sciatica, but I have to admit, it's nice having a neat home. One of the things that Brian does that annoys the hell out of me is to pick apart whatever I'm doing. Or, if I say "look what I've done, isn't it nice?" having spent hours on something, he'll look at it and say, "yes, but what about this?" It's like what I do isn't good enough. I've brought this habit of his to his attention before, pointing out that it makes me not even want to bother doing anything. Maybe that's why my housekeeping has become so lax. Because no matter what I do, there's more that needs to be done. At least in his eyes. Now, yesterday, I really didn't feel like cooking or doing anything in the kitchen for dinner. He got home early, brought a large check that needed to be deposited with him. I made out the deposit slip and he says "so, are we having rolled tacos and guacamole for dinner?" Well, I told him I hadn't planned on it. Then, as he was leaving for the bank, he points out a spot where the cats had just peed. Strike one. I didn't say anything, just ignored it. Don't tell me about it, clean it up. I went into the kitchen and made the guacamole. After he had been gone for awhile, the phone rings. "What do you want for dinner?" I made guacamole already. Looks like we're having rolled tacos. He knew damn well that's what I would do. Strike two. He gets home, comes in, brings in some stuff that he got at the store. I'm in the tv room. He looks at his chair. "What, do the cats just stand there and pee on that?" Strike three. I blew. I asked him if the next time he had a thought like that would he please keep it to himself? I'd been busting my ass all week long to keep the house nice and neat and now he finds another spot that needs to be cleaned. I let him know I didn't appreciate his comments. It would have been different if I hadn't done anything all week long, but I had and this kind of crap has a tendency to hurt my feelings, just a little bit. I can pop off at him, though, like I never could my mom. And I did. After that he made dinner, but I didn't have much of an appetite. He also did all of the dishes. I put the tv on one station and he didn't touch the remote all night long. He knew he'd stepped in it.

But, I could have lived with last night. This morning went too far. Earlier this week, Brian mentioned that I should keep a close eye on Kirby. Because Kirby had been nice to him again. Thursday, Kirby didn't seem to be doing too well and I tried to get a hold of him. I spent an hour and a half, trying to catch him. He ran into the rafters, he ran behind the coffee table, he ran behind the couch, he ran outside into the tube, he ran back into the house up onto the entertainment center. We were both beat by the time I finally got him. I took him into the bathroom and shut the door. I held him and felt his bladder. It felt okay. I petted him and calmed him down. I had him letting me rub his tummy and scratch his back before I opened the door. I watched him very, very closely Thursday night, watching his food intake, watching to see if he urinated. At one point, he went under the bench and after he left, I checked it out with a flashlight. He had sprayed a good amount on the wall. Yay, he's not blocking. He got every single pill he was supposed to have gotten and I've not missed one ammonil pill at night. This morning, he came into the kitchen for morning chicken, but went back up onto the entertainment center, just not acting right. He wasn't stretched out, but hunched over. My gut feeling was the "fever of unknown origin" was back, he hadn't been doing any of the things he does when blocked, like licking or straining. But there is definitely something wrong. Around 8:30, I call the vet's. Luckily, they are in. I'm thinking they may be opened most Saturdays from now on. Charlene told me they were busy, but to bring him in around ten. I ask Brian when he's going to work on his tractor. He said I could page him when I was ready to get Kirby. Then I called him out to look at him, to see how Kirby was sitting all hunched up. He did and he looked at Kirby for a long while. Then he spoke. "How much does it cost each time you take him in?" Huh? He's bringing money into this and we don't even know what the problem is? I ask him why he wants to know. He said "how much?" I say a hundred when he doesn't have to stay overnight. A couple of hundred when he has to stay overnight. I didn't tell him about the three hundred and fifty when he has to stay two nights. "And how long is this going to go on?" What? He says that he doesn't want to spend four thousand dollars a year on Kirby's health. I just look at him. I feel my blood pressure rising. For spit's sake, we don't even know what's wrong with Kirby, it could be nothing. And if he is blocked again, then the surgery will be done and he won't be blocking every two weeks. I can't even believe we're having this conversation. What is he thinking? There's no way we would be doing this for the rest of Kirby's life. So, I ask, not even bringing up what he should already know "what are you saying?" He stumbles around some words, not saying anything. "What are you saying?" I ask again. More sidestepping. "Tell me what you're saying, what the alternative is." No answer. "Are you saying we should have him put to sleep?" He kind of said "well, yeah, if this is going to keep happening." After he says this, I was silent. I then reminded him that the surgery would stop this from happening, so obviously, this wouldn't be happening for the rest of Kirby's life. And he realized what I was saying, what a bonehead thing he had done, that this entire line of discussion was over something that never would happen, but it was too late. I tell him to get out. To go work on his tractor. I tell him I don't want to even look at him right now. I tell him that I'll get Kirby down by myself, that I don't need his help. I tell him to just leave. Go on, get out, go play with your tractor, I say. I couldn't even see straight, if I could I most likely would have picked something up and threw it at his head. On his way out, I told him that he just had to keep pissing me off, that he did it last night, too. He came back in. "What?" he asked me? I told him you pissed me off last night and you're still pissing me off this morning. I don't want to be around you right now, go. Just go. He left.

I got Kirby down about forty five minutes before I was due at the vet's. I put him in the carrier and just set it on the couch. There's a pillow in there and a big soft towel. Since he wasn't too active, I figured what's the difference in letting him stay someplace where I would have a hard time getting him, or just to let him settle in the carrier. He didn't try to get out, much, he just laid on the pillow. His eyes were wide opened and his pupils dilated. He's not feeling good, that's for sure. I wrapped the picture I had gotten as a gift for the new office and read the paper. When I was done with all of that, it was about time to go. I took the wrapped gift to the truck, then came back in to get Kirby. He was a quiet passenger. Once at the vet's, I carried the gift and Kirby in. Elena held the door opened for me and I handed her the gift. She said "why don't you give it to him?" So, I set the carrier down and got situated. She asked me if I would like to see the room where they hung up the photos I had given them in previous years. They're in the "silver" room, he calls it that because all of the frames are silver. That room isn't ready for clients yet. I was still pretty wound up from the conversation with Brian. I told Charlene about it. By the time I was done, Elena called me into one of the examining rooms. I opened the carrier and took out the pillow and towel. Then, it was Kirby's turn. He came out without too much difficulty. She weighed him (he's lost weight) and asked what made me think he was blocked. I explain that I didn't think he was blocked but that he just wasn't acting "right". She took his temperature and it was 103. A little high. The vet came in and started looking at Kirby. The first thing he did was feel Kirby's bladder. He said it felt normal. He asked me about Kirby straining. I said he wasn't straining, that he just wasn't acting right, sitting all hunched up and unhappy. The vet then looked in his ears, eyes and mouth. He turned Kirby around so that his butt was to the wall and he expressed Kirby's bladder. Kirby peed. And what a nice, strong stream it was. A blockage wasn't Kirby's problem. The vet just shook his head. He couldn't understand what the problem was. He said something about taking Kirby's temperature and I told him Elena had already done it. Then, I mentioned the problem with Kirby's ears, how they seem to bother him, even though he's been checked for mites and fleas. The vet showed interest in this and did a very thorough check into each of the ears. What he found may be the cause of Kirby's fever. Kirby may have an ear infection. Both ears' canals are inflammed. So, Kirby is back on antibiotics as well as two drops of Otomax in each ear. The Otomax has a steroid in it which should help the inflammation. He said that I should bring Kirby in on Friday for a recheck. One of the things he talked about was how much easier Kirby was to handle than he had been a couple of years ago. He recounted his tale of when Kirby was in for the weekend, how Kirby got out of the cage when the doc was checking on him to see how the catheter was doing. He told us about how hard it was to catch him (I told him that Kirby goes up when upset) because Kirby was climbing onto the top of all of the shelves and cages. At one point, he got behind one of the cabinets. The doc finally had to use the net to catch him. I also mentioned Brian's little talk with me, how angry I was. So, I was obviously happy that Kirby wasn't really sick. When I left, I threw out "I can just hear me answer when Brian asks "How is he?"" The vet said (answering Brian for me) "Why, what do you care?" I said yep, that's it. "You don't care about Kirby, you wish he was dead." Did I say I was pretty upset?

Anyway, when I paid the bill? It was forty four dollars. Not bad. But I'm still not going to Ranchita with him. He might piss me off so badly once up there, that I'll climb in my truck and come home alone. Hey, now that I think about it........

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Sunday, May 28, 2000 Well, I think Brian won't be bringing up the cost of vet care for a while. I have to admit, what I did last night could be considered a little cruel. Well, it's not what I did, but what I didn't do. He got home from working on the tractor about seven. He walks in and asks how Kirby was. I didn't answer, I just looked at him. He asked again. I said "What do you think?" He looked at me. "Is he home?" I didn't answer. Then, it dawned on him. Alarmed, he asked "Was he put to sleep?" I just looked at him, not saying a word. "Did you have him put down?" I didn't answer for at least a minute, letting him think about it. Then, I simply said "no". He asked if Kirby was still at the vet's and I said no. Then he wanted to know what was wrong with Kirby. He asked a couple of times. I said "forty four dollars". He was getting frustrated, I could tell. I didn't care. He told me that he cared about the cats. I said "forty four dollars, that's all you care about." He asked if I had to double up on Kirby's pills and I responded "what do you care? You don't care about the cats, you don't help with medicating them, so, what do you care what I have to do?" About then, he realized he was wasting his time trying to get information from me. He went into the backyard to look for a leak in one of the streambeds.

About 7:30 I went outside to ask if he'd gotten Lotto. He said "no, I'd better go." I started opening up the house. When he got back, he had Lotto and he said "I bought you some ice cream." What flavor? "Nuts about Malt" which I really like. While he was putting it in the freezer, I started to talk. I said that the conversation that took place earlier in the day, needn't have. Because we already had the plan that the daily pill was a last ditch effort before surgery. I didn't understand why he even brought up Kirby having to go to the doctor twice a month, because it was a moot point. He didn't say anything, which was good. He was thinking. He went back outside. I followed. Now, I've tried to not have to use a pesticide in the catnip garden, but the green worms were just getting too many and too hard to find (they matched the color of the leaves perfectly). I got the sevin liquid out and did a thorough spraying. I locked the gate so that the cats couldn't get in. Brian had found the leak. I put the pesticide away and went into the house. I fed the cats and he had come in, was sitting on his chair. I asked if he wanted to know what was wrong with Kirby, really know. He said yes. I recounted the visit with the vet. I said that I hadn't been charged for the Otomax, just the office visit. He was a little quiet last night. I don't blame him. It's not often he makes me as angry as he made me yesterday. I told him how bad my butt/sciatica felt. He asked if it was hauling Kirby or stress? I said probably both.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Lola has lost a lot of weight. I didn't realize this because she's always on Brian. You would think he would have said something. Last week, I started paying more attention to what she was eating. Yesterday, she looked really bad. Her fur was spiked and that's not a good sign. I felt her ears and her paws and they were very warm. I found her prednisone, which is for her occasional back problems and I gave her one of those and also gave her an amoxi pill. I pulled the skin up on the back of the neck and noticed she was also dehydrated. I kept trying to find things she would eat. She really liked the tuna juice. At one point, I took her into the bathroom and forced little bites of soft food into her mouth. She didn't like that at all, but she kept the food down. This morning, she looked much better. She's much more alert and she's walking around, checking everything out. When I first saw her this morning, she walked over to her food bowl (it's covered) and waited for me to uncover it. She also ate some of my muffin. I'm glad her appetite is coming back. I'll keep giving her the pills, the amoxi for a week and the pred the same. If she's not doing very much better by Tuesday, I'll take her in. But I think she'll be okay. I just heated up the food that yesterday I had to force her to eat. This morning, she ate with gusto.

Kirby is frightened of me. He sees me coming, he runs. He doesn't like the ear drops. For some reason, the past couple of pilling sessions, he was better at having me put them in his mouth with my fingers, not the pill gun. Earlier, he went into one of the cathouses in the backyard and I was able to reach in and pet him. He was purring. *sigh* I wonder if he'll ever get over this?

I've got something new in the works for Benny's. Trivia games. I just have to get the graphics done and the programs set up. World history, classical music, questions about the cathouse for starters. It should be fun.

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Wednesday, May 31, 2000 Well, Kirby hates me. Boy, this medicating him is no fun at all. He runs from me which doesn't help. It takes longer to catch him than to medicate him. Last night, he jumped up onto one of the condos in the living room and Brian was petting him. I told Brian to hold onto him. Of course, he didn't. He's useless when it comes to stuff like that. "What was I supposed to do?" he asked. Put your arms around him and don't let him jump down, duh. I spent an hour and a half trying to get Kirby to play stick. I was so frustrated, because my butt hurt (it has since I've been having to pill Kirby) and it was taking so long and how Kirby just runs when he sees me. I started crying. I finally did get Kirby, he was on the climber that hangs on the back of the door in the hallway. He was fighting to hang on and I was pulling him backwards towards me. Brian gets up to help, I told him to not, I didn't need his help. He had his chance earlier. And it sure didn't make my sciatica any better. As a matter of fact, I think I'll have to drive the car this morning to the doctor. I don't think I can even get into the truck. I sure wish Brian would help me with the cats.

We got caller ID free for a year from our phone company. They sent out the boxes last week. We got two, one for our home line and one for lisaviolet designs. I spent all afternoon Friday trying to get them to work. I call the phone company, they call me back and the ID is working. Then I move one of the boxes back to the office. Darn thing doesn't work. And the one that *was* working isn't working any longer. *sigh* I call the phone company back up. They call me and the ID works again. This is nuts. I was told that some bad boxes were sent out. So, Saturday, while I was at the vet's office, the electricity went out for a couple of seconds. (They were unable to generate my bill via the computer; they sent a statement out and the bill for Kirby was less than forty dollars after my "breeder's" (ha ha) discount. I now have a credit balance with them.) The ID box wasn't working. It was no big deal, so I waited until yesterday to call them. Turns out the boxes are bad. There are many bad boxes out there. They had them sent out through a third party and have to resend good boxes out. I bet that's a nightmare for them.

Brian didn't go to the Sticks this weekend, he spent all three days working on his tractor. I got to feeling single again. Here it was, a three day weekend and I was home by myself. I did get alot done. Even read a book.

The weather has cooled off from the weekend. Boy, it was so hot. Now, it's mild again. I turned on the fan in the garage. It was hot in those rafters, brought back the memory of Red living up there for a year. I've noticed he rarely goes up there any longer. I don't blame him.

I couldn't find my set of car keys. Last week, I found the extra battery for the cellphone, which was in the car. I couldn't find the keys then, I used Brian's set to get into the car and get the phone to charge the batteries. Well, since my back/butt/leg is giving me such grief this morning, I figured I'd take the car to the doctor today. I mentioned having lost my keys to Brian. He went outside and uncovered the car and looked in the trunk (the last time I used the car, I had put stuff in the trunk, maybe I dropped my keys in it) and inside the car, but didn't find them. While I was making breakfast he said "I see you found your keys". No, I didn't, they were still missing. "Well, they're hanging on the hook by the garage door, isn't that where you put them?" I guess, so, but that's not where they belong so I never even looked there. That's where the keys are for people like my mom's house. *sigh*

Kirby went outside after I gave him his pill and eardrops. He ran to the very back of the yard, into the tube. That was probably forty five minutes ago. I just went to check on him and he was no longer there. I found him in one of the cathouses. I was able to reach in and pet his head and scratch his back. He started purring, I took my hand out and he came out. He's okay with me now. Until tonight. I think he's realizing it's a "time of day" thing.

My mom's friend who moved away mentioned coming out to visit for a week. I guess one of the first things mom said was "you won't be smoking in the house." When the woman protested, mom went on to tell her how nice it is here and that she could smoke outside. Well, it turns out the woman isn't coming out after all. Her daughter was also coming and was going to stay with a friend north of here. That would leave dad at home with the two kids for a week. Looks like he said "no way". That's a strange situation there. Because he wasn't around when the kids were little, he commuted to work, stayed there during the week, then when he got home, he'd go out someplace with his friends, his wife doesn't think he has any right to say anything now. And she is one of those mothers with rose colored glasses on "not my child" when anything got wrong. Well, the oldest was picked up at thirteen for pot. Both boys flunked out of school, the oldest flunked out of continuation. That's the major reason they moved back to the midwest. My mom loathes the oldest boy, says he's evil. I believe her. He was "accidentally" killing squirrels when he was little. We don't believe he's gotten any better and he's gotten very little counseling. I don't think it would help him anyway. His mom would just say the counsellor doesn't know what s/he's talking about.

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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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