All Archives

new~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~day

Monday, November 19, 2001 Well, today sucks. Buddy crashed. He can't walk at all. We've been putting the dogs up at night, because it's cooled off considerably. This morning, when I let them out, Junior came running out and I heard Buddy moving, but I didn't see him. He was behind a bench and he was having a rough time getting up. I helped him (threw my back out in the process, but excedrin is helping) up and he just couldn't keep his back side up. His legs just didn't have the strength to hold him up. I helped him walk and he went outside and peed, which was very hard for him to do. Then he walked over to the patio where he threw up last night's dinner. Twelve hours later, it hadn't digested. *sigh* He didn't eat any soft food this morning, which I heated up for him. He did have a couple of biscuits, but that was it. Since we know there's nothing we can do for him, we decided it's time to say goodbye. He just looks so sad laying there on his side, not able to run like he could earlier this year, not even being able to walk. We'll be taking him in at 5:45 this afternoon. I honestly hoped we'd get through the year without saying goodbye to someone. He's laying outside the door and I watched him. He started to shiver. He was trying to get up and I helped him. He (we) slowly made our way over to the lawn, me holding up his legs. He peed. Then we walked back to the patio and he's laying down in the sun right now, on one of the pads. It's nice outside, pleasant. The sun, I'm sure, feels good on his old bones. His legs aren't getting any better with the warmth. He's actually listing to the right when he tries to stand. This just doesn't get any easier.

Speaking of goodbyes, Little Guy hasn't been around since the 8th. The very night we made the decision to keep her when we trapped her to get her fixed. *sigh* I hate this. But, that little black and white kitten comes by late at night or very early in the morning and isn't alone. There's a little long haired tortie with him. A sibling I would think. And late at night and all alone, there's been an older tortie. It's not Cleo, the markings are all wrong. And I don't believe it's the other young tortie. This one seems awfully skittish where the other one would lay on top of the feeding station and take a nap. This one runs at the sound of humans. I'm wondering if maybe this is the cat that a little girl asked me about this past summer. Their tortie had gotten out and not come home. This appears to be an older cat.

Lola is back to eating again. I opened a small can of Nutro yesterday and did the processing thing and she ate maybe half of that. This morning, I opened another can and added yesterday's leftovers. She ate almost all of it this morning, so I'd say about a can and a half. This is good. And she ate with appetite. So, whatever was going on with her seemed to pass. I'm taking her in for her blood test today. It's been over a year since she went off of the vet's intervenous chemotherapy. Hopefully, she'll keep up her eating. I think she's lost a couple of ounces since her last blood test.

Last week, I upgraded my weather station software. Thursday, I tried to work on it, so there weren't a bunch of broken icons on my weather page. It took a while to figure out that I already had the registration code so that it would work on the internet (the author now has three levels of programs: one for just the computer, a "pro" version for the computer, and the most expensive, the internet version). When I first purchased the software, it was upgrades free for life, so I was a little worried that maybe I'd have to pay more money. Fortunately, that wasn't the situation. Then I find out that every single code for the images and different readings had changed for the html pages. So, I'm slowly working on getting those changed. I'm having a hard time applying myself to getting this down. And to make it worse, I couldn't access my website at all Friday morning. I called Communitech and they said there wasn't anything they could see that was wrong, maybe it was just internet traffic and to try again later. Well, I had to go to the bank (no bank drive through rage!! The two cars in front of me were prepared!) and when I got home, I still couldn't access my site. Which means that the catcam wasn't getting uploaded and neither was the weather information. I call again and, guess what? Just like earlier this year, they'd denied my IP. So, that got fixed and I was able to work on the site again, but I just didn't feel like it.

Well, our neighbor was a horse's ass last night. Now, you all know that I have been feeding Junior on a schedule. He gets very excited when he knows it's dinnertime. He starts jumping up and down and barking, happily, trying to get me to hurry up. He barks non-stop until I walk out the door with the food. Last night, I was preparing their dinners, when the neighbor shouts out, and it was very loud and very clear, "SHUT UP!" Excuse me? He said it so loudly that Brian could clearly hear him. Brian was in the tv room on the other side of the house and the tv was on. So, Junior runs over to the fence, does a little half hearted yapping, then comes back to the house. I yelled out, loud enough for the HA to hear "Calm down, Junior, I'll have your dinner ready in a second! I know you're excited!" And Brian went out to try to calm Junior down. I was pissed. So, I get the food ready and Junior and Buddy follow me to the shop. On my way, I say (of course, I was loud, making sure that the neighbor could hear me) "Geez, take a chill pill, don't have a stroke." Shortly after that, all of the lights on the side of the house closest to ours went out. It was early, not even six o'clock. And that's where their television is. You know, it's not like Junior was going to bark and bark and bark, I knew he'd stop as soon as we fed him. And I also think the neighbor didn't check to see if we were home before he opened his big fat piehole. Brian and I went to dinner yesterday and when we got home, we heard him yelling at his wife because there was water on their garage floor. I think this guy is a heart attack waiting to happen. I know that he's had intestinal problems in the past, most likely due to stress and anger. Did I ever mention he's a world class tailgater? I wouldn't doubt he's involved in lots of road rage. Jerk.

new~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~day

Thursday, November 22, 2001 Happy Thanksgiving to those who observe this holiday!

Well, Buddy's passing went smoothly. It was sad to see him go, but he'd just been in such bad shape for so long, that it was really the best thing to do. Yesterday, as I cleaned house, I thought about when he first came to live with us, how he'd jump up onto his doghouse that was up on the bank. Heck, once he even went over the six foot fence! It had been years since he'd done that. And this year, he didn't even go up on the bank. He could walk up there, there's a path, but his body just couldn't handle it. The vet checked him over and said that the problem he was currently having could very well be as simple as a balance problem, that might go away. He said that many older dogs get this and that it would cause them to not be able to keep food down or to walk. They would be continuously dizzy. Or, he said, it could be a brain tumor. Brian said 'no, we've made the decision'. As we were talking to Buddy, the vet standing there stroking him (even though my vet loves all animals, I get the feeling he has a special affinity for dogs) as the sedation shot took effect (remember, my vet sedates first, then administers the lethal injection) he said "I bet that Kirby poisoned him". Kirby. A legend. But the vet made it clear that he agreed with our decision. That it was the best thing for Buddy. It's sad to go outside and not see him and I feel really badly for Junior. This is the first time since 1986 that we've only had one dog. Brian asked the vet about getting a puppy and the vet said to hold off and see how Junior did. One of our concerns about a pup is Junior's diabetes; the vet said that Junior's energy level was to stay as steady as possible. I'll bring it up again tomorrow when I take Junior in for his glucose test. I've called Junior in to the house a couple of times, and he'll let me love him and he'll sit here for a little bit, but then he's right back outside. He likes it better outside.

Brian's older brother and his wife just got back from a trip to China (how exciting!) and decided to come out here for Thanksgiving. I straightened up the house yesterday, in case somebody might want to come visit us. That's how it seems to go, people drop in when the house is a disaster. But it wasn't too hard to do because I've been doing a fair job of keeping on top of it. Anyway, they changed their plans again and they're going to go see her brother in Palm Springs before going back to Colorado. We're going out to dinner today, then they're leaving right after dinner. Boy, I'd be beat. But maybe if we didn't have so many animals, I'd like travelling. Well, to get back on topic, we visited them last night. We walked over (Brian's mom only lives about a quarter of a mile away) because I didn't want to spook the out front cats. Before we left, we got all cats in. We visited for almost three hours. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Stephen's wife, Joann, is so much fun to talk with. She's an amazing woman. We talked about all sorts of stuff. She was telling us about a house that they'll be taking care of, about feeding the deer for the people who live there. She said there was a buck at the house the last time they were there. And she told us about the bears that come around and how much fun they are to watch. Ack! Geez, I'd be very, very cautious about going outside if I knew there were bears around. And she asked about our favorite movies and that got us going. Brian and I love movies. We told her about the Postman, with Kevin Costner and Maverick (with Mel Gibson) and Thunderheart (with Val Kilmer) and Silverado (with Scott Glenn and all of the movies we watch over and over again. And Brian said "we have some of them on both DVD and VHS tape. Do you want the tapes?" Woohoo!! I've really wanted to get DVDs to replace some of the tapes we've got, now I can do it and not feel guilty!

The time flew by and looked at Brian's mom and she was nodding off at the table. She had said earlier that she hadn't been this busy in a while. She did look really tired. When you're used to keeping certain hours and then you stay up later than you're used to a couple of nights in a row, you're beat (I know this because I was like this at Disneyland in October). I mentioned this to Brian and he shortly said we should be going. We got our jackets and left.

On the way home we could hear a dog barking. It was Junior. Darnit. I said "I wonder what he's barking at?" Brian said "maybe he hears us walking." But he quit when we went into the yard, he was happy to see us. We walked into the house and turned on the lights. The cats were all acting really oddly, as if something had really spooked them. Then, on the tv room floor, my clean floor, I saw a bunch of short black cat fur. There had been a fight during our absence. I looked at the fur and figured part of it was Kirby's. There was a little white fur mixed in and I attributed that to Georgie. So, Georgie and Kirby had gotten into it while we were gone. And my guess would be it had happened shortly before we got home, because of the attitudes of most of the cats; most of the young ones were hiding in the garage rafters and the others were slinking around, being very cautious. And it could very well be what Junior had been barking at. He wasn't barking at the fence, but on the patio and the sliding door was opened, the screen door was locked. I cleaned up the fur and we let Georgie go outside. And we decided that when we're going to be gone in the evening, we'll let Georgie be outside, because he gets so wound up in the evenings. He starts out by playing, then plays rough, then it escalates into a serious fight. So, in the hopes of family peace, Georgie will stay out while we're gone.

Once home, the shoes came off, and we kicked back. Rusty came up to lay by me (he can be such a pest, I'm laying down and he keeps trying to get in my face, literally; it's very annoying...I wouldn't mind if he'd just lay down, but he doesn't). I sat up and Angel came up and laid next to Rusty. Then she started grooming his head and he let her! Not a growl or a grumpy sound came from him. He just purred. Cool.

Brian said Autumn was on the bed this morning. By herself. Then Sammy chased her off. Bad Sammy. But it's nice that she's beginning to check out the rest of the house. She's a little cutie pie, that's for sure.

Great news for Disneyland Annual Passport holders! They've dropped the price on passports. When DCA first opened up, for an additional sum of money, you could get two park passports. Well, it cost us an additional hundred dollars for each of our passports, because we had premium passports. Effective November 19th, at 8 am, they dropped the price. To what it was before DCA opened. Now, you can get both parks for the price of one. Cool! Luckily, I hadn't sent our renewal forms in yet. We saved two hundred dollars. That's good news.

Oh, something I realized about the missing cats yesterday. All female. No males are gone. And none of them had notched ears. Cleo was fixed, but my vet forgot to notch her ear. Strange.

new~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~day

Saturday, November 24, 2001 Well, we had a great Thanksgiving. The meal was really nice and so was the company. Brian was at the end of the table, I sat on his left, my mom was next to me and Mark was next to her. On Brian's right, across from me was his Mom, then Joanne and Stephen. Then Jared, the Marine. Boy, I remember when he was just a kid. Heck, I made him a special tape of Disneyland. The Pirate song over and over and over again. Ninety minutes of "yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me..." *chuckle* I played my first game of Rummicube with him. And he kicked my butt. He's an adult now. It just doesn't seem like that long ago. I had a couple of glasses of white zin (why is white zin pink?) and felt pretty good. We went there in my mom's car, because hers is the only one that can seat us all comfortably.

We didn't do much yesterday morning, I didn't even get out of my jammies until 12:30. Brian did a little work on my truck (the temperature gauge was broken). Yesterday's mail brought some good size checks, which surprised us. We didn't think we'd get them until at least next week. So, Brian went to the bank (I said "I'm not going to the bank, I won't do it, I'm not going again this week, I don't care how much money we got, I'm not going and waiting in that line" and wouldn't you know it? He was back in no time at all. If it had been me, I'd probably still be there. I think God is trying to teach me some sort of lesson..feh) and when he came home, he said let's go to dinner. So, we went to a place called Marieta's, we ate, I wasn't impressed, I think a pb&j sammich would have been more enjoyable, then we went to WalMart. Got a couple of DVDs (great prices....I got the Quick and the Dead with Sharon Stone for $9.44; looking at the other ones, they had Excaliber and Ladyhawke, two movies I really like, but I figured that I'd wait longer to see if they dropped more in price..then we saw a display with prepackaged movies, two for $14.88 and wouldn't you know, that Excaliber and Ladyhawke were together? Cool!) and some toys for the cats and some hairclips. Everything Brian wanted was sold out.

When we got home, the light on the caller ID was flashing and I checked it out. Our tree hating neighbor had called. I checked the machine for messages. Just one from my mom. Huh. Then I look outside and say hi to Junior and he's leaving wet marks on the cement. I went out to see why and he was wet all over. I guess he started barking and that idiot next door hosed him. And it had only happened about ten minutes before we got home, according to the time of the call on the caller ID. Grrr.... Brian went outside and wiped him down. It looks like we'll have to be putting Junior up when we leave. But I can hardly wait until her daughters visit with their dogs. They love to bark at the fence. We'll see how they like it. I told Brian this morning that Santa just may do a little package for some people with Calmplex 2000 and Rescue Remedy and some other calming stuff in it and leave it on a certain neighbor's doorstep for Christmas. All the times that they were gone and they'd be gone overnight, when their dogs barked and barked and barked and barked and howled and barked, I never hosed them. I'd give them biscuits, I'd talk to them, I certainly didn't yell at them. I'm really beginning to dislike those people.

Speaking of Junior, we took him in for his test last night. They're now doing a fructosamine test and it's sent out. So, I may know today, if not today, then Monday. We also paid for Buddy. Liz asked what we wanted done with the body. I had told her Monday that we'd pay Friday, and that, as we did with all of the animals, we'd like him cremated. Well, I guess she didn't hear that last part. They still had Buddy. So, we got that all taken care of.

Just a few minutes ago, Brian, out of the shower and getting dressed, asked me if I'd fed Buddy yet.
"Buddy's dead."
"No, he's not, if he was dead, you'd have told me before now."
I said again, "Buddy's dead."
Brian, in all seriousness, not kidding around at all, didn't believe me.
"Brian, you were there when the doctor gave him the shot. Buddy's gone."
He just looked at me. Then he said "Oh, man, did I say 'Buddy'? I'm so sorry, I meant 'Junior'."
"That's okay."
And as odd as this may sound, we both laughed. I think we've been a little off by everything that's happened the past couple of months.

Last night, Sammy had the worst runs, then he got into bed and tracked some of it from his feet onto the bed. Then he started cleaning himself and puked. This morning, Daniece threw up and a little later on, Ciara tossed her cookies. *sigh* I hope it's just a quickly passing thing.

The outfront cats didn't finish their dinners last night. I hope they're just eating leftover turkey elsewhere.

The vet just called with Junior's test results. He's good. I'm to watch his water intake closely, though. He said that would be the first sign his diabetes was not under control. We should bring him back in three or four months for another test. Woohoo!!

Well, I have some minor housecleaning to do, then I'll just play for the rest of the day. Brian went up to Ranchita to lay out our new home. He'll be home later. We're supposed to get a big storm tonight. Cool.

new~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~newday~~~day

Wednesday, November 28, 2001 Well, we did get a little rain Saturday night, but not much. Brian got home early and we didn't do much the remainder of the weekend. He did lay out our house at the property and now he needs my input, how to have things facing. I have to think about this. I think I'd rather have the full sun in the morning rather than the afternoon in the rooms where we'll spend most of our time. But that's all I can think of now.

I've been pretty busy this week. Monday I went shopping. We needed more milk for the cats and stuff from CostCo. Sunday night, I found a flea!! on Kirby. So, I stopped by the vet's office and bought some Advantage.

Kirby wasn't feeling good Monday morning, had me pretty concerned. I gave him an amoxicillan which he puked up about a half hour after I'd given it to him. Before I left to go shopping, I searched the house and yard for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I wasn't too worried about him, figuring maybe he'd found a nice dark hidden spot where he was resting. He'd most likely be out when I got home. But he wasn't. I brought in the groceries and put them away. Then I started looking for him. I searched all over the backyard, on the bank, down by the pool, next to the garage, in the catnip. No Kirby. I looked in the house, in all of the condos, in the garage rafters, on boxes, on chairs, behind couches, no Kirby. Finally, I retraced my steps of the morning. Where had I last seen him? In the bedroom. I went back into the bedroom and on a hunch, I looked into the storage space in the bed pedestal, where Brian keeps his Levis. Sure enough, Kirby was there. I petted him, made sure he was okay, then shut the door, leaving him there. About an hour later he came out and joined the rest of the family. Whatever was wrong with him has gone away. He's eating again and not spending time in hiding. Possibly it was a leftover from the fight last week.

Mystie seems to be puking a lot. And it's undigested. I'm thinking she's bolting her food. Other than the throwing up, she's just as active and affectionate as ever. *sigh* And Sammy's had the runs. I'm thinking his systems is as sensitive as Ciara's. She can't eat anything different without it affecting her. Poor little guys.

Well, the Blues are gone. I haven't seen Blue (Mystie and Katie's mom) or BlueToo since last week. That's it for the females. Angus, OC, Meezer, SpotT and Diamond are still out there, but they're not coming together and they eat facing the gate (back to the front door) and they're being very cautious. I'd sure like to know what's going on, what's happening. I'm very, very, very happy that we were able to catch six of the kittens this year. I told Autumn this morning that I wished I'd been able to get her brothers and sisters. I know there were four other kittens. I shudder to know that if we'd not caught these guys this year, they'd most likely not have survived whatever is happening out there. At one point we were putting out ten bowls of food a night. Last night, Brian put out six and there was food left over. This just breaks my heart. I wish there was something I could do. I did see a new male out there Sunday night, a good looking long haired grey tabby. Didn't run when I opened the door, so I hope he has a home and I hope they get him in at night.

I've been trying to get Junior to spend more time inside. He's just too nervous. He'll sit for a while, then he wants to go back out. He just can't relax while he's inside. But with the weather getting colder, I don't want him just laying on the patio. The other night, during the rain, he did go into the doghouse. When I went to CostCo Monday, I got him a new bed pad. It's on the patio and he really likes it. I think I'll hit CostCo again tomorrow after I leave the chiropractor and get a couple more and put them in his doghouse. I tried putting him in the shop and he just hates being in there. He cried to get out, so Brian let him out. I think he really misses Buddy. It would be great if I could get him in. Maybe at first just in the kitchen and laundry room and if he does well in there, let him have the roam of the house. I really wish he was comfortable inside. Brian isn't really gung ho on the idea, but he didn't seem to mind when Junior was in. Junior was laying on the recliner with him. *grin*

I went to the dentist yesterday. He filled one cavity and did a crown on the other side of my mouth. He bought a machine and makes his own crowns now. Really fun. I got to lay in the chair while the crown was being made. It was interesting at first, but then I got bored. I thought about taking a nap, but I snore. *lol* Anyway, my mouth is kind of sore today. Figure he worked on both sides of my mouth. And there's a hole in my right cheek. Ish.

Well, the pot of coffee is fresh, I have bills to pay and then I'd like to start working on the new postcard page. I haven't done anything over there since it was set up. I have much to learn and there's no time like the present. Woohoo. I sure wish I had a natural aptitude for this stuff.

| previous entry | most current entry | next entry | all archives |


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.








San Diego Bloggers




Google
 
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.