Tuesday, September 04, 2001 Holy smokes, you see how long it's been since I've made an entry? What a dull, dull life I've been living!! *grin*

Okay, what's new? I put up another webcam. This one is in the office and it will be moved around, depending on where there is a cat. I call it the office cam. It took a while to get stuff the way I wanted, but it's working nicely now.

The day of my last entry, Brian finally go the stereo working in the shop, so now I can listen to music when I lay by the pool. The stereo (my mom gave it to me) has a dual tape player, three CD changer, am/fm and a place for an auxilary hookup. It's nice.

I've also been working on getting the catnip harvested. There's a lot there and I'm putting it into boxes. It's taking a lot of time, because I'm trying to just get the flowers right now, not a lot of stems and leaves. There is still tons of it to harvest.

DeeJay is going in tomorrow for his teeth cleaning. He's lost another ounce since I last weighed him.

Lola is putting on weight. And I saw her poop last night, a good sized one. That's good, it means she's getting food in her.

My mom's test went very quickly. We were in and out in a matter of minutes. We spent more time at breakfast. That sonogram was pretty interesting. It looks like the problem (if there is one, I'm not an expert at sonograms) could be on the right side of her neck. The sonogram was for her arteries and the left artery looked good and compared to that, the right one looked and sounded pretty weak. Hopefully, she'll find out the results this week. We (I) did talk with her about it and if she's told she needs surgery, that I'd rather she gave the chiro a chance to fix it (I'm thinking it has something to do with the whiplash from when I was sixteen) before going under the knife. Surgery and anesthesia and all the possible complications are scary at any age. And there are many people who feel that Kaiser would rather surgically fix something than to offer preventative services.

Brian sold his truck. He didn't get one call from the ad in the Trader, but the first person who looked at it (somebody he works with) bought it. That's good. He's sad to see it go, though.

I'm pretty sure Kirby was working on a bladder infection. I'd been noticing places throughout the house where there were small puddles of urine, with blood in them. I watched the cats I thought it might be, like Ciara and Mystie, but their pee didn't have blood in it. Kirby had also been licking himself more than was normal, so I started him on amoxicillan last Saturday. Geez, he'd been so much better at taking pills, it was really hard to get the first one in him. He was foaming all over the place, although I'm pretty sure we got it down quickly. This morning, he wasn't as bad. But I haven't seen a bloody pee anywhere since Sunday, so I hope I got the right cat and I hope it's been nipped in the bud. He does seem more active today, that's good. He seemed pretty slow on Saturday and Sunday. But an increase of bladder infections is one of the things the vet told me would happen after the surgery, since the opening was bigger to let more bacteria into the bladder itself.

Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Let's see if I can finish this now.

DeeJay is at the vet's for his teeth cleaning. I'm pretty nervous about it because last year, it was during a routine teeth cleaning that the doctor found the cancer in Pepper.

Hey, we have three lactating mothers outside. Beegee hangs around like Little Guy did. She's here in the late afternoon and in the morning. I've started giving her kitten food like I did Little Guy. Little White Guy only comes at night to eat. And Blue shows up at night, too. I've only seen kittens twice, and heard them in the car once. I'm amazed there aren't more around and more often. Maybe the moms are afraid that our home is like a roach hotel for kittens. Kittens check in, but they don't check out.

I have a bunch of stuff to do on my website. I have eight new declaw stories to post, as well as the "Kids and Cats" section. I started on the k&c this past weekend, but one of my software programs kept showing up as a trial version. It came bundled with another application and I had recently upgraded the other application and I guess that messed with the registration information. Well, it was a freebie to start with, so I just paid for the one that was showing as a trial version. I'll see how much I can get done today. I'd like to be caught up by the end of the week.

My blood pressure was up a little last week. I haven't been very good at taking my pills in the morning and I'm not drinking enough water. Bad me. And Brian bought two half gallons of ice cream Monday. I told him I'm not gonna eat any unless it's added to a blended alcoholic beverage. Needless to say, I haven't been doing well on my weight loss program.

The kittens are getting so big. I can't believe that next month they'll be ready to be fixed. I haven't found any teeth yet, but I keep looking for those little baby teeth. I felt in Opie's mouth yesterday and he's missing some molars. The kittens really enjoy being outside. They've even started napping out there during the day. I have to get them used to the cat door, soon, so when the weather cools off, they'll be familiar with the kitty door.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'd like to get some of the other pages done and still get some sun time before I pick DeeJay up after three this afternoon. Besides the laundry I have to take care of.

Thursday, September 13, 2001 DeeJay isn't doing well. I mentioned last month that he's not been eating much and I thought it was because of his teeth. Well, since having his teeth cleaned last week, he's almost quit eating altogether. He's not drinking either. I took him to the vet this morning and the vet took x-rays. There's something wrong in his intestines. They were full of gas. The vet asked if there was a possibility that DeeJay ate something he shouldn't have. Like a string. I got the feeling that the vet is thinking that there's an obstruction. He gave DeeJay a lot of fluids and sent us home. I'm to bring DeeJay back in tomorrow morning for a recheck and new x-rays. He said that it's not an organ problem, like kidneys or liver, because the blood values he took last week were good (I had the pre-surgical blood panel done). He said it could be something DeeJay ate, adhesions from his previous surgery, or something similar to what Lola had. If DeeJay isn't doing better, he wants to do an exploratory surgery. Since DeeJay is so depressed right now, I'd be surprised if the surgery wasn't tomorrow, too.

Other than that, the cats are doing fine. Lola is eating up a storm, which really surprises me. So is Boney. Locking them in the bathroom with food, so they can eat uninterrupted is doing the trick. I was doing that with DeeJay, too, but I guess he wasn't eating as much as I thought he was.

We got our refund check for the taxes on Tuesday. It was $420.00 short. Even if they hadn't gotten my social security information changed, it should have been at least $300.00, not the $120.00 that was sent. Because of the devastation on Tuesday in New York City and the Pentagon, government offices were obviously closed. I called Wednesday morning, a little after six and after an hour on the phone, got it straightened out. The woman who took care of changing my information at the local SSA office, gave me the wrong information. She said I wouldn't have to call anyone, that the computers update every ten days. Not so. You *do* have to call if the IRS is involved. We should have the additional money here in three weeks, in time for our trip to Disneyland.

I've been spending the past days glued to the television. I didn't even take a shower (poor Brian, but I brushed my teeth every day, sometimes twice) until this morning. It's a sad, sad time in our lives. I can't imagine anyone who wasn't been touched by what happened. What scares me is that many United States citizens of Middle Eastern heritage will be taking an awful lot of abuse, even though they have nothing to do with what happened. It's so unfair and so stupid to do things like that. I'm white and blonde and blue eyed. I had nothing to do with what Timothy McVeigh did, but we may have the same ethnic background. At least, we look like we do. People didn't spit on me because of my looks. These people who are taking out their anger on U.S. citizens are idiots. I'd like to slap them silly, after giving them a piece of my mind. Morons.

Anyway, DeeJay is up and walking around. I'm going to watch to see what he does.

Friday, September 14, 2001 Well, last night, DeeJay drank a fair amount of water. This morning, he ate. Not much, but he ate. I hoped this was a good sign. When I took him in, we had a bit of a wait, the x-ray machine had to warm up or something, but we got the pictures taken and his intestines looked much better! The doc said there was no way he could justify going in when the problem seemed to be going away, and quickly. DeeJay's weight was up ten ounces from yesterday, approximately the same amount as the fluid was given yesterday. The doctor said that DeeJay may have inflammatory bowel disease, but we'll hold off on any treatment right now. I asked, too, if he'd spay/neuter at four months and he said that it wouldn't be a problem. I asked if he'd do five kittens in one day and he said sure. So, that's next on the agenda. Getting the kittens in.

Saw five kittens out front last night. I think that Blue took over raising them, when BeeGee quit coming around. It's been over two weeks since I've seen BeeGee. There were four small kittens, then one larger kitten. I think the larger one is Blue's and the little ones are the motherless kindle. I've seen programs where in large communities, the females help out with mothering one another's kittens. I saw that last night with my own eyes. I'm glad she's taking care of them.

Well, not much for me to do today, it's going to be hot and my vacuum cleaner is in the shop. So, I'll probably lay by the pool. Work on my end of the summer tan, the same thing I try to do every year.

Friday, September 21, 2001 I just turned off the television. I don't get anything done with it on. Zero, zilch, nada. I keep waiting for them to say that something else has happened. I can't put my life, such as it is, on hold. Somebody's gotta clean the litterboxes, ya know? But I did put up a news ticker. You can see it at the top of the page. It has the headlines from various news sources and all you have to do to read the full story is click on the bar.

Well, my vacuum was supposed to be ready yesterday. I call, was told it won't be ready until next Wednesday. Holy cow, I can't wait that long. When it crapped out, I tried using the shopvac, but that didn't do a very good job on the carpet. Plus, since I use it for cleaning up litter in the garage, it had that litter smell. It doesn't bother me in the garage, but it about made me sick in the house. So, last night, we bought a new vacuum at CostCo. We'll use the other one for backup. It's a nice one. It's self propelled. Some guy walking by said "don't believe it, you still have to push it". hee hee There were four that they had and we got the most expensive. I used to have a Kirby and I hated to clean out the bag. With our Kenmore, I loved the convenience of the throw away bags. Well, Brian checked out the second best model and had a heck of a time getting the dirt catcher out. So, he said that in itself was worth the increased cost of the best model. The older backup machine sure came in handy last year when the carpet cleaner motor burned out. And I have tons of stuff I'd like to get done before we leave for Disneyland in about a month.

Today, I'm going to try to get all of the laundry done, then wash the throw rugs, dust and vacuum. The first load is almost finished.

The cats are all doing well. DeeJay recuperated nicely. He's back to begging for food. The kittens have diarrhea again, but I'm thinking this is because they're teething. Fun. Five kittens with the runs.

Buddy slept late and he's out of the shop now. And he's been barking almost non-stop. *sigh*

Well, we've been good Americans and are doing our part to help the economy. We're out spending money like crazy. *chuckle* I got the new vacuum, Brian got a new compressor for the sticks. Monday, we bought ten shares of Disney. And of course, what happens? It drops another four dollars a share. *sigh* But that's okay, I'm sure it will go up again. Sometime. Before I die. I hope.

Well, we've seen the newest kittens a couple of times now. And because of their size, I'm positive they're BeeGee's. Who hasn't been seen in three weeks now. She's gone. There's no other explanation. I'm not really sure who's taking care of the kittens. They'll be up here with both Blue and Little White Guy. Last night, we only saw one out front. None this morning. The other night, coyotes howling woke us up from a sound sleep. I sure hope the other kittens are okay. I was ready to go get that little one last night and bring it inside. A little white kitten. About as small as Angel was when we got her.

Hey, my mom finally got the results back from the sonogram they did on her throat. She's fine. No problems at all. She did get the mindset that she wasn't going to worry about it, like she has so many other times. And I'm glad, because she would have been worrying for nothing, it turns out.

The weight loss attempt is in the dumper. We didn't only fall off the wagon, we ate it with a nice thick cheese sauce.

Ack, my machine froze.

I tried to find a flag yesterday, but no luck. Even online. Oh, sure, you can get gigantic flags for two hundred dollars. My mom brought me over the flag she was given when my dad died, but there's no way I'd put that up where someone could steal it. And it looks as if that's happening quite a bit around here. I ordered one from one of the Home Depot websites. It should be here within the next thirty days. Cool, huh?

Yesterday, Lola ate a whole can of Fancy Feast at one sitting. With some of the flavors, I have to process it because she doesn't like the pieces. I'll be honest, I forgot I'd put her in the bathroom and she was in there for about forty five minutes, instead of the twenty I usually leave her in there. But she finished the bowl of food. So, I'll be letting her stay in there longer from now on. She needs to eat.

I didn't get to sleep until late last night because I kept checking on the kitten. I think I'll be taking a nap pretty soon. I'd do it by the pool, but somebody pulled my bathing suit down from the towel bar in my bathroom and peed on it.

Here are some of the latest pictures I've taken.

The cat condo we got at CostCo

Sammy and Angel

Daniece and Richie

Angel, Daniece, Sammy (on top), Opie and Ciara

Angel, Sammy and Daniece

Pete

DeeJay, last week, when he was sick

Sammy

The crossword game at Benny's has been updated. You can now "undo" and swap letters. You can also send a message to the other players when your turn is over.

Monday, September 24, 2001 Well, I spent the weekend working on my new postcard page. The script author is "too busy" to help and there are a lot of changes that need to be made. Luckily, I was able to enlist the help of Melanie of somemoorecats.com. She likes hacking scripts, loves the challenge. That's lucky for me. I didn't make any of the changes or additions to the script that I felt comfortable doing, because I didn't want to overwrite her hard work. Finally, at almost ten last night, we were finished. We thought. I found out this morning that in one of the card options, the body background and wallpaper doesn't show when the card is picked up. Bless her heart, she's working so hard at this. And she's really enjoying it, I guess. So, it's back to work. After the script works the way I want it to, there will still be a lot of work for me to do. Change the look of the script, for one, then start uploading graphics. Lots of work. Hopefully, I'll also start making new cards. Lord knows I have plenty of pictures to use.

I'm a little concerned about Boney. He's having a hard time getting around. His left back leg seems to pain him when he walks. He's eating and drinking and peeing okay. Brian said he's been walking stiff for a couple of days. I hadn't noticed. But Brian let me know that Boney jumped from the bed up to the window this morning, so it can't be that bad if he can push off. Maybe he just slipped and bruised his leg or sprained a muscle somehow. I'll keep a close watch on him. He is almost nineteen years old. Not a young cat, by any means.

This morning, I stepped in a pile of cat barf on my way to the kitchen to get the chicken out for the cats. Funny thing was, it didn't smell like cat barf. I went outside and scraped it off of my foot only to realize it wasn't barf at all, but a large pile of poop. I'm thinking it was Rusty's. It was the right size (huge) and color (yellowish because of the kidney food) to be his. *sigh* Another old cat.

Well, we've only seen two of the five kittens out front on a regular basis. And it looks like we're (I'm) going to try to catch them and bring them inside. A little white one and a little red one with white boots. The little white one is getting more used to our voices and doesn't run away unless one of the adult cats out there gets spooked.

I didn't mention the visitor we had a couple of weeks ago. It was night and the cats were still outside. I went to check on them and Mystie and one of the kittens were looking at something in the grass. I went to check it out and it was a small snake, curled up in a snake pile, about a half inch in diameter. It was black with yellow bands as far as I could tell. It unwound and moved off. Of course, I yell for Brian and he comes out, sees it, goes back inside and puts on boots. Now, I'm barefoot. I'm not really concerned about a snake in the grass. It didn't have rattles or anything. Brian yelled at me, but I didn't care. I started gathering up cats and bringing them inside, not that I was worried about the cats getting hurt by the snake, but the snake getting hurt by the cats. Brian said it was probably a king snake. We haven't seen it since. It's been years since we've seen a snake around here.

Saturday, I knew it was going to be warm and I've been doing my best to get that final shot at a tan. Well, the pool water has cooled of considerably and it's actually refreshing to get in it now (it's low 80s, high 70s). I had planned on spending Saturday by the pool. It's hot in the sun and the sun isn't so strong that I get terribly burned. We have been having a problem with the mechanism that keeps the pool level running too much water so that the skimmer doesn't work right (that's where all the crud from the top is supposed end up, but when the pool is too full, it doens't flow into the skimmer). Right now, that mechanism isn't working at all and we have to manually put pull in, so that the filter pump doesn't burn up from not having water in it. So, I'm running water into the pool and notice what at first looks to be a leaf on the bottom of the pool. Now, I don't have the best vision. I need glasses to see far and I need glasses to read. I don't need glasses for watching tv or working on the computer. I can easily pass the eye exam part of a driver's test without glasses, but stuff is just clearer with glasses. I look a little closer at the leaf and it wasn't a leaf at all. Leaves don't have legs. I got the net and scooped it out and it was a fair size gopher. I took it out and droped it in the dumpster, walking through the house with the pole, net and the catch in the net. Brian wasn't home, he'd gone to the Sticks and there's no way I was going to leave it in there all day. Needless to say, I didn't go swimming. Saturday or Sunday. I figure any yuck will have been filtered out by now, so I'll probably be back in the water later today. This afternoon, because I'm taking Lola in for her bloodwork.

Well, I have to go take a shower, then I'm off to the vet's.

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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