| Readjustment of reactions |
[May. 15th, 2007|04:01 pm] |
One of the hardest parts about Boopsie's death is that so many of my reactions and habits are based around that cat.
"Oh, I shouldn't put this here or Boopsie will . . .no, she won't."
"If I do this, the cat could . . . no, she couldn't."
I'm cleaning up the floor where she messed when she lost bowel control, and using bleach. And I keep thinking how I really better keep that door closed so the cat doesn't have to deal with the bleach. . . |
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| It's done |
[May. 13th, 2007|01:11 pm] |
The Woburn Referral Animal Hospital treats people and animals with care and respect.
It took just a few seconds. They put the barbiturates in, and Boopsie was gone in just a couple seconds. Which means that she was already very weak and ready to go. She was obviously not holding on to life very hard.
We know it was the right decision, and we feel grief. And we know that the grief is appropriate and will pass in time. Right now, it's just a matter of feeling what we feel.
Don't feel bad for us -- we are dealing with it well. Which means that we're crying a lot, which is what "dealing with it well" means.
If you want to feel bad that you either never met Boopsie or that you won't see her again, that's fine, of course. But you don't have to feel bad on our behalf. We are grieving as is appropriate and good. |
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| Boopsie is dying |
[May. 13th, 2007|11:04 am] |
We're going to be taking Boopsie to the animal hospital to be put to sleep. She is just staggering a couple steps, and collapsing, and just trying to make herself comfortable. We're petting her and singing stupid songs to her and crying a lot.
Part of me feels weird feeling this much grief, given how many of you are in the process of losing parents right now. And, for that matter, that she's had 16 wonderful years, and isn't really suffering -- she's just weakening to the point of death.
I love her so much. |
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| *blink* Cats are strange. And maybe smarter than I know. |
[Apr. 4th, 2007|01:50 pm] |
So, Boopsie was standing by her food bowls (plural -- since she's been sick, there are a half-dozen bowls with a half-dozen different kinds of human food in them to try to tempt her to eat), looking up at me expectantly. I kept refilling different food bowls with different things, and she'd wander over to them, take a tentative lick, then look back up at me.
Finally, I walked over to her meds, got her Pepsid tablet (the vet put her on heartburn medication), popped her jaw open and dropped the pill down her throat. And Boopsie walked directly over to her food bowls and started eating.
So, it sure looks like she knows "THIS pill makes my stomach hurt less so I can eat." Weird, hunh? |
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| A bit more about the Boopsie |
[Mar. 30th, 2007|09:16 pm] |
So, we took her to a vet for an ultrasound to get some idea of what is happening, and how she is doing. Most of her internal organs look pretty good, but she's not eating. The vet suggests GI tract disease of some sort -- an inflammation in her intestines that is making her not want to eat.
She's got a very high heart rate (260 bpm, about, and about 160 is normal for a cat -- some of that was "being poked and prodded by vets", but not all of it), and high blood pressure. Those are related to her overactive thyroid, of course, and need to be brought under control. And she's not eating.
So . . . if we can control whatever's going on in her GI tract well enough to get her to eat, and if we can bring the metabolism under control, and the hypertension under control, then she may have a few more years in her.
Or not. We don't know, and maybe CAN'T know.
And the thing is -- this gets expensive.
So we now we have the awful task of trying to balance "quality of life", "quantity of life", and " time and money". What CAN we give her, what would she WANT us to give her, what are we going to do?
In some ways, if she curled up next to us tonight, and went to sleep purring and happy and warm and loved, and didn't wake up, there would be ways in which that would be good. At some point, and I hope it IS years away, we're going to have to make the choice of putting her to sleep -- I know a few cats who died of misfortune, but I know more who died because they became sick enough to be in enough pain that their people chose euthanasia for them. And part of me doesn't ever want to be in that position, and wants Boopsie to die a comfortable, peaceful, natural death, loved and at home.
But I don't think that's realistic. I think what we're actually looking at is choosing between expensive and labor-intensive care for the next several years, and eventually euthanasia (which is what many, many of my friends have done, and so I'd feel AWFULLY guilty if we didn't choose that), or palliative care for a shorter period of time, and then euthanasia.
What I WANT to happen is for Boopsie to wake up tomorrow miraculously cured. But I'm not really expecting that one. |
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| Not a full Boopsie update, but just some thoughts |
[Mar. 29th, 2007|11:02 pm] |
While Boopsie was staying with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) felis_sidus while we were in Florida, Boopsie started on a quarter-tablet of Pepsid to help with stomach acid, which may be one of the reasons she's not been eating.
Boopsie doesn't like getting pills -- she'll struggle and resist a bit. However, she ALSO will remind me if it's time for her pill. See, as much as she doesn't really LIKE the pills, she is, in some way, aware that it's good for her. Basically, she trusts me, Lis, and felis_sidus -- and she figures, if one of us does something like that, there's a good reason for it.
So, tonight was the first time I gave her the Pepsid. And she took it, and then walked over to her food bowl to nibble a little at it.
It really looked like a thought process -- "I've now had the thing which makes my stomach hurt less, so I will now eat." That she associated the pill with feeling better and with being able to eat.
Well, first, of course, I hope that it's working and DOES work like that. But there are a couple interesting, more general ideas this raises.
Boopsie identifies "Thing Trusted Person Has Done" and "Me Feeling Better". And she identifies "Pill That Makes My Stomach Feel Better" with "Stomach Feels Better."
Is it possible for a cat to have placebo effect benefits? Do cats have that level of cognition?
And, if they do, should animal drug tests be double-blind? Are they already? |
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| And now, Boopsie is doing better. |
[Mar. 23rd, 2007|06:23 pm] |
She's eating her third can of cat food today. (She gets to eat as much as she wants until her weight is back up.) Not gulping it or anything -- eating at a reasonable pace, snacking all day. It's just that, when it gets about done, I refill it. I can still feel her ribs, of course, but I can feel some fat over them. (Being a Very Small Carnivore, her fat levels change rapidly. I mean, I could gain or lose a pound in a day and it could be within the margin of error of measurement depending on my scale -- if she gains or loses a pound, it's obvious visually.)
Lis said, "Well, it's Lent. Clearly, she's been fasting."
See, Lis is pretty sure that Boopsie is Catholic. And specifically, from one of those weird Medieval sects that were into mortification of the flesh. When she was much younger, she used to lick patches on her paws raw until they bled, giving herself stigmata. (Then I moved in, and there were TWO humans to give her attention, and that went away -- it was a stress reaction, and she hasn't done it in ten years or so.)
"Hmm. It's Friday, isn't it? And the cat food I just gave her is fish."
In all honesty, I think Boopsie does this sort of thing on purpose in order to drive us nuts. |
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| How our cat is doing |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|12:54 am] |
Boopsie, our kitty, is old. She's sixteen, maybe seventeen. That's a pretty respectable age for a cat, and it's starting to show.
She's having somewhat dodgy kidney function, and her thyroid isn't great. These are fairly typical for a cat her age -- and they're among the things which kill old cats. I mean, if a cat dies of old age, kidney, thyroid, and cancer are all pretty good guesses of what caused the "dying of old age".
That said, she's in pretty good shape in most ways. She is alert and interested in the world -- this may be a side effect of the hyperthyroidism; she's definitely entering her second kittenhood. For the past seven years, Boopsie was either uninterested in or scared of the downstairs (we're a second-floor apartment that shares a first-floor foyer with the downstairs apartment -- it's not hard to describe how it's set up, but it would take time. We're an old Victorian which has been split into apartments). And now she's downstairs every time the door opens. So it's definitely a behavior change, although not really a personality change. She's still the same Boopsie, but she's more energetic and adventurous than she has been in years.
She's also pissing inappropriately pretty much all the time. I don't really know what to do about that -- we just make sure that anything we don't want pissed on is off the floor, and we put a tarp over the bed.
But the worrisome thing is how much weight she's lost. And why.
She's not been eating. And for anyone who knows her, this is truly disturbing. She's normally a glutton; she once weighed sixteen pounds. Now she weighs seven.
Ten pounds would be a healthy weight for her.
So I've been trying to get and keep her weight up. Part of it is trying to figure out WHY she's not eating. And the main thing I've been doing is trying to figure out how to get food into her.
She's pretty much entirely on people food now, because she's more likely to eat it. And I finally found something that she'll eat pretty much reliably.
My chicken soup. Yeah, she's definitely related to Lis.
I defrosted some of the chicken soup from the last batch I made, to try this out. I'd been suspecting dental problems, and wondering if she just didn't want to chew. And she has been drinking a lot of water, so I knew that she COULD drink.
So why not chicken soup? It's a clear broth version, and it's got protein and calories and stuff, and it's liquid. I know that alliums aren't great for cats, but my recipe pretty light on onion, like, one onion boiled in five gallons of soup (twenty liters).
And she'll eat it. So, between that and Oscar Myer "Oven Roasted" Low-Sodium Sliced Deli-Cuts Turkey Breast, I'm getting and keeping her weight up. But it's a challenge.
Boopsie is coming to the end of her life. I'm hoping that she'll be around for another three years, but I don't really think she will. I love that cat, and will do what I can to keep her healthy, and comfortable, and happy as long as I can.
And seventeen years -- seventeen happy years -- is a good life for a cat.
'Course, twenty would be better. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 27th, 2007|11:19 pm] |
IAN: Our cat needs a bath.
LIS: I've been saying that for a while.
IAN: But how do you bathe a cat? I mean, I've seen the YouTube video, but I don't want to do that.
LIS: How? You call a groomer.
IAN: agrumer? Avram Grumer?
LIS (patiently): Yes, dear. Avram Grumer is going to wash our cat.
IAN: Does he know this?
LIS: Naw, we'll just drop the cat off at his house. He's in New Jersey, right? |
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| Well, that explains the inappropriate urination recently. |
[Feb. 5th, 2007|08:47 pm] |
Boopsie pissed on the bed. A very small volume, and bloody. That means it's feline crystalitis -- crystals in the urine It's sort of a pre-kidney-stone kind of thing that affects cats, and is quite painful. And it must have been affecting her for a while, which is why she was pissing other places than her litterbox.
Call the vet first thing in the morning; locking her in the bathroom for tonight. That's where her litter box is, and water, as well as many cool porcelain surfaces, which she's going to want to lie on to deal with the ouch. And that will keep her from pissing on anything that will be damaged by it.
The poor thing. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 1st, 2006|10:15 pm] |
You ever think how weird it is that cats LOVE tuna?
I mean, in the wild, it's probably the animal they have the LEAST chance of ever eating. It's a deep-sea ocean fish that is a hundred times bigger than a cat. There is NO chance that a cat EVER managed to take down a tuna. EVER. |
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| My cat's itchy ears |
[Oct. 20th, 2006|03:41 pm] |
Last night, Boopsie started scratching her ears pretty vigorously. So I got a tissue and started wiping her ears for her. This worked pretty well -- I got a bunch of gunk out, and when I hit the right spot, she flopped over and her back leg started kicking. As if she was scratching, but about an inch away from her body. It was disturbingly cute.
But after I was done, she acted like her ear was still itchy, so I got out the bottle of cat earwash, which she HATES, did what I could to warm it up, then pinned her down and squirted it in her ear. She yowled and complained, and, at the end of it, she stood up, glared at me, went to scratch her ear again, realized it didn't itch, and glared at me more. It was pretty clear that she was NOT pleased that I had been right. |
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| So, how was YOUR Friday the 13th? |
[Oct. 13th, 2006|08:09 pm] |
Mine was mostly okay, but it started off poorly.
My wife put two bags of cat pee into my armoire.
See, it was 12:10 AM, just as Friday the 13 started, and Lis was going to bed. There were two plastic bags on the floor, in the doorway in front of my armoire that she thought should go in my armoire. So she put them there.
A bit later, I asked Lis why there was a huge puddle on the floor in the doorway in front of my armoire. Lis said, "Wait. What KIND of puddle?" We determined it was a puddle of cat pee.
Lis explained that she had taken two bags from the floor there, and put them in my armoire, and I pulled them out, and determined that, yes, the cat had pulled the bags over to where they were and peed on them. And then Lis took those bags and put them in the armoire, leaving a significant portion of the pee on the floor.
On the other hand, when she wrote me a shopping list for Costco, it included, "Soy milk, a bear full of cookies, apples, ingredients for chokklit pah."
I'm apparently going to be making my famous chokklit pah for a potluck for her co-workers. I used to call it "Auntie Debbie's Chocolate Dream Pie," but I guess it's now going to be called "Chokklit Pah."
Also, we picked up the final Lemony Snicket book today; I've read about half of it, but Lis wants to finish reading it before midnight. So I handed it off to her. About half an hour ago. She's not started reading yet; I may go and reclaim it soon. . . |
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| My family. |
[Aug. 5th, 2006|10:29 am] |
So, felis_sidus taught our cat a good way to take pills. We say to Boopsie, "Pill first, then treat." Then we give her the pill, and then give her a treat. So, while she doesn't LIKE getting a pill, she knows she gets a treat with it, and tolerates it.
This morning, Lis woke up with a headache, so I offered to get her some water and some ibuprofen. Because the cat was snuggled up on her foot, so she couldn't move. 'Cause, KITTY!!! YAY!!!
So I brought her the ibuprofen, and the water, and she took the pills and said, "Where's my treat?"
"What?"
"When you give the cat a pill, she gets a treat. Where's my treat? I think you should get me one of those white chocolate covered cookies."
So I did. |
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| Let's see if I can type this fast enough to get it to count for "Friday Cat Blogging" |
[Mar. 10th, 2006|11:57 pm] |
Was pilling the cat. That means, for the three of you reading this journal who DON'T have cats that need medicine on a regular basis, holding the cat's mouth open, dropping a pill down her throat, clamping her jaws shut, and rubbing her throat to make her swallow.
I'm usually pretty good at this. But, this time, she wriggled out, and shook her head enough to slide the pill all the way across the kitchen floor. And it had gotten damp enough to sog into unusable mush.
"Well, cat, you think you've won, don't you? But I've got an entire bottle of these pills!"
And I did it again. And she did it again. Except this time, the pill flew sideways and smacked into the refrigerator.
And stuck there.
Score so far: Boopsie, 2; Ian, 0.
I'm posting this before trying a third time. |
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| Sites my cat wants me to visit. |
[Jan. 7th, 2006|02:09 pm] |
AaaaaaaaIUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Well, at least, that's what she typed into the URL field.
Then she turned the volume down, and attempted to set a "Favorites" key on my keyboard.
Okay, actually, she just walked across the keyboard, but at least she didn't try to sleep on it this time. |
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| Our cat is eating kugel |
[Dec. 23rd, 2005|10:41 am] |
There's a little of the potato kugel I made a few days ago left. Lis saw the cat sniffing at it, so, she put it in front of her.
Boopsie is now munching down on the kugel enthusiastically. I think she's going to puke in a couple minutes, though. |
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| Moments of contentment |
[Dec. 6th, 2005|10:17 am] |
So, I'm babysitting the tigerwolf cub today, and he's now sleeping comfortably in his crib as I type this.
Last night, jehanna came by to sleep over, as she's got a job interview today. And she was reading, and I was reading, and Lis was logged in, and we were all three of us sitting on the bed, just, y'know, not doing anything in particular except reading, and the cat came up on the bed and curled up among us.
And, well, that's the right thing to do on a cold winter night. Have a whole bunch of friends, of the two and four legged variety, just all sit together, reading, or knitting, or computing, or whatever, in the warmest room of the house. |
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| I do like our vet. . . |
[Dec. 5th, 2005|04:21 pm] |
"So, she's still pissing, so I was wondering if switching to the anti-bladder-stone cat food would be a good idea?"
"Probably not -- the last two times we took urine samples, it was already acidic. There are stones that like it acidic, but switching to alkali food has other effects, so I wouldn't want to do it without more evidence that it actually IS a stone."
"Drat. I was really hoping it was something physical. . . but I guess it's probably behavioral."
"Yep, that's what it looks like."
"Something in her tiny little kitty brain. . . "
"Have you tried talking to her? Maybe talk therapy. . . "
"Yeah, which works better on cats, Freudian or Jungian?" |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 4th, 2005|03:22 pm] |
I took my laptop to Hebrew school with me today. I carried it in my messenger bag, so, when I got home, and Lis was doing stuff on the bed with HER computer, I just took my computer in the bag onto the bed, and set it up, leaving the messenger bag on the bed.
Boopsie just found it, crawled inside, curled up, and is sort of napping, sort of just hanging out with us.
Cats in bags. Is there anything more adorable? |
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| In case anyone was worried about our kitty: |
[Nov. 23rd, 2005|03:40 pm] |
So, nothing detected about why kitty's been pissing on the bed. No bladder stones showed up on X-ray, which either means they're not there, or they're hiding -- either is possible. No sign of infection in the urine, which either means there's not an infection, or it's a false negative -- either is possible.
Boopsie was woozy coming home, because they had to sedate her to get the X-ray.
I'm now giving her antibiotics for ten days just in case it's an infection. Given that I already give her three pills a day, it's not really any extra work.
She's started sleeping in the box that we keep the spare kitchen towels and cloth napkins, in the kitchen, next to the fridge. Maybe it's time we got her an ACTUAL pet bed, but I suspect she wouldn't like it as much as a pile of stuff that we use for food. . .
Lis and I went to the doctor this morning. When I got home (Lis dropped me off at the door and went to work for a half day), I couldn't find the cat. This slightly worried me: she doesn't go outside, but she HAS wandered into the first floor or the basement once or twice, and gotten lost. But she also can do the "kitty invisible" thing, so I wasn't TOO worried.
About an hour later, I went into the bathroom. The lid to the toilet was up -- we usually keep the lid closed -- but the seat was down. Our poor kitty had her front paws on the left side of the seat, and her hind paws on the right side, and was totally baffled as to how to get down, 'cause there was a big hole with water in it underneath her. . .
I have no idea she had been there. At least an hour. Poor thing.
I did not actually laugh at her -- I just picked her up and rescued her. I waited until I was in another room to laugh.
ETA: Lis also reminded me to say that there was no sugar in the urine, and her kidney function was within normal range for a cat her age -- not perfect, but not a problem. At some point, we'll have to switch her to special food or something like that, but there's no reason to do so yet. |
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| So far today: |
[Nov. 21st, 2005|10:16 am] |
Dropped Boopsie off at the vet so they can take X-rays of her bladder and look for bladder stones -- also gave them a list of other things that we've noticed for them to look at while they've got her.
Drove Lis to work. On the way, passed a sign in someone's yard saying "MOVING -- TAKE WHAT YOU WANT."
Stopped back at the yard giveaway after dropping Lis off. They're just moving down the street, but are using it as a chance to clean out some of their unused junk. I got a small bag of trinkets that will be good Student Bribes for Good Behavior -- we've been choosing one student each week who behaves the best, and giving them a reward. Things like a superball, a small packet of crayons, stuff like that. Some things are pretty cool: when my cousin kyshwn was moving, I took a couple pewter miniatures that he was throwing out. Now I've got a Chinese fan, a couple of those spinny-drum things like they had in that scene at the end of Karate Kid II, stuff like that. I thanked the guy who was moving, and told him that, as I teach Sunday school, I'm always on the lookout for these sorts of trinkets for my kids. He asked me what religion, and I said Jewish. (I must look obviously Jewish -- I mean, I usually assume that as I say I teach Sunday school, people will assume that I mean Christian, and not think to ask. I don't really mind one way or the other, but I find it amusing that people tend to not assume stuff like that. Amusing and heartening.) He said that he had some Old Testament trivial pursuit around somewhere, but couldn't find it. He teased me asking if I was sure I didn't want a creche that they had, which was, indeed, adorable. It was fun.
After that, I went to the house that had the "FREE RANGE EGGS $2/DOZ" sign outside. I drive past that house every day I take Lis to work, but had never stopped in. A friendly old woman came out to show me around, apologizing for still being in her housecoat. She's got a little studio where she does oil paintings -- seascapes and pet portraits mainly -- and a few self-published booklets on local history and the like. She showed me their poultry -- they've got a bunch of chickens, about four geese (as watchdogs, and because they're bigger than the chickens and can break the water on the water trough when it freezes over in the winter, so the chickens can also get water), a couple of ducks, just to have ducks, and a peacock. I asked, they're not selling the geese for eating -- they're just there to protect against predators and as pets. The geese did lay some eggs which hatched, but the goslings were deformed and didn't survive.
Pity: if they actually were selling poultry for eating, I'd learn shocheting, and do kosher slaughter of free-range, organically-raised, locally-raised birds.
Really nice woman, and I bought a dozen eggs, of which I've now eaten two, and they were wonderful. |
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| Vet called today, about Boopsie's test results |
[Nov. 14th, 2005|11:27 pm] |
Blood work is all fine, including thyroid. So long as they were taking blood, they tested that, too, and that's fine.
Urine -- no crystals, no infection. But blood.
What is it? Dunno. Could be a bladder stone, maybe. So, on Monday, we're going to take her in for an x-ray.
I asked if it could be just a needlestick -- the way they get urine samples is straight through the stomach to the bladder, and I asked if she squirmed, it could have been from that. The vet confirmed that that sort of thing CAN happen, but didn't this time, because it was a "free capture" -- Boopsie pissed on the table and they got the sample that way. . . |
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| Boopsie is very happy to have her Lis back, too |
[Nov. 9th, 2005|06:52 am] |
It's funny. Boopsie tends to try to pretend that she doesn't really care when Lis is gone. But she slept on the bed with us all night, and, in the morning, after she wandered off to her food bowl, when Lis woke up and we started talking more, she showed up again, curled up on the bed, and pretended to go to sleep, except one eye was open and watching Lis. |
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| I DO love our cat, even if she makes it difficult sometimes. |
[Oct. 24th, 2005|12:21 pm] |
Last night, our cat pissed all over Lis's bag she takes to work, and her purse. The bag's in the washing machine right now, and it is to be hoped it is salvageable, because, with the laptop insert and padded shoulder strap and all, I think it's over $100. It's a really good bag: Lis and I got our bags back when CourierWare was a storefront shop outside of Harvard Square. They're now out of Vermont, and mainly mail-order. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 11th, 2005|09:55 pm] |
More than one person on my friends list has recently had a cat die, or has been dealing with cats that are getting old.
Our kitty is fourteen, and is starting to have arthritis, but it doesn't seem too bad, and I certainly hope that we have the Boopsie pestering us and waking us up at all hours for another six years at least.
One of my friends -- actually, one of the people who helped raise me -- just had a cat die today. Which means that, as of now, I think she's cat-less for maybe about the first time in my life. I used to go to her house to play with her cats growing up, and she ALWAYS had cats -- usually, many of them. Growing up, she had like seven. All well-cared for and well-loved, living to eighteen or twenty years. She was down to two a few months back, then one, and now, none.
I'm going to miss that cat, a big orange tabby. He's been very sick for a very long time, but not in much pain from it, still enjoying life. I guess that changed very rapidly, very recently.
Mostly, I'm worried for my friend -- who can read this, but likes to keep a low profile, so I'm not naming her. I mean, I know she'll be fine: it's not like she hasn't been preparing for this for quite some time. And it's not like she hasn't lost many other cats over the years.
But, still: just so you know, friend, and I'm saying this where everyone can see -- if you find yourself needing kitty-snuggles, we've got a Boopsie who loves you and would love it if you came to visit her. And us. |
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| . . . yes, cats can understand English. . . |
[Sep. 14th, 2005|10:01 pm] |
So, Boopsie expressed her displeasure with the fact that I've not been scooping the litterbox as regularly as I should by pissing on a garbage bag that I was collecting trash in.
I've got to say, when she pisses on absorbent things, like laundry, it's actually easier to clean up. . .
Anyway, I cleaned that up, changed the litterbox, and bagged up the trash and all.
A while later, I saw Boop kind of sniffing at one of the trash bags. From the other end of the hall, I called out, "I just changed the bathroom litterbox, cat."
Boop turned around and walked into the bathroom. Didn't look at me or anything. Wasn't reading body language. |
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| Oh, no. |
[Aug. 2nd, 2005|07:40 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | cat | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sad | ] |
wargoddess just posted that Dave's cat, Persephone, just died.
I'm going to miss her so much. She was the damaged little sweet cat that we've talked about so much before, who we took care of when Dave was in the hospital. She was the one who had the corkscrew tail and the weird hips, and the ear mite damage so bad that it messed up her balance.
She's the one that was once outsmarted by a dead beetle. Lis posted about that one. She was three weeks shy of seven years old, so I don't know how she died. Except I know she was having terrible problems with fleas which she was horribly allergic to -- I don't know if that had something to do with it.
Look, any Khemetics out there who want to make a prayer or two to Bast for her, I won't say no.
The poor, poor sweet thing. |
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| Our cat pesters us to give her her medicine. |
[Jul. 21st, 2005|09:22 pm] |
When Felis Sidus was taking care of Boopsie, she started giving her treats with her pill. So we pop her mouth open, drop the pill down her throat, and then give her cat treats to 1) have a positive association with the medicine, and 2) to make sure she swallows the pill.
The cat really likes the cat treats. She will now pester me to make sure to remember to give her her medicine so that she can get the treats. She doesn't mind us popping her mouth open and dropping a pill down her throat now, since she knows she gets kitty treats right afterward. |
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| A conversation |
[Jun. 26th, 2005|01:46 pm] |
LIS: Look at our kitty! Isn't she adorable? Why don't you go water the cat?
IAN: Um. . . why?
LIS: Well, you've been watering the plants, and they've been growing bigger. So if you water the cat, maybe Boopsie will grow, too!
IAN: She's a carnivore! Do you really want a liger-sized kitty? Where are we going to get a hundred pounds of meat a day to feed her?
LIS: Oh, that's easy. "Hello, New England Sash Company? Yes, we'd LOVE for you to send a sales representative out to our house to talk about replacement windows!"
IAN: No. We are not the Adams Family, no matter how much we admire them. |
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| So, why do cats puke? |
[Jun. 21st, 2005|06:13 pm] |
I bought a spider plant for the house. And I left it on the floor while I was re-potting other stuff, and Boopsie wandered over and started munching happily on it. As spider plants are non-toxic, and apparently delicious, to cats, I didn't worry too much about it.
And then, a couple minutes later, Boopsie walked over to the corner of the room, did that "spinning around and hurking" thing that cats do, and puked up a big spider plant leaf.
Do cats deliberately eat plants as emetics? Or are they just dumb? |
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| our kitty is home! |
[Jun. 18th, 2005|02:41 pm] |
Since at least our apartment is now together enough that we can have Boopsie move back in, we moved Boopsie back in. She is now regally sleeping on our bed. We will now go off to Roozle and Sunspiral's beginning of summer party, bringing with us the person who took care of Boopsie for us.
Also, on Tuesday, supposedly, a solar sail spacecraft will be launched. |
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| A few updates on how my life is doing |
[Apr. 16th, 2005|10:28 pm] |
I'm posting this from my parents' house. We're sleeping here again tonight, which will make getting to Hebrew school tomorrow morning that much more interesting, but, oh well. We're planning on moving into one of those "extended stay" hotels tomorrow if we can get it set up. There is one that's fairly near Lis's work, and right near the Y I go to, that takes cats. We also ought to get the cat to a groomer's -- I think getting the soot off of the cat before the cat licks it off is probably wise.
elynne mentioned that, had a fire investigator been downstairs from her, she'd probably have been following him around asking all sorts of questions and generally getting in the way. Well, she and I apparently have that much in common, then. I did do my best to stay out of the way, but I also asked lots of questions, and learned all I could about fire investigation, because it really was just that cool. I won't post TOO many details, 'cause, well, if he makes a determination that one of the appliances caused the fire, or the guy from Keyspan caused the fire, or something like that, MetLife will want to sue the person or company responsible to get THEIR money back. But I got to see how you can see the point of origin of a fire, because the burn mark just make a giant arrow pointing right at it, and he was mentioning that he was dealing with a case right now where DNA evidence was being used, which he though was just so amazingly freakin' cool (he found a lighter at a fire scene, and bagged it for evidence. It's probably, y'know, just a lighter that someone lost, and it probably means nothing, but you don't just IGNORE a lighter at a fire. He sent it out to the lab to see if they could get fingerprints off of it, and then forgot about it. Because this was in Maine, and the entire state of Maine has something like two forensic technicians, so it takes a while. Anyway, a couple days ago, he got a phone call saying that they finally got around to the lighter, and they couldn't get any fingerprints off of it. Which is really what he expected. However, they WERE sequencing the DNA that they got off of the skin cells on the sparker. . . he felt that was just so cool. . . they were doing DNA evidence on a lighter HE sent in!)
I do want to point out that Dave has a Chucky doll -- you know, that doll that in that horror film comes to life and kills people. And I'm pretty sure that BEFORE the fire, the doll was on one chair, and AFTER the fire, the doll was on a different chair. And when we came home today, the doll was upstairs in OUR apartment. I don't think that the investigator has really given sufficient consideration to my Evil Arsonist Doll theory.
Okay, I should sleep. Since I'm not making any real progress on doing class prep. As usual. |
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| Well, we had a bit of excitement last night. . . |
[Apr. 15th, 2005|12:29 pm] |
Last night was perhaps a little bit more exciting than I tend to prefer.
Lis dropped me off at homeat about seven thirty or so, and went to the library. I smelled gas. merkcomet, who had come home maybe ten minutes before, came up the stairs and asked me if I smelled something funny, and I agreed that I smelled gas. We checked out the basement, and found that all the pilot lights on everything were just fine.
Lis came home maybe around eight or so, and asked if we smelled gas. We acknowleged that we did, and Lis, being smarter than we are, asked if we'd called the gas company. So we called the gas company, and about half an hour later, a guy showed up to see if there was a gas leak. He had his little gas leak detector with him, and checked stuff out, but didn't find anything. He checked out the stove in Dave's kitchen, turned the stove on and off again, and the pilot lights all worked there. And we went back to the basement. Dave at this point had long before gone upstairs to the third floor to hang out with marquisedea and her mother.
I went back upstairs to the first floor from the basement, and wondered why Dave had started a fire in the fireplace, because I could smell and hear it, and see the flickering lights of fire through the door. Then I realized that 1) Dave wasn't in the apartment, 2) Dave wouldn't start a fire in the fireplace when there was a gas leak, and 3) we don't HAVE a working fireplace. I opened the door, and the kitchen was on fire.
( Read more... ) |
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| Took the cat to the vet today |
[Feb. 1st, 2005|10:56 pm] |
She's got shots due, and it's about time to do some dental work for her. So we took her in for prelminary bloodwork, y'know, because the sedate her for the dental stuff, and we'd be really upset if she didn't come out of the sedation and all.
She's down to eight and a half pounds. Which is a GREAT weight for her, really, but she got to it a bit fast. . . The vet thinks she could detect a somewhat enlarged thyroid, and a fast heart rate. So, since they're doing the bloodwork, anyway, we'll be seeing if our kitty has become hyperthyroid.
The other thing is that the vet thinks she may have detected a slight heart murmur, too. So we may be doing an ultrasound to check that out.
Boop is fourteen years old, which means that this sort of thing isn't really too unexpected. Still, we're really hoping she'll have six more years of heath. |
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