Category Archives: Pets

feline shout-out

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This is sort of tough to write because I don’t know where to start or what to say. Last summer, my sister’s cat Neffertiti had a tumor on her hip that turned out to be cancerous. She had her leg amputated, and she seemed to recover fine. The vet told my sister (aka Cosmopolitan, as she is known on some blogs) that if the cancer was going to come back, it would most likely do so within a year. Well, it’s been 8 months. She suddenly stopped eating and had a fever – X-rays showed that the cancer is back, and it’s in her lungs. She has a tumor about twice the size of her heart.

So tomorrow, my sister’s vet is coming to her apartment to put Neffertiti to sleep. They want her to be peaceful, and she’s scared of the vet, so they’re going to do it at home. The hope is that it will also help her other cat, Ramses (Neffertiti’s brother), cope with the loss, if he’s there with her when it happens. She’s only 9 years old, which isn’t terribly old for a cat. It’s just horrible – for her, for my sister, and for Ramses, who has never spent more than a day away from his littermate.

I wish I could say how sweet this cat is. She’s the first cat I ever met who had no concept of personal space, because she wanted to be in your face, being loved and adored, all the time. Nef sleeps on the same pillow with Cosmo every night (much the same way that Teenie does with me). She was the tiniest cat to ever terrorize our cat Fred. [A note about that photo, which I love: Neffie is the one in the red collar on the windowsill, getting as close as she can to Fred, who’s observing her from the safe distance of the cabinet. She was too little to jump up there, or she would’ve been right up in his face.] She was the first cat to fall asleep on my dad’s shoulder, who has always claimed to actively dislike cats. She prompted me to take this photo at the Luxor in Las Vegas. She’s just an all-around great cat, and I’ve had a lump in my throat for her and my sister all day today. So there you have it. Fare thee well, Neffertiti, and may there be lots of kitty treats and shoeboxes to nap in wherever you may go.

all by myself

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Dave’s company has an office in Massachusetts, and he has to go there for a couple of days this week for some work-related thing. This only happens a couple of times a year, it’s not exactly the extensive travel requirements of my current job. So I dropped him off at the airport yesterday, and he’ll be back home on Wednesday. And for some unexplainable reason, I got totally freaked at the idea of staying here by myself. I mean, I’ve lived alone for the better part of the last 6 years, but I’ve always been in an apartment. There is something about living out in the country, and knowing that if I were to scream for help, there’s not even a remote chance that anyone would hear me. Also, the house is really big, so if I were upstairs in the bedroom, someone could break in the house and I wouldn’t necessarily hear them. So even though it’s somewhat irrational, I got kind of spooked. Before Dave left, I made him hang up the curtains in the living room (which we had taken down when we painted). There’s a huge bay window in there, and at nighttime, you can see inside from the street, which didn’t sit too well with me. There’s also a sliding glass door that leads to the backyard, but that doesn’t freak me out as much – I think because there’s two huge floodlights there, so if a crazy man with an axe comes running out of the woods toward the house, I’ll see him and have a chance to get a head start out the front door.

Speaking of the woods behind the house, yesterday when I got back from the airport, this was in the backyard. Shortly thereafter, one of her friends showed up. (It’s a bad photo, so I labeled it.) They’re really cute, but they confuse the hell out of the cats. Particularly Beaumont, who can’t seem to decide if they’re just super-huge mice that he should be hunting, or if he should run back in the house where it’s safe. He did get pretty close before deciding to vacate the premises, though.

Anyway, back to my spooked-out self, Dave pointed out that with 2 cars in the driveway and a light or two turned on, no one would be stupid enough to try to break in. So last night I left several lights on throughout the house, took 2 over-the-counter sleep aids (ahh, Tylenol PM, how do I love thee?), set the sleep timer on the TV to drown out any mysterious noises that I might hear while I was trying to fall asleep, and managed to sleep soundly through the whole night. So I think I’ll be fine if I stick with that routine. One night down, two nights to go.

irresponsible pet owners

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It appears that we have acquired semi-partial ownership of a dog. Dave mentioned to me before that there’s a brown lab that sometimes shows up at the house, and if it’s cold and/or rainy, he lets her in to hang out for a while. Apparently that was the case at about 5 a.m. this morning; I vaguely remember him telling me that the dog was here, but I was half-asleep at the time. When I went downstairs at 8:30 a.m., she was sleeping in the living room. (The cats, meanwhile, were keeping a safe distance upstairs.) She’s very sweet and friendly, but I noticed there was an I.D. tag on her collar. It says her name is Rose, and there was a phone number. So I called the number, got the answering machine, and left a message basically saying that I hope they aren’t worried about Rose, but she’s at our house, left our number, and that we’d like to know where she lives so we can take her home. I didn’t say, “And you should build a freaking fence,” even though that’s what I was thinking. I gave Rose a turkey dog, which she gobbled down in about 1/2 a second, and then I put her outside so I could make breakfast. She has since wandered off – hopefully she’s gone home, but who knows.

In other news, the job drama continues. It occurred to me that I’ve never mentioned the name of my company on here, so I’d probably be safe to talk about what’s going on. In short: They wanted me to go to California every week for 3 months. I don’t know if y’all remember how depressed I got when I did that last summer, but it was awful. I really don’t want to do it again. Nevermind the fact that I’m in the middle of a move, and if I’m gone 5 days a week, all I want to do on the weekends is collapse, and there’s no way I’ll have the energy to pack. It’s more about the fact that I hate traveling for work, I hate airports/flying, and I’m getting settled into this new life routine here with Dave, and I don’t want to get immediately yanked out of it. And 3 months? Is a damn long time. Plus, who knows if the project will end up getting extended longer than that, or if I’ll immediately get put on a different project that requires me to fly somewhere else every week, etc. So Dave & I talked about it and we decided that I should quit, and we could get by on one income for a while. (Which is very scary for me, since I’m not used to being dependent on anyone.) I told this to my career manager, and he’s going to see if I can possibly get a spot in the company’s internal IT group, which would keep me based in Seattle, rather than being a consultant for the western region. Meanwhile, I’m on the job hunt, just in case. So even though it’ll most likely work out fine no matter what happens, it’s still a very stressful in-between time right now.

Also, I have a Microsoft certification exam tomorrow. This is the re-take of the exam that I flunked 6 months ago. I usually re-take them immediately, while the material is still fresh in my mind. But at the time, I was planning to go to Atlanta to say good-bye to my cousin, who died a week later, and somehow studying just managed to slip off of my to-do list. But I’m doing it now. So Friday around 2:30 p.m. Pacific time, send lots of smart vibes in my direction. Much appreciated.

As for last night’s Project Runway, there’s a great recap of it over on Catoptric, so I’ll defer to that rather than repeat what’s already been said.

adopt a kitty?

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My crazy alcoholic friend Krissy called me at 9 a.m. today. It seems that she’s been fighting a lot with her crazier, alcoholic-er (?) roommate lately. This morning they got into an argument that ended with Psycho-Roomie calling Krissy the c-word. (I should add that the P-R is a very mean & angry drunk, and it wouldn’t be inconceivable for her to have already started drinking that early in the morning.) Now, those of you who know me in real life know that I have no real problem with profanity. I have been known to use it quite profusely at times. But I typically avoid name-calling (at least to people who can hear me; other drivers on the road are fair game), and honestly, that is one word that is just WAY over the line. Krissy seems to feel the same way, and it’s technically the Psycho-Roomie’s house; Krissy never signed a lease, she was just renting a room. So after this fight, she decided that she’s moving out. Today. Her sister was heading over with the pick-up truck to help her load up her stuff when I talked to her this morning. She already has a storage unit for some of her stuff, so she’s going to put all of her belongings there and stay with family until she can find an apartment.

Here’s the problem: She needs a “temporary” home for her cat, Shadow. He’s a very sweet-natured, friendly 5 or 6 year-old black kitty. I put temporary in quotes because Krissy is starting to realize that she’s far too irresponsible to be a pet owner (she’s only had the cat for about a year), and I have a feeling that she’ll end up leaving him with his foster home permanently. I feel bad for this cat because he had one family for his first 4 years, then they had a baby and the baby was allergic, so they had to get rid of him. Since then, he’s been shuttled around to 3 or 4 different homes in the past 2 years. So if I can help to find him a permanent home, I’d like to. My apartment is too small for 2 cats, so I can’t take him, and Dave already has 2 1/2 cats (one of them is semi-feral and only comes in for food), so he doesn’t need another one. Anyway, Shadow is used to being indoors and outdoors (although I think he’d adapt OK to being indoors-only), he’s totally litter box trained, he’s up-to-date on all of his shots (had them at the beginning of the summer), and he gets along with other cats. Any takers?

stuff and things

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I’ve worked out the past 2 days in a row. I’ve come to realize that there’s really no reason why I can’t work out in the morning or the middle of the day when I’m working from home. It’s not like I have to immediately shower and get myself all dolled up afterward, and if I’m only gone for 1 to 1-1/2 hours during the day, no one really pays much attention to it. So I’m trying. Really, I am. I haven’t been seriously dedicated to a workout regime in over a year, I’ve just done a workout or two here & there, and it’s so hard to force myself back into the habit of doing it every day. Plus, I just found out that if I go to my gym from 8-5 during the day, it costs me $7 to park my car in the gym’s garage. The gym is located in an office building downtown, and I imagine that this is to discourage folks from taking up space in the garage during the workday. But if it’s after business hours, parking is free. Go figure. So I’m a bit annoyed. My entire gym membership only costs $16 a month, so $7 for parking seems a bit exorbitant to me. It looks like I have 2 choices: Work out at a different time of day (which I’ll most likely do), or take the bus to and from the gym (which would only be $2.50 round trip). But the thought of getting on the bus when I’m all sore and sweaty kind of grosses me out. Anyway, Cardio Funk class is tomorrow night, and I used to love that, so I’m going to try to go to that, rather than the noon pilates/yoga class. I think yoga would probably be better for me, but since Cardio Funk is free, that’s probably what I’ll do.

Other random items:
* Teenie’s ear spot appears to be healing nicely. Might take a while for the fur to grow back, but it’s not quite as horror movie-esque anymore.

* My parents’ move to high-speed Internet access has increased my tech-support call volume by 1,000%. I get calls almost every day now. My mom even called while Dave and I were at dinner on Saturday night. (I told her I’d call her back after we left the restaurant, she sounded very annoyed that I wasn’t immediately available.) I have this idea about building them a new computer from scratch, so I’ll know everything that’s on it. And it’d be Windows XP, so I won’t have to try to dig up Windows 98 information from the dark recesses of my brain anymore. Hmm… Could make a good Christmas gift.

* Dave is apparently getting a pet goat (or two) so he won’t have to mow his lawn anymore. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sure, goats are cute and all, but they also eat everything in sight, head butt, plus I think I might be allergic to them. (I had some weird sinus stuff happen after I pet a couple of goats at the fair last month.) On the other hand, goats are pretty low maintenance on the barnyard animal scale. And goat poo is supposedly much tidier and easier to clean up than, say, horse poo. So I suppose that’s a plus. Still, a real live goat? I don’t know.

* Sibling update: My sister is in Italy (again) visiting friends. I’m jealous. My brother, meanwhile, has a job interview in Kentucky today. I’m not so jealous of that.

* Dave & I had our 5-month-iversary on Sunday. How long do you suppose you have to be dating someone before you stop counting the number of months? Maybe it’s just because this is a record for me, I feel the need to keep track of it. Anyway, we celebrated by going to Home Depot to buy drywall filler and paint, because that’s what we do. It was fun.

vets, teen angst, abstinence, etc.

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Teenie’s vet appointment yesterday went pretty much as expected. I like the people at this vet’s office, they’re very nice. They were quick & efficient, gave me the cream that I needed to fix up the spot on her ear, and sent us on our way. I was going to have them give Teenie her shots while I was there (2 birds with 1 stone), and the vet told me that since Teenie is now a senior citizen and almost never goes outside, she thinks it’s safe to put her on a rotation of getting her shots every 3 years instead of every year. She said that it’d be different if she was a dog, but she’d rather not over-vaccinate animals unnecessarily, and I thought it was cool that she didn’t just take the excuse to give her the shots and charge me for them.

Oh, thinking of good/bad vet stories reminds me, if any of you live in the Seattle area, don’t ever take your kitties to the Cat Care Clinic in Bellevue. They’re evil. It’s the veterinary equivalent of a bad mechanic – they will make up shit that’s wrong with your pet that isn’t true, just so they can over-charge you. And they won’t let you stay with your pet while they’re examining them, which is just shady if you ask me. And yes, I am leaving the proper name of the place on here, because I hope someone googles them and finds this post. That whole organization should be shut down.

Other stuff…
* My next GBC entry is to have a conversation with myself at age 13. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that and make it funny, and omit all of the trauma that I’ve tried to block out of my memory for the past 15 years. Hmm. It’s going to be challenging, for sure. But maybe that’s the idea.

* It looks like Dave won’t be able to go to the UK for Christmas because of some stuff going on with processing his visa, so he’ll most likely be coming home with me for the holidays. I’ve run this idea past my parents, and they’re cool with it. One condition: Dave will be sleeping in his own room, and I’ll be bunking with my sister. Hmmm. I think it’s kind of ridiculous (and funny) that we have to put up pretenses for my parents, who know perfectly well that Dave and I spend almost every weekend at one of our respective abodes, and it’s not like one of us ever sleeps on the couch. But I’d like to spare myself one of my dad’s “as long as you’re under MY roof” speeches, so fine, I’ll go along with it. Parents, what can you do?

* Has anyone been watching “Surreal Life” on VH-1? Here’s what I’ve learned: Jordan Knight is an asshole, Dave Coulier is surprisingly normal, Charo is funny as hell, and that American Idol chick is a spoiled brat who I don’t think I’ve ever seen smile once. Oh, and both Flavor Flav and Bridgitte Nielsen scare the absolute crap out of me.

* New episode of “ER” tonight. I think I’m probably one of the few people who has never gotten tired of that show. I still love-love-love it. It’s all about Goran Visnjic, the hot Croatian… Yum.

neurotic cat, once again

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Teenie does this same thing every fall: she scratches the spot in front of her right ear until it bleeds. Then, when it starts to heal (and I’m sure we all know how much scabs can itch), she scratches at it some more. Which makes it bleed more. So it never heals. I’ve never figured out why she does this – despite our 8 years of cohabitation, we’ve never quite taken up each other’s native language, so the whole thing is somewhat of a mystery. I have a theory that it has something to do with allergies, change of seasons, something like that. Who knows.

Typically when this has happened in the past, my vet gave me a special cream to put on that spot to make it not itch (and that won’t be harmful if she ingests it, because after all, she is a cat, and she’s going to lick off whatever I put on her). So this year, I dug the cream out of the back of my medicine cabinet, only to find that it is no longer cream. It’s way past its expiration date, and it’s now more of a liquid form. Hmmm. Not good. I called a vet down the street and asked if I could get more, and they said I need to make an appointment. So fine, we’ll go to the vet on Wednesday. I asked the nurse if there was anything I could put on there in the meantime. She told me I could use Neosporin, but that I shouldn’t use that “Neosporin with pain relief” stuff because it has lidocaine in it, and it will numb her tongue. The mental image of that was kind of amusing to me.

And that pretty much sums up the excitement of my week. In other news that may or may not be interesting to anyone:
* The headache is now just off and on, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was last week. So I’m back down to just taking the occasional Tylenol, nothing more hardcore than that.
* I got a new project at work: more writing/documentation, which will allow me to work from home. This is expected to last until January 30th. Pajamas all day, every day! Whee! Actually, it really is a good thing because writing = lots of downtime, which means I’ll have time to update my certifications (which I’ve been procrastinating about for months) and I won’t have a problem taking time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hey Alphagal, Dave’s going to meet up with me in New Orleans after Christmas – are you & the hubby going to be around?
* My brother has been calling me every day to get work-related advice, because his boss is being accused of sexual harassment. Not by my brother, of course, but by other women in the office. (And no, he doesn’t work for Bill O’Reilly. Although I love that story, too.)
* Have I mentioned how much I love Jon Stewart and The Daily Show? This interview is short and sweet.
* Speaking of which, you know how O’Reilly said that all viewers of the Daily Show were stoned slackers? Turns out that people who watch the Daily Show are more likely to have college degrees than O’Reilly’s viewers. Take that!