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October 31, 2007
Moses the amazing wonder cat
In brief, moses:
- is still not diabetic
- is still not anemic, not even close
- doesn't have to go back to vet for two weeks this time, yay!
on the other hand, my credit card balance is less than healthy and needs help stat. must take action to sell convertible ASAP.
Posted by lisa at 01:24 PM
October 30, 2007
GTD
heat. it makes all the difference.
my yard is full of GLOWING EYEBALLS.
Posted by lisa at 10:14 PM
October 29, 2007
brevity is the soul of wit
- party good. a crowd of just the right size for the puppy, who enjoyed insane amounts of attention and really had a fine time.
- kitteh good. really good. so glad we're down to vet visits only once a week. not having to be on an insulin schedule is very freeing, too.
- weekend with J good. we slacked off sunday, we haven't had a day just alone together not doing anything in particular in weeks. eventually made it to bull mccabes, which is nice and quiet on a sunday evening.
- furnace won't come on. gas company says i have gas service, and i went through the "reboot" procedure in the manual, so it's time to call the professionals.
- fireplace is working great though. i got a roaring fire going, lit candles, put on warm clothes and drank hot tea. very cozy.
- so lazy this evening. things i should have done, things i really should have done (leftover nbeast obligations), all blown off. le sigh. it was nice though.
Posted by lisa at 11:54 PM
October 25, 2007
it's good
a blogger i read has a cat that is very close to the end of a long illness. she wrote some frank descriptions of the cat's condition, and i realized that moses is nowhere near that. somehow that made me realize that obsessing and being constantly anxious about him is a waste of the time i have left with him.
ever since then, i've felt more relaxed about him. of course, it helps that he's walking just fine again and the diabetes is in some weird kind of remission.
:|:
the living room and dining room have now been cleared of the items that came out of the back bedroom. in the end, i did have to put my "buh-bye" pile in the back bedroom because it's huge and there's nowhere else to put it. but it's consolidated and somewhat organized, and i think J and i are going to attack it sunday.
i'm posting some photos to flickr that document the loading-in process, for those who are interested in that sort of thing.
:|:
this evening i had a "virtual" meeting for work with a client in australia. there was a brief moment during the conversation-- which was all business as usual except when i said "zed" instead of "zee" for the letter Z, a result of having heard her say it moments before-- when i thought wow, she's all the way in australia!
:|:
reading thomas dolby's blog today, he talks about traveling "by steamer" from New York to Southampton and how wonderful it was. I've been fascinated by the idea of a transatlantic sea voyage for many years and J and I looked at the web site to get an idea of scheduling and cost, just out of curiosity. it would be quite expensive and difficult to schedule, but apparently it's not just for old rich people, which is what the photos on the web site imply.
for the very wealthy who have nothing better to do for several months, one can take an around the world cruise. which would be insanely cool, especially if you've never been to most of the places they go, although i suppose if one were rich and idle, that would not be the case.
:|:
so, to summarize:
- house good
- cat good
- rain good
- work good
- boyfriend good
- sleep would be good, too.
Posted by lisa at 11:58 PM
October 24, 2007
a good mo update
went to the vet this morning, and it was all about the medications he didn't need. did not need epogen (for anemia). does not need insulin!
i think there may be a correlation between incontinence and insulin overdose, with him, so i am hopeful that there will be no more pee incidents today, and i can invite him to sleep in the bed with me again. i miss having him there when i wake up.
in other happy news, it looks like we're going to get a few days of rain (the mo cam will be dark today due to cloud cover), and from where i'm sitting, i can see that my red pepper plant is actually about to produce some red peppers! which is pretty amazing for this time of year. in fact, from this angle the whole garden looks fantastic. basil, peppers, marjoram, rosemary, sage, lavender, and the pumpkin vine. i think i love my new back bedroom.
Posted by lisa at 09:04 AM
October 23, 2007
two steps forward, one step back
i've cleared most of the clutter in the living room, but twice today moses has urinated where he was sleeping, and the second time (which was just a short while ago) was a HUGE mess and just EVERYWHERE. not only is it demoralizing when this happens, but it makes me feel like i just can't keep up with his needs. i had been thinking all evening i should carry him back to the litter box in a while and then i walked into the room and... sigh.
i'm starting to have serious doubts about having a party saturday. i love halloween, but maybe this isn't the year for a party. maybe a sick pet and a houseful of drunk party-goers isn't a good combination. obviously, it will also be a strain to get the house ready, although it is good to have a deadline for this sort of thing. i doubt i'd be as far along as i am now if i weren't planning a party.
finally, i've heard from at least one person who said that saturday is a really overbooked night. not that i need to have the house packed to the gills to feel like the party is a success, but given how little effort i've put into telling people about it, i'm not sure that much of anyone will be coming.
i don't know.
Posted by lisa at 10:50 PM
the abominable dr. phi...
...er. eh?
yes, i loaded up the tivo with horror movies from TCM, and i was watching "the abominable dr. phibes" last night while clearing out the living room, and damn if TCM didn't cut the end of the damn movie off!
okay, admittedly, i wasn't watching it very closely because i was in and out of the room, but i'm pretty sure that there were answers to several unanswered questions and perhaps another victim to account for in the bit that was cut off.
aaah, well. so i didn't really meet my goal last night (in the great strategy to have the house ready by saturday) and this evening has been occupied with cat care and going out for takeout when i burned the leftovers that were my best dinner option.
i'm starting "the brain that wouldn't die", which i may not be able to stand to watch, and i'm going to jump back into the work now.
Posted by lisa at 08:16 PM
mo-cam today
okay, let's try this again, this time with a registered copy of the software.
if all goes well, he should be on all day!
Posted by lisa at 08:20 AM
October 22, 2007
Zombie Lurch
Saturday, October 27, 5pm across from Piedmont!
Not sure if I'll be able to go watch, although I kinda hope so...
Posted by lisa at 11:22 PM
the eating cat
my god, my cat can eat.
he is working on his fourth meal of the day, and i think he had snax during the afternoon while i was at work.
i think his hurt foot is better. i watched him walk from the living room to the back bedroom (all his idea) and his limp is nowhere near as pronounced as it was yesterday. he also seemed to manage the litter box much more easily.
maybe i'll actually get a full night's sleep tonight.
Posted by lisa at 11:15 PM
the moses cam is live!
i was feeling kinda worried about moses (as i often do) and a co-worker suggested i resurrect the mo-cam. With the work J and I did in the back bedroom, that turned out to be very easy. So here it is!
watch my cat eat, sleep, and generally not move much. it's relaaaaaaxing.
ETA: it looks like the demo version of the cam software only runs for an hour, so it has shut off now. bummer.
Posted by lisa at 12:52 PM
weekend update
the boy and the puppeh arrived late friday evening. J immediately said mellow mushroom when he walked in the door, but i already had a proper dinner going in the oven so we stayed in.
saturday morning while i made pancakes and sausage, J busied himself getting christa's old toolbox into a closet. he also cleaned up some messiness along the side entrance and determined that he wanted to install a caster to support the side yard gate, because it drags on the ground and is difficult to open and close as a result.
after breakfast (which was somehow not completed until 1pm or so) we carried the bookcases into the back bedroom. damn, those things are heavy. we did some work in the room, took the puppy for a walk, fed the cat and got fluids into him, then made it to piedmont right at 6 for dinner with christa, mary, sarah and georg.
dinner was pretty fabulous, as you might expect, it being piedmont. i had pork loin with potatoes and J had duck ravioli. we shared a cheese plate to start, i love those nibbly little plates.
after dinner, then locopops, we worked on the back bedroom some more, mainly coming up with the furniture arrangement and the desk layout.
sunday morning we decided to try watts grocery for brunch, which didn't work out so well. we arrived at 10am to find their doors locked. staff working at the bar seemed to glance our way, then studiously ignore us. their hours weren't posted on the door.
we decided to run one fast errand and try them again at 10:30. we even tried calling them while we were out, and just got an answering machine with no information about their hours.
at 10:30 some other folks arrived and we all stood hungrily at the glass doors. a young man came tantalizingly close to the door to flop some menus around and he ignored us! finally a woman came to the door and actually spoke to us; she said they would open at 11am.
so, they lost six customers that morning. we all defected to other places; J and i went to mad hatter and had a very lovely breakfast, and argued about politics, and watched a slacker studiously ignore the no laptops on weekends rule, while also tempting everyone in the store to steal his computer as he left it for extended periods on his table while seeking some obviously much-needed coffee.
after breakfast we made a run to J's favorite store, also known as the Big Blue Hardware Store. the big thing i got was a new faucet for the kitchen sink. mine had become increasingly non-functional, finally refusing to shut off the cold water at some point on saturday. the sprayer had not worked in years, and the cold water knob had fallen apart over the summer. perhaps all fixable, but i had lost patience with it.
we had to make a run to the Big Orange Hardware Store to find a gate caster (apparently, there is such a thing), and then once home J installed the caster, which does make an astounding difference. i had lived with that problem for so long that it never occurred to me that there was such a simple solution.
then he got to work on the faucet while i fussed around with the cat and some small chores. i did make a few key assists including screwing in the faucet itself. i have to say that it's a thing of beauty and such a luxury to have a fully functional faucet and sprayer again. i even got a soap dispenser!
at some point sunday, moses developed a new problem-- a severe limp that makes it very difficult for him to walk. i think he hurt one of his forelegs. poor little guy. he's still eating great and everything, though.
last night after J left, i came up with a battle plan for the week that will hopefully have the house party-ready by the weekend. one remaining mystery is what the heck i'm going to do about music. the resource i would normally pull from-- my mp3's-- was decimated this summer. i might just re-use last year's playlist, which i have intact on an mp3 cd somewhere, as well as on my computer at work.
Posted by lisa at 07:47 AM
October 18, 2007
ride to lonnies in the mornin'?
is there anyone local who would be able to give me a ride from my house to lonnies in the morning?
ETA: got a ride! thanks all!
Posted by lisa at 07:19 PM
all is right with the mo
woke up this morning and immediately knew moses was totally right and himself again today.
he's got that glazed yet contented look right now after having eaten an impressive breakfast.
today i'm going to the farmer's market at lunch to buy pumpkins and have fried shrimp and hush puppies, my annual october outing. it's a little belated, but yet still right on time as we used to say.
time to move. i think i even feel rested today.
Posted by lisa at 09:04 AM
October 17, 2007
the charming english cottage o' you-know-what
What: The Charming English Cottage O' Death! (er, it's a party)
When: Saturday, October 27th, 8pm until it winds down
Where: at the charming english cottage o' death, of course
Where?: e-mail spacepod at gmail dot come if you need directions.
:|:
i had serious thoughts this morning of not having a party this year, but i think i do that every year. i may have to coat the clutter in fake cobwebs, but you know, whatever. it's SCARY clutter! right, that's it!
costumes always appreciated, never required. i always lay on lots of food and booze, or BYO if you want something in particular.
Posted by lisa at 10:33 PM
a little slip...
the vet confirmed my fears this morning: a blood glucose test showed that moses' blood sugar was low which means there's another reason he's drinking a lot of water, and the most likely reason is that his kidneys have gotten worse.
there's still a ways to go, i think; moses eats a lot and has gained a little weight in the last two months, which i think is highly unusual for cats with CRF. it's just sad, kind of demoralizing, and a reminder that this is not a disease that will just remain stable indefinitely. it will progress to its inevitable end.
Posted by lisa at 09:09 AM
October 16, 2007
a plethora of pants!
today i found that i had stored all of my jeans that fit in a new storage location, and then forgot that's where i put them and that i even had them. they were even on nice hangers and perfectly un-wrinkled, ready to wear. sweet! apparently, i'm more organized than i thought i was.
Posted by lisa at 06:52 PM
mo and other updates
i was feeling pretty worried about mo last night; he really slept hard all evening and through most of the night. the kind of sleep where he doesn't wake up the moment i touch him or move around. i skipped the insulin altogether, but it was all feeling hauntingly like the night before he was diagnosed with CRF.
but this morning, all seems to be well. he came to the kitchen for breakfast and it looks like he'll be in the clean bowl club pretty soon. there were no weird surprises in the house when i woke up. so i'm feeling much more reassured (and better rested).
last night i came home and slapped a coat of paint on the doors and shelves. i think this process is going to go fast although it looks like we might actually get rain on thursday, so i need to find a way to protect them. the paint dries fast so i should be able to stack them, which will help.
last night i changed out my warm weather shoes for my cool weather shoes and was sort of dismayed to find that i have more spaces than i have shoes, now. i don't see any shoe-buying in my immediate future, either. of course, i don't need any new shoes, i have a perfectly good shoe wardrobe, so i have no real complaint here. i guess i have become used to excess.
in the jeans department, however, i definitely do not have excess. i have so far only found one pair that fit me, and i seem to have a pair missing. i'll hunt for it in the attic again. the pair that fit are becoming threadbare, which puts them squarely in the "nights and weekends" category. i may reluctantly have to shop for more.
i also became disgusted anew at my lack of hanging space. i want my fairy godmother to drop a wardrobe into my bedroom. and a new chest of drawers while she's at it; something with a little character, and where all of the drawers can actually be used to store things.
well, enough of that. i should go to work or something.
Posted by lisa at 08:53 AM
October 15, 2007
fsck addendum.
i realized, when it was not 5:30 in the morning, when the sun was up and i'd had something approximating a full night's sleep (not that i feel like it), that i changed two things over the weekend: i upped his dosage and i cut way back on the dry food, which contains more carbohydrate than the wet food.
so that's hopefully, probably why he went into insulin overdose mode.
in case you were wondering.
Posted by lisa at 01:07 PM
fsck.
at four units (of insulin), moses drinks water excessively, a sign of high blood sugar.
at five units, after two consecutive doses, he's so weak he can barely walk, and urinates where he's laying... like, say, on the bed next to me.
hence i awaken three hours early to find my thigh in a patch of damp. he'd soaked through layers and layers of cold weather covers and was just laying there. i went out to the living room to find he'd soaked the blankets he was laying on out there earlier in the night.
he's awake, alert, and seemingly happy right now... we're both on dry bedding out in the living room and he ate happily when i put him in front of some food... didn't seem interested in the litter box... hell if i know what's happening inside his body.
Posted by lisa at 05:49 AM
straight and clean
they say this about old volkswagens: straight and clean. means it's probably never been wrecked, no rust, that sort of thing.
i can't say that the windows in the back bedroom are truly straight and clean, because that would have taken a week of work, but they're much straighter and much cleaner now.
there's still much to paint, but i got a lot done this weekend.
Posted by lisa at 01:17 AM
October 14, 2007
on the death of lady jaye
seeing the words "p-orridge" and "RIP" in a headline on b2 yesterday made me gasp involuntarily and i felt an impact in my chest. then i saw that, no, it was not genesis but rather his 'other half', lady jaye.
funny how i should care that way about the life or death of a person i have never met.
Posted by lisa at 12:23 AM
October 13, 2007
the best sorta day
leisurely breakfast at home.
painting all day, no stress, just taking my time. great results.
hang out with the mo'.
cook a nice dinner at home, accompanied by two small bottles of chimay.
watch movies.
so nice.
Posted by lisa at 10:20 PM
name that country
the other night when my battery died, a rather shy man with a foreign accent helped me jump start my car.
his accent was almost certainly from England, Scotland or Wales, although i am not sure exactly which one, and now i'm curious. i should have asked him, but i didn't.
he did say one peculiar thing to me, that i'm hoping might identify his country of origin: "that's a pretty new looking carrier you have there." i'm pretty sure that by carrier he meant my car. and i'm pretty sure he did say the word "carrier".
any ideas? world travelers and residents of the british isles?
Posted by lisa at 12:46 AM
October 10, 2007
breaking point
i feel like i'm at the breaking point today. mostly that's due to sleep deprivation, i always feel that way when i haven't gotten enough sleep.
last night the reliable car died and will need to be towed. i think it's an issue in the charging system-- it's under warranty, hopefully this will be covered. fortunately the high mileage, older car is running strong these days. i was going to deal with it this morning, but moses' breathing has been really congested this week and i decided this morning that it shouldn't wait until our next scheduled vet visit on friday.
he's fine, it's not in his lungs and it's not his heart. we're going to try and knock it back to the usual tolerable level with an antibiotic that hasn't given him problems in the past. the vet and i are both afraid of the one that we were trying when the renal failure occurred-- we won't be using that one again.
i'll deal with the car tonight, and then i have to log into a user's PC at work to get a look at an issue that I can't reproduce on my own computer. e.g., i'm working late tonight.
so much for my plan to finish painting the back bedroom this week-- my long abandoned project. of course, the reason i didn't work on it last night was because i actually went out and had fun and saw a movie with friends. i won't make that mistake again.
anyway, i had trouble getting to sleep, it was around 2:30 or so i guess. then i sort of half woke up before dawn and never really slept fully again. so that's, what, four hours? nothing looks good on that little sleep.
i'm so sick of going to the vet.
Posted by lisa at 04:13 PM
October 08, 2007
still standing
NBeast weekend was taxing, but less so than last year because i didn't have to be the "on-site" person. however, just attending every event and getting to them on time was pretty taxing in and of itself. we had to get up early today so J could get to work (i took the day off), and man am I beat.
i got to see some people i haven't seen in a while since i'm not very present at VW events any more. that was great. this year we did not do judging of the cars and trophies, which makes the event a lot more manageable, and several people told us that they prefer the casual get togethers more, anyway. the venue was our best venue ever-- right on the water in Yorktown, Va, in a public recreation/shopping area. We even had perfect weather, which has never happened for NBeast before.
mo and i came home today. his blood sugar was high all weekend and i've been gradually upping his insulin. i don't have a way to test his blood sugar directly; my best metric is how much water he's drinking. his insulin dosage is now more than double what it was a week ago so i'm hoping i'll finally see a reduction in his water consumption today.
tonight we are just going to do nothing and watch movies and maybe eat some takeout. by we i mean me and mo :)
i think the pumpkin vines i planted (from seeds i took out of a pumpkin last year) are not going to set fruit. lots of flowers and some cool looking vines, but no pumpkins. i like the vines so much that i don't really care. it's just astounding that such a huge vine can come out of that tiny little seed! like jack and the beanstalk, except horizontal.
Posted by lisa at 04:50 PM
October 05, 2007
hop-tu-naa
HIS is old Hollantide night;
The moon shines bright;
Cock of the hens ;
Supper of the heifer;
Which heifer shall we kill ?
The little speckled heifer.
The fore-quarter,
We'll put in the pot for you.
The little hind quarter,
Give to us, give to us.
I tasted the broth,
I scalded my tongue,
I ran to the well,
And drank my fill;
On my way back,
I met a witch cat;
The cat began to grin,
And I ran away.
Where did you run to?
I ran to Scotland.
What were they doing there?
Baking bannocks and roasting collops..
If you are going to give us anything, give it us soon,
Or we'll be away by the light of the moon.
Hop-tu-naa, Trol-la-laa.
Posted by lisa at 12:54 AM
October 03, 2007
portable gas grill?
does anyone have a portable gas grill they'd be willing to let me borrow this weekend?
we're trying to score one for NBeast, it would be a lot less awkward than the regular kind!
Posted by lisa at 08:04 PM
good kitty!!
Mo's red blood cell count is now at normal levels and we are going to just twice a week on the epogen. hopefully after next week we can go to just once a week. ah sleep, blissful sleep... getting him to the vet at 8am three times a week was killing me.
i also discovered last night that his blood sugar may not have jumped right before the renal failure stuff started-- i may have started unintentionally under dosing him with insulin. several weeks ago i bought some syringes at a regular pharmacy and didn't realize that they were much smaller than the syringes i was getting from the vet. yesterday i went to use a syringe from the vet and realized the difference.
if high blood sugar (which he had for a while before we caught it) causes renal failure... i don't want to know. i didn't ask my vet this morning while i was explaining this to him, and he didn't say.
Posted by lisa at 09:20 AM
October 02, 2007
in which he rubs off on me
today i decided that the fifth dead apple laptop power adapter was the last fucking straw with that particular issue. they fail in the same place. i've been replacing them since 1999.
it was blocking me from getting the confirmation email i needed from my moses helper this evening. i was pissed.
i packed up all five dead adapters and i took them to the apple store. an employee asked me, how are you? i said, well, i'm kinda pissed at apple right now. can i tell you about it?
i laid the adapters out on the clean, modern, birch laminate shelving. there is plenty of clear horizontal space in an apple store. you know what this is about, right? they fail IN THE SAME PLACE EVERY TIME. i'm sick of paying for these things!
he told me to go third party, but they had no third party adapter in the store. of course. i let them ream me for another eighty dollars because i absolutely had to have the thing.
i think i'm going to mail at least one of them to apple customer service, and write them a nice letter about this. i'll include a photo of all five dead adapters in the letter. and we'll see what happens.
Posted by lisa at 10:58 PM
October 01, 2007
it's just a number
while i was picking up the bookcases, my stepfather told me that they are going to disconnect the land line at the house.
i think my family has had that phone number since 1943. or some version of it.
this is a precursor, of course, to the eventuality of the house being sold. it does not appear that the third generation to inhabit the house will have the means to acquire it.
there is something about there being a number that a long lost friend or family member could call, and the person who answers knows who they're asking for and what happened to them and where to find them.
anyway. i'm glad i kept the duct tape phone.
Posted by lisa at 09:02 PM
different kinds of toast
we ate at a restaurant this weekend that is right next to langely air force base. the streets around it are named after people in the space program.
it took a moment for me to realize what i was seeing on the menu. it offered "freedom toast".
the food was good though. we'll probably go back. i'll see if i can order freedom toast with a straight face. it's not my favorite, but i'm willing to take a hit for the team. you know?
Posted by lisa at 07:09 PM