Archive for the 'Life with pets' Category

Big, big changes

Published at September 2, 2010 in Library stuff, work work work, New York Fugging City and Life with pets. 8 Comments

I got the job on the West Coast I interviewed for last month.  It’s a nice school, with nice people, a great boss, apparently ZERO tolerance for assholes.  AND it’s a lot cheaper than New York City, with better weather.

So in a little more than three weeks, I’m packing up a U-Haul and driving 3000 miles with Junebug and Zuzu (who will be tranquilized the whole way, at least during driving hours).  And in about eight days, I will be pulling into my new town and setting up house.   And it might actually BE a house — I can get an entire house, with a yard and a gardener, for a few hundred bucks less than I pay for a studio in Brooklyn.  Probably within walking distance of campus, as well.

I’m both excited and anxious.  I’m also sad to leave New York and bracing myself for some severe culture shock.

New and familiar habits

Published at August 22, 2010 in Kitties and Life with pets. 2 Comments

I’ve noticed that Zuzu is starting to do a few things that Sugarplum used to do.  These are things that Zuzu never did before.

Some of these things are charming — like how she’s begun sleeping with her paw thrown over her face like Sugarplum used to do.

Some of these things are not so charming — like kicking both litter and poop out of the litterbox.

Get your hankies

Published at August 20, 2010 in Life with pets. 0 Comments

A beautiful tribute.

Moving on

Published at August 5, 2010 in Life with pets. 0 Comments

Itchy dog is itchy:

Ignore the mess under the bed

Thanks for all the kind words about Sugarplum.  The hardest part was waiting for a signal that she’d had enough; the night before last, she started refusing food, then her breathing got dramatically worse.  So it was time; I called the vets in the morning and brought her in yesterday afternoon.  The vet who’d saved her life a couple of times was the one to end it.  The hardest part was bringing the empty carrier back home.

Junebug and Zuzu seem to be wondering where she is, though it’s not the first time I’ve taken her away and not come back with her.  They still have each other, and I have them.  And Junebug had a bath and a fresh application of powdered neem oil for her flea issues as well.

Have to say, although I was bummed out on the bus coming home with the empty carrier, it brightened my day considerably to see that Prop 8 had been declared unconstitutional.   I love my iPhone.

What we have here is failure to communicate

Published at September 13, 2009 in Kitties and Life with pets. 13 Comments

We have A Situation with Miss Zuzu here.

Oh, sure, *she* can sleep

Since I moved into this apartment, over a year ago, I have not had one uninterrupted night’s sleep. And why? Because Our Girl here agitates to be fed at the first hint of light, no matter how late she gets her evening feeding.

This agitation takes the form of nipping, running over my head, meowing loudly, knocking things over, tearing up any paper left around (which is quite, quite loud when you’re trying to sleep), jumping on my nightstand and rattling the lamp, getting the dog antsy and generally being a pain in the ass.

I tried to ignore it at first. I’m sure the guy who lives downstairs didn’t appreciate it when she would knock the remote off the dresser and onto the hardwood floor just above his loft.

At 5:30 in the morning. Continue reading ‘What we have here is failure to communicate’

Busy

Published at July 20, 2009 in Gardening, Library stuff, Kitties, work work work and Life with pets. 9 Comments

Life interrupts.  Pardon the lack of posting, but I’ve been working full-time and taking two compressed summer classes, which is like taking four regular classes.  And I’m taking four in the fall, too, trying to graduate early because who the hell knows if I’ll have a job past August.

The pets are more or less fine, though Sugarplum, on top of everything else she’s had to go through this year, has had a mammary tumor removed.  The edges are clean, but the tumor is highly malignant, which means that if it shows up in her lungs, that’s pretty much all she wrote.

The tomato plants, so promising in early June, have suffered terribly from June’s wet, cold weather.  I don’t think they’re showing signs of blight, but they’re mildewed and the leaves are falling off.  I’ve gotten a few large-cherry-sized tomatoes from them, but nothing to write home about.  It’s going to be a lousy year for tomatoes in the Northeast.

Since I’ve made the decision to graduate in December instead of June of 2010, I’ve begun poking around looking for jobs in law librarianship.  While I can’t really begin looking in earnest until October because I won’t be available until January, the market looks pretty decent in that there are, actually, jobs available if one is willing to relocate.  I’ve also got 11+ years of legal research experience, so I’ll definitely have an advantage over anyone who’s coming right out of law school/library school who doesn’t have that.

Another thing I’m finding out is that either jobs are scarce in New York, or people hang on to their jobs forever so there are never any openings, and if there are any openings, they’re not advertised.  But I’m very willing to relocate, at least within reason (like, I don’t want to get stuck somewhere with miserably hot weather, lots of fundamentalists, and no city life as compensation).  I’ve also been told this is a terrible year to be looking because nobody who was ready to retire can afford to now that their 401(k)s have crashed, so they’re staying put, which means nobody else can move up, which means the entry-level jobs don’t open up.

Hope springs eternal, though, and I’m headed to the AALL annual meeting next weekend in the hopes of at least networking if not actually snagging a few interviews.  Got my suit, got my reasonably-priced hotel not far from the convention site, working on getting business cards, and my shoes are in the mail.

Making another boat payment for the vets

Published at May 27, 2009 in Kitties and Life with pets. 7 Comments

So Miss Sugarplum is having Health Issues again. This time, it’s some kind of abdominal mass that barely shows up in an X-ray but is pushing her intestines and stomach out of the way (and is thus responsible for the vomiting and diarrhea she’s had lately; literally, she puked 15 or more times today and I suspect she’s been barfing when I’m not around, though I don’t want to ask what happens to the stuff that doesn’t just dry onto the floor). Tomorrow, she goes in for an ultrasound to see what’s what. With luck, it’s a cyst that can be drained. Without luck, it’s a tumor. Either way, it’s $500.

UPDATE:  Well, the mass appears to be neither a cyst nor a tumor but a lipoma, since when it was aspirated, fat came out.  So it’s still there, and she’s on a special diet now, both to get her to lose weight so the lipoma shrinks and because the damn thing is pressing up against her bowels and pancreas, and the vet wants to treat this as an irritable bowel/tetchy pancreas issue as well as a lipoma.   I just bought a case of food, too, but luckily the nice folks at the local pet food store will let me exchange any unopened cans, and I’ll just stock up on Junebug’s food instead.

Oh, and did I mention the mammary tumor?  When she stabilizes, she’ll need to have a mastectomy.   Perhaps the vet can get a skidoo.

Q. Why is there meat in my bed?

Published at April 16, 2009 in Life with pets and Junebug. 2 Comments

A:

The culprit

Surprised? This time it was one of the frozen raw bones that the dogwalker gives her. Guess it was too frozen, because she stashed it on my bed to eat later, then forgot about it.

Whereupon it thawed out, and oozed blood and meat juice through my blankets. I got to sleep with raw meat last night!

Q: Why is my apartment covered in feathers?

Published at January 24, 2009 in Domesticity and Life with pets. 6 Comments

A:

Carnage!

Q: And how did that happen? Continue reading ‘Q: Why is my apartment covered in feathers?’

Oh, the indignity!

Published at December 28, 2008 in Life with pets and Junebug. 5 Comments

Someone had to have her bum squeezed at the vet yesterday:

You’re going to squeeze *what*?

She hates the vet.  I’m not too happy to keep going there, either, but my reasons are more financial than fear-based.  But Miss Thing had a couple of bodily-fluid leaks (all over my sheets, no less) within a week, she was overdue for a rabies shot, and I had some time, so off we went.

Next time we walk up to the vet, though, we’ll avoid walking past the giant German shepherd up on the roof of the flat-fix place.

The bodily fluids leaked?  Anal gland juice last week, and then three big piles of bile a few days ago.  Again, right on my sheets, and near my head.  The anal juice leaked through to the mattress, too.  Tasty!  I think I got it out with some vinegar, though.

The vet told me that her anal glands were “very full” and that her anus was irritated.  Well, I’ll bet, considering she did a long scoot across the sidewalk shortly before the appointment, with a spiral-scoot flourish.  So now I have a dog with empty anal glands and a prescription for butt ointment.