Archive for the 'Life with pets' Category

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.

Dog butts make the best pillows

Published at December 14, 2008 in Life with pets. 0 Comments

Nice fluffy pillow

More about Sugarplum

Published at November 24, 2008 in Kitties, Life with pets and Junebug. 7 Comments

Still not really eating. A few nibbles here and there, but so far I haven’t found a food that she really, really is interested in. So the force-feeding continues apace. Less, though, because I’m supposed to be backing off it to let her get hungry enough to eat something.

Of course, one of my problems is the fact that because I live in a studio now, there’s nowhere to feed her where Frick and Frack can’t get at the food.

Frick and Frack

And yes, they do get at the food.

Sugarplum’s still losing weight, because she’s not eating enough, but in other ways she seems to be improving. Her bowels are working again, she’s doing a lot more of the stuff she did before she got sick, such as greet me at the door and get into the bathtub to drink from the faucet. She’s also swatting the dog away when she has had enough of the chewing (and the fact that the dog is bugging her is, I feel, a good sign).

She’s just, you know, not eating. Not enough. And to tell you the truth, I’m getting a little tired of feeding her like this. She’s tired of it, too. But she hasn’t quite twigged to the concept that if she would just eat something, we could stop this routine.

Though we’ve gotten the whole force-feeding business down to a science, with the towel and the kneeling-while-pinning and the crankyass growling-while-smacking.

Look who’s back!

Published at November 16, 2008 in Kitties and Life with pets. 21 Comments

Back home

And cranky as ever.

I still have to do a little force-feeding if she’s not going to eat on her own, but she is eating the cat treats they sent home with me.  Slowly, but she’s eating them.

I don’t even want to think about how much money I just forked over to spring her from the vet.  Damn cat should be shitting gold bricks with all that money in her.

Discombobulated

Published at November 15, 2008 in Frivolity and Life with pets. 1 Comment

I was permitted to sleep in until noon* today, and now (at 3:30) it’s getting dark.  Where did the day go?

All I’ve accomplished today is getting out of bed, feeding the pets, and walking down Van Brunt Street to Baked to get my Saturday biscuit, which wasn’t quite as good as it should have been since it was after noon.

___

* Well, sort of.  I still had to feed Zuzu by 7, but she uncharacteristically let me sleep unmolested until noon.