Warmer and Colder
Dec. 20th, 2020 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogPrETA: Before I forget (because I already did), either Dreamwidth is not emailing me notifications when people comment here (despite my settings asking them to), or Gmail is blocking them. I suspect the latter, because I'm having the issue getting notifications from at least one other site. I do check back to see if comments are here or on the old mirror site, so I'm not ignoring them.
Boz continues on the road to.... we're not sure what. "Recovery" may be optimistic; "normalcy" may be more like it. From what we've discussed with our own vet and his previous fosterer, he may just be "drawn that way" and will need extra attention to his diet, temperature management and social interaction to keep him healthy and happy. His brother, who was pretty good about leaving him alone when he was really down, has gone back to playfighting with him more than we (and probably he) would care for. That led me to a trip to the hardware store for a spray bottle- to shoot water at Zini if he gets too aggressive. (More about that store visit in a moment.) We've yet to catch him in the act soon enough to blast Mr. Water Bottle on him, and the one time I pointed it at him as a warning, he came over to me and stuck his schnozz right up to the sprayer. Unclear on the concept, dude.
I also picked up a temporal thermometer at Wegmans to track him- he was a little below kitty-normal this morning, but (a) those things tend to run low (I haven't broken 98F in eight months when being tested near-daily) and (b) he was even lower at the emergency vet. So Eleanor came up with another solution to bring him the warms:
Does he have the best furmommy or what? Of course he seems offput by it- yeah, it's warmer, but where are these bleats coming from?- and within an hour he'd managed to wrestle it off himself.
He does love him his gushy growup wet food, though- although it isn't quite agreeing with him (no, I will not photograph the catbox;). One thing on the emergency vet's $4000-6000 estimate was 30 bucks for a can of some special-diet food. We're going to check with a pet store, and if necessary with our own vet, to see if we can bring it in for closer to the cost of a can with Morris the Cat on the tin.
It's been a rough week with all of this. Plus, Evil Cat has taken to peeing all over the kitchen; we're isolating her to get a sample to see if she's heading for kidney failure at close to age 20. She's due for a rabies vaccine at the end of the month and sorry, Michelle, but you're not going on dialysis.
ET-AFTER:
And now we indeed have confined old grumpy Evil Cat to this carrier, which has a catbox inside it, to try to get a pee sample out of her. So of course the kittens are being SO cooperative. First the littler guy comes over and jumps on top of the carrier, and now his brother has come over to the front of it and has been batting at her from the outside.
Eleanor: Boy, is she going to be pissed when we let her out.
Your humans also have to work their stuff out somehow with such things going on, and for me it was going into the housewares aisle at the hardware store looking for the spray bottle, seeing this display, and feeling a sudden need to play Vanna White:
Yes, I'm still twelve. (Or more like 18, when friends and I got what I hope was just a brief suspension from Pyramid Mall in Ithaca for a similar stunt.) And don't worry; I put them all back before I left.
----
Other things that help:
The dog.
Pepper's been so good with all the extra attention to the kitten and other distractions, with both of us being home more and yet not giving her much more playtime, and of course she loves her snowplay. This morning's parp trip was more mush than snow, but she was happy:
We met a white retriever, usually only seen in yellow or golden colors. Pepper was running round like Secretariat at this particular moment....
before coming to something resembling the Bridge of Death, that we will likely have to cross to get out of 2020. Hell, I worry I won't even be able to remember my favourite colour;)
Even the birds have finally packed up and gone south for the winter....
Although at least this tree was still hanging on in a sign of hope. Tomorrow brings the Solstice, and then the days begin to get longer again. A month from now, a new day will dawn, unless the former President's crazy lawyer manages to pull off a January 20 miracle. Probably better for him to be spellchecking his pleadings, though:
----
The entertainment.
We finished Disney/Star Wars' second season of The Mandalorian yesterday, which ended its arc of Baby Yoda's journey as perfectly as could be. Well, it would have been perfect if I hadn't looked up an actor on IMDB during the episode and immediately spoiled myself with a revelation of what was about to happen. It told me the what, but it was still fun to see the how of pulling off the ending.
From there, we returned to the present galaxy in a year pretty far far away- 1958- as we continued watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's gotten excellent reviews all along and I don't know why we never hopped in during its full previous three seasons, but we're catching up now, and it's a great blend of nostalgia for 1950s New York, great writing, and plenty of Jewcentric schmalz. Our parlor game during the episodes is catching the occasional anachronistic phrases- "It is what it is" and "It's a Thing" ring too recent, while references to "nerd" and to "Cindy Lou Who" (a slightly dirtier adaptation than that) both turn out to be plausible, as both Grinch and If I Ran the Zoo, the neologic source of the word "nerd," both date to Dr. Seuss prior to 1958.
And Amazon just delivered this collection to our door, which Eleanor is really enjoying:
Sadly, the author recently passed from cancer at the age of 60, but just hearing a few passages read to me, I am dying to jump in already.
----
And of course, there'll be sport.
While we were watching Mando and Maisel, the Bills clinched their first division title since Emily was three years old, and did it in convincing fashion. It then left me to spend today on more fun pursuits- like finding out the Nemesis England Patriots were eliminated from their "in the hunt" longshot chance of making the postseason, and that the Jets are close to halfway to an upset victory, which would be their first of the year. A friend had precognition of this karma when he posted this photo this morning:
(PLEASE don't queue up tomorrow at Shea Stadium, folks. There's a pandemic on.)
----
Just think: the Jets are ahead in a ballgame. The kitten survived his experience. The days start getting longer tomorrow, and the Regime will be gone in 30 days. Christmas miracles all around!
Boz continues on the road to.... we're not sure what. "Recovery" may be optimistic; "normalcy" may be more like it. From what we've discussed with our own vet and his previous fosterer, he may just be "drawn that way" and will need extra attention to his diet, temperature management and social interaction to keep him healthy and happy. His brother, who was pretty good about leaving him alone when he was really down, has gone back to playfighting with him more than we (and probably he) would care for. That led me to a trip to the hardware store for a spray bottle- to shoot water at Zini if he gets too aggressive. (More about that store visit in a moment.) We've yet to catch him in the act soon enough to blast Mr. Water Bottle on him, and the one time I pointed it at him as a warning, he came over to me and stuck his schnozz right up to the sprayer. Unclear on the concept, dude.
I also picked up a temporal thermometer at Wegmans to track him- he was a little below kitty-normal this morning, but (a) those things tend to run low (I haven't broken 98F in eight months when being tested near-daily) and (b) he was even lower at the emergency vet. So Eleanor came up with another solution to bring him the warms:
Does he have the best furmommy or what? Of course he seems offput by it- yeah, it's warmer, but where are these bleats coming from?- and within an hour he'd managed to wrestle it off himself.
He does love him his gushy growup wet food, though- although it isn't quite agreeing with him (no, I will not photograph the catbox;). One thing on the emergency vet's $4000-6000 estimate was 30 bucks for a can of some special-diet food. We're going to check with a pet store, and if necessary with our own vet, to see if we can bring it in for closer to the cost of a can with Morris the Cat on the tin.
It's been a rough week with all of this. Plus, Evil Cat has taken to peeing all over the kitchen; we're isolating her to get a sample to see if she's heading for kidney failure at close to age 20. She's due for a rabies vaccine at the end of the month and sorry, Michelle, but you're not going on dialysis.
ET-AFTER:
And now we indeed have confined old grumpy Evil Cat to this carrier, which has a catbox inside it, to try to get a pee sample out of her. So of course the kittens are being SO cooperative. First the littler guy comes over and jumps on top of the carrier, and now his brother has come over to the front of it and has been batting at her from the outside.
Eleanor: Boy, is she going to be pissed when we let her out.
Me: Evil Cat is always pissed. How will we tell?
Your humans also have to work their stuff out somehow with such things going on, and for me it was going into the housewares aisle at the hardware store looking for the spray bottle, seeing this display, and feeling a sudden need to play Vanna White:
Yes, I'm still twelve. (Or more like 18, when friends and I got what I hope was just a brief suspension from Pyramid Mall in Ithaca for a similar stunt.) And don't worry; I put them all back before I left.
----
Other things that help:
The dog.
Pepper's been so good with all the extra attention to the kitten and other distractions, with both of us being home more and yet not giving her much more playtime, and of course she loves her snowplay. This morning's parp trip was more mush than snow, but she was happy:
We met a white retriever, usually only seen in yellow or golden colors. Pepper was running round like Secretariat at this particular moment....
before coming to something resembling the Bridge of Death, that we will likely have to cross to get out of 2020. Hell, I worry I won't even be able to remember my favourite colour;)
Even the birds have finally packed up and gone south for the winter....
Although at least this tree was still hanging on in a sign of hope. Tomorrow brings the Solstice, and then the days begin to get longer again. A month from now, a new day will dawn, unless the former President's crazy lawyer manages to pull off a January 20 miracle. Probably better for him to be spellchecking his pleadings, though:
----
The entertainment.
We finished Disney/Star Wars' second season of The Mandalorian yesterday, which ended its arc of Baby Yoda's journey as perfectly as could be. Well, it would have been perfect if I hadn't looked up an actor on IMDB during the episode and immediately spoiled myself with a revelation of what was about to happen. It told me the what, but it was still fun to see the how of pulling off the ending.
From there, we returned to the present galaxy in a year pretty far far away- 1958- as we continued watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's gotten excellent reviews all along and I don't know why we never hopped in during its full previous three seasons, but we're catching up now, and it's a great blend of nostalgia for 1950s New York, great writing, and plenty of Jewcentric schmalz. Our parlor game during the episodes is catching the occasional anachronistic phrases- "It is what it is" and "It's a Thing" ring too recent, while references to "nerd" and to "Cindy Lou Who" (a slightly dirtier adaptation than that) both turn out to be plausible, as both Grinch and If I Ran the Zoo, the neologic source of the word "nerd," both date to Dr. Seuss prior to 1958.
And Amazon just delivered this collection to our door, which Eleanor is really enjoying:
Sadly, the author recently passed from cancer at the age of 60, but just hearing a few passages read to me, I am dying to jump in already.
----
And of course, there'll be sport.
While we were watching Mando and Maisel, the Bills clinched their first division title since Emily was three years old, and did it in convincing fashion. It then left me to spend today on more fun pursuits- like finding out the Nemesis England Patriots were eliminated from their "in the hunt" longshot chance of making the postseason, and that the Jets are close to halfway to an upset victory, which would be their first of the year. A friend had precognition of this karma when he posted this photo this morning:
(PLEASE don't queue up tomorrow at Shea Stadium, folks. There's a pandemic on.)
----
Just think: the Jets are ahead in a ballgame. The kitten survived his experience. The days start getting longer tomorrow, and the Regime will be gone in 30 days. Christmas miracles all around!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-20 10:24 pm (UTC)SOmething you might consider for his digestive issues in the short term is to add some preed pumpkin to his food. Maybe a teaspoon per feeding, it usually helps to solidify things.
In the longer term, a product like this could be beneficial: https://www.nzymes.com/natural-digestive-solutions/
We've done a number of rescues of kittens with bad digestion for various reasons, and the use of probiotics often helps to get things rebalanced.
Good luck with your little guy!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-21 05:09 am (UTC)