Tiny Kitty Big problem!

Tiny kitty had a problem. I noticed it of course over a holiday weekend, hours away from his vet. A quick check of the internet told me that his symptoms, many of the following

• Inability to urinate or only passing a small amount of urine , Check
• Bloody or cloudy urine, Check
• Loss of bladder control, dribbling urine, Check
• Increased frequency of urination or visits to the litter box,  Check
• Straining and/or crying out in pain when trying to pass urine, Check
• Prolonged squatting in litter box, Check
• Fear/avoidance of litter box and soiling in inappropriate places, Check
• Constant licking of urinary opening
• Strong odor of ammonia in urine, I thought this was normal?
• Lethargy -nope
• Vomiting- nope
• Increased water consumption- hadn't noticed
• Hard, distended abdomen Check

Spoke to a kitty UTI. I sent the vets office an email Sunday night and followed up with a call Monday morning. I didn't even know about the distended abdomen part, but the vet caught that one right off. By lunchtime Monday, he was anesthetized and getting a catheter.  My poor kitty!

The vet called me and told me that there were two ways of doing this. way A) was very expensive and included surgery to clean out what ever was in the bladder and the insertion of a catheter for a few days - Kitty would be in the hospital. not my vets office for  several days or the B)more economical, how much more, I'll find out later, where a catheter is inserted through his urethra and whatever is in the way is shoved out of the way and the urine is freed. The blockage is either crystals (we hav a winner! Crystals and a lot of them, packed in there like a cork) or white blood cells from an infection ( go infection, still a dark horse possibility) or bladder stones ( big Boo!)  . Boy cats don't get UTIs with the frequency that  girl cats get them, but they do get them.

Vets office was veryslow getting back to me after his procedure, so I had to get back to them. He came out fine and so did what ever was blocking him. They gave him a shot of antibiotic to fight whatever infection he might have and I would bet there is wet food in our future. And a big vet bill, not as large as I had feared.  But the lab report on the urine still hasn't come back yet, so there could still be more checks to write.

Friday Cats Blogging

Yes, I do live in this box now. It is my home.

TGIF

Things I accomplished this evening:

Yearly Optometrist appointment
Picked up card for friend whose elderly cat unexpectedly passed today
Walked dog, full walk
Fed dog
Drove to mall to  get new glasses
Got dinner at mall
Did laundry
Packed for weekend
boxed up pills for next week for dog and I
switched purse over to spring/summer
trash and recycling to curb
chased the cats around with intent to cat blog

Random

Yesterday I walked out of my building in the rain, through my parking lot in the rain, and out to my car, in the rain. Then I drove to the Sam's, walked through the parking lot in the rain, did my business with Sam's, walked through the parking lot in the rain again, and drove home.

I walked in the house, greeted the dog, took him out, in the rain, and then announced that I was going to change into sweats and we were going to spend the rest of the evening in the house watching hours of TV. Which we did. It was marvelous.

I paused the TV for a bit so I could mop the dogs room with pee-be-gone, and now it smells much better. I don't know where he did it, I never came home to find a puddle, but he did it somewhere at some point because the odor was eye squintingly sharp and I was over it. Now the house smells like pee-be-gone. Which means my house smells like a funeral parlor - one part disinfectant, one part formaldehyde and one part dead flowers. Its a dream come true if you've been playing hide and seek with dog pee or, the dog did not pee and what I was smelling was  the actually more noxious - outdoor male cat spray. There is an outdoor cat and my windows have been open and that cat could have sprayed and it could have in theory, gotten into my house. My dog is very house trained.

Whatever it was, it is g-o-n-e.

Today I walked out of the building I  the overcast and I thought that there was some chance that the dog and I might have a chance to get a walk. It was fun spending hours in my sweats watching TV, I don't want to spend every night like that - it makes it less special.

I took the dog out and it was nice enough. I made dinner and it was nice enough. I fed the dog, still okay. I sat down to eat and it started to rain. Hard. And it kept raining.

The closest thing I came to a walk was wandering around Target when I went to get Rockets meds - drama free this time.

I was watching so much TV last night I missed some TV. I have Direct TV and they have told me over and over that as a customer  that I can watch TV anywhere, I finally took them up on that. It just took me an hour and a call to customer service to figure out how to make it work. Silly me thought that when they asked for my email, they actually wanted my email. No, they wanted some weird beard ATT email I didn't even know I had. That was fun. But anyway, I watched a TV show on my computer and it was really kind of cool. So now I'm wondering, can I watch Drag Race on my computer since my parents crappy cable doesn't carry VHI and I'm going to be there over the weekend?  I'll see.

Thoughts and prayers with our British friends

Weekend

You know why I hate Wally? I was nosing around their 50% off plant area because they get bored watering stuff and let them half die and think they are dead and put them on discount to get rid of them before they are 100% dead . Well, I found three plants that were half off because they were half dead.

I knew all they really needed was to get watered and they would bounce right back, well, two just needed water and the other needed to be watered and repotted - I was even going to buy the new pot from Wally, so Ka-ching for Wally. I walked all around the store planning new lives for my half dead plants. They were going to have good lives too. And now they are dead.

I went up to the cashier and asked for a price check on my half off, half dead plants just to make sure they were half price.  They were full price! No sir. I will not pay full price for half dead plants! No. If the checker had half a brain in her head she would have called a manager over and had him make a decision about these dead plants and I'm pretty sure it would have been "Get these dead plants out of my store. Half off sounds good."

They were half off, theywwere on the half off table! under the half off sign! The last of their kind in the store. Wally didn't have its computer system updated - a common problem, and they lost a sale. I was even going to by a replacement pot at full price . The cashier could have seen I was a little upset about not getting those plants - that were now cluttering her station, and Owned The Problem and Solved The Problem. But , she didn't. and she cost her store the sale and my goodwill. and killed those plants.

Earlier Saturday, I was more successful. I went to Artsplosure and bought Art! I am not really interested in Alpacas, but I saw  painting of one at one of the tents and I kept thinking about it. I decided if I was still thinking of it when I was ready of leaving, I should go back and take a closer look.

Well, I looked all all the tents and a lot of gorgeous art - so much nicer than last year, much better variety of art than last year! I was very unimpressed last year with what they had. This year was a great improvement.

So, I looked at everything and I was still thinking about that alpaca and I retraced my steps and finally found the tent. I have excellent taste, that alpaca was $375. Clearly, it was not my Alpaca, there must be another Alpaca that was actually mine. The problem was, I really liked the $375 Alpaca, the expression was perfect and was just so soothing. I need soothing right now. Fortunately, the artist had prints and she had prints of other alpacas , she also had some very nice cows, and some, I thought, very judgy sheep and some goats that just looked a little snippy to me and finally, a  somewhat soothing alpaca - although,  not quite as intensely soothing as the $375 alpaca . I spent a lot of time studying the varying degrees of calming provided by the  alpacas and decided that the $30 alpaca was adequately calming. I brought her home.

And then I cleaned the kitchen. I mopped the floor and scrubbed the counter tops. I was tired of being embarrassed of how gross it was . It was a lot of work and now  after all that work : it looks exactly the same as it did before, but much less dirty. Sigh.

Sunday, I moved outside and did so much yard work. So much pulling of ivy, cutting of young, u necessary trees, clipping of hedges, chopping back of unwanted shrubberies, cutting yards. I sa no signs of snakes or rats.

Big pile of  soon to be dead leaves

Friday Cats Blogging

TGIF

Another day another three or four chances to say "Oh Jesus H. Christ What Fresh Hell is This?! Every morning when I check my phone  I morph into Captain Picard and I am asking whomever he asks to give the bridge a  DAMAGE REPORT, because I know something terrible has happened over night. I wake up every morning and the first thing I ask is "Do we still have California? Are we at war?"

I think CNN should have some sort of color coding on their breaking news blips. So as to let un know how alarmed we should be, Code Orange for the Cheeto and his Outrage Du Hour and then maybe some sort of varying degree of orange family depending on whether its an international outrage or if its just a minor national embarrassment or its something like  if he has gotten his hands on an original copy of the constitution and took white out to the parts he doesn't like. Don't think for a moment he and his team has not thought that this would be a good idea or what it wouldn't, eventually, float.

And then varying other colors that would signify, acts of war here, acts of war abroad,  mass shootings here, mass shootings abroad, famous people dieing, famous people giving birth, natural disasters here, natural disasters abroad.

Just so we would know how started and upset we needed to be.

This does not get the day off the start that it should.

This is why he has to go. And I'm starting to think impeachment is not good enough. I think jail is the answer. I don't want him in a position where he can claim victory or higher ground. I want him and his cadre and that includes Mike Pence, because don't you for one minute think that his hands are clean here, they aren't. He's dirty, he might not be the career criminal that Cheeto is, but he likes power, its much, much better than being Governor of a fourth tier state like Indiana.

 He wouldn't have taken the gig, no one else wanted it -  If he wasn't ripe for being turned - and the Trump people knew it, they found him and found his weakness and exploited it immediately.  They probably introduced him to some Russians, maybe some who talked to him about the Christian church in Russia - who maybe didn't even seem like the scary mafia Russians that Cheeto hung around with. No, nice, friendly, regular Russians and they got him on board and got him where they wanted him and and when he was offered the apple - he took a bite.  

I don't want Impeachment, I want Prosecution.

Wednesday

Okay, another day of many things happening, too many, too important to be thrashed out here. I'm still processing . All these things happen and  they are all so bad and any of them had they happened to any other person would be completely end a career - but just like through the campaign. It just doesn't matter, nothing matters. Its like we are in some kind of alternative reality where nothing is real and nothing means the same as I thought it did. I am confused and angry a lot. I suppose most of us are. Stocks also plunged today and I heard that noted Islamophobic, Cheeto is going to give a speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia! Clearly, we are being punked.

 I would have a real entry but I had to write a very big check, for me, four whole digits! Which I had to write twice and call the window man back to my house because I have so little practice in writing checks for over your average credit card bill,  that I wrote it out wrong twice, that wasn't hugely embarrassing - and then I had to make dinner and walk the dog and then I had to watch a couple of Great Newses,   question - are they ever going to talk about how the one guy looks a lot like Draco Malfoy? Its an issue and it takes me out of the story: He looks like Draco Malfoy and they need to talk about it.

 And then I had to watch Downward Dog and its really good! If you are a dog person, I totally suggest you try to catch it, it airs on Tuesday nights on ABC. I;m not sure what time, this week it was on Wednesday. Also I DVR everything and time and day is irrelevant to me now. I've moved on from things like that. I am a superior being now.

I am now noticing that I watch three scripted television shows! and that isn't counting the Barney Miller and M*A*S*H reruns. There is hope for me yet.

Spasibo

When I post partisan entries my hit count goes down. Are many of my readers not good lefties? Why are you here then? Surely it can't be for  the cat blogging. Another question, why so many Russians? More Russian hits than American, many, many more and all recent. I used to get a lot of odd hits from India but now its all Mother Russia all the time. But not today, today we had a blackout from Russia. So I wrote them a note to say Hi. Google Translate helped me out.

Спасибо, что прочитали мой сайт. Я рад, что ты здесь. Я рад, что у меня есть иностранные читатели, я надеюсь, что я дам вам окно в живую каждого американца. Надеюсь, я не слишком раздражаю. Надеюсь, вы знаете, что повседневные американцы не поддерживают Дональда Трампа, мы не последователи его или его политики или его политики. Мы находим его отталкивающим. Я надеюсь, что вы придете на мой сайт, чтобы узнать о счастливых американцах и их домашних животных и их слабостях и их маленьких проблемах. Надеюсь, это заставляет нас казаться больше похожими на вас. Надеюсь, это сближает нас. Еще раз спасибо за то, что вы провели время со мной и моими питомцами.

Spasibo, chto prochitali moy sayt. YA rad, chto ty zdes'. YA rad, chto u menya yest' inostrannyye chitateli, ya nadeyus', chto ya dam vam okno v zhivuyu kazhdogo amerikantsa. Nadeyus', ya ne slishkom razdrazhayu. Nadeyus', vy znayete, chto povsednevnyye amerikantsy ne podderzhivayut Donal'da Trampa, my ne posledovateli yego ili yego politiki ili yego politiki. My nakhodim yego ottalkivayushchim. YA nadeyus', chto vy pridete na moy sayt, chtoby uznat' o schastlivykh amerikantsakh i ikh domashnikh zhivotnykh i ikh slabostyakh i ikh malen'kikh problemakh. Nadeyus', eto zastavlyayet nas kazat'sya bol'she pokhozhimi na vas. Nadeyus', eto sblizhayet nas. Yeshche raz spasibo za to, chto vy proveli vremya so mnoy i moimi pitomtsami.

The English version

Thank you for reading my site, I am happy that you come here. It makes me glad to have international readers, I hope I am giving you a window into the live of an everyday American. I hope I am not too boring. I hope that you know that everyday Americans do not support Donald Trump, we are not followers of him or his policies or his politics. We find him repulsive. I hope that you come to my site to learn about happy Americans and their pets and their foibles and their little issues. I hope it makes us seem more like you. I hope it brings us together. Thank you again for spending time with me and my pets.

#trumptreason #trumptraitor #blabbergate #lockhimup #impeach #nationalnightmare

It just keeps getting better doesn't it? I wanted to put Seth Myers A Closer Look here, but since it hasn't aired yet, its everywhere but on Youtube, its on Twitter, its on Facebook but I am too much of a luddite to figre out how to get it from point A or B to point Here.

I watched it on Twitter, it was very good.

If you have been spending a lot of your time hiding under a nice comfortable rock, I feel you and you have my congratulations. You have been successful where most of us have not.  You have missed a lot today though and I am going to slap you with a truth bomb on your head.  From Buzzfeed, right above the feature on "Which Mean Girl are you The Most Like"

Trump disclosed highly-classified-information to the Russians.

President Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian officials during a meeting last week at the White House, two US officials confirmed Monday to BuzzFeed News.

The meeting included Russia's ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The disclosures were first reported by the Washington Post, which cited current and former US officials who said the information was considered so sensitive that some details had been withheld from American allies and was restricted within the US government.

Two US officials who were briefed on Trump’s disclosures last week confirmed to BuzzFeed News the veracity of the Washington Post report, with one noting that “it’s far worse than what has already been reported.” The official was referring to the extent of the classified intelligence information Trump disclosed to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister.

The information Trump shared included intelligence on an ISIS plot that had been passed to the US by a partner, which was not identified. But Trump's disclosure was considered a potential blow to the intelligence-sharing arrangement, and White House officials reportedly moved quickly to contain the fallout.

I know from my Twitter time, that the IC community must be very, very angry about this. I'm so fancy now, I know that IC means, "Intelligence Community",  he has done nothing but piss them off since before he even took office and the fact that he divulged a thing  like this would have huge blowback from them and to them. They will be very angry, this with the Comy thing is going to make the FBI leak like cheap pool floaty. @20committee

 Cheeto is bleeding and he's swimming with starving sharks. I also learned that it wasn't just that he let the Russians have top secret Squirrel info, he let the Russians have one of our allies top secret Squirell info. Bad form, treasonous form. #lockhimup.

 For your who-is-that edification I give you the very educational and up to date: The Washington Post Trump- Russia flow chart . I have another chart that I have posted in the past, but it doesn't even have the Russians he met with last week, weak! so it goes into the hamper.


On to happier things? I was wandering through my front deck and I noticed that among the weeds in one of my planters, that I still have a functional Elephant Ear plant!

The other one apparently died over the winter, but the plant that died before the elephant ear and lived in the same pot, seems to have come back. It doesn't bloom, its a Bleeding Heart, so if it did bloom, it would be spectacular . Perhaps I need to fertilize.

Monday.

Saturday, I spoke with window vender #3 and made a choice, which makes me feel good. I made some phone calls - and damn it, had to actually speak to the salesperson in  in person, I had been hoping to give the bad news to their voice mails, but no luck on that. On Monday I'm going to call appointment number four and call that one off.

Window World  won the contract! They gave me a very realistic quote  and a timeline I can work with.

So,  one problem under control.

Other than meeting with the window salesman, I had nothing else scheduled. I slept late both days, it was a great weekend. I still managed to get my weekly shopping done, did my laundry - braved the suddenly scary-to-me basement, mowed both lawns, and made a dreamy pork loin for dinner Sunday night. Oh, and last week I found my glasses!

Last year I spent a lot of time and effort finding just the right frames and I shopped and looked and really expended a lot of time and energy on finding frames. I did find the frames, for almost nothing at Sames - but the lenses are crap and are scratched the hell and  there is nothing I can do about it,I will not be buying from them again, at least not my main, every day glasses - you get what you pay for and I am living that. I wish retailers and insurance would let you buy your frames from point A and you lenses from Point B, it would save the public a lot of money and encourage healthy competition.

This year, I went to Lenscrafters at the mall, I looked at the frames, I found a couple I liked, I asked the technician what she thought of them and she agreed with me that the above was the best choice. Done. I have an appointment with my eye doctor on the twenty-fifth and I'll just toddle back to the mall afterwards and get these ordered. Done.

But no, you can't do that and they dun you if you try. Last year I bought the exact same frames from Sams at less than half the price they were selling them at Lenscrafters, the lenses were shockingly cheaper, however, today they are covered in scratches and I never dropped them or put them through any unusual treatment. Lenscrafters would never let this happen, they have a coating they use and if you buy insurance, they will replace scratched lenses. Sams does not.

Friday Cats Blogging

TGIF

I decided to take the trash out to the curb before it got too late as I give my self a gold star for getting that job done 1) not in my pajamas and 2) not at 5am . I wanted to get the cat box cleaned out so I could add that to the trash before I took it out, fine, I was cleaning it out when I became aware of the  oddest noise...

The pouding of rain on the roof. Pounding. Normally, I I can hear it on the metal roof of the carport, this was the roof roof and it sounded like Texas rain. It had been gorgeous when I was out with the dog not  forty minutes before. No signs or symptoms of imminent sky opening up. No wind, no nothing.

 I hurried up and went downstairs and low and behold it was indeed pounding rain. I then remembered that I had the lawn umbrella up and I needed to take it down before it came down on it own. Well, before it was pouding with rain it was gusting with wind because my umbrella was on the ground when I got out there, in the pounding rain. The super best time to try to  unhoist it. Brought it in, dripping rain, and had to put it in the my spaghetti pot to keep it from flooding my entry way.

I tried to get the dog to come out with me into the pounding rain to pee while I was out there, because misery loves company but he wisely refused. Smart dog.

It only rained like that for a brief time but, damn. On the upside, I am soaked, but my basement is not. It is dry.

The trash did get taken out, I was glad I took it out after the rain came, the wind must have been really strong, my neighbors trash was on its side. I didn't hear anything until the rain started and I spent most of the evening my an open window.  Between my reruns and my deeply engrossing Twitter feed, I must have been really distracted - I blame Cheeto.

Wedesday

I sat down to write this and I starting thinking how lousy today was and how high stress and then I thought, you know what I really want to do? I really want to watch Barney Miller reruns, they just started running them on whatever channel it is that runs the M*A*S*H reruns and I started to record them too. There are many fewer of them broadcast ever week, like a total of five, so its not as overwhelming a proposition.

I missed Barney Miller, I used to watch it in reruns after school ever day. It has a great theme, you get to see the towers opening credits and New York is how it exists in everyone's memories, dirty, violent and crime ridden by easily caught bad guys. And the cops are nice. I would suggest skipping the ones with Linda Lavin, her character is way too frantic, she totally ruins the vibe.

When I was really little I was heartbroken to find out that the actor who played Wogahowitzes real last name was Gail - a girls name - I couldn't get over that. I don't know why that bothered me so much at the time, but it just seemed wrong.

I'm going to go watch my TV. I;m also going to suggest that you start reading wonkette.com and if you are on Twitter,  that you begin to follow  John Schindler @20committee as quickly as possible. It would be worth joining Twitter just to follow him, and me, I am @megjac and I re-tweet a lot.

Also spoke to two more window venders, set up one more visit, going to call the other vender tomorrow.

The Tuesday Troubles

The Tuesday evening chaos, which started when Cheeto fired FBI Directer Comey - Comey later said he found out while speaking to agents in the LA Office while watching TV - Not by the letter that the Cheetos office reportedly put into his file.

It ha a gotten a huge amount of press, second only to the hue and cry of the firing of acting AG Sally Yates - which was also  incorrectly  referred to as the "Saturday Night Massacre".

Comey's dismissal was blamed on his release of information prior to the election that was thought to have thrown the election to Cheeto, not so much that he personally through the election to Cheeto - the Russians handled that part, but that what he did was wrong for the head of the FBI to do, worse yet. a few days ago Comey admitted he feels "mildly nauseous" when he thinks back on what he did - as does much of the western world. Comey being fired for being a bad FBI chief is expected, he should have been fired by Obama on the spot, but Obama didn't want to appear to be partisan, a mistake we are paying for now.

So, 109 days into our long national nightmare, Cheeto and Sessions suddenly decide, in retrospect that Comey did a bad thing and shit can him. It can't possibly have anything to do with the fact that he is supposed to testify on Thursday about the Cheeto administration collusion with Russia?

This highly questionable timing has even the GOP squinting their piggy eyes and pretending to be a little unhappy with Cheeto. Bit of trivia, Comey is only the second FBI chief to ever be fired, they have a ten year term and they normally serve it and move on. William Sessions was fired by Bill Clinton for letting his friends use government airplanes. Clinton told him to step down, Sessions said no and Clinton fired him.

Now, lets got back to the real Saturday Night Massacre. From Wikipedia

The Saturday Night Massacre is the term used by political commentators^[1] to refer to U.S. President Richard Nixon's dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and as a result the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal.^[2][3]

There is some mention there of the public sending in telegrams by the hundreds of thousands after this happened, my Mommy sent one and I remember watching her on the phone doing it, I was 6.

Okay, if you still have questions, you too can go to Wikipedia Saturday Night Massacre and learn in detail, everything ever ever wanted to know about that particular moment in history. And every other moment in Watergate history, in detail. - which I suggest we all do, quickly.

Monday

I was at the book sale for an hour or so yesterday and two moments stood out for me:1) I found Celia Rivenbarks' You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start In The Morning in the "Self Help" section and 2) I listened to a woman complain to her friend about the dearth of books at the sale, on Sunday afternoon, after the sale has been going on like gangbusters since Friday morning , her conspiracy-ago-go explanation for all he good titles being gone was that "she has heard that the library hired a company to go through and take out the good titles before the sale started" .

Not that thousands of people had been through there like hyenas with reading glasses and they had taken literally everything, but despite the clear carnage, there were still decent titles to be found if you were to look for them, because I looked and I found some.

I found a couple of Wendy Wasserman plays, Major Barbara, a book of four classic French plays, a book of four great Restoration plays, Click and Clacks book, and many, more! For $3. Even if they are just additions to my library, they are additions to my library

Today was a win because I noticed that my shirt was on backwards before I got to work. Score.

Tuesday I am expecting another window person to come to my house after work and look at my window project and hopefully give me a quote that won't give me agita.

Looking Out

I need a couple of new windows, well, I really need one new window, the window on the other side is aging out and could use replacing but it is in awkward place due to the past owners DIY remodel and replacing it will be difficult - I am willing to forgo that window. I have two additional windows that  I would like to see replaced sooner rather than later and of course there is pretty much every other window in the house.

I saw a random ad for replacement windows online and decided that it was A Sign and I went with it, I called them and they called me, and called me and called me - until I finally picked up and we set up an appointment Saturday afternoon.

Renewal by Anderson, very, very nice. I'm pretty sure that this is not the entry level Anderson replacement window. I don't know why they looked up my address and thought that Renewal was the product line that they should show me? It is not the product line for this neighborhood, that was a bad call. This is a vinyl replacement window kind of place.

I had a long talk with the saleswoman and I showed her the problem windows and explained the issues I was having and she measured the windows and then we sat down and showed me the catalogue.

It was lovely book and the windows featured in it were gorgeous.  So clearly not the vinyl replacement windows I had in mind when I started this project in my mind. The saleswoman dismissed vinyl  replacement windows as "cheap". Well, yes, they are, however, I prefer to think of them as "affordable", which is why I was thinking of them in the first place, and why they are in every single house on my street.

Speaking of affordable. It became time for her to give me my quote, she went on about discounts and sales and blather. The first price for five windows : $24,000 - However, this was not on my final quote, I gather my initial display of shock and dismay was a bit of a turn off to the saleswoman and the final quote for all five windows was listed as 16K and then lowered by additional 3K with sales and discounts. If I only get the upstairs windows it would be $8268.85 for three windows.

Its still a No.

When  she left and I stopped hyperventilating, I called a different vender and we'll see what they can do. I may just end up with a window stuffed with towels.

Sunday, I mowed the lawns and went to the Wake County Book sale, there was nothing left but a handful, but I I scoured the four remaining tables and got 14 books for $3. Can't beat it.

Friday Cats Blogging

Kent State

Because for some reason I didn't see any reference to it today : May 4, 1970

From Wikipedia, Kent State Shootings

The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)^[3][4][5] were the shootings of unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, by burning the campus ROTC building and throwing rocks at the Guardsmen. The shootings were perpetrated by members of the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. Twenty-nine guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.^[6][7]

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.^[8][9]

There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students,^[10] and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.^[11]

Because I was feeling a lot of rage today I thought I would leave you with  the lyrics to the song that Crosby Stills and Nash wrote.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her

And found her dead on the ground

How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

Dogs

I was very proud of Rocket yesterday. We met a tiny dog yesterday that looked exactly like one of those stuffed dog toys I used to let him eat, before I stopped letting him eat stuffed dog toys.

It was a cute little thing but it was just the tiny-iest thing  I ever saw that wasn't radio controlled or a cat.  If I was Rocket I would have thanked me for the toy and had at it. But he isn't me and he was a perfect gentleman and limited the meeting to a polite sniff.

Rockets head was about the size of the entire tiny dog, so the "polite sniff" was subject to interpretation . The tiny dog interpreted it to be an invitation to run around a squeak like a toy. It was a good day for tiny dog,  Rocket has never been all that interested by very young dogs. He thinks they are dogs and he respects them as fellow animals but he doesn't find them at all interesting or worthy of playing with.

Fortunately, he will only play with dogs that are more or less in his weight class. He ignores very young, very small dogs. He has better things to play with, like cats.

Cats are also very small and fragile but they move very fast and and are more than able to defend themselves, he knows this and he feels comfortable letting his fur down with them and really playing with them. You can tell he enjoys it and them, they are almost, but not quite equals and he feels comfortable. Tiny dogs are not his thing.

 I'm also afraid he's going to snap and just say "Damn it toy thing! I am going to so eat you now!"

Little dogs are just not as smart as cats. Cats are smart enough to get out of the way, little dogs think they can and should fight back and they just make it worse. They just aren't very bright. That's why they scare me, I avoid, in most cases. little dogs, because they could taunt him and I don't want to see that happen. I mean, Rocket is super chill and is really mellow but there is always the first time, its much easier to cross the street and wave. Its just good policy.

Tuesday

It turns out my $14.99 investment in a lovely, unstated navy blue backpack from Target  was indeed a good buy. I bought it in hopes that it would fit a bag of cat food and it did! Its been sitting around for months being a backpack, and understandably, cats made it their own. Cats are going to turn your things into cat beds. Its what they do, they are either going to break them or sleep on them.

I bought it a long time ago  now,  when I think about it, and in the meantime, since it was being used a as a backpack, it has doubled as a cat bed -  a damn good one at that, Ace has learned it was soft and comfy and not purchased as a cat bed- because God forbid he sleep on a on purpose cat bed!  He pushed it from the top of the table and  moved it under the table to get a better sun patch. He was very put out when I took it away from him to take it for a walk.

I went with Rocket to the cat food store and popped the cat food bag into the backpack and it magically fit and then Rocket and I went on the rest of our walk, the whole 3.5 miles. Perfect.

Normally, I have to carry the awkward thing in my arms and it is very heavy and hard to carry and after a half a mile or so it gets really not very much fun and more and more I have taken to buying it after work and having to pay for parking, which is a giant sin in my mind. Now I can just out on my backpack and walk to the store.

And that's it for today. Sorry.  Oh. I did have a surprise this morning when I was walking the dog. They tore down this house on Tarboro, it was there yesterday and it was fine and now this morning it was a pile of house. I may of shrieked when I saw it. It had been empty for a while but I thought it was a nice enough structure, but it is on a big lot and that, I guess was its death knell. It was a very small house on a largish lot and it was worth a lot less than the lot. So its gone now. They used to do that a lot more often around here than they do now ( they tore down the house behind me!), so I shouldn't be surprised, but I always am. It had newish siding on it too and the people had put a new porch on the side of it and I thought it looked nice but , oh well. Progress. And now I wonder how long the one next door has,  because it is even smaller and more wretched and less well maintained and I have wondered why its still standing, it does have a tenant in it now but I bet that this lights  a fire under the landlord and maybe they start looking at their options, its in an awful location, perhaps better served by a different kind of structure, like someones garage or just part of a yard.

It is not lost on me that I am bothered by the loss of the one house but I am planning the demise of the other.

Monday

Today there was no new water in the basement,  that made me happy, however, the cleaning crew fairies had not come to clean the now dry mud out. That made me sad. I am happy that it is dry mud now though.

I took Rocket for a walk and ran into my friend from protests and we chatted, and she reminded both of us that she has a painting of Rocket her Mother made and she has been waiting to give it to me, and today she did!

Its lovely! And now I have paintings of both my dogs. I'm going to get the new one framed up and then hang them together. I think they will look very pretty alongside one another,

Weekend.

I got a lot done this weekend considering I made up for lost sleep for three people. I'm kind like that, it was a volunteer thing - other people needed to catch up on their sleep, but didn't have the time or the ability, I did have the time and the free ( finally!) Saturday to dedicate to sleeping most of it away, and I did it for those other people.

It felt great.

I had a nice brunch and felt refreshed enough to mow both yards, with the manual mower, spend a lot of time in my dank, damp, sopping basement to do some much needed laundry - both machines worked as before, despite being under water for hours, so that was a nice miracle to have happen. Pre- laundry, I needed to empty a couple of laundry baskets, so I also put away a lot of old laundry that had been sitting around; I knew I had a lot of underwear somewhere, it was just a matter of finding it and putting it away. Its amazing how well that works and how much faster you can find your underwear when its back where it belongs instead of buried in a laundry basket, downstairs, in the dining room.

I have a lot of laundry baskets around because in the past, I have been known to just go and buy another laundry basket instead of emptying the ones I have because it seemed like an easier project to face.

I should mention that I came back into the house to a mess. I had left the Dog loose, because  I thought he would be okay. He wasn't okay. He ate a box of sandwich bags and left them scattered all over the floor, so now I have a huge number of homeless sandwich bags to contend with, Thanks dog. Then he went into the bathroom and ate a new lipstick I hadn't taken out of the packaging yet. Thanks again Dog! He did not make a mess, so there was that. Lesson learned, he must be locked up if I am not in the house. He can not be trusted.

So I did all that work outside, came inside and had to clean up  two dog messes, which he my the way, did not even feel guilty about, he feels no guilt whatsoever. He just looks at me like he's somewhat surprised I seem upset  and he wants me to feel better. He doesn't understand that his bad acts are what I am suddenly upset, or he does and he is trying to change the subject.

I did get a lot of laundry done, felt bad about the basement being wet. And watched some TV. And I was tired and sweaty and very hot, and after checking on my wet basement, sad. I needed to watch a lot of TV to recover and I did.

Later I went to Wally and did the weekly shopping. I forgot to buy new lipstick.

Sunday. I actually got up and went to Church, I came home vacuumed the downstairs, and kind of cleaned the bathroom. The basement looks dryer. I went back to Wally and bought replacement lipstick and a couple of half priced hanging baskets. And it rained again. I had a minor breakdown, but I'm better now.