And it is past time for this

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-25/pet-foods-face-first-ever-fda-rule-6-years-after-dog-treat-scare.html

Because we all try our best for the furry family members, but it is a jungle out there.

Oh my, more and more and more

A great site for observing obsession at work:

http://littledallilasbookshelf.tumblr.com

 Great FInd

Swiped off Tumblr in a random sort of way

1. spanish and italian: So THESE words are feminine and THESE words are masculine, and you ALWAYS put an adjective AFTER the noun.
2. french: haha i dont fuckin know man just do whatever
3. german: LET’S ADD A NEUTRAL NOUN HAHA
4. english: *shooting up in the bathroom*
5. gaelic: the pronounciation changes depending on the gender and what letter the word starts and ends with and hahah i dont even know good fucking luck
6. polish: here have all of these consonants have fun
7. japanese: subject article noun article verb. too bad there’s three fucking alphabets lmao hope your first language isn’t western
8. welsh: sneeze, and chances are you’ve got it right. idfk
9. chinese: here’s a picture. draw it. it means something. it can be pronounced three different ways. these twenty other pictures are pronounced the same but have very different meanings. godspeed.
10. arabic: so here’s this one word. it actually translates to three words. also pronouns don’t really exist. the gender is all in the verb. have fun!
11. latin: here memorize 500 charts and then you still dont know what the fuck is happening
12. dutch: so, this verb… do you have to use a ‘d’ at the end? or a ‘t’? or do you spell it with ‘dt’? YOU WILL NEVER KNOWWWW
13. sign language: If you move this sign by a tenth of an inch, you’ll be signing “penis”

And, finally, #6 Habibi

Going to extreme cuteness here.

Habeeb just appeared one morning.

I was putting out breakfast for the backyard bunch, and (the late, lamented) Albert the Feral came around the corner of the house, and chirped over his shoulder. Habibi came trotting after him, out of his bachelor pad in our basement.
He’d found her in the night, and kept her safe in his safe place.
Because things like that just happen to her.

She came up to the porch, saw the kitchen door, realized that THAT was where we kept the inside, and walked in.
Later we found an empty cat carrier in our hedge, with the remains of a can of wet food.
(And other remains indicating that she had been terrified by the whole thing. I cleaned matching crap out of her fur.)

Habeeb is basically your perfect cat: sweet-tempered, playful, and gentle.
She’s basically an indoor cat, despite having a catflap. But she prefers the outside to using her cat box. Her only real issues are a tendency to nibble, and Sextus’ inexplicable TERROR of her. Does this cat look intimidating to you? I think maybe she tried to play with him.

I think maybe she tried to play with him.
Eek.
She’s a little more perfect than we are, though, which is hard on her.
Here she is all “What is this FOOT doing in my photo-shoot?”
This kind of thing happens to her a lot.

So here is another photoshoot, minus foot.

She just poses like this all the time.

And falls asleep anywhere, not matter how precarious, and never falls off.

Ever.
Though, once again, her perfection is marred by my carelessness, here in the placement of that box in her foreground.
So very thoughtless of me.
She’s very patient with us though.
Maybe if she gets our fingers good and properly groomed and chomped, we’ll get our acts together – after all, catupuncture totally works!

Since we’re doing this chronologically, 4 and 5 are simultaneous

Doc and Sextus came together from the shelter, along with the late lamented Quint, Sexty’s brother.

We were smitten by Doc – literally, he has witchy eyes and we had no choice – and had waited out the week until he was available.
Sair’s ballet teacher volunteers there, though, and she somehow magicked us into taking two more cats at the same time.
Poor Sextus and Quint had been at the shelter all their short lives awaiting a home, and after about eight months, their time was really, really up.
I tried to plead enough cats, but Miss Patricia has fourteen.

It was a good thing, though, because Doc needed some older brothers to push around, and Sextus needs a kitty to love.
He adores Doc.
And who wouldn’t.

I mean, can you resist that face?
Or how about this belly?

In case you can’t see it, here is a better shot.

I think in this one you can see that his belly fur is in little ringlets.
Srsly.
So you can see why Sexty (here) thinks he’s so wonderful.

So they are buddies.
Sadly, the advent of cat #6, Habeeb, has driven Sextus to a life of exile on the back porch (along with Wolfie).
But before that, this was the usual configuration.

 

 

So #3 is Nikki of the Adventures

So far as I can tell, Nikki has been adopted or rescued no fewer than five times.
1) Our old tenant picked him up on the street when he was a kitten.
2)When she moved out she left him with us.
3) One night a student met him on the street and “rescued” him. He’d offed his collar, and she couldn’t feel his chip. After trying to re-home him, she put him out on the street near where she lived.
And we heard nothing for three years.
4) In September, we got a call from LONG BEACH that someone had him. Presumably someone took him off the street in Berkeley, and ended up leaving him in Long Beach.
5) The people who contacted us about him had rescued him from the street.

Well, he is pretty cute.

Since he’s been home he’s lost four collars – it would be five, but we found one in the yard.
We’ve had three sets of people phone us:
some nice kids around the corner called because he turned up in their apartment – they’d had the door open and he’d just come in;
our friend about the corner called because he was following her home and she worried about him maybe getting lost;
some nice kids called us because it was 11 a night and he’d followed them for two blocks and they didn’t know what else to do.
Some nice people brought him home last night and rang the bell because they’d stopped to pat him and then he was following them off down the block.

 

it is possible that the boy is toooooo friendly.

 

 

Number Two: Sisko

(Looks harmless enough….)

Sisko came to us when his person, my friend Other Laura, died.
He was accompanied by MollyCat, but she decided to move across the street, only coming back occasionally to visit and eat.
Although Sisko and Molly had been friends when they both lived with OL, they just fussed at each other here
Finally, the nice man who had been feeding her came over and asked for her hand… paw, and we let her go away with him.

When Sisko arrived, the first thing he did was decide that poor Wolfie was somehow terrifying and must be defeated.
He would chase him unmercifully all the time – not playing, serious attacks.
Poor Wolf never did anything except flee, but that wasn’t enough.
Nothing settled it until Wolfie retreated permanently into the back yard.

Oddly, recently, after years, Sisko appears to have simply forgotten there was any issue.
Now they both hang out on the front porch, sitting on adjacent chairs to watch the street.
Wolfie comes in to eat, or hang out, and Sisko pays no attention.
Go figure.

Time to Document the Felines Again: Number One, Senior Cat, Wolfgang

Wolfgang, oddly enough, is our most senior cat.

He is the sweetest cat imaginable, but he has phobias.
The tv terrifies him, and the radio isn’t much better – they are Unnatural.
It took him months to settle in when he first came home from the animal shelter.
I had to sit in the laundry room, talking to him and patting him, while he hid in the closet.

He’s still a little… odd.
Here his tail appears to mesmerize him:

(What is that thing doing there?)

The Wolf had a few happy years of living fairly bravely in the house, before the arrival of Sisko the Fearsome resulted in his utter refusal to live in the house.
Recently he has relented enough to begin eating in the kitchen, and occasionally walk through the house from the kitchen to the catflap in the dining room.
He’s even sat in my lap in the living room again, but not if the tv is on.
Sigh.

I did see a great warning sign on a gate in San Bruno

Utterly swell sign:    Dog on Premise

Not premises, premise.

Note, from American Heritage Dictionary (on-line):
1. premise, also, prem·iss. Logic. a proposition supporting or helping to support a conclusion.
2. premises.
a. a tract of land including its buildings.
b. a building together with its grounds or other appurtenances.
c. the property forming the subject of a conveyance or bequest.

That’s why you don’t argue with a guard dog, man, cos they are right on top of those things.

So, Australian types, a question

I sent off a box of stuff to the kid, and she got a notice that it was at the post office.

She delayed a bit about picking it up, because of needing someone with an id for the address to come with her and all her id was still US.

So she got there, finally, with her roommate, BUT SOME OTHER S. WALSH HAD ALREADY PICKED IT UP? It hadn’t been addressed to S. It, and all the customs stuff, was clearly “Sarah”. But the counter person released it to someone who only went by S. And if SHE had to have id with her address, wouldn’t S. have had to as well? Though there are a bunch of ## at ## as part of the address. So it could be a neighbor saying that number was a mistake?

We don’t know much more yet, because she still has to contact police and all. So we’re just trying to figure it out.

So, anyway, how the hell did this happen? Is this a common thing with Australian mail? Can I not mail stuff to her safely?

(And it had favorite clothing, and books, and stuffs. Damn.)

 

So maybe it’s time I just murder Tom?

The tenants emailed that they trapped a rat in the house, and help.

So I poked about online and found a green-focused, long-term and local pest service, and I asked the tenants to try to set up an inspection, and have the guy invoice us. They are responsible adults, and can be trusted to handle it.

And figuring that the tenants might want it done soon, this seemed okay. Because god knows when I’d get around to it anyway.

Because today I am trying to finish off our 2012 taxes so I can drop them off Tuesday in downtown SF, on my way back from picking up the car from where it broke down in Colma last week. (And I’ll probably end up doing this in the middle of rush hour, sigh. Unless I can figure out how to do it from Bart on the way over….)

I just did three loads of laundry, because Tom is soaking through sheets and pjs at a great rate so that I can only keep up with what he needs to have on hand if I do two loads a day. Oh, and I have three work shirts to iron tonight, after the third one comes out of the dryer.

I still have to get the garbage and recycling out of the house, and Tom can’t help because he can’t lift anything at all. Thank god for the guys in the back unit who have been hauling the bins out to the street for us lately!

Monday I have to go pry the next pain killer prescription out of Kaiser pharmacy, because they require a new paper script for refills of scheduled substances, and this seems to take the damn surgery department by surprise every time. (The doctor puts in for the refill, but the pharmacy doesn’t do it until they perform this intricate dance of the paperwork. Every time.) And I also have to call and schedule an appointment with a nurse practitioner who doesn’t use the online system, so we have to reach her, then her assistant, by phone.

In addition, every MWF I drop Tom off on campus at 1:30, and pick him up when he calls me after office hours, any time between 4-6:30, because it depends on how many students turn up. And I have to be around in the morning beforehand to help him get ready because he can’t reach his feet yet, and needs a new bandage on the open wound in back before he goes in, so that it won’t soak through while he’s on campus.

And I’m also now researching YET ANOTHER weird complication uncovered last week at the doctor’s – hence the new appointment with the nurse – because Tom doesn’t look up any of this stuff, at all, ever. Because if he doesn’t have to find out about it, maybe it isn’t real? 

Sooooo Tom thinks I should call the two or three guys who’ve done work on the house for us, to see if they know of any pest control companies to recommend, and then I should get multiple bids for the rodent work.

So, do I get to  murder him? 

 

And still no photos

Today was off to the doctor (again). The good news is no more wound packing!!!!! Now it is just a fold of gauze, no saline, until the last jellybean-sized bit heals. A full three months post-surgery at this point, and it’s probably still another month.

They are trying to figure whether there is to be a follow-up cycle or not. As long as there are still open wounds healing, the doctors have been postponing the next step. Maybe even canceling it. But now there is discussion of when/if to go ahead. Argh. I think we are both just exhausted with medical crap, but if they think it should happen….

And moving to the merely annoying; the Kaiser parking people closed my usual garage, labeling it “full.” Then, after I’d parked on the street five blocks away, it had gone from “full” and closed to open with “49 spaces.” Me, I think they just were having a party or something. And not just annoying, five blocks was challenging walk for Tom.

And yesterday was a write-off too. We had another big family funeral to attend, over in the city. Tom’s from a big Irish family, so there is a whole song and dance involved. This one was distinguished, though, by having our poor car die in traffic on the way out to the gravesite. The good part was being rescued by Tom’s cousin and her really rather okay daughter. They followed the tow-truck, swept us off to the reception, and the daughter then drove us back to Berkeley – through rush-hour traffic – for which I am totally grateful.

The car is now off having its timing belt replaced, and I get to ride over on Bart on Tuesday, my birthday, to fetch it home. The sad part is, I’m sort of looking forward to it. A whole afternoon completely free to wander about. Admittedly, to wander about in San Bruno, but at this point I’m not picky. It looks as if there is a big mall right at the Bart (Tanforan Shopping Center?). I’m thinking I will make a side trip and get lunch and poke around a bit before calling the mechanic to come pick me up to get the car. An adventure, of sorts.

So basically it’s just been pointlessly busy. Kitty photos eventually, though, I promise.

 

I didn’t get a photo

But

I was hearing thuds, and at some point realized that there was no one upstairs, and so I should investigate the sounds.

So I opened the back door, and there was a lovely, lovely fruity floral scent.

And I went around the corner of the house, and up on the trellis there was a charming raccoon mama and one baby harvesting the Concord grapes.

So, let’s see about resuscitating this thing!

So hey-

It hasn’t really been my fault.

It’s basically been the year from hell, starting with me last fall with the skin rashes (itch), then the steriods (ICK), then multiple pulmonary embolisms (not recommended).

And, having thus had a pretty bleak winter myself, as soon as I was up walking around trying to get some stamina back, it became Tom’s turn. Within two weeks of my home oxygen tanks finally going away, Tom started having serious (as in “potentially lethal”) medical issues of his own.

Part of his reaction was a desire for privacy that included not wanting me or Sair discussing it online. For months and months. All of this left me on shaky ground, because of the difficulty of so loudly Not Discussing what I was spending most of my time dealing with. Okay so far as posting links to cats in boxes and the like, but harder in more discoursive blogging. At this point he’s started telling people that he was sick, though he is still mostly omitting details.

So I will continue to omit details, but I can say something of what has been going on. After a lot of medical song and dance in the spring, Tom finally ended up with surgery in July. All manner of complications ensued, involving internal blockages, and incisions opening up, and unremitting pain that they haven’t altogether solved. He spent something over three weeks in the hospital – off and on – being fed through an iv, and he finally came home barely able to make it across the room in a walker.

The good news is he is much stronger, though he still isn’t even nearly up to his normal level of vigor. He still has a lot of pain, especially at night, and therefore trouble sleeping. There is still – surgery was July 5th! – an open wound in part of an incision, that requires packing and bandaging daily. But his overall odds are pretty good, and life should look normal again, maybe even by spring. Or maybe later, depending on what all else the doctors come up with.

I’ve already pencilled in my Massive Freakout Over It All for tentatively mid-March. But I can move it back, if I’m still on-call at that point.