Saturday - not much going on. Hot and
humid - indeed, lightning and thunderstorms and rain through the
afternoon and into the early evening. Kind of fun.
The cats were content to sit in the doorway in back and watch the show.
I took my friends boy down to the Park n' Ride in Palmdale, where he
joined a group going down to Redondo Beach for some sort of Sea Scouts
thing. I think there is a dinner on Wednesday that I've a ticket too,
but am not sure if I'll be able to make it, because of work.
In other news one of my brothers has expressed interest in renting my
parents old house. It's almost completely remodeled, carpets going in
next week, so it's about time to get a renter. They say never to rent to friends or relatives,
but it seems easier than getting a property management agency, and
cheaper. Plus he will, supposedly, finish up the remodeling effort in
the next few years. It wouldn't surprise me if he wanted to buy, after
being in a nice place in a nice neighborhood for a few years.
At the advice given on a blog I took the top off my kitty litter box,
so I could watch Phoebe do his thing. And maybe it helps - he seems to
be straining, as it were, to get his business done. Cat's are prone to
severe constipation on occasion, often due to dry food, and I wonder if
he has some problem like that. I'll bring it up with the vet, on Monday
if I can get in to see them. If an enema, extraction perhaps, and
(expensive) low residue is what it takes, that's what I'll do. I've
been trying to resign myself to the worst, but maybe it's something
simple.
Friday 9 September
2011
Friday
- not much going on. Hot and humid. I'm pretty bored, but cat tending is keeping me close to home.
I did finish the last most recent Vorkosigan book, so Book #102 is Cryoburn, by Lois McMasters Bujold. Light but enjoyable.
Phoebe, drooling after his medicine.
If I don't get the pill, whole, down his throat he can taste it, and it is indeed vile.
Thursday 8 September
2011
Thursday
- I was supposed to go down to Ventura to work, but other things came
up, so next week. Looks like our candidate jobs impressed the client,
so that's all good.
There was a huge power outage yesterday - still ongoing - in San
Diego County, millions without power. It's unclear as to what happened,
but my friend Tim is very concerned about the food in his freezers...
Wednesday
7 August 2011
Wednesday - not doing much. My back
hurt a bit earlier in the week, and my hands are just on the cusp of
not being stiff and hurting so I don't want to do any major yard work
for a bit yet. It's nice not to be hammering the ibuprofen all day! But
I am getting little things done.
I took a video with the T3i of how I force feed my cat with pills, and
sent it to friends. Actually, it was so big - nearly a gigabyte for
about 1m45s - that I had to run it through
Quicktime Pro on the old laptop to export it as a cellphone sized
video, under 2MB. I think the T3i will probably do smaller video
natively, rather than the huge HD thing, but I'll have to check.
Tuesday
6 August 2011
Tuesday
- home again, and attempting to feed pills to my cat. He does NOT care
for it. My first attempts were failures, he drooled, foamed at the
mouth, and eventually spit the pills out.
Thank god for YouTube and videos on how to do it. The trick of getting
them to lick their nose actually works: it activates the cats'
swallowing reflex, so they don't cough the medicine up. I just dab a
little bit of gravy on the nose, while holding the jaw shut for a
moment after dropping the pills in, and as soon as they lick the ordeal
is over.
By the way: I tasted the powdered pills and they are just as vile as
Phoebe's body language indicated. If I didn't know it was medicine I'd
assume someone was poisoning me...
Not much else going on, hot and humid out.
Book #101 was Diplomatic Immunity, by Lois McMasters Bujold. This is another in the long Miles Vorkosigan series, light but fun.
Monday 5
August 2011
Monday
- on the road, back to Lancaster.
It was a nice drive, with the occasional shower from the thunderstorms
moving through southern California. A fire in the Devore area had left
a definite pall in the air, despite the showers, but the roads were
clear and dry through the mountains.
I think this might have been one of the nicest Labor Day's in quite a while.
Sunday 4
August 2011
Sunday
- Still down in San Diego.
We didn't do much work, but had a nice barbecue in the afternoon and
evening. One of Tim's nieces sang - she has a nice voice. I was
impressed, no-one in my family has the slightest trace of any musical
talent. A favorite song among all the young girls was If I Die Young, by The Band Perry. I guess sad songs about early romantic deaths never go out of fashion...
We had the MDA Telethon on in the evening - they've fired Jerry Lewis
and reduced the length to six hours. The "acts" generally seemed rather
B-list, but at the end they claimed to have raised $60 Million is
donations. Hard to believe, but that's what they say.
I get little reports on Phoebe, he is not happy about the pills being shoved down his throat. Still, it has to be done.
As I mentioned, he's never forgotten S,
who took him
the first time to a vet. Now, after failing to get him to eat the pills
powdered into tuna, she is subbing for my usual cat sitter for the
weekend, and clearly making him remember that she is his own personal
Satan.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Sundown over Carquinez Straits from pier at Martinez, Ca.
