(no subject)
Last week I started volunteering at the cat clinic in Delaware where I've had Cow!Cat and Dougal MacDuff neutered. Just on Tuesdays, 3 or 4 hours at a time. It gives me a chance to help out with more needy cats than I can accommodate in my back yard, and actually helps reduce the population of ferals instead of just caretaking for a few while the vast majority remain unneutered, expand their numbers geometrically, and are sentenced to death if caught or a too-short, precarious life if they successfully elude human contact.
I took Andrew with me yesterday, since his work cancelled on him, and we functioned together pretty well as a team. We changed bedding and litter for about 35 cats, including a couple I'd met the previous week, and fed them all and medicated a few. Of these there were about a dozen kittens in varying states of health, and of course those were fun, because feral kittens very quickly get over their feral terror of humans, and with just a little sweet-talking and head-scritching become as playful and curious as any other kittens.
But just a few hours in one of these places all but eliminates any secret fears I harbor that I could ever become a cat hoarder. It's hard, hard, dirty, smelly and hard work, and the need for constant adherence to my self-imposed cleanliness guidelines is exhausting. I'm by no means a clean freak, but still. I could never afford all the litter, food, soap, bleach, and latex gloves needed on an everyday basis, not to mention the veterinary care or multiple dishwashers, washers and dryers. (Oh ... and water and power bills!) And cages, crates or traps are no way for an animal to live for more than a few days. Also, sadly, by the time I'm cleaning the tenth or fifteenth crate of the day I find that I'm losing my sense of the individuality of the creature inside, and it becomes just another series of tasks to perform - gently and safely and kindly, but without full engagement. That is a "processing", work-focused mode of thinking and not an interactive or spontaneous one, and it's not the way I want to relate, even occasionally, to the animals I share my home with.
On the personal health front, the upshot from last week's fainting and hand injury is not terribly positive. The finger has not improved since Saturday's doctor visit, in fact the entire outer side of my hand seems to be in a permanently stiff state, so I called the hand surgeon to set up a consultation. And my doctor's office called today with 2 separate pieces of bad news: my bloodwork shows mild anemia and also slightly elevated blood sugar. The blood sugar I'm rationalizing to myself as having no food in my system at the time of the blood draw except for a couple of glasses of sugared iced tea; but the anemia troubles me more. I suspect it may have to do with the Nexium and Zantac I have to take for reflux, and their propensity to leach nutrients out of the digestive tract. So I'm going further down the path of deleterious side effects for needed medications. Sigh. I'm going back for further bloodwork week after next.
Oh oh oh! In the realm of Cool Things, I got an order today from a really inexpensive online bead store for Swarovski crystals to replace the lost ones from the buckles in my über-shiny but 2-year-old Birkenstock Betula sandals! (Just like these, but aqua-blue.) I scrubbed the buckles tonight with ammonia and a toothbrush, so the remaining crystals are nice and shiny again, and tomorrow when the shoes are entirely dry I can play around with glue and pliers and sparklies! *is crafty* All for $0.90/10 crystals. *is also thrifty. and smug*
I'm leaving this Friday for a week at the shore with my mom. I won't have regular internet access, although I will have the baby-laptop with me and will check in occasionally. Have a good one, everybody.
I took Andrew with me yesterday, since his work cancelled on him, and we functioned together pretty well as a team. We changed bedding and litter for about 35 cats, including a couple I'd met the previous week, and fed them all and medicated a few. Of these there were about a dozen kittens in varying states of health, and of course those were fun, because feral kittens very quickly get over their feral terror of humans, and with just a little sweet-talking and head-scritching become as playful and curious as any other kittens.
But just a few hours in one of these places all but eliminates any secret fears I harbor that I could ever become a cat hoarder. It's hard, hard, dirty, smelly and hard work, and the need for constant adherence to my self-imposed cleanliness guidelines is exhausting. I'm by no means a clean freak, but still. I could never afford all the litter, food, soap, bleach, and latex gloves needed on an everyday basis, not to mention the veterinary care or multiple dishwashers, washers and dryers. (Oh ... and water and power bills!) And cages, crates or traps are no way for an animal to live for more than a few days. Also, sadly, by the time I'm cleaning the tenth or fifteenth crate of the day I find that I'm losing my sense of the individuality of the creature inside, and it becomes just another series of tasks to perform - gently and safely and kindly, but without full engagement. That is a "processing", work-focused mode of thinking and not an interactive or spontaneous one, and it's not the way I want to relate, even occasionally, to the animals I share my home with.
On the personal health front, the upshot from last week's fainting and hand injury is not terribly positive. The finger has not improved since Saturday's doctor visit, in fact the entire outer side of my hand seems to be in a permanently stiff state, so I called the hand surgeon to set up a consultation. And my doctor's office called today with 2 separate pieces of bad news: my bloodwork shows mild anemia and also slightly elevated blood sugar. The blood sugar I'm rationalizing to myself as having no food in my system at the time of the blood draw except for a couple of glasses of sugared iced tea; but the anemia troubles me more. I suspect it may have to do with the Nexium and Zantac I have to take for reflux, and their propensity to leach nutrients out of the digestive tract. So I'm going further down the path of deleterious side effects for needed medications. Sigh. I'm going back for further bloodwork week after next.
Oh oh oh! In the realm of Cool Things, I got an order today from a really inexpensive online bead store for Swarovski crystals to replace the lost ones from the buckles in my über-shiny but 2-year-old Birkenstock Betula sandals! (Just like these, but aqua-blue.) I scrubbed the buckles tonight with ammonia and a toothbrush, so the remaining crystals are nice and shiny again, and tomorrow when the shoes are entirely dry I can play around with glue and pliers and sparklies! *is crafty* All for $0.90/10 crystals. *is also thrifty. and smug*
I'm leaving this Friday for a week at the shore with my mom. I won't have regular internet access, although I will have the baby-laptop with me and will check in occasionally. Have a good one, everybody.