Poop Explosion Weekend is SO Over

Believe me when I tell you that dealing with three cats who all have explosive diarrhea at the same time is NOT. A. FUN. experience.

It started out innocuously with Doodle, as reported earlier last week. Her sample came out negative by the way. Still no word on the blood.

Then Friday evening I noticed Hobbes having issues with sharts and liquid from his ass.

Then late Friday night I noticed Moomin had a schmear on his bloomers and was yodelling more then usual when he went potty.

Then it hit me, they were all going potty in the box and having diarrhea.

It was a veritable POOP EXPLOSION FROM HELL!!! I was in hell, a smelly trigger-your-gag-reflex hell. The cats weren't even bothering to dig holes or bury anything. They would just cop a squat and let go. Mostly in the boxes but there were a few drips over the edge especially when they started to run out of room or needed to go RIGHT that second.

I cleaned the box twice Friday night before I went to bed.

I was awakened at 3am on Saturday by somefurrybody vomiting 3 times, HUGE vomits. I cleaned that up and it smelled just like the box's business. Gag. Then once the sun came up, Doodle tried to go potty, came out without doing anything, yarfed some more smelly vomit, and then immediately went to the box to basically yarf from her butt. I'm thinking she had tummy cramps so bad they made her nauseous, you know, like what happens to us humans?

Saturday morning I scooped liquid poo. Saturday afternoon I scooped liquid poo. Saturday night I scooped liquid poo.

I tried to be a forensic detective Saturday. There had to be a common thread. Obviously it wasn't the food, they all eat different food. The vet gave me 4 cans of prescription wet food for Doodle and Hobbes/Moomin's wet food dates all checked out. It couldn't be Doodle's thyroid coz they all had diarrhea. What else did they have in common besides being indoor cats living in the same house and shitting in the same boxes?

Water.

I've been getting water from my friend J2's house, they live on a lake and have filtered water. This arrangement has been working fine since Moomin's bladder issues this past fall. But I'm wondering if there was a bad batch. I store the water where I come in and I think the sun may have tweaked the water to give them all the squirts. So to rule out the water theory, I emptied the water bowls, replaced the bowls with new bowls, filled them with my new Brita-filtered water, scrubbed the water fountain and changed it's water, and...

the hardest part, I had the cats fast for 24 hours.

Trust me, scooping liquid poo is much easier.

Saturday night I had to listen to "where's our bedtime snack?" repeatedly.

Sunday morning I had to listen to "where's our breakfast?" for two straight hours.

Luckily, I had a project to do at my parents so I could escape the nonstop "where's our breakfast, aren't you going to feed us, where's our food, are you going into the kitchen, what's that you have, are you going to get my food out of the fridge, we're hungry, why aren't you feeding us, what's the deal, can't you see we're starving?"

I spent most of my day away and when I came home, it was the same spiel only with dinner substituted for b-fast. I futzed around outside taking pictures of my garden for as long as I could before getting eaten by mosquitos, came in and blogged, and then settled in with a book. Things kind of calmed down but every time I moved or shifted, the whole hungry Bambi eyes deal would start up again.

Finally I fed them at 7pm, but no bedtime snack. Gotta start slow.

In the boxes this morning were 4 solid good-sized pee clumps. No poops.

The kiddos were fed their regular breakfasts and when I came home after work, I scanned the boxes and did not see any visible evidence of anything.

So here's hoping things are back to normal, poop that is.

Garden 2008

So here's this year's garden. Two of my three pumpkin plants are over in the bed directly behind my house, only one is in the other raised bed. Click on it for larger view to actually see what's in the beds.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a pumpkin plant that grows straight up. I keep waiting for it to lay down. No the jugs are not holding it up.

My wee little pepper plant has a wee little pepper. Dad told me the plant stem gets very strong and "not to worry" about the pepper bending the plant to the ground.

I actually have 4 tiny squash, but to avoid being redundant, here's one set of the four.

One of my tomato plants has flowers.

These are those plants (supposed to grow about 5 feet high) that my mom said have red flowers that look like cardinals.

Little Nikko Blue hydrangea.

And the moonflower. I keep trying to encourage it to grow around the black post, but it keeps wanting to stretch towards the deck stairs.

I Done Did Bought a Fit

Sport that is. Red.

Pictures curtsey of Honda.com.

I'm too excited for words.

I did this on my own, well with an assistance call to Mom who was fortunately home and gave me some pointers on how to get more for my trade-in. Which I was able to do semi-successfully.

Totally not what I expected to do today. I had it in my mind that I was just going for a test drive while my car got an oil change and tune-up. Then I was going to visit the consignment shop and maybe EddieBauer.

Nope. I was meant to have this car and I bought it.

It will be coming in a month.

I called Gpa and he's thrilled for me. Now he's going to go test drive one himself. He asked me to send him pics of me with my...

Fresh brand-spankin' shiny roomy new little red car.

Look What Happened To Doodle!

She's been SHAVED!!! On her pretty white bib. When I took her to the vet today, I did not expect this to happen. She had some extreme diarrhea this morning so I scheduled to bring her in after work. They asked me to bring them a sample and I told them not to worry, it's been isolated and ready to bring over. So I get home and the sample has been fermenting in my pseudomudroom. So nice and fragrant. The "cat" vet (who is super nice and smart) told me that she doesn't see or feel anything wrong but due to Doodle's age, it might be hyperthyroidism. She told me to keep an eye on her to see if she increases what she eats. I had to explain to Dr. W that Doodle doesn't get a chance to free range and eat whatever, so I have no way to tell coz she gets a certain amount for b-fast, a certain amount for dinner, a sprinkle for bedtime snack, and no more. After some discussion, we decided to have blood drawn to rule hyperthyroidism out and coz Doodle is of the age (8) where the vet should have a baseline. The vet whisked Doodle away, the technician brought her back, I paid, and came home. I had no idea they shaved a two inch square until she lifted her head to my hand to give me an "I forgive you" head butt.

I like the effect of this one, like sun's whiskers on Doodle with her whiskers.

Hobbes all handsome in the sun and not hissing at Doodle for once, even tho she smells all vettish and alcoholish and scary.

Miss B profilin' with Moomin.

See the eyes in the background?

Today/Tomorrow

Today:

One of my friends networked on my behalf.

I squeezed some fund-drippings from the rock that is the State.

My cats ate their meals without incident.

I took the plunge and wrote an exorbitant check for a pre-paid oil plan.

I learned how to spell "exorbitant".

I called DTV and was able to give my Gpa the date his coupon will be mailed.

No watering of the garden/plants was needed.

My friend J2 called before work to talk and make tentative plans.

Tomorrow:

Is the full moon.

Is the end of Mercury Retrograde.

It will rain some more (fine by my garden+plants).

I will have another lunch of CrockPot CatNip.

Is one day closer to Book Sale set up.

(I'm practically frothing in the brain at the mere thought of being in an entire gymnasium full of books!!!)

So Here's Hoping...

Mercury Retrograde will not negatively effect my:
1) newly planted pumpkin plants
2) newly planted donated Nikko Blue hydrangea
3) newly planted moonflower
4) newly planted something or others that have flowers that resemble cardinals
5) newly planted tomato plants
6) newly planted lone pepper plant
7) newly seeded green bean suprise.

All day Saturday I weeded my back of the house landscape garden. The weeds had proliferated so badly they were taking over and I could no longer see dirt. And, man, were they ugly-ass weeds too. So it was with some major hostility displacement and vengeful satisfaction that I dug their butts up and dumped them where they will NOT be happy which is a pile of weedbegone in the back of my neighbor's house that she kindly lets me use to make weeds and other non-wanted growing crap disappear. I also emptied two of my compost bins - meaning I dug out about 1 to 1.5 feet of wet slimy decomposing dark stuff that had some semblence to leaves which was many-wheel barrows full transported to the newly weeded beds and then dug out the remaining 2 feet or so of fresh new mulchy dirt and wheel barrowed that on top of the slimy stuff. Needless to say, it was an Aleve of an evening. I also got to eat at Mom and Dad's - some homemade Potstickers. YUM!

Sunday I was all set to max and relax in my PJs with books and cats coz it was raining. Unbeknownst to me that is the perfect weather for gardening and Mom was on her way over. So I had to drag some clean gardening clothes on, find a sort of waterproof jacket and hat, tromp outside, and dig up the remaining compost bin for dirt for the three pumpkin mounds. Let me tell you, I have never seen earthworms that big. They were the size of gummy worms. I put the slimy layer (which was giving off steam) in one of the other compost bins to start up some more dirt and had enough newly made dirt to make three mounds. Mom got to my place at that point with more plants (the above mentioned numbers 2, 4, 6, and 7). She also had fertilizer, Epsom salts (for the tomato plants), and surprise bean seeds in her pocket. So I ended up gardening in the rain and taking more Aleve after she left. The backs of my thighs were screaming. Haven't felt like that since my soccer days. I treated Dad to a Blizzard for Father's Day.

Today I made an appointment to test drive a Honda Fit Sport on Friday while my car gets an oil change and her battery cleaned. Fingers crossed I like it coz if I don't, that means I'm back to the drawing board and I don't wanna be there.

Gpa left me a message asking me to call him. I did and he said his DTV coupon hasn't arrived yet and he wants me to call them to find out when he's supposed to get it because "they talk too fast for him to understand them". After about 5 minutes of me shouting for a number, any number, confirmation number, coupon number, identification number, reference number, I got a number and then I spent 5 more minutes trying to figure out what type of number it was so I don't make an ass of myself on the phone when I call. Stroke apraxia can be frustrating for both parties. He couldn't say the word the number was and I can't process quickly-spelled-out-loud words so to say we both got miffed was an understatement. But once we got it all figured out we were fine. He said he had some company over the weekend and the dogs went so crazy with barking the fat one couldn't breathe and had to choke-cough repeatedly. That must have been a treat and a half. He can't hear very well in the first place and to have those two dogs non-stop barking while the company is trying to have a conversation with Gpa, I'm rather glad I missed that. I had enough excitement when the oxygen guy came while I was there.

I Thought Things Were Gonna Go Better...

So May sucked ass and I was really hoping June would be better. Glad I didn't bet any money on that coz June is running a very close second to the suckiness that was May.

Good things:

-My squash are planted and happy little boogers. Now I just need to get my pumpkins from Mom's, hopefully this weekend.

-My forsythia have all just gotten so big and unpathetic this year. Yea!

-The white pine pollen doesn't seem to be tripping my allergy alarm system like the past two years (no live things crawling around under my skin feelings and I've not finished a box of tissue in a few months, that's a big difference).

-I got some new RipStop shorts from EddieBauer that are wear-to-workable, comfortable, and great!

-My mom is happy at her job and she has tiny little arms (I'm so jealous).

-I can't wait to make the crock pot recipe again.

-And I'm car shopping. (Which is nice and exciting in one way, but smarmy salemen make it not so nice in other ways.)

Bad things:

-Much stress and crisis control associated with work continues.

-Hobbes threw up his entire breakfast this AM and also tried to go to the bathroom 5x before I got him to the vet's (his pooper is fine, his bladder was empty but slightly harder than the vet thinks is normal, so I'm to keep an eye on him for possible bladder infection, will these boy issues never end?).

-I have to cut the grass with my non-motorized push mower. Now while I've been on the GoGreen bandwagon with this mower since before the gas crisis and I actually like using it, it does not do a SUPER efficient job. So my yard will be slightly scraggily this summer. Oh well and who cares, not gonna pay outrageous gas prices to mow my little neigborhood lawn.

-I'm finding dog poop in my yard and when I finally catch them, someone's gonna need new ears and possibly new clothes.

-On a related note, somefurrybody has been scooting and leaving poopschmears on several carpets and pieces of furniture. Can you say ick and gross and STOP that right now!?

-The weather has been freakishly hot and humid and if there is one thing I DO NOT tolerate well is weather that resembles being in someone's mouth for 4 days straight.

-The ticks are huge and big and everywhere, EVERYWHERE!!

-I'm worried about Gpa.

-I'm finding it harder and harder to just get up in the morning during the week. And I'm finding I'm staying in my PJs far too long on the weekend days.

-My dad wants me to try one car and I don't like it's looks and I hate being oppositional with my parents.

So, enough kevetching. My friend J told me that she has tracked the full moon for years (one is coming up soon) and found that in addition to the kiddos at the preschool reacting negatively to the full moon's regular cycle, she found that every now and then there was a BAD two months where everything for everyone seemed to go to hell in a handbasket. And it's that time in the cycle she's plotted. I just talked with her recently and she and her family members are all having an extremely difficult time, as well as other people around her. I wonder if it's Mercury Retrograde... Hold on let me check... Yep, Mercury Retrograde started May 26 and ends June18. Of course things sucked before the 26, so Mercury must have been doing a pre-show treat. Some treat. Hopefully after this full moon, positivity is headed our way.

Dot Dogs, Tick'n Guts, and Fat Boy Frappes

I was invited tonight to go to a drive-in with the friend/co-worker (C) who drove me to the airport, her hubby (C2), her daughter (g), another friend (S) and her daughter (k).

The drive-in is called Fat Boy and you have to "turn on your lights for service". Poor carhops tonight had to serve in the rain. Poor customers in their foggy cars. We ate inside coz our party was too big to fit in one car - four grown-ups, two toddlers, and ketchup. Yeah, I'm glad we were inside.

Food's cheap. I guess people really like their burgers, fried haddock rolls, and hot dogs. Not me. I had the crispy chicken fingers, cheese sticks, some onion rings, and a frappe. Treat day today! I am SOOOO going to pay for this meal tonight as my body is going to make me sorry I ate all that grease and fatty food. But it was good for the soul because I was with excellent company instead of hermitting at home.

Because 'g' is only two, she was full of pep and she bounced like Tigger in the booth, thoroughly irritating the couple next to us. C apologized but the sphincter-lady said "if I jumped like that, my father would have benched me." After they left, S said she should have told the lady that her father benching her was the root of all her problems. I said it's a drive-in after all, they should have stayed in their cars if they didn't want to be bothered by other customers. The next couple was more tolerant and they laughed just as heartily as we did when 'g' got very excited about the train. 'g' stood straight up in the booth, opened her mouth wide, loudly yelled "TRAIN", and had her little fists up in the air shaking them like a frenzied politician when it tooted directly behind the restaurant.

I asked the other grown-ups if they thought Fat Boy would make the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives cut. S said she "loves that show" and when I said I was crushin' on Guy, both C and S had hysterics. C said she thought Fat Boy should be on the show. Then we dished about which episode was our favorite. Mine is the one that has the little old Southern black lady behind the counter grilling up the food who verbally smacks down people who don't know the correct ordering lingo. While S and C dealt with their respective daughters, I thought about it and came to the decision that Fat Boy wouldn't make the cut. Their food is not spectacular or unique or has any special twist to it. People mostly go because they've been going since they were little and there are memories associated with going to Fat Boy rather than the food itself. And then the prices would make any miser delighted. The place down the street, Morse Lobster Shack (another drive-in), has WAY better onion rings and I know two other places that have far better cheese sticks. The burgers I guess are sliders but they seem rather small and tasteless to me. But their frappes are delish! I got an orange cream and chocolate mix and it was heavenly. I'll give them points for their frappes.

The title of this post, by the way, is how C's daughter pronounces hot dogs and chicken nuggets.

A Poem for a Child

A rare red butterfly

Steadfast but never still

Here and then gone

Lucent as a moonbeam

Earthbound for a moment

Yet in our hearts forever

Home Again Home Again

Jiggity jig!

I went to visit my grandfather all last week. It was good to see him again.

I was exhausted before leaving, what with work and all. May was an extremely stressful and sad month and I was very glad to have an entire week with no schedule (other than the planes) and no expectations. I'd sent my toiletries, presents for Gpa, a book or two, and a project a week ahead of time via UPS and the SpaceBags allowed me to stuff a very small carry-on with plenty of clothing choices!

My friend and co-worker picked me up at my house and drove me to the airport - she got to my house at 3:45am. Yep, that's what I said, my flight was at 6:00am so I had to be there early for security purposes. I made her Spaghetti Bread and filled half her tank - she was looking forward to driving me the entire week before, mostly excited about the gas. She was very awake and cheerful. A great send-off and start to the vacation!

Strange for me, I had absolutely no trip anxiety on the way down, that's how numb I was. I didn't worry about getting to the airport on time, I didn't worry about the plane, I didn't rush like a mad person to my connection in Detroit, I didn't even crack a book the whole way there. Strange and indicative of how "not me" I was feeling.

Gpa met me in the short term parking lot and we hugged hard, we'd both missed each other very much. We didn't talk much in the car, his barely hearing ear is on the opposite side of the passenger seat and it takes much effort on my part to get him to understand what I'm saying and I just couldn't summon the energy to sustain a long conversation. Besides, I wanted him to be able to concentrate on his driving. We did get lost trying to find CiCi's but we managed to find it after much driving up, down, back, and around. It was basically a case of him having a mental picture of where CiCi's was but he couldn't find the right street to match. We did ask for directions from a very nice man who I mentally sent blessings to to have a kick-ass day after he drove off.

Back at his house, Gpa was pooped after the whole driving around deal and while he took a nap, I drove to my usual used book store up the street to stock up on vacation reading material. I found some good finds and then tooled over to the store to buy MY groceries (stuff for b-fast and lunch, OJ, skim milk, and a big jug of spring water coz his water tastes like dirt) coz his cupboard is bare except for things that should be crawling away or would kill me to eat as I don't have his food immunities.

The whole week alternated between Gpa feeling rather good and feeling pooped. Which was fine by me, I was pooped mentally and physically and finally started feeling rested by Wednesday. I made him one big meal - crockpot chuck roast in mushroom soup overnight on low and mashed potatoes - and pumpkin cookies with choc chips. We had leftovers one night, Wendy's another, then Baker's Square, and then the last night was a toss-together of plain angel hair pasta.

Making the cookies was definitely an adventure I don't want to repeat - the vanilla was older than me and unrefridgerated as well, the eggs were way past the time they should have been still in the fridge (I had to smell them to make sure they could be used), and I never figured out how old the baking powder was but I'm pretty sure they don't have that box design anymore or had it any time soon. I wasn't entirely sure whether the cookies would give either me or Gpa the shits but they turned out to be good - both in taste and easy on the gut.

I trimmed his hedges, untangled the dog leashes at least a thousand times, thoroughly cleaned his kitchen, cleaned the bathroom I use, slept in, napped, read, sat in the sun (and got Gpa to as well), doodled on his computer to fix things he wanted fixed and to find things for him (like the coupon for the converter box for digital reception), and showered him with attention. I made him cookie ice-cream shakes and loaded him up with cheap cookies.

All in all, he put me on the plane rested and ready to come back to my home and kitties. I think I may try to get out to see him the end of summer or the beginning of fall. He said he wished I could have stayed longer. I did too, but I really wanted to come home, I missed my nest. I didn't take any pictures of him this time. He was too tired for that and I would rather have pictures of him when he had more vitality. It makes me sad that he fixes his dogs better meals than he fixes himself.