Yellow Wallpaper

While I was making dinner on Thursday night I heard the unmistakable sounds of kitty barf happening in the hallway. I got there too late to move the cat, but realized that she was barfing up a large quantity of white foam and water. As soon as I saw that, my heart sank--that's exactly what has happened the last two times she ate something and got sick . I cleaned up the mess and finished dinner; later I checked the basement (her preferred barfing spot) and found more evidence of a sick cat. Friday morning she was curled up on the downstairs couch, and when I got home last night she was still in the same spot. This morning she made her way upstairs and lay down next to the water dish, looking sadly at it but not drinking. Thankfully the vet's office has Saturday hours, so I decided not to wait until Monday and gave them a call to make an appointment.  Before taking the cat in to the vet, I had already decided that if she had a foreign object in her stomach I wasn't going t...

1. I picked up Tiger from the vet early Monday morning. She was definitely a lot happier and friskier than she had been the previous week. Because she was still recovering and had to eat special soft food for a few days, I shut her in the guest bedroom (with food, water and an extra litterbox) until Thursday. She wasn't very happy about that and complained a lot every time I checked on her, but she is now doing much better. I didn't realize how much her behavior changed last week until now that she is eating well again because the contrast is so great. 2. I am excited for it to finally be August. The kids go back to school in about two weeks; I think we have had a fun summer but are all ready to go back to our usual routines. That being said, August is going to be kind of stressful. S-Boogie is getting her tonsils and adenoids removed next Friday. She has had sleep apnea for a number of years and often complains of having a sore throat in the morning. We've considered hav...

Now you can all have that Alanis Morissette song stuck in your head too. You're welcome.  Earlier this year when I was interviewing for my current job, one of the questions I was asked was something about a life lesson I had learned recently (I don't remember the exact wording). I responded by saying that I had been working on owning my choices--both good and bad. I (like many people) have a tendency to backpedal on mistakes I've made, by blaming the circumstances or other people. Another common reaction to mistakes is to spend hours, days, or weeks berating yourself for being a 'bad' or 'stupid' person. I don't think that's healthy either. Another part of why I answered that way was was that one problem I had in my last job was a work environment that often made me question or defend my decisions. That was often stressful, but it also taught me to clearly articulate why I had made certain choices, both to myself and to others. Sometimes I was wron...

Saturday morning I drove up to my friend's house to pick up the kitties. She had a cardboard carrier I could put them in, so we loaded them up and I put them on the floor on the front passenger side of the car. I could tell that they were unhappy while we drove home, but thankfully they didn't make any messes and they didn't freak out. They just cried off and on during the drive. I had a bit of adventure when I realized that my gas tank was almost empty and the first time I got off the freeway the gas station turned out to be closed and there wasn't another option besides getting back on the freeway and driving some more. I had a brief vision of myself stranded and out of gas at Point of the Mountain with two angry kitties in a box, until I drove a few more exits and found a working gas station. When we got home I brought the kitties in and took them down to the basement since I decided to put their litterbox in the bathroom down there. That's the least-used bathr...