Category Archives: Cats

A bit of a scare

Cats,

We had a bit of a scare yesterday. I was at work and a contractor was at the house cleaning our bedroom bathtub and sealing cracks in the tile and grout. The bathroom has its own door that opens into the bedroom. He was going to use high strength pool chlorine to clean the tub and tile. I had insisted that the Mrs take all precautions to safeguard Hillary and Pickles.

The contractor moved the cat bowls and water fountain (that are usually in the bathroom) into the living room while the Mrs checked to see that Hillary was in his bed in the kitchen and then rounded up Pickles from his usual place at the head of our bed on the Mrs’ side and moved him to the living room. The contractor closed the bathroom door and Pam closed the bedroom door.

When he finished he came out of the bathroom and yelled THERES A CAT IN HERE. The Mrs ran into the bedroom to find Hillary crouched near the litter box (one of our automatic LitterMaid litter boxes under a table in the bedroom) with drool streaming out of both sides of his mouth. Must have been the chlorine fumes. He apparently had run in as the Mrs was leaving with Pickles and she did not notice. She went into immediate “nurse mode” (the Mrs was an ICU nurse in a former life) called vet and was told to wash his face off with a wet cloth.

Hillary is fine. Here he is snuggling in my lap as I write this

(Hard to hold iPhone to take pix with one hand while scritching with the other)

The night before I had forwarded the Mrs a link from Weggieboy’s blog about how cats view us a their parents (https://phainopepla95.com/2019/09/25/study-cats-really-do-view-us-as-parents-pain-in-the-bud/). When I called home and the Mrs explained all of this to me she told me that Hillary was expressed all of symptoms of “Mommy it was horrible please love me and make it better”. Needless to say it was a stressful day.

Grief

Cats

People who have never had pets don’t understand. Pets are your children who never really grow up. They never stop loving you or needing you. They don’t move away to live their own lives. They don’t judge. You never become “lame” or old in their eyes.

Patches would wait in the window every day for me to come home. She would meet me at the door and often race me to the bedroom and jump up on the bed wanting me to toss crinkle balls to her that she would swat back to me out of mid air. I kept thinking I need take a video of her playing swat the crinkle ball, there would always be time. Our time ran out. I really wish I had made that video. Oh course she didn’t care, playing with me was all that mattered to her. She would play for just a few minutes then flop down on bed all tuckered out.

Patches lived with us for almost a decade. She had her faults, but was always very sweet and gentle. She had a good life with us and a calm painless end. Logic suggests that I should be happy that she is no longer suffering and happy for the time she was with us. And I am. Yet here I am at work sitting in front of the computer monitor with tears streaming down my face.

Maybe it’s because they are so dependent on us. We love our pets and want them to have good lives. But eventually there is nothing we can do for them except ease their suffering.

Patches is the third pet I have outlived. It doesn’t ever get easier.

The Mrs sent me this image a week ago.

Hillary’s Bed

Cats,

Got this bed to go in the bedroom for Sir Edmund Hillary, but he never used it there. So we put it in the kitchen up against the window that gets the late afternoon sun. He eventually discovered it and claimed it as his.

He’s twitching so he must be dreaming.

I think that he and Pickles miss Patches. The Mrs says she heard one of them meowing as if calling for her.

Patches empty bed …

Patches 2004? – 2019

Cats

Patches took her last trip to the vet today. She had stopped eating or drinking for the past few days. She went to the vet Monday of this week and I thought that might be her last visit, she had lost a lot of weight over the past year and was suffering from reduced kidney function and irritable bowl syndrome. I picked up some meds for her on Wednesday, but by then she had stopped eating and drinking. She was telling me it was time to go even if I didn’t want to hear it. I will miss her.

Click link below for articles about Patches

https://contrafactual.com/?s=Patches+

Sunday – Lap Day

Blogging, Cats, News, ,

I haven’t been posting much lately. Too much “life” going on … in a good way.

I have been working in my profession since April after a difficult two years. So, yeah things are going OK. Turned the big 65 last Sunday. The “pride” is still going strong.

Bottom left clockwise: Sir Edmund Hillary, Pickles, and the grant old lady … Patches. Not a very photogenic picture, but you get the point.

Oh the humanity …

Cats, ,

Sir Edmund Hillary, or just Hillary for short, is one of my cats. He and his brother Pickles were litter mates that we rescued.

They are both long haired cats that suffer from extreme matting. Fortunately they are both tolerant and long suffering, allowing me to both trim their nails and shave their mats. I used to take them to the vet for this, but the vet wanted $300 apiece to anesthetize them and shave them. Since I have been underemployed since 2016, the task has fallen to me.

Earlier this week I couldn’t stand it any longer and decided that Hillary had to be trimmed. His mats had to be making him miserable.

Mission accomplished – I had him mostly trimmed – with the worst of the mats removed. Then yesterday I noticed it. I must have “zigged” when I should have “zagged” while trimming his neck.

I trimmed off one side of his whiskers. Oh the humanity! Or is that catity?

Hillary is VERY forgiving … and lying in my lap as I type this.

High and “Dry”

Cats, News, , ,

Still high and relatively dry. Street in front of house has drained. Some nearby stores have reopened. Hillary is napping comfortably in my lap.


 

CatBeard Manor and its surroundings are an island in the midst of the flood. As the rainfall dissipates things will only get better here.

HOWEVER – life in general will take a long time getting back to normal. In all directions away from us roads are closed due to flooding.  

Apple Map screen shots showing road closures.


 

Uh oh – Internet just went out. Uploading via my cellular data link …

Hair

Cats, Music, Rant, ,

Give me a head cat with hair … 

All of my cats have hair, a long top layer and an almost downy under layer. I don’t comb them enough. They can’t … be …combed enough. When I finally notice the matty mat mats it’s too late. Combing yields at least an extra cat full of hair, maybe more. Hillary and Pickles are forgiving. Patches not so much. They get shaved in the summer at the vet, but it is too cold to shave them in the winter. (As cold as we run the AC in the summer I even hate to shave them then.)

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t let them get as matted as some of the horror stories you see on the Internet, but a little matting goes a long way and takes a long time to get out.

I have a Roomba 980 and EVERY time it runs it fills up with hair. I could show you pictures, but just imagine a large cat without the actual cat. If you have long haired cats you know what I mean.

I mention this because I noticed that Hillary was getting just a little matted and when I had finished combing him out I had an extra cat and he didn’t look any skinnier.

Upload UPDATE | Brothers HD

Cats, Internet, Rant, Technology, Video, , , , , ,

So … today I decided to run speed tests on my Internet again …


There are two sets of numbers for December 10 (alternating) … 150+ / 11+ and 70+ / 1+

The faster numbers on December 10 are for the 5 Ghz Wi-Fi channel and the slower for the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi channel. The 5 Ghz Wi-Fi channel is fast enough to keep up with the native cable modem speed, the 2.4 GHz channel … not so much. I think I knew that, but had not paid attention as I always connect via the 5 GHz channel.

My son confirms that direct wired connection is running at full speed as well.

I am definitely getting a “performance discrepancy” with Comcast that varies throughout the day. Does this reflect bandwidth congestion from other users? Probably.

Will retry the upload now.

SUCCESS

Brothers HD