Yay; new stuff to do!

Father’s Day went just fine; I didn’t sleep much the night before, and had loads of time to myself on the drive over, the visit (again) didn’t suck, and I even got a little bit done for a meeting I was supposed to have today when I came home.  It ended up being unnecessary; I got a call just after I had finished getting dressed (in fairness, I was starting way-early to have enough time to grab coffee and be leisurely about it) to tell me that They had decided to just go with me as a team member based on something I did last quarter, so that was cool.  So I am on the team of a large-ish project and have job security for another few months.  Well, isn’t that special?  

But seriously, that’s kind-of cool; I was happy.  

Right now, I am updating my JavaStuffs, which are set to automatically update, but haven’t for some reason.  Stupid computers; I wish hitting them had some result.  Aside from satisfaction, I mean.  

Romeo seems to be doing fine on the Theo-Dur, and I have discovered Pill Pockets, which means that I don’t have to get his meds compounded at the human pharmacy that does that anymore (at fifteen dollars for compounding—on top of the price of the medication itself—plus the time to drive over to the pharmacy and advance planning and so on, this is a *very* welcome discovery); Rome really likes the salmon flavour, and I really love the fact that dosing him is no longer a MAJOR fight.  Even after compounding, I still had a capsule to get down his throat every night, and that was so difficult that I dreaded it, as I am certain he did.  :-)  Our relationship is now significantly better.

Squooshable, a/k/a Tippy-Toe Dancer (when I feed him, he purrs, arches his back, and dances around in circles, and it looks like he’s doing it on his tippy-toes), my personal Nibblonian, has been really subdued yesterday and today; I don’t think anything is wrong with him—he’s still drinking, eating, pooping, and purring—but he hasn’t been feeling very playful.  I haven’t been ARGHed on once.  Maybe he’s growing up?  :-\  I did give him some tuna-flavoured Laxastat after he got into a drawer (he is *so* smart!  He can open drawers!), just in case he’d eaten something he shouldn’t have (in that drawer, paper mainly), but that was on (I think) Saturday, so I don’t think it’s that.  I guess we’ll see.  Because I am paranoid, I will ask Meg (she’s back, and leaving again on Thursday) to check in on him tomorrow, ‘cos I have to be gone all fricking day on Tuesdays for this new project.  Augh.  

Butsoanyway.

On Sunday I left early, and put food out for Mehitabel on my way out of town; about halfway through visiting my father, I received a phone call about Mehitabel’s appointment on Monday for a spay.  I told the lady that I’d not been able to catch her yet, and really couldn’t talk right now, so just please to cancel the appointment.  I’ve heard nothing from this newsletter blurb this group said they’d do, and I already have a tentative meeting this Sunday with Chrissy and her SO to try to get Mehitabel with drugs (her SO fishes all the time, and can throw a casting net like a champ, Chrissy said; I bought a casting net just for this purpose, and told Chrissy that I’d give it to him if he can land Mehitabel), not that I explained any of this to the lady who phoned on Sunday.  I didn’t explain it because (1) I don’t feel that I am obligated to—they were the ones who insisted that to get ANY help from them, I had to be ‘in the program’, and I told them when I set the appointment that, without help, I did not expect that I could keep it, and (2) Since I was at my father’s, I didn’t want to get into the whole discussion with him, so she should have anticipated that, it being a Sunday as well as Father’s Day.  And I know that I sound bitchy, but…whatever.  Her response to my telling her that I hadn’t caught Mehitabel and to cancel the appointment was to ask if I had ‘just given up, or something’, so I had to step outside to clarify that no, I hadn’t given up, and explain (again—this was also discussed our first two conversations) that Mehitabel will no longer come near me, won’t even walk over to the food I put down if she sees me, and refuses to walk into a trap.  And so forth.  We ended up in this huge twenty-minute conversation where she kept trying to explain things like how the cat won’t just ‘walk into’ a trap, that I have to put food in there (really?), that if I am still putting food out and putting traps out that the cat won’t go in (really?), and that trying to catch the cat by hand is not likely to work (yeah, I have noticed that), and that she doesn’t like the idea of my drugging the cat (then *you* come out and catch her; *I* have run out of ideas).  I had to make the conversation short, so I just left the appointment cancelled and pretended like I was taking notes on the finer points of cat-catching (e.g., don’t keep feeding them if you are putting traps out).  I think that probably this group provides a great service for people who have already caught the cats, and if I had talked to her a year ago, some of this might have been helpful.  Just not now.  

And by being ‘in the program’, I am only getting a free spay—but only on a certain day, and I may have to wait for up to a month for another opening.  I can pay for the spay myself; Dr Superhero will only charge me $50 or $60, and by taking a free space, I am taking away a space from someone who might need it.  Plus, what am I supposed to do—stash Mehitabel in a cage in my garage for a month?  Dr Superhero is open twenty-four hours a day; I can take her over the moment I catch her like I have with all the other cats.  Plus with Dr Superhero I can add on a rabies shot, antibiotic shot, and other vaccines (like for distemper and stuff), which I will do for Mehitabel.  Through this group, I cannot add on shots—I would have to take her to Dr Superhero for that anyway.  Plus, if Dr Superhero has few boarders, he will keep Mehitabel for a week to let her recuperate, and I would get the same rate as Chrissy (the ‘rescue rate’, and for Nice Cat they didn’t even charge me any boarding back at Christmas) that I think is $5 or $10 a day; if she’s wild (as in vicious), they’ll feed and water her at least once a day which I know is not ideal, but it’s better than being out-of-doors, and it’s probably about as good as I could personally manage (though I don’t know where I would house her; it would have to be somewhere away from my cats, which pretty much leaves the garage—and that would just be mean).  

I guess maybe she was bored or something, and that’s why we had such a long conversation, but it was still kind of annoying.  I know to not feed them if a trap is out, and I know the cat won’t ‘just walk in’, and I know to put stinky tuna and halibut and stuff in the trap, not just dry cat food; I know all these things.  But I am descended from a grandmother who as a teenager chased a priest out of her kitchen with a knife and quit the church because after her mother died, the priest came over almost every day and would sit and drink cup after cup of tea (that she made) and correct everything she did for her father and siblings—cooking, cleaning, and so forth.  As the story goes, my grandmother was one day cutting a chicken, he started correcting her again, and at that point she had just taken all that she was going to take.  :-)  I am really familiar with that feeling; Grandmother and I share a dislike for senseless criticism and Monday Morning Quarterbacking.  

Well, we would share it if she were still alive.

Butsoanyway.  

I am getting to sleep early(-ish) so that I can go do productive things tomorrow.  Yeah, right.  

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