Contingency

[pameladean]

I'm not sure that's exactly the word that I want, but it will do to go on with.

I mean to make more posts and more substantial ones, but I'm presently wildly amused by my efforts to get things done and thought I would chronicle the twisty path towards any accomplishments.

I got up, greeted the sun with great enthusiasm, pulled up blinds so the cats could enjoy it. I was up earlier than usual. I went ahead and took my famotidine, which works better if it's left to do its thing for about an hour before I try to ingest anything else (it's an H2 blocker for acid reflux). It was a bit early to go downstairs and give Ninja his "treat," which is a quarter can of Fancy Feast with a quarter teaspoon of potassium gluconate in it. He has some strange health issue that nobody has really figured out, but his potassium was low when they checked it, so he gets a supplement twice a day. I am doing this -- well, Raphael is doing the second dose of the day for me, bless her -- because Lydy went to a lot of trouble and expense to go to Cleveland to work, but ended up breaking her arm in a bicycle accident. David drove out there shortly afterwards to help her with daily life, leaving me in charge of cat care. Lydy is doing pretty well but won't be home for a little while yet.

Saffron also gets a medication twice a day, methimazole for hyperthyroidism. It was a very bumpy ride at first with a lot of anosmia and barfing, but things seem to have settled down. I put her half pill in a pill pocket, added some incidental food to cushion the effect and prevent more barfing, and gave it to  her. I took a shower and washed my hair and got dressed. I had a cup of yogurt and the rest of my meds (four for blood pressue, one for blood sugar). This is a more medicalized household than I'd prefer, but at least we're all still here.

Ninja made an appearance on the other side of the upstairs kitchen door, yelling about how his treat was late. It was, but we are about to run out of his supplement. The vet said it was just fine for him to miss a dose and we could pick up a new supply on Monday. I was aware of the supplement's getting low in time to have arranged to collect it before the holiday weekend, but I didn't actually call the vet in a timely fashion, the existence of a holiday weekend having not made it into the scheduling part of my brain. So I thought I might give him his last dose later than usual so the wait for the next one would be shorter. It probably doesn't matter; the vet was very blase about it.

If Cassie is about when I give Saf her pill, she gets a couple of treats as distraction. She came out of Raphael's room as I was getting dressed, sniffing about and eying me narrowly. She knew she had missed out on something. So she started lobbying for actual treats, time for which happens around four in the afternoon.

I made and consumed a very large mug of tea, and figured that I had time to run down and treat Ninja and top off food and water bowls,plus petting anybody having a petting emergency (this is usually Nuit, but anybody might have one in the absence of both their human companions) before upstairs treat time. I used the bathroom and realized that I hadn't brushed my teeth, so I did that, which revealed that the hair catcher in the bathroom sink needed cleaning. I cleaned it, remembering in the process that I'd gotten the floor of the bathtub somewhat slippery with conditioner and had meant to scrub the tub out. I scrubbed the tub out.

By this time (a) I was hungry and (b) if I went downstairs Cassie would wake Raphael up demanding treats.

She is making mournful noises as I type, but since I'm awake she is making them at me.

Oh, wait, it's after four.

All right. I will treat the cats up here and have a belated -- ha, who am I fooling, this is about when I always have lunch these days -- have my lunch and then go give poor Ninja his own treat.

The sun was going down as I ate my leftover enchilada and on-sale perfectly-ripe avocado half. The snow didn't turn pink; probably there were no clouds in the right place.

I will try to post again sooner, and hope you are all holding on.

Pamela

Comments

[redbird]

We're hanging in over here in Boston.

This is a more medicalized household than it used to be, but I'll accept that until they either find a cure for some of my problems (don't hold your breath) or come up with better meds so I don't need as many different ones.

[pameladean]

I'm enjoying your posts, especially the cooking ones!

Your attitude is sensible and is sometimes my attitude as well. I mean, the alternative to not taking the pills isn't an improvement at all. I just require to complain occasionally.

P.

[redbird]

Me too, sometimes. It seems unreasonable that I should have to take four different drugs that can be classified as brain meds. Even if I only count the three that I'm taking for that reason, it's a lot.

[pameladean]

It IS a lot! Four anti-hypertensives seems unreasonable to me, too, but fewer didn't do the job.

P.

[carbonel]

I am on two anti-hypertensives because one didn't do the job. (Technically three, because the first one is combines two meds, but it's only two pills.) And it's still not down as low as I'd like, alas.

[dreamshark]

Hey, you washed your hair AND cleaned out the tub. That would count for two items on my to-do list, and any day I accomplish more than that I count as wildly productive.

[pameladean]

Yes, that's true. I'd been putting off the hair-washing. It seems such a lot of trouble. Not the washing itself, really; but having wet hair in this weather. A lot of things seem like trouble that didn't use to.

P.

[sartorias]

Wow, no chance of just kicking back and lazing with kitties around!

[pameladean]

No, they are very smart and are accustomed to a high standard of care and attention.

Now that I've discovered which chair I am supposed to sit in downstairs, a lot more of my time is spent with serial cats in my lap, which is comparatively relaxing. It took me quite a while to figure it out, though. They wouldn't come see me, but just stared disapprovingly.

P.

[graydon]

How perfectly feline of them!

[pameladean]

Yes, that's kind of Peak Cat, really.

P.

[graydon]

It reads like you're doing things as you find them/notice them, and rather as though if one has a choice, being an absent-minded perfectionist might no be the most comfortable option.

I think it is perhaps legitimate to give oneself permission to count what got done, and not only what one expected to get done. (Or done at a particular time!) (I say this as someone who had three weeks off, goes back to work tomorrow, and has by no means ticked off everything on the to-do list constructed for the occasion.)

Plus wrangling four cats, at least two whom have had their routines disturbed, is a lot.

"May these events", really.

[pameladean]

I make lists, but for some reason I cannot look at them. It's weird. Then again, so many things are, right now.

I do count what I did. But the route does make me laugh.

I am seeing all over Twitter and Dreamwidth people talking about how they had two or three weeks off and didn't get things done; lists made, looked at, a few items crossed off them, and all that kind of thing. I suspect that everybody needed a serious break and some rest, and I bet you, as part of everybody, did as well.

You are right about the cat-wrangling. There are actually five cats, too: two upstairs, three down. I should make a cast list and even maybe put up some pictures.

And "May these events" is just the right thing.

P.

[graydon]

I have no idea how common the expression was, but apparently there was a use of "the last age" in the post-Trafalgar/vaguely regency period to refer to both the previous century and the time before the revolutions (French and American) in some sort of emotionally entangled "before the world was changed" sort of way. I find it feels most remarkably like the ending of an age; the ground might shift between raising one's foot and putting it down again.

I think the route making you laugh is a good thing. Lists, well, lists are distinct from agency, and there's very little of that going wanting nowabouts.

I am not, promise, beating myself up for not completing that to-do list. The later half of 2020 at work involved winning an argument about business processes with thirty people passively and about six actively, and that's not even formally my job. Turning the alarm back on for Monday was hard; I could use more rest than I've had. (It was enough rest, I think, even if it was not a plenitude of enough.)

I am embarrassed to have missed a cat, and thankful that I shall need not specify to the cats which I have missed!

[pameladean]

I see a lot of people using, "In the Before Times," which I think is a reference as well, though I don't know to what. I rather like "the last age." That is exactly what it feels like.

Lists are what I have reliably got agency to do, I think. Some are time-critical so not looking at them doesn't work out so well -- see running out of Nin's supplement -- but some are evergreen and will be handy eventually.

I am impressed with your winning that kind of argument! I hope more rest will be forthcoming, even if in small bits.

I won't even tell them you missed one. You know how they get.

P.

[graydon]

Do what one can, as one can, yeah.

"Hold what you got" is the correct response to an insidious hazard; don't make things worse. It would be easier if there was any certainty that there was a plan and organisation about dealing with the hazard, instead of all these layers of uncertainty and doubt.

(In context of the argument at work, it helps that it's something I have a grasp of, and it probably helps more that sometime when I wasn't looking I seem to have learnt Dad's knack for being impossible to argue with by not letting the argument the other party wants to have start.)

I do indeed know how they get. I hope the sequence for the Ritual Chair stays all ordered and decorous.

[halfmoon_mollie1]

I also showered and washed my hair after I got back from my walk. Dr. Holtze suggested Bonnie get a little salmon oil because her skin is dry, but I was never really sure about it. The woman up the hall had to have her Abby (cat) put down and I got leftover and one of the things I got was Omega Three Oil capsules. You twist them open and apply the oil to the food. Bonnie no longer has dry skin.

I have no ambition. I have a blanket I SWEAR I'm going to turn into a jacket, it's been staring at me from atop the tote that has my Christmas clothing (now laundered) in it, and I decreased my yarn stash to manageable proportion and still I stare at it. I have a whole lot of fat quarters that need to be cut up to make pieces for a Jellyroll to make a quilt, but I'm not sure I want to make it. My friend Jennifer is a quilter but...I feel like I"m copying her.

I am sorry about Lydy's broken arm! Personally, I think you are a miracle and the cats are lucky to have you. Of course, if asked they'd tell you that YOU are lucky to have THEM.

[pameladean]

Cassie gets salmon oil daily because she has a burn scar that suffers from what the vet calls "altered sensation," which means that the nerves kick up from time to time and she HAS to scratch it, which never ends well. The salmon oil seems to reduce the number of these incidents. Saffron gets some salmon oil every other day because it removes her tendency to have dandruff at the base of her tail. I'm glad some oil works for Miss Bonnie too.

I also lack ambition. There are so many things I could be doing. Maybe when the days are longer.

You do all that walking. I really admire that. And I think it's not necessarily bad to be copying a friend.

Thanks for the commiserations for Lydy. It is really a shame.

The cats would of course say that I am lucky to have them, but right now they would very graciously admit that they are not suffering as much as they might without me.

P.

[tanac]

re: Salmon oil. oooh. Nuffles suffers from "twitchy butt" (there's another name for it, but that's what I remember) - it's basically miniature seizures, where the skin over his lower back just twitches and twitches and drives him nuts. Happens when he's asleep, as well. He also tends to get itchy skin every few years and ends up over-grooming - currently he has a bald spot the size of a quarter and a couple more in the process of healing. He originally used to get them when he had a flea bite (he's very reactive), but we haven't had new cats/fleas here in years. I wonder if salmon oil would help?
He'd be happy to get some wet food again, we've pretty much weaned him off as he's doing so well on his rx food and I can't get it in wet.

(he also is not happy about food portioning but he was getting rather rotund. I'm happy to have the kitties with an extra lb or two so if they get sick there's a buffer, but this is beyond that.)
I very much feel the medicating overload. We have 4 cats with 3 different foods, 2 of which are currently being medicated twice/day. The humans are also medicated twice/day and my current dr. is super into supplements as the cure for all evils so I have way too many pills. (At least the digestion-regulation ones are short-term)

[athenais]

That is a lot of feeding, medicine and time to manage! Well done. Also, by 4pm I am thinking about my dinner, so you must be a night owl. I used to be a night owl, but over the years my jobs and my animals shifted me to more of a morning person. I do say more, because nothing will convince me sunrise is worth getting up for.

[bunsen_h]

I'm sorry to hear about all of the medical stuff you guys are going through. It would be nice if the information about "what to do if someone in your household has COVID" was broader, to allow for a greater variety of household circumstances.

I'm trying to give myself credit for the few things I'm getting done, and not be too frustrated and angry at myself for all the stuff I'm not managing. I've been trying to keep my brain moving by working on math puzzles, of the kind that I blasted through when I was a teenager. I can "forgive" myself for being rusty on calculus and university-level number theory, but I'm annoyed that geometric problems are so much more difficult than they were.

Our cat is currently taking prednisone tablets for what appears to be a seasonal allergic problem. She eats only kibble, and doesn't recognise pill pockets as a thing to eat. I've ended up having to use a Dremel tool to drill holes in the dry kitty treats, essentially to inlay quarter-tablets. One of these days I'll probably do a video about it for YouTube: "How to pill your cat with a Dremel".

[lydy]

I miss you!