Filed under: self indulgence
I am the proud owner of three very chill cats, and one very well-behaved dog. I love them all quite a lot; taking care of them and training them is something of a hobby. The cats have always been very good about their litter box habits. They seldom, if ever, pull a vengeful-cat-pees-on your-stuff, move from house to house well, share one box, and tolerate changes in litter type and box location. None of this is “normal” cat behavior. Most people just suck at raising/socializing cats.
I’m officially sick of scooping the box. If the Doc and I want to go away, it is limited to a few days, due to the box needing to be scooped. The mechanized boxes tend to break down after a while with as many cats as I have. Also, despite being an angel otherwise, Clam (my pup) tends to raid the box for kitty ganache. I would like that to stop.
So I’ve decided to toilet train my cats. I had purchased a City Kitty a long while ago and it had been a flimsy piece of plastic that would have scared me to sit on if I were a cat; it was discarded. After roughly 30 seconds on Amazon, I found the Litter Kwitter (I am not responsible for kitschy misspellings).
As you can see from the pic, there are three steps: red, orange (“amber”), and green. Technically, it will be closer to five. One, replace the regular litter box with the LK tray and red pan; the cats must only have one option for eliminating. Two, after the cats have adjusted to the LK tray/pan on the floor, place it on the toilet. Three, give the animals about a week to adjust and, if there has been no house soiling, then you are ready for the orange level. Four, after another week or so, up to the green pan. When the urine and feces are being eliminated into the water rather than the pan, they are officially trained. I plan to add a fifth step of leaving the tray on the bowl for a little while longer before bumping the cats up to the toilet seat, as the tray plus pan is a bit wider than the toilet seat, and I don’t want them to be surprised and fall into the toilet, thus ruining weeks of moving the tray on and off the toilet to eliminate my urine and feces.
As you can see, we are currently at orange level:
So far, so good. Goober has left small, solid presents were the old litter box used to be a couple of times so far, but is urinating through the magic hole. The other two kitties seem to be doing well.
Always remember that animals are animals. Even if they sleep on my bed, and poo on the toilet, my cats are cats. Anthropomorphizing your pets teaches them bad habits and fuels PETA’s campaigns!
The situation in the vet tech office was pretty dire. The MySpace sharing of Saturday binge pics, the terrible TV they watched at lunch, the Neanderthal grunts coming from behind me… Worst? The persisting air duster. Tst tssst tst-tst-tst-tst tssssssssssst.
I have a touch of PTSD.
I traded up when I moved to the Medford campus. I got Wayne.
Wayne’s an interesting fellow. I can’t decide if he’s awesome, frightening, or horribly depressing. My inclination is that he’s a lonely, old fellow with a serious touch of OCD exacerbated by working alone for the better part of 13 years.
He has two giger counters
and a piece of paper in his wallet detailing what the readings mean.
He is waiting to buy new glasses until his prescription stops changing
so he sometimes wears two pairs of glasses.
He’s done moderate research on gemology and jewelery making,
owns a selection of loose, precious stones
and asked me my ring size.
He would survive the zombie apocalypse
because he owns a variety of knives
that he has offered me one of.
He bought a cell phone
and only receives calls from work
but has the numbers of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Poison Control Center in it.
Late fifties and possibly paranoid. Wears makeup. May have a crush on me.
Still better than Derek.
Filed under: secrets
Oh god. My boyfriend’s mother found my blog. And then told him on the phone that I write well.
I pray that this Christian fruit of the midwest did not read anything about butt sex. Please, please have not read anything about butt sex.
Amen.
Filed under: self indulgence
The first time I met Robbie, I scared him into silence.
My friends Jasmin and Janet, Jan’s husband Robbie, and I were carpooling to a work picnic (we three ladies worked together at a vet clinic) at the farm of one of the vets. Jan is a stereotypical, flighty soprano. She takes a while to get things together, and gets other ideas in the process of leaving her house. She’s something like a squirrel. In fact, we took to calling her “Squirrely” towards the end of our friendship.
When Jasmin and I arrived, Jan was gathering miscellaneous things: jackets and blankets into bags, food into ziplocs, soda cans into coolers, and so on. She was not bringing beer, or wine (she was a white wine drinker), as “Robbie doesn’t like me to drink.” Red flags were flying immediately after she said this. Robbie appeared and shook the hands of his wife’s friends. Quiet, and maybe a bit shy. Jan began looking around for the music that she (vocalist) and Robbie (classical guitarist) would be performing at the picnic. There was some difficulty in this, as the area around Jan’s piano was stacked waist-high in loose papers, junk mail, music books, text books, and possibly a few, small animals living in the heap. Robbie began chastizing Jan for not keeping a cleaner house.
Janet worked full time with the two of us and went to school three-quarters time, in addition to taking care of three dogs and a cat on her own. I was displeased by Robbie’s comment.
Finally, after waiting a little over half an hour as Jan gathered the picnic materials, we loaded everything into the car. We stopped off for gas, and ran into the conveinience store for snacks and sodas to consume on the way to the farm. As Jasmin and I picked our ways through the nuts, chips, cookies, meaty chews, and candy bars, Jan lingered over some very tame-looking chocolate bars at the the front of the store. She turned, and selected a bag of plain M&Ms, and a bottle of water. Robbie, who had just finished filling his Big Gulp saw this, sauntered up to her and began to speak in a low tone. A few isles over, I only heard “…you know you shouldn’t be eating that…”
Janet was 5’7″ and at the time, she tipped the scales at a mere 110ish pounds. She had issues getting food at stay down, and had grown self conscious about her waifish frame (she had an average build — 110 was far too thin for her, and she looked very unhealthy). Jasmin and I had an idea of what made her throw up and what didn’t. Jan loved chocolate, and it didn’t make her sick. My suspicion was that Robbie had a tendency to tell her what to eat (both vegetarians). This displeased me.
We purchased our food and went back out to the car. Some things had fallen over in the back, or needed to be rearranged, so Robbie popped the fifth door with one hand, holding the Big Gulp in the other.
He turned to me, extended his hand holding the soda and said, “Hold this, hun.”
I took the drink and moved a step closer, “You will never speak to me that way again.”
Robbie blinked up at me — without the heels I was wearing, I still had a couple inches on him — paused, “OK.”
From that point on, I did not speak to him. In a matter of one hour, he had insulted me, and made every effort to control one of my best friends. The bridling of Jan stunk of abuse, and I knew that his behavior in front of Jasmin and I was not as overt as it would be when we were gone.
Jan says Robbie “is taking care of me”. “He loves me and wants the best for me, is all.”
Jan moved away to Alabama with Robbie, far away from her friends and family. She moved to a small town in the deep south where she knew no one. If he has not hit her yet, he will soon.
I found out last night that Janet is pregnant. She thinks Robbie will make a good father.
Jan, if you read this, please know that I still love you. If things get bad, I have a futon in the study with your name on it — baby or no.
Filed under: unsolicited opinions
You don’t burn down the house to get rid of the termites.
Under five minutes of footage compiled over three to three and a half months. The most shocking images PETA could come up with: dying neonates, castration, and a rectal prolaspe. (Not the most humane method of euthanasia there, chaps.) Finally, in my internet wanderings (I was too lazy to find veterinary guidelines for porcine castration) I found the Wooly Pigs blog, and found myself addicted to the videos of piglets, and months of photos from the farm.
Of particular interest, this post gives the (very good) reasons for castrating male piglets.
Clearly, none of the commenters has restrained a pig before. They scream and fight if you so much as put a hand on leg, let alone hold them still for any period of time.
The bottle in the background is Nolvasan solution — used to surgically scrub the site. That’s a sharp scalpel blade. One person is restraining; another is performing surgery. As field surgery goes, these farmers are doing an excellent job.
The surgery itself is a quick skin incision and the cutting of the vas deferens and blood vessels. Neuters/castrations bleed very little, and involve minimal inflammation and pain.
The temporary discomfort this young animal is feeling will prevent a great deal of fighting with other males, causing injury, in its future. Did you know that cooked boar meat stinks? No, really. Like poo. Try to sell that.
Filed under: self indulgence
I’m staring at a pile of chemistry texts that I ought to be reviewing before the spring semester starts, thinking about the one and only New Year’s resolution I made this year.
I, obviously, didn’t resolve to stop procrastinating.
I didn’t tell myself I would lose weight — a much needed, yet neglected, change. I didn’t swear off the drink — if anything, I drink less than I ought to.
Dr. McAwesome played me some of his electronic music last night, and I was very impressed. Not Girlfriend or Mother Impressed, but sincerely impressed. I enjoyed listening to what he had created, and thought it sounded a whole hell of a lot like something I would purchase. Which led to me suggesting the corner (currently occupied by the Christmas tree of two, verified atheists) be used for his grandmother’s old table stacked with music equipment.
This was promptly followed by the suggestion that this should be our joint resolution: to spend joint time daily on our respective hobbies. He needs to make music, and I need to write (something, anything).
Alas, this will mean fewer horror flicks in the evenings.
Filed under: unsolicited opinions
I worked with a fellow named Max at the emergency clinic in Austin. We only had a few shifts together (and his work ethic was somewhat lacking) but he was an exceptional character. We got on very well and had a number of engaging conversations. One night he told me a story from when he was growing up.
Max was raised in comfortable surroundings; his parents were well enough off that he had enjoyed things as I child that I had not known of until I was an adult. One night, he and his parents were in the middle of a cross-Texas trip and stopped at the least seedy accommodations a small, Texan town could offer: a Howard Johnson. His mother turned around in the passenger seat to look at him, and said, “Here’s a secret — the man who can enjoy raw oysters and HoJo fried shrimp will never go hungry.”
There’s no shame in enjoying mediocre things.
To acknowledge that one thing is Art, and another is Entertainment is enough to prove your taste. Calling Stephen King an artist devalues the works of men and women who slaved over masterpieces that reflect on the complexity of the human mind, explore the nature of evil, or convey a complete philosophy. Enjoyment is not a litmus test for the value of a piece, and it is no insult to be called Entertainment. If it is the author’s (or vocalist’s or painter’s) intent to entertain, frighten, or arouse us, it is perfectly respectful to say that they have succeed in their aim without inflating the value of the work.
Filed under: unsolicited opinions
I’m hard-pressed to think of a single film with the “surprise! you did it!” ending that I have actually enjoyed. Shrooms was no exception.
Five American college students go off into the Irish wilderness with a dapper-stoner-gent Irishman as a guide. The word “shrooms” is uttered at least a dozen times in the first five minutes: “We re going to Ireland to pick shrooms,” “I like shrooms, they are fun,” “Who knows what will happen after we eat these shrooms?,” “Shroomy shroom shroomies,” and so on.
The group is comprised of the fabled eclectic circle of friends. This includes a faux stoner couple, a jock and his sororesque, half-Asian girlfriend, and the innocent blondie. There is some running around, and screaming, and general freaking out — all blamed on an enraged spectral priest and the sack-cloth-faced boy he tortured, of course — culminating in the very shocking last five minutes…
