Veggies!

I got the first share from the Community Supported Agriculture thing I joined. According to the list, I got lettuce, spinach, radishes, mustard greens, and Asian greens.

Now. What do I do with 'em?

Advanced cat yodelling

Oreo, 1989-2009

This was Delilah's daddy.

My father called Friday evening to tell me Oreo had to be taken to the vet's. He'd stopped eating recently, and now he wouldn't even drink water. Mom saw a little bit of blood in his mouth. The vet confirmed what we already knew: tumor. He had a small one on his face that I've been editing out of pictures for years, including the picture above. Turns out there was another one in his mouth, under his tongue. He was put to sleep Friday afternoon.

Sammy (Samson, Delilah's litter mate) died last October. He had a tumor as well, only his was on his foot. Here's Sammy:



Poor sweet babies.

I'd be very happy if the booboo on Delilah's foot would go away now, please. It's round, and it has very definite edges. It probably a bite mark (pleaseohplease it's a bite mark!), but if it doesn't go away by the time we're through with the antibiotics I'm going to have to take her back to the vet and get it biopsied. Gulp.

Anti-theft

You know, it's the little things that drive you crazy. Stupid stuff like food noises you can't get away from (dealt with, thanks to my Mom's Christmas gift of headphones) or people ignoring your emails requesting more info on the next step of a project only to dump a ton and a half of work on you 2 weeks after you've given up on them and decided to work on something else. (Holy run-on sentence, Batman!)

This morning it's disappearing book carts. Friday afternoon we had two empty ones. This morning? Zero. This isn't the first time it's happened. I've lost count of how many times they go missing, actually. Whoever does it steals 'em before any of us get here, or after we leave. It's irritating.

One of my team mates and I found 'em, empty, in other parts of the room and wheeled them back home. I've made big yellow labels for them with our team's name and "DO NOT REMOVE!" in bold at the bottom. Stuck the labels all over the carts. If this doesn't work I'm gonna buy some chains and padlocks, and chain all the carts together. Ha! Try moving that, cart-thief.

Or better still, go find your own.

Quick update on the cat's paw

We went to the vet yesterday afternoon. He took a culture (a lot of white cells and some debris--probably from the litterbox), took her temperature (normal), watched her walk (the limp was a bit more pronounced by the time we got there), and prescribed an antibiotic. Half a pill once a day for two weeks. He said the limp should go away pretty fast. If this doesn't work our next option is biopsy (taking into account Samson and Oreo's medical history). Gulp.

She spent most of yesterday afternoon snuggled up with me on the couch, purring and sleeping. So I'm forgiven for messing with her foot and than dragging her back to the place where she has to suffer all sorts of indignities from That Man in the White Coat.

I gave her the first dose last night, and already she's walking better. Huzzah!

Please send good thoughts this way

I noticed last night that the cat seemed to be favoring her right front paw. A very, very, slight limp, so slight in fact that I thought I was imagining it. When I finally got her to let me see the paw, it turns out there an area that's swollen and slightly pink. It looks like she's been chewing on it. It's the same paw the vet used last week to take her blood pressure, and he shaved it a little before he did that. I'm thinking maybe the hair growing in was making her itch, so she started chewing.

At least, that's what I hope it is. Last October her litter mate Samson was put down because of a huge tumor on one of his feet. Oreo, Delilah and Sammy's daddy, has a small tumor on his face (has for a while. Every time I take a picture of him, I edit it out with the "spot-healing" brush in Adobe), and I'm pretty sure he's on his way out. He drools constantly, has stopped grooming, and spends a lot of time yowling and looking a little confused. My mom's sure if she takes him to the vet he'll get put down, and she doesn't want to do that. She says he doesn't look like he's in pain.

So anyway, there's a family history of growths. This thing on Delilah's paw doesn't look like the tumors I've seen on Sam and Oreo, but I'm worrried. It's probably a chewed area that got infected. I figure with this whatever-it-is going on with her kidneys, her immune system might not be optimal and I don't want some infection raging through her system.

The vet's office opens in 20 minutes. I hope I can get an appointment. And I hope it's nothing serious. I tend to catastrophize.

If you could send some good thoughts towards Central Pennsylvania, I'd really appreciate it.

Another little anniversary

Two years ago today I officially started working for the department I'm in now. Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of the move--when the tech support people took my equipment from my old cubicle and put it in my new one, and I had to follow it down 'cause how else would I do my work? It took every ounce of self-control I had not to skip merrily down the hall behind the tech folks, singing out "See ya! Bub-bye now!" as I left.

Last year I really wanted to send the Dean flowers as a thank-you for getting me the heck outta there. I thought news of that would get around, though, and I didn't want to make things difficult for myself with the people I left. But oh! what a nice bouquet I made in my head.