Cupboards

Quazi has a new talent.  He can shut himself in the cupboards.  He goes about this by pulling open one of the cabinets by the floor just enough to get his head in, then the rest of the body follows.  Inevitably, he gets stuck.  He's not really stuck, all he needs to do is push the cabinet door.  But he thinks he's stuck and so he'll sit in there meowing away until Shawn or I go into the kitchen and talk him out of the cupboard (we refuse to open the door for him because then he really does end up being stuck - stuck by his own stupidity, but stuck, nonetheless.  Now then, to get him on camera...

Random Thoughts

1.  I'm still stewing over the republican debate from like 2 weeks ago - you know, the one where Gingrich got all bent out of whack because the moderator was asking him about whether he actually asked his second wife for an open marriage?  Yeah.  That one.  In his 'answer' he said that he didn't think it was a valid question to ask.  I'm sorry, but if you ever mention "defending the sanctity of marriage" as one of your tenets for becoming president, then yes, you asking your second wife for an open marriage is a perfectly valid question to ask.  We'll ignore the fact that you have been married 3 times*, and admitted to cheating on 2 of the three.  Which, by the way, degrade the sanctity of marriage much more than allowing homosexual persons to get married.
* I don't care if you get divorced, I don't think it makes you a bad person, nor do I think you should be punished for it, but again, I'm just using the republican talking point against them.

2.  Let's ignore the whole Stop Online Piracy Act (as it is currently off the table), but if SOPA had passed, I'm sure you'd be able to get my blog shut down for me posting a picture that has been passed around Facebook (not to mention that Facebook would be shut down) for the last couple of weeks.  The picture I'm talking about is of course this one:   

3.  Where the hell can I get myself a shit load of Girl Scout cookies? Because I have never wanted to support them more than I do right now.

4.  Sorry my blog has been so political recently (besides, I figure if you're reading my blog, it really isn't for my entries on republican candidates, but then, you probably also aren't reading this thing for my rapier wit.  Perhaps I shall distract you with a picture of my diabetic cat (a cat, whose blood sugar was at 61 this evening so we didn't give him a shot).  Yes, that will do, sugar cat, that will do.

CATZ!

1) When your previously heretofore cat with the feeding tube decides to hork up said feeding tube and chew off the end of it, try not to freak out. This is more stressful to the human than the cat. But when that cat opts to re-swallow the still attached feeding tube only to somehow sneeze it into her nasal passages thus causing her to breathe funny (i.e. horribly and stutteringly), it probably really is as stressful to the cat as it is to the humans who have been awake for approximately 3.2 seconds.

2) When you finally make the call that you will take the possibly not breathing and gasping for air cat to the emergency vet, be prepared to wait for a while because the cat will act normal and breathe normally as soon as you get to the vet. You will then question if you just happened to dream it all up.

3) The emergency vet will recommend taking some x-rays to check on the tube placement. These x-rays will indicate that the tube is behind the soft palette instead of in the esophagus as expected. The vet will try to get the tube in the correct orientation. You are welcome to wait in the front lobby watching reruns of Victoria Stilwell's "It's me or the dog" while talking to the receptionist with whom you are on a first name basis because your cat used to be at the e-vet all the time 2 months ago.

4) After the surgery, the cat in question will sneeze upon waking up, thus causing the tube to go into her nasal passages again.

5) The vet will just take the damn tube out.

6) Now you can go home and pray that your cat will eat and drink enough to not need any more feed tube nonsense.

7) Be relieved that the cat does indeed eat and drink.

8) A few days later, take the other cat to the vet because he's got the runs (to make sure it's not worms or other nasties).

9) Try not to be surprised when the vet calls later to state that they think the cat may have a touch of the diabetes (This is much more tolerable if you can pretend that the pronunciation is 'die-uh-bet-us' instead of 'die-us-beet-ees').

10) Do not get worried when the vet also says they will be sending blood to the lab to test for both the diabetes and FELV. Especially since you have been vaccinating your cat against said FELV disease since before birth. It does not help that the tech tells you that the FELV vaccine is not 100% and that her cat, in fact, did get FELV despite being fully vaccinated. Try not to freak out too much when you realize that your possibly FELV+ cat donated blood to your kidney problems cat a month ago.

11) Talk to the vet post blood results to find out that, indeed, your cat has the diabetes. It is expected that you will have to give said cat insulin shots. Do not be alarmed that the insulin recommended for cats costs $100 for a 100-unit vial.

12) Go to the vet to go over how to give your cat the insulin. Try to come up with a way to feed your kidney-issues cat a high carb, low protein diet throughout the day while giving your diabetes cat a high protein, low carb diet with only 2 feedings per day. Keep in mind that never the twain shall meet (i.e. they must eat their own food. bad things happen when they eat the other food).

13) Pay $50 for a bag of low-carb dry food (jeebus christ, cat!) Also, the food has quite a bit of "by-product". Not even the cheap cat food at the pet store has this much by-product in the first 5 ingredients.

14) Read online that you really can feed cats high-protein wet food on a non-prescription diet that is damn close to the prescription diet, and a mite-bit cheaper.

15) Go to PetSmart and spend the better part of an hour in the wet cat food isle reading ingredient lists trying to figure out which ones are low-carb and which ones are not (hint: generally the 'gravy' varieties are higher carb). Seriously think about finding out if you can cook meals for cheaper.

16) Go get a blood glucose meter to track your diabetes cat.

17) Go buy a second blood glucose meter and strips because you didn't realize that glucose meters don't come with test strips and it will take a week for the test strips to come in from Amazon. NOTE: The reason you will buy a secondary glucose meter and test strips is because it will be $40 cheaper than buying just the strips for your first meter.

18) Go home and spend an hour or so trying to get a drop of blood from your cat. Do not get frustrated that every time you manage to get a drop of blood on his ear, he will shake his head thus leaving you to start from square one.

19) Eventually give up on finding out his 'pre' blood sugar. Feed him some food and give him his insulin shot (which he doesn't even realize you're doing. JUST GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY EARS, EVIL WOMAN!

20) Wait almost 2 hours and finally get a good blood drop and test.

Q-dids

6 Years

6 years ago when I moved down here, I found out that the garage had a little kitty door. I decided that this seemed like a brilliant idea to catch myself a pet cat and so I turned the little lock knobby thing to the point where an animal could come in, but couldn't get out.

Of course, after Ivy found us, I left it that way because she and Quazi would frequently go out into the garage and sit at their little kitty window and look outside trying to figure out a way to get out. (What happens if I push on it? hmm, Nothing. Okay...What happens if I push on it now? hunh. Odd. Nothing happened)

Since it's been 6 years and we've never had a problem with animals coming into the garage, I completely forgot about it. Until the other night when we had a feral cat in the garage. Well, we can't blame the cats - they tried to warn us (they both REALLY wanted out in the garage even though it was fuh-reezing outside). It also should have tipped us off as we came home and the garage smelled like cat piss, but I figured that the smell was because I had been cleaning out the litter boxes and throwing the waste in the garbage and we hadn't thrown away any other trash. So instead we sat in the house until the poor animal knocked over a rolled up rug Shawn had next to the garbage can. When we saw the cat, Shawn just opened the garage door and the cat left (though I feel like we should have put food and water out for it first because who knows how long it was stuck in the garage).

But man, can those feral cats jump. It was jumping about 6' straight up in the air trying to get away from us (and it was already in the opposite corner of the garage).

Pawprints

Taken after the cats went outside on Friday, Feb 4. (The most snow in Austin, TX since 2004)

Shutterbug: Catch of the Day

Upcoming photos will be as follows (and not necessarily in order):
-Catch of the Day
-Unlikely Duos
-Murals
-Those were the days
-Milestones
-State Parks
-Birds
-At the Fair
-EEK!
-Fall Leaves
-Curious Cats
-Man's Best Friend
-Heroes

yellow bubby

You put the lime in the Coke you nut

As a gift for one of my coworkers for his wedding, I offered to make a pie of his choice. His choice was coconut cream. A pie that I would normally avoid as if it were carrying a new strain of ebola because of two reasons: 1) Coconut, 2) cream pie. The best part about Matt choosing the coconut cream pie is that he chose it BECAUSE his new bride does not like it. Not that he ever even told her that I was going to make a pie for them, but that's beside the point (I think he totally told her today that I just gave them a dirty pie plate as a wedding gift so she would never even know that there was a pie).

I went out on Saturday and bought supplies (notably that sweetened coconut flake stuff ::shudder::). Then I came home and went to pet my cat. Except that my cat didn't want to be pet, and I think I surprised him. So he kicked out with his hind leg and this happened (note: picture taken 24 hours AFTER the scratching incident so it's not a bloody mess in this photo):

This of course meant that I needed to wash and bandage up my hand good and proper to prevent the gangrene from setting in. It should be noted that the cat scratched me, I went and washed my hand for 5 minutes, then got out the cotton wrap and compression wrap, broght them to the couch, sat down, wrapped my hand myself, and it still took my loving husband WHO WAS SITTING NEXT TO ME ON THE COUCH THE WHOLE TIME another 20 minutes to notice that my hand was wrapped up. This event (the scratching not the fact that my husband is unobservant) meant I spent all of Sunday with my hand wrapped thusly (FINALLY a use for all that left over cotton gauze and compression wrap):

Don't worry, I wore a nitrile glove the entire time I was actually doing the cooking, but I just wanted to point out that I had to do things left handed because I couldn't touch my thumb to any of my fingers without feeling like I was going to re-open the wounds.

The recipe:
This one. The one from Emeril Lagasse. The one that I've never tried (see aforementioned disdain of both coconut and cream pies). So I figured "What the hell, how bad can it be?"

Step one: Make the pie shell. Okay, this isn't too bad, but I much prefer the dump and press style pie crust--there's no rolling or chilling. way easier than this version. but it turned out okay (though I think the crust could have used more sugar, but whatever, I was following the recipe). Besides, there are so many other places to go off course anyway. Pricked because I don't have pie weights...or dry beans...mostly because I don't make this type of pie crust and I don't eat beans.


Step two: Make the custard. I've never made custard (okay, that's a lie, I made creme brulee once. But it was a mix and all I had to do was heat some milk, mix and chill). This custard required actually separating eggs and what have you. And, as I've learned from The Spiteful Chef, there are certain steps that must be followed with a custard. These steps basically mean don't follow the recipe as written on Food Network. There's a part where it tells you to boil the custard. I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. So I used the ingredients, but followed Kristie's steps (which are actually written out and explained). Here is my set up:

Milk is being heated to 185 (yeah, we only had fat free...probably not the best idea to use that in a CUSTARD, note to self for the next time I don't make coconut cream pie), icebath is ready with a strainer to catch insolent little pieces of egg that don't want to become a custard, a wooden spoon for stirring and consistency checking of said custard, and a ladle to aid in the tempering of the egg yolks. Speaking of egg yolks, here they are just before having the almost boiling milk added to the cold, uncooked eggs:

Since the recipe doesn't explain it, tempering is basically adding a tiny amount (I used half a ladlefull) of the hot milk to the eggs. whisk, whisk, whisk. Add a little more milk. whisk, whisk, whisk. wash, rinse, and repeat until half the milk has been added to the yolks and then add the yolk mixture back into the hot milk pot where you heat but NEVER BOIL the mixture until it is thick and gelatinous. Pour into the strainer over the bowl in the icebath, press through the strainer, pour into the prepared pie crust. Now then, I'm not sure if I actually had to strain it, but I did since it seemed like a good idea. Cover in plastic wrap (like a Christmas present!) and place in the fridge to chill throughly. It will look like this (note: you will need approximately a 6-pack of Coke and chocolate chips to complete this look):

You can't really tell in the picture, but I wasn't sure if this would form that disgusting skin on it so I pressed the plastic wrap down until it touched the gooey innards of the pie (minimizing the amount of air that can get to the pie) and let it chillax for about 2.5 hours. Then I moved on to the meringue.

I think I tried to make meringue one time back in the day and it was disastrous. I found some tips online--like have the egg whites be at room temperature (yeah, I didn't do that, I took them straight from the fridge), and using 2 tablespoons of sugar per white (I didn't do that, I did double the amount of sugar from the recipe, though). It did have a tip that I did follow--I whipped those whites like a jockey on a horse in the Kentucky Derby BEFORE adding the sugar. Spread on top of the pie and place in the preheated oven...of course after doing that I decided I should actually Google whether or not Pyrex can indeed go from a 37 degree refrigerator into a 350 degree oven (apparently it can as long as the oven is preheated. That...doesn't make much sense to me--"yes, this dish can go from cold to hot as long as you don't try to ramp up the hot. quick and fast, that's the way to do it"). Then I decided I should take a picture of the pie in case the dish didn't make it through the oven cycle so I could at least say "look! I made you a pie! too bad my oven ate it. It liked it though, so be glad for that." Picture of pie in oven:


After about 10 minutes, it looks like it might be done, and because the recipe told me so, I take it out of the oven and TA-DA:

Look! It's ANGEL PIE! With the haloing effect...get it? no? yes...well...crap.

Of course it didn't look so pretty after I re-wrapped it in plastic wrap and took it to work this morning--it didn't like the 45 minute car ride in a warm car very much. Matt was still nice and said that it looked good. Plus I guess he ate all of it tonight for dinner. But then, I don't know if that really means anything because I think he'll eat just about everything.

Cat Food

I don't know how I managed to start feeding our cat a food that can only be found in 6 pound bags. And I can hear you asking me, "well, isn't that because your cat is on special kidney food?" and the answer is, "yes, but it's not that cat."

That's right, Quazi was put on a special food around this time last year. That food was Oral Sensitive by Royal Canin. The reason why he was put on this food is because he has the bad habit of scarfing food and then regurgitating it on the floor about 20 minutes later. The Oral Sensitive variety helps prevent this because he actually has to chew the food before swallowing it which means he eats slower and therefore won't act like an angsty high school girl. The food is good, Ivy likes it too, the only problem I have with it is that the big name box stores around here only sell it in the 3 pound bags, so I have to go to the ONLY store I've found thus far who sells it in the 6 pound bags.

Since I have to call in Ivy's food to the vet (prescription diet), I think I might ask if it's possible for them to order me Quazi's food too. Kill two birds with one stone.

Water droplets on Cat tail

The cats got stuck out in the rainstorm this afternoon. They weren't too happy about that turn of events.

From the Archives

Quazi 12-30-2008

Cats

Here are some pictures for my sister (who refers to Quazi as her "grand-nephew kitty"). This year, for Christmas, the cats received a huge bag of toys treats and other such stuffs from their "cousin", Remy (my sister's dog):
Ivy coming out of the little "house". Dani got it figuring that Quazi would like it, but it has actually become Ivy's new favored hiding place. It sits next to the chair, and she likes it because two of the 'doors' are on the backside so she can get in and out without having to go in the front door.

Ivy playing with "Cheepers" This damn bird toy is covered in cat nip so both cats love it and every time they bat at it, it does this obnoxious chirping thing. Which drives the cats wild. They also love the little mice. I came home from work the other day and one of the cats had crawled into the bag to retrieve the mice. The mice in which I had never shown to the cats. So someone must have smelt the catnip. Of the three mice, one had been ripped from the packaging (a cardboard back), and the other two were still attached. All three were COMPLETELY covered in cat spit. Like they were 50% heavier because of cat spit. Ew. I haven't taken the other stuff out yet mostly because we dole out toys throughout the year, otherwise they'd end up with all of them under the couch within a week.

So Thank You Aunt, Dani.



Now then, for the rest of you. If you've been following my half-assed posting the last two days, or have been reading my Tweets, then you know that we've had a gray tabby kitten hanging around in our backyard. We don't know if he's a stray, but we think he MUST have a home because he doesn't just hang out in our yard all the time (he does actually leave for large periods of time). He's very people friendly and he follows Quazi around and vice versa. Ivy puts up with him being around but he isn't allowed within 3 feet of her. He does have ear mites (our cats are on Advantage Multi so they won't get any from him), and he's got a spot on his left ear where the skin is rubbed off--can't tell if it's like frost bite, or if he was attaked by a different animal and the skin is sloughing off, he also seems skinny to me--If I remember right, when Quazi was this age, he still had a little bit of a belly (not fat, but you know, a little spot where you could feel that he had a belly, this cat doesn't have that). He keeps trying to come in the house (reminds me of Ivy when she found us), but he's not allowed in because he's still "someone's" right now.



Also, all these photos were taken with my Droid. The top two in low-light, and the bottom one in bright-light. The most annoying thing is the response from when I tell it to take a picture to when it actually does take the picture. you gotta have a VERY patient subject.

Home

The cat is home. We'll have to do tube feeding for a while--40-50 ml 4 times a day, and subcutaneous fluids 50-100 ml once a day. The goal is to do the feedings for a while until she starts eating on her own, and the fluids every day for about a week, then every other day for about a week, and then every 3rd day for a week.

We have to take her in to get her bandage around her neck changed every 3 to 5 days (where the feeding tube goes in), and blood work needs to be done again as well--we'll see when that gets done because one doc doesn't want to draw blood since they have to sedate her until at least a week out while another doc wants to do blood work when she's in for the bandage change.

The biggest problem with all this? the fact that the Quazi doesn't even recognize Ivy and so we're having to go through and re-introduce two cats to each other, neither of them likes cats, but they put up with each other. Last night Quazi managed to get Ivy stuck on the bed by guarding the bottom so she couldn't jump off to go to the bathroom. That was a fun time at 4 in the morning.

Stupid Cat

The stupid cat stayed outside the other night. By blatantly running away from us when called. Stupid cats and their not coming when called.

Anyhoo, he came back the next morning sans collar. Sigh...This is why cats cost $10k over their lives.

5:45 am

So...what do you do when your cat is scratching at your head wanting pets when he suddenly starts doing the "ack...ack" noise?

Easy.

You sit bolt upright in bed and let the cat puke on your husband.

Not that that actually happened.

Shawn is much more lucid at 545am than I, and pushed the cat off the bed.

He ended up not puking until after we both went to work. The cat. Not the husband.

Quazi and his collars

Quazi has a habit of throwing his collars. It usually happens to coincide with him getting in a fight, or otherwise chased.

It's obnoxious because it's expensive to keep replacing the collars and tags (sadly, the tags are the most expensive part and back when he was going through a collar a week, I went and bought them in bulk, much cheaper).

But it gives me joy because I think he must lose the collars in about the same place each time (it's not like he goes to THAT many different places). And so, in one of our neighbor's yards there is a stash of Quazi collars. All 25 of 'em.

Black Friday

So there was no getting up at 4 am for us (thankfully). We did venture out to do some shopping, and pretty much Shawn realized that the airbrushing paint gun he wanted wasn't what he needed, the stuff I'm buying for my mom and sister would be better shipped through the company than by me buying it and shipping it, and we stopped off at the Woodcraft Store so Shawn could pick up some dyes for his new drum set coming on Monday.

I also took Quaz to the vet to have his drain tube removed. That was fun--what with the fighting to get the cat in the carrier so we could go to the vet, and then, after getting to the vet, fighting with the cat to get out of his carrier. silly little beasties.

Vet visit

I dropped Quazi off this morning as a bloody/pus-y mess, and then, at 5:30, I picked up this:


All for $325.

He's got a drain tube which will be removed on Friday. Stitches that will be removed 2 weeks from today. The black patch is dead skin. He's also got some pain meds to get him through the night, and possibly tomorrow as well. The vet did give him a long acting antibiotic shot so we don't have to give him pills every day.

On the plus side he's been entertaining us by alternately falling asleep while sitting like this and walking around like he's drunk.

Post 439

Quazi has been relegated to wearing 2 socks and a harness.

He had been without the sock for about a week when he went crazy and licked open a new wound. Which also did nothing but agitate the other one that was healing.

Because he managed to work himself around 1 sock, I added another to the mix, but he even managed to get around those this morning so I had to put his harness on him (it stops the socks from rotating and therefore allowing him access to his bald patch).

Poor cat was slinking all over the place today.