Monday, December 03, 2007 , the wee hours

Crosswords

I’ve recently become addicted to crossword puzzles.  I’ve been worried about keeping my mind sharp, and I started to do the daily newspaper crossword puzzle to try to improve things like my word-retrieval skills.  Surprisingly, I’ve not only loosened up my old grey cells, I’ve found a wonderful way to relax.  I now try to complete the puzzle in every daily paper if I have the time, and I’ll do two, or even three puzzles in a row if I’m uptight.  It’s been wonderful, purposeful therapy!

Our local newspaper gives me the daily crosswords from both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, so I’ve got a wealth of riches in the driveway each morning.  My favourite puzzles, however, are the Friday Wall Street Journal puzzle, and the weekend puzzles from “the Observer” and Tribune Media.  They’re really large, and contain lots of puns and detailed themes.  If I’m in a pinch and desperately need a puzzle to work on, The New York Times offers their puzzles online, and they offer access to their entire database of puzzles for just $6.95 per month.  The interface is really easy to use and intuitive, so I’d happily recommend it to anyone needing almost limitless selection.  You can complete the puzzles in your browser, save them, compete against the clock or other players, or even print the puzzles out if you want to be all “Little House on the Prairie” about it.

Once I discovered how much I love these puzzles, I started to explore ways to have puzzles available while I was “on the go”.  I purchased a battery-operated, handheld crossword game by a company called Excalibur, and it was just awful (luckily I got a super deal for it on eBay).  The screen isn’t backlit, it’s difficult to read, you can only see one clue at a time… it’s pretty much worthless.  It’s so worthless that I’ll send it to anyone who asks for it, because otherwise it may end up in the trash.  I don’t even want to subject a buyer at Goodwill to it.  The very best portable player I’ve found is the Nintendo DS and the game ”New York Times Crosswords”.  I didn’t have high hopes for it, but it’s easy to use, the clues are easily accessible, and it’s easy to see large portions of the grid to keep things in perspective.  This is definitely something I could carry about with me and use often.  It will be ages before I run out of new puzzles, and even longer before I can complete them all.  The puzzles are organized by Monday through Friday (easiest to most difficult), or you can choose a random game.

after all these experiments with different products, I still have to conclude that my favourite way to work on a crossword puzzle is to sit down with an old-fashioned pen and paper.  I like to be able to browse all the clues, to fold up the game and stuff it in my pocket, and to not worry that the batteries will die.  I know I’ll want to take something with me when I travel, and although Flippy has offered to lend me her Nintendo DS, I think I’ll either buy a small book of puzzles, or just bring along a few newspaper tear-outs.  I love gadgest of all sorts, but when it come to crossword puzzles, the only gadget I want to employ is a nice pen.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/03 at 12:11 AM
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Sunday, December 02, 2007 , late at night

Hug your Mutt today

Most of you have probably already heard, but “Earl McDonnell” passed away a couple of weeks ago at age 19.  Earl was the real-life inspiration for the character of “Earl” in Patrick McDonnell’s comic, Mutts.  The real Earl was an adorable Jack Russell, and what an amazing legacy he leaves behind.  My condolences to Patrick, who canceled a book tour because of Earl’s death… I don’t blame him one bit for needing some time with his family.  A few years ago, Flippy and I had tickets to see Mary Chapin-Carpenter in concert, but she canceled her show at the last minute.  I was disappointed, and probably even sort of annoyed, but I later found out that she’d gone home to be with her dying dog.  I can’t fault that, in fact, I admire it.

Patrick McDonnell’s book tour is for his new book called “Hug Time”.  It’s a childrens’ book about a cat who wants to give the entire world a hug.  Because the promotional tour is on a bit of a break, I’ll give the book a bit of a plug myself.  Sorry the link doesn’t have the cover photo!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/02 at 11:58 PM
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Saturday, December 01, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

Home for Christmas

Thanks to the generosity of my sister and brother-in-law, I’m going home to Canada for Christmas this year.  I have to say that besides the logistical issues of leaving three hundred animals behind, my biggest concern is the cold.  I am afraid of being cold, as I now have thin, Las Vegas blood.  For the past 16 years, I’ve lived in places which don’t have snow in the winter.  My last trip back to Canada for Christmas was in 1994, and it was so bloody cold I had to wear long underwear and wrap blankets around me if I sat and watched TV.  I had to make an emergency trip to the store for earmuffs because I thought my ears were going to fall off.  It was -26 degrees during that Christmas (that equals -15 fahrenheit), and it haunts me.  I keep crossing my fingers that global warming will now mean that palm trees grow in Ottawa, and that I’ll be wearing shorts on Christmas morning.

The above paragraph is what I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of weeks.  I’d finally convinced myself that the weather during my trip won’t be very cold, and that I’ll be able to deal with it using a barn jacket and some tennis shoes.  Then, today’s Toronto Star printed this article, Brrrr-ace yourself for a cold, hard winter.  I offer to you the offending passage:

Environment Canada yesterday predicted the country could see its coldest winter in almost 15 years. “The last time Canada had a significantly cold winter was back in 1994, more than a decade ago, and this may very well rival that one in terms of coldness,” said senior climatologist David Phillips.

Pardonner à mon Français, mais, Ce qui le Tabernac?!* Is Mother Nature trying to kill me?  At the very least, does she want me to cry?  Because I’m not above crying at the drop of a hat when I’m stressed out, and I’m already stressed about traveling and airport security and packing holiday gifts and dragging my luggage through Toronto customs.  It would be fine if Santa wanted to send me on a $500 shopping spree at Lands End, for example, but I think I’ve got Santa all tapped out this year.  I wonder if I can fit an electric blanket under my clothes?  Those of you who still live in the cold white north (north or south of the 49th parallel), have any tips on warm-weather clothing for a girl who now goes through life wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of underwear i.e., as little as possible)?  I’m guess socks are a start, right? 

*I invented the little French phrase up there.  It doesn’t directly translate to anything specific, but it will be more gentle on the eyes of my family should they ever read this.  I really wanted to say, “What the fuck?”, but French is so much softer.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/01 at 05:50 AM
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Friday, November 30, 2007 , the wee hours

A Bunny update

I don’t have any new medical news about Bunny, but she has responded well to her meds and she’s pretty much the same ol’ Bunny that we know and love right now.  Of course, we pester her incessantly because we want to check her breathing, but she’s being good natured (and even affectionate) about it.  Her ultrasound is scheduled for Monday.  It will be conducted by our regular vet, but then that tape and Bunny’s x-rays will be sent to a veterinary cardiologist for a consultation.  Depending on what the cardiologist finds and recommends, she’ll communicate her treatment plan to our vet, who will then follow it through.  We won’t ever seen the cardiologist directly.  It’s going to cost an arm and a leg, but it’s not like we have the option of not going through with this, and of wondering if Bunny could have been helped with meds or some sort of therapy.  We’ve had to deal with a new vet during the “"Bunny Crisis”, and she figured we wouldn’t want to spend money on the echocardiogram because most clients don’t.  Shows how well she knows us.  I’d be more apt to skip a test for myself (and I’ve done that when money is tight), than to skip any of the pets’ medical needs.

This week ended up being surprisingly stressful and it really took a toll on me.  I’d just completed a Medrol dose pack on Sunday, the day Bunny got sick, and maybe the prednisone messed with me because I’ve been a total wreck.  Today is the first day I feel vaguely “normal” again, and the first day I’ve been able to eat.  It’s my freakish pre-holiday diet plan.  The Medrol pack kicked a lot of my carpal tunnel and overall body pain to the curb, which was amazing, but if it turns me into “Nervous Breakdown Girl”, then perhaps it’s not the drug for me!

What a dramatic NaBloPoMo this has been.  If I could make a request, next year’s could be a little less exciting.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/30 at 02:39 AM
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Thursday, November 29, 2007 , late morning

Royal family gossip, dirt, etc.

Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian, or maybe it’s because I love history and gossip—I’m not sure of the exact reason why stories like the life of Billy Tallon fascinate me.  Billy Tallon was the personal assistant of the Queen Mother until she died in 2002.  The newspaper article I linked to is classic trashy London tabloid (complete with some broken paragraphs to add to the mystery), and it makes me wish I could be a fly on the wall to view the bizarre inner world of the British Royal Family.

Billy Tallon died on November 23rd at age 72, and according to the article, he directly served the Queen Mother for 51 years.  When she died, he was immediately fired, told to move out of the apartment provided to him during his employment, and left to live on a teeny little pension.  I don’t know exactly the size of the pension, but it wasn’t even enough for Tallon to afford to rent an apartment.  The newspaper article says Prince Charles gave Tallon a “whopping” 100 pound per week pension bonus to help him rent an apartment and to buy his silence, and 100 pounds per week only amounts to about $10000 per year.  Even after 51 years of employment, Tallon’s salary was only about $20000 per year!  Can you imagine working night and day for a billionaire family who pay you dirt and then kick you out on your butt when you become “redundant”?  The tradition of firing all the staff as soon as a member of the Royal Family dies is commonplace (so says this article, written just after the Queen Mother died, but before Tallon was fired).  I don’t know how they get away with being such poor employers, considering that their practices are public knowledge.

I’ve always wished I could see all the secret passages and archives inside the Vatican, and the same goes for Buckingham Palace.  The newspaper article about Tallon says that there was a “secret passage” leading from Tallon’s room to the Queen Mother’s room, so he could “sneak in” guests for her.  He was the only man allowed into her bedroom, and he could enter without knocking.  For Christmas each year, she’d give him a signed photograph of herself.  It’s all so creepy and addicting!  I was always very fond of the Queen Mother, and was saddened when she died, but that was because I thought she was sort of “normal”.  I guess she wasn’t.  It’s just plain strange to need your monogrammed linens carried around with you whenever you travel. 

Lots of people want to see the Royal Family taken off the public payroll, and left to their own devices.  If nothing else, they need to adapt to the times, because the tales that leak out of that family every time someone dies or is fired or gets divorced are always scandalous (and usually true).  I can see Harry and William changing things for the better, once their stuffy father is out of the way.  And, I’d sure would love to know about all the hidden tunnels and mysterious vaults and passageways.  And hidden, inbred relatives in nursing homes.  And who is the real father of Prince Edward (and for that matter, Prince Andrew)?  The drama never ends!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/29 at 11:41 AM
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007 , early morning

Dog. vs. Cat

I haven’t been feeling very cheerful the past couple of days, but one thing which has given me a chuckle is a book called ”Dog vs. Cat: A Nation Divided: Dirty Tricks and Other Shock” by Don Asmussen.

It was only released last year, yet you can already buy a new copy of it for 14 cents from Amazon resellers, which is a bargain for you but a shame for the author.  If you follow politics, pet magazines, and blogs, you’ll love the way Asmussen has twisted them all into coverage of a mock national election between dogs and cats (specifically, “Spot”, and “Mr. Mittens").  There are also a few third party candidates, like Ishmael the goldfish (who’s popular because his lifespan means voters won’t have to put up with him for very long).  Asmussen is the cartoonist behind the political strip “Bad Reporter”, and he uses those same sorts of graphics in this book to mock up The Huffington Post, The Bark magazine, The Washington Post, etc.  The book hits very close to the country’s reality, with things like, “The War on Squirrels”.  It also hits close to my personal reality, with feline candidates who eat plastic bags then vomit under the bed.

Even at full price, I think the book is only $5.91, so it would make a fun, inexpensive gift for your favourite dog or cat lover.  If you’re not familiar with Asmussen’s work, here’s a link to his twice-weekly comic strip, Bad Reporter.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/28 at 07:57 AM
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007 , early morning

Our sick little Bunny

I mentioned in my entry yesterday that we’ve got an upper respiratory virus running through the house.  Some cats are worse that others—some have outright “kitty colds”, yet others have no symptoms at all.  On Sunday night we noticed Bunny was breathing a bit heavily, and I attributed that to the URI and perhaps some congestion.  By early Monday she was really breathing heavily, was moving very little, and couldn’t do normal physical tasks like jump a baby gate.  We took her to the vet as an emergency visit first thing in the morning, and she was initially diagnosed with either asthma or pneumonia.  Then the vet did an x-ray, and told us that Bunny had congestion in her lungs and in her airways, indicative of both asthma and pneumonia.  She also had a very enlarged, “Valentine-shaped” heart, which no one expected.  The vet said that could be indicative of “an extremely rare condition called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy”, but told us not to be concerned about it because for now, asthma was still the likeliest culprit.

By the end of the day, Bunny had been treated with a bronchodilator, cortisone, some antibiotics, and Lasix, and was doing much better.  We brought her home with prednisone, Baytril, and Theophylline, with instructions to bring her back in later in the week to have an echocardiogram.  The echocardiogram would say more about the enlarged heart issue.

Sadly (and there’s not a powerful enough way for me to word that), I do think Bunny has all the signs of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, and I think the vet knows it too.  The vet even gave us her email address so we could update her on her days off about Bunny’s condition.  In my mind, Bunny’s episode yesterday was just like congestive heart failure.  Enlarged heart, fluid build-up in the lungs, difficulty breathing, lethargy, etc.  Even today, when she’s “better”, Bunny is still sitting rigidly upright or laying down in a “sphinx” position, and both are ways for cats with lung fluid to keep their airways open.  The other odd thing about her is that a couple of months ago, she just stopped growing.  We were looking at it from the opposite perspective—we thought Carlo was a gargantuan monster—but in reality, Bunny just doesn’t grow at all.  That would also be a sign of a body where circulation, oxygenation, etc., were poor.  One thing that can “set off” HCM in a genetically-predisposed cat is anesthesia (specifically ketamine)… did Bunny’s spay set off a chain of terrible events?  I guess we won’t know anything until she has an echocardiogram.

HCM is a really bad thing.  If a perfectly healthy cat is diagnosed with an enlarged heart incidentally, like during an x-ray for an injury, everything I’ve read says that the cat can live “many more years” with preventative treatment.  When a cat is diagnosed with HCM because they’re symptomatic, the prognosis seems to be along the lines of “months”, or “up to one year”.  And the year is filled with diuretics, beta blockers, and the omnipresent risk of sudden death. 

I know that having a lot of pets means we’ll see a lot of death.  I didn’t expect to have to encounter the possibility in one of my eight month old babies.  We kept Bunny and Carol because we thought Carlo was the frail one with his digestive problems, but it may turn out that Bunny is the genetic minefield.  If she has HCM and it’s genetic, then we’ll need to check Carlo for it, too.  I know I’m jumping the gun a bit because Bunny hasn’t had a formal diagnosis, but I’m not stupid.  The thought of losing her and having a prognosis written in “months” is just killing me.  I love them both so much.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/27 at 07:19 AM
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Monday, November 26, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

Buy three pet toys, get one free at Amazon

I just spotted this a few seconds ago, and thought I’d share.  Amazon regularly offers a “4-for-3” deal, where you can buy four items for the price of three.  It’s usually an offer on books or CDs, but today they’ve created pages of cat and dog toys which also fit the criteria.  Buy any four of them (you can mix and match from both the dog and cat categories), and the lowest-priced item will be free when you checkout.  Here are the links:

4-for-3 Cat Toys

4-for-3 Dog Toys

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/26 at 06:05 AM
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Cat news update

I’m afraid this will only be an update about the cats in our own home, and not about all the cats in all the world.  I just don’t have that kind of time.

The Beany Boys are living in isolation in the guest bedroom but are becoming more friendly to me.  I think they’re pleased that I figured out that a can of Friskies was the way to their hearts.  Pinto was really sick, but I’m sure he’s getting better, and his congestion has eased up quite a bit.  His one eye is really dripped and gooey, so that might require medical attention.  His brother, the other Beany, managed to avoid getting sick except for a few sniffles.

On a more somber note, half a dozen of our own cats have started sneezing in the past 48 hours.  That’s like, oh, the 7 to 10 day incubation period for whatever virus the Beany Boys are carrying.  I’ve been diligent about keeping the cats separated, washing my hands, washing all utensils, keeping the trash emptied after I clean up in the Beany room, etc., so I’m going to be a very unhappy camper if I end up with 12 cats with URIs.  Right now, Frank, Derek, TJ, Dobby, Bing, and Carlo are sneezing.  Frank seems to be actually getting sick, but he does that once a year or so and no one else catches it.  TJ also suffers from chronic sinus problems.  I hope the rest of them just have allergies and are sneezing out a summer’s worth of dust.  I turned on the furnace this weekend, and maybe all the dust that burns off just gave everyone a bit of a ticklish nose.  I can certainly hope that’s all it is.

The only other cat peculiarity around here is Dobby.  I don’t know how old Dobby was when we found her, but she’s pretty much remained a wild woman.  She loves all cats, and she especially loves TJ.  She’ll approach me for food, and if she’s upstairs in one specific spot (just outside the master bedroom door), she’ll let me scratch her butt and sometimes rub her head and chin.  Most of the time she just runs away.  When we sit in our front room to watch TV at night, she doesn’t come anywhere near us like the other cats do.  Earlier this evening I had two cats on my lap (along with my computer), one wedged beside me, one between my feet, one waiting patiently for an opening, and another who’d just huffed off because I wouldn’t make room for her on the couch.  All these cats love to be near me, but Dobby thinks I’m a horrific monster.  The one improvement I’ve seen from her lately is that she likes to sit on the little cat tree by my desk, and she doesn’t always run away when I sit down.  I’ve have one foot in the grave before she’ll venture to sit in my lap.

Oh, I thought of one more thing.  Remember itty bitty Carlo, with his digestive problems, and how he was so tiny?  He’s now left his sister in the dust in terms of size, and he’s massive.  Ten month old Carlo runs by and we think it’s 15 year old Chelsea.  He’s still the sweetest little dude, and his litterbox habits have been really good for the past couple of months.  He’s still prone to stomach upset, gassiness, etc., but I don’t wake up to find poopy accidents anymore.  That’s wonderful!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/26 at 01:41 AM
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Sunday, November 25, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

A blog about kittens

You can thank Flippy for helping me find a new blog, Itty Bitty Kitty Committee.  It’s about foster kittens!  A few different foster homes contribute photos and stories, so there seems to be new kitten pics all the time (unlike here).  I don’t think I’ll have another set of fosters until January or February, so the IBKC blog will help tide you over.

I do love bottle-babies.  Just looking at the picture on that blog makes me want to go give a kitten a hug.  Unfortunately, Dobby is the youngest kitten in our household right now, and she’d kick me in the face if I tried to pull a stunt like that.  I want to hug an innocent, naive kitten, not a street-smart one.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/25 at 06:21 AM
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