The Litterbox

Odds and ends and bits and pieces, all bundled together with flushable clay.

Sunday, February 13, 2005 , evening

Flippy: a love story

Love is…

--letting me have four dogs when she really only wanted one
--letting me have six parrots when she wasn’t sure she wanted any at all
--letting me have three cats when she was quite she sure didn’t want any at all
--never bitching when the cats she didn’t want throw up on the carpet, or the birds she didn’t want bite her, or the dogs she didn’t want need to go outside in the rain and the wind and the cold and then have their butts wiped
--not questioning my sanity even though I have 27 episodes of “Emergency Vets” saved on the TiVo

Mostly though, love is just knowing that I never have to wonder if she loves me.  I don’t need cards or jewelry or flowers or fancy things as proof of anything, because every day we’re together is wonderful and happy, even the days that would otherwise suck.  It’s fun to plan for the future and dream big dreams and eat TV dinners, just because I get to do it with someone I love and who loves me back.  Happy Valentine’s Day, Flippy o’ mine smile

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Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/13 at 09:16 PM
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Shoejacking

Last night I had a dream that someone stole my shoes (and socks, come to think of it, as my socks were stuffed inside my shoes).  This is the second time in as many weeks that I’ve dreamt of being the victim of shoe theft, and in both cases, the missing shoes were K-Swiss white leather tennis shoes.  I adore K-Swiss shoes, but stopped wearing them about three years ago when I began to suffer from chronic plantar fasciitis and needed a shoe with better cushion.  Are my shoes calling to me?  Do they feel abandoned?  Does a shoe represent something in dreamland, like my lost innocence or something like that?

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/13 at 09:25 AM
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Saturday, February 12, 2005 , evening

Table saw: A love story

I’ve had a large Bosch table saw sitting in my garage, partially-assembled, for the past four years.  I purchased it on a whim back in the glory days of Internet shopping, when auctions were limited to a very few bidders and stores gave out discount coupons so huge that you could stuff your closets with free stuff.  I think the table saw came from an Amazon.com auction (even Amazon was once in the auction business), and once I bought it and had it delivered I didn’t really know what to do with it.  As I wrote about a week days ago, I’ve been trying to build cat furniture, but I’ve struggled with really stupid problems like the inability to change my jigsaw blade, the lack of instructions for my reciprocating saw, wood screws which are half an inch too short, etc.  To add to my comedy of errors, I bought some 3” screws at Target, and two of them snapped in half as I drilled them into the wood.  I couldn’t “undrill” them, and I couldn’t leave them sticking out, so then I had to get the Dremel and cut off the parts which were protruding.  If anyone ever x-rays my cat tree they’ll think it was in a war zone and hit by shrapnel.  Anyway, Nancy was out on “family business” today (yep, knee-capping the deadbeats), so I had an entire afternoon to figure out the table saw, and I think I did it!  I even managed to make some beautiful 15 and 22 degree cuts which I needed for my cat furniture, but then I ran out of wood so I had to use some really nicely cut parts and some parts cut with a jigsaw which weren’t so tidy.  If I wasn’t worried that the table saw was going to amputate one of my limbs I think I would marry it, or at least, let it sleep over occasionally.  I’m going to read some books and try to really figure out how to use it properly, because my dream is to build a few walls of floor-to-ceiling bookcases for the master bedroom.  We have SO MANY books (with more arriving daily; they’re like rabbits), and it’s hard to appreciate them when they’re stacked and piled and stored in plastic bins.  I realize I’ve got a lot more learning to do before I could tackle a bookcase, but I think my table saw and I could do it together.  I hope it buys me something nice for Valentine’s day.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/12 at 08:24 PM
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Happy Birthday, Eli!

Today is Eli’s 9th birthday.  On this day in 1996, somewhere in the western part of Albuquerque (off Coors Road, to be specific), my little “Eli Don’t Bother Me” was born in a small shed in the backyard of a fairly nice home.  Her doggie parents were Klowi Vom Zeigerwald and Tonk Von Der Romo (no, seriously!) (her maternal grandfather’s name was “Tiefschartz-Bud Light”, ack!), and I when I went to select a puppy from the breeder, Eli came and sat between my feet to watch the other puppies play.  That’s how I knew she wanted to come home with me—her and her multitude of ticks (you haven’t lived until you’ve awoken in the morning to find that there’s been a tick hatching overnight, and hundreds of the little critters are climbing up your bedroom walls).  Ticks aside, she was a wonderful, smart puppy who enjoyed a trip to California when she was only 10 weeks only, and frolicked in the ocean at Laguna Beach.  She didn’t really care for the water, but did like all the attention she got from women on the beach.  Puppies are babe magnets, trust me.

Nine years later, Eli and have been through a lot… one “divorce”, a few homes, and a few other companion animals.  Through it all she’s been the most wonderfully sensitive and gentle friend, and I love the time we have together.  She’s got some grey hairs (don’t we all!), an eye disorder, and the occasional limp, but Dante helps keep her young, and I hope she’ll be around so we can celebrate many more birthdays together.  I don’t know what we’ll do for a birthday celebration, but I’d bet she’d be happy with a cheese slice of her very own, and a new tennis ball.  Lots of hugs and kisses, Eli-pie!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/12 at 05:15 AM
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Friday, February 11, 2005 , early evening

I never did like liver

This morning we decided to take Chelsea to the vet for a little checkup.  We couldn’t point to anything specific that was wrong with her, but she seemed sort of “depressed”, and while we’d see her drink water, we never saw her eat.  We don’t know Chelsea well enough to know what’s “normal” behaviour for her, the but her lack of energy combined with her daily vomiting made us worry that it could be more than just “the kitty blues”.  Unfortunately, we ended up being right.  Crap.  Chelsea had lost a little over 3 pounds since her last vet visit 5 weeks ago, and her new blood work showed three liver enzymes which were quintuple their normal values.  An x-ray showed a normal-looking liver, but there was a small mass visible on one side.  The vet suggested it could be a loop of bowel, or the gall bladder, although a gall bladder in that area and of that size would be a really distended one.

So… on Monday morning, Chelsea is going in for a liver ultrasound and a needle biopsy.  I’m hoping that all that will be diagnosed is hepatic lipidosis, which is a liver disease which occurs in cats who’ve stopped eating.  The “anorexia” rapidly causes liver damage, and Chelsea shows all the signs of this condition.  She may have stopped eating due to depression/stress, may not like the food we’re giving her, etc.  This would account for the fact that we don’t see her eat, and that she appears interested in the smell of food but won’t actually eat any of it.  It would also explain the vomiting.  The treatment for hepatic lipidosis is force-feeding, often for as long as 6 or 7 weeks.  I’ve started that process today, feeding Chelsea tins of Hills a/d food through a syringe.  Whoopee!  We’ve had one feeding session so far, and most of the food ended up on my pants or on the floor.  A bit ended up on Chelsea’s face and she wasn’t happy:

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Today’s bill was $237… on Monday it will be at least $510.  Don’t ever accept free pets from anyone, ever!  It’s a curse!  You’ve been warned!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/11 at 06:24 PM
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Thursday, February 10, 2005 , evening

Dreams

I can’t stay long… I must go to bed at a decent hour for tomorrow is “exterminator day” (don’t worry, we’re only killing roaches, and even then we’re only killing the ones with bad manners who don’t pay their child support), and a home appraiser is coming around noon so we can continue the path to refinancing our house.  We’ve spent the entire day cleaning, but I still need to get up early tomorrow so I can vacuum up all the hair that a little black cat named Jackson likes to leave everywhere.  I love having a clean house, but sheesh, it’s so much work.  And then it just gets dirty again!  That’s why I don’t usually bother.

I wanted to write a bit about a dream I had last night, because I know that if nothing else, it will entertain a certain person in the Philippines.  I was dreaming I went to work for Steve and Terri Irwin (aka, “The Crocodile Hunter” and his wife).  This part of the dream is probably based in the fact that the Irwin’s are trying to open a zoo here in Vegas, and I hope I might have the chance to work for them on day.  They both drive me kind of nuts, but they seem like they run a good business.  So, in my dream I’m working and feeding a penguin (or maybe it was an owl, like on the cover of this month’s National Geographic, but I think it was a penguin), and then when I was finished, I went to my “dorm room” to have free time.  When I got to my “dorm” (I don’t know what else to call it, but it was a room I was living in on the zoo premises), I found a black cat.  I then proceeded to put this black cat up on a well-lit work table, I turned the cat over and shaved its stomach, and then I made four identical incisions in the cat’s belly.  I then tossed in a pinch of soil and a number of cilantro/coriander seeds and sewed the cat back up again.  In my dream I thought nothing of this whatsoever, and no one questioned what I was doing, but then a hysterical Asian woman who didn’t speak English (like a scene from “Lost”, perhaps?) came running in because apparently I had just planted cilantro in *her* cat, who was only supposed to be there to be boarded or something.  I don’t know anything except that she was upset and no one could understand what she was saying.  She took her cat, I felt badly, and I went out to Terri Irwin’s car in the parking lot because I’d left my shoes in it.  While sitting in the car putting on my shoes, the Asian woman came, got in the car, and started to drive away with me in it.  I was trying to tell her that she had the wrong car but she wasn’t paying any attention to me.  I guess when you plant cilantro in someone’s cat they have the right to give you the cold shoulder.  I have no idea what happened next, except that at some point I woke up and it was after 12:noon.  And that’s why I’m trying to go to bed early tonight.  The end.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/10 at 08:49 PM
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005 , early afternoon

It’s the bile, baby

Once per day, like clockwork, Chelsea walks to my desk, vomits up some lovely yellow bile, and then slinks away.  Perhaps it’s spite, perhaps it’s anxiety, perhaps it’s a touch of pancreatitis?  With Chelsea I doubt the answer will be simple.  We’ll take her to the vet on the weekend, as she doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort and is otherwise “normal” for her.  She had all kinds of baseline blood and urine tests done the day before she came to live with us, so if there are any medical problems, they’ve developed over the past month.  I’ve ordered the cats two more Fat Cat Big Mama’s Scratch-O-Rama sisal scratching pads because the cats love them so, and maybe that will make Chelsea more cheery.

I just can’t seem to get a photo of Derek and his beautiful blue eyes, because the camera flash keeps turning his eyes red.  I need to read the manual, but in the interim, this is the best I could do:

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We’re in the process of making some “business decisions” (ooh, cryptic!), and trying some home refinancing to pay for them.  Refinancing means an appraisal, which means a yukky stranger will be coming to our house!  It’s going to happen on Friday and I think I might actually chose to have a Pap smear instead, if given the choice.  There’s a lot less dusting, scrubbing, vacuuming, etc., with a Pap.  Everytime I write that word, “Pap”, I think of “Dead Like Me” and George’s boss at “Happy Time”, Dolores.  If you haven’t seen the show, well, she likes to talk about Paps, but she does it in a way which would best be reflected by 1pt white font on a white background.  Somewhat related to the Pap talk, this link is hilarious:  http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=211. Oh, and the music is catchy, too.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/09 at 02:05 PM
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Tuesday, February 08, 2005 , late evening

I’ve got powertools and I’m not afraid to use them

Today I was working on achieving my “lesbian street cred” badge, so I tidied up the garage, and even installed a ceiling fan.  It seems like I’ve installed at least three dozen ceiling fans in my lifetime, so it should have been a piece of cake, but instead it was a pain in the butt because the grounding wire coming from the ceiling was literally about a quarter of an inch long.  Luckily I have tiny fingers and a lot of patience, and I also have a big bottle of Advil, as I now need it after holding my arms over my head for an hour fiddling with the damn thing.  The good news is that the garage now has air circulation and a dash of style (nothing says “fashion sense” like fake oak wood laminate).  Later this week I’m going to finish assembling the table saw, and I’m going to finish assembling the cat tree.  Or maybe I’ll take the rest of the week off, we’ll see.  I’ve got a bag of Dove dark chocolate Valentine’s hearts on the bar behind me, so I might do crazy things.  Anyway, here’s a photo of my tidy garage, and the hood of the car:

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And this is a photo of the actual ceiling fan, in motion. Don’t let it make you dizzy.

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Freddie and “KKKendra” won “The Amazing Race” tonight, proving that nice guys do indeed finish second.  I (heart) you, Kris and Jon.  A new season of “Survivor” starts next week, and then more “Amazing Race” in early March.  I’m really in need of an Ami Cusack fix, though.  Won’t someone put her on another reality show for my enjoyment?

One last thing… our camera is finally back, so here’s a photo of Derek, the Chai Master, engaging in his favourite hobby:

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Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/08 at 10:08 PM
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Monday, February 07, 2005 , evening

Thanks for sharing your chair, Bob McAdorey

You know how there are some people whose voice you can hear in your head, even if you haven’t actually heard them speak in years?  It’s like the expression, “in the mind’s eye”, except it’s “in the mind’s ear”.  If I take a moment and concentrate, I can fill my head with the sounds of my Uncle Alan’s pseudo-Scottish accent, the voices of my grandparents, and even the memorable tones of people I worked with in radio—Don Allman, Eddie Luther, etc.  These people have all gone on to the great bakery in the sky (my vision of the afterlife centers around chocolate eclairs), but I still have vivid memories of their voices.  Sometimes I’m not too sure I even remember their names correctly, (was it “Art Moore” who hosted “Scottish Review?"), but I’ll never forget their voices.  When I think of Bob McAdorey, I hear his voice, even though I knew him through television and not from his famous earlier years in Toronto radio (there are still some things I’m too young to remember).

When I was 15 and unduly precocious, I decided I wanted to have a career as a broadcast journalist, and to accomplish that goal I began schmoozing my way past the receptionist at Global TV in Toronto so I could watch the weekday newscasts live from the newsroom.  I’ll admit I had a bit of help, as it was Deborah Burgess, one of Global’s reporters and anchor people, who originally invited me to tour the station.  I’m quite sure I was perceived as an oddity for wanting to hang out in newsrooms at the age of 15, but it was a great learning experience and I enjoyed “behind-the-scenes” action which played out during the broadcasts (the magic of chroma key, for example).  I doubt I would have had the same opportunities today, when security everywhere is so much tighter, but everyone at Global was great to me.  I have such wacky memories of the place—Tom Cruise being interviewed back when he was just Tom Cruise and not Tom Cruise, seeing Martin Short walking down the hallway dressed in a giant egg costume ("Second City” was still being filmed at Global at the time), meeting Mary-Lu Zahalan and Kelita Haverland (both of whom eventually helped me with my career), and Deborah Burgess taking me on the occasional assignment with her so I could meet people like Andy Gibb and Barry Bostwick.  I even eventually had my first of many broadcasting jobs when I worked for Global as a reporter for their show “Kidsbeat” (Patrick Hunter, I still remember you!).  I digress though, because the point of all this was Bob McAdorey.  When I’d go to the Global studios, Bob McAdorey always let me sit in his office chair, at his desk, before and after the newscasts.  He was generally on his way out of the office on assignments, of course, but he never hesitated to turn his desk over to me and he always did it with a smile.  He was, to me, a very important person, I was quite awed by him, and it was a very cool thing for him to be so kind to me.  I was also very impressed by the fact he was the uncle of singer Michelle McAdorey (I still have the original 45 rpm record of “Love Me Today” by Corect Spelling, and a copy of “Red Earth” by Crash Vegas).  I doubt he would remember *me*, per se, but I bet if you asked him if he remembered that overly-ambitious teenage girl with glasses who used to hang out in his office at Global and sit in his chair, I would ring a bell.  I just found out today that Bob McAdorey passed away on February 5th after a lengthy illness, and it brought back a lot of memories, including many “in my mind’s ear”.  He was a talented broadcaster with a messy desk, but also a really nice man.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/07 at 08:35 PM
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Sunday, February 06, 2005 , early morning

Cat butt

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Am I the only person in the world who has to wipe their cat’s butt on a regular basis?  I don’t read about this problem in books, I’ve never heard of a support group for it, thus, I have to assume I’m the only person on the face of the earth with a cat with a perpetually dirty butt.  When I go through the checkout stand with the jumbo pack of “baby wipes” and the cashier asks, “How’s your baby?” I get to answer, “furry and with a strong affection for turkey giblets, thanks for asking”.  Derek has been such a perfect cat that I guess it’s only natural he have at least one personality or behavioural flaw, but I never figured it would center on his butt.  He gets stuff stuck to it, he doesn’t clean it, and then I have to chase him around with a soapy paper towel and scrub him clean.  I hate to admit it but I think he might like the scrubbing part… perhaps he’s a cat with a creepy fetish and not just poor personal hygiene.  Ewww.

And speaking of cats with bad habits, this is just my favourite website link of all time: “Independent Woman”, played by kittens.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/06 at 07:51 AM
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