Cats and cantaloupe?  Not so much.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a recipe for a kitty cantaloupe cocktail, a concoction of cantaloupe, yogurt, honey, and catnip that was supposed to thrill cats to the tips of their razor-sharp nails.  After lovingly preparing this recipe yesterday and serving it to four cats of varying ages (all unrelated, too), four out of four cats surveyed say, “Ewww!  We’re not eating that!  Are you nuts?”  One cat didn’t even bother coming over to sniff the plate.  One cat tried to get excited about the catnip but didn’t like the stuff under the catnip, and after a couple of hours someone had licked off a bit of yogurt but left everything else.  So ‘fess up—whose cat is eating this stuff?  Someone is skewing the test results.

Frank has no love of cantaloupe, but he does unfortunately (for me) have a love of chocolate.  I know he’s not supposed to have chocolate, and I’m not giving him any, but if I sit down at my desk with anything chocolately and creamy, say, a bowl of ice cream or a frappucchino, he’s in my face the entire time I’m trying to enjoy it.  He tries to reach into my dish or cup with his paws, and when I move away, he plops himself down in front of my monitor so I’m relegated to just sitting and eating.  No sitting and surfing the web, or sitting and reading a blog—I have to just sit and eat because Frank makes a better door than a window.  Last night he wanted chocolate ice cream so badly he jumped on the back of my chair and tried to climb down into my bowl from my shoulder.  I wonder if he ever got into some chocolate snacks when he was living on the streets?  His nose sure recognizes the smell of cocoa powder (or, if it’s cheap ice cream, “simulated chocolate flavouring”).

I must confess to doing something a week ago which drives vets crazy—I started to wean one of the pets off meds without permission.  I know they hate that, and I don’t blame them, but in this case it was just weaning Frank off Buspar, and I figured it was my choice whether or not to have him on it.  I was also the one who started him on it (again, without permission, which was bad of me), so I felt I was in tune enough with his behaviour to recognize if the tapering was causing problems.  He’s been Buspar-free for a few days now and it’s definitely so far, so good—he’s been very well-behaved!  He’s had a few opportunities to brawl with Jackson and he’s just walked away, and he’s been deliberately non-confrontational with all the pets.  I know cats with behavioural issues related to “confidence” can “learn” new behaviours through medication, and can then retain those behaviours post-medication, and I think Frank has been a good example of that.  He’s such a different cat than when he first came to live with us three months ago—he’s much more calm, more peaceful, and has a really good sense of our household routine.  He’s also much healthier now that his ingrown toenails are fully healed, and his diet is improved.  When we first got him he was very rough-coated and his hair fell out in clumps, but now he’s got sleek, shiny black fur and he’s almost starting to be handsome ;)  Jackson unfortunately continues to have confidence (or dominance) problems, and I’m wondering if we’re just going to have to learn to live with them.  He’ll go out of his way to attack Frank (sometimes jumping down on him from the cat tree if Frank is having a drink of water), yet he also seems very intimidated by Frank and will run and hide if Frank walks into the room.  Buspar just seemed to make Jackson worse in all departments—more aggressive, more assertive—so this mght be something we just can’t change.

I realize I haven’t written an entry in over a week, but it’s been a rough week.  I’m almost completely convinced that I’m just not an Milnacipran kind of girl.  I’ve never felt so horrible when taking an anti-depressant before—I feel nauseous, I have regular headaches, and I’ve got weird, subtle breathing problems, like someone is sitting on my lungs all the time.  I’m sleeping well, but I’m in pain all the time… sciatica, carpal tunnel, pain in my upper arms, throbbing in my heels.  I absolutely can’t get through a day without pain meds unless I’m willing to spend the day doing nothing, because the pain is so nagging that I can’t concentrate to do any work until I get rid of it.  There are two reasons I take anti-depressants—the first is to calm my anxiety, and the second is to provide low-grade pain relief, and Milnacipran is doing neither.  I haven’t been taking it that long (a little more than a month), but I already had a “running start” because I was on Effexor, so I don’t think anything positive is happening.  I hate being in pain.  I hate being tired all the time.  I also hate being fat, and there’s no doubt in my mind that there are about 30 lbs. on my frame that are solely there because of medication.  So, I’m not sure what to do.  I honestly feel that the answer to a lot of my problems is HGH, but injections from my endocrinologist (who thinks they’re a good idea for me) run about $2000 per month.  That’s not going to happen anytime soon.  Nancy’s read good things about the supplement 5-HTP, so I’m tempted to just taper off the Milnacipran and give 5-HTP a try for a while.  I think I’ve got a good awareness of my moods so I’m not any danger to myself or others when I’m not taking anti-depressants, but this is such a hard thing to make a decision about.  I just want to be a normal girl again, even though I’ve been so physically messed up for so many years now (10 years next January!) that I barely remember what being normal feels like.

I do know what feeling normal isn’t—it’s not standing outside in the hot sun in the middle of the day for two hours, which is what I had to do on Sunday morning.  All our plants have been looking a bit haggard for the past week or so, and while I attributed it to the heat, I thought it was odd because it hasn’t been *that* hot.  I mean, it’s hot (maybe 105 or so), but it’s not HOT (over 110).  One of the more fragile plants turned bone dry and while I was checking to see if the roots were still alive, I noticed that the ground around the plant was bone dry as well.  I attributed it to a clogged drip head, so I went into the garage to run a cycle of the irrigation system to check the head and ack, the irrigation timer was broken!  As some point it had developed a short and stopped working, and as it’s not smart enough to perhaps beep or having a warning light or anything, it just sat there in the dark corner displaying “Pwr off” for gawd knows how long until I found it.  And with that, I knew why all the plants looked droopy—it was Las Vegas in August and they had no water!  I then ran around for the aforementioned two hours moving a hose from plant to plant, front yard and back yard, trying to get some water back into everything.  I was especially worried about our Queen Palms, as they were only planted a few months ago and were still fragile.  I was able to figure out that there was a short in one of valves but I didn’t know which one (or how to fix it), but today a repair guy came out and fixed it (5 minutes at a cost of $85, bah).  At least the plants are getting water again.  I’m in the process of looking for a new irrigation controller, one that will TELL ME if it breaks, and one which will keep running the other stations if one station shorts out.  I’d also like one with a remote control, as I’m short and have some trouble accessing our current unit.  I’m considering the Rainbird ESP-4MI, although I’ve read that they discontinued the remote control unit which works with it, so I have to read some more about that.  I’d hoped Consumer Reports would have a write-up on irrigation controllers but no such luck.

Are you looking for a unique gift for that person who has everything yet still has closet space?  Check out my eBay auction for a box of Las Vegas crap.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/16 at 10:35 PM

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  1. I hope that you can get your medication all sorted out.  It is horrible to feel like you have been hit by an 18 wheeler all the time.

    I can’t blame the cats for passing on the cantaloupe cocktail.  I don’t think that our pups would be going for it either.  Lately, our Border Collie has taken to eating vegetables though.  He loves onions, tomatoes, carrots, you name it.  It is quite odd.

    Posted by Expat  on  08/18  at  11:23 PM
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