Sad Kitty Update

Ivy had cancer after all.  She soldiered along in good spirits in between vet visits for about a month, but she declined sharply again this weekend, and I wasn’t at all surprised by the critically low packed cell volume count when the vet did another check yesterday.  Antibiotics hadn’t helped, high-dose steroids hadn’t helped… a bone marrow biopsy would have confirmed it, but what’s the point of going through that pain and expense when there’s nothing to be done?

The clinic staff were very kind, and we had a burial when Pokermon got home.  The kids are handling it really well.

Here’s a picture from back in November of Eddy and Ivy “sharing” the cat tree:

Eddy fills up that whole nest platform by herself these days.  We’ll have to get her another wrasslin’ buddy before she gets too used to being an only cat, or she’ll develop her own gravitational field.  :-p  She’s been very snuggly, and I find it comforting.

How to Be Gorgeous

How is it that I’ve not wallowed in the genius of Stephen Fry ere now?

Viral Whine

I feel pukey and gross. The kids are really being good, but I still wish they had a Pause button so I could go back to bed. And I hate Sid the Science Kid.

Okay, I think that’s everything I need to whine about at this moment. I can always add to it later if necessary.

*jumping tracks*

We live out in the country, so instead of trash pickup we haul our offal to the Solid Waste Collection Center (where’s the center for liquid and gaseous waste, I ask you?). Anyway, there’s a swap table there if you have something that isn’t total trash but you just don’t want it anymore and it’s too much trouble to haul it to Goodwill.

I’m usually the one leaving stuff on the swap table rather than picking things up, but last week I spotted a nice paperback copy of The Queen’s Fool, by the same author as The Other Boleyn Girl. I haven’t read TOBG, but I just saw the movie with Berry last month, so score!!! It’s pretty good. Very fast-paced so far.

I left a box of Pokermon’s old Playboys on the table in its place. Ha ha! Such a deal.

ETA: Oh stomach, have MERCY… *whimper*

Garden of Win

I weeded out a bunch of superfluous HTML when I was setting up picspam, so if you want bigger views of anything, click here.

First, the herbs. We have mint (spearmint, I think), that may well burst the confines of its 4×4s and take over the yard. Which would be cool.

Rosemary and catnip cohabit in a large pot:

Here is the basil. It got zapped in a late frost last month, but it’s finally making a comeback:

Here are some zinnias that Yakko and Wakko planted (there are 4 pots total). If you look carefully, you can see a bud. Looks like 2 months from seed to bloom — we can’t wait to see it open.

Here is purslane, aka moss rose. Our gardening guru tells us that this particular strain is edible and that the leaves are high in omega-3 fatty acids. It’s just starting to bloom with little yellow flowers.

There are asparagus beans (large green beans, not actual asparagus) amongst the purslane, and we have Sugar Daddy peas just beginning to climb the sticks next to them. You can see pepper plants in the background.

Here’s a close-up of a jalepeño plant. If you look closely, you can see blossoms and the beginning of a pepper.

Our Sweet Million tomato is already living up to its name. We have 4 different tomato varieties planted.

Dill, strategically planted next to the cucumbers. We have lofty pickle plans.

Cucumbers! They’ve grown enormously in the last 2 weeks (we’ve fertilized). That blossom has a little proto-cuke behind it. So exciting.

We had some Yukon Gold potatoes in the pantry that were starting to sprout, so we threw them in a big pot with some dirt. Nothing visible happened for about 10 days, then BAM! The stalks have literally grown about 1 inch/day. We need to add more dirt to the pot.

Bush beans, ahoy. We have about 10 plants. You can see little baby beans on either side of the blossom. Those suckers grow FAST.

A tiny New Zealand spinach lurks amongst the beans. We have a few more between the tomato plants, but this one has grown the most. I’m not sure if that’s due to more shade or more water.

This is our giant pumpkin plant. With the brick for scale, you can see it’s not giant yet. But look under the leaves…

Flower buds. Cinderella, your coach should be ready in about 3 months.

Yakko and I filled an old wagon with topsoil and shook one of those mystery flower-seed canisters into it. Time will tell…

And finally, we have a canteloupe patch.

Here’s a long view of the main vegetable garden from west to east (aka, from beans to purslane).

Hurrah for the Garden of Eatin’!

Kitty Vibes, Please

I have friends who are going through absolute hell with medical issues of their human family members, so I feel kind of petty angsting about a cat.  But I can’t help it.  She’s a creature under my care, and she’s not well.

Ivy (those are her eyes in my header) has had a rough week.  I came home last Tuesday night to find her huddled on the kitchen floor, hardly able to lift her head.  Her gums were bone white.  Mom, bless her heart, came with me to the after-hours vet, where they luckily had a “donor cat” on staff, because Ivy’s red blood cell percentage was at 5% (normal is 30-40%), and she needed an emergency blood transfusion.

We’re not 100% sure what’s wrong with her.  The working theory is that she contracted the mycoplasma hemobartonella, which apparently tricks the spleen into thinking that red cells are foreign matter that needs to be filtered out.  Whoopsie!  It’s treated with antibiotics, so since her transfusion she’s been on antibiotics to kill the mycoplasma and prednisone to stimulate new red cell production.

The only thing is, the lab results came back negative for hemobartonella.  The vet says it can be hard to spot, so that doesn’t necessarily disprove the diagnosis.  The PCV (red cell) percentage has not risen as much as we’d hoped in the week since, however.  So the vet sent a blood sample for further analysis to do some sort of reticulated platelet count (I think?) that will say more definitively whether or not she’s regenerating red cells.  We should get those results in tomorrow.  If she’s regenerating, great, a tincture of time (and continued abx) should cure all.

If she’s not regenerating, it’s likely a bone marrow problem.  Which means she’s living on borrowed time.  Fucking cancer.

Meanwhile, she’s been sneezing since Sunday night, and her nose is runny.  I don’t know if she picked up a virus at the vet’s or if it’s an environmental allergen (something is blooming — I’ve been sneezing, and I’m usually pretty impervious to pollen).  She clearly just doesn’t feel good tonight.  Her eyes look… wrong… and she keeps letting her mouth hang open ever so slightly (maybe because of congestion?).  The Bleeding Heart in me wants to take her back to the after-hours vet, but the Pragmatist in me has overruled it — there’s not much you can do for a virus, and if her PCV is dropping again, there’s really no point to another transfusion, even if we could afford it.

Which we can’t.  We’ve already spent $1450.  I finally got a clue and signed up for veterinary insurance yesterday.  Not that it will cover an existing condition, but it can at least protect our meager savings the next time one of our pets pulls something new and bizarre.

I’ll be on the phone to Dr. S first thing in the morning.

OMG Susan Boyle

I am laughing and crying and stomping and cheering.  This woman is my absolute hero.

Oh shoot, embedding disabled.  Click here, please.  It’s truly extraordinary.

Body Emo

Okay, I haven’t written anything of substance since January, and there’s been a lot of busy happy stuff going on.  I’ll post positive stuff next week with pictures and talk about gardening and knitting and housing and kitties.

But I’m in a funk at the moment, so I need to write about it to get it out of my system.

Around, oh, 17 years ago I took a Community Ed course in “gypsy dancing.”  I loved it.  I was actually good at something physical, which was a novelty, and I felt so beautiful and sensuous as I circled those hips.  I was generously proportioned even back then, but nothing like my current mass.

So, knowing that I really need to get some exercise and having been disappointed in the Bikram yoga class ever since the main instructor moved away, I tried a tribal bellydance class Tuesday night.  I had really been looking forward to recapturing those indulgent feminine feelings.

That didn’t happen.

The reflection in the mirror made me feel clumsy and disgusting.  It hurt.

But it was a good workout, so I registered and paid for 5 more sessions at the end of class so that I wouldn’t wimp out on coming back.  I guess I’ll just have to work on strengthening my sense of self-worth along with my abs and delts.  I can do it.  I’ve been doing that particular exercise for quite some time, but the wall of mirrors and the lovely slim instructor set me back unexpectedly.  Not her fault.

Anyway, the experience eventually led me to do something yesterday that I’ve been much happier not doing for the last 8 months:  I weighed myself.  Shit, that was a mistake.

I wandered into a fat acceptance forum this morning trying to shore up the damage, and I came across a thread asking people whether or not they did regular weight checks.  This was my response, and for full catharsis I’m putting it right out here on my slightly-less-anonymous blog.

I weighed myself yesterday for the first time since July, and I really regret it. It was majorly triggering. I had to mentally out-shout the “omg gotta diet or i’m going to keep growing until i’m immobilized” response with, “if you diet, whatever you lose will come back with 20 more of its fucking friends, REMEMBER? IT ALWAYS HAPPENS SO DON’T DO IT!”

I finally talked myself down with the thought of, “hey, you started Fat Acceptance in August, plunged into the novel behavior of eating whatever whenever, which took awhile to mellow out (I still eat whatever whenever, but I don’t want nearly as much sugar now as I did for a few months), and then your arches fell like London Bridge and you were stuck on the couch with plantar fasciitis for 4 months because it was excruciating to stand up. It’s amazing that you only gained 7 pounds! You’re up and about now, eating produce, gardening, just started bellydancing, that number is probably lower than what it was in February.”

Then I tried to go do a yoga tape to reinforce my sense of ownership of my body (and improve my health, because I really do need more exercise), and my 3yo started crying because he didn’t want to do it with me and couldn’t be convinced to go play with his brother instead. I wound up sobbing on the floor in frustration with him giving me kisses.

So fuck the scale right in the ear. I’m not getting on it again.

Okay.  Catharsis achieved.  Now I’m going to get off the Couch of Sorrow and do some housework and homeschooling,  check the garden, and prepare for an afternoon playdate.  It’s a gorgeous day outside, and life is too short to angst over vanity.

Thank you, Suave Naturals

I am having a really fantastic hair day.

I just thought the world should know.

My God

A lovely family in our “parenthood” circle of friends just found out that the father has terminal cancer.

They have 4 children and 1 on the way.

I pray for a miracle.  Beyond that, I have no words.

Not Safe For Work

You’ve been warned: