Enduring Plum

We haven't had a truly dark and stormy night in a while, but hoping for that sort of thing makes me worry that I might help a big, bad hurricane brew up; a little Cat 1 or 2, I can handle, but I worry about anything bigger, especially since some of our flood walls were "repaired" with newspaper... Thanks to the Corps of Engineers for that.

I finished another quilt block by hand this afternoon. It came out much more accurately than my last block, which was just slightly smaller than it should have been because I made (what I imagine) are typical beginner's mistakes. Today I sewed one of my Log Cabin block pieces on the wrong way, but that only took a few minutes with a seam ripper and my needle and thread to fix.

I was going to go to my knitting group (NOLA Stitch N Bitch), but I was just too tired after dinner to trust myself to drive; I miss seeing my group, so I really need to make the extra effort to see them next week. Since I'm staying in, I'm going to go ahead and scrub the ferrets' cage tonight instead of waiting 'til tomorrow, then cut out the rest of my quilt blocks. I may piece some more together, but if I'm too tired I'll just do them on my mom's machine when I pay her a visit tomorrow, then I can get to the sashing and I'll be nearly finished!

I'm going to make a tote bag as my second project, but I'm going to add a simple applique design to what I will consider the front of the bag, so that I can practice that technique. I plan to use three different batiks.

I feel guilty for staying indoors so much, because Conrad seems so bored. He really needs more exercise, but the heat and sunny weather has been extremely hard on me lately, so I haven't been able to walk him, even in the evenings. I don't feel comfortable walking around our neighborhood at night, although I don't necessarily feel like I would be in danger, so Conrad just hasn't had enough to do with himself. I have to vacuum the pool tomorrow and re-balance the chemicals (since it rained tonight), so we'll get to spend some time outdoors in the morning (Conrad won't stay outside without me for longer than twenty to forty minutes and follows me from room to room even when we're in the house together), but I will be in long sleeves, a baseball cap, and covered in sun block, and I'll only work on the pool for as long as it's in the shade; I've had a very bad case of red cheeks this week, including raised, flat bumps that are not acne and which have always been brought on by exposure to heat and/or bright sunlight since I was a teenager. I need to remember to clip his toe nails tomorrow, too.

The ferrets are having an excellent time playing in their new fortress in the hallway, which is the shipping box the crib bedding was in. They're all healthy and seem as happy as ever, but Orbit is having some thinning of the hair on the tip of his tail, so I need to bring him to the vet to have him checked out for adrenal gland disease. Because of his advanced age, I would not be surprised if he has developed it.

My mom called me around eight this morning, saying that Calvin was doing poorly, so we should come over to help move him outside so he could relieve himself. When we got to the house, he was lying on the lawn beside my dad, where he had been able to relieve himself and looked alert, but he was unable to walk or stand. When we brought him back in, we put him on his bed and he just sat, looking around, and seeming to enjoy the attention. My mom and I then made a quick trip to the Whole Foods for some Arsenicum Album that the homeopathic veterinarian recommended we give him. After we gave him the herbal remedy, he seemed like he was finally able to relax, although his breathing was still very labored and he was still refusing all food and water. Around ten-thirty in the morning he seized up briefly, his breathing stopped, and Calvin died, but it was very quick and did not seem painful; he would have been fourteen years old this summer.

I'm feeling better after my two-day surge of intense emotions; now not every little thing seems like it heralds the end of the world and I was able to get some errands done around town. I forgot to do a couple things, but I blame that on my pregnancy-induced brain shrinkage, so it's no thing.

I asked for some recommendations from Carpet_Sharks, a LJ ferret lover's community, for baby gates that will be safe and effective for both a crawler/toddler and my ferrets. I got a good recommendation from a woman who has had personal experience with this particular problem, so I'm going to run out to Babies "R" Us to grab it this weekend (I meant to do it today, but forgot).

My biggest concern about having a baby and remaining the owner of three ferrets is providing the ferrets with enough out-of-cage play time, which is at least three hours a day. Once we have a baby, I won't have even remotely enough time to supervise them the entire time, which is mainly why I've been looking in to finding a new home for Trixie and Spook.

I also meant to stop by the craft store for some jars and paper craft supplies, but I was hungry at that point, so all I could focus on was getting home and getting fed. I want to make my own mustard, so I need some small glass jars that can be sterilized and I would also like some larger glass jars for the salt-, sugar-, and coffee-scrubs I like to make.

This evening, Kira just reappeared. My dad called to say he thought he saw her outside as he was driving off, so I went to have a look while trying to convince myself it was just the orange tabby stray in the neighborhood (so I wouldn't be too disappointed if it really was just the stray). I didn't see her, so I called for her and she came running, meowing like she was trying to tell me all about it and just generally seeming a little freaked out. She was dirtier than usual and a bit thinner, but otherwise looked alright, so I'm not sure where she was or what she was doing; I still tend to think one of my neighbors was keeping her inside, because I've had that happen with several of my cats.

I'm going to keep her inside until I can get her a new collar and name tag and I'm going to make an appointment to have her and Musashi, my Siamese, micro-chipped. Our black cat, Sterling, is already micro-chipped and it really makes me feel better, although he's never disappeared on us.

I spent all day calling around to different animal hospitals, wandering the neighborhood calling for her, and paying a vist to our local SPCA; tomorrow I will have to give them a call to let them know she found her way home. They had a lot of orange cats that had been picked up recently, but none of them looked even remotely like my Kira Cat. I can't tell you how relieved I am that she's home with us again; I honestly have not slept since the day after Thanksgiving, when I noticed she'd been gone for an unusually long time. Now, she's sleeping next to me on our computer desk, purring to herself the way she always does.

It's good to have Missy K back!

I miss my little demons when I don't get to play with them all week! I haven't been taking them out of their cage nearly often enough, but today they're running around, playing, tormenting the dog, and trying to eat my chocolate!

I tried to take a picture of Spook on my mom's MacBook (which I'm borrowing), but he's way too quick for its built-in camera. All I took was a photo of a fuzzy, white blur.

I'm pretty certain that my oldest ferret, Bastian, is dying. Although I know I've taken very good care of him and that he has lived longer than the average ferret does, I can't help but feel horribly guilty, like there was something obvious I could have been doing this entire time to extend his lifespan and prevent all suffering. I know that no one is perfect and no pet owner is perfect, but it just seems like I should be. Now that I'm typing this I can clearly see how absurd that statement is, but there's still that niggling guilt at the back of my mind that maybe I wasn't good enough to Bastian. Honestly, I do take care of my pets very well: I give them attention and play time daily, I keep their food and water fresh, I give them vitamins and groom them regularly, and I take them to the vet at any sign of illness and for all their regular checkups, the only thing I ever slack on is emptying their litter boxes every day. I still feel so horrible every time any of my pets gets sick and dies that I can't help but wonder why I feel this way and what can happen to change these feelings.

Bastian is so ill that I'm uncomfortable with having him in the same room as the other ferrets, so I've made him a new home out of a laundry basket which I am keeping at the foot of the bed, so that Bastian will be near me all through the night. All the symptoms he's suffering indicate old age, but also possible cancer of the lymphatic system, which, at his age, means almost certain death; Even if I could afford the chemotherapy it is unlikely that little, old Bastian would survive. I'm going to make Bastian as comfortable as I can until the day he dies or until his quality of life is so poor that I am forced to have him put to sleep. It makes me sad to see Bastian so debilitated... he's just such a sweet, simple little fellow that it seems like it should be impossible for him to suffer! I am happy to note that he doesn't seem to be in any pain whatsoever. At least that's something.

I love piercings and I can't go for more than six months before I start to crave a new one, but with my current money situation (all of the money I have is going straight to my ferrets' health problems) I can't afford the nipple piercings I want and my health problems prevent me from getting any genital piercings, I just don't want doctor's asking me about the metal jammed through flesh down there (doctor's are usually idiotically conservative about things like that!); in light of those circumstances I'm considering having my navel pierced for a second time, this time on the bottom-- an inverse navel piercing. I've never seen one firsthand, but I have seen a lot of pictures and I think they look really pretty. Granted, I wouldn't be able to wear belly shields in either my top or bottom piercing if I have it done, but I think belly shields look stupid anyway.

In other news... it looks like Orbit isn't going to need any more medical attention for his gross butt disorder, but I'll still need to keep an eye on it. Yuck.
Veil, however, is another problem entirely, she'll probably need surgery but right now she's too small to undergo surgery without great risk of death, so I'll be putting her on a very rich diet starting today.

On the last Thursday of August I drove up to Atlanta with Carl and G-, Allen's best friend, to attend DragonCon, the largest general SciFi convention in the U.S. and the only decent one anywhere in the South. Although I've been to a lot of conventions, but mainly just here in New Orleans, this was my first DragonCon so it was a very big deal to Carl that I go with him this time. I would have gone with him last year when we first started seeing eachother, but I was stuck in bed for a week sick with West Nile Disease (it's not nearly as much fun as it sounds) so wading through a bunch of freaks and geeks at a con was the last thing I wanted to do (well, maybe not THE absolute last thing); He did bring me back an autographed picture of Boba Fett from that year's con, which I cherish (I suffer from a sick, twisted Boba Fett fetish).
Overall, I had a really good time at my fist DragonCon even though I didn't have a whole lot of money to spend on all the nifty stuff I wanted (I never do, but hey, stuff isn't the most important thing in life), but I did get a few cool board games (I'm absolutely nuts about board games) and several stashes of Icehouse pyramids which can be used to play a multitude of different very fun and addictive games (www.looneylabs.com). I also bought a toy Mokona, the little, magical rabbit-like creature from Magic Knights Rayearth and a statuette of the Golden Age Catwoman (I'm also completely fascinated by Catwoman, but not quite in the same way that I am by Boba Fett-- he's so hot); It's difficult to find cool Catwoman merchandise, she's just not as popular as she should be despite having had her own title for years. I also picked up some small gifts for friends who could not attend, but who really would have had a fantastic time at the convention, just to let them know that I was thinking of them while I was there. I didn't attend many sessions while at DragonCon, but I did stop in on a few relating to the comic books industry; Most of the time I just played in the games hall with strangers or hung around with various Looney Labs volunteers learning new pyramid games.
If I can I will definitely attend next years' DragonCon, but that depends on how much time off from work I can afford to take.
In fact, the only experience I had at the convention that sucked was an argument between myself and Carl, which started because he doesn't like it when people ask him "what's wrong." Apparently by the time I asked so many other people had already asked him that he just lost it and blew his top with me. It was incredibly inappropriate and very abusive, especially since I was only voicing concern about his feelings and had done nothing to incur such a violent reaction. He made some very mean, nasty comments, which is completely uncharacteristic for him. I was so shocked and hurt that I told him immediately that I wasn't sure I wanted to continue living with someone who could act so hurtfully. As soon as I hinted that I might leave him as soon as we got back to New Orleans, he made an effort to calm down and actually thought about how he was acting, then we were able to talk about what had just happened and he apologized profusely. Apologies just don't mean that much to me, however, so even though I accepted his apology sincerely I made it clear that it was still up in the air as to whether we would remain in our current situation or not. In fact, even though we have worked out all the issues wrapped up in that argument and he has apologized sincerely on multiple occasions, it is still known that our living arrangement may drastically change once I go back to school. Carl's a wonderful man and I've never experienced that side of him before, but it's unacceptable that I should need to worry about some day possibly feeling that kind of ugliness ever again and I won't stand for it. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from one man, but I only expect from others what I expect of myself.

Orbit came to live with us on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Orbit is a silver mitt Gib (a neutered male ferret) who is suffering with a prolapsed rectum, which is why the pet store that owned him gave him to me. I've been treating his rectum with hemorrhoid cream and feeding him soft food and he seems to have already greatly improved. I think all Orbit really needs is a solid routine, less stress, and attention from a loving owner to get better, but I'm still taking him to the vet on Tuesday. Hopefully Orbit's condition won't require surgery, but if it does I'm sure I can scrounge up the money I'll need for it in time. Orbit's too sweet, well-mannered, and funny to be allowed to suffer like he was at the pet store.

The very next day after Orbit came to live with us, Carl's co-worker dropped off a fourteen-week-old, pinkish-orange, female mackerel tabby kitten with green-gold eyes to live with us, as well. After I got to know her for a little while I decided on the name Kira, which, according to one translation, means 'sun.' Kira has adapted quite well to life here amongst the animals and Musashi, my Siamese cat, has finally adjusted to Kira. At first he was so terrified of the little kitten that he would go limp or cower if she came too close, now she's still the boss, but Musashi and she also play and sleep together, it's very sweet.