Fridge, et al, and the Cats

The refrigerator is dying. It keeps the stuff if the freezer part cold, most of it is still frozen, actually. The other half is gone, and mostly empty. I figured if we lose the ketchup and a few carrots, we will live.

So, I make the required two calls to the home warranty company, two because you inevitably get cut off the first time. It turns out I can get the fridge fixed, and, on the same deductible, get the other two appliances seen to. That means I will again have 4 burners on the stove and a working microwave, as well as a cooling refrigerator. At least, that is what is supposed to happen. We will see.

On Monday I had gone to the shelter to pick up inoculations for the kittens and saw the dreaded sign on one of the doors. A cat has had an initial positive result to a feline leukemia test. A retest is always done; meanwhile, the cat in question, Tiffany, is isolated to prevent the spread of this disease.

Going back on Thursday to do our usual shift, we found 30 cats (I think that's a record, but I'm not sure), and the sign was gone. On the dry erase board where we leave messages for each other was a notation that her retest came back negative, praise the Lord.

As for the rest of the cats, starting from the clinic side, Grady got out, and again it was not my fault. He was actually out when we got there, with a sticky note on the door from Katherine saying she was too tired to hunt him down when she left, and for someone to please catch him. #2 Son managed, I think Grady had been out long enough to be hungry by that time.

His roomies are doing fine. Prissy is back to her usual self now that Curly Sue is out of there. Ginny and Candy are happy and friendly, and Clint, as usual, I had to hunt down in the soft sided cube bed. There was a notation on his chart that he came out and played earlier today, but he was back to hiding when I went in to do a head count.

Princess is still in the kitchen, and she is being given the run of it during the day. I'm still convinced she has no upper respiratory, it's just her usual asthma.

Leia and Lucky, in the two lower cages, didn't want their thyroid meds tonight, but this is a tough mama who won't take no for an answer when it's medication time. The medicine is working, too, as both of them are gaining a bit, their bones aren't sticking out so much any more.

Mindy and Baxter are in the cages above, and seem to be doing well. Just biding their time until we can get them in a colony room. Gidget is in a cage, too, because she had stopped eating, and we can monitor food intake better there than in a big room with other cats.

Frieda is still in the office, recovered from her upper respiratory infection, and is still friendly! It is amazing, it took getting sick, but now she wants petting and asks for attention. A wonderful change.

JuJu, on the other hand, has only gotten worse with getting sick. She and Bowie are not sneezing any more, so I believe they are over it as well. Bowie is so friendly I told him tonight that he needs to give his roomie "friendly" lessons. JuJu hides, and hisses, and is just not a happy kitty. I'm not sure what to do about it, but she probably needs a foster home.

Angel is so upset about getting eye medicine again that we have to pull out the stepladder and drag her off the upper shelf in her colony room to give it to her. I hope she doesn't need it too much longer, she is a love when she is not being dosed. Dustie and Corrie, in there with her, are just their usual selves.

Buddy and Tiger are the only two on low fat food right now. I haven't seen a cat as big as Buddy since we had our Runty tip the scales at 18 pounds. He wants to be a lap cat, too. Good luck, big boy.

Tiffany is now in with Grayson and Muffin, and I'm so glad. They get along well.

Curly Sue, of the "I'm nutty as a fruitcake" variety of cat, is in with the absolutely unflappable Nacho. She runs around that room, jumping from platform to shelf to floor and back, and he just lies there and lets her. A match made in heaven.

Roxanne, Rosie, and Francie round out the roll call this week, and there was only one kitten adoption on the last adoption day. Thus the crowd at the shelter.

So, if anyone is looking for love, we have some for adoption. Who knows, maybe somebody out there could even make JuJu happy.


Today is:

Citizenship Day -- US

Constitution Day -- US

Festival of Min Kyawzwa, Burma (god of drinking and fireworks -- should they really be mixing those two?)

National Apple Dumpling Day

National Student Day

POW/MIA Recognition Day -- US

Prinsjesdag -- Netherlands (Prince's Day)

Stigmata of St. Francis' Day

St. Hildegard's Day

St. Lambert's Day (patron of children, nannies)

VFW Ladies Auxiliary Day

Von Steuben Day -- US, among German Americans

Wo-Zha-Wa Festival -- Wisconsin


Birthdays Today:

Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson, 1951
John Ritter, 1948
Ken Kesey, 1935
Anne Bancroft, 1931
Roddy McDowall, 1928
Hank Williams Sr., 1923
Jerry Colonna, 1904
John Willard Marriot, 1900



Today in History:

Arabs conquer Alexandria, and destroy its library for the last time, 642
Netherland sailors discover Mauritus, 1598
Massachusetts Bay Colony gets a new charter, 1691
Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain, 1776
US Constitution is adopted by the Philadelphia convention, 1787
Sprinkler system for extinguishing fires is patented by Phillip W. Pratt, 1872
The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality, 1908
The first transcontinental airplane flight, from New York to Pasadena, is completed after 82 hours 4 minutes, 1911
The Okeechobee Hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing upwards of 2,500 people, the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 1928
The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives, 1949
Television is first broadcast in Australia, 1956
Malaysia joins the United Nations, 1957
Bangladesh, Grenada and Guinea-Bissau join the United Nations, 1974
The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by NASA, 1976
The Camp David Accords are signed by Israel and Egypt, 1978
Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America, 1983
Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia join the United Nations, 1991
The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet, 1991
Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years, 2006