Taking a Bit Longer

"Mom, please, before we get to the school, pull over so I can use a restroom!" #2 Son has never made that request before, so i asked if something was wrong. "Yes, what I'm going to do to the bathroom i don't want to do to the school!"

I complied, and he went into the store/gas station/fast food place that you find at every exit in the US now.

He came out a few minutes later, green. "Mom, I'm sick! Please don't make me go to school!"

How sick?

"Barf sick," he responded, groaning.

We dropped off Bigger Girl, and he groaned and spit in a cup the whole way home. Over the next few hours, he figured out that whatever this is, it's going to come out of one end or the other. So of course he couldn't help at the shelter.

After picking Sweetie up from work early, getting the kittens from the vet, and finishing dinner, it was time to pick up Bigger Girl and go do our Thursday Kitty Care. So Little Girl and i set out, leaving poor #2 Son groaning in his favorite chair.

Fight the traffic, not too bad today except for the one person who waited until he saw my signal and purposely cut around me to keep me from getting over. Poor guy, not a strong enough person to be nice. We pulled up to see Miss W's truck and the new Bill the Executive Administrator's car in the lot. Miss W's truck was piled with cat litter in the back, and i figured we would be drafted to use the hand truck and cart it in. We were, and that's okay, she got it in there from the store, it was the least we could do.

Bill the E.A. has apparently been putting in some long hours in his first week. There's a lot to do when you take over organizing a place that has been totally volunteer run since its inception. Lots of things fall through the cracks when people with full time jobs and part time to dedicate to service have to do it all.

A quick look at the board held the good news that Nanette has been adopted. So has Muffin, but i don't remember if i noted that one last week, or if it just happened. There wasn't a date by it, and i'm not going back and looking right now. Either way, any adoption is good news.

There were some changes, as the decorations are all down, many piled in a corner waiting to be packed, and some rooms have been switched around.

Scanning the rooms, Dustie and Angel have been moved from the very back room to the very front room on their side. They are also under watch for watery eyes and sneezing. Across from them, poor Bowie has an eye infection. Thank goodness it isn't JuJu, there would be no way to get eye drops into her eyes without chain mail gauntlets. Bowie held still and let me put them in. I'm still upset that someone managed to do something to him that got him to bite at the adoption center. He is so precious.

Tiger and Buddy are doing well in their room, and Mamie is by herself for now. Harley is also alone, because if he has a roomie there is no way to tell if he is eating. Miss W. asked me to check him for dehydration, and he doesn't show signs of it. He doesn't seem to have eaten for a few days now, except when we give him Fancy Feast. Even then, he just doesn't eat it all, he nibbles at it. I would wonder if he is holding out for wet food if he gobbled it, but that is not the case.

Harley splits a can of FF each morning and evening with Lucky, who is now allowed to roam at will. He is so old, and so slow, that he is not considered much of a risk to run. Miss W warned me that he has to get his pill pocket with his meds before his wet food, or he won't eat the pill pocket. So i gave it to him first, but he dropped part of the pill out as he ate it. I had to wrap that in a bit of the FF wet food to get him to eat that. He finally got it all, and i gave him his FF in his bowl. He spent a good 20 minutes eating at it, and only managed to eat about half of it. No wonder he doesn't gain weight even with that and two kinds of dry food.

Sophia and Roxanne are doing well, as are Francie and Iggy. As for TigerLily and Bobby the Bobtail, i am amazed at the lengths we go to for those two. Their food is a mix of 30% indoor adult, 30% weight management, 30% hairball control, and 10% dental care. Talk about picky!

In our very full cages we have Scottie, Isabelle, Molly, Manimal (Manny), and Monty, who likes to escape. Corrie is back there, having been returned from the adoption center at the pet store for diarrhea. We will watch, but they send them back for diarrhea if there is even a tiny bit of softness to the stool. It's silly, most of the time there is nothing wrong.

Then there is Rocky. He is about 3 months old, and was rescued from the mouth of a German Shepherd (sound familiar? remember Rory?). The dog owner took him to the emergency vet to the tune of $350, and the little guy has a torn diaphragm. He is wanting to run and play and be a kitten, but he has to stay still and quiet and in the cage so he can heal up with no complications. He is on Clavamox, so i pulled up the dose and opened his cage. He purred just seeing me, purred as i petted him, and only stopped purring when i actually gave him the medicine. After he swallowed, i asked him if we were still friends. He started purring and treading his paws again, and probably would have let me pet him forever. What a love of a cat he will be.

Leo and Louie are kittens also, just a bit shy, so need lots of petting. They were abandoned at the shelter, look to be about 4 months old, and are in a separate cage in the kitchen until all the vet work is done on them. When you first reach out to them, they back up a bit, but then come forward with coaxing and warm up fast. Good for them.

As i moved around looking for everyone, i noticed Bill the E.A. leaves the office door open as he works. That's find by me, but it had an effect i wasn't expecting. I walked in to say hello to Frieda and pet her, and she hissed and batted at me. Wow. I wasn't sure what was wrong until i realized Lucky had wandered in. Frieda doesn't like the door open if there are any other cats around. Later, after we closed the door, she calmed down and let me pet her as usual. She needs a home to herself, that is for sure.

The big room only has seven occupants right now, as Gidget is back at the adoption center. For the record, i didn't let Grady out, Bigger Girl did, and Little Girl caught him. He actually didn't put up much of a fight this time. Clint and Baby were hiding, Prissy let me pet her head, Candy and Ginny played chase, and Zoe came out for petting. They seem to be doing well.

Because #2 Son wasn't there, it took us a good half an hour longer to get it all done. It was still worth it, 32 cats got what they needed.


Today is:

Celebration of the First Week of Moonhopper -- Fairy Calendar

Distaff Day -- Medieval Europe

Festa del Tricolore -- Italy (Tricolour or Flag Day)

Ganna -- Ethiopia (Corresponds to Christmas for the rest of us)

Grandmothers/Midwives Day -- Bulgaria (Grandmothers as midwives of their grandchildren, for the role they play in the traditional family.)

Harlem Globetrotters' Day

I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day

International Programmers' Day

Nanakusa no Sekku -- Japan (Festival of Seven Herbs)

National Tempura Day

Nativity of Christ -- Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians who still use the Julian Calendar.

Old Rock Day (So we don't forget to appreciate the fossils and old rocks in our lives.)

St. Aldric's Day (patron against asthma)

Usokae -- Kameido Tenmangu Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan (Bullfinch Exchange Day)


Birthdays Today:

Nicholas Cage, 1964
Katie Couric, 1957
David Caruso, 1956
Kenny Loggins, 1948
Paul Revere, 1938
William Peter Blatty, 1928
Jean-Pierre Rampal, 1922
Charles Addams, 1912
St Bernadette, 1844
Millard Fillmore, 1800


Today in History:

Calais, the last English possession in France, is taken back by the French, 1558
Boris Godunov seizes the Russian throne upon the death of Feodore I, 1598
Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia, 1608
Galileo discovers the first 3 moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, and Ganymede), 1610
Francis Bacon becomes the English Lord Chancellor, 1618
A prototype typewriter is patented by Englishman Henry Mill, 1714
Battle at Panipat India: the Afghan army beats Mahratten, 1761
The Bank of North America opens in Philadelphia, the first US commercial bank, 1782
The first gas balloon flight across the English channel, by Blanchard and Jeffries, 1785
The modern Italian flag is first used, 1797
Liberia is colonized by Americans, 1822
The first railroad station in the US, in Baltimore, opens, 1830
Fanny Farmer publishes her first cookbook, 1896
The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS", 1904
The first steamboat passage through the Panama Canal, 1914
The Harlem Globetrotters play their first game, 1927
The first transatlantic telephone service is established – from New York City to London, 1927
"Buck Rogers", the first sci-fi comic strip, and "Tarzan," one of the first adventure comic strips, premier, 1929
Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast, 1931
The "Flash Gordon" comic strip (by Alex Raymond) debuts, 1934
President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed the hydrogen bomb, 1952
The first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM, 1954
Marian Anderson becomes the first black singer to perform at the Met (NYC), 1955
The Polaris missile is test launched, 1960
Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off, 1968
Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 1984
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union, 1985
The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns, 1990