A to Z: V is for Valuable Valiant Veterinary Victory

April is the month when all of the cats for which i take responsibility go to the vet for an annual check up.

Please note that none of them are mine, strictly speaking -- they all hate me because i am the dispenser of medicine and cat-napper who stuffs them into carriers for various reasons.

No, i am just responsible for taking them all to the vet.

Because there are nine of them, and i do not wish to half kill myself taking them all at once, there were 3 appointments for 3 cats at each.

Mikey, Enigma, and Little Girlie went first.  Mikey and Little Girlie were found easily and stuffed into carriers, but Enigma had to be located and dragged out, howling, from the interior of the couch.

Each of them was the same weight, or a bit less, than last year, and all were passed on their physical easily.  Mikey drooled through the whole exam because he doesn't like car trips, and Enigma howled a lot.  Neither of them enjoy the car, since moving to Kansas and back.  They associate car trips with a long time in a carrier.

Little Girlie, at age 10, is still very healthy, which is nice to have confirmed.

The next appointment was for Dansig, SissyCat/Tripod, and Link.  Dansig just closed his eyes and tolerated whatever happened, in a fatalistic "this has to be over at some point" attitude.  Link was not a happy camper and made it quite clear, doing his best to scrunch down and make the examination as difficult as possible.  He has gained two pounds, and is decidedly more than just "fluffy" now. 

Tripod did pretty well.  She is as healthy as can be expected, and a good weight.  She's one who cannot afford to get overweight.

KidaMosquito, HopeCat, and Horizon/Scaredy Cat, were saved for last.  This was done as part of my strategy.  My thinking was that if any of the other cats proved to hard to find on any particular day, i could grab one of those three, as i always know right where they are.  Then the more recalcitrant victim could be taken in on the last day instead.

This last proved to be the worst appointment of the three.  First, someone had taken one of my three carriers, of course.  So i substituted and box and popped Kida in it, figuring and elderly, asthmatic Siamese wouldn't be going anyplace any time soon.  On that count i was wrong, as she managed to get out in the house, in the car, and at the vet's office.

Horizon got wind of what was up and as i snatched him, he tried to bolt.  It took me, #1 Son, and Bigger Girl, all three, almost 10 minutes to stuff him into a carrier.   (In years past, i would tie the cats up in pillowcases to take them to the vet.  It's actually a very good way to do it, keeping them confined and in a soft, dark place.  Then one year Horizon used his back claws to shred his way out, and i haven't dared try that since.)

HopeCat wasn't happy, either, but i got her in the carrier, and got everyone, volubly angry, to the vet's office.

Dr. Bea, who had done the first two visits, was out, and Dr. Mel was there.  She was swamped and there was not only a dog in the one exam room (it's a small practice), there were two more in the waiting room, and while i was there a gentleman came in with a kitten and three more people came in to buy products or ask questions or make appointments.  This little practice is seldom that busy, but there must have been something in the water that day.

At one point, the office cat came and sat on top of HopeCat's carrier.  Talk about a dominance ploy!

When we finally got in, Kida was still trying to claw her way out (for a while i had put something on top of the box to keep her in).  Horizon and HopeCat were both so ornery they had to be weighed in their carriers, and the approximate weight of the carrier deducted.  Both have gained weight they need to lose.  HopeCat growled so much Dr. Mel could hardly hear what she needed to hear, and both of them scrunched down so much it was difficult to examine them.  You know a vet is good when she can deal with that and still get an exam done.

As for Kida, she is down to five pounds and you can hear her asthma quite well.  For her age and condition, the fact that she can claw her way out of a very deep box and is continually yelling for food means she is doing just fine for now.  If she ever goes off her feed, we need to have the talk.

Altogether, it was a valuable veterinary visit, valiantly carried out, and showing all of our cats to be in good health.

Today is

Adonia -- Greece (women's festival mourning the death of Adonis; date approximate)

ANZAC Day -- Australia; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Cook Islands; New Zealand; Niue; Norfolk Island; Tonga

Army Day -- North Korea

Bob Wills Day -- Turkey, TX, US (celebrating Western Swing music and its king; through Sunday)

DNA Day -- structure of DNA first published this day in 1953; human genome project ended today in 2003

Duck Appreciation Society Day -- The Duck Appreciation Society (some sites say May 10; either way, go feed the ducks if you like them, but not stale white bread, it's no better for them than it is for us)

East Meets West Day -- Allies from the East and West finally met up this day in 1945 about 75 miles from Berlin

Eeyore's Birthday -- Austin, TX, US (Eeyore never need feel forgotten again; Austin celebrates his birthday as a fundraiser for local charities, with fun for all)

Festival of Robigalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (to protect against corn blight; festival of Robiga and Rogibus, the brother and sister fertility gods)

Flag Day -- Faroe Islands; Swaziland

Foxfield Races -- Charlottesville, VA, US (annual steeplechase)

Hairstylist Appreciation Day -- if you have a good one, let him/her know (some sites put this on the 30th)

Healthy Kids Day® -- YMCA

International Marconi Day -- a 24-hour amateur radio event annually near the birth anniversary of Marconi

Liberation Day -- Italy; Portugal

Nagasaki Tall Ships Festival -- Nagasaki, Japan (sailing festival, commemorating the 16th century opening of Nagasaki as Japan's sole foreign trade port; through the 29th)

National Crayola Day -- no one claims starting this holiday, observe it with your children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/kids down the street, and remember how fun it is to color pictures

National Go Birding Day -- US (but feel free to participate wherever you are, birding is fun!)

National Herb Day -- different from the HerbDay in May, and unsponsored

National Plumber's Day/Hug a Plumber Day -- US (because if we didn't have plumbers, we'd be in deep you-know-what)

National Rebuilding Day -- US (270,000 volunteers help rebuild and repair homes for the elderly and disabled)

National Sense of Smell Day -- US (sponsored by the Sense of Smell Institute, encouraging museums and science centers to focus on how the sense of smell plays an important role in daily life and how it interacts with other senses)

National Zucchini Bread Day -- they hold this at a time when you are not yet sick of all that zucchini you grew in the garden

Parental Alienation Awareness Day -- raising awareness of Parental Alienation or Hostile Aggressive Parenting

Redbud Trail Rendezvous -- Rochester, IN, US (living history along the Tippecanoe River; through tomorrow)

Red Hat Society Day -- first Red Hat Tea Party held this day in 1998

Save the Frogs Day -- Save The Frogs Day is the world's largest day of amphibian education and conservation action

Sinai Liberation Day -- Egypt

Southern Maryland Celtic Festival & Highland Games -- St. Leonard, MD, US (competitions in fiddling, bagpipe, Celtic harp, and dancing, heptathlon, Celtic marketplace and foods, parade of clans, and more)

St. Mark the Evangelist's Day (Patron of attorneys/barristers/lawyers/notaries, captives, glaziers, imprisoned people/prisoners, lions, stained glass workers, struma patients; Egypt; Boretto, Italy; Creazzo, Italy; Infanta, Philippines; Ionian Islands; Pordenone, Italy; Sonnino, Italy; Venice, Italy; against impenitence, insect bites, scrofulous diseases, struma)

Tag des Baumes -- Germany (Tree Day/Arbor Day)

Taro Festival -- East Maui, Hawaii, US (celebration of Hawai'an culture; through tomorrow)

World Malaria Day / Malaria Awareness Day -- WHO and the International Community

World Penguin Day -- because they begin migrating on or around this day

World Veterinary Day -- World Veterinary Association

20-Something Service Day -- can't find who started this one, but it's a good idea, whomever it was, whether you are 20 or older to do some community service or volunteer work regularly


Anniversaries Today:

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is established, ND, US, 1947
The United Negro College Fund is founded, 1944


Birthdays Today:

Jacob Underwood, 1980
Emily Bergl, 1975
Jason Lee, 1970
Renee Zellweger, 1969
Hank Azaria, 1964
Jeffrey DeMunn, 1947
Talia Shire, 1946
Stu Cook, 1945
Bjorn Ulvaeus, 1945
Al Pacino, 1940
"Meadowlark" Lemon, 1932
Paul Mazursky, 1930
Albert King, 1923
Ella Fitzgerald, 1918
Edward R. Murrow, 1908
William Joseph Brennan, Jr., 1906
John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, 1884
Guglielmo Marconi, 1874


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Little Murders"(Play), 1967
"Romulus the Great"(Play), 1949
"Another Language"(Play), 1932
"Turandot"(Opera), 1926
Robinson Crusoe(Publication date), 1719


Today in History:

Lysander's Spartan Armies defeated the Athenians and the Peloponnesian War ends, BC404
German geographer and mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller publishes his Cosmographiae Introductio map in which he gives the American continents their name, 1507
Highwayman Nicholas Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine, 1792
Charles Fremantle arrives in the HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom, 1829
The last survivors of the Donner Party arrive back in civilization, 1847
The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots, 1849
British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal, 1859
New York State becomes the first US state to require automobiles to be licensed, 1901
First DC Comic with Batman is published, 1939
Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations, 1945
Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA, 1953
The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping, 1959
Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit, 1961
Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula per the Camp David Accords, 1982
American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war, 1983
Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit, 1983
The Hubble Telescope is deployed, 1990
The Human Genome Project comes to an end 2.5 years before first anticipated, 2003
The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia  after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937, 2005
Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties to join the European Union, 2005
The U.S. government 'condemns' international media outlets, including 'The New York Times' for publishing confidential files, 2011