Flee, Flea!

It's that time again.

Flea medicine.

Yes, time to treat for fleas again.  It's a mostly year 'round battle in the swamps, anyway, and the last couple of muggy, warmish days brought to light that it's high time for a skirmish.

The good thing about this flea treatment is that as each flea in the house jumps on a cat and bites, it dies instantly.  No way for the things to gain immunity and pass it on, unlike the topical medicines which are becoming mostly useless.

The bad thing is that my cats fight like demons when we try to give them the pills.  Last time, we had to tie Link up in a towel and he still almost took Little Girl's hand off fighting not to take the thing.

This time, i got the idea to crush a pill and put it in canned food, to see if they'd eat it more easily that way.  That worked for about two bites of food each, then they decided something was wrong and wouldn't eat it.  Except Mikey, who eats anything, and Link, because we were desperate with him.  Little Girl sat with him and gave him bits to lick off of her fingers.  It took her 20 minutes, but he is now pilled and no blood spilled on either side.

The other cats had to get it the hard way, with mouths pried open and long tweezers pushing a pill in.

It's all done now, though, and i have the satisfaction of knowing that fleas are dropping dead all over the house.

Now if only there was a repellent for brothers-in-law.

Copyright Paws, Inc.

Today is:

Dakar Rally -- Buenos Aires, Argentina to Valparaiso, Chile (the legendary event of off-road rallies; through the 17th)

Day of Remembrance for Princess Olga -- Slavic Pagan Calendar

Great Fruitcake Toss -- Manitou Springs, CO, US (by the first Saturday in January, it's time to get rid of what's left of last year's fruitcakes, so come join the fun and do it competitively!)

Hakozakigu Tamaseseri -- Fukuoka, Japan (ceremony of the red ball which brings good luck to the team which catches it)

Icing Morning -- Fairy Calendar

Humiliation Day -- drawing attention to the fact that it's okay to be humble, but not to humiliate others

J.R.R. Tolkien Day -- birth anniversary

Memento Mori / "Remember You Die" Day -- Wellcat Holidays suggests putting these words where you can see them often, to remind you to cherish what you have today

National Chocolate Covered Filled Cherry Day

National Write to Congress Day -- US (the new session begins today or, if the 3rd is on a weekend, the following Monday; write your Congress-persons and Senators and tell them what you think, after all, they work for you) 

Perchtenlauf -- Bad Gastein, Austria (A festival with scary masks and music to frighten away winter.)

Revolution Day -- Burkina Faso

Shigoto-hajime -- Japan (first work day of the New Year; work begun well today will prosper)

St. Genevieve's Day (Patron of females in the military; Paris, France; against plague, disasters, fevers)

Tamaseseri Festival -- Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan (men in fundoshi - loincloths - compete for the ball; if the winning team is from a seaside town, it will be an auspicious year for fishermen, if the land team wins, there will be a good harvest)

Tenth Day of Christmas


Anniversaries Today:

Alaska becomes the 49th US State, 1959
Establishment of Wind Cave National Park, SD, US, 1903


Birthdays Today

Eli Manning, 1981
Danica McKellar, 1975
Joan Chen, 1960
Mel Gibson, 1956
Victoria Principal, 1950
John Paul Jones, 1946
Stephen Stills, 1945
Van Dyke Parks, 1943
Dabney Coleman, 1932
Robert Loggia, 1930
George Martin, 1926
Jan Walsh Anglund, 1926
Maxine Andrews, 1918
John Sturges, 1911
Victor Borge, 1909
Ray Milland, 1905
Zasu Pitts, 1898
Marion Davies, 1897
Clement Richard Attlee, 1883
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1892
Father Joseph Damien, 1840
Lucretia Coffin Mott,  1793
William Tucker, 1624 (first African American child born in North America)
Cicero, BC106


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Arsenio Hall Show"(TV), 1989
"Queen for a Day"(TV), 1956
"Look Up and Live"(TV), 1954
"Symphonic Dances"(Rachmaninoff, Op. 45), 1941
"An Ideal Husband"(Play), 1895


Today in History:

Joan of Arc is handed over to the bishop for trial, 1431
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine, 1496
Martin Luther is formally excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, 1521
The first theater in Amsterdam, the Schouwburg, opens, 1638
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont as a separate state, 1749
Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico, 1823
Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia, 1848
The Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors, 1868
Oleomargarine is patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY, 1871
The wax drinking straw is patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC, 1888
The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, then the largest in the world, is put into use, 1888
The first known use of the word automobile was seen in an editorial in The New York Times, 1899
British explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt, 1924
Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy, dissolves the Italian parliament, 1925
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States, 1933
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress, 1953
Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland, 1958
The West Indies Federation is formed, 1958
Apple Computer is incorporated, 1977
Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century, 1988
In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), 1993
More than seven million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, receives South African citizenship, 1994
The People's Republic of China announces it will spend fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys, 1977
The Mars Polar Lander is launched, 1999
Australian researchers discover the 1912 plane that was the first taken to Antarctica, 2010

Alliterative Suffering

#1 Son is mostly over his illness.

He has passed it to his siblings.  And to think, when he was very little, he really didn't like to share.

Right now i have 3 young people in the house who can do nothing but sniffle, sneeze, snort, and sigh despondently about how much they hate that their brother gave them this.  Their suffering is very alliterative, no?

The girls are especially upset, as it is #2 Son who spend so much time at #1 Son's house that he brought this creeping crud home to them.

The medicine cabinet is now full of acetaminophen, guaifenesin, ibuprofen, dextromethorphan, and the biggest bag of sore throat/cough drops with menthol the pharmacy had.  They all attack the medicine cabinet every few hours, and someone is hoarding the paper towels.

Only comfort foods are being consumed right now, and they keep asking for candy.  It's as if they are all 5-years-old again.

So i have been dispensing dosing advice and making soup in between treating kittens for various things and feeding the lot of them, and they can eat a good bit.

A couple of the kittens are now sneezing, too, and one is so stuffy he won't eat, so i'm using saline drops to try to get them to sneeze it all out and get over it.  It's not fun having to force feed a kitten whose nose is so stuffy he doesn't want to suck on the bottle.  It's not fun having to give fluids by needle, either, but i do that as well.  If you can keep them alive until the nose unstuffs, they go back to eating and do just fine.

The good thing is, it can't all last forever.  They have to get well sometime, and i just hope it's before i end up sick -- driven to insanity type of sick, of course.  Moms aren't allowed to get any other kind.


Today is:

Ear Wig Fitting Day -- Fairy Calendar

Eleven Days of Global Unity -- Day 8, Human Rights (sponsored by We, the World)

Golden Aspen Motorcycle Rally -- Ruidoso, NM, US (trade show, bike shows, riding tours, skills event, stunt show, parade, and fun; through Sunday)

Hug a Greeting Card Writer Day -- they are generally anonymous, often underappreciated, so today, give one a hug! (if you know any, that is)

Independence Day -- Chile

Indra Jatra -- Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (municipal day off for the festival)

National Cheeseburger Day

National Guitar Flat-Picking Championships and Walnut Valley Festival -- Winfield, KS, US (through Sunday)

National Respect! Day(sm) -- US (encouraging abused women to respect themselves enough to get out)

National School Backpack Awareness Day 2013 -- US (or anywhere else that you want to weigh your child's backpack on the 3rd Wednesday of September, to make sure it's not heavy enough to hurt them)

Plataia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate)

St. Joseph of Cupertino's Day (Levitating saint, and so Patron of air crews, air travelers, astronauts, paratroopers, pilots/aviators, students, test takers; Cupertino, Italy)

Sukkot -- Judaism (begins at sundown, through sundown the 25th)

World Water Monitoring Day -- International



Anniversaries Today:

Hull House opens, 1889
Constantine II of Greece marries Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, 1964


Birthdays Today:

Lance Armstrong, 1971
James Gandolfini, 1961
Ryne Sandberg, 1959
Frankie Avalon, 1939
Robert Blake, 1933
June Foray, 1920
Jack Warden, 1920
Greta Garbo, 1905
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, 1905
Samuel Johnson, 1709
Marcus Ulpius Nerva Trajanus, Emperor Trajan, 53


Today in History:

Christopher Columbus lands at Costa Rica on his 4th and final voyage, 1502
Ft. Ticonderoga, NY opens, 1755
The British capture Quebec City, 1759
John Harris builds the first spinet piano in the US, 1769
President Washington lays the cornerstone of the Capitol Building, 1793
Royal Opera House in London opens, 1809
A horse beats the first US made locomotive, near Baltimore, 1830
Tiffany and Co. (first named Tiffany & Young) is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City; the store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium", 1837
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is first published, 1842
First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times, 1851
Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn during the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition to Yellowstone, 1870
The banking firm of Jay Cooke & Co. in Philadelphia declares bankruptcy, which starts the Panic of 1873 and a severe economic depression, 1873
The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time, 1879
Riots break out in Montreal to protest against compulsory smallpox vaccination, 1885
In appreciation for all she had done for the tribe, Harriet Maxwell Converse, adopted as a member of the Seneca tribe, is made a chief of the Six Nations Tribe at the Tonawanda Reservation, 1891
Daniel David Palmer gives the first chiropractic adjustment, 1895
A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong, 1906
The Irish Home Rule Act becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I, 1914
The Netherlands gives women the right to vote, 1919
The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air, 1927
Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro crossing of the English Channel, 1928
Margaret Chase Smith of Maine becomes the first woman elected to the US Senate without completing another senator's term, 1948
Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations, 1960
U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash, 1961
Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are admitted to the United Nations, 1962
The Bahamas, East Germany and West Germany are admitted to the United Nations, 1973
Hurricane Fifi strikes Honduras with 110 mph winds, killing 5,000 people, 1974
Voyager I takes first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together, 1977
Soyuz 38 carries 2 cosmonauts (including 1 Cuban) to Salyut 6 space station, 1980
Joe Kittinger completes the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic, 1984
Liechtenstein becomes a member of the United Nations, 1990
ICANN is formed, 1998
The 72 year run of the soap opera The Guiding Light ends as its final episode is broadcast, 2009