Writer’s Block

So I know, I’ve been bad lately. I do apologize, it’s just that there is so much I need to be doing, and somehow, I am having a difficult time finding the impetus to get started. Plus I have this huge block sitting on my desk – yes, you guessed it – writer’s block!

Okay, I am kidding, there is no block on my desk. But my world is kind of crazy right now. I am trying to get my home ready to go on the market – and when you are not physically what you once were (me, in a nutshell), accomplishing household repairs, and other necessary evils can be difficult. In fact, sometimes it just seems so overwhelming that I just do nothing. By the way, did I mention that I have ADHD? One of the characteristics of ADHD for me is the tendency to procrastinate myself into oblivion, and the inability to start. Simply start…

Then Monday a good friend of mine made the trip from Lincoln, Nebraska to my home (about 170 miles one way), and the sole purpose of her visit was to help me with “rat killing” in the garage. Now…before everyone thinks, “Oh my God, she should call an exterminator!” Let me reassure you…rat killing is the phrase I use for sorting STUFF. Junk, getting rid of junk. There were NO rats injured, or even seen, in the process of the work we did the other day. But we DID manage to almost completely fill the dumpster the city dropped off here last Thursday! Yup…we were quite successful at lighting a fire under me. 🙂

The reason I mention this on this particular blog is because I have two cats, as everyone is probably well aware of by now. Moogy likes almost anyone. In fact, she will insert herself onto someone’s lap like a leech, or if they are not sitting, rub all over their legs, demanding that they notice how beautiful and purrfect she is. True story. Tinker, on the other hand, is a cat of a different color. Tinker adopted me (or at least my food) almost exactly 6 years ago. He was a starving feral kitten, and willing to learn to be “domesticated” in exchange for a steady chance at the food bowl. But…Tinker almost never takes to strangers. Even when my daughter comes, and she is a true cat lover, Tinker takes hours and hours to acknowledge that she is back in town…and he LIKES her. So imagine my surprise when less than ten minutes of Karen’s arrival Monday evening, Tinker not only came out to say hello, but he actually got close enough to be petted! FACT! I was gobsmacked, let me tell you. I think it is safe to say that my cats have adopted Karen. In fact, I am so thankful for her help with my garage – and so pleased that my cats love her.

I did not get any photos of Tinker with Karen, but I did manage to get a good one of Moogy, sitting quite comfortably on Karen’s lap as if she owned it!

Moogy enjoying Karen’s lap

My apologies…

So I haven’t written a blog post in quite a while, and I feel badly about that. Stress from dealing with my own health concerns, as well as my precious Moogy and her problems has kept me from doing much of anything.

It turns out that I am the “lucky” mom to a cat with IBD, otherwise known as irritable bowel disease. When Moogy was hospitalized in June, she was full of infection from the problem being so long-standing. After weeks on antibiotics, and eating prescription ID dry food, as well as Science Diet canned food, Moogy began vomiting again only a couple of weeks after the antibiotics stopped. Then the vomiting became much more frequent again – and finally, last weekend, she was running a fever and listless. At the time, I could see no way around it – I am poor – well, lived off a fixed income that is mostly broken anyway – and do not have the money to drive her to a vet hospital that has the facilities to do a CT scan on a pet. Nor could I pay for the scan. Bottom line, I had pretty much decided that I would have to have her euthanized, because I did not want her to continue to go downhill.

Monday morning I called and made an appointment to have her put down. I was devastated. After going and having my own CT scan on Monday (as I said, dealing with issues of my own), I came home seriously stressed. The strangest thing happened. Moogy was no longer acting listless, and maybe thirty minutes after I arrived home, she was even playing!  I’m thinking maybe she is on life 2 or 3 of 9. I just don’t know. Anyway, I called the vet’s office 10 minutes before they closed and changed the appointment to an examination.

The decision reached by the vet and myself was to remove her from canned food entirely. I asked about probiotics (at the suggestion of a friend who has worked as a vet tech), and the vet said it couldn’t hurt. So…

Since Monday, Moogy and her fur-brother Tinker have had NO wet food. Now as my previously mentioned friend calls it, kitty crack (wet food) is highly addictive. Needless to say, Moogy and Tinker are not very pleased with me. If I walk out to the kitchen, they follow me, thinking they are going to get their kitty crack. When I even stand up from my seat, they are there, meowing, thinking they are going to get fed. Earlier today, when I went to make my morning coffee, the two of them stood in front of the placemat their food sits on, and glared at me, reproachfully, as if to say, “Mom, why ARE you starving us?”

So, I am wondering, does anyone know how long it will take for them to get over this fixation?  LOL

On a happier note, Moogy has had more energy, and been much more loving the last four days – but then, come to think of it, so has Tinker. Maybe they are still trying to convince me to break down and open a can? 😉

What the cats don’t realize is that yesterday I exchanged 25 cans of Science Diet Tuna with Gravy for 80 lbs of Tidy Cat Clumping Litter – and we have no more kitty crack in the house! Hopefully Moogy will still love me enough to do this after a few more days: