Snickers
30 degrees, mostly cloudy
3-4inches of snow on the ground, 2 inches new
Well, I almost made it home last night before the snow started.
Yesterday was a rainy, miserable day. I wondered more than once why I hadn't thought to wear a hat as I shrugged my jacket up over my head to brave the dash from car to building. The temperatures seemed to promise nothing but rain--it was 41 degrees at six pm--but before I left work for home, the temperature had dropped to 34 and heavy rain had blown in with the gusting northeast winds.
Figuring on a standard lapse-rate of three degrees per thousand feet, I guessed it was probably just about freezing up on Green Timbers Road. The road had been one long stretch of rain-polished ice when I had left for work, so I wasn't looking forward to facing it at freezing temperatures.
Even down by the shore, the rain had a thickness to it that hinted at impeding snow--the raindrops hit my windshield with spatterings of ice. About halfway up Baycrest Hill, the rain abruptly turned to snow. Despite the constant rain we had had all day, it was sticking, too--turning the landscape white and forming shallow slush on the road.
I slogged onward. Having slid once too often into the snow berm on the downhill side of Green Timbers Road, I slowed way down before making the turn from the highway, even though it meant I had to scramble for momentum climbing up the rise from the highway. The tires spun a bit but caught and I didn't have to drop into four-wheel-drive.
Judging from the inch of snow in the driveway, it had been snowing for a while up on the bluff top. Today our world is a white-flocked winter wonderland. I hope it lasts for a while.
It is a mystery to me why Snickers was left to languish at the Animal Shelter while her two siblings found a home. I knew from the first time I met her that Snickers was an exceptional cat. She had life and personality and a way of looking you directly in the eye when she spoke to you. I marked her as special, taking an interest in her and hoping every week when I went in to volunteer at the Shelter that she would have found a good home.
I guess eventually she *did* find a good home. Ours.
I was really trying to hold the line against gaining more cats but every now and then one comes along that you can't close out of your heart. I cared about the shaggy earth-toned tabby and worried about her fate. As I dithered about whether I could possibly squeeze her into the House of Many Cats, she contracted a bad case of cat flu.
It was difficult, in the ramshackle conditions at the old Animal Shelter, to keep the animals all healthy. One sick cat coming into the small cat shed could spread an air-borne virus overnight and there weren't any decent facilities for quarantine. Serious illness usually meant euthanasia.
When I showed up for my volunteer day, Snickers' cage was empty. I was afraid to ask what had become of her, though I peered into the crowded supply room and the office area to see if she was in isolation there. I couldn't find her and went through the day with a sad heart, wishing I had been able to save her. I knew too well the realities that made it so hard to save sick cats, especially when there weren't enough homes for the healthy ones, but I knew I would hold the memory of the out-going tabby close to my heart for a long time.
That evening, as I passed the Shelter on my way home from work, I remembered that I hadn't checked in the bathroom. The small but warm room frequently had to stand-in as an isolation area. Maybe, just maybe, Snickers had been put in there... I heard her miserable meow as I unlocked the bathroom door. She was there--nestled next to the space heater but too sick to do more than raise her head when I came in. With her eyes gummed up and her nose clogged, she looked pretty sad. But she was alive and I felt as if I had been given a second chance to save her. Without really thinking, I bundled her up, put her in the truck, and took her home for personalized nursing.
Despite being young and strong, Snickers almost didn't make it. It took several vet visits, days of force-feeding and subcutaneous fluid therapy before she started to make signs that she was interested in living. And when you fight so hard for the life of a cat, it is very hard to put them up for adoption. I guess it is true that when you save a life, you become responsible for it.
Snickers was ours because I couldn't bear to lose her again.
She is a wonderful cat. At least all the people who know her agree with that. For some reason, most of the cats that know her well find her insufferable. Maybe they think she is an incorrigible suck-up. She isn't confrontational but she doesn't back down from defending herself and she is good at it. Anyone who tries to violate her personal space can end up with scratches while she is unmarked. She may not be well-liked by her peers, but she is respected.
She radiates self-confidence and a joy of life that give me a warm feeling when I look at her. It is obvious that whoever gave her up for adoption was not a connoisseur of cats, because she is a treasure among felines.
In other cat news: Dinky has been a real shit about taking her fluids lately. I massaged her shoulders and she doesn't seem to have any inflammation there that would account for her attitude. Maybe it's just too much for too long as far as she is concerned.
She saw me warming the bag of fluids this morning and split. It took me about half an hour to find her, wedged in the back of the pantry. I have to be so careful when I start preparing the fluids or else I find myself extricating her from the most inaccessible location she can find.
I started Frieda on acidophilus yesterday. All I could find were tablets, so I cut them in half and ground them up to mix in her baby food along with the slippery elm. She seems to be doing no worse off her meds than she was doing on them. Maybe I will give her gut some time to regroup before resuming the antibiotic. She had been on it for a month already.
Cissy has bounced back from her cold and is her old self again.
Tommy is quietly blooming under the additional attention he has received since his seizures and seems to be feeling quite well. The blood work showed that his glucose levels were fairly well-controlled in the month before his seizure. SInce I hadn't been giving him insulin up until a week prior to his reaction, I am wondering if he really needs it or if his diagnosis was based on the slight elevation of glucose levels that all the cats seem to get under the stress of a vet visit. I will get him rechecked in a few weeks to see how he is doing but right now the risk of overdosing him on insulin seems greater than the risk that he's going to lapse into diabetic coma.
3-4inches of snow on the ground, 2 inches new
Well, I almost made it home last night before the snow started.
Yesterday was a rainy, miserable day. I wondered more than once why I hadn't thought to wear a hat as I shrugged my jacket up over my head to brave the dash from car to building. The temperatures seemed to promise nothing but rain--it was 41 degrees at six pm--but before I left work for home, the temperature had dropped to 34 and heavy rain had blown in with the gusting northeast winds.
Figuring on a standard lapse-rate of three degrees per thousand feet, I guessed it was probably just about freezing up on Green Timbers Road. The road had been one long stretch of rain-polished ice when I had left for work, so I wasn't looking forward to facing it at freezing temperatures.
Even down by the shore, the rain had a thickness to it that hinted at impeding snow--the raindrops hit my windshield with spatterings of ice. About halfway up Baycrest Hill, the rain abruptly turned to snow. Despite the constant rain we had had all day, it was sticking, too--turning the landscape white and forming shallow slush on the road.
I slogged onward. Having slid once too often into the snow berm on the downhill side of Green Timbers Road, I slowed way down before making the turn from the highway, even though it meant I had to scramble for momentum climbing up the rise from the highway. The tires spun a bit but caught and I didn't have to drop into four-wheel-drive.
Judging from the inch of snow in the driveway, it had been snowing for a while up on the bluff top. Today our world is a white-flocked winter wonderland. I hope it lasts for a while.
It is a mystery to me why Snickers was left to languish at the Animal Shelter while her two siblings found a home. I knew from the first time I met her that Snickers was an exceptional cat. She had life and personality and a way of looking you directly in the eye when she spoke to you. I marked her as special, taking an interest in her and hoping every week when I went in to volunteer at the Shelter that she would have found a good home.
I guess eventually she *did* find a good home. Ours.
I was really trying to hold the line against gaining more cats but every now and then one comes along that you can't close out of your heart. I cared about the shaggy earth-toned tabby and worried about her fate. As I dithered about whether I could possibly squeeze her into the House of Many Cats, she contracted a bad case of cat flu.
It was difficult, in the ramshackle conditions at the old Animal Shelter, to keep the animals all healthy. One sick cat coming into the small cat shed could spread an air-borne virus overnight and there weren't any decent facilities for quarantine. Serious illness usually meant euthanasia.
When I showed up for my volunteer day, Snickers' cage was empty. I was afraid to ask what had become of her, though I peered into the crowded supply room and the office area to see if she was in isolation there. I couldn't find her and went through the day with a sad heart, wishing I had been able to save her. I knew too well the realities that made it so hard to save sick cats, especially when there weren't enough homes for the healthy ones, but I knew I would hold the memory of the out-going tabby close to my heart for a long time.
That evening, as I passed the Shelter on my way home from work, I remembered that I hadn't checked in the bathroom. The small but warm room frequently had to stand-in as an isolation area. Maybe, just maybe, Snickers had been put in there... I heard her miserable meow as I unlocked the bathroom door. She was there--nestled next to the space heater but too sick to do more than raise her head when I came in. With her eyes gummed up and her nose clogged, she looked pretty sad. But she was alive and I felt as if I had been given a second chance to save her. Without really thinking, I bundled her up, put her in the truck, and took her home for personalized nursing.
Despite being young and strong, Snickers almost didn't make it. It took several vet visits, days of force-feeding and subcutaneous fluid therapy before she started to make signs that she was interested in living. And when you fight so hard for the life of a cat, it is very hard to put them up for adoption. I guess it is true that when you save a life, you become responsible for it.
Snickers was ours because I couldn't bear to lose her again.
She is a wonderful cat. At least all the people who know her agree with that. For some reason, most of the cats that know her well find her insufferable. Maybe they think she is an incorrigible suck-up. She isn't confrontational but she doesn't back down from defending herself and she is good at it. Anyone who tries to violate her personal space can end up with scratches while she is unmarked. She may not be well-liked by her peers, but she is respected.
She radiates self-confidence and a joy of life that give me a warm feeling when I look at her. It is obvious that whoever gave her up for adoption was not a connoisseur of cats, because she is a treasure among felines.
In other cat news: Dinky has been a real shit about taking her fluids lately. I massaged her shoulders and she doesn't seem to have any inflammation there that would account for her attitude. Maybe it's just too much for too long as far as she is concerned.
She saw me warming the bag of fluids this morning and split. It took me about half an hour to find her, wedged in the back of the pantry. I have to be so careful when I start preparing the fluids or else I find myself extricating her from the most inaccessible location she can find.
I started Frieda on acidophilus yesterday. All I could find were tablets, so I cut them in half and ground them up to mix in her baby food along with the slippery elm. She seems to be doing no worse off her meds than she was doing on them. Maybe I will give her gut some time to regroup before resuming the antibiotic. She had been on it for a month already.
Cissy has bounced back from her cold and is her old self again.
Tommy is quietly blooming under the additional attention he has received since his seizures and seems to be feeling quite well. The blood work showed that his glucose levels were fairly well-controlled in the month before his seizure. SInce I hadn't been giving him insulin up until a week prior to his reaction, I am wondering if he really needs it or if his diagnosis was based on the slight elevation of glucose levels that all the cats seem to get under the stress of a vet visit. I will get him rechecked in a few weeks to see how he is doing but right now the risk of overdosing him on insulin seems greater than the risk that he's going to lapse into diabetic coma.
