Happy New Year, everyone

And if you drink, please don't drive. I don't want to have to leave my party to clean up after yours.

-B

Excessive Scruffy petting may lead to dehydration

I may have commented on this before, but when Scruffy is petted, he purrs so strongly that he drools. Five minutes ago, he got an extended petting/brushing session. By the end of it my face was all wet with his drool, all of the fur around his mouth was dark with drool, his whiskers were wet with drool, and several drops of drool lay on the table before us.

At this point he probably weighs between 7 and 8 pounds (a little over half of a stone), and there were probably between 7 and 8 mL of drool, at least, spread over all of these surfaces, which would account for between 1 and 2 percent of his body weight.

Maybe I should start weighing him before and after petting him.

Feline training has begun

Over the past few weeks Shadow has become a bit less active (she's no longer a little kitten, and I think that's the reason for it), and of course Scruffy has never been terribly active when I'm around, so it seemd to me that it was time for some training.

Last night or the night before I made chicken, and I prepared some of it for the cats (no herbs, spices, etc - just chicken with nothing added). I cut this chicken into pieces of perhaps a half square inch and froze it, and tonight I defrosted and diced one piece for use in training.

Shadow's exercises consisted of convincing her to climb her pole to close to the top, after which she received a few pieces of chicken, then she had to climb up and come down again to get more. The only problem seemed to be that she sometimes had difficuty seeing the chicken, which I held on a neutral colored dish (and which is neutral colored to begin with); perhaps I'll get a green plate to use in the future.

During this, Scruffy wandered over to investigate what his sister was up to. He was willing to sniff at an extended finger, but when I moved to get him a piece of chicken, he ran off. So, his training took place at his lair; if he sniffed a finger he got a piece of chicken. Unfortunately, there's no easy or comfortable place for me to stand and reach him when he's there, so his training session was shorter than his sister's.

At present they are silently playfighting as they sit in the shoebox. They don't fit in the shoebox without spilling over its edges when they are content to merely lie there peacefully, so their playfighting has a very comical look to it.

I suppose it's about time to start on my holiday cards...

...it being Christmas eve and all.

I actually sat down and wrote the generic letter last week; all I need to do is print it, address and sign the cards, add personal notes to many of them. Actually, I'll probably need to look up a lot of addresses, too. I looked for holiday card address list some onths back but must have lost it when I moved over to this computer.

And of course I have to stamp and mail the cards, but that's nothing too dificult.

Somehow this always seems to evolve into an overwhelming project.

I don't know how anyone ever gets through it all. Hallmark must make a killing, though.

Season's greetings to all from Scruffy, Shadow, and myself.

- Badger

A half-bath takes less time than a full bath

Scruffy is currently looking all prim and proper up front, and something like a drowned rat behind, since it finally occurred to me that even if his hind quarters need cleaning (for the usual reasons) his front quarters don't necessarily. So, today he got a half bath (yesterday he got a full bath, not only for the normal reasons but also because he smelled foul. I tried being a bit lenient with the bathing and cleaning, reasoning that cats generally manage to keep themselves clean, but although he licks himself enough to give himself hairballs if I don't brush him regularly, he apparently isn't very successful at keeping himself clean.)

So, for the future, half baths will be replacing full baths when feasible.

Green toys are good toys

Shadow seems to be able to see her green ball better than her balls of other colors. If, as I understand, cats see in blue and green, this would make sense.

Teen pregnancy, Jamie Lynn Spears

I gather from the news radio that an actor (actress, if you prefer, but would you call a female doctor a doctress?), Britney Spears' sister, Jamie, is pregnant. This would probably escape the attention of the media and the public if she did not also play the title character in Zoey 101, a TV show on Nickelodeon. Like most people, I have a few thoughts on this.

From the point of view of a medical provider: my job is to look after a patient's health interests. Just as I would discuss the value of an immunization against the measles, and the value of simple hand washing to reduce the spread of disease, I'll be discussing the value of safe sex - what it is, how it work, how successful it is, etc.

I know that there are parents who don't want their children to learn about these subjects until they are quite old, or are married. I think that I understand their concerns. Our society has long repressed sexuality, condemning it and its discussion, so there's a taboo to overcome. To intelligently discuss love and sex (two separate things) necessarily involves facing our own beliefs, which the parent may not be comfortable doing. The discussion also acknowledges that their child is getting older, which by extension means that they, the parent is also getting older. It's not just the poets who connect sex and death.

Maybe if we were less uptight about death, we'd be less uptight about sex.

Morality and religion also are involved. If, as parents, we firmly believe that sex outside of marriage is sinful, then instructing our children how to have sex feels like a betrayal to our beliefs and our children's well-being. But it doesn't have to be. A discussion of safe sex can very easily include a discussion of morals. Frankly, it should. Sex is a biological need, but it is often more than a mere mechanical act; it involves and entangles emotions and human relationships. Kids and teens have limited experience (they haven't lived long enough to accumulate it) and can benefit from a parent's guidance.

As a medical provider, I specifically will not discuss the morals of sex and sexuality. First, it's not my position to do so, but more importantly, moral judgment on my part can only interfere with good medical care.

My cats hang out in their carrier

One of the last things I do before going to bed is to take all of the cat toys that make noise and lock them into the cat carrier. Between doing this and turning my air filter up to top speed, when its fan produces a sort of white noise, I am able to sleep through the night without that cats waking me as they frolic. In the morning, I unlatch and open their carrier's door, leaving it to them to retrieve what toys they want to play with. My hope is the cats will see the carrier as their toybox more than as the path to the vet. Several times I have seen Shadow disappear into the box and reemerge carrying a toy, so I think this is working to a degree.

Of course, when I need to carry the cats somewhere in their carrier, I remove it from its usual location by my bed, empty it of most of the toys, and place it in the middle of the floor, which may offer its own cues as to its immediate purpose. From time to time I place the carrier in the middle of the floor and just leave it there, to reduce the validity of that cue, but I tend to leave the toys in place.

The result, and this is probably more due to the cats' sweet nature than to the dual identity of their carrier/toybox, is that I rarely have any difficulty in getting them into their carrier.

Then last night I collected the noisy cat toys and knelt down to place them into the carrier, but in placing my hand into the carrier I immediately encountered a warm, furry face. Shadow was lying in the carrier, stretched out and relaxing, and a closer look showed Scruffy in the carrier as well.

:)

I hate rubberneckers

Honestly, I hate rubberneckers. These are those people who, on driving past a motor vehicle accident, or even just someone who has been pulled over for speeding, turn to look at the accident or motorist instead of paying attention to where they're driving. You're going to steer your car toward whatever you're looking at (consider the moth effect). Your car weighs a ton, minimum; pay attention to where you're driving!

Speed limits don't work, reprise

In a previous post, I commented on how speed limits don't successfully regulate traffic speed. On my drive home today I realized that if they did successfully regulate speed, they would be problematic.

Speed limits often apply to long stretches of road, which typically include straight and curved portions. On a curve, of course, some of the tires' griping force must be devoted to turning the car; on a straight road all of the grip can be applied toward propelling the vehicle, or stopping it, should the need arise. So, straightaways can safely be driven faster than curves. The condition of the road may vary widely, too, within the area of a single speed limit. Inclement weather must also be considered, as must lighting and other traffic. I'll leave to the side considerations on the type and condition of the vehicle, and the skill and condition of its driver.

The point of all of this is that applying a single speed limit to a stretch of road within which these variables vary is misleading, as it suggests that the entire stretch can be driven at that speed. A driver following this suggestion will then either take some portions of the road too fast, or other portions too slow.

What's the solution? Short of a fully automated roadway system with fully automated cars, I don't know, but it certainly isn't more speed limit signs.

Sweeney preview part 2

In my previous post, I said that I wasn't impressed with what little I'd seen of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. Having now seen the rest of the clips, plus the associated behind the scenes videos, I think I have determined what it is that I don't like about Burton's Sweeney Todd.

Perhaps because he has moved from the stage to the screen, and perhaps because the songs in Sondheim's Sweeney are so difficult to sing, Burton has underplayed the singing tremendously. Many of the lines are spoken, rather than sung, and not all of the actors seem to be good singers. He has not given the music the same treatment, however. The result is a lush musical score that supports, and overwhelms, some very flat singing. The comparison makes the singing look very bad, to the point of being distracting.

This is unfortunate, as much of the rest of Burton's vision seems to be on target. I'm not nuts about his staging of "Epiphany," but I don't know that it could have been handled any better. "Epiphany," for all of its qualities, may not be translatable to the screen. The rest has real potential, but I found the disagreement between the music and singing to be too great a distractor. For a show like Sweeney, where almost all of the dialogue is sung, this is a major concern.

More as I have it.

Sweeney preview

This link leads to a series of clips from the upcoming Sweeney movie. I watched 3 of them, but wasn't impressed.

Dr Maturin, a glass of wine with you

I have long been a fan of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Some time back a friend of mine suggested that I consider turning them into a graphic novel. I balked at the time - I would probably need to be Geoff Hunt to successfully put Mr O'Brian's work into drawings or paintings - but the idea has stuck with me. Though I don't know about graphic novels, the idea of writing a vignette or two, even just for myself, is appealing. Raw materials abound in several accounts of that period of history, some of them contemporary, and how nice it would be to revisit Jack and Stephen.

No more plastic bells...

Both cats ran into trouble today. It started with the my discovery, on waking up, that Superfund Cat had once again soiled himself to the point of needing a bath, and had spread his feces about the bathroom and a window sill, too. Shadow had gotten some of his feces on one of her paws, but she could be spot cleaned.

Superfund Cat's bath went easier this time. At least in part this was due to my having a better sense of how to do it - I placed a towel in the tub to give him some traction, and the water was warmer than last time, but he did not enjoy the experience. He shivered as I toweled him dry, so I held him to me until the heat came up, then moved him to the floor heating grate.

Once he stopped shivering and seemed okay, I wolfed down breakfast and ran out of the house for an appointment, coming back in an hour, and then this is a neat thing about giving him a bath: he fluffs out as he dries (he's a long hair). He kind of has his own fluff cycle.

Then about an hour ago I found Shadow sniffing about the floor and eating something. Closer inspection revealed a broken piece of the plastic bell from a cat toy at her feet, and it looked like she had eaten at least one other piece.

The internet was not much help, other than to say that this might be a problem. So I called the off-hour animal hospital to confer with them. If she had eaten this plastic, I should bring her in, they said. Plastic can cause an intestinal blockage, which can be fatal. The consult would be $125, and X-ray, should one be needed, would be over $200, and on top of that any other diagnostic or therapeutic measures that looked to be necessary.

I'm already a bit hard up for cash - I'm in debt to my credit cards for more than I care to admit, I don't have enough hours at work, and yesterday I learned that I lost several hours of teaching that had previously been assigned to me.

You can therfor imagine my relief when, in gathering my jacket, etc together prior to placing Shadow in the carrier I found the rest of the plastic bell. It had occurred to me that it might be helpful to have a complete bell to show the vet and give her a sense of what Shadow might have swallowed, and the bell on the toy I picked up was missing a piece the size of the piece I found earlier at Shadow's feet.

After calling the animal hospital back to say that I wouldn't be coming after all, I had the chance to sit and realize how very attached I have become to Shadow. The thought of her dying of this was very painful. My beautiful kitten.

...and more water

This morning's pleasant discovery was cat feces on the bathroom floor, again. Shadow had some of it in her foot fur, and I spot-cleaned her, but Scruffy seemed to have sat in it, so he had to be bathed.

No surprise, he wasn't pleased, but things went better this time than last time. I did feel sorry for him, though, particulary when he started to shiver as I towled him dry. If he wasn't so skittish, I'd consider getting a hair drier, but as it was, I held him to me and cranked up the heat, then brought him to the floor heating grate once the radiators had warmed up.

One thing that is kind of neat about bathing him, though, is how he fluffs back out in an hour or so, being a longhair cat.

So, along with the water on the kitchen floor and the remaining dampness in the living room, there's water and cat feces all over the bathroom.

Water, water everywhere

Cats are, perhaps, notorious for their dislike of water. I think this is a simplification, however; I think it's more that they will accept water, but only on their own terms.

Scruffy and Shadow get their water in a steel bowl with a rubberized bottom. The bowl is pretty large for them - too big, as it turns out, as it often ends up with dirt or food in it before it's even half empty. A lot of water gets dumped when I clean the bowl and refill it with fresh water. So, the solution is a smaller bowl, yes?

Well, no. I bought a smaller bowl, and filled it with water, and Shadow, on discovering it, spent several enjoyable minutes pawing at the water, dipping her paw in it (then shaking her paw off, sending water everywhere) sloshing it out of the bowl, and in the end the bowl was empty, and the floor was very wet. Fool that I was, I refilled it, and was treated to a repeat performance, so we went back to the large bowl. We waste the same amount of water, but at least it isn't all over the kitchen floor.

Then, yesterday, the toilet broke. The part of the handle that's inside the tank snapped off (this is the only toilet I've seen where this was plastic, though I suppose they all are these days), so I have to lift the lid off of the tank in order to trip the valve and flush the toilet. Until this is fixed, poor Shadow is banned from the bathroom while the toilet is flushed.

So, I've taken a washtub and partially filled it with water, then placed it on the floor. This is a source of fascination for both cats, though Scruffy doesn't have the nerve to approach it while I'm nearby. And again, it's paw at water to see it move, then hastily withdraw paw and shake it off. Shadow will actually climb part way into the pan, getting her front legs (and occasionally a back leg, too) soaked in the process. As she walks forward she lifts each paw out of the water, shakes it off, then puts it back in the water.

So, I have water on the kitchen floor, water on the living room floor, and have to get my hands wet to flush my toilet.

Probably I should talk to the ladnlord about the toilet - I guess that is his job.