Thor's Day!

Thor has discovered that he is a cat. And that he has leaping skills. (Gosh!) During the kitchen floor replacement, we moved a large wooden hutch -about five feet tall- from the kitchen to the back room. We placed it along the only unoccupied wall in the room which happens to be under the little window that remained when the carport was enclosed to make the back room.

Poor Thor is going to be so upset when we move the hutch back to the kitchen. He gets so proud of himself. Last night he actually jumped from the floor to the top of the hutch (after much meowing and merphing to work up his nerve).



Thor sez: Yes, I'm cool.

Bird Wars

A starling has discovered my feeder.


The mockingbird isn't happy about it.


But, unlike the cardinals who just fly away, this starling is fighting back.


So far, the mockingbird is winning.

Mockingbird sez: This is my neighborhood!

JanetLee's Helpful Hints

My mother has had problems with her lungs for years. While never a smoker, she developed a nasty infection that left her lungs very vulnerable to infection.

I am not as fanatic about infection prevention as she is, but here are a few things we both do in order to protect ourselves against infection. She does these year-round, I really only do it in flu season.

If you are over 60, ask your doctor about getting the pnuemococcal pneumonia vaccine. It won't protect you from the flu, it will protect you against flu-related pneumonia.

Wash your hands. Before you eat, after you eat, after you have handled money. Wash your hands, rubbing briskly, sing the happy birthday song twice. (This is great way to get kids to wash their hands long enough.)

There are antibacterial gels that you can get to use and those are great for on the run, but nothing beats a good old soap and water washing.

My mom and I carry the antibacterial wipes and wipe down shopping cart handles as well as wiping our hands. My mom sometimes uses them to actually open a public door with. Never leave a public bathroom and actually touch the door handle/knob with a bare hand (the last person to leave may not have washed up) use a paper towel or an antibacterial wipe.

I open doors with my LEFT hand as I am right handed and if I'm going to stick a finger in my eye or nose subconsciously, I'm going to use my dominant right hand.

Don't be polite. If someone near you is coughing and hacking their lungs out, move, get away.

Eat right, get lots of sleep and exercise.

Thor sez: And make sure no swines have been using your toof-brushie!

Loki Sunday

Late, lazy Loki Sunday it seems.



Loki sez: What? I'm awake.

A Girl and Her Floor

As mentioned on Loki-going-to-the-vet-freak-out day, in which I ended up going to the human vet (a former veterinarian once told me that an MD was a vet who only knew one species), we also discovered a leak under the house that had damaged the kitchen floor.

We lived for a while (due to my schedule) with part of the old floor down and a plastic tarp, seen here, over the spot where the flooring was ripped down to the subfloor. Where Thor could drive himself insane trying to look down under the house and oh, the smells he could smell.

The when construction began, the floor was stripped down to this:


Parts of the almost finished process. When these were taken, they still needed to fix the baseboards. That's done now and Monday (again because of my schedule), they will come and paint the baseboards and do any finish work.



I've been very happy with company who did the work and later I will write them a glowing review.

Thor's Day!

Thor loves:
The almost finished new kitchen floor:

Lounging around on top of Jason's comic book collection: (I think he thinks the Thor comic books are about him)

His mommie:

Getting Over It

Blech. I'm tired of having workers in my house. I'm tired of hammers, I'm tired of dust.

Kittens!

Thor sez: You're over it? How about us? Do you think I like hiding in the closet trying to sleep on your shoes all day? Do you think Loki likes being squished up in the corner under the hutch all day? Huh?

"We've Had a Tragedy"

Now that could mean anything. Anything. From another terrorist attack to a death in the family to Rush Limbaugh moving in next door.

Not the words a gal really wants to hear two seconds after getting out of bed.

But, luckily, the tragedy wasn't that I'd have to watch Rush wobble out to his car every day or listen to him pontificate over the fence.

It was the attack sometime last night on the blue bird house. With the blue bird babies inside. Poor house was just ripped off its moorings. We went out and sort of carefully put it to right and did a patch job with about ten yards of duct tape.

I don't know. I saw Papa Bluebird sitting on top of it later, but haven't seen him go in or out. (Of course I've spent much of the day in the front yard, digging a flower bed along the side walk and planting plants and spreading straw and completely pissing off my knee and back.)

Then I was accused of being a slumlord and using shoddy building practices. I was told to expect a little bird attorney to be knocking on the door. (What type of bird would be an attorney, I wonder? Mockingbirds? Jays?)

Hmph. There was no lease signed. Those bluebirds were squatters!

I hope the babies are okay and managed to hide at the bottom of the box. It it a bluebird approved house, supposedly deep enough that predators (Rocky Raccoon most likely) can't reach to the bottom. After the horrible fledgling accident last year (snake got a baby), they'll never come back to my yard!

Another tragedy is that our main computer has some sort of spybot thingie or something (aren't you impressed with my computer-ese skills?) and is undergoing a search and destroy mission right now. So I don't know if there are kitten pictures on this laptop. I shall look.

Nope.

Sorry!

Loki Sunday

Double checking, it is Sunday, right?

My camera is still at the camera hospital, so we shall have some classic Loki.

Loki yoga!




Loki sez: Don't forget to stretch first!

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

I feel like I've been running, running, running. Took a quick nap Thursday, got up to go to a very interesting lecture that much of went over my head as it pertained to very low birth weight infants, but got enough "hmmm" moments to make my rusty old brain cells start humming.

Then yesterday and today, we've been at the Kayak and Canoe Festival at James Island County Park, learning all sorts of things that are also completely over my head. Except the wilderness injury/medicine lectures, finally I got to nod and know what they were talking about and explain why I prefer Tegaderm over OpSite (two steps versus three, the third of which requires very fine motor control).

Now I'm chilling for a moment before heading over to Holy Cow for an art show.

The kittens are disgruntled.

The boyz say: It's okay if you don't love us anymore.

How Tired am I?

So tired that yesterday I thought it was today and did Thor's Day on Wednesday.

For real.

So tired that yesterday I had a nasty cramp in my leg, got up, stood by the bed, got back in bed, the cramp came back (one of those great calf cramps that leave your muscle sore for days) and I just said "to heck with it" and fell asleep with the cramp still raging.

So tired that I can hear my blood rushing in my ears.

So if you are looking for Thor's Day, it was yesterday.

Good night.

Thor sez: Doh!

Thor's Day!

Thorbitude Thor's Day.

Scuttlebutt, II

I think Scuttlebutt was the name of the raccoon baby that lived with my mother's family when she was little.

Today it is rainy and cool. This guy must have been hungry to swim the creek and come scavenging at my pile of critter feed at two in the afternoon. Which I suppose as he is a critter, it's his feed also. I've seen him or his kinfolk in the yard before this time of day. I think he gets stuck on this side of the creek (there is an island across the creek where he/they live) by high tide and gets hungry enough to come raid the bird/squirrel feed.

He calmly munched on the corn, nervously watched by Papa Bluebird, and then scuttled his butt back through the gate to the creek.

Reason number one why the kittens are not allowed to go outside.

Loki sez: I could've made friends with him, you don't know.

Loki Sunday

Happy Easter!


Loki sez: Got peeps?

Attack of the Hawk

I've seen the hawk cruising around for a while now. I think it is a Cooper's Hawk, but he is never still enough long enough nor gliding overhead where I can see his wing pattern, so I'm not sure.

Yesterday evening, I was sitting on the couch in the front room, on the telephone with my mother when I saw a brown blur streak by the window. Then a mourning dove exploded. That's the only description I can offer. The catch was blocked by the window frame, but on either side, I just saw feathers exploding out in every direction.

I jumped up and went out on the porch just in time to watch the hawk fly away with his dinner. There were feathers spread at least eight feet across the lawn.

So naturally, I had to go get a few to show to the boys.
Loki, the epicuri-cat, was only mildly interested. (Note the disgruntled look on Thor's face.)

Thor was all about trying to eat the feathers, which I wouldn't let him because the quills were rather large and sharp.


Thor sez: Yuck! This isn't shredded Friskies with gravy!
(Photos by JAZ)

You Say It's Your Birthday?

Well, happy birthday to you!

And we're going to have a surprise party.

Happy 23rd birthday to Kelly, patient care tech EXTRAORDINAIRE!

Kelly is a nursing student who works with (read: tolerates) us crazy night shift people. She is super awesome and we all love her to pieces. (Actually all our techs are awesome, but Kelly works nights so we love her more.)

We snuck in a cake and goodies and made her a princess hat to wear for the night. And a good time was had by all.

The boyz say: Yeah, she tried to make us wear birthday hats. Once.

Thor's Day!

Thor got it into his head yesterday that he needed an extended petting, chin scratching, admiration session held for him. On top of the comic book collection. Now Thor is usually not the snuggly cat. He sort of tolerates us for our can opening skills and water bowl filling skills and of course, litter box emptying skills.

So when he demands love and attention, he gets it. And like most reasonably intelligent four year olds, he knows to time it approximately 10 minutes before I have to leave for work.

You want to pet me, yes you do.

Don't deny it.

The great white belly beseeches you to pet it.


Thor sez: Fine! Go to work. I'll be okay, even if my belly is cold and sad and all alone.

We Need Another Cat

So I can name him Odin and have an Odin's Day blog on Wednesday. Sorry guys, my muse has flown the coop and I'm trying to achieve peace of mind which is incompatible with keeping up on all the latest scandals and news.

I hung another bird feeder in the hopes that some of the smaller birds would get something to eat during the mockingbird/cardinal battles of Spring '09.

It became mysteriously empty over night.

Mystery solved. Thor and Loki are treated every morning to the newest show on Cat TV: The Amazing Battling Acrobatic Squirrel Show.

I put out critter feed for them, but nooooooo, it's just so much more fun to fight it out for the bird feed.

My Kavorting Kittens Kamera was sent to the camera hospital a few weeks ago. It just came home and we discovered that it is still sick and must return.

Thor sez: I'm so upset that I'll have to spend another few weeks without flash bulbs going off in my face.

(How ancient am I that I just typed "flash bulbs"?)

And the question of the day: How spoiled are my kittens?

Answer: So spoiled that I drag this end table to the front door when it is open so they can sit on it. (The bottom half of the screen door is plexi-glass, the top half screen, so they like to reach the top half so they can see and smell.) I'm actively looking for something a bit higher for them because now they have to stand on their hind legs to look out the screen.

That's pretty spoiled.

Loki sez: So?

Tuesday Afternoon

I woke up this morning around 8:15 and wanted to jump out of bed so I could rush and get ready to leave for yoga class at 9:00. I was actually disappointed when I realized it would be better to stay in bed and go back to sleep (I have to work tonight). I kept trying to convince myself that it would be okay, I could nap later (which I never can do and my brain knows this).

So in the end, I rolled back over and went to sleep for another couple hours, this time awaking with morning sweats most likely caused by having two cats using me as a heated cat bed.

Yesterday, I ran errands. Five stops in all. First stop, the sky was gray and cloudy, but I left the ginormous golf umbrella that Jason lent to me in the car. Came out, it was pouring rain. I wasn't parked that far away, so I hoisted my package (two shoe boxes -yes, with shoes inside) over my head and ran for it. Now, two shoe boxes in a plastic bag on any other day would have made an excellent emergency umbrella, but alas, it was raining sideways. By the time I reached my car, in less than 30 seconds, I was soaking wet. Ten seconds after I got in my car, it stopped raining.

Second stop, I hauled the twenty pound umbrella with me. No rain.

Third stop, same thing.

Fourth stop, same thing.

Fifth stop, the sun was out, figured it was safe. Safe enough. It was only sprinkling, like Mother Nature really, really had to work at wringing out some rain drops just to smite me and my overconfidence.

And I discovered this amazing site - tell me how much trouble I'm going to get in there! I saw a cat tree that I liked, scrolled down the page and it was $1000.00. Yikes.

Thor sez: And your problem would be? Do you expect us to keep this old thing forever?

Problem Woodpeckers

Hey, Pam? South Bend? Isn't it you who has the woodpecker pecking on your house?

I found this while browsing my favorite bird site today.

Attack Spider.

I Couldn't Sleep at All Last Night

So why was I tossing and turning? There are three possibilities:

1. I have tuberculosis, resulting in night sweats.

2. My beloved FP doc is correct and I am peri-menopausal, resulting in night sweats.

3. We are in the middle of the charming Charleston weather tradition of air conditioning on/off, heat on/off and I forgot to turn the air conditioning on and take the extra blanket off before going to bed last night, resulting in night sweats.

I'm leaning towards number 3.

So add to my chore list for the day: change bed linens.

I'm excited that in a couple of weeks, I'll be learning to kayak (can kayak be used as a verb?) at the Charleston County Parks Kayak and Canoe Festival. I'm not too sure about learning to roll, I'd prefer not to ever need that skill.

One of the things I want to do when we go to Moab, Utah next month, is to canoe or kayak on the Colorado River. I'm not so into the white water rafting thing. I'd prefer a peaceful, quiet, get-your-zen-on float through the canyons.

But for now, I must attempt to keep-my-zen-on during a marathon chore run.

The boyz say: We slept just fine last night.

Loki Sunday

Loki face. From the forgotten feline photo files.




Loki sez: Did I just hear the Fed Ex truck?