Random Droppings

The Friday Night Curse

As anyone in medicine knows, there are certain conditions in which you are more likely to have sudden urgent cases or even full-blown crises. Friday afternoons, particularly with full moons, long weekends, or people leaving on vacations, are well-known to induce the onset of odd cases.

So. We arrived home in our usual end-of-week, end-of-day late-and-starving mode, carrying home our sandwiches as well as a fresh supply of dog and cat fuds. The dogs are HAPPEEE to see us, yes, thank you, go outside and relieve yourselves before you damage us. The cats are quieter, being more reserved, and as I bring the cat fud to the first feeding location, I realize it's only Brady who's showing up for dinner. Kedgie comes out of the bedroom late, slow, and turns up her nose at dinner. I look closely at her, and she's got a goopy eye. She never fails to eat, so this is indicative of a problem. I grab the ear thermometer and get a reading of 103.2, which leads me to think she's got a fever -- her behavior certainly reflects that. I give her 0.5 ml of penicillin (dual pen) IM, and a smidgen of ketoprofen SC, and wait. About an hour later, I try to read her temp again, and she bolts under the bed -- the previous reading had her reacting in a "meh" way, so this is probably an improvement. I wait a little longer, and then put down some dry fud for Brady, which draws her back out, so this time I hold her and Honey gets the temp -- 99.7. Much better! During the night, she comes up and purrs at Honey; this morning she is ready for breakfast too.

She'll get three more doses of penicillin, every other day, and then we'll see how she does. As long as the fever doesn't come back, I'll hold off on ketoprofen (which can't be given any more often than once every two days, as NSAIDs are toxic to cats).

In other news, our new Roomba has become a practical addition to the household chores. We were running it last night in various locations, and doing other jobs at the same time -- multitasking like fools -- which makes the house cleaner and us happier. The dogs eye it warily at first and then pretend to ignore it completely. Kedgie actually does ignore it, because it is a Thing, and thus beneath her notice. Brady never manages to be near it.

The other cats have been given the run of the basement for about two weeks now, and they seem to like it. The room is still where their fud is given, and one litter box is in there, but now the door to that room remains open and they can go around the basement. BT hangs out in the one window with decent views of outside, so I made sure the bushes were trimmed out front, and put down seed to draw in the birds and rabbits for her to watch. Cinder seems to like hanging out in the dark corners, and being a black cat, this makes it difficult to find her. This is probably her Ebil Plan.

> Both Yahoo and AOL seem to be down, with neither of them actually, like, showing emails. In both cases, I enter the infinite loop of error messages, although I can access the main websites. Strange, but this is me not caring.

> I spent about 3 hours in the car this afternoon/evening, and it was all "local" driving. Note to self: East-West Highway is NOT THE WAY TO GO HOME. Evar. Unless I need to develop a strong sense of "KILL THEM ALL", then it will be the right way. Alas, unless I am eventually possessed by a demon, I will never need this; ergo, it will never be the right way. Q.E.D.

> When one is very hungry, even stale bread with old baloney and wilting lettuce is consumable. Not that a 13-yr old boy will eat wilting lettuce. Ha.

> Saturday evening we went to the opera and saw Puccini's "Turandot". The lead soprano (singing Turandot) got tepid applause, while the second soprano (singing Liu) got bravos and lots of applause. Ouch. But she was the better singer, by far.

> It looks like Sonny will be taking summer school this year, in Spanish. Even though he has a fabulous accent, he didn't study the vocabulary and is failing it like a failing thing. Other classes are much better, as long as he stays on track with getting homework turned in, that sort of thing.

> I have been working diligently on our Pile O' Socks, and have now whittled it down to a reasonable size, i.e., one that can be carried in a single load. Still more socks await pairing. Is this going to the Supreme Court, or will it be done on a state-by-state basis? Certainly California will be of no assistance in this matter.

> Has Dan Rather always been this much of a whistler/squeaker while he speaks? Personally, I can't stand to listen to people like this.