Incoherent Scribblings

Cat Lax

I was going to write a mildly amusing anecdote Thursday evening about cat constipation, but something kept holding me back. I couldn’t adequately describe what has been happening with Harley for the past days or weeks, but something deep down inside told me constipation was just the tip of the iceberg.

As long-term readers know, Harley is the baby of The Cats of Doom. Granted, at 6 years old she isn’t much of a baby anymore, but she is the baby of my brood.

Her homecoming story is a rather bland one. Dawn had a mama cat that had kittens and I ended up with one. The story of her name is a little more interesting: A. helped me name her and we decided to call her Harley because at the time she was a hell kitten. Later, we teased that she was aptly named since she had become somewhat of a “hog.”

Rather sadly for us, Harley did not live up to her name as a hell kitten or cat. My biker kitty has the most timid personality of any cat I have ever known. I have often thought to check in the dictionary under “scaredy cat” to see if perhaps her picture is there.

I thought when I moved back to the U.S. and Harley was around my family that she might warm up to other people. Apparently there was a week or so when I was gone on vacation and Mom was feeding them that Harley let Mom pet her, but for the most part, she hides from any foot traffic going in or out of my room.

Therefore, as you can imagine, Harley definitely does not care for my seven-year old niece even though my niece is very respectful of her “cat space.” My niece doesn’t try to cuddle her and except for the occasional peek under the bed to say “hello,” my niece leaves Harley alone.

Unfortunately for Harley, my niece has been frequenting the premises regularly this summer, and as a result, Harley took to hiding in the closet or under the bed. When it was just the cats and me, Harley was still her sweet self and was happy to play with the catnip mice or have her morning cat treat.

But about a week ago, Harley became more withdrawn than normal and began hissing at me when I tried to coax her out of her hidey-hole. I started to wonder if she was developing behavioral problems as a result of my niece’s daily visits into our domain, so I all but banned my niece from my bedroom (Harley’s safe haven) and tried to encourage Harley to be more “social” when we were alone.

When I extracted her from under the bed long enough to hold her, she acted strangely. She seemed very tense and weak at the same time. Her coat looked unkept, she was lethargic, and when I petted her it seemed to me that her throat felt a tad swollen. On Thursday afternoon when she tried to walk across the room for a cat treat she seemed to be dragging her back legs. I had been concerned before, but at that point I became alarmed. I called the vet and he asked me to bring her in right away.

I told him my suspicions that it might be behavioral, but he wanted to rule out any medical problems first. Upon a physical exam, the vet concluded Harley was probably constipated! He gave me some laxatives, told me she should have a bowel movement by Monday, and sent me on my merry way. At that point it was a funny story and some blogging material, but something about Harley’s condition kept nagging at me and I never got around to writing anything.

I gave the laxatives as directed, but by Saturday Harley didn’t show any improvement. I was worried at that point, but since I wasn’t sure how long it should take the laxatives to work I decided to wait until Monday (today). After all, the vet told me we should have some results by Monday and if not to bring her back.

I held her most of the weekend while I monitored her food and water consumption (barely any) and watched her trips to the litter box (there were a couple of attempts, but nothing happened). I noticed she was dragging her back legs more and more all the time and became more and more troubled.

I called the vet at 8:00 this morning and further examination showed that not only had she not had a bowel movement; she barely had any feeling in her back legs. The vet remarked that she seemed to be displaying neurological symptoms and that they recommended an enema, followed by x-rays and blood work.

I saw the dollar signs lining up in my head, but I gave the go-ahead. The x-rays showed the bowel problems we already knew about and the in-house blood work was inconclusive. As I ticked off a few more dollar signs, I agreed to have the blood work sent to the state lab for analysis. We won’t know anything until tomorrow, but one of the worse case scenarios involves a diagnosis of Feline Infectious Peritonitis.

I know I can be a little on the melodramatic side when it comes to my cats and I always imagine the worse, but in this case I think I am justified: FIP is fatal.

Poet’s Progress

I have had the past four days off work and to myself and as a result, I have some great stitching progress to show today!

I know it isn’t the start of “Spring Queen” as I had promised, but I ran into a slight problem: I was gathering my 746 (it recommends 4 skeins) and noticed that I had what appeared to be different dye lots. I was under the impression that DMC doesn’t have dye lots, but it was obvious that two of the four skeins were slightly yellower than the others. Perhaps it isn’t a different dye lot and the skeins are yellowed by age, but I didn’t want to start such a BAP until I get some more 746 to compare all my skeins to and figure which color is the right one.

So instead of “Spring Queen” I worked on “Poet’s Heart.” I had a wonderful time stitching this area of the sampler and in about eleven hours I managed to make considerable progress. In fact, I was so close to finishing the band at ten hours I decided to continue working on it until I was finished. If the rest of the sampler stitches up as easily as this band, it sure won’t take long to finish it.

I guess it is time to make a final decision for my Monochromatic Exchange and start stitching it though… August 15 will be here before you know it.

Happy Fourth of July!

Here is my “Americana Sampler” all finished into a flatfold. The background of this photo shows the fabric that I used for finishing: Isn’t it neat?

Now, about the cording…

After much debate about whether or not I wanted to use a lot of DMC to make the cording, I finally decided to use yarn as an alternative. The reason I was having such a dilemma over the matter was because I figured I would be irritated at myself if I used all that DMC for the cording and then needed one of the colors for actual stitching. (Hmm… didn’t I say I wasn’t a floss miser when it comes to DMC in the last post? Maybe that isn’t 100% true.)

So instead of using my DMC, I bought some red, white, and blue yarn and used it to make the cording. I wasn’t sure if I would like the effect that the yarn would give the piece, but in all honesty, I think it turned out great. The piece has a slightly rustic feel to it anyway and I think the yarn cording compliments it nicely.

Of course, I had to buy three huge skeins of yarn in order to make this foot or so of cording, but I decided today was as good a time as any to also buy some new knitting needles so that I can eventually use the left over yarn when the knitting bug bites me again.

I guess now I need to look through my knitting patterns and see if I can find something to knit so I can use all that yarn!

Have a great holiday if you are celebrating today!

One Thousand!

Wow! My 1000th Post! What a milestone!

And what better way to celebrate #1000 than with my latest progress on “Fairy Flora?!” According to my sophisticated guesstimation system, I think I am nearly 75% complete with this beauty. I love, LOVE, L-O-V-E stitching her and that is all I am going to say!

And now… The SBQ! Normally the SBQ would be on holiday in celebration of the 4th of July (and Canada Day for my Canadian Readers! ) this week, but since I didn’t post a question last week, I am not taking the week off.

This week’s SBQ was suggested by me and is:

Do you consider yourself a “floss miser?”

I thought of this question one day while I was stitching with those last few millimeters of some DMC and wondered why I was torturing myself with that little wisp of thread. However, I realized in that instance it wasn’t that I was so concerned with saving the floss; I just didn’t want to start a new thread when I only had three of four stitches before finishing the row.

I’d say that I am not really a “floss miser” when it comes to standard DMC. When it comes to expensive threads like overdyes, silks, or metallics though, that is a different matter: I am definitely a floss miser then! I guess when I stitch with a $3 skein of thread I look at things a little differently as opposed to when it is a 39¢ skein!

JJ Goal Review

Forgive the lack of progress pics, but I have been really busy recently and this round of my rotation has been going more slowly than I would like: It has taken me a week to get six hours in on “Fairy Flora!” Hopefully the last four hours of this round won’t take another week to finish: I am ready to photograph my progress of Flo and move on.

Of course, I could have worked on Flo the other night, but I bought fabric and spent the evening making my “Americana Sampler” into a flat-fold instead. I just need to make some cording to jazz it up a bit before I photograph it.

And because I have no photographs to make this post more interesting, I’d say it’s time to post my monthly goal review.

So, for June I hoped to:

1. Finish my round robin square by July 1. - Yep!
2. Start thinking about what to stitch for the Monochromatic Exchange (Post date August 15). - I think I know what I am going to do, but I can’t say for sure until I get my partner’s name.
3. Finish “The Pansy Fairy” and finish it into a flat-fold. - Well, I finished “The Pansy Fairy” but I haven’t made it into a flat fold yet…I can’t seem to find the pansy fabric that I know I have to finish it.
4. Try to stitch once for an hour on “Old Waterpump.” If I just can’t do it, designate it as an official UFO. - Couldn’t do it. It is officially a UFO.
5. Start “Spring Queen” - Not yet. It is next up in my rotation though.
6. Develop a new rotation plan. - Yep! I am using a traditional ten-hour plan and it seems to be working.
7. Type up and post a mid-year review. - Yep! See previous post

And now for July, I hope to:

1. Start and finish my piece for The Monochromatic Exchange (Post date August 15).
2. Start “Spring Queen.”
3. Continue working through my rotation.
4. If time allows, stitch (and finish) a “small.”