For the technically-minded, this is the same photo but embedded from Flickr to show the slight difference in quality. The server at Flickr is more capable and presents images with more detail. Also WordPress tends to reprocess the images which removes a little bit of detail.
When I show these photographs of me and Gabriel I am painfully aware that I’m also showing people a bit of my apartment and how I live, which to some people may seem a bit strange. Perhaps it is a bit strange 😉 .
The reason why I am wearing a scarf in bed is to keep myself a little bit warmer during these chilly days.
Whenever I look at myself in photographs that I’ve taken of Gabriel, but in which I appear, I always look fatter than I think I am which says quite a lot about how I think about myself (dreaming!) 😉 . I’ve just been down to the gym on a rowing machine and I rowed hard for half an hour to get rid of some of that damn fat which I hate. I was raised on boarding school food so I like the wrong sort of food.
Gabriel is very cute in this photo. He asked to be in this exact position. he climbed up and plonked down. He watched me working on the computer from that position for a while. I typed the preceding article with him watching me. It slowed me down somewhat.
Once again the photo was taken blind. Fortunately he is centered nicely.
What?
‘. . . all articles permanently live . . .’
Good thing I’ve written nothing but PoC-posts!
‘To live eternally, poor little soul -not the chief devil could inflict nor endure it.’ [Robinson Jeffers]
“permanent” is relative 😉
Hot dang! Will try this again, Dee. Perhaps a smaller dab, the work up from there, if he can hold it down.
Yes – it’s true. We’re chatting away on his website, and it shows up in the ‘Comments column.’ But at least the original Post keep receding further & further, day after day, into the murky reaches of the Catacombs — so we’re not exactly hogging center-stage.
Years ago, the Chinese discovered their ‘one child’ was a monster. This principle also applies to cats. A colony hastily gobbles up food and looks for more – as I would guess your and Martha Cain’s cats do. But when you have just one, he can turn into an enfant terr-EEEEEEEB-l’.
There’s nothing more irritating than people who ask your advice and then, when you offer it, counter your every sentence with ‘Yes, but….yes but.’ A head-game, if ever there was one.
So here I am, a pain in the rear. There’s a reason having cats has robbed me of my resilience to keep bouncing back from the blows they’ve inflicted.
Nothing has worked in my efforts to care for them. The antibiotic injections failed to suppress for long the bacterial infection in my boy’s bladder. His painful hydrations grew in frequency. The ‘steroid shots’ were useless. Years ago, I remember my mother buying tubes of ointment called ‘Panalog’ for her dogs. She kept buying this stuff for 30 years, yet it never cured their malady – whatever it was.
Last year, (1) the appetite stimulants I bought for my cats as they sank away didn’t work for long; perhaps for a month. Their effectiveness dwindled, nor could I in kindness keep giving my poor kids these pills when their digestion was failing. (2) Their antibiotic ‘drops’ didn’t do a thing. The germs re-marshaled their forces. (3) The visit to the vet two weeks ago was money thrown away. He had no idea what was wrong with Sid, and recommended ‘Forti-Flora.’ (5) Which doesn’t work.
Later this morning as I was getting into my car I saw on the floor of the garage a violent splat of yellow vomit – presumably triggered by the oatmeal he ate last night. From the parent’s end? You’re happy for a few hours. And then your chain gets yanked. What to do? I don’t want poor Sid to explode from both ends. His diarrhea is a sufficient drain on his strength. I’ve never known him to vomit before, so assume his stomach couldn’t handle the oatmeal.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, and won’t do it again, after this. My oncologist-cousin had a teacher who pried loose his students’ grip on their rosy illusion that they could cure anyone of much of anything. Largely a figment, the professor hammered hme. ‘Physician – heal thyself.’ My cousin died of cancer in his 40s. (I know. Am in a blue funk here. People with cancer can sometimes live for years,which used to be unheard of.)
The last thing I want is to come across as ungrateful to you for your generous time and effort to help Sid – and me too. Because I’m not ungrateful. But sometimes it feels as if there’s a gravitational pull that tells us, time and again, ‘Thou shalt not….’ I did everything I could for my boy and little girl. MB did everything he could for his Binnie & Charlie. And it’s all in vain.
Like you, I have an entrenched abhorrence for bleached carbohydrates, and wouldn’t think of having white rice or white bread in this house. I eat my home-grown potatoes by the bushel. But no arrowroot, white flour or white cornstarch.) Be that as it may, I’m at loss to understand why a bit of oatmeal would have triggered Sid’s nausea, and can only guess his digestive system is already weakened by bacterial or viral infection, or maybe a liver malfunction.
As for buying larger cans – Sid infallibly knows when a can has been opened and refrigerated overnight, even when it’s tightly covered. And yes – we’ve reached a point where he’ll eat only a portion of Fancy Feast and pricier cat food. And then he stands on his hind legs and rakes me with his claws until I open more cans. Because of this tactic, a third or a half of the five-six cans I open each day can gets thrown away. It’s not always that bad. But all too often so. After last year’s Descent into the Darkness, I’ve lost the steam to freeze the leftovers and trundle them out into the woods to feed the wildlife, as I did last winter. The rain is torrential and the mudslides are a mess. Which means gobbets of food are flushed down the loo every day. He STILL eats enough, though — but everything must be on his terms. And he’s a martinet.
All that being said, thank you so much, Dee, for your time and kind efforts on our behalf. You, of all people, who already have dozens of cats to feed, care for and medicate. You’re a two-legged heart.
Sylvia, just for the record all articles are permanently live and can be found using custom search (RH column) and the tags – for example, the “Gabriel” tag fetches up all articles about him.
You’re welcome, Sylvia.
Cats digest food eaten within 8 hours. The yellow vomit was likely bile, meaning that Sid’s stomach was empty. Cats do that sometimes. It’s not alarming at all unless it is persistant. The oatmeal wasn’t the cause.