On Top of the World

Jack’s back home again. The vet got a sample this morning and we picked him up after work. Naturally, he weed in the box within 5 seconds of starting the car. The vet could have got a sample out of him right away if they’d just taken him for a drive around the block, rather than wait 24 hours for him to go by himself.

They should have the results of the test early next week. The cost of the testing was $80, and the food they gave me was $38, so there goes some more cash. Oh well, I’m really happy to have him home.

In other good cat news, we’ve found a home for the ginger cat that’s been squatting at M’s house. A woman from work has agreed to take it, so we’re going to pick it up tomorrow morning and take it to her house. I really hope the car trip won’t be too hellish, otherwise it’s going to be the longest half an hour of our lives.

I took Jack to the vet today so they could get a urine sample directly from his bladder. The reason for this is because all the other samples were taken when he went on the floor, so they wanted to get one that wasn’t contaminated. So we dropped him off this morning. It was so much easier with two people than with one, although he was still petrified and weed in the cage. Dammit, why couldn’t he have waited until he was there and we could have just taken him home again!

So we left him there and went to work. I rang at lunch time and again just before we left to go home, but they said that they hadn’t got anything yet and that he’ll have to stay the night. I hope he’s all right. I can’t help but be a bit worried that they’re not treating him well. I don’t know why I’d think that, but if they don’t like me and think I’m incompetent, maybe they wouldn’t care too much about whether they made him comfortable. I hope that’s not the case. It’s weird not having him here, and I keep expecting to feel a cold draught as he pushes open the study door to come in. I’m looking forward to having him back home again.

*****

I didn’t go to tafe on Monday, or my course tonight. On Monday I had a sore throat so I said I was sick, but really the main reason was because it was the final of Big Brother and I wanted to watch it. Sad, I know. The fact that I don’t enjoy Monday’s classes means that I don’t need much excuse to skip them. But I did enjoy Big Brother. Now that Big Brother’s over, it’s been replaced by an awful show called Yasmin’s Getting Married, in which a girl dates a whole lot of guys in the hopes of finding a husband. Channel 10 has seen how much money they made from all the phone votes during BB, so now with YGM we can vote again to decide which guy she’s going to date. Like I care. Surely noone actually thinks that she’s going to meet the man of her dreams and ride off with him into the sunset.

I didn’t go to class tonight because the vet said they were going to try to get another sample at 6:15 and if they got one they’d call me, so I wanted to be home so we could both pick him up if he was ready. I didn’t really think they’d call, so it was just another convenient excuse not to go to class. I don’t feel bad - all my life I’ve always gone to all my classes and been a good girl, so screw that. If I don’t want to go, I can take a couple of classes off and not worry about it.

*****

Yesterday was our 3 year wedding anniversary. Unfortunately we couldn’t go out for dinner because I had tafe (yes, I did go to one class this week, but only because I had an assessment). We’re booked in for dinner on Saturday night, though, so I’m looking forward to that. I bought M some cufflinks (I wanted to get him a tie bar, because he’s been hinting about one for absolutely ages, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a decent tie bar in this city? Well, I’m sure you don’t, but trust me when I say it’s very hard. I’ve been looking for the last 2 years for a nice one but haven’t found what I wanted yet.) and he had some flowers sent to the office.

I can’t believe it’s been 3 years already… I know, I know, aren’t we old hands at this marriage thing. The third anniversary is leather, though, so that’s pretty boring. I guess he could have got me a handbag and I could have got him some shoes or something. And as for the cufflinks I gave him, according to the anniversary list I should have waited another 8 years for that (steel). Next year is worse though - fruit. Happy anniversary, honey, have a mango. Luckily the 5th anniversary is looking up - wood…

Here’s the list I found (which I got from here):

Traditional Wedding Anniversary Gifts

1st - First - Paper
2nd - Second - Cotton
3rd - Third - Leather
4th - Fourth - Fruit/Flowers
5th - Fifth - Wood
6th - Sixth - Candy/Iron
7th - Seventh - Wool/Copper
8th - Eighth - Bronze/Pottery
9th - Ninth - Pottery/Willow
10th - Tenth - Tin/Aluminium
11th - Eleventh - Steel
12th - Twelfth - Silk/Linen
13th - Thirteenth - Lace
14th - Fourteenth - Ivory
15th - Fifteenth - Crystal
20th - Twentieth - China
25th - Twenty-Fifth - Silver
30th - Thirtieth - Pearl
35th - Thirty-Fifth - Coral
40th - Fortieth - Ruby
45th - Forty-Fifth - Sapphire
50th - Fiftieth - Gold
55th - Fifty-fifth - Emerald
60th - Sixtieth - Diamond

There was also a list of modern wedding gifts:

Modern Wedding Gifts

First - Clocks
Second - China
Third - Crystal/Glass
Fourth - Appliances
Fifth - Silverware
Sixth - Candy/Iron
Seventh - Desk Sets
Eighth - Bronze/Pottery
Ninth - Linen/Lace
Tenth - Leather
Eleventh - Jewellery
Twelfth - Pearls
Thirteenth - Textiles/Furs
Fourteenth - Gold Jewellery
Fifteenth - Watches
Twentieth - Platinum
Twenty-Fifth - Silver
Thirtieth - Diamond
Thirty-Fifth - Jade
Fortieth - Ruby
Forty-Fifth - Sapphire
Fiftieth - Gold
Fifty-fifth - Emerald
Sixtieth - Diamond

What’s up with ‘desk sets’ for the 7th anniversary? Complete ripoff if you ask me. Maybe that’s where the fabled ‘7-year itch’ started - people got sick of getting crappy desk sets so they called it quits.

As some of you may remember, we’ve had some trouble with Jack weeing on the laundry floor instead of using his tray. There have been several vet visits (mostly by myself to pick up various drugs), and I gave up on the last prescription because it was becoming too hard to give him the tablets. He’d froth at the mouth, and we were both getting pretty distressed.

So after 10 days of what was supposed to be a 28-day course (administering the tablets twice a day), I decided that enough was enough. A couple of weeks ago we got a call from the vet saying that we were due to bring in another urine sample, but that wasn’t actually true because we’d only just had a sample done and we weren’t due for another couple of weeks.

As “luck” would have it, we came home the other day to find that he’d been at it again after a few weeks of using the tray, so I collected some in the jar and M took it to the vet last night. The vet asked how the tablets had gone, and M said that I couldn’t do the full course, to which the vet and the receptionist rolled their eyes at each other. She then asked if Jack was still on the special diet, and when M said that we put him back on the other food because he wasn’t eating, they rolled their eyes again.

M was not impressed with their condescending attitude, but refrained from saying anything, and just said that they could talk to me about it. The vet rang me today, and I tried to explain that Jack had stopped eating because he’d been on that food alone for 6 weeks and was completely sick of it, and that I couldn’t give him the tablets because of the frothing at the mouth, but she didn’t seem to care too much. She said that ’sometimes we have to do things that we might not like’. Condescending bitch. She said there were still a lot of crystals present in the urine, as well as some blood, and if I didn’t do anything about it then it could result in a complete blockage and possible death. And then she said, “it just depends on whether you want him to get better.” What the hell kind of comment is that?

I suppose in her line of work she has to deal with people who don’t really care about their pets and she may be used to having to take the sort of approach that she did, but I was still really offended. If I didn’t care about him, I wouldn’t have brought him in would I? I admit that I probably should have rung them when I stopped the antibiotics, but I don’t think I deserved to have her speak to me the way she did.

When I tried to say again that he just wasn’t eating and that I was worried because I thought he was losing weight, she asked if I’d been told that my cat was overweight, or if he’s a big cat. I said that I hadn’t specifically been told that, but that he was a big cat, to which she said that it probably wouldn’t be a bad thing if he lost some weight. Huh? I said that I didn’t think it was particularly healthy for him to be losing weight by not eating, but she launched into the “cats won’t starve themselves” speech.

So anyway, she spoke to me as if I’m some negligent trash who wants her cat to die of some awful disease rather than get help. I was NOT happy, but after I decided on a course of action I started feeling better. I’m taking him in on Thursday to get a urine sample directly from his bladder, so it’s not contaminated by whatever’s on the floor. They’re going to run some tests on it to determine which antibiotics will be best for him. This time I’m going to make sure I don’t get some ridiculous tablet that I have to give him a total of 56 times - hopefully it will just be a liquid I can squirt into his mouth once a day. So he’ll go back on the diet and have the antibiotics, then I assume they’ll do another urine test, and then I’m never going back there. I’ll get a copy of Jack’s records and take them to another vet if he still needs help.

I don’t need some bitch vet trying to make me feel like rubbish because I’m not trained in administering tablets. They give him one tablet and make it look like a piece of cake, but she’s not the one who has to do it twice a day for a month. And just what is it with vets and doctors that make them think they have the right to talk to you any way they want and you just have to take it? Arrrrggghhhh. Breathe.

…Cabbage Patch Kids? I had two when I was growing up, which I got when I was 10 years old. It just so happens that one of them was ‘born’ on the 15th of July 1986, which makes her 20 years old today. I can’t believe I’m old enough to say that something happened 20 years ago and I wasn’t an infant.

Today we finished painting! I think that maybe one more coat on that huge plastered bit might be good, but it’s not a big deal. Even if we don’t put that extra coat on, it looks so much better now. As a reminder, here is what it looked like before:

And here is how it looks now!

(This is where you make all the ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ noises)

So now all there is to do is fix up the skirting board a little, and have the carpet put in.

A post in this painting series wouldn’t be complete without a cat picture, and so I have a couple more. The first one is when he thought I was going to be giving him some food, but alas it was only a cloth I’d been using to wipe up paint. Still it was worth a try.

M made him a little house, which he started using straight away. I put a carpet square inside it to make it a bit better to lie in. I’m still working on M to let us bring him home, but I don’t think it will work (M, I know you’re reading this!)

I wonder if he’s lying in it as I type this…

…because the pictures would probably look virtually the same as yesterday’s photos, but today we went back and put the top coat on. It’s coming together very nicely, and all we have to do now is sand the rest of the wall, paint it and do a few touchups. Then it’s another house clean, wait for the carpet people to come, and that’s it!

The poor little cat was there again today. I’m starting to feel bad for feeding him every time just in case he becomes too dependent on us, but as M says, some food is better than no food. I’m trying to convince M that Frisky and Jack would like another sibling, but I don’t think it’s having any effect. In reality, I doubt we’ll bring it home, but it feels so awful to leave it there in the cold, so I’ll keep trying. The only other potential candidates we have are M’s sister and my sister. If neither of them want it I don’t know what to do.

This is my 500th post!

On Sunday we did the undercoat and the ceiling.

This is the ceiling in progress. If it looks a little pink, it’s because it is - the paint goes on pink, so you can see where you’ve painted, but dries white. It’s a great idea and very handy indeed.

The ceiling all done. The good thing about doing the ceiling first was that we could paint right to the edge and not worry about the walls too much because we were going to paint them as well. And the fact that we’re carpeting the floor meant that we didn’t have to be too pedantic about getting paint on the floor either.

After M did the ceiling we both did the undercoat. M used the roller while I did the edges. I actually got a bruise on my shin from leaning against the ladder trying to steady myself. The floor’s not very level, so the ladder was a bit wobbly in places, which gave me the willies a bit. A sign of getting older, I suppose - when I was a child I used to do all sorts of crazy stuff on the playground equipment at school and it never bothered me a bit.

Anyway, a good tip we learnt when we first started doing DIY was to tint the undercoat with some of the final paint colour. You might be able to get away with fewer coats, and it has the added bonus of giving you a little idea of what it’s going to look like when it’s finished, so it’s not quite so depressing doing the undercoat and not having the room look much better than before you started.

The undercoat finished! Well, almost finished - we haven’t done the bit under the window yet that needed the major patching because the plaster wasn’t quite dry and we had to sand it first. It looks a little better in the photo than it does in person, but it still worlds better than it was, and once the final coat is done, it’s going to look great.

We also organised for the floor to be carpeted, so the plan is for that to happen on Monday. We decided on a charcoal carpet, so it will tie in with the floor in the kitchen. I can’t wait to see the end result!

Of course, the cat was there and this time I was prepared with some food and water for him. He was so happy, purring all the time he was eating. Then he decided that he got what he wanted out of us and went to lie down in the sun. I suppose I can’t blame him - it was a nice day for it.

Yesterday we had a couple have a look through. It’s a shame that the house wasn’t completely ready for inspection, because it meant they had to use their imagination a little when we said what we were doing to it, but at least they could see that we were actually getting things done and not just saying it to try to win them over. I don’t really know whether they were interested; they were really polite, but we both know that that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Hooray! It’s the weekend! The working week is over, so now I can finally… have my weekend sucked up by some boring house-related stuff. Sigh. The way I should be viewing this is that if it’s done now, then it doesn’t have to be done later, but I remember all the weekends we lost when we were painting and sanding and cleaning, and it’s more than a little depressing. Most of it is unavoidable, though, due either to damage caused by the previous tenants, or improvements that really need to be made before someone else moves in. Tenants suck. If you’re a tenant and you don’t suck, then good on you. And would you like to rent our house?

After going to bed at 2:30 this morning, and getting up at 11, productivity levels for today weren’t going to be at a maximum. Nevertheless, we bought the necessary items, had lunch in a nearby cafe and finally started work at 2:00. This didn’t give us much time, given that the sun sets at around 5:30, but it was still enough to get some things out of the way.

The first job was to replace a broken tap in the bathroom. Since we couldn’t get hold of exactly the same type (and it was too expensive to replace for a tenant anyway), we bought a new tap set (click the images for larger version).

The most daunting job, but the one that will yield the most benefit, is one of the bedrooms. It’s the one room in the house you really don’t want people to look in because unfortunately it lets the house down, and could possibly be a deal breaker. But no more! We’re going to patch it and paint it and put in some carpet and I think that at the end it’s going to look great. It would be nice to have the floors polished like most of the rest of the house, but I don’t think the condition of them is good enough for that, hence the carpet. M patched the wall today, and we’ll do the painting tomorrow. You can see from the photos what condition the room is in, but that is all about to change.

We’re painting it the same colour we did the lounge room:

When I was there on Tuesday, a ginger cat came to say hello, and he visited us again today. The poor thing seemed starved for attention (and food - he wolfed down the little biscuits I gave him), and I felt bad for leaving him there. I’m assuming he lives nearby and wasn’t actually abandoned by the tenants; I like to think he has a home to go to. He wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to get a decent photo, but here are a couple.

Tafe has finished for this semester, so I am now officially on holidays. Well, I’m not really because I still have to go to work, but it will be nice to come home every night rather than go out to classes 3 working days out of 5. The only downside is that I really have to do that assignment that’s due on the first day back next term, that I’ve been putting off for 5 months. Eh, that can wait another week and 6 days. I’m just glad that I get a two-week break from the people I want to slap. I’ll try to start next term refreshed and tolerant.

Now that I’ve stopped giving him his tablets, I think Jack loves me again. He hates the food that I’m giving him, though, because he’s meant to be eating that and only that and he’s understandably quite sick of it. I’d be sick of eating the same thing day in, day out for 6 weeks straight too. So tonight I gave him some normal food (naughty me!) and he wolfed it down. Poor boy.

M’s taking the day off tomorrow to go down to his house and put all the crap in the skip that was meant to be delivered yesterday. The tenant told us that he’d arranged with the council for it to be picked up, but of course that was rubbish (hee hee).

Oh, in other groundbreaking news that I should have shared before now but don’t think I have: we have a new electric blanket. My side was still working, but M’s stopped so it was time for a new one (what a wuss). We upgraded and got a fleecy one, so it’s all nice and squashy. It’s quite bizarre lying in bed and feeling the sponginess underneath. Mmmm. The only bummer is that it doesn’t get nearly as warm as our other one did. That might be a good thing from a safety perspective, but I no longer get into a super-toasty bed when I’m freezing.

I was going to call this post “My cat hates me” but decided with the above title for consistency. More about the runner-up title later.

Today was the final day of cleanup before the inspection tomorrow. The person who wanted the 3 month lease found somewhere else, but there are two other people interested. The day started well with a sleep in. M was going to work, so he got up at around 7. Hee hee. I got up at around 9:15 and started getting ready.

I started work at around the same time as yesterday, and it took me a while to get into a groove - there were lots of things I had to do but I wasn’t very methodical about it. I eventually got some sort of routine worked out, and so began the cleaning of the whole house. I cleaned the bedroom that had all that weird sticky stuff all over the walls and it looks so much better now. I still have no idea what that stuff was. I also cleaned the bathroom, mopped and vacuumed the floors, cleaned the carpet that had several stains on it and finished cleaning the kitchen. I left at 6:15, and by that time I think I got the house looking pretty good (if I do say so myself!).

*****

Now to the reason of why Jack hates me. I just can’t give him those tablets any more. It’s been 10 days, which is the normal course length for those tablets, but I’m expected to do it for 28 days, twice a day. Yesterday when I tried to give it to him he made a weird noise like a baby sucking on a dummy, then he started drooling. My guess was that he was trying to make it difficult for the tablet to go down. It was just awful. I eventually got him to take it, but there’s no way I can put him through it any more. I’m going to call the vet tomorrow and see if there’s something else we can do. Even if I take him in for an injection, at least that will be once and that’s it.

He recognises when I’m going to give him the tablet, and starts the dummy sucking noise straight away, and backs off. He’s not affectionate and purry with me any more, and doesn’t lick my hand like he has always done until recently. So enough is enough. I don’t want my baby thinking that whenever I pat him I’m going to try to force a tablet down his throat. He barely wants to sit next to me

I decided to get some yoghurt and try crushing the tablet and giving it to him in that. He’s not meant to be eating anything else, but since the diet hasn’t helped so far, I thought it was worth a try. I stopped off on the way home tonight and got some. After dinner it was time to try it out. I showed him the yoghurt and he seemed keen, so I put some out and crushed up the tablet. I wasn’t too optimistic, since I could smell the tablet and it made me feel sick, so I thought there wasn’t much chance that Jack would eat it. Sure enough, he backed away. I tried a couple of times with no success, then gave up.

I then put out some yoghurt on its own and gave it to him, to try to say sorry for being so mean. He ate it, but hardly with the usual enthusiasm he shows for yoghurt. I’m so horrible I’ve even made his favourite food depressing for him Now that Operation Cleanup is over, I think it’s time to start Operation Win Back Jack’s Love.

Jack has decided that he’s had enough of those tablets. It was quite difficult to get him to take it tonight, and my hands are getting somewhat scratched, so I think I have to come up with a new strategy. If he decides that after every week he’s going to be difficult, there’s three new strategies I have to come up with before the tablets are finished. And he’s sick of the food now and doesn’t want to eat it any more. I keep trying to get him to eat because if he takes the tablet on an empty stomach, it can upset it and make him sick. It’s all a bit depressing, and I can’t wait until the month is over so I can go back to being relaxed and enjoy my cats rather than worrying about how much I’m traumatising him by making him take drugs he doesn’t want, and how much of the skin on my hands will still be there after it’s all done.

*****

You may have noticed that the first word in my post looks like a link. I’ve installed a new plugin where you can make a list of words or phrases that you use often (but that people might not be familiar with), and the plugin pops up a tooltip with a bit of information when you hover your mouse over it. Since I’ve been talking about my cats lately, I thought that that was a perfect use for it, so I’ve put a picture of him in it. I’ve also made one for Frisky. So now I can just mention them without wondering whether I should explain every time who they are, because the tooltips are there.

*****

It was another good lesson at tafe tonight. I mentioned that last week’s class was spent watching people doing their assessments. Today saw the rest of the class doing theirs. To follow on from the wine and cheese from last week, someone showed us how to make cocktails. She made a Mad Cow and Japanese Slipper, and gave us all a little sample of each. I really enjoyed the Japanese Slipper, and think I should get some Cointreau so I can make one (I’ve already got the Midori!). Yummy.