Senior Kittyzen Retirement Home

Owner’s blog, kitty date 66489.51

For the most part, I write a blog with the hope that someday you’ll come across it, share some comment love, follow it. The dream: regular commenter, blog interaction. But this blog is more of a reminder or a notation of some changes occurring. Things won’t be the way they were and this is something I get sad about.

Since I had to move back to condo de backup, whose complex name is literally “Downer,” my cat hos gone thru some noticeable changes.

According to some online vets, my cat is around 81 years old “in cat years.” My best estimate is she was born in 94, I got her after she was weaned from her mother, so 18 years “people time” as of this writing.

When we first moved back, she’d sleep on the foot of my bed by my legs like always. She immediately started pooping on the comforter, leading  to an elaborate hassle of taking it to the large washing machine at the Laundromat. I could wash the other sheets in the condo’s common washer/ dryer. There was stress in moving, and my nerves and depression were escalating as the situation was setting in for me, so that’s how I wrote it off with her.

We settled in and she stopped. There are 2 rooms to the condo and I eventually moved into the other room, rearranging everything because of the new asshole neighbor with a loud a/c hillbilly rigged to his window next to my (old) bedroom window. Also the booming home surround sound for their tv that let me know they weren’t watching PBS or anything above a PG-13 mentality.

Eventually in the new room, she started pooping under the bed and for a bit I’d put boxes and laundry stacks around the bed until I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I put a flattened cardboard box as a baby gate in my bedroom doorway. I’m now a VIP area asshole. So now, she scratches at it reliably my 3rd hour into my sleep, whatever time.

She eats canned food more because of her older teeth, sore gums. I even sprayed water on her dry food and there’s a small window she’ll eat it. Think how you eat cereal. Not too crunchy to shred the roof of your mouth, too mushy and you don’t want to eat it. Dry food is just a backup she eats at unpredictable times. For the canned food, I feed too much, she won’t finish it. I refrigerate her food after I open it, so she may not like room temperature food anymore? (I’ve gotten to refrigerate unopened cans).

I’ve done good for canned food, in that I’m a big no by-product Nazi. And I know canned cat food no matter how healthy probably is run the same or worse than human food processing, which has scared me to mostly vegetarian diet. I’ll eat meat once a day, or put a small amount of hot link in my spaghetti, jambalaya, etc. If I feed her too less can, she’ll want seconds, scratching that cardboard partition. Getting out of bed at 4:00AM is like pulling yourself out of a swimming pool. Somehow your body weighs 60 more lbs. and leg over the cardboard baby gate.

About a month ago, it looked like her rear legs started getting weaker. I didn’t know if they were sore, numbing or atrophying. I tried to walk her around a large circle with the only cat toy she’ll still perk up to, the red pen laser. She even stumbled on her litter box, so I knew shit was getting real.

And one week, she started writhing around on her back. I thought she was playing but I soon realized she was thrashing around uncontrollably. I held her, tried calming her down. She grabbed my finger with both front paws, I checked to make sure she had feeling and grasp. I held her until she stopped thrashing. Her heart was pumping hard. I don’t know if it was a heart attack, stroke or seizure. She made no kind of yelping or even drooling, I was very worried she didn’t/ couldn’t even call out.

She wasn’t very active for the week after, very understandable. I petted her a lot, but I did more so after that. She likes the side of her head and chin scratched. Her legs seemed to improve. I have bought vitamin treats since, hoping that helps.

I’m pissed at my vet because I’ve taken my cat at least 6 times, blood work costs $200 each time. He prescribed thyroid medicine that’s $30/ month that I still get. But I address my concerns and my cat’s problems every time and my vet won’t commit to saying a damn thing and it pisses me off to go home after to look symptoms on the net after I spent grocery money for him to not say anything useful or not to “take care of” my cat. He just wants blood work money. So I’m recognizing some struggles we had with my Grandfather when dealing with his doctors and him taking his medicine. I’ve gotten to a good grove in smashing her kitty meds into a tablespoon of milk.

This is my cat’s retirement and I love her more than anything. I know I could load a backpack and look for work in San Francisco or L.A. without her. But I’m committed to her for life. She’s the love of my life, even more than myself. I’ve been treating my body like the Millennium Falcon, a vehicle. I’m working on that. And when I was at my most depressed, I couldn’t continue thinking suicidal thoughts partially because I knew no one else could or would take care of my cat in her final years like I could.  know she’s a selfish cat. I know dogs have more “service to humans” capacity. Her biggest selling point was pooping and peeing in one place and her seizure has affected her habits, she doesn’t care as much anymore. Her hair’s matted from lack of grooming she used to be obsessive about.

but still, I owe my life to her, so my priority is to maintain hers. She’s still my baby girl, and will always be.

Blog gang bang, fill all holes

Action blog, accomplish date 66480.37

It’s time for another blog slathered in catch up. The good news is I’ve been busy.

1) I had a fish tank I moved around for years, so of course when I decided I’d start an aquarium to give my cat a TV for her to watch, I found it had a crack on the bottom, probably from the move back to Podunk. I was able to get a replacement, I paid more at a small local shop with historical roots for the past 50+ years, not a national imported chain. And I’m broke ass, it was worth it.

2) I’ve been reading a lot, resulting in some interesting opposites. Last month, I removed the tv, computer and I won’t bring my phone anymore into my bedroom. It’s created a strange land where sleep actually occurs. And I find myself thinking about getting to get back to my comfortable bed a few times a day. I read there, but I don’t get far, because lying down, I’m knocked on my rem ass pretty quickly, often with a lamp on and me waking up to a smashed book.

And I can’t read in the living room kitchen, because computer and tv. So I go out and I find myself looking for a hangout. I used to bring a book when I knew I’d go to the DMV or back in the day when I went to crowded malls for the Holidays (before I got smarter and did my shopping thru the year during all the business closing sales). I also got my reading done at bus stops. So Now I’m actually looking for an excuse to wait for something to read, that part’s kinda sad.

In the library, I can get reading done, but I wind up checking out FAAR more books than I can get thru. I want to check everything out, given 15 minutes to wander around. I get into audio books and dvds and I overload myself I wind up skimming everything which is bad news. My mind scrambles and I find myself in 5th gear with road vision, not paying attention to anything. And not retaining what I want to read is no good.

There are a dozen reasons why I don’t patronize the five bucks coffee place. The bathroom of a coffee shop has to be the scariest part of any business. I do love the term laptop hobos, another reason why I don’t go. And I never understand why people want to be around coffee beans grinding, can’t they do that in a radio booth or something?

A bar in the afternoon, now that’s nice and quiet. They want my business and the drunks are stewing about their own business and generally aren’t loud, or for very long until they get kicked out. There are chairs against the wall to sit at, although I do have to plan what I read that won’t draw a big interest. People want to look at your cover and I can’t take the jacket off a laminated library book easily. But I haven’t had a beer in a long, long time. What about an empty mug, optimists?

3) I’ve been analyzing my favorite tv shows of all time. I’m obsessed with studying why tv shows fail. I look at directors, producers and writers to see where their careers peaked and what’s happened to them after. On one hand, I’m worried that I hit my peak about 5-6 years ago. You can’t get better than what I got to do in my boredom that I spend most of the day trying to capture now.

In a status update, I decided I need to find a symbolic movie at least, something to pump my “worth” back up. It seems like I’ve been trolling the trade show/ infomercial circuit of life.

4) I’ve read enough business books, econ books and seen many, many seminar/ webinar videos on you tube. Once you get past all the god awful clichés, the inspirational story with inconsistent symbolism, the gimmick words and phrases, the sales pitch for books, web sites… What was I- oh, there are nuggets of wisdom. The 20/80 principle seems to come true, you get 20% wisdom for the 80% of bullshit to wade past. One thing I know is that while my schedule may be open, I need to keep busy educating myself with as much reading as I had in college. I’ve done more, but unfortunately I don’t have a certificate or diploma as proof.

I know I need to produce something on my own, be my own CEO. Stop working for jackassery of national companies where I’m an unknown cog. If I work at a local business one on 1 with the owner/ manager, I’d be far more important to the business. So I continue to focus on a small, local to work for, while I hedge that with trying to sell articles about local events to local rags.

Seems like most of the authors/ presenters ride on their promises with the next book, while writing a lot of rah rah fluff in the mean time.

I write about my adventures, instead. And harsh lessons. And unlike stories your friends tell you, I’m not always the hero of the events I recall.

A grab bag of catchup

Writers blog, blank screen date 66448.75

I have to keep writing. I get lazy and doubtful and that’s the wost thing I can do when it comes to my own blog. There are tons of things I can go out and do, buy, join or follow that can be taken away from me.

There is something here that I have to stay devoted to maintaining. This is the one thing that I have that is mostly me. There’s a percentage of wordpress, firefox and netzero having to stay in business to keep this going, but I have my uploaded drafts on my computer.

The legacy you leave is something I think has been put aside for instant updating. It’s why it bothers me that photo albums have turned into social media albums. I put 10 years into myspace for better or worse. I cut back drastically on face book for that reason, as well as the big brother tactics of every word typed used as marketing statistics.

It’s why I prefer to burn my audio cds (to back up/ mix I bought), even though they made vinyl a thing of the past. Mini compact discs are where I draw the line on technology. Paying to download a stream of mp3 doesn’t have the same satisfaction of buying a cd to hold in my hands, look at the cover art of or read the liner notes, even when the info is online somewhere. See the movie I Need That Record or even High Fidelity to get why the music store employee is the unsung hero of small American business retail.

Same for theater movies. There are movies I see in the theaters, a rep theater. Even though it may be a matinee, there are some I deem worthy of seeing in a theater when I hear incredible things about, like the Artist or Tree of Life. When top mainstream reviewers (you’ve heard of) say things like “I haven’t seen anything like this is years” it’s worthy for me to shell out $15 to see it on the bog screen. And I mean in a vintage theater, not the strip mall with the movie screen as big as a couple of garage doors.

I am writing chapters for a book, about of course my favorite topic. It’s taken on many formats, but the heart or the meat of the chapters remain the same. I actually just started the ball rolling writing about the middle chapters. The first couple needs to set things up and the last couple have to resolve a certain percentage of things, I believe. I fuckin HATE those movies that wrap every single god damn thing up. It’s just bullshit that every character cums a little in that last 10 minutes of the movie. Whenever you gamble or play some sort of game, there is only 1 winner. The rest statistically have to lose their share to compose the pot won. And there are different degrees of losing, too, not just won/ lost the big game. Other unexpected side perks may happen, at least. And losers have to react accordingly, some in anger, some in frustration, others expected it. Some swear “we’ll get ’em next time!”

My mind races so fast, I mentally compose a dozen blog entries in an afternoon. Chances are I’ll write a list of topic key words if I’m inclined to. Usually I’ll get down to writing about 10 of those in a blog, if I can lump them into a theme of some sort. Sometimes I go red-eye of thought when I think there are a lot of topics that aren‘t related I have to get some thoughts out about.

Part of why is tvtropes.org. Part of learning how to write has more to it than grammar and syntax. Although those are necessary starting points. It’s sad to see book reviews on amazon when the book doesn’t appear to have a copy editor. There are plot flows and setups. I time travel a LOT in my mind which is why I need to write my lists down. If I start thinking in circles, the notes help me get my bearings. I admittedly need to organize them more, so I limited them to a few media.

Tvtropes answers a lot of questions psychology books haven’t answered for me. We have problems that gridlock us, but if they were in a film, they’re ridiculously easy to resolve, right? It’s also why I write. When I write I’ve gone thru the trials and I have a current subset of “answers,” or so it may seem until I actually see them in writing. You can read a lot about training a cat, but it won’t mean a thing until you’re actually trying to get it to do something.

I read a lot about setups to clichés, but then how to turn them on their asses, as a few movies/ shows do, like Community. #sixseasonsandamovie. What differentiates a protagonist, an antagonist, versus an asshole mentor. Or a side kick? Every show/ film has the equally balanced group of friends, racially, age-wise, job status, social status, etc. so they eventually deal with all of the conflicts that could potentially happen. Fauxality shows are based on getting a group of odd people and throwing them into areas where regular people are. And agitate.

I have so many notes to go thru, I need to hone my writing into some of the things I like that I’ve been reading and audio auto biography cds I’ve listened to from the library.

Looking for a job is a chore. Writing is my only real job, where I‘m the boss. And I have to put time into it for you, my readers.