Saturday, September 8, 2007

Fitness Report

So, I have to do a public happy dance - today I did 2 miles on the treadmill at a 4 mph pace on a fairly steep incline, and then did the weight machines for a half hour. I know that's not all that impressive for a lot of people but it's the longest time I've been able to walk at that pace and on an incline in years, and it's more exciting because about 6.5 months ago I was being airlifted toward emergency brain surgery and the doctors weren't sure I'd make it. I am SO going to be in shape to hike in the mountains - this is just the end of week one of Vacation Training!

Then I came home and showered and went to get my hair cut and went to Petsmart, Target and Publix, and bought many things and heavy things, and hauled it all home and dragged it in and put it away. I'm tired. But it's a good tired.

The stubble on the side of my head has grown in nicely, and with this cut The Hair God was able to blend "the flap"- the section he disguised as a layer that hid the bald spot - into the rest of my hair. The stubble is still a lot shorter than the rest of my hair, of course, but it's long enough to blend, you can't see scalp when the wind blows now, so there's nothing much to hide. We're thinking by the next cut there will be enough in the grown-back spot to change my style if I want to. I'm still thinking of cutting it even shorter. That short layered cut Jody Foster has in The Brave One appeals to me, my hair tends to end up in that messy look by the middle of the day no matter how I try so I may as well adopt it as a style. Her hair appears to be about as fine as my own, that would work nicely as a "let it all catch up" cut and has a funky appeal. It would help the growing-in section catch up with the rest, and yet the layers are long enough to make growing the whole thing in easy when I tire of it. And it has bangs to hide my lumpy forehead.

I am on Kitten Watch right now - Girlchild called from her job last night to announce that two small, skinny stray kittens had attached themselves to her. She had no means to bring them home last night, but today she went to work with a carrier and some food. We are NOT keeping them, we will serve as a kitten halfway house until I can take them to the nice adoption lady who works Petsmart, but she said it appears that they were dumped - they are not feral, they are friendly and in fact were desperate to get inside a house, they tackled her when she was outside and kept begging at the door of the group home she was working in, but they couldn't be let in for many obvious reasons. She called from work an hour ago to say that she hasn't seen them today, maybe they found another neighbor who took them in, but she's ready to rescue if she sees them later.

Meanwhile, I have another Cat Issue. Boris had been losing weight and throwing up, and I took him to the vet months ago, and after $140 of fancy lab work and a thorough physical, the vet could find nothing wrong, and suggested a change of diet to see if that helped. Months passed, nothing really changed, the barfing stopped and started randomly. Then a few weeks ago Boris stopped pooping in the litterbox and began depositing runny poops on the garage floor (never in the house, thank GOD!). Some of them were tinged with blood. So I did a little internet research and found that in cats, the obvious bad thing that blood in stool can mean is unlikely to be the cause, and he probably has irritable bowel syndrome. So I put him on sensitive stomach Science Diet, and for over a week now that appeared to have done the trick - but tonight there was a runny poop and a bloody poop on the garage floor. So next week it is back to the vet to investigate further.

It's bad enough that I am going to have to rip out the carpet on the garage floor before I list the house (Yes, the garage is carpeted - indoor-outdoor carpet, it came that way, and after 11 years of hard living you can imagine how lovely it is now), but a cat with the runs has taken it from grubby to unbelievably disgusting, and of course I can't have a cat crapping randomly if I'm going to sell the house and move. So I devoutly hope the vet can find a definitive answer to the cause of this problem, because this is not something I can live with forever.

Other than this, Boris is as loving and happy and purry as ever, and his appetite is fine. The food just doesn't stay with him. I am hoping this is fixable, I'll pay for a prescription diet, whatever. But if it's something more serious and not fixable, I will be faced with the decision about putting down an otherwise cheerful cat who has some chronic problem we can't fix. So let's hope this is fixable.

3 comments:

dragon knitter said...

that hair cut is great! i think it would be most excellent on you (sorry, channeling keanu reeves again).

i feel your pain about boris. our older female cat has taken to peeing everywhere but the cat box, and as i was watching her today, she was practically gasping for air. she's overweight, and despite our best efforts to help her lose weight without making the other, not-overweight, cat too skinny (we bought some multiple cat catfood), she is getting heavier. i've told hubbie time and time again that she needs to go to the vet, but she won't let anyone near her except him, so he would have to be the one to do it. sigh. i have a bad feeling about her, and i think hubbie does, too, which is why he's so reluctant to do it. sigh.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Girlchild will have an alternate abode, and can take Boris for a while? I'm hoping, here.

Catherine said...

Girlchild will be sharing a house with other people, she can't inflict a floor-crapping cat on them. And honestly, I can't live with it, it's disgusting. I will do everything I can to fix this, but letting him continue to do this is not an option. Like I said, if he needs a prescription diet, whatever, I'll do it, but this can't continue.