Water Fight!

I was sitting on the couch relaxing after eating a stack of sourdough pancakes (with cranberries!) for breakfast, when he came up to me with the watering can in hand. He was doing the weekly plant-watering chore, and since there was a plant right beside the couch I thought nothing of it.

He watered me!

He SAYS he just intended to “pretend” to water me, but I have my doubts. He actually poured water all over my lap, and then said “Oops!”

I of course had to retaliate.

I tried to take the watering can from him, but he wouldn’t let go of it. We were in the kitchen by then, so I simply took his hand and made the water slosh out.

Of course, it got all over me and barely a drop got on to him. So I did it again, this time getting more of it on him. The watering can holds quite a bit of water, by the way.

In the end we both got soaked, and the kitchen floor got a good washing, too.

First “Hike” of the Season

The first hike of the season snuck up on me this year. I usually send out an announcement a week prior so that people can get their schedules arranged around the hike, then send out a reminder on Friday to ensure they all remember. This time, however, it was Friday night – almost Saturday morning, truth be told – when I looked at my schedule and realized what day it was. We had a poor turnout as a result: just me, Rob and Mother.

The 2011 Family Hiking Series began at the Bird Creek trail. I told people to meet up at the parking lot at mile 102.1 but that turned out to be closed for the season – so we had to park across the street instead. It was okay, just a bit scary crossing the highway right there.

It was such a beautiful day, even though it was a bit windy. We walked for a good 2 hours, down to the waterfall and back. I realized once again that I really do need to break down and actually buy myself a windbreaker. It also started to sprinkle a little bit while we walked, but that was okay. We need the rain, and it felt so good to be out and about that we didn’t mind getting wet.

That just gave us an excuse to stop at the Indian House for their scrumptious Fish & Chips afterwards!

IV for Djuna

Djuna had to go to the vet’s once again this weekend, this time to teach me how to give her subcutaneous fluids. I had been thinking this would mean simply giving her a shot once a week, but is actually a bit more involved than that. It’s an actual IV bag with a drip line and everything. Thankfully I don’t have to worry about hitting a vein or anything like that. I just poke it in her skin and that’s pretty much it.

The vet tech showing me how to do it all was very nice and understanding, particularly when I (rather surprisingly) almost passed out after seeing the size of the needle involved. That sucker is HUGE! My poor little girl…

Thankfully, since the needle is huge, the whole procedure only takes a few minutes. I’m to take a good-sized pinch of skin from Djuna’s shoulders, poke the needle in just under the skin, get it to sit comfortably on her back, then open the drip and let 100-150 cc’s of fluid flow into her. She gets quite a bubble of fluids on her back, which falls down either side of her shoulders (it looks like she has shoulder-pads) – but that gets absorbed into her body soon enough.

I am to do this once or twice a week for the next two to three months. Then she goes back in to get another blood/urine test done to see how the kidneys are doing. If all is well, we’ll continue with the IV, testing every once in a while to make sure it’s all good.

Another way to get fluids into her is to provide her with numerous water bowls all over the house. I even got my niece Lauren to track down a good deal on one of those perpetual water fountains for her (Thank You, Lauren!) so she can have fresh running water any time she wants.

I think she’ll enjoy that.

Birthday Camping Trip

Happy Birthday to Me! It’s a bit late: my actual birthday was on the 15^th but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to update my blog since then. Anyway, I am proud to announce that I am 46 years old this year. I worked very hard to get here, so I am not about to short-change myself by claiming that I’m younger than I am. Most people are a bit surprised by that, but that’s how I feel.

This year, Rob took me camping up north. We spent the weekend up in Talkeetna, officially to look at some property he’s interested in but really just to get out, pitch a tent, and ride our bikes a bit.

Our campsite was at a campground right near the Susitna River. The season is a bit early, so there weren’t very many other campers nearby. We did manage to gather a few of them at our fire though: one girl camping by herself – a guide employed by Parks & Rec – and another couple of girls up from Wasilla “just getting away”. We all stood around the bon fire (Rob can’t have just a little fire, it has to be a huge, impressive one) roasting marshmallows and telling each other our stories.

The weather was great: slightly overcast, but still nice and warm during the day with just the right amount of chill during the night to make you really appreciate your sleeping bag. I had been told that break-up was still going on up there so had come prepared for muck – but honestly it wasn’t bad at all. I barely got my shoes dirty!

Camping in town meant that we didn’t need to bring a lot of food with us: we ate at the brewery for dinner and walked down to one of the lodges nearby for lunch the next day. We did bring our breakfast with us, though: hot oatmeal cooked in our cups with water boiled in Rob’s new flash-boiler thingy that he got himself from REI. I don’t remember the actual brand name of the thing – but man, its way cool. It only took a minute or two and we were both not only enjoying our oatmeal but also drinking our morning cup of tea & coffee.

Talkeetna is a very bike-friendly place with a trail leading all the way thru town and on up along the Spur road all the way back to the Parks Highway. We didn’t go all the way out to the Parks, however. I have to admit I was very intimidated by the huge hill just out of town so turned around right there and headed back the way we came. I’m just not that good on my bike yet. I’m sure Rob would have had no problems at all, but he was a gentleman and let me dictate the course. We did explore a bit off the main road, in and around some of the subdivisions back behind the airport, though. That was fun, especially when we found ourselves at the corner of F Street and Beaver.

“Ha! Look at that!” I said, “We’re at the corner of F and Beaver!”

Okay… so my sense of humor tends towards the gutter sometimes. What can I say? We had a fund weekend, regardless.

Yard Work

I found the best way to get the yard work done: have a garage sale! Oh, and invite your Mother, sister-in-law, and boyfriend, too. My sister-in-law raked the yard while Mother stuffed all the leaves into sacks, then Mother weeded the garden. Meanwhile, Rob was out back raking up all those weeds!

I tell you: my yard looks totally awesome now, and all I had to do was man the garage sale. I think that’s a pretty good trade.

After the garage sale closed down on Sunday I did go out back and help out; honestly I did. All those weeds Rob raked had to be carried over to the mulch pile – which is more work than it seems at first, mainly because there were sticker bushes hidden in the pile and I have no work gloves.

Once all that was taken care of we set to work on the fence between my “share-a-wall” neighbor’s yard and mine. Many, many years ago it had fallen down. I had it propped up with a 2x4 which worked quite well, but was not exactly a “professional job”. Rob fixed it up in no time, and even worked on removing some dead branches from the spruce tree in the corner. My mock orange now has lots of room to expand, and the birds have more room to get to the birdfeeders as well.

The fence between me and my “share-a-yard” neighbor was our next focus – and it turned out to be a lot more work than we planned for. The soil right there is completely saturated so all the posts are severally rotten. In fact we just barely touched them and they all fell over leaving the fence propped up by only a nail on either end. Rob tried to dig some post holes but the mud was so bad he couldn’t get the posts set. We’ll have to pick up some cement and hope that fixes the problem.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope you all had a good Mother’s Day this year.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that my mother worked at my garage sale for her special day. I swear she said she didn’t mind, but I still feel bad about that.

I did take her out to dinner, at least.

Rob and I took her to probably THE BEST Italian restaurant in town: Pizza Olympia. They are 3 generations of extremely good cooks offering up home-made pastas, pizzas, and desserts.

We treated ourselves to a glass of wine (a Burgundy for Rob, a Blush for Mother, and Chablis for me) before our main course of Leg of Lamb, Seafood Linguini, and Spaghetti with Mushrooms, followed by yet another glass of wine and an order of baklava to be shared.

Oh my gosh, it was all so good!

Garage Sale

My garage sale went rather well this weekend. I want to send out a HUGE thank you to my mother and sister-in-law for helping out. I doubt I could have done it at all without them.

We set up around 9:00 Saturday morning so that by 10:00 we were ready for our first customer. Heather brought 3 tables to add to the 3 I had, and Mother brought change to seed the money box with as well as tons of food to keep us all well-fed.

The stream of garage-sailors was fairly steady all day long on Saturday, but slowed down considerably on Sunday. While sales were good overall, the total amount made seemed a bit low to my mind. Not that I’m complaining at all – I’m happy to be rid of the stuff, and any price at all was more than I had to begin with. Still, two days of extremely stressful work for only $150 hardly seems worth it.

My next door neighbor set her stuff out for sale on Saturday, so our customers had two sales to browse thru, right side by side. My neighbor across the street joined in, too, but she brought her items over to my garage instead of opening up her own.

Rob was with us all weekend, too – but spent his time up in the spare room. He prepped the walls all day Saturday, and painted all day Sunday. He didn’t get as much done as he’d hoped to – but what he did get done looks just wonderful. I’m very excited about finally getting my Craft Room, and can’t wait to set it up.

First Bite

I got my first mosquito bite of the year!

Not many places would see that as being at all noteworthy, but I actually saw an article in the Fairbanks newspaper talking about just such a thing! I guess they were hard up for news that day.

Regardless, I always make note of it, simply because it means that summer is actually here – FINALLY!

Hypothetical Question

Let’s say you work for Company X.

During the course of an average day at work you run thru 30 to 40 pieces of paper, well over half of which get thrown away after a few marks are made on them. 

Company X has a recycling program so you don’t feel quite so bad about wasting so much paper, but you just recently started to save it all to take home and use in your home printer. After all, work related business only used one side = there’s still another side completely blank that can be used.

Could that be considered stealing? 

Company X was just going to throw it out anyway, and you have every intention of recycling the paper when you’re done with it. It just will get more thoroughly used than if it had been left at work.

Renovations Update

I thought I’d take the time to update you all on the renovations taking place in my house, even though I really don’t have much to report. Motivation seems to have stalled out, on both Rob’s and my part.

We did go shopping again a while ago, so now I have on hand pretty much everything I need to be working on it. The only thing we haven’t bought yet is the molding & ceiling materials; Rob thinks he’ll wait till last to deal with those. We did come up with a plan for the ceiling, however, and worked out some of the details on how exactly it’s going to be done.

My plan for this week is to set up the sawhorses out on the driveway and get to work on sanding trim. I have “goop” that I’m to fill all the old nail holes with – that’s my first task.

My second task will be to take the sander that Rob loaned me and get to work. He brought both an electric one and a hand-held spongy one: I’m thinking the spongy one will work best, since I don’t have to be perfect. The goal is to just scuff it up a bit so the paint will hold.

That is my third task: painting. Once I get all the holes filled and the sanding done, I can just line everything up on the sawhorses and paint it all in one fell swoop. Theoretically, at least. I really should find some newspaper to put down, or I’ll be cleaning paint off the driveway along with all the oil my lovely ex-roommate left behind.

Back up in the room itself, I borrowed Mother’s carpet shampooer and cleaned real well. Then I took some carpet freshener and sprinkled pretty much the entire container on the floor (how was I supposed to know you didn’t need that much?) to help counter the smell of cat urine. That took several more passes with the vacuum to clean up, but now it smells nice and fresh!

Washing the walls with a mixture of 25 bleach/75 water took care of most of the dirt, dust, and grime – at least up to the 7-foot level. That’s as high as I could reach without going to get a chair to stand on. I was feeling a bit lazy that night, so just called it good. Rob can touch up the tops when he comes over next.

I had a lot of help that day: Thing was being so cute. She does love a clean carpet and was rolling around that whole evening. I had to take several breaks to roll around with her, of course.

That’s pretty much where things set now. Hopefully this weekend will see some real progress – but honestly I’m not holding my breath. Whatever happens, happens – and whatever doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen.

It would be nice to have my craft room set up, though.

First Official Bike Ride

My first official bike ride of the season was supposed to have taken place this past weekend. Rob came and picked me up Friday after work and we headed off down the road.

He had to stop and get gas, however, so we pulled in to the Huffman gas station - which just so happens to be conveniently located right next to a bike shop that he’s been wanting to check out, so of course we had to go in.

Rob is probably one of the most suggestion-prone people I have ever met. He went in there “just to look” and walked out convinced that he needed a new bike. All that salesperson had to do was tell him that it would be better if he had a taller bike, and he was hooked.

I was rather impressed that he didn’t buy a new bike right then and there, truth to tell. He managed to wait almost a whole 24 hours!

Getting back to our bike ride, by the time the salesperson finished with him it was well past 7:00. Both of us were quite hungry by then so we stopped in at the Indian House for a burger and a drink. I do like that place, but honestly neither the burger nor the drink were all that good. The bar tender watered down my Whiskey Sour (because, of course, I’m a girl and couldn’t possibly want a grown-up male drink like that) and the cook put bacon on my veggie burger.

Some people just don’t seem to be able to grasp the whole concept of “vegetarian”.

 Once we finished our meal and chatted with the bikers who’d joined us, we decided it was way too late to go bike riding after all. We opted instead to go window-shopping at The Castle, although I don’t know exactly how we went from “let’s go on a bike ride” to “let’s go to The Castle”.

Djuna’s Kidney

Djuna had another doctor’s appointment early Monday morning, this time for a sonogram to determine what’s going on with her kidneys. The results were both good and bad, as is usually the case.

There were several people in the room: Dr. Trout the specialist, Dr. VerSteeg her regular doctor, a vet tech whose name I didn’t catch, and myself. Of course, Djuna was the star of the show: there were several comments on how sweet & tiny she is, and how they didn’t have to shave her belly much at all since she’s pretty much bald down there to begin with.

The procedure lasted roughly 45 minutes, with me & the vet tech holding Djuna on her back giving Dr. Trout access to her belly, and with Dr. VerSteeg standing by observing.

Djuna was good for the first 10 minutes or so, but then decided that she was done and we could all go now. She wiggled and squirmed a bit, getting that gooey gel all over. When that didn’t work, she wriggled and squirmed some more and even vocalized a little bit, which is rather unusual for her since she doesn’t normally say very much. By the end of the procedure, she was getting a little bit annoyed with us all to the point where the vet tech was slightly worried that she might actually start growling. Honestly, I don’t think Djuna would ever growl at me, regardless of what torture I was subjecting her to. But you never know…

First the good news: they found the other kidney! It was hard to find, and is a bit smaller than the other one, but its there. More good news is that Dr. Trout thought that the left kidney (the one we saw in the x-rays) is healthy and should function properly now that the infection is cleared up.

The bad news is that right kidney actually has stones in it. Apparently this is quite rare in cats, so I’m glad we had the sonogram to find them. Dr. VerSteeg says she will do some research on kidney stones in cats to try to determine our plan of attack. I’m guessing that surgery is not really an option, but perhaps a change of diet will help.

Djuna got her third and last mega-shot of antibiotics, then jumped back into her travel case and waited for me to take her home. She’ll have to go back one more time in a week or so to get a urine sample taken, but other than that I’m thinking she’s done with the doctor for a while.

Assuming of course that we can get those stones taken care of…

Ready to Peddle

Got my bike all fixed up for the season!

Rob got me a basket for it: it’s a cute little white wire mesh one that attaches to the front handlebars. It’s removable, even, so I can take it grocery shopping with me. I plan on stringing some colorful ribbons on it, with bows and streamers.

Because, you know, that’s what you do with a white wire mesh basket on your bicycle.

The same day he installed the basket, he also installed the water bottle clip for me. The only problem I can see with it at its current location is that if I should happen to ride through a mud puddle (which of course I would never do as it would muss up my pretty purple flowered bike!) the mouth piece of the water bottle would get all grungy. Rob suggested banding a plastic baggie over the mouth piece to protect it – but then what do I do if I need to take a drink? Not quite sure how I’m going to deal with that. I may end up just putting the water bottle in the basket and foregoing the clip altogether.

Last but certainly not least, he aired up the tires – they had gone a bit flat over the winter months. I have a little foot pump for it, but it’s rather a bear to use so we opted for his big air compressor. I will not always have access to that, however, so I need to get familiar with what I have and make do with it.

I had planned on riding to work at least three times a week – but honestly I don’t see myself actually doing that. I just do not feel like riding a bike that early in the morning, you know? I’m more likely to take it out for a spin after work, when it’s nice and sunny out. I printed out a map of the area I live so that I can plan out my rides, starting small and working my way up to the longer routes.

For the real bike rides, I am going to get a bike rack for the car. Rob has a friend who is giving one away; he says he’ll snag it for me. We just have to wait for her to come home from her year in Spain. Once I get it, I will be ready to ride, if anybody cares to join me!

Just please take it easy on me. I’m not the best bicycler in the world…

Roadtrip!

Lorna picked me up Saturday morning at 9:00 and we hit the road running! I so needed this – to just get away from “life” and have no agenda. It was perfect.

The weather was certainly less than perfect, although I do love a good rain storm. That’s what we had: a good rainstorm. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with it along the coast between Anchorage and Portage. The wind was blowing fairly well, too.

We made it all the way to Sterling before pulling over to stretch our legs and fill up with gas. We considered stopping at Fred Meyers in Soldotna a few miles down the road for another stretch and a mocha, but the parking lot was crammed full of cars so we just kept going on in to Homer.

It was around 2:00 by the time we made it to Homer. Neither of us had eaten anything yet that day so we stopped off at the Two Sisters Bakery for a bite to eat. That’s a cool place: I do recommend it, if you’re ever in the area. It actually reminded me of a place I’d eaten at in Ketchikan a long time ago.

The Homer Library is quite famous for being one of Alaska’s first LEED Certified buildings, so of course we had to stop by and check that out (no pun intended). Wouldn't you know it, they were having a book sale! We spent a good hour browsing all the books before purchasing our finds and heading on up to our next stop.

The Bear Creek Winery: my new favorite place! We sat down at their counter and proceeded to indulge in tasting a variety of their wines while snacking on fresh parmesan cheese and crackers topped off with a salmon pate. I don’t have a list of all the wines we tried but did manage to walk out of there an hour later with two bottles in my bag: a bottle of their Pomegranate Wine and one of their Black Current Wine.

I’m not a huge drinker; normally a glass of wine will last me all night. But that wine tasting – they poured two fingers worth of about 10 different wines for us, which we sampled in the space of roughly 45 minutes. That’s a lot of wine, and I was definitely feeling it.

So our next stop was the Spit. We pulled off on the side of the road, clambered over the rocks down to the beach, and walked along the shoreline. It was overcast and windy, as is usually the case for Homer, but was still quite beautiful. I just love beachcombing: poking through all the kelp and seaweed looking for whatever critter didn’t quite catch the receding tide.

Walking 4 miles on sand, however, is very taxing. By the time we got back to the car we were both feeling it. Thankfully, our next stop was Fat Olive’s for dinner.

I had the best sandwich: 3 types of Toasted Cheese with Apple Smoked Bacon and slivers of a Granny Smith Apple. Who would ever think to put apples in a cheese sandwich? I’ll be doing a lot of that now, I can tell you.

Finally we headed on up to Lorna’s cabin. It’s quite a drive, so we saved that for last. It’s a cute place; rather a shame she’s planning to tear it down, but it really does need to go. There is so much wrong with it that it’s actually cheaper to just start over brand new.

We did a few chores around the place: put together the new weather station Lorna had bought, replaced a circuit breaker, worked on the water pump, and walked the property line to see what was what out there.

The next morning we kind of just took it easy and relaxed for a while. Neither of us was in that big of a hurry to get home, so during the drive back we stopped quite a few times to just take in the scenery.

Eventually we did make it home, where I settled in for some snuggle time with my girls.

Rejected

I found myself with some time on my hands so stopped in at The Hole look, where I got my piercing and tattoo done.

I told the lady at the counter that it seemed as though my piercing was moving and I was wondering what was going on. She immediately said, “Take it out. Now. Your body is rejecting it.”

I was stunned. I had no idea that could even happen, and for her to be so bold and blunt like that. Wow.

But, as she explained, if I were to have left it in it would have eventually been pushed out and I’d be left with flaps of skin on my eyebrow – whereas taking it out while it’s still a hole means that it has a chance of healing completely without a scar. So I paid the $10 fee and had it removed.

It’s strange. I’ve haven’t even had the piercing a whole year, and yet I find that I’m really missing it. I feel somewhat incomplete now.

Once it heals thoroughly in a couple months, I may consider trying it again. The lady behind the counter told me that if they pierce it deeper, going behind the previous piercing, the scar tissue might act as an anchor keeping the ring in place. She also recommended a different ring – one with less of a profile to it.

Of course, my body could just reject that one, too. We’ll have to wait and see.

The Price of Gas

What is the price of gas where you live?

Here in Anchorage, Alaska it’s averaging around $4.11 per gallon, but on my recent road trip we stopped in Sterling to fill up and paid $4.65.

It’s a wonder we’re all still even taking road trips, isn’t it?

Oh, and what kind of gas mileage do you get? I drive a 2001 Nissan Sentra and average around 30-35 miles per gallon.

The Mad Dash for Freedom

I was standing at the door last night, talking to the missionaries, when Djuna made her mad dash out the door. I was shocked: she’s never done anything like that before!

She slipped though our legs and made it all the way down the steps. She didn’t even slow down; she just made a bee-line down to the bottom, then turned around and ran right back up the steps and into the house again. I had just enough time to say “Hey! Get your butt back in the house, young lady!”

The look on her face was priceless. I could just tell she was thinking “Hah! I made it all the way down the stairs! Beat that if you dare, Thing! I am a Fearless Warrior Cat!”

Yeah, I’d say the antibiotics are working. She definitely feels better.

Update on Djuna

Well, she’s definitely feeling better. This morning she was racing around the house, showing off how fast she can run. The antibiotics they gave her on Saturday really made a difference, thank goodness.

Her doctor called first thing Monday morning to check up on her. Looks like my little June Bug has a fan at the vet’s office! I reported that although she was still very sleepy, she was being social and wanted to be where everybody else was.

The doctor told me that the specialist had studied the x-rays and couldn’t find the other kidney, either. It is either simply not there or is hiding behind some other organ. The one kidney they could find is definitely not a healthy one. They suggested a sonogram to get a better picture of what’s going on in there.

My financial situation being what it is, I am hesitant to pay for a procedure that would not add to or change her current medical plan of attack, although it would be nice to actually know for sure. I may have it done anyway, regardless of all the other bills I have waiting to be paid.

In the meantime, Djuna is fighting off the last of the infection (I hope) and will just have to be careful in the future so as to not jeopardize her defective kidney any worse. She only has one, so has to take care of it!

Djuna is Very Sick

I took her in to the vet's on Friday because she has been very lethargic and won’t wake up even when I come home from work. When I do get her up, she just wants to be held so she can sleep in my arms. She tried to jump up into my lap once and didn’t make it.

The vet weighed her (5lb 4oz), checked her heart (good), poked around at her tummy (all good), cleaned out her ears (gunky black tar, as always), took blood and gave her fluids subcutaneously. She told me I should make sure she pees/poops and eats/drinks (she is/does).

Saturday (today) the blood work results came in = not good. Her white blood cell count is through the roof, indicating a severe infection. I took her back in for x-rays and a urine sample.

The urine sample came back VERY infected. The vet says it’s highly unlikely that an infection that bad isn’t in the kidneys, too. They gave her a mega-shot of antibiotics hoping that it will work, but went ahead and sent a sample of the infection off to the lab to make sure. If the shot doesn’t work (lab will tell) I’m to bring her back in on Monday for another type of antibiotics.

The x-rays came back inconclusive, to say the least. First, they could only find one kidney. They don’t know if they’re overlapping each other in the x-rays or that she simply doesn’t have two. And the one they could see was not the shape they expected to see. It’s supposed to be shaped like a kidney bean – hers is more like an orange. They’re going to send her pictures off to an expert to see if he can determine what’s going on.

Back at home, Djuna is sleeping again. I've made her as comfortable as I can, and will try to get her to eat some canned food tonight.

Thing is very worried.

Too Much Food

Back when I had a roommate, it was our agreement that each would only eat the food we ourselves bought. Apparently she had a hard time with that concept: she kept eating my food!

Eventually I just stopped buying food altogether because I didn’t want to pay for her meals (petty, I know… but that was just the tip of the iceberg with her).

Now that she’s gone, I am really enjoying food again.

In fact, it may become an obsession with me. I find that I keep going to the grocery store and buying more food – even though I have enough at home to last several weeks.

Just this week alone I’ve gone three times, each time carrying home several bags of groceries. My freezer is stuffed full to capacity and the fridge is not far behind.

Who knew having too much food would ever be a problem?