Sunday, August 18, 2013

We All Make Odd Choices and Heaven Help Us For Some of Them

Well, dammit, you WOULD  be an animal lover, wouldn't you?  You could have chosen to be a Justin Bieber Groupie or a lifelong devotee of  Humphrey Bogart or a Film fanatic in general, but NOOOO.......you had to become a pushover for the pet population and beyond.  Serves you right that you are suffering for  your foolish choices now.      Gaaaaaahhhhrrrr.

For several days last week I watched my precious Cat, Gussie limp a bit and favor her left forepaw while I worried and wondered and felt the damned paw up and down as much as she would let me and I knew I would have to take her to the Vet or not sleep ever again.  
So Ann and I went thru the routine required for the job.  Close all outside doors.  Close all inside doors to the room in which Gus was at the moment reclining.  Quietly as possi'ble fetch one of the cat carriers and introduce it into the Room so she doesn't see it.   Fail.  Gallop after Gus and pin her in the corner when she immediately guesses what was up and attempts escape.  Snatch her up and into the carrier before she could put plan B into effect.  On our way to the Vet  I mused that the problem might be an ingrown toenail since I had not had her claws clipped lately since I was too old and feeble and blind and clumsy to do it myself any more.....(at what point did she become so much stronger than me?   I somehow missed that subtle transition point.)  And to my relief and abysmal shame, that is exactly what it was.  One long claw had curved into a paw pad and must have been hurting like hell when she walked.  What a rotten Mother I turned out to be.......this would cost me huge .....A trillion in kitty treats not to mention endless hours of painful  immobility while providing her with a reclining tummy to doze on and being unable to scratch any part of me that itched or any muscle that cramped without disturbing her.  She is still demanding apologies from me and there is no sign of her letting me forget my heartless neglect of her well being.  Sigh.  At least she is no longer limping piteously and breaking my heartless heart.   And the  vet bill, including antibiotic shot and  blood test, was under $1000.    
Tenks Gott.

Then, without having the chance to recover from this episode the Pet God decided to smite  me with another heart wrenching situation.  I went in to bid my Fabulous Finches goodnite on Friday and, as usual, I proceeded to count birds on perches and in nest boxes and came up one short.  Omigod......where was Judy the smallest female, Mickey;s beloved?   I immediately began examining he floor of the cage for signs of the dreaded Egg Bound Female Syndrome and there, in a corner was the pathetic little creature barely moving and seeming to pant ever so slightly.  Panic time.  This condition was usually fatal and I had no skills as an avain midwife.  Desperately I thrust my hand into the cage and seized the poor mite, brought her out into the light, examined her, petted her feathers, scratched her neck whispered sweet nothings and prayers into her ear and put her back hopefully.  Nothing.  Still seeming to be dazed, almost comatose she sat and sat and sat.  

I had already ruled out the idea of finding a Bird Vet, especially in the middle of the night so I called the breeder where I had gotten her and asked for advice.  I was told to grab her gently, check for a lumpy looking lump in her nether parts under her tail feathers and, if found, to squeeze it gently to break the egg and the impasse.  I did all that, found no lump and when I squeezed gently anyway all I got was some poop for my efforts.  Tearfully, I replaced her in the cage, spent 15 minutes meditating and sending good thoughts her way and finally staggered off to bed thinking my usual cop out thought.....'que sera, sera".   
Barely slept and upon rising went in to look for a corpse only to find all four birds sitting on the perches looking, as far as my untrained eye could tell, alive.  

When my caregiver arrived we both examined the creatures and she said that poor Judy seemed to have no feathers along her back  between her wings and she suspected some sort of family brawl.  (I had not seen this condition but had felt something strange in the texture of her back as I petted  her)  One or more of the other birds must have ganged up on her, plucked out some feathers and left her in a state of birdy shock and post traumatic distress    WTF???.   Apparently I have got myself a dysfunctional bird family.  Or perhaps just a normal bird family since, I suspect, all families are dysfunctional to one degree or another.  Careful scrutiny since has indicated that Judy is mostly OK if temporarily short some plumage and tempers seem to be calm along Finch Lane.  
Oy.  In fact, Oy Gevalt!


Excuse me while I go in and put cold cloths on my head.  I just had to go out and shut off the pool motor because water was pouring off my roof. I think the raccoons have once again chewed through the tubing on the solar panels which heat my pool water.  No one can come till Monday.   I think I should have opted to be a Justin Beiber groupie.



Friday, August 9, 2013

You Can't Fall Off the Floor So There's No Way to Go But Up


Aaaaarrrrgh!  And OY !   (No, no, not what you think.....this is good news).

I have digested all your comments and just realized that I seem to  have left you precious folk wringing your hands over Lo's pitiful plight and not only is that NOT what I intended ........(I was sort of creating an  excuse for  myself for not blogging) but it is also last week's news. 

Not that everything has suddenly turned rosy....in fact I continue to  be deluged with sad reports from hither and yon, but my own bleak despondency seems to have lifted and I am just coping with whatever comes along pretty  well right now. 

I  have measured my own sack of troubles against those of some others and realize that I am really very damned lucky.  While I am dreadfully sad about  what my friends are having to go through,  my own spirits are actually OK and I have great hopes for me.  I promise I will blog again soon and may even say something funny.

Thanks, darlings for hangin' in with me.  Be of good cheer.  As I have said oft before.....more later.



Saturday, August 3, 2013

In Which Lo Decides She Might As Well Crawl Out From Under the Sofa

Grokkkk!   Auuuukkkkk!  Qweeeesgh!
Those are the sounds emanating from the throat of this unkempt, large, moulting bird struggling wildly while being slowly strangled by her own ineptitude and wondrous powers of procrastination and denial among other things.   I have just decided Enough Already.  I must put away my disappointment, disillusionment, distress and disgust at the machinations of the insane and unkind world and Murphy's Law and raise my bod up to keep on schlepping.

It's like this.

First,  I found to my great disappointment that I am not a candidate for the new wonder surgery to implant a telescopic lens in my macular degenerated eye.  I nearly qualified but it seems that they cannot do the procedure on anyone who has had cataract surgery.  Hells Bells, as my Daddy used to say.......I can hardly believe that there is a person over 75 (condition #1) who has NOT had cataract surgery.  Well, that took care of that dream.  But, the Doctor took pity on me and decided to refer me toyet another specialist......one who prescribes glasses for low vision patients.  So how come he didn't think of this months ago?   Dun't esk.

So, after another  4 hour excruciating examination (they are all at least 4 hours)   complete with the brightest lamps known to man being shone into my eye and drilling holes into my brain and innumerable additional photographs of my decrepit  macula ( how many pictures of one's macula does a person really need, fercrissake?)  and being assigned a prescription for  some lenses that may actually make it possible for me to read AND having my bank account depleted in a horrific fashion, I finally staggered home to await the new glasses in a week or 10 days  equipped only with the most expensive lighted magnifying glass known to humankind to get m  e through the interim.  That's the disillusionment, distress  and disgusted part.

Now, do not for one moment think that I am not grateful as hell for what vision I do have.......believe me, I am.   But you know what greedy, ungrateful wretches we humans are.  We always want MORE.

And speaking of ungrateful.......I am still not recovered from the disillusionment I suffered when my usually trusty caregiver presented me with the results of weeks, or perhaps months, of her labors to carefully transcribe the illegible entries in my aged personal phone book onto stick on labels using a felt marking pen and paste them onto pages in a newly prepared loose leaf binder with alphabetic separators and everything.  You cannot imagine my perplexity, puzzlement and volcanic rage when I eagerly seized the new tome and opened it to look up a phone number only to find that,while I could actually read the entries I could not find anything I was looking for.  It was only after 3 or 4 minutes of mumbled oaths and groans that I figured out that she had organized the entire book by FIRST NAME.  Oy.

No, there was no bloodshed, nor even any harsh words.  I am a totally civilized (read hat as beaten down, defeated)  soul.  I simply asked her gently why she had chosen to do it like that and she was just as flabbergasted as I had been and had absolutely no answer.  I decided that the book, as it was, would be useful in case the dreaded Dementia struck and I forgot the last names of everyone I know.   In fact, it was particularly good when I needed to look up one of my multitudinous Doctors since they were all neatly gathered under D (though not in alphabetic order....but never mind).  We are now working on Version 2 in which I will alphabetize the labels before they get applied to the pages......sob.

And after all that I have decided to finally crawl out from under my rock and temporarily rejoin this meshugina world...........don't  ask me why....I have absolutely no answer.....God help us all!