Gussie Winnie, Baskin and I spent a very pleasant quiet weekend. I have reconsidered my hysteria re Gussie's bones. After much pondering and a conversation with the Vet, I have come to the conclusion that Gusssie is really OK.....I think it is me who is sick (in the head). I have thought it all through many times and think now that perhaps I panicked. I am so partial to and so used to fat cats I thought she was at death's door being so skinny and losing weight. She seems to be totally content and happy. I don't think she is losing any more right now. It may simply be old age....she was always a slim cat and she is getting up there in years.....I don't know how old exactly. Rescued strays do not come with birth certificates. I know old cats often get very skinny. I plan to simply keep indulging her disgustingly, watching her carefully and feeling her bones. Have no plans for further tests or specialists etc. right now. Needless to say, I am watching her very carefully and will not neglect any danger signs.
I had a brilliant idea the other day about how I can monitor her weight and either ease my worries or drive myself off the cliff. All I had to do is weigh her every few days to see how we were doing. Sure. Oh yeah. Sounds so simple doesn't it? I do not know why, during my long lifetime, everything that sounds so simple and ought to be simple ends up so damned complicated you simply must bang your head against the nearest wall repeatedly.......unfortunately I replaced most of the walls in my house with glass years ago so that limits not only my head-banging needs but my picture hanging area.......well, as they say,"Nothing is perfect".
"Why", you may ask, "is this simple idea so difficult to execute?" In your house it may not be so difficult at all, but you must remember, you are dealing with a rather farmished (mishugina) (fercockta) (slightly crazy person) here.......and with limitations physical and especially optical. It's like this.......for most of my life I used to weigh myself every morning......when you have spent your lifetime dieting, weighing yourself every morning is like breathing in and out. So is sighing with relief and/or shrieking with anguish, depending on what the numbers say. Recently though, I find I often pass up this pleasure/pain partly because there is not much I can do about it anymore if the numbers go up......I cannot exercise more nor can I eat any less, and frankly, if the numbers should begin to go down I would probably freak out with worry about what might be wrong with me rather than jump up and down with joy and triumph, so, hell why bother. Also, I can hardly see the dial numbers anymore and must utilize a guesstimate based on where the pointer is in relation to the next big black up and down mark. Not the most accurate system........not so bad for a rotund, zoftig old person whose poundage exceeds.....well, nevermind.....but totally useless when you are dealing with ounces on a 7 1/2 pound cat.
In addition, for anyone who has never weighed or attempted to weigh a live animal...........you don't just stand them on the scale and tell them to hold it right there while you read the dial, even if you have 20/20 vision. The method is to first weigh yourself. make careful note of the exact number. Then grab or attempt to grab the animal, step gingerly onto the scale while screaming from the clawing or gasping from the wriggling, and attempt to peer over the furry body which is now wrapped around your head to see what the numbers are. First efforts are rarely successful. Second efforts are more difficult because the animal is now wary, unsure of what the fuck this thing is all about, but convinced that it is not in their best interests and therefore more difficult to catch up. Third attempts must wait till later in the day when the animal has almost forgotten the strange event and you have had time stem the bleeding or catch your breath or both.
But there still remains the problem of reading the dial. Consequently, this is where your significant other or my caregiver must enter the picture. How you explain what is needed with a straight face is up to you, but what is involved basically is that the assistant must get down on hands and knees by the dial of the scale and be prepared to take an instant reading if you are lucky enough to hold onto the animal for long enough to make that possible. Sadly, anyone who has a love/hate relationship with scales as I do knows that there is always a specific position, slight sideways or forward lean that gives you the most favorable reading. When holding a crazed, wriggling animal, fuggeddaboudit. If the pointer stops, even for a moment, it must be captured then or not at all. And recorded immediately, by the way, so that the groans and curses of the holder and shrieks and complaints of the animal do not distract to the point of forgetting the number altogether thus requiring a redo.
Well, I could go on, but why? You are surely either nodding your head in agreement, laughing at my idiocy or crying in sympathy by now. If you think I am exaggerating then you have never tried to weigh an animal while being half blind plus old, weak and unsteady on the weighing platform. To which I utter a heartfelt congratulations and the comment that you are a better (and luckier) man than I am Gunga Din.
