6 posts tagged “cat”

I had the day off because I get to work tomorrow. Whoopee! So took Tasha for routine innoculations. She hated the trip. After all, Tasha's visits to the vet have generally been when she needed immediate attention and lots of needles, etc. Can't really blame her for her aversion to seeing Dr. B. She got through the visit just fine though crying more than usual on the trip out and back.

I'd been considering purchase of a Canon "L" series lens --their best quality-- for a while but they're just so darned expensive! I've noticed some shortcomings in the Tamron lens we bought for the Canon and, with some tax "rebate" money burning a hole in my pocket, decided to take the plunge and buy Canon's most reasonably priced "L" zoom telephoto, the f/4 70 - 200mm. To help offset the expense, I'm offering the Tamron lens for sale through Amazon.com. I hope that works out 'cause there are several other things I'd like to sell and somehow I trust Amazon more than eBay.

Finally, I canceled my EarthLink account today. I'd been with them since November 1999 from dial-up to DSL and back again (as we phased them out). AT&T's U-Verse service was just too reasonably priced to pass up and has been too good to quit! I actually feel a little sorry about leaving EarthLink but I guess that's competition for you. Bye-bye!

The weather's looking stormy overnight and tomorrow, possibly clearing up a bit Sunday. Again, I work Saturday so the weather doesn't matter too much to me! We'll see if we wind up cycling Sunday.

Have a good weekend!

Howie

I received good news from Blue Ash, near Cincinnati, via email last night. The pitiable homeless cat that was hanging out at the Holiday Inn Express has been rescued. It looks like a network of individuals and organizations took action on my emailed pleas and "Howie," as he is now named, is hopefully headed towards a great new life. Here's the message I received:

I just wanted to give you an update on Howie. I caught him yesterday morning; well, I didn't really have to catch him. He just walked into the carrier, and I pushed his back-end in. :)  He is a petite to medium size kitty and is just gorgeous. He has tiny eyes. He's a brown tabby with very bold, black stripes.  His beauty is just breath-taking. Yes, I think all kitties are beautiful, but oh my goodness! :)

I dropped him off at the blue ash acc. They checked for the microchip, and he had none. So, they went ahead and microchipped him, vaccinated him, tested him (of course they did this first), and neutered him. Yes, he wasn't neutered. I can only imagine how calm he will be now.

 

I will be picking him up on Sunday from the care center. I will be adopting out the other two fosters I have on Sunday and need to wait until they're gone to bring in Howie. But, at least for the time-being, he's safe at the vet's office.  -- A.A.

Today I traveled from Northeastern Ohio into Columbus. I ran a little delivery errand there, then headed out for Cincinnati. The trip went fine until I hit the Cincinnati ring road -- I-276. I'd done really well up til then -- not a single missed turn or problem. In Cinci, however, I watched for my first exit and did not find it. I found my motel (it will remain unnamed but it has a red roof) and didn't like the location or looks. So I set off cross-town in the best way I could seeking the address of my Cincinnati delivery errand. Well, if you've got business in two cities and you happen to be visiting both of those cities, why not make it a part of the trip? After long bouts with bad traffic, bad weather, bad neighborhoods, bad maps, I finally found my way to I-71 (thanks to my trusty hand-held GPS), eventually delivered my packages, canceled my previous reservation, and sought an alternative motel. I wound up at the Holiday Inn Express. It's very nice, moderately priced, and convenient to I-71 and, presumably, to my astronomy workshop location -- the Cincinnati Observatory Center. Good high-speed Internet access is included and the entire property is non-smoking which suites me perfectly! I decided to go out again to explore and to find dinner winding up at the gigantic Kenwood Towne Centre shopping mall. (Don't you just love their creative use of "olde-fashioned" and European spellings?). The place was huge. Didn't have enough parking. And is about the busiest shopping mall I've ever seen outside of the Christmas shopping season! Anyway I settled for baked ziti at Sbarro's. I know, ewwww... but I couldn't find anyplace else. That is, of course, until I went across the street to a smaller shopping center to visit and stroll around a Barnes & Noble store. All kinds of trendy and interesting dining places there. Oh well.

Sunset Fading

Heading back to the Holiday Inn the sky lit up with brilliant yellow-orange colored mammatus and cirrus clouds. I ran to the room to grab my camera as quickly as I could as the clouds were smoothing out and the light was fading fast. I managed to catch the last of the beautiful display but was left wishing I'd been back a few minutes sooner to record the splendor that I had seen.

Holiday Inn Cat

Walking back to the motel entrance I was greeted by a four-footed resident -- a beautiful male tabby cat that, according to the desk clerk, hangs around this motel in an industry-laden area. He was very friendly and curious walking towards the camera every time I pointed it at him. The sweetie cried and cried and seemed to want to follow me inside. Loved being petted. Heartbreaking. He's so tame he certainly grew up as a pet. I hope he finds a good home but fear he never will.

I spoke with Dr. B. this morning regarding Tasha's Delicate Condition. He said the lab results of the culture from kitty's urine sample indicated a staph infection bothered her bladder. The particular bug implicated was sensitive to a wide range of antibiotics including the Clavamox prescribed for Tasha. The cat is obviously feeling ("feline" -- hee! hee!) better so we'll finish off the course of medicine at the end of this week as per doctor's orders.

Things have been fairly routine around here. Well, routine can mean different things to different people. Mostly it was the weekend when things were happening....

Tasha developed disturbing symptoms that appeared to be cystitis. Frequent urination, straining at the litter box, inappropriate urination, and restlessness/meowing all presented themselves. The symptoms had come and gone about a week earlier, but reoccurred with a vengeance late last week. So I took off early Friday and delivered one unhappy kitty to the vet; her symptoms had calmed so it was the trip to the vet that displeased her. Tests showed no crystals in her urine but there were signs of a bladder infection so poor Tasha got a penicillin injection and is receiving a week-long course of twice-a-day oral antibiotics to try and knock out whatever bug was causing her discomfort. She's tolerating the dosing well in part because I've (finally) become somewhat adept at the eyedropper. Kitty seems to be back to normal. We'll hear from Dr. B concerning lab results today or tomorrow.

Saturday my car went to the "car vet" --dealer service-- for regular maintenance. They checked our record and found it's time for the timing belt to be replaced! Oh, joy: another big, unexpected expense! It's better than having the darned thing break which, we were told, does enough damage to the engine to cost on the order of $3,500 to fix. Still we didn't see this one coming.

Saturday night I had the observatory open from 9 to 11:00 PM at the behest of the student environmental group. This open night was to be a part of their Earth Day activities. A bat had moved back into the dome and/or shutter as had a bird or two. I chased the bat out of the dome and, before leaving, turned up the obnoxious "sonic repellent" that had been successful in keeping "Baxter" away. Unfortunately --or not, given sky conditions-- this was also the college Springfest and the poor old observatory was up against a pop music concert, an orientation day, and several other activities. With many alternatives and little promotion we had only two visitors --a student couple-- all night. Gave them a look at Saturn with moons Titan, Rhea, and Dione visible and told them about the observatory, telescope, etc. Sky conditions were clear but seeing was generally not very good with high-altitude water vapor preventing the sky from being very black. I couldn't find dim objects, not even M44 (The Beehive star cluster) but Saturn looked surprisingly good; the shadow of the ring system could be seen on the planetary body. Maybe a hint, now and again, at cloud banding on the planet. I took a look at Mars but between seeing preventing high-power views and with Mars receding and becoming quite small, it was less interesting than usual. That was about it for observing! I was happy to head home.

Sunday activity was chosen by She Who Must be Obeyed so we took our first bicycle ride of the season... the flat and easy rail-to-trail facility that runs through Oberlin. The weather was clear and cool with temperatures of about 65 degrees and light wind. The riding was easy and pleasant though we both wound up with sore-ish muscles from that short and easy 27-mile jaunt! Felt pitiable but it's been many months since we've been on two wheels. Lunch at Oberlin's Quizno's was very good and did not make us feel more guilt. One weird experience: when we parked our bikes at Quizno's my wireless bicycle computer, instead of registering zero miles-per-hour was reading upwards of 65 miles-per-hour whilst standing still! Apparently some radio source inside the building was causing the bizarre behavior. We didn't think about photographing the display until later and, when we returned to the sandwich shop to reproduce the experience, nothing happened! Cool photo gets away.

In all this weekend of cats, bats, and bikes was a good one.