So, Phin has a new routine I’m not thrilled about. He is my blind black cat who is a little badass and Brave Little Toaster. He likes to get on the back of my desk chair and sleep, but lately he’s been sleeping sleeping and subsequently falls off. If he’s lucky, he falls onto the back of my neck, sometimes digging his claws into my head or neck. If he is really asleep, he stays there for a while without waking. If he’s not lucky, the poor guy falls to the floor 😞. However, along with being a badass, he is extremely stubborn, so he just walks around the chair, feels for the arm of the chair, and jumps up and climbs back onto the chair back once more. Rinse and repeat. All day while I’m working.
Now, some might say, Why don’t you come up with something so he won’t fall off? And I say to them, We did. Well, we tried. First, I put my panda hoodie on my chair back, zipped it up, and put Mom’s Steelers pillow in the hood. When he fell, theoretically he would fall onto the pillow, and the hood would keep him from thumping to the floor. Theoretically.
So stubborn that he would lay the wrong direction, with his butt against my neck
That was not the case. He just fell onto the pillow, then trampolined to the floor. I went to the spare room/closet to brainstorm while looking at all the wood and disassembled furniture I kept for such things. I had an idea! I told Adam what I wanted, and he started building. I’m the idea-er, he’s the implementer. The finished product was awesome. Adam used some metal rods from a cart and some wood and his handyman know-how to make a platform that went over the back of the chair. It was an incredible eyesore, but I loved it. I put my hoodie on top, and it made a lovely little, sturdy bed with plenty of room.
I may have written about this before.
That little jerk refused to stay up there. He tried it out, said, Nope, and got down. I put him up there repeatedly whenever he would come to get on me, but he was having none of it.
So, this is where we are now. We feel bad for him every time he falls, but then remember how he snubbed a great thing and…feel bad for him anyway because that’s what it is like to have kids.
I bought the wrong size subfloor 🙄. Adam got the floor laid down in the tiny utility room but not nailed/secured because I have to get the right size. Since it’s a smaller room, I wanted to get , 2′ x 4′ boards instead of 4′ x 8′, so I searched for 23/32″ boards, which is what the rest of the house is, and bought them online without noting the thickness that showed up in the search results. The ones I got are maybe half that thickness and give when I walk on them. I looked up the size I bought, and they aren’t recommended for regular subfloor; more for attics. Certainly not in front of one of the main doors! I felt so stupid. For right now, he doubled what is down, and once again I have to avoid walking in there. It looks better than it did, though!
Adam is going to have to do some cutting and finagling so we have a floor instead of a bridge between the furnace and water tank houses, but since I got the incorrect subfloor, that isn’t something he can do now. To make my mistake even better, I wasted $79 for delivery. I’m sure I can find something to do with the boards, but I don’t know what yet.
I have been taking Phin out with me when I go out on the porch because he loves to eat grass and greenery, to the point that he will climb me if I have a flower in my hair (something I do when Adam brings me one). I put a small dog leash on him and attach it to the cable we have out there. He loves it a little too much and now nonchalantly walks out the door when I have it open to yell for the boys to come in. Luckily, since he can’t see, he doesn’t just take off and jump off the porch, so I have the time to step out and scoop him up before he gets too far. I have a knack for creating monsters 🤣🤣. He sits at the door and meows to be let out now, too.
A few days ago, I was lying in bed in Mom’s room watching TV, and I heard Phin meowing. I thought it was on my movie at first. I told Adam, so he started calling for Phin and looking for him, as Phin gets lost very frequently and cries until we find him or he follows our voice(s) to the room we’re in. Adam checked behind all the closed doors and outside. About the time I was thinking Phin could have climbed under the floor in the kitchen and was going to get up to help with the search, Adams walks into the bedroom holding a defeated-looking Phin and places him on my pillow. He’s a bit dusty and disoriented and sneezy. Indeed, he had climbed under the subfloor by way of one of the open spaces in the boards between the kitchen and utility room. Probably where the water pipes are near the furnace.
Adam said Phin came right to him when he heard him and he was able to lift him out. He was just down there walking around on the insulation 🙄. Adam covered the openings with our handy dandy coffee table top and a few other wood pieces from when he dismantled furniture I wanted to be rid of.
Phin was missing a day or two later, and the hunt was on again. Adam saw that the boys, Nev and Ollie, had messed up his patch job in the kitchen, and once more, Phin was down under the floor. It is going to be a nightmare when Adam replaces the subfloor in other parts of the house. I have some plastic covering set to buy for when that time comes, but I don’t know how well that will work on a determined, blind cat. Mom’s room is on the other end of the kitchen, so Phin trekked quite a ways under the floor for me to be able to hear him the first time.
I waited excitedly for an entire month after we switched to a tankless water heater to see how much it improved the water bill. It had been $80+ for years, and it was in the $60 range when Mom was alive. When the water bill finally came, I burst into tears. It was $405. For a month. To their credit, the water company lady had called us to say we had a leak a bit after the tankless was installed. However, I thought she was talking about the leak that was just fixed, so Adam told her it was taken care of. But, no…this was a different leak, and much worse. What are the chances? Seriously. Our latest readings were 13,000 gallons of water a month, compared to an average of 1,300 (which is still high for two people).
Since there was no water anywhere in or under the house, I asked the lady to send someone out to see if the leak’s on our end or theirs. She completely ignored me (which I should be used to) and let another month go by and another $400 bill come in. With that bill, she sent someone out and he had Adam turn the water off to the house and he watched the meter. The new leak is somewhere between the water shutoff outside our house by the porch and the meter, which is about 30 yards, give or take.
This new leak didn’t happen until we switched from the hot water tank to tankless, and I have no idea why. Adam didn’t bother anything underground, which is where the new leak is located. It is one heck of a coincidence.
I contacted the American Leak Detection place, and they are going to come find the leak with some equipment, but they cannot do that while it is raining, which it has been doing here since February. The guy is supposed to come next Saturday, God willing and the creek don’t rise…which, the creek is rising since it’s been raining for months on end. After that, Adam and I are going to get a crash course in plumbing because we certainly can’t afford to pay a plumber to fix an underground leak. The water bill is over $1,000 now since we’ve had to wait until we had the money for the leak detection guy, and I hate knowing that I have to pay that when I didn’t even get to enjoy all that water. The only silver lining I can see is that the ground should be fairly soft to dig in since it’s…well, mud.
Well, the novelty of my desk drawer has worn off for the cats, so I now have a cushy empty drawer with potting soil sprinkled in it. Oh, why is potting soil in it? Well, Phin (my blind boy) loves greenery and will go to the ends of the earth to find it and eat it, and I just got an African violet yesterday at Lowe’s. He hadn’t bothered it while I was awake, so I thought the leaves didn’t appeal to him. I was wrong. He knocked it off while eating it while I was asleep and it landed in the drawer. When I got up, he went over and got on the shelf and was trying to find it but I had tossed it. Meanwhile, Miss Willow stays on my desk all the time unless I open the window.
Their food and water are on my desk because of the dogs, so they hang around me or Phin lies on his dad. Phin is a little badass. He has always been such a brave little toaster, especially for being blind, and that hasn’t changed with the pups. He cautiously makes his way off the desk and just saunters over to the dogs’ water fountain and drinks out of it. Sometimes he runs into Neville’s legs or feet when Nev is sleeping on the floor, but he just corrects his trajectory a little and keeps going. When the pups sniff him, he has no problem smacking the crap out of their noses. It scares Ollie, which is hilarious, but he keeps on sniffing Phin and jerking back with each smack. I think cats’ smacks are the equivalent of Rocky’s punches the way that the pups react.
For being rather stern dog parents, the boys are huge babies! Adam chooses yelling over training, so he yells at Neville all the time, but when something scares him or I give him medicine or correct him, he runs to Adam and gets on his lap. A 120+ pound Lab crawls on his dad’s lap like a baby.
With Ollie, he gets his feelings hurt very easily (common for the breed), so when he gets in trouble or thinks he is in trouble, he comes over to get a hug and kisses. I may have mentioned it before, but I’ve kissed him on the nose since bringing him home and he loves it. He gets in front of me and nudges me with his nose until I kiss him. If he wants multiple kisses, he keeps nudging my nose. Sometimes he kisses me at the same time, which I do not appreciate. He is just the sweetest little thing. He’s also very floppy and likes being held like a baby even though he’s ~130 pounds. Since he’s so tall, we can only hold his upper body in our arms. He likes to get in front of me on the bed, sit down, and just trust fall into my arms. They are sweet boys but haven’t let me get much sleep!
It is with a very heavy heart that I write this. Ever since keeping cats solely inside (since 1998), I have been afraid that one or more would die here and I would discover them. I always hoped Mom or Adam would be the one to discover them (terrible, I know) and would tell me about it after burying them. That was not the case yesterday morning. Gandalf the Grey (Gandi) was sleeping in Mom’s shower yesterday, and since the pups aren’t allowed in the bathroom, it made sense. Since he hadn’t been on my keyboard tray visiting with me after I got out of bed, I checked on him when I got up to use the bathroom and found that he wasn’t breathing and wasn’t warm.
I woke Adam up and told him that Gandi wasn’t breathing, so he got up and checked and confirmed that he was gone. Just like in the movies and shows, he walked back to me and sadly shook his head without speaking. I could only wail and ask “Why?!” repeatedly. We don’t know what happened. Before going into the bathroom, Gandi had briefly been on the bed with us by Adam, and after I fell asleep, Adam said he peed on the bed while lying there, then went to lay in the bathroom when Adam took the bedclothes off. I didn’t get a chance to make an appointment for him to see why that happened.
He and Theo have been staying out of Mom’s room since I got Ollie. Gandi stayed on the table most of the time near the cat food and water. Theo stays on the fridge. He had been to the vet two or three months prior for a urinary tract infection and received antibiotics.
For the past couple of days, Gandi had been in Mom’s room with me, sleeping on my keyboard tray and purring while I pet and loved on him. I figured he got lonely and said to hell with the dogs. He let me kiss his head and brush him and was being his old sweet self. Now, he’s gone and I don’t know why. He had just turned 10 in July. Both of my babies I got after Mom died are gone, and I’m so sad. I don’t know what I did wrong or how much he suffered or how I missed his cries for help. I just don’t know.
So, it’s been fun here! I’m totally burnt out on school, but I think I only have three classes before I graduate! Plus, one of my classes next term is another workshop, and I really like those. Yay! I was working on my first novel (crazy, right?), a few thousand words in, and just really having a hard time with it and thinking it stunk and I stunk, so what did I do? I started another one! I’ve switched from third person present to first person present and I have more words with this second one than I did with the first, which the former took me weeks. I am enjoying the story more and really want to know what happens.
Oh, and authors, if you want a great program to do your writing on, you have to get Scrivener! It is the best writing/editing program I’ve ever used. There’s a steep learning curve with it but after you get comfortable, it seems like the features are very intuitive. Plus, there are tutorials users have written which are very helpful. I’ll screenshot below, which is the program with a theme I selected (Mellow Yellow). The normal program is normal colors and normal font 😊. For $60, it is a steal, and no subscription! I used it to do my poetry collection, and the ebook and print copies look very professional.
Part of Adam coming back from the dead is him actually giving a crap about things and he’s totally not used to it. He’s started thinking about things I always have to think about to run the house and he’s not too fond of it 🤣🤣. Unfortunately, a couple of negative things have occurred. He’s begun thinking about his past addiction (kudos to him for telling me), which I get because he’s a metaphorical runner and tries to get away from dealing with life in any way he can, and he’s been staying with me in Mom’s room for the past month.
Now, I don’t mind him being in here at all, but having the dogs together all day can get nerve-wracking. I was used to cuddling with Ollie and him sleeping by me, and now he’s always playing with Nev or sleeping with him. Plus, the two bozos are very unaware of themselves and others, so when they come in and have a poop run through the house, they jump on the bed and right on me while I’m sleeping! Not a great way to wake up. They are also very butt-y, and I’m getting hit in the legs with butts every time I’m walking 🙄. A good thing is Neville is so smart and easy to train and Ollie tries to follow his lead when I try to teach him something…sometimes. We are working on them not running ahead of me or bowling me over when I take them out, which they are learning. Nev knows what “get back” means and Ollie watches him and scoots back and sits down, for the most part.
Oh, I also have my cat, Phin, and Adam’s cat, Willow, on the desk all the time that they aren’t in the window. I legit have a small litterbox sitting on the desk in front of me because Willow is skittish around the pups. Oh, oh!! I was cleaning out my desk drawer and Willow decided it would make the perfect bed, so…
I need to repaint my desk 😒.
Then, Phin thought that was a good idea, so…
And I’m happy to report they found a great compromise…
Since I don’t spoil my kids at all, I have the top of our small ottoman on the desk, top down, and a bath mat in it so they each have a place to sleep if they don’t want to share. Ah, family…
Piper is gone. She was supposed to be put to sleep last Saturday but we had to reschedule for yesterday. She spent the weekend on my desk. She used the bathroom there on a pee pad and she couldn’t even stand or squat because of her leg. I cried all last week and this week. She was just the sweetest, most loving (to humans) little girl, and I miss her so much.
Her being gone has made me think of Mom, which has made me think of my brother. I don’t know what I’m going to do when it’s Phin’s time. Piper was for me, but she chose Adam, although she loved both of us. When Sprinkles, my other tuxie, was put to sleep (cancer), it was $25. Piper was $108. That just makes me furious. Yes, it was 10 years ago, but there is absolutely no reason for it.
My sweetheart
I’ve been working on my book a lot and I think I accidentally set it to be published on Amazon. I was ordering a proof copy and it popped up that I set it up for publication. It’s not supposed to be released until December! I am hoping I have to approve it or something so I can cancel. The proof wasn’t entirely finished but I wanted to check the formatting and spacing with a physical copy.
My teacher recommended a publishing press (she usually recommends journals) but I’m just not sure. I would love the exposure because I have no following, but I have major RSD. Plus, I would not appreciate edits without my knowledge or approval. Plus, I supposedly get 60% royalties with Amazon, but it’s just not adding up when I set the price. If I price the paperback version at $12 (which is ridiculous), I get $5. I didn’t want to make the price outrageous because that’s not cool, and it costs Amazon only $2.32 to print each book. Very hinky. Capitalism is out of control, or I’m just more aware of it.
So, the cats and pups have completely ruined the living room floor, and I was stressing about replacing it but it looks like the subfloor will be the most expensive thing. Mom would have gotten rid of the cats a long time ago, but they’re my kids. The image above is a VR-generated image from The Home Depot of what the living room would look like with the flooring I chose. It’s kind of jarring because it’s a carpeted floor right now, but I like it. The dogs are not going to like sliding all over the place like Bambi on ice, however.
Piper hasn’t used the litter box since Merlin came here in 2015, Phin is blind and used to use the bathroom under the bed in the spare room (which I did not know he was doing) because the litter box was beside the bed and he could smell that he was in the vicinity, so I replaced that carpet with vinyl flooring. He now uses the living room floor since I had moved the litter box into the living room while doing the spare room floor, and he hasn’t stopped even though the litter box is in Adam’s room now.
Gandi hasn’t used the litter box since having a UTI even though he was treated. Piper has started peeing on her pillow she sleeps on. Only the babies use the box; 2 out of 5 😡😡. Because of Phin, I knew I’d be replacing the living room floor but the pups have peed in there and the floor feels like a boy’s face after hitting puberty. I have pee pads and clean the pee up, but the spots I missed are making big bumps. It’s gross. Luckily, vinyl flooring is around $260 for the entire living room, which is ~12′ x 28′, and half of the living room subfloor is fine, I think. I had Adam to look, and I guess the subfloor isn’t too expensive but he is going to need a different saw. I hate it, and Mom would kill me, but I know it’s my fault and I will be fixing it, so 🤷♀️.
To top it off, Ollie has started tearing up the living room carpet!! Who does that? He has so many bones and toys, and he goes and picks at the carpet like a methhead. There weren’t even holes or spots in the places he is digging/chewing up. Can I not have any normalcy here?
Well, it’s a good thing I set my book deadline for November. Just putting it together is so much work! I had it organized by theme, but so many of my chosen poems are from when I was a teen, so I wanted to highlight they are my early works and hopefully show some growth over the years.
I didn’t write for years because so much of it was too painful to think about, let alone write about (everybody dying). The other things — the good stuff like falling in love and finding some happiness — I was enjoying the moments and not writing about them. Admittedly, I am prone to writing during the darker times when I find the motivation to sift through it all.
So, instead of themes, I decided to do a Wonder Years part, poems I wrote when I was a teenager and going through some things, and The Reawakening part, when I started writing again in the last few years. There is some light stuff to go with the darker stuff, so I sub-parted (I don’t think that’s a word) the main parts into The Light and The Dark. Good? Bad? I don’t know. I doubt I will even have an audience. I want to realize my dream because it is my dream, but I am also doing it for Mom.
I am terrible at building an audience and socializing offline and online, so the word-of-mouth is going to be awful. I know Adam will appreciate it because he is super-supportive of whatever crazy ideas I pursue.
Speaking of, things are going better here. Adam subscribes to my blog, and he also knows I do not talk about him behind his back. If I can’t say something about him near him, how is that healthy? He feels the same, but his irritation comes out only when I am fussing at him about something 😒. I guess there’s a reason he fell so hard for a volleyball player 🤣🤣.
He’s been getting the dishes done and the laundry, both big chores because Ollie is not too keen on potty training and he is going through my towels like a public pool. I really dread replacing every single floor in this house, mainly because I have no idea what I’m doing and no one to help. I helped replace a bedroom floor once in a single-wide trailer, but I was on nail duty and just had to hammer the nails in. Having double vision and terrible aim, that was hard enough for me!
Open your eyes, Dad!
I do have some very upsetting news that I am not looking forward to. Piper Paws is going to be put down soon. She has not fared well since we brought Merlin in and her health has gone downhill from there. Somehow, she is 22+ pounds although we never see her eat. She really hurt her back leg a while back, which the vet completely ignored and blamed on her weight, but the day it happened, she was lying on the floor crying and would not walk at all. We just laid there crying at each other.
Pretty Girl
She also has a weird patch on her back that is from me treating a sore on her back and I had shaved a small patch so I could treat the sore. That patch has never been the same. The sore healed up, but the fur doesn’t grow in normally and she is sensitive to touch back there. For that, the (worthless) vet said it was fleas, but none of the cats have fleas and haven’t since living with us because they are all flea-treated indoor cats and this was way before Neville happened, let alone Ollie. We don’t always get a stupid vet but we did for her appointment.
Enjoying the outdoors.
Piper Paws is the cat Mom made Adam promise to get me before Mom died. She is also named after Mom as Mom’s initials are PAWS. I don’t know how I am going to handle losing her. It’s unbearable grief now and she is not gone yet. She has started using the bathroom exclusively on the kitchen table and she can’t walk well because of her (untreated thanks to the vet) leg and her weight. We watch their food, but I cannot put her on a diet food when her siblings are all healthy weights.
She turned 10 years old on my brother’s birthday. Even though she was for me, she is Adam’s cat. I think she is a one-cat-household cat, so I don’t think she has been happy for quite a while. I really failed her when I took Merlin in. Girl can hold a grudge, just like her mother. I am really going to miss her but the poor thing has had a rough life, dealing with cats she doesn’t like and then dogs. At least the pups don’t bother her physically. And now I’ve upset myself. Until next time!
What Can You Do Today to Instantly Lift Your Mood?
Okay, so this is an easy one. All of my kiddies instantly lift my mood, unless they are the reason I am Captain Cranky Pants. I mean, look at Willow! When she is not on my keyboard, she is a total sweetheart. She is a Daddy’s Girl, but fortunately, all our kiddies love both of us; they just have their preferences. For some reason, my boy, Phin, has been spending a lot of time with Adam. I don’t know if it’s because I keep moving things around and making it difficult for him to navigate the home or what. He makes himself right at home on Adam’s chest after Adam gets up and wants to stay there all day. He became super attached to us after Merlin died, who was his bestest buddy.
Sweet Silly WillyMy baby boy with his lone white whisker.
Unless Adam is the reason I’m in a bad mood, he can instantly lift my mood. He hates when I am sad, upset, overwhelmed, etc., so he tries to cheer me up, usually by being funny. One time, when we hadn’t been dating very long, he was performing “surgery” on my toe and it hurt to the point that I was crying. He got up near my face and said or did something that made me laugh and I accidentally spit tears and snot right in his face. It was so embarrassing!
I had an EMG on my arms yesterday and I didn’t really like the people who saw me. The woman who shocked me was all right; not exactly pleasant, but not rude, either. The doctor came in and was very cold and to the point, which makes me uncomfortable. He told me he was going to insert “just the tip” and record it or listen or whatever, and before I could ask, “The tip of what?”, he started poking me with a needle up and down my arms. It did not feel good. We could see and hear my nerves talking on the computer, which was pretty cool. Some spots he poked were loud and some were quiet. Afterward, he typed some stuff in a pre-drafted letter that was on the computer screen and said he would send it to my doctor, then left. I don’t know which doctor he’s sending it to; I don’t know what the letter said; I don’t know what the results were.
In the hallway, I googled him, and his reviews were less than stellar, as in 1 star. He allegedly has a bad habit of not communicating with his patients 😒. Adam, who read over the doctor’s shoulder while he was typing (yay for being nosy!), said he mentioned median nerve neuropathy, which isn’t surprising. The doctor reminded me of Mom’s first GYN oncologist, whom we totally should have sued for malpractice and I hate that we didn’t. By the time she switched doctors, it was too late for her. Her second doctor said he always does at least one round of chemo after any cancer-removing surgery.
I already knew I have carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) because of the symptoms and how much I type and work at the computer, plus they told me; I just need some treatment for the pain since it’s been getting worse. I have a hard time braiding my hair now because of my hands cramping up, but I do have very long hair. Fortunately, the CTS is not too bad yet. I have tiny bone fragments at the base of my thumb and degenerative changes to the outer wrist of my right hand, which the other orthopedic guy actually told me before setting up the EMG appointment. He, I liked, except for when he hurt me.
“Looking” at the door
For some reason, Phin, my little boy who can’t see, wants to be in the bathroom with Adam or me every chance he gets. Whenever we stand up to go somewhere, he gets all excited and starts pinballing toward the bathroom; running into objects, cabinets, boxes, whatever is on or near the floor. A lot of the time, he gets confused and goes to the utility room and both spare rooms before finally making it to the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, he gets up on the sink to get pets and/or get a drink from the faucet. He gets so excited and rattlesnakes his tail, which is just adorable. He doesn’t always get a drink, so that’s not his primary reason for going in there, but we don’t know what is. I thought he would not like the bathroom since it’s the one where he lost his little teeth while trying to jump up on the sink. Before I started using Mom’s bathroom exclusively, he would go to the main(?) bathroom with me and I would put him up on the sink since he’s afraid of jumping up there after his teeth accident. If he made it to the bathroom before me, he would jump onto the toilet seat, then up on the sink and wait for me.
A couple years ago, I bought a bidet seat and had it in the main bathroom. This seat is fairly big and it slopes downward, which I didn’t even think about when I bought it. When I went to the bathroom, Phin tried jumping up on the seat without knowing it was different and slid back onto the floor. He tried it a couple of times and then gave up. Adam spent a good chunk of time one day teaching Phin to jump onto the side of the tub, get on the toilet tank, walk across it, then get onto the sink. This was the cutest thing ever, with Adam crouching on the floor and Phin standing with his front paws on the tub looking toward him. The bidet seat was in that bathroom for a couple of months, then Adam put it in Mom’s bathroom for me, where it’s been since. However, Phin still gets onto the sink in the main bathroom by way of the tub and toilet tank even though I’ve helped him feel that the regular toilet seat was back.
One time while I was showering in Mom’s bathroom, I kept hearing this clunk, clunk, clunk, so I opened the shower door and there was Phin on the toilet tank, thinking the sink was beside the toilet like in the other bathroom, which it is not. He never spent much time in Mom’s bathroom since Adam and I never used it. He was trying to get down off the tank and kept rocking the lid. I don’t know how he managed to get on the tank with the bidet seat there. He breaks my heart every day but I don’t know what else I can do for him. I don’t get how he can remember how to get on the sink from the tub, which he hasn’t been doing long, but not remember his way through the house. He has been here since he was six weeks old.
Last night, instead of climbing from the hamper onto my desk in front of my TV/monitor, he got mixed up and went behind the TV and fell off the desk 😞. A week or so ago, Gandi broke the glass of one of my 8″ x 10″ photo collages and I had the collage lying on the kitchen bar with one side hanging slightly off the bar as it was wider than the bar itself. Phin was trying to get to me and stepped on the part of the collage that was hanging off and fell off the bar into metal folding chairs, hitting the garbage can and a roasting pan that was to be thrown away 😿😿. I don’t know how to protect him more.
Cari R Esta 