Half-Birthday!

Today is my Half-Birthday. To celebrate I went shopping with a little bit of money I'd held back just for this event.

For those of you who don't know, a Half-Birthday is the equivalent of being born on 'Festivas'! A Half-Birthday is for those poor folk (like moi!) who were born within the month AFTER Christmas!

Being born at such a time, when everyone is broke and hung-over, from THE major christian holiday of the year, is tantamount to NOT having a birthday! There are no parties, big gifts, a day at the circus for us! Nope, we are lucky to get a piece a cake with a candle in it and a verbal 'Happy Birthday', and that in a half-hearted manner.

So sometime in my late twenties, I saw, read, heard SOMEWHERE about half-birthdays! From then on, I've celebrated my half-birthday on July 28. And let me tell ya, there have been some damn fine parties and celebrations! Needless to say, as I've gotten older (and clean & sober), the celebrations have toned down considerably! Even though it's now a party of one, I still celebrate my half-birthday.

Of course, I never expect or accept half-birthday presents. BUT, I always buy myself one! And ya know what? It is always something I want! This year it was a set of crochet hooks and a piece of Lemon Meringue Pie!

Crochet Project

I now have 10 totally completed 7” x 9” rectangles, edged with 2 rows of single crochet, and ends all tucked in.

Then I have 4 ready for edging & finishing, and about half of each of 2 skeins waiting for me to make rectangles.

I have no idea how large I am going to make it! I do need a spread for my extra long hospital bed, (but I would rather do that in thread or at least sport weight yarn) and a ‘throw’ for my love seat size sofa. For sure, I cannot ‘give it away’ as it IS basically a ‘practice piece’ AND the first crochet project I’ve done for almost two decades!

I’m amazed out how much I have forgotten, sometimes on these simple rectangles (I am making them in basic sc, hdc, dc and variations of same), I still find I’ve dropped or gained stitches, changed to the wrong stitch mid-row, or screwed up some other way, and have to rip it. When I screw up, I find that crocheting is NOT stress reducing, nor a pleasure! However, it is most of the time.

However, my speed and tension are good, they came right back to me.

I especially like to crochet while watching a movie, or at night while listening to Short Wave Radio. And I enjoy it...

Abandoned Cat Not Doing Well-Update

This week I emailed the folks that neutered him. Told them his condition was deteriorating. I think he needs to be caught AGAIN (and of course, who does the catching – moi!), and taken to the shelter. He needs vet care! They told me they would bring a trap by tomorrow.

Grandson Sighting

Today, as I do every few months when in my daughter’s part of Ocean Beach, I stopped by her apartment. I do this to see if she is still living there, and to put my card on her door so that she will know that I am still alive.

I did the same today. Checked the mailbox and her name was there. So I proceeded on to her front door. I was just reaching out to insert my card in the white security screen door, when it flew open and there was my Grandson Mike. I had no idea he was living there, or had even stayed in California after he arrived about a year ago.

“Granny!” he said, all smiles. He did not even say hello, just started telling me about his 19 year old life; he is back in school, and is working nights stocking shelves at a big retail store. (For which I am very grateful!)

He is even taller, and more filled out than when I last saw him; definitely moving out of his teens and into manhood.

Now that I know he is in town, I think I’ll invite him to dinner...

Saturday Has Become my ‘Out’ Day

Mainly because the local bus has a ‘ramp’ instead of the ‘lift’ on Holidays and weekends, Monday through Friday, they only have the ‘lift’. The ramp is much easier, faster, and far less harrowing than the ‘lift’.

So on Saturdays I can bop on and off the bus with no anxiety or worries. (Though at times, even the ramps break and will not deploy.) I have been on the bus when the lift would not deploy. I have seen other people stuck out on that lift, and I have heard harrowing stories of the lift breaking with someone ON it! I do not want to be one of those ‘stories’!

Today I went to the Vons shopping center, picked up a few things, did some window shopping, chatted with strangers, entered a $250 Von’s shopping spree contest, and more or less thoroughly enjoyed myself. I came home just a couple of hours later happy & relaxed. It is amazing how getting out of the apartment one afternoon a week just to play, feeds the soul.

I would do this more often if they had the ‘ramp’ busses on this route ALL the time! I could maybe even get to the Library once in awhile. But the company that contract the route, says that during the week they need to use the ramp loading buses on ‘busier routes’, which intrigues me, as route 35 IS a busy route!

Abandoned Cat Not Doing Well

Just a couple of days after he was returned, I noticed an open place on his scrotum. It looks like a ‘slit’ about an inch long. Now since I cannot get close to him, I am seeing this from 3 – 4 feet away.

I emailed the people who did the surgery on him, and was told they did not put stitches in male neuters, that they just let the blood coagulate, and that if he was licking it, it could take awhile to heal.

I was advised to ‘watch’ him, should he stop eating, become lethargic, etc, to contact them again and perhaps we could put antibiotic in his food.

Why does stuff like this always happen to me? I bet they neuter hundreds of feral cats a year, and this does not happen! Or does it, and no one knows about it? (If only they had put in dissolving stitches!)

But I get to watch him, and worry about him! Poor stray half-wild cat and I have no way to help him, no trap, no money to take him to vet. So frustrating...

Abandoned Cat is Back from Neutering

The volunteer from the Feral Cat Coalition retuned him early this evening. He seemed none the worse for wear, though he was missing a part of his anatomy that with his short gray fur, used to be quite large and prominent!

The volunteer opened the ‘trap’ for him right outside my front door, thereby returning him to his ‘territory’. He took off like a shot, across the parking area towards Famosa Slough. I probably will not see him for 2 – 3 days, or until he gets hungry enough...

‘Found Cat’ Neutered Today

I was never able to find anyone that claimed the cat that found me way last March, despite two massive attempts to do so. The Cove’s Management even helped with this campaign to find his rightful owner, all to no avail.

Sometime in April, I finally put dry food and water on the patio for him as he was crying incessantly and he was loud! Guess what, his crying went down dramatically.

All these weeks, he has been arriving on my patio every morning and evening for fresh food, though he never seems far away. Sometimes he stretches out on the cement and naps. He has come inside the apartment several times, when I have accidentally left the patio screen door open. (This would be fine except I am sure he has fleas, and he SPRAYS!) But as soon as he hears/sees me moving about, he exits quickly.

I have tried, tried, and tried to get close enough to stroke him, but he will not let anyone near him, including me. I actually wanted to get close enough to take that way too tight collar off, (which they will do today, when they neutered him) but it did not happen. Strangely enough, he gets along with The Sisters just fine; they posture once in awhile, but that is all it is.

The next step was to take the responsibility for seeing that he was neutered. We do not need any more unwanted kittens! Our local ‘feral’ cat population at the Famosa Slough is down dramatically from what it was a few years ago, and I did not want him contributing to the problem. I had planned to be able to ‘handle’ him by now, and take him in.

But as it worked out, The Feral Cat Coalition, (in the form of one of their wonderful volunteers, this one named ‘Mike’) loaned me a trap, coached me on how to trap him, came and got him, took him to the spay/neuter clinic, and bought him back and let him loose a day later.

It has been a week now, and he, the cat (no name) is recovering. This also has not been without worry or incident.

This poor, abandoned cat has been through enough. Why do people do this to animals? It is beyond me. I have never had an abandoned/stray cat take this long to 'warm up’; though I feel they are emotionally damaged by being abandoned.

And no, it's not my wheelchair he is skittish of, he won't let anyone near him. He does come to the patio door now to 'cry' for food, or to be talked too. I guess that is a ‘forward’ step.

Though an ‘outside’ cat, I think he’s decided that he lives here. His former owner must have been a fat old woman that smokes! One fine day he wandered by and found my apartment, smelled that smoke, and has not strayed far since.

Actually, I am not new to this, in the past 20 years; I have had two other stray males (cats, ha!) move in with me. They were easy compared to this guy, mainly because I could pet them, handle them, put advantage on, put them in a carrier, etc. Not this guy, and it makes it very difficult for me (physically, and emotionally) to help him.

For the time being, I have three cats! When I go get the mail, or empty the trash, The Sisters follow me, and he does too! I feel like the friggen pied piper; a fat old woman in a wheelchair followed by three cats, two with collars and bells! The neighbors think it is a riot.

I truly hope that California passes that law that pets have to be spayed or neutered unless the owner is a registered breeder.

Muscle Biopsy

Early yesterday morning (for me anyway), I had the Muscle Biopsy at Scripps Mercy Out Patient Surgery. (I also had the ‘repeat’ blood work my rheumy wanted.)

It was a major stress, as are all of these types of events, for me. Fasting, getting up early, wondering if the scheduled transportation is going to show up when they are scheduled, getting out of the apartment without letting the cats out, spending too much money on coffee, food while I’m waiting to come home, being in a non-smoking environment for hours, coming home alone, etc. All of this just wears me out, emotionally.

The procedure itself was a piece of cake, thanks to that wonderful drug, Versid. I came home with a huge pressure bandage on my upper right thigh, some mild pain in that leg, a page of ‘instructions’, and extreme relief that it was ‘over’.

I did ask the doc if I could see the ‘tissue’ that they had removed from me. (I always like to know these things, do not know why, though I have actually written a couple of poems on this theme.) He showed me a little plastic jar with what looked exactly like a tiny chuck of red, raw steak floating around in a clear liquid.

Today I am feeling ‘wiped out’ in every sense of the phrase. I am sore, my leg hurts (indeed, wound was oozing so much I had to change the dressing and call the doc), my mind is unfocused, I feel generally rotten, I am eating way to much, and not much is very important except getting through the day.

I will not get any results from this test for three weeks. It will probably take me that long to get over the stress, and the partial ‘flare’ the stress caused, of going through all of this, and it could all be for naught. Sigh...