Saturday, September 17, 2005, 18:58
Sophie Strikes Again
The other day when the printer wouldn't work while I was trying to print a document from my computer, I might have known that Sophie had something to do with it.
There I was, in my office, minding my own business and trying to print a document. The computer came back with an error message saying the printer was not ready. I had just turned on the printer, and it had warmed up, so I sure that it was ready, except that the computer didn't think so. Every now and again, I have this problem, and the way to correct it is to shut off the printer, close out the document and the programs and restart the computer.
After I had restarted the computer for the third time, I decided to check the chooser to make sure the printer was selected. Sometimes it gets "unselected" although I don't now how or why. I selected the correct printer, but this time, when I tried to print the document, I got a message that the computer could not find the printer.
"What do you mean, you can't find the printer," I said. "It's sitting right there on the desk, in plain sight. It has not sprouted legs and walked off. See? It's right there."
No amount of talking to the computer could convince it, however, that the printer was right there beside it.
It was at that point I decided to wait for Randy to come home from work.
As soon as Randy arrived home about an hour later, I told him about my printer problem, and within a minute of going into my office, he came back out and said the problem was solved.
"The hub was unplugged," he said.
"The hub was unplugged? How did the hub get unplugged—SOPHIE!" I said.
Of course, at the mere mention of her name, the little gray kitten came trotting into the office. Sophie knows her name quite well, and even if I'm just telling Randy that "Sophie did this or Sophie did that," she will come to see why I am calling her.
"You were behind the computer again, weren't you, Sophie," I said.
Sophie loves to explore behind the computer. She gets up on my desk and goes behind the computer just to see what she can find. And on one of those trips, she apparently unplugged the hub.
Sophie has now also grown big enough so she can jump up on the chair by the table in my office where I keep the kitty food (so my Shetland Sheepdog, Pixie, doesn't eat it) and get up on the table and help herself to kitty food.
Unfortunately, it's Science Diet Senior she's eating, and one day I decided to call the vet to ask if eating Science Diet Senior (much less protein than kitten chow) would hurt her physical development. She does get kitten chow at night, when we put her in her cubbyhole under the coat closet, but during the day, she often eats some of the big kitties' food.
"No, it won't hurt her," the vet said. "She just won't grow as big as she might have otherwise."
"All right," I said.
"And besides," he said, "she's just lucky to be alive, so don't worry about it."
"Yes, she *is* lucky to be alive," I said.
"I didn't tell you this at the time, but when you brought her in, I was sure she wouldn't make it," he said.
"I didn't think she'd make it, either," I said.
"I would have bet $100 she wouldn't make it," he said.
"I would have been willing to bet money, too," I said.
Later on, I told Randy what the vet had said.
"Well, I'm going to have collect our $100, then," Randy said.
"Why is that?" I asked.
"So we can start a college fund for Sophie," he said.
College? Oh-boy. I'm not sure I would ever be ready for Sophie to go off to college.
On the other hand, if she went to college, just think of it. I would have lots of blog material. Not to mention book material. I'd make millions -- "The Cat Who Went to College."
Nightshade Update -- the pain medication and cortisone are helping. Nightshade is now feeling well enough to eat! She's still spending much of her time napping in the closet, but last night, for the first time in a week, she was able to get up on the kitty food table to eat some dry food. Randy had already gone to bed and was sound asleep when I saw Nightshade on the table. I thought about writing a note for him but then decided not to. I wanted it to be a big surprise for him in the morning, when he was reading the news online on the computer in my office and saw Nightshade get up on the table. It *was* a big surprise for him, too. "She jumped up there just like she always does," he said. "She even jumped up there one time just to say, 'look what I can do.'"
I'm hoping that Nightshade is now over the worst of her hip injury, although time will tell if we need to repeat the pain medication and maybe the cortisone later on.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, September 16, 2005, 07:01
Nightshade
I don't know why this week has seemed so crazy, but it has. Part of it is that one of our kitties is sick. Well, she's not really sick, I guess. She's injured. Her name is Nightshade, and she was one of the kittens I acquired 13 years ago on June 8 when she was only a couple of hours old, after her mother was killed.
I have spent quite a bit of time this week trying to get Nightshade to eat. I have also spent quite a bit of time observing her behavior. I couldn't very well take her into the vet clinic and say, "there's something wrong with her." I had to be able to give them more to go on than that.
By Thursday, she wasn't doing any better, and so I made an appointment for her at the vet clinic.
Poor Nightshade. She got sick in the kitty carrier on the way into town. Good thing I had an extra towel in the truck that I could put in the kitty carrier. But unlike other cats I have taken to the vet, Nightshade never said a word all the way to the town and all the way back. Usually cats will meow and carry on to varying degrees when they have to ride in a vehicle.
As it turned out, Nightshade has injured her right hip. I knew she was having trouble getting around, but I wasn't sure what the source of the problem was. She's been in so much pain, and is still in so much pain, that she doesn't feel like eating. The vet gave her a shot of pain medication and a shot of cortisone for the inflammation. He also gave me some Amoxicillan. She has to take the antibiotic twice a day (fortunately it's a liquid that I can put in a syringe and squirt in her mouth). The antibiotic is a precaution. The vet wanted to make sure that if the joint was involved, she wouldn't get an infection in the joint.
I also got a tube of Nutra-Cal to try to get some calories into her. That was fun. Nutra-Cal has a lot of oil in it, so it's best to knead the tube for a while to get the oil worked back into it. Unfortunately, the Nutra-Cal still had lots of loose oil -- plus the tube split open on the bottom and squirted Nutra-Cal all over the front of my shirt. It's dark brown and very sticky. My shirt may never be the same again.
The label says it is "a highly palatable" nutritional supplement. Nightshade doesn't like the Nutra-Cal. She acts like I am trying to poison her.
Highly palatable? How do they know? Who taste tests this stuff, anyway? Obviously, no one bothered to ask Nightshade if it was highly palatable before they put that information on the label.
By the time I'm done with the antibiotic and the Nutra-Cal, Nightshade probably won't like me much anymore. And if that's the case, I hope she *runs* away from me when she sees me. I would love to see her run. Running away from me would be much better than being huddled in the closet, unable to eat and unable to get comfortable.
LeAnn R. Ralph