Talk about a three ring circus.
Yesterday was an epic vet visit. And the first time we've taken the entire horde into the vet at the same time.
Hubby had kitty crate stuffing duty (which he managed unscathed in spite of Nemo's admirable attempts to the alternative), while I headed home early from work. I ended up stopping to try to help with the mega brush fires that started on Stony Point road yesterday when I hit the area (it was NOT my car that started them thank you very much). I left the area when I saw the first firefighter actually pull a hose off the truck to start stopping this thing, which still ended up burning through 75 acres of hay and pasture to 101. And yeah I LOVED (not) that calling 911 from my cell got a busy signal for 3 minutes till I called work and asked a friend to look up the number for dispatch for Petaluma Fire.
I got home and hubby had all 7 animals in the car (OMG the cats were pissed and very vocal about it). I followed him to the vet since I had another appt right after. Dogs in first. Car parked in shade with AC going full blast while we had the dogs inside.
Doggies up to bat with Scrat the Brat leading the pack. He's lost another pound, but the vet says that is okay as he looks good. One shot and he's done.
Oscar the Dog up next. He's holding steady at 23+ pounds. His heart murmurs (both sides) are getting louder (4 on a scale of 1 to 6), so we need to keep an eye on him. One shot and he's done.
Cliff the Mutt is up next. He gets a full exam because we haven't had to bring him in for anything yet this year (thank you!). He has a heart murmur now on both sides, 2 on the left and 1 on the right on the 1 to 6 loudness scale. He and Oscar are both 12 this year and therefore 5 years into being senior mutts. So we got information on canine heart disease. Things to look out for (coughing bad, very bad, means possible pushed back blood in lungs). And he's holding steady at 13 pounds.
Dogs out to the Air conditioned car and vocal kitty chorus gets brought it.
The kitty queue is lead by Mr. I'm Pissed and the ENTIRE World Needs to Know this NOW, aka Nemo. 3 shots, 1 weighing (9 pounds the tubbo) and heart and teeth check later he's done and STILL pissed and stuffed back in his carry bag.
Now it's time for Rasta, 'Become the Pancake - She cannot see me if I flatten myself into the table' cat. 13 pounds (OMG he is SO going on a diet), three shots, two potty accidents and heart check later he's HAPPY to be back in his bag. Impersonating a pancake is tough work for 13 pounds of cat.
Those two get taken back out while the next two are fielded.
Kaji Cutie (more like Kaji, I will shred you, kitty) is up. She needs dental work done. She's up to 9 pounds from 7 (so diet there too). Three shots later and she's ready to go.
Smokey was left for last for a reason. He's our current medical problem child and he went downhill Sunday so I was grateful for today's appt.
He's down to 5 pounds, from an already too light 7. Severely dehydrated in spite of multiple water locations around the property for him. The heat and his bad kidneys are working against him. They took blood and urine and gave him fluids. He needs to get fluids subcutaneously, so we have a saline kit for him.
Bottom line, Smokey Cat needs to become an indoor cat. The heat is too much for him. He has an infection and his kidneys are failing which mean continuous fluids and antibiotics in perpetuity. He should get wet food now in order to help him get more fluids. Now we need to make that happen without major cat fights or spraying or litter box problems. This means that Smokey is probably getting his own room and the dogs are getting moved to a different room or the main house proper.
We will make it work. He's come a long way with us and we will see him to the end and take the best care we can of him.
Welcome to the indoor life Smokey Cat.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Cosmology Corner: Feel the Power of the Dark Side
Imagine you are lying on your back at the end of a dock at 2 am in the Tahitian islands in the South Pacific. Your feet are dangling in the warm water. There is no light pollution and not a cloud in the sky.
There is so much to see. You pick out the Centaur, the Southern Cross, and the Coal Sack. The Milky Way is a bright band of light across the sky.
Even if you are not an astronomy buff, you cannot help but be astounded by the wonders of the night sky above you.
The universe as we know it contains hundreds of billions of galaxies, innumerable nebulae, and a number of stars and other objects beyond our ability to count in one lifetime, let alone a thousand lifetimes.
What if I told you that everything that we can see up there is only 4% of everything in the universe? As incredible as that statement may be, I would not be wrong in stating this.
So what is the rest of it? Think about it. That is a whole lot of nothing compared to a little bit of something
It is currently thought that Dark Matter makes up about 22% and Dark Energy is the remaining 74%. Given what the night sky looks like under ideal viewing conditions, that is a whole lot of darkness that is the rest of that great expanse.
Considering that 96% of the universe is not visible at any wavelength, how do we know anything about it?
Dark Matter was first inferred by Fritz Zwicky in 1933. By studying the rotational curves of galaxies considered to be like our own Milky Way, he deduced that if there were not some form of invisible matter, all the stars towards the outer edges of the galaxies should be shooting off into space given their observed rotational speed. Something had to be holding all of those visible objects to their galactic plane.
Over the past 77 years more and more evidence towards the existence of dark matter has been found.
For instance, from the imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope we have another strong indicator for the presence of dark matter: Gravitational Lensing. This was observed when the HST imaged the galactic cluster Abell 2029. The mass of this galactic cluster and its associated dark matter, make it possible to ‘see’ a galaxy that is directly behind the cluster. This is because the mass of the cluster bends the light of the hidden galaxy around it. When imaged, the HST picked up the lensing arcs, and it was determined that the cluster had to contain approximately 10^14 Suns worth of dark matter to make the light from the galaxy lens in that manner.
The gentleman for whom the HST was named, Edwin Hubble, came up with what is known as Hubble’s Law, which can be used to determine how fast an object (usually a galaxy) is moving away from us. Hubble’s Law, and observations made by his namesake, shows us that the universe is expanding. This is one of the single greatest points of evidence to support the Big Bang Theory.
However, recent observations and other experiments have given us an anomaly. Evidence has arisen that shows that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
Dark Energy is the label given by scientists to the energy that has to exist to explain this acceleration. There is some form of energy that scientists have not yet fully quantified that is making the universe expand faster with each passing moment.
Given the rate of accelerating expansion and other observations, that energy has to make up approximately 74% of the universe. Exactly what is it and how it behaves is the subject of much speculation.
Even with everything known to date about the state of the universe and its contents, we still have a lot to learn about its composition and its future.
But we do know that darkness will lead the way.
------------------------------
If I'm lucky this will show up in the next issue of Focus, the Valley of the Moon Observatory Association's newsletter.
There is so much to see. You pick out the Centaur, the Southern Cross, and the Coal Sack. The Milky Way is a bright band of light across the sky.
Even if you are not an astronomy buff, you cannot help but be astounded by the wonders of the night sky above you.
The universe as we know it contains hundreds of billions of galaxies, innumerable nebulae, and a number of stars and other objects beyond our ability to count in one lifetime, let alone a thousand lifetimes.
What if I told you that everything that we can see up there is only 4% of everything in the universe? As incredible as that statement may be, I would not be wrong in stating this.
So what is the rest of it? Think about it. That is a whole lot of nothing compared to a little bit of something
It is currently thought that Dark Matter makes up about 22% and Dark Energy is the remaining 74%. Given what the night sky looks like under ideal viewing conditions, that is a whole lot of darkness that is the rest of that great expanse.
Considering that 96% of the universe is not visible at any wavelength, how do we know anything about it?
Dark Matter was first inferred by Fritz Zwicky in 1933. By studying the rotational curves of galaxies considered to be like our own Milky Way, he deduced that if there were not some form of invisible matter, all the stars towards the outer edges of the galaxies should be shooting off into space given their observed rotational speed. Something had to be holding all of those visible objects to their galactic plane.
Over the past 77 years more and more evidence towards the existence of dark matter has been found.
For instance, from the imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope we have another strong indicator for the presence of dark matter: Gravitational Lensing. This was observed when the HST imaged the galactic cluster Abell 2029. The mass of this galactic cluster and its associated dark matter, make it possible to ‘see’ a galaxy that is directly behind the cluster. This is because the mass of the cluster bends the light of the hidden galaxy around it. When imaged, the HST picked up the lensing arcs, and it was determined that the cluster had to contain approximately 10^14 Suns worth of dark matter to make the light from the galaxy lens in that manner.
The gentleman for whom the HST was named, Edwin Hubble, came up with what is known as Hubble’s Law, which can be used to determine how fast an object (usually a galaxy) is moving away from us. Hubble’s Law, and observations made by his namesake, shows us that the universe is expanding. This is one of the single greatest points of evidence to support the Big Bang Theory.
However, recent observations and other experiments have given us an anomaly. Evidence has arisen that shows that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
Dark Energy is the label given by scientists to the energy that has to exist to explain this acceleration. There is some form of energy that scientists have not yet fully quantified that is making the universe expand faster with each passing moment.
Given the rate of accelerating expansion and other observations, that energy has to make up approximately 74% of the universe. Exactly what is it and how it behaves is the subject of much speculation.
Even with everything known to date about the state of the universe and its contents, we still have a lot to learn about its composition and its future.
But we do know that darkness will lead the way.
------------------------------
If I'm lucky this will show up in the next issue of Focus, the Valley of the Moon Observatory Association's newsletter.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Learning to Stand
It's blog tour book review time in Tiny Tyrant land.
****************************************
Alex the Fey is back again in Claudia Hall Christian's follow up to 'The Fey.'
'Learning to Stand' finds our Alex doing just that - trying to get back on her feet after the devastation and destruction of the events of the last novel turn our heroine into a shell of her former self.
Alex is set to lead a new team to take the place of the team she lost. At the same time, she is struggling to keep herself alive since there is still a contract out on her.
It appears as though the confidence and strength that made up our heroine in 'The Fey' has deserted her, while she struggles to
- come to terms with her new physical limitations
- the lose of the her original team and the memories surrounding that
- her 'seeming' lack of ability to get her new team to work as one cohesive unit
- personal loss for her and her husband John
With the help of Jesse, Raz, White Boy, The Jakker, John, Max and more family and friends, Alex begins to see that while the past events that lead to this stage of her life have knock her down and beat the hell out of her, she is not down for the count.
She sees that our past shapes our future and she is strong enough to do what needs to be done to make sure she stays on her feet this time around.
****************************************
Claudia is a dear friend. I love her books. This was an excellent follow up to 'The Fey'. You get to see that Alex is human like the rest of, even if she is still a rather exceptional human being.
I highly recommend it as well as the rest of Claudia's work. If you would like to read more fiction by Claudia, check her out at Denver Cereal.
If you would like to purchase some of her work, use the discount code "BLOGTOUR" on checkout at any of the following links:
This discount is only available at the above sites.
If you have any questions for CHC, leave them in the comments.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
No Longer a Teen
20 years old.
It is a milestone.
I cannot believe it has been that long.
From what contact I have had in the past week, you are...
amazing
kind
hyper
happy
generous
gregarious
smart
Thank you for being willing to let me into your life at this time.
Happy Happy Birthday. Hope it is a great one.
It is a milestone.
I cannot believe it has been that long.
From what contact I have had in the past week, you are...
amazing
kind
hyper
happy
generous
gregarious
smart
Thank you for being willing to let me into your life at this time.
Happy Happy Birthday. Hope it is a great one.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Someone New Might Stop By
I received some news today I didn't expect to receive for a long time.
It's private. It's exciting. It's scary.
But with the news there might be someone new stopping by the blog and I just want to say...
Hi.
Welcome.
Hope you don't think I'm too crazy.
I'm here if you have questions, and I'll answer what I can.
I'll let you go first.
I've been where you are and I know how big a step this is.
Your friend from afar.
It's private. It's exciting. It's scary.
But with the news there might be someone new stopping by the blog and I just want to say...
Hi.
Welcome.
Hope you don't think I'm too crazy.
I'm here if you have questions, and I'll answer what I can.
I'll let you go first.
I've been where you are and I know how big a step this is.
Your friend from afar.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Why?
Today is an anniversary. It is hard to believe that my brother would have been 40 this year.
It has been 23 years since he passed by his own hand.
Most of us know, though hopefully not all first hand because I wouldn't wish this on any one, that while the departed is probably in a happier place, those left behind are left with one main question:
Why?
Robbie and I had a huge fight two days before his death. As with most sibling fights, it ended with me telling him to drop dead. Knowing what I know now probably would not have stopped those words from coming out of my mouth. We were both 16 (I'm 3 months older) and we drove each other up the wall. It was not the first time I told him that, and he certainly said it to me enough times.
Yes, I know my brother did not choose to end his life because I told him to do so.
Are you kidding me? Robbie didn't listen to many people and definitely not to me. If he did, he'd have probably done so the previous summer before I deliberately went to stay with a cousin so we would not kill each other. I took myself out of the equation of a long summer of sibling fights to try to maintain a relationship with my brother that did not involve trying to strangle one another on a regular basis.
As Slugbo and I dive deeper into the adoption and foster abyss, we are seeing how many 'problems' can occur from attachment issues. Even from the youngest ages.
Our family was not Robbie's first placement. He had been adopted before. The couple that adopted him got divorced and put him back into the system (do NOT even get me started on why they were ever approved to adopt in the first place). You cannot tell me that a 2 year old doesn't have some unresolved issue surrounding that.
Can we blame those people? Sure. Would we be right? Doubtful. I'd still like to find them some day and slap the tar out of them for putting a 2 year old through that.
There were any number of factors that were involved in the development of my brother's psyche. And none of us that were close to him ever saw that anything was so wrong that he would choose that way out. At least I did not see this coming. I cannot speak for the rest of my family members and since they haven't discussed anything about this since it happened and it serves no purpose now, what's the point?
I will always wonder what he'd be like if he were still around. The remaining family is not close to this day, though I try to keep in touch. His departure could be a factor. It could just be the way we are as a family.
That said, he will always be missed.
I'll leave you all with this song today.
Rascal Flatt's
The part of it that strikes home the most is
'Oh, but I do have one burning question
Who told you life wasn't worth the fight?
They were wrong, they lied, and now you're gone, and we cried'
Who told you life wasn't worth the fight?
They were wrong, they lied, and now you're gone, and we cried'
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Remembering a Friend
I moved to California from Alabama almost exactly 14 years ago.
When I still lived there, I did a lot more cross stitch then I do these days. And part of that hobby was hanging out on the newsgroup, r.c.t.n. rec.crafts.textiles.needlepoint
When we found out that my first husband (fiance at the time) was taking a job here, I immediately hit rctn and asked if anyone was in the area, could tell me anything about it, what could we expect, etc?
Elaine responded. I knew her some already because we also have hearing loss in common. Hers due to illness, mine due to no known cause.
In the middle of a whole mess of getting the fiance moved, finishing up a semester of school, working part time, packing up our house and moving back in with my parents till I could finish my co-op commitment, and getting the dog and cat shipped to to California, Elaine offered advice where she could.
I flew out there for Christmas of 95 and she invited us to her home. Two people she only knew on the internet. She was that kind of person.
We kept in touch while I went home and got approved to start at SSU in the fall. She was excited for me when I got my internship at HP. I was excited to hear about her cochlear implant.
I got into town officially on May 9, 1996 after a very long cross country drive. The following week Elaine kidnapped me and made sure I knew where all the good craft stores were. She took me to lunch for Mongolian BBQ. She made me feel welcome.
4 months later, she and friend back in Alabama, Karin, conspired to make sure my birthday didn't pass by unnoticed. The fiance was working crazy hours and was never really home much. I was so grateful because I didn't know a soul and had no other friends here and classes hadn't started yet and I didn't socialize with anyone from work because the fiance worked there too.
Over the next couple of years we saw each other regularly. We had cross stitch night with friends at my house a few times a year. She and I went to a CATS convention in Sacramento one year (she's a great lady but I never got in a car with her again after that trip - a long story for another time).
I finished my second degree. Got a real job. Got married. Got absorbed with that and while Elaine and I still kept in touch via email, we didn't see each other much again until I showed up at a guild knit night 3 years ago at the local Borders.
We caught up. Her CCI dog was wonderful. Her daughter was all grown up. Elaine knit some beautiful lace. So we shared a love of knitting as well.
We never fully hooked up again. We only saw each other on the occasionally knit night that I made it to during the week.
Elaine passed away on April 15th. She was only 56. I guess the good do die young, because they didn't come any better than her.
I am forever grateful that she made this hick's transition to northern California much smoother and much more pleasant than it had any right to be.
When I still lived there, I did a lot more cross stitch then I do these days. And part of that hobby was hanging out on the newsgroup, r.c.t.n. rec.crafts.textiles.needlepoint
When we found out that my first husband (fiance at the time) was taking a job here, I immediately hit rctn and asked if anyone was in the area, could tell me anything about it, what could we expect, etc?
Elaine responded. I knew her some already because we also have hearing loss in common. Hers due to illness, mine due to no known cause.
In the middle of a whole mess of getting the fiance moved, finishing up a semester of school, working part time, packing up our house and moving back in with my parents till I could finish my co-op commitment, and getting the dog and cat shipped to to California, Elaine offered advice where she could.
I flew out there for Christmas of 95 and she invited us to her home. Two people she only knew on the internet. She was that kind of person.
We kept in touch while I went home and got approved to start at SSU in the fall. She was excited for me when I got my internship at HP. I was excited to hear about her cochlear implant.
I got into town officially on May 9, 1996 after a very long cross country drive. The following week Elaine kidnapped me and made sure I knew where all the good craft stores were. She took me to lunch for Mongolian BBQ. She made me feel welcome.
4 months later, she and friend back in Alabama, Karin, conspired to make sure my birthday didn't pass by unnoticed. The fiance was working crazy hours and was never really home much. I was so grateful because I didn't know a soul and had no other friends here and classes hadn't started yet and I didn't socialize with anyone from work because the fiance worked there too.
Over the next couple of years we saw each other regularly. We had cross stitch night with friends at my house a few times a year. She and I went to a CATS convention in Sacramento one year (she's a great lady but I never got in a car with her again after that trip - a long story for another time).
I finished my second degree. Got a real job. Got married. Got absorbed with that and while Elaine and I still kept in touch via email, we didn't see each other much again until I showed up at a guild knit night 3 years ago at the local Borders.
We caught up. Her CCI dog was wonderful. Her daughter was all grown up. Elaine knit some beautiful lace. So we shared a love of knitting as well.
We never fully hooked up again. We only saw each other on the occasionally knit night that I made it to during the week.
Elaine passed away on April 15th. She was only 56. I guess the good do die young, because they didn't come any better than her.
I am forever grateful that she made this hick's transition to northern California much smoother and much more pleasant than it had any right to be.
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