Napping might help heart!

Woohooo!!!!!!! According to this article, a study has shown that a 30 minute nap a couple of times a week might reduce the risk of fatal heart problems.

Sure, I'm not a stressed out male in my 50's (which is the main group that have issues), but I have a dodgy heart, so I think this is a perfectly good reason for me to nap on a regular basis!

I love my afternoon naps, but we're so busy these days on weekends I haven't had a chance to nap in aaaaaages. At work though, there's massive beanbags which are so comfy, so maybe I'll have to start having lunch time naps... Someone else in the section actually did tell me recently that beanbag naps during the day were perfectly acceptable :)

What's one more cat?

I got guilted into fostering Smudge when I was taking Lily in for her shots one day. Kittens that come in to the shelter are supposed to be over a certain weight for us to take them, and if whoever brought them in can't take them back and look after them themselves, they get euthanised.

I know it sounds horrible, but if they're too small, they generally can't eat on their own, and require someone to bottle feed them every 4 hours, and stimulate their genitals and backside to make them go to the toilet, and they need to find people willing to do this and take the kitten in immediately because the shelter staff don't have time to do all that for every teeny, weeny kitten all day, and frankly it's not fair on the kitten.

Well, Smudge was under the recommended weight, but she was too cute, they could tell she was a fighter, and she was eating and using a litter tray on her own. So they decided to give her a chance - providing they found a foster home straight away. In comes me to get Lily's shots... So the animal attendant saw me and shepherded me into the back room before I knew what was going on and plopped this into my hands, and told me she'd probably have to be euthanised if I couldn't take her. Who can say no to that????



She weighed about 350 grams, and was such a sweetheart. This tiny little thing melted our hearts. A kitten generally gains 4 ounces (115g) a week, and this little thing lost an ounce in the week, and was also dehydrated. The vets said she may not make it, and she may have a genetic problem causing her not to gain weight.

She loved her food though:



And always needed a bath after she ate! So we had hope. I changed her food to a mush I made up with Pedialyte (human children's electrolyte replacement), Gerber baby food, top quality kitten wet and dry food, high calorie supplement for cats, and some extra water, made batches of it, and warmed up a couple of spoonfuls in the microwave 3 times a day and gave her that (as well as leaving "baby kitten" dry food out for her). With her new mush, she started gaining weight finally, and kept nice and hydrated, and looked so much brighter for it.

We could tell she had eye problems, and were constantly cleaning gunk out of her eyes. So I wasn't tempted to keep her though, I found her a permanent home. But because of her eye problems, she couldn't be put up for adoption until her eyes were fixed. Her new mum didn't want to keep waiting, and was also having some health problems with her own cat, so decided it probably wasn't the time to adopt another cat anyway.

By this time we were completely in love with her. She got on really well with our other cats - her and Lily in particular are such good buddies.



As well as that, she needed surgery to fix her eyes and we weren't sure if the shelter would want us to keep fostering her for 2-3 more months while we waited for her to be big enough for surgery. We weren't sure if they'd put her up for adoption and expect a future adopter to pay themselves for eye surgery - and we were pretty sure nobody would want to adopt a kitten with eye problems!

And Smudge knew who she had to convince if she wanted to stay...





She absolutely adores Andrew. She always sleeps on the bed with us, and whenever we're awake, she's on his chest, as close to as his face as she can possibly be, purring up a storm, nuzzling him. She'll occasionally come and sit on me, but usually it's to just chew my fingers! When Andrew was away in Spain, she barely even came near the bed at night time - she preferred to sleep downstairs on her own!

Anyway, so the shelter set up an appointment with an animal eye doctor, and they agreed to do the surgery free of charge, and the shelter would just pay for the anaesthesia fees. So Smudge has eyelid agenesis - her upper eyelid on one eye is missing, and the other upper eyelid is mostly missing. So the fur around her eyes is touching her eyeballs. She also has small eyeballs, which doesn't help.

She just had her cryosurgery last week to remove the fur from around her eyes and she looks sooooo much better for it. She can open her eyes a lot more wide now, and she also seems to be having a lot more fun playing, so I imagine it's always been very uncomfortable for her, and now she's a lot more comfortable - her eyes hurt less, and the cloudiness she had in her eyes is clearing, so she can probably see better now as well.

This is Smudge before the surgery:



And after!!



You can see over the photos how she's grown into a tiny little sickly thing, to a big, healthy kitten. Her coat is silky soft, she has a big, fluffy tail, she absolutely adores people, she's playful, and she's cuddly. And to have raised her from a 3 week old kitten weighing 350 g, and have her grow into a beautiful kitty now weighing nearly 3kg, there's just no way we can give her up!

We also officially adopted her last Thursday - what's one more cat? :)

And what does she think of the other 2 cats? I think they like each other!

Only in California...

Only in California can you go to the dentist and also get a free paraffin hand treatment and lavender heat pack for your shoulders while getting treated. :) Apparently when I go back for my next appointment which will be a longish appointment, I can take in a DVD and watch that while they're doing the full teeth clean. How exciting :D

RIP Bonnie and Coco

When I was 10 we moved across town and our "reward" for moving and leaving our friends was that we could get a nice kitty. We'd had a cat where we were living who was a horrid stray who hated people and never came near us anyway...

So mum was working with the prison services, and one of the farm cats had kittens, and someone tried to drown them all. The only survivor was a little 2/3 week old tabby. So mum brought him home and we had to feed the little guy with an eye dropper because he still wasn't weaned. We thought he was a little girl so named her Bonnie. Then he grew boy bits... Oops

While he was still young, we got a second kitty - Coco. A beautiful black Oriental Siamese. She was such a pretty girl, and the kitties became fast friends.

Bonnie was a ratbag. He was always getting into trouble - he'd get into fights with other cats, and we got to know our local vet very well, and got to know how to clean cysts very well He got hit by a car when he was young and we found him lying in the gutter! Unbelieveably he was still alive. We got him to the vet and his top jaw was completely split in two down the middle. It had to be wired shut, and when he came home we had to syringe feed him while he healed.

When he was 10, he had a lump on his leg, which continued to grow. We got it cut out, but it grew back worse and was wrapped around the nerves and muscle in his leg, so it was decided his leg had to be amputated. They said even though he was older, he should deal with it fine.

And he did. We got him home, and he hopped out of his cage and around the house with no problems

Coco was always my cat. She would always cuddle me and follow me around. She was such a sweet cat, and even after I'd moved out, she always remember me when I visited home, and would meow and meow at me untilI cuddled her

We went back to Australia in November/December and Coco had gotten incredibly grey, and Bonnie was having trouble hopping around - I could tell he wasn't comfortable and it would be the last time I saw them. I gave them lots of attention, and took heaps of photos, but I had no idea they'd go so soon.

Mum said Bonnie was getting worse, and was having issues moving around, was meowing in pain regularly, and she though he was beginning to get kitty senility as well - he often seemed confused.

She finally decided the best thing for him was to have him put down. She said it was incredibly heartbreaking. He was just staring up at her at the vets while she was talking to the vet and the vet was getting prepared.

Then after that Coco was just inconsolable. She's had Bonnie by her side for 16 years and it was too much for her. She was just pacing the house constantly fretting and meowing and wouldn't settle. Mum would come home after work and coming through the front gates of her complex - a good couple of hundred metres from her unit and out of sight from it, she could hear Coco yowling and she knew Coco had just been stressing all day.

So she made the hard decision to have her put to sleep as well.

Both kitties lived good, long lives, being 17 and 16, and were able to pass away knowing they were loved.

RIP kitties.

Bonnie:


Coco:

Ooh I'm relatively unique!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 69 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

69 dude!!!!!!

Hmmm I don't know how correct this thing is....

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with the name Angelina Jolie in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

There's a random famous person button. And for Angelina Jolie it says the above... So she'a a famous American, but nobody in the US has her name? Not even her??? :)

99 luftballons

We went to Tanya's birthday party last night which was red themed. Tanya and I went beforehand and got 99 red balloons (as per the song!). The party store is not far from Tanya's house, so Andrew dropped us there, took a few pics, and Tanya and I walked down the very busy El Camino Real with our balloons.



The party was very red themed, and everyone there managed to wear at least something red, so the place looked very cool!





We took a couple of helium balloons home - we figured the cats would have fun playing with them. We tied a toy mousey to the end of a balloon, attached the other balloon as well to give the mousey more buoyancy, and there we had it. THE best cat toy ever. All three cats had a great time chasing the floating mouse around the house. Even after we went to bed we could hear the sound of balloons bouncing around the ceiling :) Needless to say, not one cat disturbed us all night, not one cat slept with us, and this morning when I went to find them, they were all downstairs. Smudge and Stumpy ran towards me when they heard me, and Lily was sitting under the balloons, so I guess they were still playing with the balloons!

I took video of it with the digital camera if you want a giggle. We had to put a music track to it, as all you could hear otherwise was Andrew and I giggling in the background... :)

PowerBook G4 power supply SUCKS

My first power supply got very sucky after not too long when the prong that plugs into the laptop just wouldn't plug in properly and was loose and wouldn't charge properly.

So we moved to the US and got a new US power supply, and that fine. It's still loose, and I have to spin it around until it gets to a point where it actully charges. Then tonight it stopped charging and it looks it's been chewed by some pussy cats! It's a very flimsy cable, and given how frustrated I've been with the lack of charging it probably wouldn't have been too long before I replaced it anyway.

So I looked online for a replacement and it costs $79 and it takes 3-4 weeks to ship!!!! WTF???? How ridiculous is that??? I had a look at the reviews at the Apple website, and there's over 1300 reviews, with an average rating of 1.5 out of 5 stars. All the reviews complain about how flimsy and useless it is and how expenseive the replacements are.

I love my Mac but that's just stoopid!