Corner of Bourbon & Division

Today has been A Day, and I still have to go to work in about five hours. *falls over* 

I cleaned out all the quail enclosures today, as I had been doing only very basic maintenance since getting Covid, and they were pretty gross. The quails deserve a nice clean environment to live in, after all. I also noticed that the quarantine box in which I was keeping my lone male was disintegrating because of the water spilling out of his water dish. The cardboard had softened without my noticing before, and last night I saw that the box was sagging to one side, and the mesh over the "window" in the front was gaping badly.

So today I cut a hole in a new box, lined it with duct tape and plastic, and cut a new window in it so the poor birb isn't just completely in the dark. I couldn't leave him in the old box while I transferred the mesh over, however, so I decided to stick him in for a couple of minutes with the other quail. How bad could it be? I thought. He'll only be in there long enough for me to attach the mesh to the new box. HAH. No sooner had his feet touched the pine chips on the floor of the enclosure, he immediately sprang onto the nearest female, grabbed a bunch of feathers at the base of her head and swung himself onto her back like a cowboy at a rodeo. He was VERY rough with her, and she bucked him off, so he immediately did the same thing to the next closest female. A third female then flew at him and started pecking at him pretty viciously, so I reached in and pulled him out and put him in a bucket while I worked.

Good Lord and butter!

At least now I know that he is, in fact, the problem bird in the bunch. The other male is very gentle with the ladies: all their feathers are growing back, they're all laying consistently every day, and they all like to hang out and tweedle softly together, whereas the first male has been screaming intermittently for the past couple of days. So once I am done with my night shifts he will be turned into dinner. Only gentleman birbs get to hang out with my ladies! Everyone else gets to be eaten.

I then sent my resume to the recruiter who'd asked for it, and then it was time to gather all the pets to take them to the vet for their annual shots. I want to say it went smoothly, but that would be a lie. First off, Octavia decided to hide in the walls and refused to come out. I was able to get Juno in her carrier, and then the dogs freaked the fuck out, because CAAAAAAAAT! I wrangled all three into KK's car and got them to the vet, figuring I would just reschedule Octavia for another day.

Once at the vet, the dogs got their shots, and KK messaged me to tell me that Octavia had graced the living room with her presence. I asked her to put Octavia in her kennel and arranged to leave Juno at the vet's while I drove the dogs home and picked up my truant cat. When I got back, the vet had some very bad news for me: namely, that Juno had lost a lot of weight and that it was very likely due to her teeth rotting in her head. One canine was so loose they were able to just yank it out then and there with no issue, and her other canine is super loose as well. When the vet examined Octavia, he found a really similar problem. So both cats need dental surgery ASAP, and I booked them in for May 28th, which is TWO DAYS before we're meant to move. But honestly, they are in pain and not eating, and I don't want to wait any longer than I have to, especially since I don't know what the vet care situation is in Maxville. There is a veterinary clinic there (I used to take my pets there when I first moved to Ottawa) but I don't know if they're taking new patients, and immediate dental surgery might be a stretch even for them.

So for now we're switching them to wet food until after the surgery, and then we'll see if they can have kibble after that still or if they'll need to be on soft food for the rest of their lives.

I came home just in time to have a Zoom call with my parents, which I totally forgot about until they called me to ask where I was. OOPS. My parents, as usual, immediately told me I should euthanize the cats rather than spend money on surgery for them. My parents are delightful that way. Then my mother asked me how much this "joke" was going to cost me, and when I asked her what "joke" she meant, she listed the number of pets I have (two cats, two dogs). I understand that they are worried about my finances, but fucking hell, it would be nice if they eased up a little. It's not like I'm not going to deny veterinary care to my pets, and I will only give up my pets as a very last resort. 

Anyway, apart from that little unpleasantness, we had a nice, if brief chat. Now it's time for me to go get some dinner, and hopefully have a nap and a shower before work.

*falls over*

Today is Day 1 of taking only my prescribed blood pressure medication and none of the wacky supplements I've been trying in the desperate hopes that they will do something about my crushing levels of fatigue. I also didn't take any melatonin last night, which I started a while back as a way to encourage myself not to go to sleep stupidly late. I am still taking my iron supplement and Vitamin C in the evening (because low iron is not something to fuck around with), and a multivitamin in the morning, but that's it. I've cut out everything else, and there is an embarrassing amount of  it, quite frankly.

I did go to bed late, but still within acceptable parameters (around 23:30), especially given that I'm working evenings this week, so I'll actually be getting to bed after 01:00 until Saturday, since my shift ends at midnight. Back when I worked for Boomerang I really liked the evening shift, but it was 14:00 to 22:00 rather than 16:00 to 24:00, and I find that finishing at midnight really throws me off my game. However, this morning I had an appointment at 08:00 to get my car rust-proofed (past!Phnee thought this was a perfectly reasonable time to schedule things, curse her). I was pleasantly surprised at how little time it took, and a little unpleasantly surprised at the price, although I encountered that surprise many weeks ago when I was first researching rust-proofing. I also caught sight of two tiny rust spots starting on my car already, and I am deeply annoyed. I will have to contact Steve the Wonder Mechanic and arrange to have him do a hopefully itty-bitty cosmetic job come the spring. I doubt it will be like the nearly-two-month ordeal from October/November, because these two tiny spots have only just appeared and haven't been festering for, oh, six or seven years the way the previous one had been. I'm hoping it will just be a question of a bit of sanding and re-painting.

Peggy's 11:15 appointment to get her bum squished went just fine. Poor thing, she did have one impacted anal gland, and it's really quite painful to have it all cleaned out, but she was a trooper and got lots and lots of treats out of it. Our favourite vet tech is pregnant and will be going on maternity leave in a month, and we are going to miss her dearly while she's away, but we're very excited for her, as this is her first baby! I should make a note to get her a card before she leaves.

I managed to be even a little productive when I got home, which is kind of unusual for me. I cleared the kitchen sink, ran the dishwasher, and gathered up all the recycling to put in the bins outside. It's kind of depressing that this is what counts as "being productive" for me these days, but I will take even the smallest of wins these days. Then I packed up a lunch and a snack for work, crated the dogs (much to their dismay), and managed to get to work on time! Frankly, it's something of a miracle that everything got done and on time today, given my track record.

There is still no word about my composting worms. I am very disappointed. On the other hand, I wouldn't have had time to pick them up today, so I suppose that's okay. Tomorrow or even Wednesday is probably better, because I only have one commitment on those days outside of work. Thursday I theoretically only have one appointment too, but it's likely to take longer than the others, and Friday's M&C meeting could take an hour or it could take three, it kind of depends on a bunch of factors. Anyway, I guess we'll see. I will be following up by email tomorrow to see what's going on with the worms. Maybe they needed an extra business day to scoop the worms out of wherever they keep them, I don't know. Maybe they're growing a new batch of worms from scratch. ;)

KK asked me yesterday if it was still okay to call worms "hermaphrodites," since that word is considered insulting by the intersex community, and while the question was hilarious I am happy she thought about it, because I had honestly not given it any thought at all. We talked about it and landed on the conclusion that it was probably fine because worms aren't intersex the way people are, they truly do have the full sexual characteristics of each sex and are capable of reproduction both ways. But yeah, discussing the appropriate way to gender worms was not on my Bingo card for this weekend!

In the meantime, I took a few days "off" listening to audiobooks, and am back in the saddle today. What's a tiny bit frustrating is that there don't appear to be available copies of the books I'd like to listen to at my local library. As in, they don't have any copies, not that they've all been checked out. So if I want to listen to them, I think I may be forced to acquire them through Audible. BLECH. If you all have any suggestions for audiobook resources that aren't Audible/Amazon, I am all ears! Pun fully intended.

I think that's it for today. I'm going to settle in for my evening shift with my latest audiobook and hope things go smoothly.

It's my birthday!

Capricornucopia isn't until the end of the month, due to scheduling conflicts. I feel oddly un-birthdayish this year, in the same way I felt un-Christmasish as well. I think it was mainly the fact that there was no snow going into the holidays. I usually ride the holiday high right into my birthday, and that didn't happen this year.

On the plus side, I'm 37 years old today! It feels a little weird. Somehow, I never really pictured myself past the age of 35, so I'm now in that grey-foggy area of my life that I never thought about, and I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm currently torn between two courses of action, so that's not helping. I think once I've made a decision about it all, things will settle down. Overall, I'm really enjoying this period of my life, so no complaints.

I know I said something about resolutions in a previous post, and I may try to post those later today, if there's time. I have to take Sergent and Octavia to the vet (her for shots, him for bloodwork and such), and I'd like to take myself to see Star Wars afterward, if I can, as a birthday present to myself. We shall see. I haven't seen a movie in the theatres since I went to see Avengers back in... July? I think? Maybe it was August, I can't remember.

I'm in a random sort of mood tonight, so while I'm procrastinating on doing my quality control at work (I loathe this one aspect of my job--it's incredibly tedious and feels suspiciously like busy-work) I've been thinking about pets.

Those of you who've known me long enough will not be surprised when I say I really like having pets. I had a dog when I was little (from when I was born until the day I turned 13--literally, my dog passed on my birthday), as well as hamsters and birds when I was a teenager. The same day I moved out of my parents' home I went to the SPCA and adopted two cats, and have never had fewer than three cats at any given time since 2003. The first thing I did when I got a house was adopt a dog.

In my ideal world, I'd have a house crammed full of pets of all shapes and sizes. If I could get away with it, I'd have the house full of cats, and at least two dogs, if not more.

I harbour a not-so-secret dream of having one of those really beautiful aquariums filled with fish. Maybe not a salt water aquarium because those are hellishly difficult to maintain, but a freshwater one would do just as nicely. I have a Pinterest board devoted to aquariums, because I love fish and it gives me great pleasure

Just before I found out that my apartment building was being sold and I decided to buy a house, I had everything in place to get myself some pet ferrets, right down to buying a cage and a few accessories after doing tons of research on whether ferrets would be a good addition to my household of multiple cats (I didn't have Sergent yet), and whether my work schedule would be suitable for all their needs, since ferrets are intelligent and very social and need a fair bit of stimulation.

In my family my mother was the bird lover, and we had canaries and finches for years. The canaries didn't live very long, poor things. The two we had each succumbed to respiratory infections (the second one got sick while it was boarding at a veterinary clinic when we went on holiday), but the finches lived with us for over a decade and the vet was amazed at how old they were when we told her. Even though the birds were my mother's love, I miss being in a house filled with bird song. Also, I have had a long fascination with all the various birds in the parrot family. My godmother used to keep budgerigars (I also had one when I was eleven) and taught them to speak and sing and whistle, and I've always known them to be active, affectionate little birds. I've wanted a parrot since I was eight years old, though we never got one, mostly for financial reasons, I think. I also never got a parrot in spite of how much I wanted one, because they are incredibly expensive, and since my job kept me away for entire days it wasn't a good idea. Parrots are extraordinarily intelligent and suffer from boredom and anxiety if they're not given enough stimulation. So my job kind of ruled that out.

There are any number of other more "exotic" pets that are on my list of "would totally have," as well. Rabbits, rats, hamsters, hedgehogs (I think they're legal in Canada, but I haven't really checked). I'm not as fond of our cold-blooded friends, so I don't think I'd ever choose to keep reptiles or amphibians, but pdaughter brought her turtle Karma to live with us, and I'm rather fond of her. She's a very sociable turtle, as far as a turtle that lives in a tank can be sociable. She tends to try to swim through the glass to be with the people in the room, which is fun. So, yes, she might be changing my mind about cold-blooded creatures in general.

It's always been a bit of a struggle for me not to respond to every post I see about a cat or a dog needing a new home. I hate the idea of any animal being unwanted/without a forever home. I'm getting better at not feeling horrible every time I see one of those posts, but it's hard. ;)

This is all stuff I fantasize about at the same time as my "if I win the lottery" fantasy. My job and current commute make it absolutely impossible to consider getting any more pets than we currently have, not to mention that, y'know, pets are now a joint decision rather than a solo one.

Not to mention, pets are a huge responsibility. Right now I'm facing a metric assload of vet bills in my not-so-distant future (tests for Sergent, medication, and all the seasonal shots for him and the cats), and that's the price one pays for having animals in one's care. You can't just have the pets for company but then not give them the care they need. It's part of the having-a-pet contract. They supply you with infinite, unconditional love, and you ensure their quality of life and love them back. That means that you can't have pets that are outside your budget. The more "exotic" your pet, the more money you're going to need to throw into the mix, both for their basic care and for veterinary costs.

Pets are a joy, but they're not toys and they're not belongings that you can simply put to the curb when they malfunction and you can't afford to get them repaired. You are responsible for making sure they're taken care of for all of their lives (which is why I was heartbroken when I had to re-home Smudge. It was the best decision for everyone, and he's very happy now, but it was a heart-wrenching decision and I still feel like I failed him). If your animal is suffering, that's on you, and it's up to you to make sure that they don't suffer needlessly. That will often mean vet bills. Now, I'm more than familiar with being faced with unexpected and extraordinarily steep vet bills, and sometimes having to make the hard choice of "we can't afford that now." It sucks. It sucks a lot. But it's one of the reasons I didn't take in more pets years ago, because I knew that if more than one animal got sick, I wouldn't be able to cover all those costs, and I wasn't willing to take that chance.

So the long and the short of it is, that I have a little mental house (like a cottage version of a mind palace) in which I keep dozens of pets. A complete menagerie. I do very much enjoy visiting my mind cottage, and maybe in a few years, when things have settled and I'm no longer splitting my time between two cities, a version of that cottage will become reality. :)

It seems to me that I had plenty of things to say earlier today, but I've forgotten them all.

I have a job interview on Tuesday for a dispatcher job for a security company. Not 911, but it would pay reasonably well and be a steady source of employment, which is better than what I have now. So everyone wish me luck!

Oh, I recall now. I had two other things to mention. Most of you probably don't know that I really enjoy reading out loud. It's not something I get to do often, if ever, but I love reading to kids, and I used to participate regularly in the McGill Students For Literacy's yearly Read-A-Thon (I would read "Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang"). I've always been fascinated and enthralled by the oral tradition in fiction, by the notion that, until quite recently (relatively speaking) the written word didn't exist as a purely visual medium, but was meant to be read aloud.

On Monday I'm going to get to practise this particular skill. My father (again, as most of you probably don't know) has just had his most recent book, Dérive Globale (to which I can't find any link on the frikking internet because the publishers are a bunch of slackers), translated into English (the English title will be, I think Global Drift, but I'm not 100% sure). He asked a well-known person in his field to write a preface for this newest translation, and she agreed promptly. The thing is, she's also legally blind, and therefore needs someone to read the manuscript to her so that she can get an idea of what the book is about and write the preface properly.

I'm rather looking forward to it.

The last thing I was noodling about today, which is completely unrelated, just as everything in this post fails to relate to anything else, is cat food. See, my poor beasties are not doing as well as I'd like on the current stuff I give them. It"s not that they're unhappy or visibly unhealthy. They're all reasonably energetic, have a gloss to their coats, and they seem to like the kibble. At least, they eat everything I give them.

However, they're ALL gaining weight. Even Smudge, who seemed to be immune for a while there. George, while not obese, is getting kind of pudgy, Smudge is beginning to look, well, solid, and Pan-Pan has ballooned to monstrous proportions because he can't keep his nose out of other people's food dishes. :P Gretzky doesn't appear to have gained weight, but she's already too heavy anyway.

So I'm thinking of going into homemade cat food. I've been doing my research, and it seems like cats do really well on a properly-balanced diet of raw meat (ground) and shredded vegetables and various other oddments. Granted, given that cats were originally designed to be carnivores, this makes a fair amount of sense.

Does anyone out there on my flist make their own cat food (or dog food)? How is that working out for you? Have you always done it, or did you switch from commercial food, and if so, what made you switch? What resources, if any, did you use to determine what to feed your pets? Input would be most appreciated.

Part of me wants a ferret.

The part of me that's wholly impractical, that doesn't take into account the fact that I live in a 3 1/2 with four cats. I suspect it's the bit I inherited from my mother, the part that convinced her that fostering a baby ostrich might be a good idea.

I think it's because I've been writing about Flash Gordon (the name of the psychic ferret) a fair bit in my novel of late.

Oh well. It's a nice fantasy.