A Month In The Life--April 8, 2010

Ever have one of those days where you know that everything is about to change?

Welcome to April 8th.

First, I woke up at 4:00 am this morning and got three chapters edited for an Aurora manuscript before I could go back to sleep.  That's always a good thing--getting unaccounted work done in the wee hours of the dawn. By the time I got the chapters edited, my meds kicked in (because--yeah, pain woke me up) and I got a few more hours of sleep. Fortunately, that extra work came at an appropriate time.  Impy, my first cat and the patriarch of our feline clan had a vet appointment this morning and my new hutch was being delivered this afternoon. 

So we get Impy ready for his appointment.  Impy is nine years old and a Maine Coon.  A few years ago, he weighed over twenty pounds and everyone called him "Pimpy" because he was the most awesomely friendly cat in the world.  A true gentle giant, he endured years of kitten attacks and several moves--even surviving the indignity of being neutered twice.  (Long story) At any rate, over the past few months he started to lose weight. At first it wasn't that noticable, because he's a long haired Maine Coon.  But in the past few weeks not only was he lethargic and constantly ravenous, but the weight loss became apparent.  So we made him an appointment and took him in today.  Impy was so good; he dealt with the blood work and the urinalysis without making a sound.  When they cleaned his ears, however, he howled so loudly it set every critter in the animal hospital howling along in pity.  The vet told us she'd call when she got the blood work back, so we took him home.

I got about a chapter edited before the furnitire guys showed up. Here they come with my new hutch--a beautiful polished oak mission style hutch with a wine rack, two glassed in display cabinets, drawers and two side cabinets and the perfect display place for the family silver.  When the furniture delivery guys unpacked it, I was just trying to stay out of the way.  But then they announced they were done and I walked into the room and nearly died.

It didn't look ANYTHING like the hutch I ordered. 

So I was trying to explain to them that it wasn't right, but my husband (the omniscient one about furniture apparently) was agreeing with them and not listening to me. "No, it's supposed to be that short." "No, the top's not supposed to be finished." "No, they didn't forget the door handles and knobs--hey, where are teh handles and knobs."

So, ignoring me all the way,  the furniture guys pocketed their pay and headed out the door.  That was when I found the OTHER piece of wood in the hallway.  I literally chased them down the street and made them get their asses back inside at which point I said (after telling the husband to keep quiet) that not only did my hutch NOT have knobs and handles, but that the extra piece of wood was the shelf that went in between the legs--SO WHERE IN THE HELL ARE THE DAMN LEGS, GENTLEMEN?

After a panicked phone call to their boss, I was informed that the man who'd "inspected" the furniture at the store wasn't in and he would call me in the morning.

While I was fuming, I walked by my oh-so-not-completed hutch and caught sight of my reflection and THAT spurred a new desire in me.  I may be on bedrest. I may be restricted from lifting weights or standing on my feet for long periods of time. No one has ever said a damn thing about pilates, though.  I pulled out my schedule and added two blocks (one hour gone from my morning routine and a half-hour session during my family time) for my exercise/physical therapy routine.  I will be fat at this RT; I will not be at the next one. 

After this rush of determination and the subsequent disposal of everything I like to eat in the kitchen, the phone rang. It was the vet, calling to tell us that Impy--my beloved, darling Impy--is a diabetic with a glucose level four times the normal range for a cat.  I was horrified.  Tomorrow we have to take him in to get his first insulin shot, poor baby, and learn how to give him those shots ourselves. So I decided to do a little research  on feline diabetes and discovered that I have been killing my cats. No lie--cats are carnivores, right? They don't have the same omnivorous abiliry to process carbohydrates.  But dry cat food is almost entirely vegetable producst with meat by products, baked at a high heat that removes all moisture from the food and then they spray it with a meat-flavored spray to basically addict the cats to it.  The high carb, low protein diet leads to heart disease, urinary tract problems, diabetes and various other ailments in cats.  So we looked up what best to feed our cats (Special Kitty and Nine Lives canned cat food, fround not sliced--the highest proteins and lowest carbs)--5-6 oz per ten pounds of cat 2-3 times a day. Evidently, just by switching cats to this type of diet can immediately put some cases of feline diabetes into remission.

So we rounded up all the dry food and put it away, went to the store and loaded up on high-protein cat foods and now have a bunch of happy kitties and two who are staring at me mournfully because they never ate canned food anyway. They don't like it. And for the first time in a week, Impy looks brighter and happier and is sleeping quite contentedly beside me, purring.

So finally, I found some time to spend writing.  Only three hours, but a productive 10k. I watched Survivor (doing my pilates), fed the cats their nighttime snacks (smuggling vitamins into their bowls), edited three more chapters and now I'm done early enough to watch Project Runway.

So yeah--a day that has changed everything.  Tomorrow will be a busy day. I have to make up the momentum I lost the past few days.  I'm cracking my knuckles; better watch out.