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GailV

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Everything posted by GailV

  1. WAIT, THERE ARE SEQUELS??!!?? Holy moley, I love sequels and series. Now I MUST re-read and then read the next ones. Between this, catching up with Gamache, and continuing on some other series I'm working through, I've pretty much got summer reading sorted. I feel so secure knowing I'll always have another couple of books queued up, kwim?
  2. I read this 15 to 20 years ago and still think about it. May be time for a re-read.
  3. It sounds to me like the cat is telling you that it's time. The peeing outside the box while you watched, alongside the other behaviors, sounds like a cat doing her best to say, "This isn't working any more. Help." I'm so sorry. You gave her a wonderful life, and now it's time to do one more brilliant, loving thing for her.
  4. Star Trek ambient background noise is popular on youtube and probably other places too. Here's one of them that has the engine noise Star Trek TNG You can also find background Bridge noises. Lower Decks mentioned that people like this for sleeping. Also, I'm suddenly aware of how much trivia I've stored up about the intersection of Star Trek and brown noise. Other stuff washes right through my brain, but every bit of this sticks around forever.
  5. Okay, I'd never heard of Green Noise, so that's intriguing right there. As much as I love trying out various permutations of brown noise, pink noise, lofi, binaural beats, hemi sync, Schumann Resonance, etc etc etc, it's never occurred to me to try these apps. This is going to be my new project.
  6. My personal goal is to have my social media be cat-centric, and this thread is just awesome.
  7. OMG, I adore Wim Hof IN THEORY ... a cold rinse in the shower is as far as I go in actual practice. Also a fangirl of James Nestor. In other words, you're living my dream-life! What I'd do if *I* were a badass! Thanks for letting us all experience it vicariously!
  8. Has anyone tried Milorganite as a fertilizer to repel the deer? I'm intrigued, but don't want every dog in the neighborhood making a beeline for my house (it's bad enough that the dog 2 doors down once got into my house and ate all the cat food; now, years later, she still lives for the times she gets out of their electric fence and tries to repeat that joyous moment). We live in a suburb-with-herds. A couple of years ago my next door neighbor thought it would be cool to see if he could train the deer to eat out of his hand. Neighborhood legend says a woman used to specifically feed the raccoons. We're just a wild bunch.
  9. I think I read somewhere that Terry Pratchett dealt with his anger and depression about his Alzheimer's by writing. He really wasn't a happy-go-lucky guy at all. It's interesting to me how many of us turn to his writing to find comfort for our own issues considering that he wrote to cope with his problems. I've been reading some books on Tibetan Buddhism, and it sort of reminds me of the concept of going so deeply into your neurosis that you find the wisdom and value in it.
  10. This is me pretty much every week. Sometimes I mix it up by saying this month is busy but next month should be pretty calm.
  11. OMG you have just totally changed my perspective on the lead vet at the clinic we go to. She's amazing insofar as pet-health knowledge -- I chose this practice because of that! She's great about explaining the various levels of care depending on how much $$ and time you want to spend on your pet. But she really sucks in other ways, and you just laid it out in a way that I suddenly "see" things so much more clearly. I've started specifically requesting a different vet. I tell the front desk it's because vet#2 has history with this cat and the asthma - one of her cats had asthma, blah blah blah. But mostly it's because I've been so POed at the lead vet and some of the things she blurts out. And now I feel okay about that decision.
  12. Oh yeah, the vet sent me home with all the "special litter" which we never did use. I forgot that was even a thing! I would absolutely skip the prescription food. In the end we were feeding Winth whatever he wanted (we used commercial wet food), plus as many treats as he wanted (he loved hearing the grill fire up and would come out to the patio to get a bit of chicken or trout). The extra-drinking-and-peeing phase lasted for years for us. Now our remaining cat is starting the same symptoms, and the most I'm doing is making sure her dental work is all done promptly before that can no longer be done. The vet has noted that her various blood levels are elevated, but not yet in the danger zone. She's 17.(Her asthma will probably be what weakens her the most - we use an inhaler twice a day which is yet another example of medical things I never thought I'd be doing with a cat)
  13. Cats do drink more/pee more with kidney disease (CKD). A cat UTI has different symptoms. I'm not familiar with feline diabetes. Step one in CKD is generally giving a prescription food that is balanced with low phosphorus. Other cats shouldn't eat this. If needed you can use a supplement that I think binds the phosphorus. Some people do things like learn to give subcutaneous water. We had an older cat who started drinking lots of water, peeing a lot (the one in my avatar)... we had the bloodwork done and his various levels were so very high ... and he lasted for YEARS after that. The vet was surprised, because all indications were that he should drop dead, but he just kept going along living his life (Covid lock down happened in the midst of this, and his favorite person in the world suddenly reappeared from college and was in her room 24/7 doing her classes, and he parked on her lap, which really revived him a lot). He didn't like the prescription food so we gave up on that quickly. Never tried any other supplements that were specific for kidney disease. Used some other supplements that were just for general health for older cats, like B12, which he liked. The biggest issue was that we couldn't have his teeth cleaned, which he really needed, because he couldn't be put under anesthesia. Over time the pain of his teeth made it hard for him to eat, which led to his deterioration. I thought this website had lots of good info on cats and kidney disease: Tanya's Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease
  14. We just got my parents' version of this. I had to go look at what we put in it since I couldn't remember - a blanket for the cat and some old headphones. Almost empty. Always classy, though - I love that table!
  15. Dh recently broke one of ours, at which point we discovered we can't replace them easily. So upsetting! A few weeks later his mom gave us all of hers since she doesn't cook anymore. But now DH is afraid to carry it. He'll use it if someone else places it on the table or sets it in front of him, but, yeah, nervous wreck!
  16. I'm so sorry. Many hugs to you, and I'll be praying.
  17. I was under the impression that our brains don't bother processing huge swaths of the perceptions we're receiving via our senses, mostly because we have no use for that firehose of information. So it would make sense that we remember different things given that we likely bother noticing wildly different things.
  18. Working with Elementary Ed majors in my pre-mom days was pivotal in my decision to homeschool. I worked at a university library and couldn't imagine some of those people teaching any kids.
  19. Every day: Multivitamin, plus digestive enzyme with meals Most days: Chlorella and spirulina - among other reasons I take these to boost the "green" I'm getting magnesium, lecithin, probiotic, vit C Some days: Omega 3 fish oil, alpha lipoic acid or other antioxidant I have a bunch of common supplements I don't take due to weird/bad reactions -- collagen, turmeric, betaine HCl, ACV, gelatin ... the other day I tried one of DH's D3 tablets (I thought it might boost immune system after being exposed to someone with a cold) and ended up with bright BRIGHT red cheeks and a mental note to not try that again.
  20. Northern Indiana growing up, I rhyme it with "silk". Mom grew up in southern Indiana and had quite a few Appalachian throw backs, but I suspect she concentrated on getting rid of them. Lord knows I developed a habit of using subjunctive tense from her ("if I *were*"), which I imagine wasn't standard issue in rural southern Indiana. Dh (St Louis) also rhymes it with "silk" but his sister is die-hard "melk" Dh's family is also likely to say "warsh", "farty"(40). I can really hear generational shifts in that family in pronunciations and usage.
  21. The biggest help for skin dryness for me was changing my diet - no partially-hydrogenated fats, heavy on omega 3 fats, light on omega 6 fats, got rid of most sugar, lots of vegetables. As for the red light mask, have fun with it! I figure if nothing else I enjoy my few minutes of relaxing with it on. Yeah, mine has straps and all so I could actually maybe accomplish something while wearing it, but why? Why not just spend a few minutes quietly contemplating that maybe the cat has the right idea, and you should wrap yourself in a slightly warm, glowy thing just because it feels luxurious (sometimes the cat sits on me while I'm using it, and I have sometimes wrapped her in it to give her a turn).
  22. I thought it was a bookshelf, so I googled something like "hinged bookshelf" and looked through images. I've probably seen one before have some unconscious memory of it. We have some really odd carved stuff from India, so it absolutely doesn't strike me as unusual that it's hinged and that the design can't be seen if it has books on it. We also have various hand-embroidered items that are just as neat, tidy, and lovely on the reverse side that no one sees as they are on the front. Sometimes it's fun to have beautiful things that are hidden from public view.
  23. Probably a bookshelf. adjustable bookshelf The carving looks so much like things we got in India in the 70s Edited to add: Wowza, I just noticed that person was trying to sell for $98. Probably originally purchased for $5 or less
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