Go with your gut. Our mama cat and her now 3yo child often end cleaning sessions with an all out hissing wrestling match. We let that go. No fur is flying and they are over it in a second. Our oldest 2 cats downright hate each other. There are several high value areas in our home and they will often block the way to those areas by sitting guard. All other cats can pass them but their nemesis will get a stare down. If the stare down fails, then it becomes a chase with claws extended. If we see them guarding those areas, we try to remove them to another room to try and discourage the behavior. So our gut says situation 1 is ok and situation 2 isn't. We could be wrong though but unless Jackson Galaxy stops by that's all we've got.

Thank you for the update. That must have been horrifying for you both. You may not have witnessed it but to a mother's heart that kind of imagery of her child in medical distress is wrenching. I'm glad it's over and that she is hopefully on the road to a full recovery.

I'd buy another toy and let Obama have new one and Inky can keep the pre-slobbered, head rubbed, and rabbit kicked rainbow. We have the same rainbow. I totally get it.

Not to derail the thread but that's why we did it. My father is big into genealogy and loved the idea of seeing where his roots originated. My FOO has a Americanized version of a German last name and we thought there would be quite a big of German in our DNA. There is but it's a small percentage. Dad turns out to be 80% British. Shocked us all.

Ugh, and on top of it all they make you feel stupid for even suggesting "x" in the first place. Good for you for staying the course! I hope A is all you need to start healing.

So this morning, I was feeling a bit beat up after a lot of stress yesterday. Today is the only day this week where I'm at home and not running to appointments and I had a lot of the deep cleaning projects I wanted done on my to do list. Then my DIL texted me saying that she took a mental health day and did I want to go out to lunch to help get her out of her own head. Why yes, yes I would. I can't even tell you how much better I feel now than I did a few hours ago and I don't feel the least bit guilty for skipping all those chores. And hopefully she is feeling a bit better too. I think she was.

Yep, total homeschooler move. You'd think there'd be a great homeschooler fix and I hope someone pops up with one. I second @Indigo Blue's suggestion. Good luck!

He was back to his regular sweet self this morning but now he's back in hiding. He'll come out, see me, and run back to his hidey hole. Hopefully, he's just having a case of the weirdos, which not an unusual trait for him.

That does look good. Not the OP but this is going on my list.

Our cat came home yesterday smelling so strong of urine that he stunk up an entire room. By this morning, he was fresh as a dandy. I can only assume he took care of it himself. Hopefully, yours will have a very enjoyable and tasty time taking care of it himself. ETA: just saw you gave him a bath. You are a very brave man. Very brave!

DH just called and the medicine in the food didn't work out well this morning. He said he took 3 licks and that was it. I'm definitely grabbing some pill pockets today and crossing my fingers that they work.

Thank you for mentioning that it might take him a couple of weeks to calm down. I had been hoping to wait until we had a much better trust level before having him fixed but his behavior lately didn't leave us much of a choice. He had begun spraying and would periodically, during the day, cry to go out and the crying could go on for some time. This morning he has already begun the crying, which was a bit of a let down, but at least now I know it will still take some time and that will make it a bit easier to listen to. On the plus side, it was the shortest bout of crying he's ever done so maybe it won't be too long before he stops.

You were absolutely right about the possibility of him not remembering the whole freak out episode. When I opened my door this morning, he came to greet me along with his emotional support cat (our mama cat) like they do every morning. Some mornings he'll let me pet him if I sit in the floor, some days he won't. Today was all about the love. He's never let me pet him that long and he even, at one point, rolled over and showed his belly while I was scratching his face. The two times before when I had taken him to the vet I had a lot of make up work to do to regain lost trust. It took a couple of weeks but it seems as if this time the drugs might have messed his memories enough that we are okay. I don't know how the medicine giving went this morning. The vet said if we can't give him medication to go ahead and put it in food and DH is the one that feeds them breakfast. Since he didn't leave a note or text me, I'm hoping that means that it went well. I'm still going to grab some pill pockets and hope they make things even easier. My stress level was so high that I had reflux last night. I've never had that before. Didn't like it one bit. And my body feels like it's been through the wars. But today is looking like it's going to be a much better day. Thank you for helping yesterday.

That's so good to know about the liver enzymes! His paperwork says, "Bloodwork showed an increase in BUN and 3x on ALT. Also the WBC was low with RBC high." All gibberish to me. They did give me the quote for the neutering but at drop off I reminded them there is no way for me to give him medication because I can barely even pet him, so if anything can be given by injection to please do that. The vet tech wasn't sure if the vet would want to do an antibiotic shot or not nor how much it cost, so he called to give me a quote on the shot, as well as his blood results and how much the medication for that would be.

Thank you, that helps a lot! For the first time since we got home, I can feel my own stress level starting to go down. I couldn't eat dinner. The other cats didn't eat dinner either. I think his freak out traumatized the whole house. I must have misheard about having 3 medications because she referred to one medication as a capsule and then later said tablet so I thought it was two different meds. So the two I was sent home with are Denmarin for his enzyme levels and oral buprenorphene. Thank you, I didn't even think to try those. I have a dentist appointment in the morning so I'll pick some up on the way home. If it works for the pill, that's thankfully one less thing to worry about.

OMG! What a nightmare! While giving instructions, the vet said to try to keep the ecollar on him but, to be honest, he'll have it off by the time you reach the stop sign and then she laughed. So, that's what I'm thinking is going to happen. If not while still in his crate, certainly as soon as he is out of it. I should have known better. I should have known! He's still so much that wild animal surviving in the outdoors. He didn't gently walk out of his crate and then quickly figure a way out of that collar. No, he took off like a bat out of hell running into everything, getting stuck and banging himself again and again against furniture legs. I could hear panic panting while he was fighting with the world. It was horrifying and heartbreaking and I couldn't help. Any help I tried to give only made it worse. Thankfully, he hid himself in a back bedroom where I shut the door so the other cats wouldn't bother him and went and gave them dinner. Then I went back to check on him and he had worked himself into a spot where I could reach down and tug on the knot. I still ended up a little bloody but that thing is finally off him. He's probably busted every stitch he had but there's no way to check. I hate this. I hate this so much. My heart is in my throat. This is the first time when I've wondered if we made a mistake in bringing him inside. Maybe he's just too wild to be tamed. To make it all so much worse, they gave me 3 medications for him. Yeah, I can just see me giving him medication. No way. I can give it to him in his food but he's not that interested in wet food so I'm not sure that's going to work either. And then, they want us back in a month to re-check his enzyme level, as if he's every going to let me trick him in that carrier again. I don't what to do.

Once you figure out how to hold the yarn, the rest is gravy. I'd watch different videos to see the different ways and find what's comfortable for you. And if you end up holding it like no one else, that's ok too. Just as long as you keep the tension consistent, you should be ok. When I was learning, I imagined my hands as a sewing machine. The hand with the hook was the needle and the other hand were the hooks and posts that the thread is wound around on a sewing machine.

My boys who had birthdays on 3/22 and 3/23 both loved going out to Golden Corral for their birthday meal. I *hate* the place passionately but the whole family would go out to eat at Golden Corral two days in a row. Just goes to show how much I love those guys. LOL They would have hated the shared birthdays too. Being 5 years apart, it was less tempting to have them share a party because their likes and their friends were so vastly different.

Ask how it happened. Was it a child before you guys and maybe your father didn't know. Did you mother put a child up for adoption? Did your father have an affair? Is it a full or half sibling? I'd have so many questions. LOL

Wow, that would definitely knock me off center. Do you have anyone to ask?

Yay, the library has this one! From the description, it looks like this one was written especially for me. Thank you! So many of these looks so good. I'm still trying to work out ways to get some of these others without having to pay too much because they look like books I'd love too. Thanks everyone!

I have. It was a really good one too. That's part of my trouble finding something. All the really good, well known ones are books I've already read or, even worse, the library doesn't carry them or they cost a lot because they are older books. And the lesser known ones aren't really enticing, at least the ones I've found so far. I'm still sorting through the ones up thread. They all look so good, but the ones I've checked so far, my library doesn't carry and they cost a lot to buy. I'm still hoping though.

Oooh, that was a good one! It's sorely tempting to read that one again.

The vet just called to say Blaze is up next for surgery and to give me some quotes for cost and the results of his bloodwork. According to his bloodwork he has elevated liver enzymes. Does anyone know what this might mean? What sort of questions should I ask when I go pick him up?

...for the library reading challenge I'm participating in. So far, searching Google hasn't popped up with anything that looks enticing. I picked up My Beautiful Friend but I've already that and would rather read something new. Any ideas?