Musings on a Small Life

Comments are off; have a great Wednesday. Peace.

Last week we had an antique car (pre-1916) touring group (members across North America) in our area, and the cars were parked down at Market Square on Friday for a few hours. I took an early lunch hour and went down to take a look (I'd already seen a few driving around town), and to snap a few pics. I won't post all the snapshots, of course, just a few. It was impossible to get good pics, there were too many people around and I couldn't get a view of the cars without arms, legs or whole people in the way. Still, you can see how gorgeous these old vehicles are, from the early days of motoring. They're the real deal, by the way, not reproductions. Do click to enlarge the pics, though, for best viewing! Not much for a dashboard! This Buick, below, was one of my three favourites. (Most were Model-Ts, of course, but there were a few Cadillacs and others.) Check out the "motor", below. Wow, not much! It's hard to make out, bu...

Not the boys (though that sometimes applies too!), but this front garden I spied on the way to the office yesterday. (Click to enlarge.) This is my kind of garden, wildflowers in abundance, a bit overgrown, a bit "wild." I prefer this to the ultra-manicured gardens, though those are lovely too. They're just not "me." :-) As for other "wild" things, Nicki was wild around 4:15 AM this morning, and I knew he was just out of the litter box (the "relief" zoomies that cats seem to get). As a side note, the litter box output was solid, which was a relief for me. Ha. Nicki with a scrunched ear a couple of evenings ago. Have a "wild" (in a good way!) Wednesday, everyone. Peace.

I've been rereading Nora Ephron's book, I Feel Bad About My Neck . (Love the book, had borrowed it at work two or three years ago, then just recently found a copy at a thrift store. Very sad that she passed at only 71.) On page 111 she writes that someone tells her, in a particular situation, that "we can't do everything."  She has an "aha" moment, I have an "aha" moment about  my care of the boys, Nicki in particular at the moment. I can't do everything. I can't do everything for Nicki, who is having yet another round of diarrhea and refusing to eat the pricey gastrointestinal biome vet food I got in June. (Of course he is. LOL.) These bouts are probably in part the reason he can't regain any weight. Who can, when what they eat goes right through them? He's getting FortiFlora and slippery elm, and I have a new product on order from PetAlive.com, which likely will take a couple of weeks to get here. I hope it h...

Whew, we're cooking now, in the middle of a heat wave with temps feeling like they're in the high 30s/40C (or 100+F). I'm so glad I had central air put in back in April 2017! You'll be happy to know that Derry is going outside again, though episodes of his twitching skin and freaking out do persist, though are of shorter duration. I ignore him now, except to check his fur when I can. Nicki's okay too, eating well but fur and bone. He's lost so much weight, yet all his blood tests, including his T4 for hyperthyroidism, come back just fine. I even had him de-wormed in May, based on a post that Connie over at Tails From The Foster Kittens had done ages ago about one of her own cats. So I'm stumped. The only other thing I can think of is cancer, but would it take so long to be evident? Nothing showed up on his last x-ray in June, not that the vet (not our regular vet) reported to me, at any rate. Malabsorption of nutrients? Should I ask about a B12...

So, Derry is outside in the enclosed back space early Saturday morning, as usual. I see him on the back step, doing his typical freak-out contortionist thing, which means he's got a slug somewhere on his fur. I open the door and he tears off down the hall and up the stairs, more upset than I've seen him before, from just a slug. (I found the slug, by the way; it probably blew off his fur as he zoomed by.) I follow him upstairs, find him huddled under the futon (which is in its upright position). I get down on my hands and knees to talk to him and he freaks out further, disappears to the very back of the futon, out of sight. Oookay....Whatever! I leave him be for a while, am getting ready to head out for errands. Before I leave the house I check on him, figure he's still under the futon, but I find him under my bed instead. Takes forever to coax him out, but eventually he comes to me and gets cuddles. Later in the day, he refuses to go outside at all, does ...

I snapped these pics in June, while Dad and I were waiting at the Glenora Ferry to cross over to Prince Edward County. Someone is very creative! (Click on them to enlarge.) I hope everyone is doing well, or at least treading water, as the expression goes. Work is busy, I'm exhausted (as usual!), it's hot (won't complain too much about that, since winter will be here soon enough), I'd rather win $1M+ on the lottery (ha, who wouldn't), etc. But the boys are okay, or were this morning when I left the house, I have a decent, tolerable job with good people around me, I have a house, too much to wear, lots to eat, I've booked an early August trip out of town to visit friends for a few days...Life's okay at the moment.  I hope it is for you, too. Peace.

I thought I'd end the week with snapshots of a few "furriends" I've recently encountered. Comments are off, enjoy the weekend and stay cool if you're in the middle of a heat wave, as we are. (As always, click to enlarge the pics to see them better.) I spied this sweetie early on the Sunday morning we were in Montreal. Dad and I had gone for a walk around a neighbourhood near the hotel at which we were staying.     This cat joined us at an outdoor patio café in Brockville, when Dad and I stopped for lunch. He was VERY thin, I don't know if he was young, old, or neglected. Someone "owns" him, though, you can see his flea collar in the first snapshot.   Patches, the vet clinic cat. She's been there for quite a long time, but used to hang out in the back when they still had a second clinic cat. He passed last year, and now Patches can be found lounging in the waiting area. She's VERY affectionate!   A cute pair be...