Now THIS is a funny slogan.

If anyone is interested, there will be a belly dance performance that I will be in this coming Friday, February 27th at 7:30 PM at the Shriners Club on Leadmine Road.  Here's the link for more info: www.bellyrevelations.com/workshops.html

I have been soooooo tired lately.  I was laying in bed last night and couldn't  get to sleep because I kept thinking about how Alacrity always crawled under the covers with me.  Puddy was in bed with me, but she just wants to lay on top of my stomach.  Then when morning comes around, I can't seem to drag myself out of bed.

On the good news front, I found another paint-your-own-ceramics place in north Raleigh.  And I mean NORTH Raleigh, almost in Wake Forest.  It's called Clay Funk http://www.clayfunk.com/.  They also offer wheel pottery classes which sounds awfully interesting.  Anyhoo, they had a saucer and tea cup where the saucer fit perfectly on top of Alacrity's bowl.  I hope to have finished painting it tonite.  Then maybe a week until they have it glazed and fired so I can pick it up.  I'm very glad I was able to find this place.

I picked up Alacrity's cremains yesterday.  What I'd like to do is first have a Spirit Weight (www.marcboutteglass.com/spiritweight.htm) made for Alacrity just like I did for Beauregard. Then I'm thinking about make a cover for Alacrity's food bowl and sealing his ashes in it.  Yeah, I've managed to find the pottery place that I painted his food bowl, www.paintyourpot.com/.  So first I'd have to find a "lid", then paint it to match his bowl.  We'll see if the execution works out as well as the plans.

Last night I also picked up the oil portraits I had done of Beauregard and Alacrity.  They really came out quite lovely, I have to post a photo of them once I have them hanging.  Now I have to decide where to hang them.  I'm thinking in the front bedroom. 

This morning I had to walk two dogs, Lucy the sweet, shy girl and Abby, the "too much energy", "looking for trouble" beagle.  It was about 18 degrees and I thought I'd freeze to death.  I have to walk them again tonite AND in the morning.  Brrrrrr.....

Well, I just got back from saying goodbye to Alacrity.  I got him as a 6 month old kitten from the SPCA in Charleston, SC.  He fattened up quickly and was a happy indoor/outdoor kitty until I made the move to Raleigh, NC.  Once in Raleigh, it didn't take him long to adjust to being indoor only.  When I first moved into my house, I remember losing track of him.  I looked in all the closets, under the beds, in the crawl space under the house... I didn't know where he'd gotten to.  Then I was in the kitchen and just happened to glance up.  There on top of the cabinets was my innocent little cat.  You all know the look, "what's the problem?"  He'd jump up on the counter, then the top of the fridge, then the top of the pantry and he'd often perch on the windows above the roof.  It was a lovely perch to watch everything going on in the kitchen.  I eventually got used to him getting up there.  I even installed a Kat-Wallk so he wouldn't have to make the big jump from the top of the cabinets over the fridge and onto the top of the pantry.

About 7 years ago, he was having trouble being lethargic and not eating.  My new vet (new at the time) Dr. Moisan thought he might be dehydrated and gave him fluids.  I took Alacrity home and later that night, 3AM if I remember correctly, he actually had a seizure!  I'm talking full blown, foaming at the mouth, laying down arching his back and fur standing up on his back.  I thought I'd have a dead cat come sun-up.  Not knowing what else to do I called Dr. Moisan and she actually met me at the office to take care of him.  We eventually found out his body was producing too much EPO which was raising the production of red blood cells.  His blood had gotten so thick with red blood cells that his heart couldn't pump it and that's why he had the seizure.  Eventually we worked out the right dosage of meds to suppress his red cell production.  I was lucky to have him so long with all the health issues he's had for so long.  He was 19 years old.

I'll miss my cuddle bug.  When he was feeling his worst, he'd always come to me and want to be in my lap.  I hope I lived up to the trust he had in me.  I love you Alacrity.  I miss you horribly.  Until we meet again at the rainbow bridge... sweet dreams.

One step forward, one step back.  Alacrity is a bit more interested in food.  But he's mostly just licking up the juices of his gooshy food and not touching the dry.  So he's not eating alot.  But he was laying in kitty-loaf position and looking more bright eyed.  Then last night when I went in the bedroom (which has become Al's room), he was up on the bed looking cute.  So I just curled up around him.  I woke up around 4 AM and realized he had not been able to get up to go to the litterbox and had peed on the bed.  I'm not sure if I'd been holding him down a bit by laying around him, or if he was just entirely too weak to get up.  So I stripped the bed and put in a load of laundry.  This morning I find that he had also peed on the towel I had on the ground, I think after the first bed wetting incident.  He had made it to the litterbox a couple of times to pee a little bit.  He looked so embarassed and I took a warm damp cloth to try and wipe him off both times.

So I feel it's a little improvement and a big step back.  Gawd, does everyone worry this much about their older cats when they have setbacks?  Or am I being an extra big worry wart?  I just know I want to make the call at the right time and not have him suffering.

Excuse me while I go open another box of tissues.

Alacrity wouldn't eat last night or this morning.  Time to get some stinky fishy food.  He did keep down the prednisolone pill I gave him.  And last night he decided to jump up in bed with me.  He'd snuggle down with me and then every hour get up to get a drink of water.  It didn't make for a restful night for me.

On the sub-q fluids front, I've made an appointment to go in to the vet at noon and have them walk me thru it again.  Hopefully with experience I'll be able to do it on my own.  It's a theory.  Fingers crossed.

Wow, two whole years go by between journal entries.  Since then I've changed jobs, lost Beauregard and gotten a new kitty, Sidera.  Of course, now I'm having trouble with Alacrity being ill.  I felt the need to vent and thought I'd post something.

So Alacrity is 19 years old.  He's always had medical issues.  His body produces too much EPO and I've had to give him hydroxurea and prednisolone (sp??)  for years now.  Recently he's had bouts where he's stopped eating.  Dr. Moisan (thank god I found her and Cozy Cat) thinks he's getting dehydrated and prescribed sub-q fluids twice a week.  Okay, I'm not great with needles but thought I could do it.  WHY can't I do it??  It all seems so easy when at the vet office.  Sure, the huge needle freaks me out.  What really bothers me is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of skin to pull up and stick the needle under.  Tonite I actually got the needle in.  But I'm not sure it was in a good spot, the needle kind popped up, sticking up from his skin.  When I started the fluids dripping, Al started growling quite a bit and I just stopped it an pulled out the needle.  FAIL  Only got about 25 ml of the 150 I was supposed to give.  I guess some is better than none.  He's not eating and I had to force a prednisolone pill down him tonite.  Is this the harbingers of having to say goodbye to him?  It's so hard to determine the right time to make that call!  And 19 years just isn't enough!!!!!

*deep breath...sigh*  I guess I'm going to have to bring him into the vet for fluids.  But by gawd, I SHOULD be able to do that myself.  SDHF  Anyhoo, I'm off to google more sites about giving sub-q fluids.  Wish me luck.

So I've been feeling a bit down lately. Can't get motivated to finish projects. My house has turned into a total wreck (worse than normal). Getting chewed out at work for mistakes. Wanting to eat all the time and gaining weight. Spending more money on credit cards than I'd like. Not sleeping properly and always feeling tired. Crying at the drop of a hat. I'd seen a thread on TiVo Community Forum about a guy having trouble dealing with losing his mom. Someone suggested the book "Feeling Good" by David Burns. So I requested it from the library. One of the first thing the book has you do is take the Burns Depression Checklist (BDC) to judge how depressed you are. I got a score of 60 which is in the "(51-75) severe depression" range. The book went on to say that a score of 0 to 5 is "normal". My first thought was "How depressing". I really thought I was experiencing only mild depression. But I'm not even really close to that range. *sigh* What to do, what to do.

Gotta love it when people leave 3 days worth of poop for me to pick up. Mind you, it's mainly because I'm jealous that I would NEVER leave a litter box that dirty for someone else to see.