It's been a very hectic few weeks. Thanksgiving went pretty well. We went to visit Carrie's family in pastoral
Bellefonte, PA and had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. The very next morning we got up at the butt-crack of dawn and went shopping. This is the first time that I have ever done the pre-dawn Black Friday shopping rush. It's scary. We did get some great deals though and got most of our shopping done, so I guess it was worth it. Later that day we drove back to Albany for dinner with my family where we had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. (no dogs named Fasha were harmed in the writing of this post, although we did smuggle a cat across state lines) While we were in PA, Carrie's mom asked us if we knew anyone who would be interested in adopting a cat that they had recently taken in. She's a pretty little
himalayan that found them on Halloween night. My folks were game, so the cat went back home with us. Well, after five hours of bonding during the drive home she ended up staying with us instead of going to her intended new home. So now we have four. Eek! Her name is Halle, short for Halloween. Corny, I know, but it beats "Spooky" which is what her parents were calling her. She is settling in fairly well with the other members of our menagerie. She hates
Sharra who hates her back. Check. She has recently decided that our only boy, Jaxom, is OK and chases him around the house. He secretly loves this because he is a big slut and enjoys almost any attention he gets. She ignores our third cat,
Lessa, who has been sick lately (more on that later), and she has decided that our
akita,
Karma, is
her dog, which she demonstrated by rubbing against her repeatedly the other day. She ignores our other dog, Yoshi, who is old and decrepit and barely essence of dog.
We painted my office during the big snow storm last weekend and I got to play with our new snow blower for the first time. It's nifty. It's just a little electric snow shovel really, but it is saving my back endless amounts of agony already.
Lessa is FIV+. We took her to the vet a few months ago because she was losing a lot of weight and one of her eyes was swelling up. We figured out that Jaxom was eating her food which is why she lost the weight and we got glaucoma medicine for her eye. The medicine helped her eye, but she never really gained any weight back. In the last couple of weeks especially her appetite had dwindled and she had lost even more weight. We were sure that her time had come. Wednesday we took her to the vet not expecting to come back home with her. Our vet suggested putting her on IV antibiotics and subcutaneous fluids for at least one day to see how she would respond before doing anything drastic. Much to everyone's surprise, she improved considerably by the next morning. After various testing the vet told us that she had a raging kidney infection. Friday and $300 later, we brought home but she is still one very sick kitty. We have had to continue the subcutaneous fluids because she is terribly dehydrated, which involves sticking Lessa with an IV needle, and has made a nervous wreck of both of us and is definitely no fun for her. To make matters worse, she has had two seizures that we know of since we brought her home, so one of us has been sleeping on the couch each night to keep an eye on her. We're still a little unsure about whether we've done the right thing for her or not, but her appetite is good and she is eating as much as she can now. We are hoping that everything things will level out as she recovers from the infection and regains her weight.
