Still Alive

Again, it's been quite a long time since I've posted. I was ready with an apology, but you know what, no more apologies. I will post when I can (I am always thinking about it but not always near the computer with free time). I thank all my loyal readers and I hope you still come back often to see what I'm doing (who knows, maybe now that I've taken the pressure off I'll post more often).

A lot has happened, where to start...

We went to Lake Tahoe for a few days with the husband's cousins. It was great. We rented a house on a little lake north of Lake Tahoe and we had our own private beach. The lake was small but motor boats were not allowed so that kept things quiet. The house came well furnished and with a couple of canoes so we spent the days and nights canoing, eating, drinking, and hanging out. I figured out that I'm not quite as adventurous as I think I am. I was terrified every time I went out on the canoes, afraid they were going to tip over. I had a life jacket on and the lakes weren't that deep nor that big, but still, I was afraid of the inconvenience of falling into the lake. So maybe I'm still adventurous, just not willing to get dirty.

Last weekend we went to the OC to hang out with my family. The husband needed to fly once on Southwest before the end of the month to get a free ticket. So we decided to take the short, cheap flight to Southern California and use the free ticket for a trip to Boston. It was hot down south. Fortunately my parents have AC in the family room so that's where I spent most of my time. I noticed that there was very little traffic in LA, and I'm guessing it's because of the cost of fuel. It was a little weird, but convenient! We went to a wedding with my parents. Since we were last minute guests, I was afraid we would screw up the seating arrangement, but fortunately Mexican weddings have open seating. I swear my parents knew everyone at the wedding. We were only a little late (before dinner) but most people arrived late so our dinner was spent standing up and introductions. I don't think we sat down for more than a couple of minutes at a time during dinner. Still, I got to see my extended family and the food was very good.

We watched a lot of basketball during the last couple of weeks. Mainly the Celtics vs. Lakers finals. That was a great series. A lot of good basketball, a lot of blowouts, a lot of comebacks. Once it was over, I was bummed to not have any more sports to watch. The UEFA Euro 2008 is on right now but most games are during the middle of the day (the EuroCup is like the European World Cup - every 4 years). Over the weekend my brother and I watched Russia upset Holland. It was an exciting game and it was great to watch it with my brother. Oh, we flew in to LAX over the weekend, and for our flight in, the husband wore his Celtics Larry Bird shirt. I told the husband I would probably not defend him if he got in trouble in Laker country. But I think most LA people were still too embarrassed from Game 6, or hadn't cared enough in the first place.

The bosses were not in the office today, which resulted in a quiet (no phone ringing), relaxing day in the office. Since I'm quite tired, I think I'll go home early (only 8 hours worked!).

On Friday it was quite hot. When I got home, Monkey was still gone so I went around the neighborhood, looking for her. By the time I returned home, she was waiting for me at the door. As soon as she walked in, she laid down on the kitchen floor, with her paws in the air. She was in a position we like to refer to as "raided", kind of like the cockroaches in the Raid commercials. I got a wet wash cloth and put it on her belly. She didn't mind at all, and stayed there for about 1/2 an hour. It was that hot.

Fortunately it has cooled off a bit. It's no longer pushing 100 degrees F.

It's Been a While

Sheesh, it’s been a while since I've posted. I didn’t realize how long. Anyway, had a busy week and weekend, so here goes...

My indoor coed team had an undefeated season. We played against the 4th place team in the semifinals and lost 4-3 in sudden-death overtime. It was a good game and we were shooting like crazy, but we just kept hitting the “posts” instead of the net. Oh well. The final was between the 3rd and 4th place teams. The 3rd place team won. That’s soccer.

I haven’t been to the movies in a long time, maybe in about 3.5 years. And in 1 week I went to 2 movies. The first movie I saw was Sex and the City. I loved it. I think I had a high expectation going in and my expectation was exceeded. The movie was a lot of fun to watch. I definitely recommend it whether or not you were into and have seen the series. Even the guys might like it. To prepare for the movie, I started rewatching the last season of the series. I would tend to watch while the husband was vegged on the couch, playing on his laptop. As I watched, he would often snicker at the dialogue. As the episodes and days progressed, he started to look up every once in a while if something big happened. Towards the last of the episodes I watched, he would actually move his laptop out of the way so that he could watch for a few minutes at a time. That made me happy. I can’t wait for the DVD to come out.

The second movie I saw was Indiana Jones. Now this was a big risk considering that my concuño really hated the movie and I trust his judgment. I love the Indiana Jones movies and I went in a little hesitant. Perhaps it was my low expectations, but the husband and I both enjoyed the movie. It wasn’t a masterpiece and it wasn’t as great as the first one (according to the husband) but it was at least as good as the third Indiana Jones movie (again, according to the husband) which was the worst in the series (I like them all).

We finished off our Saturday afternoon by going to a 3-year old’s birthday party. It was at the park and the weather was great. I think the kids multiplied, at least compared to the birthday party last year. Or maybe it was that the kids got older and so it was harder to contain them in one small area and it seemed like there were a lot more little kids running around.

On Sunday, I bribed my husband into taking a long walk with me by buying him lunch and beer at the Tied House, our local brew-pub. He ended up not getting beer with lunch but we did fill up our growler with the Oatmeal Stout. I hate really dark beers like Guinness, but I really like the Oatmeal Stout at the Tied House. To make up for his non-beer lunch, the husband drank the entire growler all by himself while watching the Lakers vs. Celtics game – that’s over 4 pints! The game was pretty good. Although I am disappointed that the Celtics blew such a huge lead. My family lives in Southern Cali and they are HUGE Lakers fans, especially my brother and cousins. My husband is from Boston and while he isn’t a die-hard Celtics fan (not like he is a 2007 Patriots fan), he hates the Lakers. Since I live with my husband, I kind of want the Celtics to win. Last night my fan-ness was 70-30 for the Celtics. It varies from game to game.

The final highlight from Sunday was the end of the year party for the AYSO all star team I was helping to coach. It was a short but lovely BBQ at the beautiful home of one of the girls (it must be nice to have bought a house years ago in CA). When I left the girls were trying to get the coach in the pool. They tried to give me a very big, wet bear hug but I managed to get away. As a thank you I got a nice bottle of Zinfandel. Sweet!

We did a lot of bike riding and walking over the weekend and used it as our mode of transportation. It was great. The husband convinced me to ride my bike to work this morning so that he could take the car. Hmmm...,well, at least I got a workout. Actually, he hast to take Noodles to the vet later so that he can get his second Leukemia shot.

So here’s the moral question of the day: if you find something in a public area, is it considered stealing if you take it? We went to Costco on Friday and as we were loading up our car, we noticed a cart with a package of paper towels and 2 huge boxes of cereal (probably about $30 worth of groceries). There wasn’t another car around. The guy collecting the carts asked us if the groceries were ours. When we said no, he looked around, and then said he was going to return the groceries to the store. Should we have said yes? Would that have been bad? On Sunday morning, I went to Whole Foods. As I was packing up my car, I noticed a body wash in the otherwise empty cart in the empty parking spot next to my car. Again, there wasn’t a car around. This time I grabbed the body wash, sniffed it, and decided to take it. Was that bad? Am I a horrible person, lacking in morals? Just wondering.

Goodbye Sluggo

On Thursday, the husband and I had to say goodbye to our sweet, little munchkin Sluggo. The blood transfusions and procrit (red blood cell production stimulant) were just not working. What was keeping him going was probably the prednisone steroid med he was taking. After the blood transfusion, Sluggo was back to his almost normal self. He woke me up one morning around 2 am to play fetch. I happily obliged.

After about one week, Sluggo started to deteriorate quickly. He lost the pinkness in his nose and pads he had gained with the transfusion and laid down in the corner of our closet. I made him a little bed in there with food and water. On Wednesday morning he wasn’t excited about food and only licked the gravy off his canned food. On Thursday morning he refused to eat anything. He was still drinking water but had very little energy.

Sluggo spent his last hours staring out the window, perched on his new window seat. He saw a few birds, including a hummingbird. He would react when I would talk to him or pet him but his movements were very slow.

The husband and I struggled with the decision of when to take him to the vet. We wanted him to be at home with us for as much as possible, as long as he wasn’t in pain. As hard as it was to say goodbye, we feel we made the right choice and our happy that we were able to do one last good thing for Sluggo.

The house seems quite empty without him. We only had him for 1.5 years but his presence was always felt since he was super active. Except in the middle of the day – he was a great at taking naps. He loved playing fetch with his special cat nip stuffed carrot and favorite hair bands. He would love to “help” us change the sheets on the beds but it was more of a game for him in which he would get under the sheets, lay upside down, and stick his legs straight up, claws piercing through the sheets. He always took offense to Monkey’s growls and hisses and he would let Noodles steal his treats every once in a while (but not his toys). When we would sit on the couch, watching TV, he would come over and sit in our laps, kneading super fast, digging his claws into our legs. We would have to use a blanket to protect our skin. He would give us gentle but determined bites on our hands to get us to pet him.

I’m not sure if the other cats know what’s going on. They started keeping their distance pretty early on, except when they would go into the closet to try to steal Sluggo’s leftover food. Major and Noodles are being very friendly and loving towards us and Monkey isn’t as whiny.

Here are a bunch of great pictures of Sluggo, and his BFF Noodles.

Here's a close-up of Noddles (front) and Sluggo (back) a few days after we adopted Sluggo. Noodles was 20 days older than Sluggo and we adopted him about 2-3 weeks before Sluggo.

The kittens really were inseparable until almost the end.

We would joke that we got Sluggo as a chew toy for Noodles. When Sluggo first came home, Noodles was on him like a shadow.

Sluggo came with ringworm (we found out a few days after we adopted him), which is a fungal, skin infection. Ringworm doesn't really bother the cats but is pretty gross and highly contagious (to people too), so we had to give the kittens weekly baths, and daily application of ointment and oral meds. Their "quarantine" lasted about 3.5 months.

Great picture taken at ~1 year of age by my brother-in-law. You can really see the intensity in his eyes.

Sluggo was quite photogenic, despite his solid color.





This is one of my favorite pictures of Sluggo. His nose and ears were very pink.

St. Paul Highlights

The highlight and reason for our weekend in St. Paul was Magnus' and Anita's wedding. What a beautiful, happy couple. We hadn't seen Magnus in over 4 years and it was great to be reunited with him and with Dominik and Frauke. The ceremony was held at a Unitarian church and it was simple and meaningful in both English and Swedish. The reception was held at the Science Museum where there was great food, good music and dancing (the groom can dance!) and many great speeches.

I was quite excited about visiting St. Paul since I am a fan of A Prairie Home Companion. I was surprised by how pretty and diverse the city is. And it was also very clean. However, at the same time, it seemed quite dead and I'm wondering if most people headed out of town for the long weekend. Either that or St. Paul is the first city I see staying ahead of the population growth curve (there's no traffic, everything is clean). And as far as the diversity, I expected to see a lot of Norwegians, but instead I've seen a lot of people from different cultures and a lot of Irish pubs.

We took the red-eye out here and spent most of Friday relaxing and walking around a bit. On Saturday we checked out the Science musuem and attended the wedding. Sunday we spent most of the day vegging in front of the tv, with a little walking around (ate at Mickey's famous diner and checked out the Fitzgerald theater) and monitoring of the weather. Every channel on TV had weather updates and tornado watches. As we sat looking out the window in our hotel room, we had a scary storm pass by with big, dark clouds, a little rain, and lots of wind, including small funnel clouds. But it only lasted about 15 minutes.

Looking Ahead to the Weekend

Over the weekend I had the wonderful pleasure of watching both my mom and brother graduate from California State University at Fullerton. My mom earned her BS in Child and Adolescent Studies, cum laude. It took her quite a few years to get to where she is now and I am so very proud of her. She started taking classes to earn her GED when I was in high school and she’s basically taken at least one, sometimes 3 or 4, college courses since then, in addition to working part time, volunteering a lot of her time, and being a mom and wife which included cooking dinner, cleaning, and driving us to too many soccer practices, games, and tournaments to count. She’s talked about pursuing a Master’s degree but at the same time I think she’s hoping to get a job as a Community Liaison (I think) at the school district where she works. As a community Liaison she would help parents take a proactive role in their children’s’ education. I think after 15 years working as a Teacher’s Aide she’s realized that a child’s educational success starts with the parents and home life.

My brother earned his BA in Liberal Studies with a Sociology minor. He’s ideal job would be a social worker at the county. I am very excited for him to become a social worker. He enjoys working with children and has in the past done an awesome job as a recreational coordinator for the city. I think being a social worker is a very emotionally demanding job, but I can’t think of anyone better than my brother to fill that job. He is a very compassionate person but he also has the ability to emotionally separate himself from the situation which would be very useful in social work. He is also considering going for a Master’s degree or joining the Peace Corp. If it were up to me, I’d probably ship my brother off to Latin America or Africa with the Peace Corp. I think everyone should have some sort of “study abroad” experience early in their lives.

I think witnessing my brother’s and mom’s graduation was a very moving experience for my dad. I can only imagine what it feels like to have your kids be done with school and then to add in your wife?? On our way to graduation (at 7:30 am at the start of our 5 hour roast in close to 100 degree F weather), my father expressed his satisfaction at having both his children and wife be college graduates. Again, congrats to my mom and my brother and thanks to my dad. My dad has always worked long, hard hours, and despite this, his put aside tiredness to be our number one fan.

In other graduation news, congrats to Sumana (or should I say Sumanabams) for earning her Masters in Technology Management while working full time. Whoo, Sumana!!!

In more ordinary news, my indoor game on Monday night went pretty well. We won 9-0. I unfortunately didn’t score but had lots of great shots (stopped by great goalie saves) and assists. As a team we played really well, moving the ball around a lot with lots of great communication. Personally, I had trouble going one-on-one. Whenever we play weak teams, I have a hard time being too aggressive and tend to play down and almost give up the ball. I think I feel sorry for the other team and I don’t want to show off or make them feel worse. However, at the same time I was trying pretty hard to score.

I may have mentioned before that I tend stay away from chain restaurants. One of the few exceptions is Chipotle, the gourmet burrito place. I love their vegetarian burritos and all their meats are humanely raised. I tend to eat there about once every 2 months. I had Chipotle for lunch today. At our Chipotle they have a “drop your business card and win 10 free burritos” contest every week. I’ve dropped about 4 cards into the bowl over the last 1.5 years, and I’ve won three times. It makes my coworkers very happy.

We are going to St. Paul, MN, this weekend for a friend’s wedding. After this, we don’t have any major travel plans for a while.

Check out Susan McCarthy’s, The Nature of the Beast. It’s a weblog of “short remarks about creatures, wildlife, and the environment.” McCarthy cowrote When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals and she wrote Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild. I met McCarthy’s husband at a party once, a few days after I had gone to the used bookstore, searching for When Elephants Weep, which I was unable to find it but that was probably due to poor memory – I knew the book title had “elephants” and “crying” in it. When McCarthy’s husband told me his wife was a writer, I asked if she had written any books I might know (I’m not good at remembering names) and even before he started answering my question, I knew he was going to say When Elephants Weep. I'm either psychic or was thinking too much of the book. I didn’t have much of a conversation with McCarthy herself – the party and house were large and I didn’t want to “stalk” her. I look forward to reading her weblog. Thanks for the find, Sumana and Leonard.

Pinkness Update: The vet was very happy with Sluggo’s pinkness level. He had more blood drawn and we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on and what his future holds after we get the results tomorrow. Sluggo and I have been playing a lot of fetch lately, mostly around 2 am. I don’t mind at all. Monkey on the other hand, is driving us crazy. She is incessant with her whining to get out of the house. We spoke to the vet about this and she suggested that we try to keep Monkey in for her safety and that of Sluggo’s (we don’t want her bringing in any disease). However, at the same time we need to consider her quality of life (and ours).

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Little Sluggo

Sluggo has Leukemia. He received a blood transfusion over the weekend and so he is currently doing much better. The vet expected the transfusion would last between one and three months. We have a vet appointment later this week to find out how his body accepted the transfusion. We’ve discussed options with the vet, but they really don’t recommend trying to do monthly transfusions to try to keep Sluggo comfortable and healthy. At least when it’s time he won’t feel pain, he’ll just be very tired.

Sluggo is 21 months old. When he was a kitten his test for Leukemia came back negative, but the vets think his disease started in his bone marrow so a blood test wouldn’t indicate any illness. I am very sad. I don’t want to loose our kitten. And I don’t want Noodles to loose his brother, his BFF. This afternoon we’re taking Monkey, Major, and Noodles to the vet to get tested. Leukemia is contagious between cats. There is a vaccination against Leukemia, but it is only recommended for indoor/outdoor cats. Monkey and Major have been vaccinated, Noodles and Sluggo were not.

For the time being, Sluggo is mostly back to his normal, spunky self. He loves to run around and play fetch. His favorite toys are one of my hair rubber bands, his catnip-stuffed carrot, and a rainbow colored mouse that makes noise when you shake it. He loves bananas and will gnaw on anything he can find. When I wake up on my own in the morning, I usually find him wedged between my legs. Otherwise, he’ll start kneading on me and he’ll wake me up with his razor-sharp claws. Sluggo loves to get petted and as a thank you he’ll give you lots of love bites (soft little nibbles on your hand). He’s a big love munchkin. I’ll probably be posting lots of pictures of him in the next few months.

Sluggo and his BFF Noodles. This was taken at my parents' house when they were taking care of them during their ringworm phase (hence the brown spots). The kittens got into the fireplace and were covered in soot. So my mom gave them a bath (she only got one little scratch in return) and they sat in the cupboards, recovering.

Furry Thoughts

Our white fur ball is very sick. Sluggo has really bad anemia and it doesn't look like it's the good or easy to care for kind. He's going to a specialist later today and they will redo some blood analysis. The blood analysis last night yielded results that were very grim (the lowest counts the vet had ever seen). It's probably premature to worry since they don't have a definite diagnosis yet but when the vet mentions bone marrow transfusions, it really makes me worry. Please keep him in your thoughts.

He's lost the pink in his nose.