General – Page 224

Home Sick

Ethan is at home sick with a nasty fever. If you know of any good, not-too-corporate kid sites, send them our way via comment.

One of my friends comes over to my house and calls Pablo every P-name but Pablo. It messes me up for days. I’ll call the kitty for dinner and find myself calling a Lil’ Pistachio, a Lil’ Precious, or a Lil’ Punkin, but never a Pablo.

As you can see, Pablo finds something about being called “Lil’ Pancreas” very pleasing.

Pablo, Salud!

Well, sort of. Pablo was allowed to come home today, but must remain in isolation for several more days. They still don’t know why he was ill, but the initial illness seems to have passed.

No new pics this week as the camera flash may be too exciting for the kitty. Here’s an old picture of Ethan making Pablo acknowledge the camera.

The unbelievable amount of support I got from everyone responding to the Pablo saga left me with quite a bit of leftover cash. Would any of the contributors mind if I made a $100 gift of cat-related products to my local Humane Society? Leave a comment or email if you wish to remain anonymous.

Book Meme

From several at Feminist Blogs:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

From my CSS design manual, “This effect can be achieved by using two span elements and a couple of CSS rules.”

Why, that was thrilling.

Pablo & PayPal

I’ve set up the account for PayPal, and the link is located in the sidebar directly under my contact information. All money donated will cover Pablo’s vet bill. If anyone is interested in helping us out, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who offered. Love and kisses.

The Pablo Saga, Part II

After the vet visit today, I found that Pablo doesn’t have a parasite and he doesn’t have tapeworm. After the x-ray, we also have confirmation that Pablo didn’t eat any yarn, poisonous plants, or anything else causing a blockage. Thus, no surgery. That’s the good news.

The bad news: Pablo’s body is not passing waste. He has stool (apparently a remarkable amount) stuck in his intestines that is recycling toxins through his system again and again and again. The vet is keeping him overnight, administering medicine via IV since Pablo can’t ingest anything without throwing up, and will give me an update in the morning. Pablo hasn’t had anything to eat or drink that wasn’t immediately regurgitated in about four days.

I thought he was getting better yesterday and fed him a few tablespoons of food. He seemed to have kept it down, until I found another pile of vomit hidden under the coffeetable this morning. And until he threw up the water I gave him.

All of today has been Pablo-centered, going to and from the vet, sitting on hold waiting to talk to techs and pharmacists, and especially me musing over the amazement I feel at how attached Ethan and I are to this cat. Growing up, cats were cats. One got killed on a country road and there was always another in the paper to be picked up for free. That feeling stopped when I got my first Maine Coon from the pound, a fuzzy monkey named Teddy. I absolutely loved that cat and was horrified to know that he ran away when I was pregnant and living away from my parents’ house. I cried for days.

Pablo rounds out our little family so nicely and the thought of telling Ethan that Pablo might be really sick, sick enough that this may not turn out well, is heartbreaking. Some have suggested that, as the vet bill grows, I should just chalk this up as a loss. But pets are not disposable and I don’t want E to have the same attitude I did toward animals as a child, that when one left another came along. E sees Pablo as his buddy, a playmate, family, and truthfully, so do I. I’m this close to setting up a PayPal account as the current tab is well over $180 (I have no set number right now) and I don’t anticipate any outside resources coming in to help out, but asking pseudonymous internet buddies to help with a vet bill seems a bit much.

I just miss my kitty.

Exit stage right

Well it looks as though Lauren is back for a while so I’m going to take a long walk into the sunset. Thanks to Lauren for letting me vent my spleen for a bit on her blog, I really enjoyed it and learned a bit too. Millstone and Spooky pass on their farewells.

Did I get through that without any shameless link plugging?

Cheers,

Flute

Pablo, Reclined

Pablo declares himself king of the bed.

Pablo voluptuously rolls through the sunlight. If life were only this easy.

Paul may have ruined my kitty blogging glee for a week, but it was quickly restored.

Chess, anyone?

You know you’re dumb when your cat reckons it can beat you with its eyes closed.

Cuz Ya Know, We Support Our Troops!

Guest-blogger Roxanne here.

An article that originally appeared at CSM and republished yesterday at Military.com illustrates just how much we Americans support our fighting women and men in the armed services. Here’s a snip:

Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are now showing up in the nation’s homeless shelters.

While the numbers are still small, they’re steadily rising, and raising alarms in both the homeless and veterans’ communities. The concern is that these returning veterans – some of whom can’t find jobs after leaving the military, others of whom are still struggling psychologically with the war – may be just the beginning of an influx of new veterans in need. Currently, there are 150,000 troops in Iraq and 16,000 in Afghanistan. More than 130,000 have already served and returned home.

So far, dozens of them, like Herold Noel, a married father of three, have found themselves sleeping on the streets, on friends’ couches, or in their cars within weeks of returning home. Two years ago, Black Veterans for Social Justice (BVSJ) in the borough of Brooklyn, saw only a handful of recent returnees. Now the group is aiding more than 100 Iraq veterans, 30 of whom are homeless.

“It’s horrible to put your life on the line and then come back home to nothing, that’s what I came home to: nothing. I didn’t know where to go or where to turn,” says Mr. Noel. “I thought I was alone, but I found out there are a whole lot of other soldiers in the same situation. Now I want people to know what’s really going on.”

This is part of what makes Jonah Goldberg’s excuse for not serving –yet supporting the war so vociferously that to liken him to a feverish, frothing mad dog would be a compliment– so unbelievably shameful. In case you missed it, here:

As for why my sorry a** isn’t in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give — I’m 35 years old, my family couldn’t afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few — ever seem to suffice.

No, Jonah. No excuse you could give would suffice.

When people say they “support the troops,” what exactly do they mean?