I just had to get away from the recent negative and sad posts, and what better way than to talk about births! I really do love being a birth doula. It is honestly the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Not monetarily, that's not what I am talking about.
I can't even imagine doing anything that is more awe-inspiring than witnessing a woman go through the process of bring life into the world and creating a family. I really try to be of service and hope that my contribution makes that transition a bit easier.
One of my clients from last year and I had lunch with her most awesome and precious little boy today. And I have started the "busy season" with lots of pre-natals and impending births. Two July babies, 2 August and 2 Septembers coming right up. Woo Hoo!!
Off to go meet with a client right now as a matter of fact. ; )
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Follow up
I didn't expect to hear from the vet till late this afternoon, but he called me at 9:30 this morning. My poor little Gato Pato does in fact have lymphosarcoma of the intestinal area. The only course of treatment recommended is chemotherapy and steroids. It either works really well and keeps them in remission for a good long time or it doesn't do much and it's all over fairly quickly.
We are starting all this on Wednesday morning. I am not happy with the options of 1. chemo and steroids or 2. nothing. Nothing is not an option I can live with. Nothing is not what my Gato deserves. I have always said that if faced with the options of having to take chemo I didn't think I would be able to do it. But that is for me. That's not for my cat who can't voice his opinion. I just can't imagine that he would choose "let's do nothing and watch me die".
My plan is to take it week by week and see how he is doing. If he is going to respond well to this it will be noticeable right away in the first few weeks. I am hoping and praying for the best.
If you are so inclined I would really appreciate any prayers, good wishes and positive vibes. And I promise to get back to other topics.
We are starting all this on Wednesday morning. I am not happy with the options of 1. chemo and steroids or 2. nothing. Nothing is not an option I can live with. Nothing is not what my Gato deserves. I have always said that if faced with the options of having to take chemo I didn't think I would be able to do it. But that is for me. That's not for my cat who can't voice his opinion. I just can't imagine that he would choose "let's do nothing and watch me die".
My plan is to take it week by week and see how he is doing. If he is going to respond well to this it will be noticeable right away in the first few weeks. I am hoping and praying for the best.
If you are so inclined I would really appreciate any prayers, good wishes and positive vibes. And I promise to get back to other topics.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Really Sad
My oldest and best pet, Gato Pato, is sick. He has been sickly for a while now. I took all the cats in for their yearly checkups and shots and such and asked the vet to please do some extra tests on Gato to find out what is going on with him. He had been at 11 lbs. at last year's check up and was down to 8 lbs. and change this year. In addition to losing weight, he had a few bald patches showing up and he was puking more than usual.
After running all the usual blood work they did x-rays, and skin scrapings from the bald spots. Everything came back normal. But it wasn't normal. So I persisted and asked for more tests, possibly an endoscopy, something. Monday we took him back in to see what the vet thought, either more blood work or the endoscopy or an ultrasound. They ended up doing a needle biopsy of the lymph glands of his abdomen.
Friday I got the call that it is definitely a tumor. One of two possible types. Both are bad. Both require steroid and chemotherapy as treatment. There are more in depth tests being run on those biopsy samples over the weekend and the vet will call me Monday to let me know the results and the course of treatment recommended.
This is terrible news. I wish I could explain how special my little Gato Pato is. My kids found him when he was a tiny kitten in a ditch on the side of the road by our house in Argentina. As near as we could pinpoint a birthdate, he was born right around when my Dad died. And in a weird way I have always considered Gato a link to my Dad. Gato is also the only one of my pets who was around and lived with my old dog Sam (r.i.p.) and he is the last link to my Sammy. He is just a really special cat. He lived with us in Argentina, moved to Chile and lived there for 3 years, then moved to Mexico City, then up to Minnesota, and finally here to Texas. I would call him a "well-traveled" cat. He hardly ever makes a sound yet you always know what he wants. He keeps the younger cats in line with a stern look. That's all it takes.
I love my Gato Pato and will do everything possible to help him to live a long, full, happy and pain-free life. I will look for some good photos of him and post them. My wish would be that everyone have an animal live with them that is like Gato Pato. He really is the best.
After running all the usual blood work they did x-rays, and skin scrapings from the bald spots. Everything came back normal. But it wasn't normal. So I persisted and asked for more tests, possibly an endoscopy, something. Monday we took him back in to see what the vet thought, either more blood work or the endoscopy or an ultrasound. They ended up doing a needle biopsy of the lymph glands of his abdomen.
Friday I got the call that it is definitely a tumor. One of two possible types. Both are bad. Both require steroid and chemotherapy as treatment. There are more in depth tests being run on those biopsy samples over the weekend and the vet will call me Monday to let me know the results and the course of treatment recommended.
This is terrible news. I wish I could explain how special my little Gato Pato is. My kids found him when he was a tiny kitten in a ditch on the side of the road by our house in Argentina. As near as we could pinpoint a birthdate, he was born right around when my Dad died. And in a weird way I have always considered Gato a link to my Dad. Gato is also the only one of my pets who was around and lived with my old dog Sam (r.i.p.) and he is the last link to my Sammy. He is just a really special cat. He lived with us in Argentina, moved to Chile and lived there for 3 years, then moved to Mexico City, then up to Minnesota, and finally here to Texas. I would call him a "well-traveled" cat. He hardly ever makes a sound yet you always know what he wants. He keeps the younger cats in line with a stern look. That's all it takes.
I love my Gato Pato and will do everything possible to help him to live a long, full, happy and pain-free life. I will look for some good photos of him and post them. My wish would be that everyone have an animal live with them that is like Gato Pato. He really is the best.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Follow Up Photos
First photo is bamboo and part of T.C. & M.B.'s house. See the dead grass in front? This is taken from my patio looking over the area of my yard that nothing will grow in because of the Water Hogging Bamboo.
This is more straight on of the side of T.C. & M.B.'s house and the huge pile of the former fence. R.I.P.
Close up of the pile of former fence. 
This is way up at the complete back end of the property where we have the 3 brand new shiny metal poles. What you should notice is that there is MORE bamboo perpendicular to the other. I have bamboo growing on 2 sides of my property. It does offer some shelter from wind and I am sure even more homes to all sorts of woodland creatures. This bamboo has been there for 35 years and is approx. 3 stories high.
This is an aerial view of the top of one section of the bamboo.
This is the bottom half of the bamboo above.
This is looking down from the top of the backyard property line towards the house. That's a lot of frigging bamboo, isn't it? You should see how deep into T.C. & M.B.'s property it goes.
This is me trying to look into the bamboo and see out the other side. Not possible. Are you with me when I say "Why the hell does The Colonel care what the fence looks like?" He can't see the fence except for the part closest towards his house.
Here is a sprout of bamboo growing in my yard next to a terraced retaining wall about 12 to 14 feet away from the source. This shoot was not there yesterday.
What have we here? OMG!!! It's a FENCE BUILDER GUY! Guess what? 3 of them showed up today and brought tons and tons of heavy, manly equipment. Some of the manly equipment has generators and augers and all sorts of testosterone-laded metal stuff. Guess what else? There doesn't seem to be any progress. All the manly men and manly equipment are standing around idle. I see no end in sight to the No Fence Debacle. My poor dogs are most unhappy with the current state of affairs.Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do with my side of the cursed CHAIN LINK FENCE. The trouble is I don't know if I can get anything to grow there due to . . . . .
wait for it . . . . . . . .
THE DAMNED BAMBOO. That's what.
Guess what else? I promise this is the last thing you have to guess! Guess who doesn't really care for bamboo?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Another Rant
So sorry to throw another rant (and moaning and bitching and grumbling) in here, but it had to be done.
My next door neighbors are the nicest, sweetest couple in the world. They are older than dirt and have been married for like 67 years. We call them The Colonel and Miss Betty. They are transplanted from somewhere in the deep South and about as proper as people get. Anyhoo, the Colonel calls me way back the first part of May and tells me how he thinks he should tear down the perfectly good cedar fence between our properties and put up a brand new, shiny CHAIN LINK FENCE in it's place. He seemed to think that the old and yet still perfectly good cedar fence was de-valuing his property and he wanted the new CHAIN LINK FENCE.
I should say that it had been made known to us when we bought this house that the fence in question is his fence. His house was the first one built on this side of the street and he put the fence 6 inches inside his property line. So the fence is his to do with as he wishes. I told him that on a list of priorities that fence was way down at the bottom as far as I was concerned. It was a good, solid fence with no cracks, no leaning, no problems as far as I could see. He said fine, we'll leave the fence. He calls me back a week or two later telling me that Miss Betty told him that fence was an eye-sore and needed to go before the both of them dropped dead and it totally de-valued their property.
So the point to this is that in order to take down his fence the fence people will have to work from our backyard and he wanted our permission for this to happen. Ask me why they have to work from our yard. Go ahead ask. Ok, I will tell you. The reason they have to work from our side is because 35 years ago when The Colonel built his all Asian-inspired house he put in bamboo all around the perimeter of his yard. This bamboo is 35 years old and about 10 or 12 feet thick now and spreads like wildfire. You can't get to his fence from his side without a machete in each hand and a dozen panda bears chewing as fast as they can. Let me step aside from the topic at hand to mention that not only does the bamboo spread in his property; it shoots up in my yard about 30 feet away from the source. It comes up from the roots and is a major water-hog. That stuff sucks the water away from everything else. There is no competition for the water. When it rains (way back in the day when it DID rain) that bamboo will send up shoots all over my yard and they grow 18 INCHES A DAY! You can practically watch it grow. We fight the bamboo and try our damnedest to get grass, clover, anything to grow in those areas all the time. Can you tell that I hate the bamboo? We keep trying to teach the dogs to break off the bamboo shoots and eat them. They will chew on them if we whack them down for them, but they aren't as industrious as they could be.
Back to the rant at hand: We tried to politely discourage The Colonel from chainlink and we offered to split the cost of a new wood privacy fence, but he flat out said no, it was his fence and he would pay for it his own self. Fine. We will make peace with the fact that we will have a chain link fence on that side. So, after many calls to tell us that the fence guys were coming the next morning and we need to take our dogs out to pee and poo and run around and then get them put inside for the day, and then the fence guys being no-shows (this happened 4 times at least. nice reputable company, wouldn't you say?) they finally showed up Friday. Turns out it is just one guy and his wife. They were supposed to remove the current fence and put in the new metal posts so that the next day the other crew could show up and put up the chain link stuff. They worked their asses off taking off the fencing and then using a jackhammer breaking up the concrete holding the fence posts to get the fence posts out. They worked till dark-thirty and only had 3 posts installed. This is a LONG expanse of fence and with a post at 8 foot intervals, it was going to take a lot of posts.
It is my understanding that the newly-cemented in posts need to cure before the other stuff is stretched and attached. Saturday came and no one showed up to continue putting in the posts. The Colonel calls and tells us that they are coming on Sunday. Mr. Big Ed and I look at each other and had the same thought "Yeah right. No one is coming to work on a Sunday. Especially not on Father's Day." But we didn't say that out loud and be all negative to The Colonel.
Guess what? Guess who didn't show up on Sunday? The fence guys, that's who! And here it is Monday at 1 p.m. And guess who didn't show up for work again today? The fence guys, that's who!!
And guess who has to take her 3 dogs out on leashes to pee and poo and exercise and then keep in the house all day? Me, that's who. Who is being most inconvenienced by this whole debacle? Me, that's who. I am none too happy with this situation. We are all trying to be nice. We are all trying to be patient. But seriously, who does this? What kind of professional fence company acts so unprofessionally?
I have been worried that The Colonel and Miss Betty may have paid these idiots up front and now we are all hosed. It is a fucking mess out there with all the downed fence laying there, the 3 new shiny posts sticking up out of really messy concrete and NO FENCE! My poor dogs are most unhappy with this situation and can't understand what the hell has happened to their routine.
The old adage "Good fences make good neighbors" is so true. I am trying my best to keep a good attitude and not just scream, but it is getting harder day by day. So, that's it. That's my rant for the day. Just had to get it off my chest and let it go. If you stayed with me till the end, thanks.
And now I am off to go walk each dog separately in the hot sun. That way I can be out there 3 times, not just once. Insert large doses of sarcasm here. I need to work on that "good" attitude I mentioned, don't I?
My next door neighbors are the nicest, sweetest couple in the world. They are older than dirt and have been married for like 67 years. We call them The Colonel and Miss Betty. They are transplanted from somewhere in the deep South and about as proper as people get. Anyhoo, the Colonel calls me way back the first part of May and tells me how he thinks he should tear down the perfectly good cedar fence between our properties and put up a brand new, shiny CHAIN LINK FENCE in it's place. He seemed to think that the old and yet still perfectly good cedar fence was de-valuing his property and he wanted the new CHAIN LINK FENCE.
I should say that it had been made known to us when we bought this house that the fence in question is his fence. His house was the first one built on this side of the street and he put the fence 6 inches inside his property line. So the fence is his to do with as he wishes. I told him that on a list of priorities that fence was way down at the bottom as far as I was concerned. It was a good, solid fence with no cracks, no leaning, no problems as far as I could see. He said fine, we'll leave the fence. He calls me back a week or two later telling me that Miss Betty told him that fence was an eye-sore and needed to go before the both of them dropped dead and it totally de-valued their property.
So the point to this is that in order to take down his fence the fence people will have to work from our backyard and he wanted our permission for this to happen. Ask me why they have to work from our yard. Go ahead ask. Ok, I will tell you. The reason they have to work from our side is because 35 years ago when The Colonel built his all Asian-inspired house he put in bamboo all around the perimeter of his yard. This bamboo is 35 years old and about 10 or 12 feet thick now and spreads like wildfire. You can't get to his fence from his side without a machete in each hand and a dozen panda bears chewing as fast as they can. Let me step aside from the topic at hand to mention that not only does the bamboo spread in his property; it shoots up in my yard about 30 feet away from the source. It comes up from the roots and is a major water-hog. That stuff sucks the water away from everything else. There is no competition for the water. When it rains (way back in the day when it DID rain) that bamboo will send up shoots all over my yard and they grow 18 INCHES A DAY! You can practically watch it grow. We fight the bamboo and try our damnedest to get grass, clover, anything to grow in those areas all the time. Can you tell that I hate the bamboo? We keep trying to teach the dogs to break off the bamboo shoots and eat them. They will chew on them if we whack them down for them, but they aren't as industrious as they could be.
Back to the rant at hand: We tried to politely discourage The Colonel from chainlink and we offered to split the cost of a new wood privacy fence, but he flat out said no, it was his fence and he would pay for it his own self. Fine. We will make peace with the fact that we will have a chain link fence on that side. So, after many calls to tell us that the fence guys were coming the next morning and we need to take our dogs out to pee and poo and run around and then get them put inside for the day, and then the fence guys being no-shows (this happened 4 times at least. nice reputable company, wouldn't you say?) they finally showed up Friday. Turns out it is just one guy and his wife. They were supposed to remove the current fence and put in the new metal posts so that the next day the other crew could show up and put up the chain link stuff. They worked their asses off taking off the fencing and then using a jackhammer breaking up the concrete holding the fence posts to get the fence posts out. They worked till dark-thirty and only had 3 posts installed. This is a LONG expanse of fence and with a post at 8 foot intervals, it was going to take a lot of posts.
It is my understanding that the newly-cemented in posts need to cure before the other stuff is stretched and attached. Saturday came and no one showed up to continue putting in the posts. The Colonel calls and tells us that they are coming on Sunday. Mr. Big Ed and I look at each other and had the same thought "Yeah right. No one is coming to work on a Sunday. Especially not on Father's Day." But we didn't say that out loud and be all negative to The Colonel.
Guess what? Guess who didn't show up on Sunday? The fence guys, that's who! And here it is Monday at 1 p.m. And guess who didn't show up for work again today? The fence guys, that's who!!
And guess who has to take her 3 dogs out on leashes to pee and poo and exercise and then keep in the house all day? Me, that's who. Who is being most inconvenienced by this whole debacle? Me, that's who. I am none too happy with this situation. We are all trying to be nice. We are all trying to be patient. But seriously, who does this? What kind of professional fence company acts so unprofessionally?
I have been worried that The Colonel and Miss Betty may have paid these idiots up front and now we are all hosed. It is a fucking mess out there with all the downed fence laying there, the 3 new shiny posts sticking up out of really messy concrete and NO FENCE! My poor dogs are most unhappy with this situation and can't understand what the hell has happened to their routine.
The old adage "Good fences make good neighbors" is so true. I am trying my best to keep a good attitude and not just scream, but it is getting harder day by day. So, that's it. That's my rant for the day. Just had to get it off my chest and let it go. If you stayed with me till the end, thanks.
And now I am off to go walk each dog separately in the hot sun. That way I can be out there 3 times, not just once. Insert large doses of sarcasm here. I need to work on that "good" attitude I mentioned, don't I?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Big Brother 11 Coming Soon!
It is official, Big Brother starts up the summer excitement on July 9th. Woo Hoo!!!
This means they are back to Thursday nights this year. I will have to re-sign up on the 24 hour live feeds, get my DVR ready to record the after dark segments and start saving up my sleep credits since BB time is also No Sleep Time!!
Back to your regularly scheduled programming . . . . . . . . .
This means they are back to Thursday nights this year. I will have to re-sign up on the 24 hour live feeds, get my DVR ready to record the after dark segments and start saving up my sleep credits since BB time is also No Sleep Time!!
Back to your regularly scheduled programming . . . . . . . . .
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Actual Tea Shelves Photos!!!
Can you believe it? I finally got me and my camera together in the pantry to show you the tea stash. The first photo is the left half of the bottom shelf. It contains all the herbal and medicinal type teas and has the boxes of non-sugar sweeteners. We have stevia, Splenda, and some other stuff. I don't use any of them. They are there for others who do.
The middle photo is the right half of the bottom shelf. It has a big basket with all sorts of loose teas and in the front is a bag of the beautiful blooming teas. The space-age hermetically sealed teas that I haven't opened yet are all in there. The plastic tub is some bee pollen of Rachel Pie's.
Then we have the top shelf. These are mostly all black, green, white and red teas. Some of these things like the Constant Comment box contain a mix match of random singles rather than what they say. See the black box that has a blue section on the front that says Scottish Breakfast? Well, that is the favorite morning tea. I just love that tea. And that box has 50 tea bags, one for each Sunday of the year.
Oh, and behind the bee pollen is a tin that contains a bunch of teas. Underneath it is a wooden box with all ginseng teas from Korea that was a gift. And underneath that is a blue gift box that contains a bunch of Bigelow teas.
Just a note to self: This is almost 6 months in to this challenge. And I still have lots of teas. I will use up a lot of them starting next week when I get my kombucha out of hibernation in the fridge. This will use up 5 bags each week. Sometimes I run two kombuchas at a time. One batch from black tea and one of green tea. So that would seriously deplete the tea stock in just a few months. This is what I intended a lot of the unopened tea for, but I put the kombucha away and started the Amish Fiendish bread. I didn't want to have competing yeasty, moldy, bacteria things going in the kitchen and end up screwing them both up. I decided Thursday that it will be my last Fiendish bread for a while. It is just too damn much baking for the summer. If I had finished my solar oven, well maybe. But now is the time for peaches and watermelon not baked goods. Now is also a really good time for the refreshing kombucha in the fridge.
So now you can see what I have been going on about with the teas. I have decided to stick with the challenge and see how I do. It has been a real learning experience for me to see what I had and to realize how mindlessly I was picking up things at the store. As the tea situation changes I will post some updated photos. Maybe do a before and after?
Back to the weekend!! Enjoy yourselves whatever you are doing.
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