Just to let people know, I'm not going to have frequent internet access for about three weeks. E-mail is a very bad way to get in touch with me. So if you have my number, call me. If you don't have my number, you probably aren't someone I'm interested in talking to.

Help Save a Kitty!

Since July this year, the house that I live at has had an outdoor-only kitty. She's a beautiful orange tabby that started hanging around as a kitten, and we started feeding her. Recently we suspected that she was possibly pregnant, and in an attempt to confirm that and try to take care of her and find homes for her kittens, I took her to my vet today. In doing so, we found out that she has feline leukemia. The disease is eventually fatal and very contagious (but only to other cats! Not dogs or people). Those of you that have cats know that there is a vaccine for this, but unfortunately it is only about 80% effective. Since there are three other cats that live in various areas of the house I live in, I wasn't able to bring her home with me tonight:-( She is being boarded at my vet's for a few nights, while I try to find her a home.

Even though Skinny-B has the disease, it is possible for her to live happily and healthily for years to come. Some cats with the disease that are lucky enough to be placed in loving homes and have good vet care often live just as long as any other indoor cat does (8-16 years).

We have two choices. The first, and one that I am doing my utmost to make happen, is find her a good home. Ideally one without any other cats, or with other cats that also have leukemia. A home with cats that do not have the disease is also possible, so long as the owner is aware of the risk involved in having Skinny-B around. One thing that I must emphasize is that she ABSOLUTELY MUST be indoor-only. If allowed outdoors, she will be exposed to other diseases that would greatly shorten her life-span, and she would also be infecting other cats in the area.

The second choice, and what will have to happen if a home for her is not found by Thursday night, is to have her put to sleep. It will already be necessary to have her spayed ASAP, and the kittens put to sleep. Chances are, they would not survive more than a few days past birth, because they would be so sick. And allowing Skinny-B to give birth would put so much strain on her that it would severely lessen her chance of being healthy and happy for any length of time. Having this done to the kittens is terrible enough, and I really do not want to have to do the same to Skinny-B.

Everyone here adores her. She is very sweet and affectionate. You hardly even have to look at her and she starts purring:-) She loves attention and cuddling. She endures kitty baths very well and also does very well in the car (as I discovered today while taking her to the vet). She isn't extremely fond of dogs, but I'm sure when given a little time to adjust, she would become friends with one. She is an orange and white tabby, with big green eyes. Right now, she weighs about 8.5 lbs (but could definitely stand to put on a little weight), and we are guessing that she is maybe a year old, at most. She was a little kitten when she first started showing up here at the house, last summer. Aside from the leukemia, she is perfectly healthy. Her heart and lungs are great, her teeth are fairly healthy (she seems to be getting a little bit of gingivitis from not having proper food and care) and amazingly enough, she doesn't appear to have any fleas.

Please e-mail all your friends and pass the word around. Many of us here at the house want to do everything possible to avoid having to put her to sleep while she is still so young and healthy. Because we are operating under such a time constraint, please pass my cell phone number around as well, and encourage people to call me with any questions that they might have, at any time (day or night). If someone is willing to take her, I will gladly help raise money for any vaccinations and health care in the near future, and she will already come to you spayed, flea treated and cleaned up:-) Even if you are in another state, please pass the word around and feel free to get in touch with me. I'm going to be traveling in the next month, and it might be possible to arrange for me to drop her off.

If you have a myspace, please write up a short bulletin and post it (including my # and email). If you have a livejournal or a blog, please do the same. I'm posting an add on craigslist, and also contacting various shelters and animal sanctuaries tomorrow. Please help me find her a home!

Thanks Everyone.

mims.katie at gmail dot com

When there isn't much left to look forward to, everything blurs together. Time seems to slow down, and the days seem longer. Emptier. That space is filled with meaningless things. The nights seem darker, and they stretch on forever. Maybe that's one of the things I miss so much. Something to really look forward to; plans and dreams to be excited about.

Sure, there's still plans. Just nothing like what I thought they'd be. And there are still dreams. Or at least desires (although they seem more and more apathetic by the second). But they aren't shared. There's nobody to talk about them with or to get excited with. And that is what really sucks, at this moment in time.

But more than that, the fact that it seems like I'm the only one feeling like something beautiful is dead. I'm the only one that misses it or us or him. Yet again, I'm the one that's been compromised, effected, upheaved. I put everything in, and lost it all again. I lost it.

plethra of emotions lately.

Wouldn't it figure that the one night I'm ready to go to bed at a decent hour, Edgar decides there's something in my bedroom that he needs to protect me from? For the last hour, he's been sitting posed to pounce. Either on my bed, or the floor next to my bed. Back arched, with an ocasional hiss or low growl. I can't help but wonder what it is that he manages to see that I'm missing.

I like this idea. A lot.

Positive
Identifiable
Truth

The night was off to a really bad start. I was confused. I was anxious. I was upset. I was passionate. I was starving for a hint of caring, compassion, understanding or dare I even say it: love. By the time I was thoroughly depressed, one of the boys came home. We had decided to ditch out on the party originally planned and just go get trashed and sleep. That's all I felt like I wanted. To get trashed and sleep; to forget. But naturally, things didn't go as planned.

By the time we were ready to go, one of the other boys was on his way back and insisting that we go to the party. Debate ensued. Bickering about the distance followed. Eventually we left, but not before it had hit me like a pile of bricks on the chest. The knowledge.

Once we arrived, it felt like we had entered another world. The garden was lush. The two houses were natural and full of craftsmanship. People were milling about everywhere, and everyone had a drink of some sort or a bottle in hand. I stopped, picked up my bottle of wine, opened it and gave up on the idea of a glass or cup of any sort. We wandered through the garden and the houses; herb waifed through the air and permeated every room we walked through. Loud and deep drum beats were coming from the performance room as we worked our way towards it. People were dancing, swaying and drifting with the beats. I just leaned against the door, clinging to my bottle and trying to ignore the heavy weight I felt.

Thank goodness another friend was there, and about to leave. Consuming the contents of my bottle and clinging to it as if it were all that stood between myself and death, even though it was almost empty, was slowly eating at me. And I realized; life is cyclical. We cannot escape that. I leaned over and spoke into the ear of my friend, saying that I needed to ride home with him. I so desperately needed sleep.

As we left, I corked the small amount of wine left in my bottle, deep red and painfully lovely, and left it right where I had opened it.

Originally I was going to post pictures of mostly knitted items and maybe two cat pictures. But seriously. Did anyone think that would actually happen? Of course not. Especially after a trip to the pet store to get food for Edgar (pet store = kittens). I'll post knitted stuff later. The cats are way cuter (is that even a word?)! You can click for descriptions and larger sizes.

Okay, so this isn't really actual blogging. But give me a break. It's late. My energy rush is hopefully dying, and if it isn't, the sleep drugs I just took will most assuredly kill it. So this is more like waiting to pass out/reminder blogging.

By Friday last week, I'd gone a good four days without my drugs. Maybe five. Somehow between Florida and Los Angeles, I managed to lose my bottle of drugs. Don't ask me how, because I have no idea. I don't remember much of the trip back because it was such a terrible experience. Maybe I'll elaborate on it later. Anyway, I had a few days worth saved at my place, incase such a horrible thing were to ever happen like losing a freshly filled bottle. I took it my first day back, but I was so horribly sick for the next few days that I didn't take anything because I was afraid it would result in hugging the toilet.

Once I was better, the first thing I did was try and get new perscription. You can always tell when someone hasn't ever personally dealt with an illness that involves constant and steady medication, because they are the people that make it difficult to get ahold of said drugs in a pinch. Short version being, I spent two days trying to get a doctor to call in the perscription, finally gave up on doctors and called the RN I know at the school clinic. She called it in.

The day after I went to pick it up, and they said my insurance wouldn't cover it. Some bullshit about a step program where I try all the drugs I've already tried, and then they'll cover it (obviously something got messed up with my records). $120. Uh, yeah. I don't have an extra $120 in my budget! The pharmacist said she would call my RN and see if she would call in a temporary substitute. After spending 15 minutes trying to explain to her that I couldn't take another drug, that it absolutely had to be this one because this one is the only one that's worked so far, I worked myself up to the point of almost tears and left. Can we tell the drugs had started wearing off?

So the next day, which would be Friday of last week, I went in again and talked to the same girl at the pharmacy. The night before had been ugly, and I really wasn't in the mood to start the bottoming out process that happened last time I went for a period of time without this drug. I explained to her again that I had lost my newly filled bottle, and that I needed to find a way to get it filled again AND covered by my insurance, because I honest to God couldn't wait any longer. Now not only did I almost cry at the drug store, but I felt embarassed about being that person at the pharmacy. You know, the one that sounds like a total addict in desperate need of a fix, because who else would insist so strongly on a particular drug as cheaply and quickly as possible? Yuck. So end of story being, the very nice pharmacist, after carefully listening to me, found a way to get it covered and filled within 15 minutes.

So maybe this has turned into real blogging. And I promise, there is a point to that tangent! The point is, I can always tell when my drugs have started to kick back in because I get serious energy rushes and typically have problems sleeping for a few nights in a row. Last night was night #1. Tonight has been night #2. One night of no sleep is about all I can take lately. I'm already tired even when I do sleep all night, so not sleeping for nights in a row is definitely not an option, which is why I'm rambling and waiting for some drugs to kick in at 2:20am.

Tomorrow hopefully I'll get lots of shit done, and then have some time to blog about non-drug related things and post some pictures of my recently knit items. And my cat. Everyone should know by now that any post including pictures is almost always going to include pictures of my kitty:-) Which reminds me. I need to blog about Edgar's first mouse.