Remembering Krista

[tarasgirl06]

I’m learning Siri Shortcuts on the iPhone. It’s nice to finally have a modern one that can run a recent iOS. I created a shortcut that extracted the audio out of a video file. So I trimmed a Krista video down to the trilling meow. And created an audio file. But I’m not done yet. There’s a feature in Settings-Accessibility-Touch called Back Tap. Now when I double tap the back of my phone, she trills and meows at me.

Oh wow! I used Settings-Accessibility-Touch to access my flashlight. *Exciting, huh?* because by the time I finish work, it's dark now and I have to navigate a dark hall with turns and then turn on lights in the master bedroom, wherein are cats, or the kitchen, wherein is cat food. That must be amazing to be able to bring Krista's voice up with a tap! I may do that with a Tarifa meow. Or maybe not. Because I'm a very emotional person.

 

[daftcat75]

Oh wow! I used Settings-Accessibility-Touch to access my flashlight. *Exciting, huh?* because by the time I finish work, it's dark now and I have to navigate a dark hall with turns and then turn on lights in the master bedroom, wherein are cats, or the kitchen, wherein is cat food. That must be amazing to be able to bring Krista's voice up with a tap! I may do that with a Tarifa meow. Or maybe not. Because I'm a very emotional person.

I find it comforting to have Krista’s voice available at a tap no matter what app I’m in. I don’t have to go hunting for a video in my camera roll. I might set the Triple Tap to just a trill. Because I miss those trills so much! I could always reach out and press her trill button no matter what app she was running. Her trill button was a single tap pretty much anywhere on her body.

I also set up a few Personal Automations in Shortcuts app. I find the Low Battery Alert annoying and disruptive. Instead, when the battery drops below 30%, it sets Low Power Mode and plays a sound (“monkey needs a hug” from the Black Mirror episode). When connected to power, it plays another sound (“monkey loves you”) When battery level reaches 80%, it turns off Low Power Mode and plays “monkey loves you” sound.

 

[daftcat75]

November 15, 2019:
I think she liked me.

 

[tarasgirl06]

November 15, 2019:
I think she liked me.
View attachment 358839

I'm pretty sure about that, too.
Did you recalibrate your battery? It's helped on my phone, because as we can both read, this SE battery sucks power. If you have overnight plus a few hours, you can do that easily and then maybe not be bothered so much. People like us don't need more bothers than we absolutely must have, right?

 

[daftcat75]

I'm pretty sure about that, too.
Did you recalibrate your battery? It's helped on my phone, because as we can both read, this SE battery sucks power. If you have overnight plus a few hours, you can do that easily and then maybe not be bothered so much. People like us don't need more bothers than we absolutely must have, right?

I have a battery case. I have two battery cases. Because I’m Gemini and Aspy. One case is always on the charger. One case is always on the phone. When the one on the phone runs out of charge, I swap it for the one on the charger. I get more than 24 hours on a case with the SE vs the old 6. That’s actually the problem now. I’ll head off to the office in the morning on yesterday’s case and run out mid morning or midday. Luckily, the office is a fifteen steps commute these days. I have to get in the habit of proactively switching the cases in the morning though. One of these years, I may actually see the inside of the office building of the new job. I don’t even know if I have a cube yet since I joined after the lockdown. We’re WFHing through the end of the year and probably well into next year with or without a vaccine.

 

[tarasgirl06]

I have a battery case. I have two battery cases. Because I’m Gemini and Aspy. One case is always on the charger. One case is always on the phone. When the one on the phone runs out of charge, I swap it for the one on the charger. I get more than 24 hours on a case with the SE vs the old 6. That’s actually the problem now. I’ll head off to the office in the morning on yesterday’s case and run out mid morning or midday. Luckily, the office is a fifteen steps commute these days. I have to get in the habit of proactively switching the cases in the morning though. One of these years, I may actually see the inside of the office building of the new job. I don’t even know if I have a cube yet since I joined after the lockdown. We’re WFHing through the end of the year and probably well into next year with or without a vaccine.

*You just can't be more Aspy than me!* I don't believe in astrology but I'm Aries so you put that together with Aspy and you've got a holy terror when it comes to OCD. My tower is my case, I guess. Another thing I do is to turn my phone off at night. My roomie does that so I got it from her. Since I keep my phone in the kitchen and don't really have any reason to get emergency type calls late at night, it works.
I can't imagine working catless. That's just me. I can't imagine doing much of anything catless. And now that it's pretty chilly in the house, my Big Blue laptop really helps. *Here he is on the T-shirt his dad lined his carrier with when he brought him to me and kindly left for him.* I call this photo "Une ballon ronde"

 

[daftcat75]

I buy things in duplicate. That’s the Gemini (The Twins.) I leave the labels on those things most of the time so I know what I bought if I need to buy it again.

Or I’ll save the manual for the same reason. I have two drawers of manuals that needs to be thinned. I probably don’t need to save my toothbrush manual. This is the Aspy.

It’s not about being cat-less right now. It’s still very much about being Krista-less. It’s still very much tracing the shadows and ghosts of the life she lived and left behind, how it changed me—for better and worse. It’s healing and growing and coming to peace in my own home without her.

Cats are wonderful. But this isn’t a time for me to have one right now. I’ve been without cats before. It’s actually doing me some good. I don’t have the “fur ball and chain” to blame for missed sleep, skipped exercise, and terrible food habits. I’m starting to become interested in my career again. That was suffering a lot in the last year. It played a part in my layoff earlier this year. They won’t say so. But if I was more productive, someone else would have been fingered for workforce reduction.

To be honest, I actually see a wonderful opportunity here between all the WFH and having a very predictable and balanced work schedule now. I have so much time to explore yoga, cooking, bodyweight exercises, reading, so many other habits and hobbies to develop. If only I can work on the self discipline part of this. I certainly have the time to do it.

But I’m also still unwinding the grief and the old life. I’m selling cat food back to the local stores. I’m cleaning old cat pee from the carpets.

And with the baseball season and the election finally over, I’m only just starting to take away the nightly beer to see if I can finally lose the cat weight. It’s a long slog ahead. But I’m ready for it. It will make me a better cat dad for NC to become a more healthy and balanced person now.

 

[tarasgirl06]

I buy things in duplicate. That’s the Gemini (The Twins.) I leave the labels on those things most of the time so I know what I bought if I need to buy it again.
View attachment 358852
Or I’ll save the manual for the same reason. I have two drawers of manuals that needs to be thinned. I probably don’t need to save my toothbrush manual. This is the Aspy.

It’s not about being cat-less right now. It’s still very much about being Krista-less. It’s still very much tracing the shadows and ghosts of the life she lived and left behind, how it changed me—for better and worse. It’s healing and growing and coming to peace in my own home without her.

Cats are wonderful. But this isn’t a time for me to have one right now. I’ve been without cats before. It’s actually doing me some good. I don’t have the “fur ball and chain” to blame for missed sleep, skipped exercise, and terrible food habits. I’m starting to become interested in my career again. That was suffering a lot in the last year. It played a part in my layoff earlier this year. They won’t say so. But if I was more productive, someone else would have been fingered for workforce reduction.

To be honest, I actually see a wonderful opportunity here between all the WFH and having a very predictable and balanced work schedule now. I have so much time to explore yoga, cooking, bodyweight exercises, reading, so many other habits and hobbies to develop. If only I can work on the self discipline part of this. I certainly have the time to do it.

But I’m also still unwinding the grief and the old life. I’m selling cat food back to the local stores. I’m cleaning old cat pee from the carpets.
View attachment 358855
And with the baseball season and the election finally over, I’m only just starting to take away the nightly beer to see if I can finally lose the cat weight. It’s a long slog ahead. But I’m ready for it. It will make me a better cat dad for NC to become a more healthy and balanced person now.

Okay. I already do yoga and weightlifting 4-5 times weekly. I cook, though I've simplified it A LOT because cooking for one is kind of MEH. My roomies eat very differently from how I do. So she cooks for them, and I cook for me, bearing in mind what I can make quickly and clean up quickly. But I am able to cook. I've always been a workaholic pushing my own envelope. That never changes. I'd rather work than eat, sleep, or watch TV, my three "recreational" activities.
The manual drawer? I have one! Not only my own manuals but manuals for stuff my parents bought that I inherited. Labels? Check. Dupes? Dupes would be the least amount I could endure. When my roomies were going to move in, I threw away trips, quads...you get the idea. It's a roomy house with a lot of closets and cupboards PLUS a double garage (and no car) so of course I tried to plan for not only this millenium but, well, this millenium. My folks raised me to NEVER throw anything away that might be useful. It stuck. I have (some) clothes I've had since college. Which was, well, a FEW years ago ....
I understand about being Krista-less because I'm Tarifa-less, and Rani-less, and Samuda-less, and Sammi-less, and Calo-less...and on and on. You can't replace a loved one or duplicate the relationship you had with a loved one.
But yeah, there are those empty cat things. And SO MANY cats, each and every one of them sweet and unique, who are without loving homes. If I still had my extra room, I'd adopt again in a NY heartbeat. Considering, of course, my feral 16-year-old and my territorial 13-year-old.

 

[daftcat75]

It seems so inconceivable and tragically sad that I have so few Krista pictures before 2018. So every time I look to today’s date in Krista pics, it’s all out of one or two albums: 2018 or 2019. And soon 2020.

I re-jiggered my Shortcuts and Back Tap. Now when I tap the back of my phone twice, she trills. Three times, she does a trill meow. If I could configure a soft stroke, I have a purr shortcut already set up. Looking for a button to associate it with.

A series from Nov 15 and Nov 16, 2018 (I must have given her a camera break for a day or two in 2019.)

My furry foreman supurrvising a Rad Cat thaw and reportion. This is coming from our stash since they were already a month closed down by now. I often wondered how her health might have been different had Rad Cat remained in business...


And if my heater could grieve...


I’m sure this was one of her favorite parts of fall/winter. It would come out around November each year and remain on low until March or April. I spend more on electric in winter and less on auto gas in the winter. Auto gas is higher and electric is lower in the summer. I figure it all evens out over the course of a year.

 

[daftcat75]

I’m glad she’s not around for this. This is upsetting and so stinky. Sometimes I think the chemical smells in these urine enzyme cleaners are worse than the pee smell. The cat wall was originally erected to remove access to those areas she was peeing before I got her problem teeth addressed in 2018. I tarped the area. I used other enzyme cleaners. And still, parts of it glow under black light. Especially the moulding. Next up, I have to do the closet. Maybe by midweek my living room will look normal again.

This fun though. I needed some place to put her big Katris structure. I’m sorry she missed it. Though I’m sure she’d simply jump over it.

 

[tarasgirl06]

It seems so inconceivable and tragically sad that I have so few Krista pictures before 2018. So every time I look to today’s date in Krista pics, it’s all out of one or two albums: 2018 or 2019. And soon 2020.

I re-jiggered my Shortcuts and Back Tap. Now when I tap the back of my phone twice, she trills. Three times, she does a trill meow. If I could configure a soft stroke, I have a purr shortcut already set up. Looking for a button to associate it with.

A series from Nov 15 and Nov 16, 2018 (I must have given her a camera break for a day or two in 2019.)

My furry foreman supurrvising a Rad Cat thaw and reportion. This is coming from our stash since they were already a month closed down by now. I often wondered how her health might have been different had Rad Cat remained in business...
View attachment 358969View attachment 358970View attachment 358971View attachment 358974

And if my heater could grieve...
View attachment 358972
View attachment 358973
I’m sure this was one of her favorite parts of fall/winter. It would come out around November each year and remain on low until March or April. I spend more on electric in winter and less on auto gas in the winter. Auto gas is higher and electric is lower in the summer. I figure it all evens out over the course of a year.

Yeah, don't we hate it when really good cat food businesses shut down?!!
I'm letting my roomies use my space heater. It looks like a radiator. It's industrial grey. And it works really well. I have this tiny ceramic heater I use in the bathroom when I CAN'T STAND the cold. That's not very often. We still have the HVAC heat, too. But it's $$$. We aren't using the car much. I use the ceiling fans a lot when it's hot. But they're cheap to run.
Yeah, I've done lots and lots of cleaning of cat pee in my time. People don't really grasp the reality of their being desert animals. And they don't really get that since their kidneys have to work SO HARD because of their obligate carnivore leanings, "pee happens" -- it's all part of unconditional love for, and acceptance of, cats being cats, rather than small humans or dogs or ??? Wishing you much success, though, with your deep cleaning! It would be very considerate to intro NC to a non-OCS ("other cat scented" to NC) territory.

 

[daftcat75]

Yeah, don't we hate it when really good cat food businesses shut down?!!
I'm letting my roomies use my space heater. It looks like a radiator. It's industrial grey. And it works really well. I have this tiny ceramic heater I use in the bathroom when I CAN'T STAND the cold. That's not very often. We still have the HVAC heat, too. But it's $$$. We aren't using the car much. I use the ceiling fans a lot when it's hot. But they're cheap to run.
Yeah, I've done lots and lots of cleaning of cat pee in my time. People don't really grasp the reality of their being desert animals. And they don't really get that since their kidneys have to work SO HARD because of their obligate carnivore leanings, "pee happens" -- it's all part of unconditional love for, and acceptance of, cats being cats, rather than small humans or dogs or ??? Wishing you much success, though, with your deep cleaning! It would be very considerate to intro NC to a non-OCS ("other cat scented" to NC) territory.

The radiator I have is for taking the chill away from that big sliding glass door I have next to the bed. The front room is too big for that little radiator to be an effective room warmer. But it combats that door nicely. I have two Dyson Pure/Hot/Cools. I've been working out their schedule. Needs refinement. But it's nice to have them come on in the morning when I'm still warm in bed so that my morning bathroom and brush my teeth isn't so cold and the office is already toasty by start of work day. Then they both go to cooler overnight settings until the daytime schedule kicks in again at 6am. Finally, I have one space heater in the bathroom. It's connected to a plug that can be turned on or off with an RF keychain remote. I need to fix my smart home software (OpenHab2) on my home server. I used to have a setup that would send the RF signal to turn the heater off at 15 past every hour. That way if I walked away and forgot that I had turned on the bathroom heater, it would never run more than an hour. Actually, Kasa plugs support timed callbacks. One of my coffee cup warmers is on a Kasa plug that turns itself off after sixty minutes run-time. If I can build safety into my home automation, yes please! I do have wall unit heaters in the apartment. But Krista peed in one of them. So you can imagine how that would smell if I let it run. I turn the wall heaters off at the breaker box.

I'm de-peeing the apartment because I shamefully let it go too long and the closet (behind those mirrors) smells like cat pee every time I open the closet. The rest of that front room is fine. Until I sat down to assemble the dining table and kept getting whiffs of pee. So now that I don't have little sensitive kitty lungs and a gut that would barf at the application of the cleaners around, I can really get in there and give it all the business the problem needs. I can rearrange the furniture as I need to. Since OC was receiving the pee-mail that Krista had sent, and sent one of his own, I figure this absolutely needs to be done before I bring a new cat in. I don't want my experience with the next cat to be marred with her "conversations" with my last cat.

 

[tarasgirl06]

The radiator I have is for taking the chill away from that big sliding glass door I have next to the bed. The front room is too big for that little radiator to be an effective room warmer. But it combats that door nicely. I have two Dyson Pure/Hot/Cools. I've been working out their schedule. Needs refinement. But it's nice to have them come on in the morning when I'm still warm in bed so that my morning bathroom and brush my teeth isn't so cold and the office is already toasty by start of work day. Then they both go to cooler overnight settings until the daytime schedule kicks in again at 6am. Finally, I have one space heater in the bathroom. It's connected to a plug that can be turned on or off with an RF keychain remote. I need to fix my smart home software (OpenHab2) on my home server. I used to have a setup that would send the RF signal to turn the heater off at 15 past every hour. That way if I walked away and forgot that I had turned on the bathroom heater, it would never run more than an hour. Actually, Kasa plugs support timed callbacks. One of my coffee cup warmers is on a Kasa plug that turns itself off after sixty minutes run-time. If I can build safety into my home automation, yes please! I do have wall unit heaters in the apartment. But Krista peed in one of them. So you can imagine how that would smell if I let it run. I turn the wall heaters off at the breaker box.

I'm de-peeing the apartment because I shamefully let it go too long and the closet (behind those mirrors) smells like cat pee every time I open the closet. The rest of that front room is fine. Until I sat down to assemble the dining table and kept getting whiffs of pee. So now that I don't have little sensitive kitty lungs and a gut that would barf at the application of the cleaners around, I can really get in there and give it all the business the problem needs. I can rearrange the furniture as I need to. Since OC was receiving the pee-mail that Krista had sent, and sent one of his own, I figure this absolutely needs to be done before I bring a new cat in. I don't want my experience with the next cat to be marred with her "conversations" with my last cat.

Yeah, I can certainly relate to that. Two locations ago, our furmily was large, and someone(s) used our wall heaters as territorial markers. We had to use that heater as it was the whole-house heat source. You can imagine the fragrance! They finally gave out completely and we got an oil heater (the kind they use in auto shops and such) which was on a thermostat. It worked pretty well to heat the living room. We had space heaters for other rooms.
Safety's so important!
Do you have huge electric bills?

 

[daftcat75]

Yeah, I can certainly relate to that. Two locations ago, our furmily was large, and someone(s) used our wall heaters as territorial markers. We had to use that heater as it was the whole-house heat source. You can imagine the fragrance! They finally gave out completely and we got an oil heater (the kind they use in auto shops and such) which was on a thermostat. It worked pretty well to heat the living room. We had space heaters for other rooms.
Safety's so important!
Do you have huge electric bills?

I guess it depends on what you consider huge. But no, not really. I haven't seen my first full electric bill since the heaters went on in this new WFH time. I didn't have to run space heaters in the daytime on those days I would work in the (outside the home) office. But even if my power bill doubles (which I don't expect), it's still less than blood chemistry testing for a cat.

Safety is important because I'm so forgetful. That's maybe the aspy? I often require two or three tries to get out the door because I keep remembering things I nearly forgot. I will get one shoe on, remember something, and quickly do or get that thing with one shoe on, afraid that I will once again forget that thing if I stopped to put the other shoe on first. Krista probably thought I was highly amusing (or annoying) that I'd leave, come back, leave, come back, three or four times before I finally left for good. Each time, I'd get a "wassup?" trill when I walked in the door and a "cheers!" trill when I'd give her a goodbye scritch. Again. And again. I have driven to work. Couldn't remember if I turned off a heater or the stove. Drove back home to find that thing still on. That's why I spend the extra money to make the flammable stuff forget-me proof.

There are dogs that can be rented to sniff for bed bugs. I would like a dog or cat rental to sniff for cat pee. Because I'm sticking my nose right in those spots now and can't determine if I'm smelling just the chemical/enzyme cleaner, or if there is a faint feline urine aroma behind that. And scent is such a disgusting sense when you think about it. In order to smell something, you must inhale and chemically bind on scent receptors with those items you are trying to smell. When you smell cat pee, you have cat pee in your nose. I use a black light. But some places like the wall and moulding permanently glow now. Washing and rewashing those hard surfaces only water stains and warps the wood. At least those places get covered by the cat wall once reassembled. To do another pass or not on the cat wall or move on to the closet? That's the question for lunch today.

 

[tarasgirl06]

I guess it depends on what you consider huge. But no, not really. I haven't seen my first full electric bill since the heaters went on in this new WFH time. I didn't have to run space heaters in the daytime on those days I would work in the (outside the home) office. But even if my power bill doubles (which I don't expect), it's still less than blood chemistry testing for a cat.

Safety is important because I'm so forgetful. That's maybe the aspy? I often require two or three tries to get out the door because I keep remembering things I nearly forgot. I will get one shoe on, remember something, and quickly do or get that thing with one shoe on, afraid that I will once again forget that thing if I stopped to put the other shoe on first. Krista probably thought I was highly amusing (or annoying) that I'd leave, come back, leave, come back, three or four times before I finally left for good. Each time, I'd get a "wassup?" trill when I walked in the door and a "cheers!" trill when I'd give her a goodbye scritch. Again. And again. I have driven to work. Couldn't remember if I turned off a heater or the stove. Drove back home to find that thing still on. That's why I spend the extra money to make the flammable stuff forget-me proof.

There are dogs that can be rented to sniff for bed bugs. I would like a dog or cat rental to sniff for cat pee. Because I'm sticking my nose right in those spots now and can't determine if I'm smelling just the chemical/enzyme cleaner, or if there is a faint feline urine aroma behind that. And scent is such a disgusting sense when you think about it. In order to smell something, you must inhale and chemically bind on scent receptors with those items you are trying to smell. When you smell cat pee, you have cat pee in your nose. I use a black light. But some places like the wall and moulding permanently glow now. Washing and rewashing those hard surfaces only water stains and warps the wood. At least those places get covered by the cat wall once reassembled. To do another pass or not on the cat wall or move on to the closet? That's the question for lunch today.

Yeah. Aspy. I try to cover it by going through all the stuff I need/have to do/have to have before I start/leave. That often involves lying awake and then berating myself for STILL not putting a pad of paper and a pen by the bed so I can write these things down because yeah, I'm sure to forget them by the time I get up. Last time I went to the store I forgot tomatoes. I like tomatoes. I pretty much need tomatoes. But I have 1 1/3 tomatoes left and that will have to do until I go again. And in the meantime, I have carrots. Salads are a must for me. *Actually, though, in your case, you were just using that excuse to get more cat attention and trills. *BUSTED*
Yeah, rent a sniffer cat! *You might have a rental cat fail, though.* I think about that binding issue all the time and since I have a REALLY sensitive sense of smell, it kind of rules my life. Having roomies makes it difficult. Cat scents, I'm used to. But my roomie likes all these different fragrance oils. I do, too. I have lots of them. Trouble is, the ones she likes aren't necessarily the ones she likes, and she likes to use A LOT at a time. So if the entire house smells like lavendar, which I loathe, it's just something I try to endure because it's not something I'd ruin her pleasure by telling her I hate. But I do.

 

[daftcat75]

November 17 and 18, 2018

My favorite laptop! No, not the iPad.

How did I ever let her get any sleep with a sleep face like that? Just want to squish it and smooch it!


And I guess this is when she got her favorite carrier. The first time anyway.

We went through a few of these as she would poop when they put her in at the vet office. I got into the habit of packing a trash bag and a box in the car. If she pooped the carrier, I’d transfer her to the box in the vet bathroom. No one should have to ride home in their own poop.

Bonus picture. Box cat.

 

[tarasgirl06]

November 17 and 18, 2018

My favorite laptop! No, not the iPad.View attachment 359194View attachment 359195

How did I ever let her get any sleep with a sleep face like that? Just want to squish it and smooch it!
View attachment 359196

And I guess this is when she got her favorite carrier. The first time anyway.
View attachment 359197
We went through a few of these as she would poop when they put her in at the vet office. I got into the habit of packing a trash bag and a box in the car. If she pooped the carrier, I’d transfer her to the box in the vet bathroom. No one should have to ride home in their own poop.

Bonus picture. Box cat.
View attachment 359200

That's a really nice carrier! Ergonomically shaped for cats. *There are box cats and cat boxes* And both can be very useful. Essential, even.
Yeah, no matter how many times I look at cats -- any cats! -- I just want to keep looking at them. It's so reassuring and comforting to wake up and see a little catface -- or more than one -- close by.
As for laptops, for me, there is only one kind I like -- the soft, warm, furred and whiskered kind, of course.

Elvis and chin rest.

 

[daftcat75]

Krista and I both loved that carrier. Back when she could still have fish flakes, I would put them inside the carrier and in every tree and let her hunt for flakes. That must have been some of her favorite times. I would feed her on the counter and when she finished eating, I'd put "dessert" throughout her environment. The expandable sides were a wonderful way for her to get a little more space at the vet office.

It still makes me sad that those flakes that brought her so much joy also brought her so much pain. We could have reached remission so much earlier had we skipped those fish flake wrapped pred halves for transdermal pred. Some days I still feel so much guilt over the mistakes I made in her care. And others I forgive myself and realize that I didn't have the best vet care as a backstop. I mean they did the best they could. But I often felt they were overworked and out of their element with GI lymphoma. I hope to never encounter feline IBD in future cats again. But if I do, we will skip the general vets and go straight to the specialists.

In other news, I backed a Kickstarter for a smart bird feeder with a camera and wifi streaming.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mybirdbuddy/bird-buddy-a-smart-bird-feeder?ref=user_menu

I think if I could see my bird guests (and possibly the enterprising and acrobatic squirrels), I'd be more inclined to keep up with restocking the feeder. I'm too forgetful otherwise. This is also why I don't have house plants. I would never remember to water them.

To be honest, for Krista's first dozen years, if she didn't speak up, I probably wouldn't remember to refill her feeder. I can't believe she was so healthy for a dozen years (except the developing IBD) on nothing but dry food. If I could set out a feeder and go back to being simply cat roommate and cat friend, I might feel ready for another cat sooner. But now that I know what a lifetime of dry food did to her gut and how much trouble we had in her final years, I couldn't do that to another cat. I want to be ready to spoil the next cat from day one. Not homemade raw and daily Rawz. But at least a mostly, if not completely wet diet. And that's a feeding schedule and maybe timed feeders. And then we get back to my life seeming to revolve around feeding the cat. Now I hope you can understand why I want time off between cats. I need a reset and an upgrade of my own care and feeding before I take on another.

In the meantime, I can make some bird friends.

 

[tarasgirl06]

Krista and I both loved that carrier. Back when she could still have fish flakes, I would put them inside the carrier and in every tree and let her hunt for flakes. That must have been some of her favorite times. I would feed her on the counter and when she finished eating, I'd put "dessert" throughout her environment. The expandable sides were a wonderful way for her to get a little more space at the vet office.

It still makes me sad that those flakes that brought her so much joy also brought her so much pain. We could have reached remission so much earlier had we skipped those fish flake wrapped pred halves for transdermal pred. Some days I still feel so much guilt over the mistakes I made in her care. And others I forgive myself and realize that I didn't have the best vet care as a backstop. I mean they did the best they could. But I often felt they were overworked and out of their element with GI lymphoma. I hope to never encounter feline IBD in future cats again. But if I do, we will skip the general vets and go straight to the specialists.

In other news, I backed a Kickstarter for a smart bird feeder with a camera and wifi streaming.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mybirdbuddy/bird-buddy-a-smart-bird-feeder?ref=user_menu

I think if I could see my bird guests (and possibly the enterprising and acrobatic squirrels), I'd be more inclined to keep up with restocking the feeder. I'm too forgetful otherwise. This is also why I don't have house plants. I would never remember to water them.

To be honest, for Krista's first dozen years, if she didn't speak up, I probably wouldn't remember to refill her feeder. I can't believe she was so healthy for a dozen years (except the developing IBD) on nothing but dry food. If I could set out a feeder and go back to being simply cat roommate and cat friend, I might feel ready for another cat sooner. But now that I know what a lifetime of dry food did to her gut and how much trouble we had in her final years, I couldn't do that to another cat. I want to be ready to spoil the next cat from day one. Not homemade raw and daily Rawz. But at least a mostly, if not completely wet diet. And that's a feeding schedule and maybe timed feeders. And then we get back to my life seeming to revolve around feeding the cat. Now I hope you can understand why I want time off between cats. I need a reset and an upgrade of my own care and feeding before I take on another.

In the meantime, I can make some bird friends.

That looks like a great feeder, and there's also an automatic plant carer at the bottom of the scroll! *You need these* There's also a gauge that can be stuck in the soil around a plant and it lets you know the status kind of Goldilocks style -- dry, just right, too much water....
I have a problem with cacti. They are my favorite plants. But if a little is good, more is better, right? WRONG. I overwater and end up with a pot full of mush. I'm really trying hard to break this habit. Right now I can only trust myself with jade plant in the kitchen window, because when they get mushy, I can go out and pick more I used to feed birds until the seed got too expensive here. I had different feeders going all the time in the Mojave. There were so many great birds there, from golden eagles to orioles to woodpeckers to jays to finches to ravens to hummingbirds to thrashers and more. I had hummingbird and oriole feeders, multi-bird seed feeders, and suet boxes of different varieties. Cats always had lots of entertainment! And there were cottontails, jackrabbits, wood rats, kangaroo rats, horned lizards, collared lizards, alligator lizards, several species of snakes...LOTS of different wild creatures. We bought rabbit pellet and kept a couple of dishes going, with water beside them. I didn't really need TV. I just loved sitting out on the verandah or in back on the patio and looking at all the different animals and plants, and the land and sky. It was a never-ending show.

It's so much too bad about the fish flakes. All of my cats have always enjoyed these so much! I also use them for toppers on wet food they're less than enthusiastic about. And I used to buy the bonito powder for this, too. You didn't know and couldn't have guessed about Krista's having the health issues before they occurred. The fish flakes themselves are very healthy for a lot of cats. So I hope you won't beat yourself up a lot. Krista wouldn't and doesn't like that, I'm positive. When we learn from stuff, that's the positive outcome and then we can do different things with that information. But we can't do anything about what we don't know and again, the vast majority of cats would be okay with fish flakes. Plus, you may want to weigh her enjoyment of them against the health issues because while we all want to do the very best for our loved ones, part of that is giving them joy and happiness, right? I think of Tarifa and what happened with her. She ate really well including on her last morning. I mean, she finished her plate. If not for the appearance of her eye changing on that morning, I would not have known how sick she was. She played, ate well, and showed enthusiasm for life right up to that time. Could the tumor have been detected early? Maybe. Could it have been successfully removed? I don't think so. Did she have what I can only guess was a good quality of life? Yes. While I would have given anything to have had more years with her in good health, it was just simply not to be. Some things we just cannot change or control. How different everything would be if we only could!

 

[daftcat75]

The sad and guilty truth is that I did know the fish flakes were no good for her. Sometime last year I correlated head shaking and other GI stuff with the flakes and stopped giving them. Before she was taking the chemo, I could convince her to join me in the office with the door shut for our nightly pred wrestling match. Then she could have her raw food dinner as a treat. She loved that food so much that she consented (but did not submit so easily) to that routine. When she started chemo, I felt hesitant to continue the raw with her immune system being actively suppressed. This is when I switched to the “devil’s bargain.” I knew the flakes weren’t the best for her. But she needed to take her medicine and our options were limited. She wasn’t going to consent to a nightly wrestling match for just a plate of regular food. I mentioned my concern to her doctor but he didn’t have any answer for me about whether using a small amount of a known trigger to get her to self medicate was detrimental. I didn’t get that answer until her ear surgery forced us to rethink the nightly routine and switch to the transdermal wet willy. All her poop nonsense stopped! For as bad as I feel for how long I prevented her remission, I am grateful and relieved that her final month or two she did enjoy a remission and had the most perfect poops this side of raw.

I was overworked, under-sleeping, and not thinking straight in her last year. I was throwing everything against the wall to see what stuck. And I wasn’t getting any good answers from her vet except, “maybe increase her pred dose?”

I know spending thought or feelings on this now doesn’t change the outcome. But it still haunts me from time to time.