Read below to see how I got here...
Okay, now I had a wet, near-dead, scrawny kitten and two children up and about. My son and I searched for the mother and potential litter, while my daughter rubbed the kitten dry and warmed it under a lamp.
We never found mother, but saw 5 other cats giving me the eye.
My daughter wanted to call in sick to stay home from school to take care of it. I promised that I would do my best, so after dropping both kids off at school I visited the Vet. She said that the chances are slim, but sold me powder milk and a bottle to feed it.
I was able to get about 10ml of milk into this kitten, and it made its first bowel movement. By 10 am it was strong enough to climb my shirt as I sat in the recliner. Also, I had it next to Terra and it tried to nurse off of her. She gave me this pitiful look as if to say "why do you do things like this to me?"
It has been about two hours, so now I should go home and check on it. Either it is dead, or it is even stronger.
Despite my daughter's protest, I will try to call it WeeNess. Since that is Haddock-slang for making water, it is kind of a cruel name. I am also tempted to name it Dusty, since that is the name I gave to several other kittens that I tried to take in and care for (but died in 20F nights). Maybe the name "Dusty" is a curse, so I will stick with Weeness as long as I can.
I wonder if Weeness is hungry again.
I really do not want a cat.
--gh
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Meow Culpa
Okay, this may be a multi-day series of posts, or it may be concluded quickly. Let me begin with my mea culpa: Yes, I scared off a cat who was giving birth, subsequently abandoning a newborn kitten. Before you hate me, let me explain.
If you have spent any time with me, you may have learned that my patience with the cats next door grows thin. Three years ago, there were 40+ cats. Now there is about 7-10, but two or three are pregnant this spring, so the numbers may rise again. Some of these cats give birth twice in a year. And these are very healthy cats, good tabby stock, only winter and cars seem to kill them off.
The past few weeks I have become agitated with some of these cats stealing baby rabbits out of a den, and then playing with them letting them squeal, etc. I hate that part about cats, maybe because it is the part of them that reminds me of human nature. Last night, I heard this squealing, and as I was letting the dog wet the grass, I decided to do something about it.
The corner was dark, but I can tell there was a cat, and it was working on something that was squealing like a caught rabbit. Having enough, I hit that cat with my shoe to make it give up. The dog just stared as the cat hissed and then ran off. Either she knew what was going on, or is too bored with the cats to give chase. (I suspect the latter.) Expecting to find a rabbit, and wondering if I could really re-connect it with its family, I was surprised to find a kitten with four-inch belly-button attached to the placenta. This was just born!
I set the kitten out in the yard for a 1/2 hour, listening to it mewing, but its mother never returned. It was about 40F last night, so I did not expect the unfed, uncared-for kitten to last more than an hour or so. When I went and checked on it, I thought it was dead.
By now it was 2am, so I brought it inside, perhaps to find a shoebox to bury it in. I owed that much. However, with some rubbing of the cold damp fur, it responded, and started mewing again. I detached the placenta and tube with some scissors, wrapped it in a blanket, and put a few drops of water into its mouth, which rejuvenated it more. I hoped it would get loud enough to call its mother, but I also feared that mother was off giving birth to the rest of the litter and had written this little guy off.
Feeling guilty, but not knowing what else to do, I set up a crate, more blankets, and put the kitten near our neighbor's porch. I thought it could last at least another hour this way, buying time for the mother to scoop it back up. I never touched the kitten, so I hoped this improved its chances.
In the morning, 5 hours later, I retrieved the crate. Mostly, I did not want my neighbors to think that I was up to no good or anything. The kitten was still damp, cold, and a little stiff. Surely this animal had passed on in the night, never remaking its mother's acquaintance. But, it woke up.
--gh
If you have spent any time with me, you may have learned that my patience with the cats next door grows thin. Three years ago, there were 40+ cats. Now there is about 7-10, but two or three are pregnant this spring, so the numbers may rise again. Some of these cats give birth twice in a year. And these are very healthy cats, good tabby stock, only winter and cars seem to kill them off.
The past few weeks I have become agitated with some of these cats stealing baby rabbits out of a den, and then playing with them letting them squeal, etc. I hate that part about cats, maybe because it is the part of them that reminds me of human nature. Last night, I heard this squealing, and as I was letting the dog wet the grass, I decided to do something about it.
The corner was dark, but I can tell there was a cat, and it was working on something that was squealing like a caught rabbit. Having enough, I hit that cat with my shoe to make it give up. The dog just stared as the cat hissed and then ran off. Either she knew what was going on, or is too bored with the cats to give chase. (I suspect the latter.) Expecting to find a rabbit, and wondering if I could really re-connect it with its family, I was surprised to find a kitten with four-inch belly-button attached to the placenta. This was just born!
I set the kitten out in the yard for a 1/2 hour, listening to it mewing, but its mother never returned. It was about 40F last night, so I did not expect the unfed, uncared-for kitten to last more than an hour or so. When I went and checked on it, I thought it was dead.
By now it was 2am, so I brought it inside, perhaps to find a shoebox to bury it in. I owed that much. However, with some rubbing of the cold damp fur, it responded, and started mewing again. I detached the placenta and tube with some scissors, wrapped it in a blanket, and put a few drops of water into its mouth, which rejuvenated it more. I hoped it would get loud enough to call its mother, but I also feared that mother was off giving birth to the rest of the litter and had written this little guy off.
Feeling guilty, but not knowing what else to do, I set up a crate, more blankets, and put the kitten near our neighbor's porch. I thought it could last at least another hour this way, buying time for the mother to scoop it back up. I never touched the kitten, so I hoped this improved its chances.
In the morning, 5 hours later, I retrieved the crate. Mostly, I did not want my neighbors to think that I was up to no good or anything. The kitten was still damp, cold, and a little stiff. Surely this animal had passed on in the night, never remaking its mother's acquaintance. But, it woke up.
--gh
Friday, April 09, 2004
Are You Mary-Kate or Ashley?
This is a question that has been killing me FOREVER! Luckily, I took the appropriate quiz at the-n.com...
...and I am more like Ashley!
--gh
...and I am more like Ashley!
--gh
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Fairly Crass and Etch-A-Sketch Art
Fairly is thinking of removing his blog! That blog is the yin to this blogs yang, or something like that. Blogspot will be out of balance without his ponderings. Check his blog out and comment your disaproval. (Was it meant as an April Fools joke? The note was published on March 31.)
There is SO MUCH TO BLOG about...
...consider this for example. This Internet needs a running commentary. And Fairly is basically it.
sigh
--gh
There is SO MUCH TO BLOG about...
...consider this for example. This Internet needs a running commentary. And Fairly is basically it.
sigh
--gh
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Concerts and such
I took my daughter to see her first rock concert. Well, okay, you might not consider John Mayer as rock, but it was a decent event. As Marty Piletti would say, it was a "real nice affair." Yeah, that was is a good description for it.
Some of my problems may be with the Sovereign Center in Reading, PA. The seats were bleacher-like. When people were running up and down the aisles, the seats adjacent to them would bounce up and down. That got really old.
Then there was the fact that the security guards were yelling at people to sit down. This is the easiest way to tell whether your concert is rock or not. If everyone is sitting down, then you are enjoying James Taylor or a Pops orchestra, and not rocking. Just try to sit down at a Nugent or AC/DC concert...
The sound was only so-so, which may also be the fault of the Sovereign Center. But I think it is the band's job to supply the sound.
Musically, it was better than average. From the radio or CDs, I was not sure if the guitar work was his, or studio musicians or another band member. In concert, he does a majority of the guitar work. And he really is that good at acoustic guitar.
My daughter thought it was awesome, so that is all that matters to me.
--gh
Some of my problems may be with the Sovereign Center in Reading, PA. The seats were bleacher-like. When people were running up and down the aisles, the seats adjacent to them would bounce up and down. That got really old.
Then there was the fact that the security guards were yelling at people to sit down. This is the easiest way to tell whether your concert is rock or not. If everyone is sitting down, then you are enjoying James Taylor or a Pops orchestra, and not rocking. Just try to sit down at a Nugent or AC/DC concert...
The sound was only so-so, which may also be the fault of the Sovereign Center. But I think it is the band's job to supply the sound.
Musically, it was better than average. From the radio or CDs, I was not sure if the guitar work was his, or studio musicians or another band member. In concert, he does a majority of the guitar work. And he really is that good at acoustic guitar.
My daughter thought it was awesome, so that is all that matters to me.
--gh
Sunday, March 14, 2004
The Great Gathering of the Banana Men
Okay, it seems that Pork&Beans is back on the blog. He always has such vivid dreams. Sometimes you can tie them to events when you look back on them. Sure, you can probably do this with most anything, except my dreams.
Last night I dreamed about comparing different samples of data with potentially different variances. I used Excel to test the probability of variance difference (F-test), then the t-test difference of means analysis... Later, when I woke up, I went to work and did these exact same things.
Of course, I solve problems in my dreams, I wasn't really prophesizing. But I would trade a dream about Excel with a dream about a sword-yielding fire horseman any day.
--gh
Last night I dreamed about comparing different samples of data with potentially different variances. I used Excel to test the probability of variance difference (F-test), then the t-test difference of means analysis... Later, when I woke up, I went to work and did these exact same things.
Of course, I solve problems in my dreams, I wasn't really prophesizing. But I would trade a dream about Excel with a dream about a sword-yielding fire horseman any day.
--gh
Sunday, March 07, 2004
Suck on this, spam bots!
Now, ordinarily I don't cotton to "language" expressed by the author of www.billism.com, but check out this potenital 'bot deterrent.
If you don't get it, then you should know that an email address on any web-page will eventually be detected by a web-bot for purposes of gathering addresses for SPAM databases. You need to MUNG your address, such as happyman-AT-hotmail-DOT-com, or even use letter substitution. (hxppymxn@hotmxil.com <--substitute a for x). If you like newsgroups, then you should know that those are web pages now.
Of course, to post your email, you should encode it in javascript, or have it as a picture, like a GIF file. This will create a script version of your email. I could not get the fancy code to work within this blog, though. I did find this to create a code for email addresses. Although this looks like my dog's email address, it isn't: terrahound@hotmail.com
(View source on THAT one!)
I wish Billism all the best of luck
If you don't get it, then you should know that an email address on any web-page will eventually be detected by a web-bot for purposes of gathering addresses for SPAM databases. You need to MUNG your address, such as happyman-AT-hotmail-DOT-com, or even use letter substitution. (hxppymxn@hotmxil.com <--substitute a for x). If you like newsgroups, then you should know that those are web pages now.
Of course, to post your email, you should encode it in javascript, or have it as a picture, like a GIF file. This will create a script version of your email. I could not get the fancy code to work within this blog, though. I did find this to create a code for email addresses. Although this looks like my dog's email address, it isn't: terrahound@hotmail.com
(View source on THAT one!)
I wish Billism all the best of luck
Saturday, March 06, 2004
It says that my inner child is 16
This rules, because I got this from a 12-year-old's blog...
My inner child is sixteen years old!
Life's not fair! It's never been fair, but while
adults might just accept that, I know
something's gotta change. And it's gonna
change, just as soon as I become an adult and
get some power of my own.
How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla
Kingdom Hospital
Uh, I was just, you know, browsing around and came across the page for Kingdom Hospital of Maine. What gives. Try a few of the links, like STAFF, PHr34k3D me out the first time I saw it.
Then it gets all whooshy. (Sorry for the travelocity link.)
--gh
Then it gets all whooshy. (Sorry for the travelocity link.)
--gh
PR3F3R3N(3Z
Okay, who knew that Google.COM spoke L33t?
I am embarassed that I can read that stuff quickly. It really is nothing to be proud of.
--gh
I am embarassed that I can read that stuff quickly. It really is nothing to be proud of.
--gh
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