Woman in the Middle

We were up bright and early yesterday to help the kids throw a garage sale. They wanted to earn a little money before spring quarter started up at college. We wanted to get rid of some stuff our of our garage and a little more from Mom in law’s house. After that early morning and busy day, Hubby and I were looking forward  to sleeping in and a quiet Sunday morning with the newspaper.

That wasn’t to be, however. A household with elderly pets can not expect to sleep in, ever. At exactly 7 a.m. Blackie decided he needed to be fed, NOW. I mixed up his first meal of the day of food and medicine and crawled back into bed. No sooner had my head hit the pillow than Honey rolled out of bed. So I rolled out of bed too and,being nice to Hubby, put the dog out.

I wasn’t going to try the bed thing again. I grabbed the newspapers, let the dog back in, and headed for the kitchen for breakfast. The cat was already done with his meal but demanded more. After two weeks of barely eating, Blackie hit the “eat” switch again and is now ready to make up for lost time. So I fed him again. Then I fed him again.

I had just finished my bowl of cereal when I heard a loud splash in the pool. I looked out and there were three ducks – two males and one female. One male had the neck of the other male in his beak. They were fighting over the female. Not wanting to have to clean a dead duck out of the pool, I rushed outside to shoo them all away. They all took flight with a great amount of wing flapping and quacking.

Blackie finished his third breakfast and then he jumped up on Hubby (by this time lying on the couch) and Hubby also decided there was no point in trying to catch a little more shut eye.

Then, weird whiffs of, um, something bad began wafting through the house. I got up from the table, rounded the counter, and there was Honey’s little morning gift. Honey, in her old age, now needs more time outside to accomplish her morning constitutional. Apparently I didn’t give her enough time this morning. Seeing me on my feet, the cat thought I should know that he wanted a fourth breakfast. Since I was headed to clean up dog poo I told Hubby it was his turn to the feed the cat.

Anyway, by now it was all of 8:15. So much for that quiet, lazy, Sunday morning. However, in between the cleaning and feeding, I did manage to sneak in a bowl of cereal and some newspaper reading. After all, that was all I wanted to do this morning, wasn’t it?

Both the dog and the cat get medicine on a daily basis now. The dog needs hers for arthritis pain. Lucky for us, the stuff tastes great to Honey and we just have to show her the syringe and she runs over to get the magic drops of deliciousness. The cat needs his to help him poop, I am afraid, and Blackie does not think his tastes good at all.

To get at least some of the medicine down him, we now have a carefully planned and choreographed routine. Canned food is placed in Blackie’s bowl and mashed up with a little water, just the way Blackie likes it. The syringe of medicine is carefully prepared out of eyesight. Eldest daughter picks up Blackie, I move in, and the horrible tasting medicine is squirted into the mouth of a very unhappy cat. Then he and the bowl of delicious food are IMMEDIATELY  united on the floor, and we all try to forget the horrible affair until the next night.

A couple of nights ago Blackie was in one of his favorite places - on the back of the couch, which gives him a great spot to observe what is going on it in the kitchen. I called Honey over and held the syringe of medicine down. She immediately lifted her mouth up, and I gave her the squirt of medicine. The look on Blackie’s face was classic! I could just hear the wheels in his brain turning as he thought, “Stupid Dog! She isn’t smart enough to know that stuff she is getting tastes HORRIBLE!!! She is even more stupid than I thought….”

Sorry, I wasn’t able to get a photo of Blackie with his “dog is stupid” face. But here he is, exhausted after solving the world’s problems….

As I mentioned yesterday, Honey was just not herself so I decided to take her to the vet. Hubby agreed, but, lets face it, he was at work 45 or more minutes away and I was going to get the job of taking her. I began the preparation for this adventure by having Eldest Daughter brush the heck out of Honey the night before, hoping to have less dog hair in my car. Yesterday, right before the appointment, I spread a twin size sheet all over the passenger side of the car, floor, seat, and console. Then it was off we go, just Honey and I!

I knew that Honey wasn’t feeling her usual self just because she wasn’t a handful and a half on the way there, she was only a handful. unfortunately, the vet office was busy (I guess) as the appointment was at 3:45 and I didn’t see a doctor until 4:20. I didn’t get to leave until 5:10. Felt like I was at a human doctor’s office. I am happy to report that the doctor didn’t feel any masses in Honey’s abdomen but when she manipulated poor Honey’s back Honey’s lips curled up in that “If I hadn’t evolved over thousands of years to love humans and put up with their crap, I would so totally be ripping your face off right now” look. Since it was my face that was within ripping distance of those teeth I was glad she restrained herself.

So the diagnosis is that Honey has strained her lower back and needs to take it easy for two weeks as well as take an anti inflammatory. Unfortunately, the x-ray machine was on the blink so guess who gets to take another ride with Honey tomorrow? Yep, I left the sheet in my car. No point in taking it out quite yet!   Besides, it makes the Camry look so classy!

Imagine my surprise when I checked this blog this morning and found the post from last Friday right there at the top of the page. What? I know I wrote a post yesterday!!!!  So, I logged onto to “blog management” area and sure enough, there, in the “drafts” is yesterday’s blog post, never posted. Sigh!

While I was there I decided to check my stats, those interesting little statistics that tell me how many people have visited my blog and where that traffic is coming from, etc… Imagine my surprise when I found out that yesterday, the one day I didn’t post anything, was my all time highest traffic day yet with 30 hits! Maybe I should not post more often!

My heart is still racing from a little incident that just happened while I was trying to compose the six or so sentences you just read. We seem to have acquired a neighborhood cat that likes to wander through our yard. It just strolled past our sliding glass door which upset Blackie all to heck and he started making those funny cat growling noises. That got Honey’s attention and she trotted over to see what was going on. Halfway there she also spotted the intruder and rushed to the door and began barking her fool head off. This surprised or otherwise upset Blackie and he turned on Honey and started attacking her. Honey attacked back…I screamed so loud my throat still hurts and clapped my hands so hard they hurt too. I could just see my planned minor redo of the front bathroom going up in a poof of vet bills! These two have NEVER fought like that. I have to assume that Blackie was startled by Honey at the same time he was getting all upset at the strange cat. Whew! That was better at getting my heart pumping than a double espresso at a bull riding competition!

I am happy to report that everyone, except me, has recovered. Both animals are sitting on the floor with my Eldest, trying to get the most love. It is a competition, you know. I think I will go watch a bit of mindless television ansd try to calm down.