Thalia Sinks to a New Low (Part II)

So, the other day I was looking for Thalia so that we could spend some quality time together. It was raining outside, so I lit a fire, busted out my favorite rainy day movie, (The Godfather, part one,) got myself a big frosty glass of water, and was all set to snuggle up under a blanket with Thali for the next couple of hours enjoying Hollywood at it's finest. All I was missing was Thalia.

I called her at first, and generally she comes a runnin', but this time my calls were for naught. So, I methodically looked through the house, paying close attention to all of her known favorite napping spots.

I looked high and low, but I couldn't find her anywhere. I started to worry that she may have escaped to the great outdoors, but with it raining like it was I thought for sure she would stray no further than the front porch. I looked out the window of our front door, but didn't see Thalia anywhere. I turned away from the window pensively, and racked my little brain for clues of where she may have run off to.

I walked through the kitchen, and saw this over in a corner at the far end of the kitchen...

That is a prefabricated bathroom cabinet with a sink in it. You know the kind. You can get them at any home improvement center all set up and ready to go. All you need to do is secure it to the wall, and hook up the plumbing. This one is pretty nice, and my wife found it on sale at a warehouse in Los Angeles a few moths ago. When we first looked at the house we live in now, the only thing we didn't like about it was the bathrooms. They are tiny, and the fixtures are probably all original from 1963. When my wife saw this, she figured it would be perfect for the guest bathroom. The only problem is, it doesn't fit. So, for now we move it from room to room trying to find a place for it. Right now it is in the kitchen, and is being used as a sort of storage/table, thing.

Anyway, as I approached the storage/table/cabinet/sink,I thought I saw something strange...

It looked like something was in the sink! My wife had covered the top of the cabinet with this throw you see in the picture. But, it looks as if something somehow fell into the sink...

As I approached I began to recognize the shape and color of the object in the sink, and I realized it wasn't a "what", but a "who" is in the sink...

Yep, there she is, my Thali all curled up, and napping in the sink. She actually looks pretty cozy in there, so I decided to leave her, and go watch the movie myself.

She looked up at me as if to say, "Stop taking those damn flash pictures of me, and let me SLEEP!", so that's what I did.

More cats can be found at the Friday Ark at The Modulator, and the Carnival of the Cats this Sunday.

Happy Birthday, Thalia

Today Thalia turns four years old. I bought her from a breeder in Thousand Oaks who had placed an ad in the local newspaper. When I called the woman she said she had already sold all the kittens from the advertised litter, but that she had two kittens that weren't ready to leave their mother yet. She told me I could put one on hold if I liked, and invited me to come take a look-see.

I drove up there as soon as I could, and when I arrived the breeder-woman led me to a room upstairs where she kept this beautiful Blue Point Siamese, and her two kittens. The tom was in his own room downstairs, and the house smelled of cat urine. Evidently the tom sprayed the door to his room so often that it warped. It felt like she was keeping a monster in the basement or something because every once in a while you would hear him yowl. Loud.

I spent some time with the two kittens, and finally settelled on the one I would ultimately name Thalia. (I named her after Athena, in a way. Athena is a Goddess, or course, and Thalia is the Muse of Comedy.) The breeder-lady tied a blue string around her neck so that we could make a positive I.D. when I returned a few weeks later to finally take her to her new home.

When I came to take Thalia home, the breeder and I quickly concluded our business, and I whisked Thali out of the house as quickly and silently as I could. Her momma had already lost her other kitten earlier that day to the person who bought her, and she was quite distressed about it. I felt horrible, but the breeder assured me the mother would get over it in a few days. That really didn't make me feel much better.

As I drove Thalia home she never once took her little blue eyes off of me. Her look was one of love, or at least that is how I interpreted it. She also didn't seem to be afraid at al, which amazed me considering she had just been torn from the only world she knew. It was almost as if she fully understood what was going on in her little world, and she seemed quite fine with it.

Here's Thali just after I met her for the very first time. Still too young to leave her mother, she, her sister, and her mother were sequestered in a spacious room upstairs at the breeder's home. It was a fantastic house, but ruined by the smell of breeding Siamese.

My favorite picture of Thalia. If you never meet her, you can tell right away from this picture the sort of personality she has.

I just really dig the next two pictures as well. Ebby tolerated Thalia when she was a kitten, but no more. Ebby grows grumpier by the day, and Thali keeps her distance. In thses pictures, however, Ebby lets Thali pin her in a wrestling match.

The position that made her famous, Thalia loves to plant her face in the sheepskin throw.

Partially because she has been throughly rejected by Ebby, and Salem seeks her own solitude, Thali spends a lot of time with the dogs. When Thali joins Jackie and Angel in a room of the house, the dogs give her a pretty hard time by barking and posturing, but Thali just ignores them. She will curl right up beside them despite their most fervent protests.

She has learned to hold her own against the dogs as well. Angel, who pushes Jackie around, (at least as far as Jackie will let him, anyway,) won't tangle with Thali the Siamese Ninja Master. One too many hits to the snout has seen to that. You can see the reach Thali has in this great action shot. She is long and slender, and built like a slinky. I bet if she wanted to she could run faster than a speeding bullet.

Always her daddy's girl, Thali shows us where she wants to go first when she gets to Disneyland. (Don't tell her she isn't allowed in. It would break her heart.)

Hands down the most commented on picture of Thalia. I have to admit it is a very good portrait of her. It catches her personality as much as the other one, but does so without any action on her part. It also shows off her beauty. I have taken hundreds of pictures of her, but none truly captures her beauty. I will keep trying though.

Happy Birthday Thali!

Don't forget the Friday Ark at The Modulator for all sorts of critters.

A Day at the Santa Barbara Zoo

I am not a big fan of Zoos. I understand that, like a lot of things, they may be a necessary evil in that they help protect endangered species, and also act as hospitals for wounded wild animals, but most every time I have visited the zoos in this state I walk away with the feeling that the animals are depressed. They just look so docile to me, and since I have never seen animals in the wild, I don't know if that is their natural state or not. In other words, maybe wild animals just look bored, what do I know?

It's the primates that really seem bored or depressed at the zoo. You can almost see the resentment in their eyes. You can certainly witness that resentment when they reach behind themselves, fill their hands with, er, well, you know, and then throw it at the nearest bystander. To me that is open defiance, and to tell you the truth if the tables were turned, I would probably do the same.

And it's not just the gorillas, monkeys, and chimps. They have the most expressive faces, so it's easier with them, but other intelligent animals, for instance the elephants, also have ways of showing their frustration. My dad tells a story about the elephants at the L.A. Zoo during a visit he and my mother took many years ago.He said the trainers were leading out the herd, and just like in the pictures you see of the circus elephants, the trunk of one was holding on to the tail of the guy in front of him. Well, one elephant was evidently a little grumpy that morning, and wasn't happy that he was being paraded in front of a bunch of humans first thing in the morning, so he stuck his trunk up the... um.. well, the rectum of the elephant in front of him, and when he pulled it out he sprayed the crowd with what he found up there!

So, I don't like zoos much, but my wife wanted to take our grandson up to see the animals at the Santa Barbara Zoo which is just north of where we live, so that's what we did. As much as I dislike zoos, I was glad I went because Josiah's reactions were priceless. At first he was almost in shock. Then, he kind of got used to the idea that all these animals were real, and that he was still safe. After that, he had a ball.

UPDATE: I originally got the name of the crooked neck giraffe wrong. Her name is Gemina, not Janine. I have since updated all references of her.

UPDATE: This from wikipedia: "One of the most popular animals at the Santa Barbara Zoo is the Giraffe with a neck deformity, Gemina. This Baringo Giraffe was born normally in the San Diego Wild Animal Park in 1986, but as she grew she developed a bend in her neck. The deformity does not cause her pain and is likely caused by a benign bone tumor in one of her joints or from an incident from her youth."

Meet Gemina, the crooked neck giraffe. Janine and I share something in common. She was born with a neck defect, but according to the zoo she is in great health, and in no apparent pain. I am quite sure this is true. Gemina has been a fixture at the zoo for many, many years, and every time I visit her, (and I make it a point to do so each time I go to the zoo,) she is just as rambunctious and happy as the rest of the herd. The giraffes always seem to be among the happiest of the animals at the zoo. I don't know if that is because they are stupid, or because they are allowed more interaction with the guests. You can feed these animals for a small fee. You buy some grain, and stand on a platform where the giraffes never seem to leave. Josiah was happy to just watch them from a distance. Me too.

One of the first animals you run across at the zoo is the elephants. The day we went they were just mulling around doing not much of anything. When we walked up to their pen with the baby, he just sort of looked at them in quiet awe. When we passed by later, he was much more interested, and so we went back to see the elephants again so that Josiah could get a better look. By that time we were taking him out of his stroller, and holding him up so that he could stand on the fence of the various animal pens while we supported him just for the purpose of a better view of things.

I think this lion is quite old, and he is one of the animals I always feel bad for whenever I visit the Santa Barbara Zoo. I am sure the zoo takes good care of him,and I don't know his history, so maybe he was injured at some point, or was a circus performer that was no longer young enough to perform, but he always seems so sad when I have seen him.

At least now he has a larger enclosure. He once was caged in what appeared to be a very small area. Now at least he has enough room to roam about a bit. He is also quite obviously a male lion, and as we all know they let the females do all of the hunting etc., so perhaps lying around all day with his back to the world is the way lions behave in their natural habitat. Who am I to judge?

I was trying to capture the look on this guy's face when I took this picture, but I don't think I succeeded. It was a look of contempt. Again, maybe that is how he displays his dominance in the wild to other gorillas, but soon after this shot the crowd surrounding the enclosure all backed away very quickly. Know why? The gorilla was locked and loaded, are ready to fling feces at the first person he thought he could hit. I wonder if Jane Goodall ever had that problem?

Josiah was a little afraid of the gorillas. He looked at them, looked at me, made a small noise, and then patted his heart. He pats his heart when he is afraid or distressed. It's the cutest damn thing.

One of the few species that can't be kept down by the man; the penguins were having a ball. You can see them from two different vantage points; underwater, or above water. People feed them fish from above water treating us below the water with a real show.

This little dude was pretty quick in the water. The turtle tank was pretty impressive in general, but the underwater view was pretty spectacular. For a turtle tank, that is.

So, that pretty much covers our trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo. There is a lot of uphill walking at that place, but there are also plenty of opportunities to sit and enjoy the scenery, so we were able to stay longer than I originally thought we would. I was encouraged by the new digs a lot of the animals have had build for them since my last visit, and I walked away with less of a bad taste than I have in the past, so I guess all in all, it was a pretty good experience.

Once we got home, Josiah found a blanket my wife bought for him a few weeks back that has zoo animals on it. He pointed to the different animals, and mimicked their sounds or actions. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

I have said before that I never wanted children, and that I am still sure that I made the right decision in that regard, but I am also very happy to have Josiah in my life. He's the boy I never had.

Jackie and Angel have taken this week off so that I could write about the zoo. Hopefully they will be back next week with more of their wild and wacky adventures. Until then, please see more dogs over at the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and don't forget the Friday Ark at The Modulator for all sorts of critters. (Where ya gonna put this entry, Steve?)

Painkillers Can Be of Some Good

This entry started off as a comment at my friend Fritz's blog, but it kinda got outta hand. Fritz recently wrote about his experience with the powerful painkiller that goes by the brand name, Norco. I have had a vast amount of experience with the drug myself, and with a number of painkillers in general, so I thought I would add my two cents. As I wrote, however, I found I had a lot more to say on the subject, and since I haven't addressed my own pain issues here for a while, I thought I would just turn my comment into a full blown post here instead.

For more background on my problems with my neck, feel free to check out past posts on the subject starting with this one, and continuing with this one, and this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. I usually don't like talking about this part of my life because frankly, I don't think it is that big a deal, and I don't always feel comfortable writing about it. But, this post of Fritz's sort of struck a chord with me. While I believe Fritz is right that painkillers such as Norco are addictive, and can be hell to get off of, I also feel they have their place in modern pharmacology.

By the way, Fritz, it's good to see you back blogging! And I love the new look as well. I imagine all that fancy artwork is you own? (Fritz is one of the most talented artists I have ever had the honor to know.)

In my case, drugs like Norco and Oxycontin are a godsend. I suffer from chronic neck and shoulder pain that radiates down my arms, and to my fingers, and I wouldn't be able to function at all if it weren't for these drugs. I have had this problem of and on for over twenty years, but just before, and ever since my neck operation in 2003, pain has become a part of my life. I now take two 80mg pills of Oxycontin a day, and two 10/325 Norco pills a day. I am what is known as “opiate tolerant”.

To me, there is a difference between being addicted, and being dependent. I am dependent on these drugs because without them I would be in debilitating pain for most of my day, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to work. Am I also addicted to them? No doubt, but which is worse, the pain, or an addiction to a drug that I need anyway?

My problem with the word "addiction" is that it implies the user has a problem controlling their intake of the drug. It also implies the person using the drug doesn't really need the drug other than because of their addiction, which many people would assume began because of recreational drug use. I might be addicted in the sense that my body would revolt should I suddenly stop using the drugs, but I am not addicted through any actions of my own.

There are times when I wonder if I actually need the drugs. I wonder if I were to not take painkillers, would I really be in that much pain. My conclusion is I would need to take them simply because I do still suffer from pain even though I do take such strong painkillers as Oxycontin and Norco daily. They simply are not sufficient when it comes to battling my pain. One of the biggest drawbacks of using narcotics for pain relief is that, when you first start, they work great, but as time goes on you need to take more and more to achieve the same level of pain relief. You finally top out at the highest dosage allowed, and from then on you really begin to understand what the term "pain management" means. The only drug that I have found so far that was able to knock out my pain all day was fentanyl, which comes in patch form, but the side effects make Oxycontin and Norco look like candy, and while it is supposed to last three days it starts to weaken after 1½.

The other reason I believe I would still have a lot of pain is because I have seen several different doctors, including the best pain specialist in the county, and many have agreed I need to be on pain medication. The pain specialist, while he has many different methods of treating pain, even recommended that I have a morphine pump implanted in my body so that morphine could be injected directly into my spinal column 24/7! He said he hadn’t seen a case as severe as mine in quite a while, and that he rarely goes straight for the morphine pump. He sent me home with a video tape that explained the whole procedure, and I decided I would rather take the pills than deal with that.

As far as I am concerned, the greatest drawback to taking these drugs is the stigma. I am uncomfortable telling other health professionals that I take these drugs because there is such a high rate of abuse, even by people who need them. I often feel I am being judged by other physicians even though in most cases none even so much as blink an eye when I tell them.

There is hope for me, however. I am scheduled to see the top neurosurgeon at the UCLA spine center this month. It has been a long process getting in to see this doctor, but between my physician, and my father’s back surgeon, and the person who handles my insurance case, I finally got an appointment. (Even the insurance company is on board with my condition. That should tell you something.)

My last operation was primarily to prevent any sort of cataclysmic event that would have resulted in a life in a wheelchair. This appointment is to see if there is something that can be done for the pain. My films, (x-rays, MRI's, CAT scans,) have been reviewed by a lot of doctors, and there has been a variety of opinions, but recently a local spine doctor, the one who operated on my dad, looked at my films and said he saw no reason why another operation couldn’t be successful, and he is the one that suggested UCLA.

I went to UCLA a few years ago, but the doctor that saw me was less than impressed with my condition. He said probably 20% of the population is walking around with as much stenosis in their neck as I am, but the difference is I know about mine. That guy hardly glanced at my films, and didn’t even exam me. I left feeling like he had just brushed me off.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but if the operation works, if it even happens at all, then I will be looking at some sort of detox program. That’s fine with me. It’s tough dealing with pain, and taking these drugs. Some days I want to take more because I am in such horrible pain, but I can’t, so I just have to deal with it, even if I am at work or something of that nature.

The bottom line is, sure, these drugs are dangerous and very addictive, but in some cases they are also very necessary. Still, it would be nice to get off of them all together.

Hot Dogs and Wet Cats

Why is it that long weekends are so short?

Anyway, it was hot in SoCal this weekend, but then again we Californians live in such a narrow band of weather types that we are whine about freezing at 62°, and complain of heat stroke at 82°, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt when it comes to the heat here.

Most houses in our area don't even have central cooling. That is a good indication of how mild the weather is in Ventura. Often all we need do is open a few windows, set up a fan or two, and we're good all day. That's the beauty of living in a beach town like Ventura; the ocean is nature's swamp cooler.

So, it was hot, relatively speaking, and as humans who live in California are acclimated to the moderate temperatures here, so are our pets. Angel and Jackie were very inactive for most of the long weekend, and the cats spent their days lying on the cool, hard wood flooring.

Probably the coolest spot in the house was my living room, and that's because I am the biggest baby in the house when it comes to being hot. I hate being hot, so I grab as many fans as I can, drape dark sheets over the French doors, open all the doors and windows I can, and start circulating air. Then I grab any iced drink available, and plant my big butt in the recliner so that I can expend as little energy as possible while watching television.

Because my living room was the coolest spot in the house, Jackie and Angel found spots where they could flop down and enjoy some quality time with their daddy.

Jackie has been banned from the floor because of certain accidents she has had, so unless I want to keep track of her every movement, so to speak, then she either sits in the chair with me, or is up on the couch where she can't get down by herself. As for Angel, I am not sure if he thought he might be cooler under the shade of my recliner, or if he just liked the idea of camping out under a natural outcropping of La-Z-Boy rock, but that was his favorite spot for the day.

In the end it was Salem that stayed the coolest, but she had some help...

Yup, I gave her a bath. Salem is large and in charge, weighing in at 23 or so pounds. We have tried to lower her weight a variety of ways, but have been largely unsuccessful. As a result, she has difficulty keeping herself clean. I noticed she was starting to show a fair amount of dander on the top layer of fur on Sunday, so I started brushing her out so I could then give her a bath. We have had a big flea problem all Summer, with the dogs taking the brunt of the problem, but I surprised to find as much evidence of flea infestation on Salem as I did. The white towel I had her on as I brushed her literally turned dark with flea waste. I was at once shocked, and ashamed. I knew she might have a few fleas on her, but I wasn't too concerned because she never scratched much, or showed any other signs of discomfort, but obviously she was infested, so my grooming I am sure was welcomed by our eldest pet.

Salem, as I said, is a big cat, and she struggles with hygiene. I learned just how much once I had her in the bath water. You would have thought she was bleeding by the way her waste leached from her fur into the bath water. Right in front of our eyes we watched as the water turned brown, and our stomachs turned over. I have given Salem a bath many times before precisely because she is so big, and has such difficulty with her thick undercoat and the challenges it causes her when it comes to cleanliness, not to mention keeping cool. But I have never seen so much waste rinse off of her before.

I gave her a shampooing she will never forget, and while she did protest every now and again, she really was quite patient through the whole ordeal. I am sure it felt good to her being suds up, and rinsed off like that. Not only was she becoming cleaner by the second, but the water was cool, and that had to be a welcomed relief.

Between the heat and the fleas, it's been a rough end to our summer, but I really got after the flea situation around here by treating the yard, the dogs, the carpet, and all the dog's bedding, so we should see a marked decline in flea activity here real soon. It is also starting too cool off. This morning there were clouds when I came into work, and I haven't been using the fans as much as we were just last week.

I have been seeing Halloween decorations and candy in the stores, and with the change in weather, it is beginning to feel like autumn around here. It's my favorite time of year, but it goes by so quickly, and before you know it it will be Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and then it starts all over again.

But, I don't want to think about all that. I just want to enjoy my upcoming weekend.

So there ya have it. Yet another exciting chapter in the lives of Jacqueline and Angel. Until next week, please see more dogs over at the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and don't forget the Friday Ark at The Modulator for all sorts of critters.

Fall Comes Early to Athenamama

I absolutely love the fall. So much so in fact that I just couldn't wait any longer to change the colors around here.

So, press your refresh button, and prepare to go blind as we bring you our autumn skin for the next three months or so.

You can thank me by sending money to me through my paypal account.

(Don't really do it, I am only kidding.)