Quiet Day in Oakland
Friday and Wuss is back from the vet on a strict vet food only diet. I've obviously made a mistake in attempting to feed him both the vet food and the local store bought canned food so I'm sitting here with two different kinds of pills which I must now convince Wuss to swallow twice every day for the next week and a half. A minor ultra sound, urinalysis and pee culture for $180. The cat was free, he even came spayed in his own little cardboard box, but he's been hell on doctors. Pet like the owner, owner like the pet. So what. He's looking at me giving me his feed me now meow. My hearing isn't what it was and it's just gotten worse. Besides, a man who can reliably feed a pill to a cat without breaking any of his little kitty cat bones is a man, my son, who can be trusted in the kitchen with a knife. (What exactly does that mean, self? In the kitchen with a knife?) I dunno, but it's like a merit badge or something. An accomplishment. Don't be so picky.
So now it's Saturday afternoon and Wuss has swallowed his second round of pills. We'll
see if he remains so amenable over the days to follow. I remember two months ago he took them easily enough on the first and second day I fed him pills and then he understood the routine and got really creative in finding ways to spit them out. We traded the wuss moniker between us when I threw in the towel. What a wuss. This time there's no option, the Wuss is getting his antibiotics and I'm the guy who's going to push them between his teeth: grab the scruff of his neck big time (cat relaxes, realizing he's fucked), place the fingers holding the pill between the teeth, teeth part, pill goes inside, be sure to put it in the center of his mouth on top of his tongue, encourage him to keep his mouth shut by folding your hand over his face and squish his little head like a ball of aluminum foil, hold until you're pretty sure he's swallowed or it's melted and he can't just spit it back into the sink. I suspect those of you who have raised kids have insight into the process: "But daddy, it tastes like poop!" Right kid, now swallow the nice medicine or daddy will wiggle your ears.
Fog outside, fog inside. Went out somewhat later than usual this morning and had coffee, came back and took a nap. Took another nap. Surfed the web. Played Freecell too many times. Weekend: life is good, I'm sitting here in the apartment foggy headed playing Freecell. First thought is this is not good, second thought is why is this not good and why should I fight it? Who says life is an endless series of jumping jacks? Take the nap, self. Read. Play Freecell. But only if you have too. The Freecell, that is.
Curious, it is later still and clarity and curiosity seem to be slowly creeping back. I'm feeling motivated enough to scan a negative or two and finish this. Weird. Tomorrow I drive to Napa to help Ronn with a hard drive that failed Friday on one of his computers, move a tape unit from that machine to another machine and restore the subscriber list for his wine magazine. Not good to lose the subscriber list for your wine magazine, not even good to think about losing the subscriber list for your wine magazine and when he called to describe the problem I was really really hoping he'd been doing backups. He had. On a tape unit I now remember selling him back in the dark ages, a 386 I think, running DOS. DOS, nature's perfect operating system. I wonder what I remember about it?
This is one of those entries where I really wonder how it will read in the morning when my brain's awake. Scratches on paper. Saturday. It's over.
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