Welcome to the weekend, Cutetropolitans! Today we visit the boudoir of Tracy R., where we are greeted by her sensuously stretchy “odalisque-esque” cat Hamster.
Weekend Open Thread
52 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”
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Welcome to the weekend, Cutetropolitans! Today we visit the boudoir of Tracy R., where we are greeted by her sensuously stretchy “odalisque-esque” cat Hamster.
Comments are closed.
Possession is nine tenths of the law. Even the adorable Hamster knows that. 😋
It’s been an eventful week here. Since Teddy Bear has been living with me for a few months, I decided that he’s my cat now and I need to look after his health, so I took him to the vet. But I didn’t have a carrier large enough to hold him, so I just carried him into the car.
That was a big mistake. As I opened the door at the vet’s office, Teddy Bear struggled with me, got away, and ran into a dense forest nearby. I spent hours looking for him, but he had vanished, and with the sun going down, I drove home alone, sick with grief and regret.
The next morning before sunrise, I drove back to the spot where he had entered the forest and called to him. I brought his food dish and rattled the food so he could hear. After about ten minutes of talking and rattling I heard a faint “mew.” I shined my flashlight and picked up the glint of two eyes watching me, and there he was. But he wasn’t ready to come back to me just yet. I talked to him some more, about what a good boy he was and what an idiot I was, and slowly he walked to me and I walked to him and we met halfway and I scooped him up and brought him home.
That was Thursday. Yesterday I borrowed a larger carrier from a neighbor and attempted the vet visit again. Teddy Bear got his checkup and I learned that he has FIV, a feline immune deficiency equivalent to HIV in humans. It’s not a death sentence and he can still live a good life, but he can’t be allowed to roam freely anymore. Today is his first morning under “house arrest” and he is puzzled by why I’m not letting him outside.
The doctor said he can be outdoors in an enclosed space, and I think if I repair some fencing in my back yard I can give him the outdoor bathroom breaks he’s used to.
So glad Teddy Bear made it home safe and sound. And you’re right about the FIV–it’s not a death sentence and he can be healthy for years.
Everybody has to learn the hard way about cat carriers. Been there, done that myself.
Kisses to Miss Ani.
Oh Mike, I can just imagine how sick you must’ve felt when the little guy took off. Soooo scary! But bless your heart for being so diligent about finding him. My understanding is that a cat can have a very full and happy life in spite of the FIV. Teddy Bear is lucky to have “found” you and I suspect the luck goes both ways.
I must admit that if I had a cat he/she would never ever be allowed to roam freely. I’ve just seen too many sad endings. 😢
Loads of virtual hugs coming your way, Mike. 🐱
I’m so glad you were able to recover Teddy Bear. What a terrible night you must have had. I wish you luck with turning him into an inside cat.
My heart is pounding just thinking about what you went through! I’m so glad you were able to find Teddy Bear, and that he trusts you enough to give you a chance to make a happy home and life for him.
Best to you and Ani and your Teddy Bear.
Ditto what everyone else said, Mike! My very best to you and Teddy and Ani!
Good heavens Mike, what an awful night that must have been. *big exhale* Well–it all worked out in the end and you tbear are getting to know each other, build trust and continue the love. If you lived close by, I would happily give you my carrier. But gosh, that night must have truly sucked. Ok, onwards and upwards and let the adjustment in bathroom breaks begin! Big care hugs sent to you. 🙂
Hope you calmed down a bit Mike!
Hamster is gorgeous! What a stretch on her personal rug!
Another crazy week. I learned in the week when windows got installed that if I take a day off work, I come back to chaos. Plus I don’t like changes to my routine. Well, this past week involved many changes to my routine and an unplanned day off, thanks to the weather. It snowed for 3 days straight, starting on Monday. I opted to take the day off on Monday, since I have such a long commute–by noon, the roads were perfectly clear. Then on Tuesday, when it was *really* snowing, I drove down; we closed at 2:30 that day so people could get home safely. Worked from home on Wednesday, when driving would have been awful again. Thursday was Halloween, and all my excitement about my costume and kitty litter cake was overwhelmed by the chaos waiting for me. I’m so glad to be away from work now!
It was also super-cold in Colorado. That level of cold and such early snow are really unusual here. I want to shut off the Arctic blast that comes under the back door, before we get another cold snap. Today, that threshold gets installed!
Beyond home improvement, I’ll just run errands, cook and bake for next week, and play with yarn. My handspun laceweight silk is ready for swatching, and I’ve got more spinning projects in the queue. Yarn is glorious.
Happy Caturday to you all. Stay safe if you’re dealing with weather or wildfires.
Hamster is a beauty…too bad she has such a rough life! 😀
Mike, I’m so glad your story about Teddy Bear has a happy ending; he is a very lucky kitty and you are a good soul!
Happy Caturday! Tomorrow is my godson’s birthday party. He turned 5 on the 25th. Other than that, not much going on. Gotta do some chores today.
What a good, good kitteh, helping out like that!
It’s Nose-vember! Lily noses for everyone!
Boop!
Boop again!
Boop boop de boob.
Happy Caturday!
Hamster, would it be fatal to snorgle that belleh?
Having a calm, relaxed weekend. Hubby found out that he didn’t need to work today, which means his six day work weeks are DONE. We’re going to spend the day doing nothing.
Mike, I’m glad Teddy Bear got home safe.
Ooooh, hubby just offered to take me to Fabricland. I may have to redefine ‘nothing’.
Have a great weekend, everyone. Don’t forget to turn your clocks back tonight, to those for whom it applies.
Oh, Duckie, you just made my day! I had totally forgotten about that! Hooray! Erm, not hooray that it will be darker at night, but a whole extra hour! 🙂
Good morning, all, especially to lovely Hamster! What a pretty baby! And such a beautiful stretch — I don’t think there’s anything lovelier than cats stretching out, showing their full length. And Mike, I’m so glad you found Teddy Bear! In Virginia, my Emily raced out the open door and hid in the neighbor’s woods right next door, but it took me nearly 3 weeks to get her home again. I know how frightening it is to lose a kitty like that, so good job getting him back so quickly! I know he’ll have a wonderful life as an indoor baby with you.
Debbie, we’ve done the window replacement thing twice, in two different houses. Both times it involved MESS, MESS, and more MESS. Plus, in our case, heat and humidity this most recent time! But now we don’t have to fear our windows blowing out in a big storm, plus we got Kevlar storm screens, which are folded up in the garage; we just unfold them and screw them onto the big screws sunk into the house around the windows. It added to the mess but also the protection. So now watch, we won’t have a hurricane for several years!
We’ve had a fairly quiet week. My hubs is still up to his eyeballs with fundraising for the therapy pets group, and he’s gotten the group into the Combined Federal Campaign, the government employees’ equivalent of the United Way. So he’s been taking Sebastian and traveling around Florida attending events to drum up support for the group. It cost a BUNDLE to get enrolled, which means we really need a good return from it; plus took a pile of paperwork that only the government can require — worse than a tax return, I swear! — so I was impressed that he managed to successfully get the group accepted in his first year trying. That’s quite unusual! So this week he and Sebastian went to Fort Lauderdale Wednesday, then stayed overnight in the area and went to downtown Miami Thursday. So by the time he got home Thursday evening, after all that driving, he was ready to stay put!
Of course, this week he’s going to Orlando….but that’s not very far, 1.5 hours or so. Hey, it keeps him busy! He’s retired, I’m not, so I stayed home with Yoofi and worked. And discovered that Yoofi is a VERY good girl! She settled down quickly, kept me company, didn’t do ANY chewing of stuff she wasn’t supposed to, and behaved perfectly! I’m working with her to teach her to allow people to hug her and rub her head; she came out of a kennel where we think the dogs got almost NO attention, so she’s really starved for it, which means she’s too pushy much of the time. It was probably a pretty miserable existence for a dog, just a commodity. The stable Melody came from was 180° from Yoofi’s kennel, and it really shows. Melody arrived calm, happy, and perfectly trained. Yoofi is untrained, pretty wild, and DESPERATE for attention. Which she gets all day and half the night now, and fortunately she’s slowly settling down. It just takes time.
The best part is how close she and Sebastian have become! And she’s also getting quite good at letting me hug her head; at first she would toss her head up and whack me in the face, and she is made of strong and SOLID bones and it HURT! We’ve learned how and where to touch her to get her to relax first, and it’s really starting to work well. It’ll still be several months before she’s ready for therapy work, but she’ll get there eventually. In the meantime, she’s really helped fill that hole in our hearts that Melody left!
I hope everyone is well and happy and has a good week!
So we’re teaching her to calm down and relax. She’s HOME now. She’s not going anywhere else, and she’ll get all the attention she needs for the rest of her life. She just needs to really understand that deep in her heart. We think she’s starting to. She’s a sweetie, that’s for sure!
Sorry this is so long! I get started talking about Yoofi and I lose track of how much I’ve said! I’ll shut up now and let everyone else talk!
We love hearing about Yoofi. You and your hubby are doing such wonderful work with the therapy group and your darling puppers. It’s wonderful to learn about her progress.
Thanks. It was totally accidental with Melody; she arrived SO perfect that Dean joined with her and she was perfect from day one. She was perfect every single day. Sigh…. and then the head of the group met Sebastian and said he’d be great, too; we were skeptical, but we tried him, and he loves it and does a great job, too. All the old ladies love him in particular because they had Cocker spaniels when they were kids! It’s very sweet.
So teaching Yoofi to be calm and gentle is a new experience for us. I think it’s going to be very rewarding in the end, however. Even if we do call her Goofy at least half the time!
Please don’t apologize for going on about Yoofi. I know it won’t be long before she’s able to fully relax and enjoy her new life. You’re so lucky to have found each other. 💕
It feels like a slow process, but it’s really not, I know — my head knows it but my heart still wants her to relax faster. She’s a genuinely sweet and loving girl, though, and she and Sebastian are turning into a real tag team, so it’s clear she’s settling down. I’m just always impatient! Actually, she’s made excellent progress, considering how far she has to come to recover from her neglectful racing career. Not abused, just neglected emotionally, and that can be as damaging as physical abuse, I believe. Never again, though, that’s for sure! She’s a real love. We found the perfect dog for us. Thanks for being so nice about all my babbling!
Oooo. I wish I could be a hugger when the huggie is relaxed. Sigh.
Went to a local shop that creates and supplies orthotics and was sized, molded, whatever you call it. This is an expensive proposition, getting custom- molded orthotics. It must take some time
getting used to wearing them. Anyone have experience with them? I sure hope they help me
with walking. Tomorrow we go out for Sunday lunch, with this nice sunshine very welcome after
the heavy storms that hit the East. Possible little twisters were part of the scene – scary.
I’ve had them, Phredsmom; I’d have them now if I could afford them — my insurance will cover almost none of the cost, and mine cost $400 back in about 2001, so I don’t want to know today’s cost! But I can tell you that if they’re made correctly, you will feel better from day one wearing them. Seriously! You’ll notice almost immediately if an area needs adjustment; sometimes it takes a few tweaks. But for me they REALLY supported my arches and my ankles and just kept my feet happier; I wore them until they fell apart, for several years.
Good luck with yours! Don’t hesitate to complain if something needs adjusting — you’re the only one who can really identify if and where anything’s wrong. The orthotics tech will have to take their cues from you; you’re the ultimate boss!
Laura, these will cost $385. From a place recommended by my orthopedist. I am hoping
for the best. It would be nice to be able to walk more than thirty feet without pain. I
appreciate your advice, thanks muchly!
Phredsmom, I know that most people have great success with orthotics even if they require tweaking. It could make all the difference in the world for you. The worst part of it might be if the folks providing you with them decide that YOU need the tweaking instead of the orthotics grrr.
Today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday (she died at 96). My sister and I believe she would have made it to 100 if she hadn’t had dementia – she was in very good shape otherwise. We are having dinner tonight at the restaurant where we had her 90th birthday party,
My mom died at 96, too, DUBRAVKAMCVMD. It’s interesting — even though she had dementia much of the last year, it still feels like she went too soon. Does it feel like that to you, too? Please have a great toast for your mom from me! My mother would have been 99 last month, so our moms were pretty close to the same age. I bet they’re having fun wherever they are, wondering what their crazy kids are doing here on the internet!
Unfortunately for my mother, she had dementia for the last almost 10 years of her life. Her deterioration was gradual but for the last several years it was serious. Mercifully she died peacefully in her sleep. It was not too soon. However, we were able to keep her at home where she felt safe until the end and we were very fortunate in the two aides we had. Plus, I was retired for much of that period and could spend a lot of time on her care. I’m a lawyer and my sister was a physician’s assistant (she retired last month! yay!) so we had her covered!
That’s wonderful. My mom and my sister live(lived, in my mom’s case) on the other coast from me, and my sister is disabled herself and couldn’t handle Mom alone, but fortunately my nephew had a business success age 25 that let him retire completely by age 30, s he paid for his grandma to be in a truly wonderful assisted living near my sister, where she was taken care of 24/7 by caring, loving people.
I don’t know what we would have done if it weren’t for my nephew; when you can’t keep an elderly relative at home, the other options are either a dreadful facility or a dreadful expense. It’s a dilemma I know other people aren’t able to handle as well, and I really feel for them; even the decision to insist Mom move into assisted living a few years before her death was difficult because she wanted to stay in her condo for the rest of her life. And it simply wasn’t possible, even with 24/7 live-in help. So it worked out well. Your mom was very lucky indeed to have a children with the perfect skills to take such good care of her at home!
My mom lived to 95 and she had her wits about her right up to the end. And I miss her every minute of every day. 😢
You (and she) were fortunate. I wasn’t close to my Mom but I think that changed somewhat taking care of her all those years. I miss her. I belonged to a caregiver support group and have became friends with several of the women. Everyone is surprised by how much they miss their Moms, whatever their relationship was.
I used to think that once you reached a certain age – like maybe your 40’s or 50’s – losing your mom wouldn’t be that big a deal. I mean, you’d be sad and you’d miss her but since you presumably had your own life, family, career, friends, etc., it would not be devastating.
Well, I have never been more wrong about anything in my entire life. When you lose your mom, at any age, it’s still your mom and you are very likely to be heartbroken. It’s an enormous loss for most people whether they’re in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, any age.
I know what you mean, I think it must be a mammalian thing. They have milk for us. I know it sounds weird but I think it’s a deep thing. You see it among animals. the deep drive of the mothers to feed and protect their young and the babies deep desire for their mothers.
My dad celebrated his 86th birthday last week – quite an achievement bearing in mind that when he was in hospital last summer there were days when he was so ill I didn’t expect him to come home again…
I got a proof copy of ‘The Golden Age of Pantomime’ yesterday, and although some of the illustrations have turned out a little paler than I would have liked (they are ancient photographs and not exactly crystal-clear to begin with) I’m very pleased with the overall look of the book. I’ve also had an article accepted for publication in ‘Intentions’, one of the two magazines of the Oscar Wilde Society. At last I can devote my time and energy to some original work!
Finally, on my way back from a shopping trip in York this morning I met a very vocal and friendly tortoiseshell cat in the Minster grounds. After much skritching and rolling about on the grass – I did the skritching, the cat did the rolling – I managed to tear myself away. I really must visit York’s new cat cafe some time.
I have nice memories of York, Alice, and would have loved to meet such a nice kitty there.
You are fortunate. I am trying to remember the name of the very very old church on the street leading to the Minster, the church with the rolling floors and dark interior. I loved it! Moody.
Saint Somebody’s. Memory fails. Help, Alice!
You may find this article helpful:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_parish_churches_of_York
Hello all- I’m sorry that I have been so long away. My parents have needed for me to care for them on Saturday mornings, and that knocked my routine all out of kilter. But I am resolved to try and come visit here on Saturday afternoons (and lurk more often during the week). Today my son and I discussed voting and filling out our ballots via text, and next up is cleaning the apartment. I had an emergency change of email address last month (accounts being opened in my name!) so I am not even sure if this account works any more. Here’s the test to see.
Wishing everyone well, and a lovely first weekend in November (already! gosh!).
Welcome back Maia and I’m sorry for your trouble.
Good to see you!
Just idly scrolling through facebook and came across this. Apparently this was a Trunk or Treat event at the DMV in Dover, Delaware. The big unicorn’s name is Poe and he is a member of the Delaware State Police Mounted Patrol Unit.
Here’s the original FB post: https://www.facebook.com/DelawareStatePoliceMountedPatrolUnitInc/photos/a.662312277136393/2208760142491591/?type=3&theater
Wonderful shot!
Omg! If I ever had a horse it’s going to be all white! And be a Unicorn every single day!
Belly rub opportunity or trap?
Trap, definitely.
The oldest trick in the feline book!
I’m going in anyway! Hold my coffee!
*Holds Faye’s coffee, looks around nervously for the Band-aids*
Thanks!