Archive for April, 2008
April 11th, 2008 - Quick garden update
I don’t have to worry about moisture for my newly planted seeds as it’s been raining and SNOWING this week. Not like in MN, northern WI, and SD, but a few dustings along with sleet and freezing rain. So much for spring. I just hope it doesn’t get too wet while we are gone. Luckily, one morning I pruned the apple trees before work–good thing as it’s been raining every since (at least during non-work hours).
Erin at Prairie Roots has up a beautiful poem “Mulch” by Linda Hasselstrom. I haven’t mulched photographs (didn’t think it was good for the soil since you can’t recycle them either) or love letters (don’t have any to get rid of), but I have composted old flowers such as from my grandfather’s funeral.
April 11th, 2008 - Goodbye Pythagoras
Last night, Pi died. Eric wrote a nice tribute and posted a couple pictures at Maggie’s new website. A week ago, we finally got him on a medication to calm him down. We’d spent the last year yelling a lot at him and putting him or Sith in the laundry room by themselves due to fights Pi instigated. The last week was wonderful–no fighting at all. No locking him up. He could sleep with me at night since he wasn’t all jittery and getting up all the time. No yelling. I realized just how much we’d been yelling at him (it often stopped him before he got in a fight) when it was so quiet on the weekend.
But on Wednesday, he was rather lethargic. He barely ate. On Thursday morning, we took him to the vets. He had severe acute liver failure. It is so rare, the vets couldn’t find a single instance of it happening with this drug. There is a warning that long term use of a cousin drug could cause liver failure, and there are only a few known instances of even that happening. So, once again, we had a pet with a weird problem. Only this time, it killed him. :(
At least he had a lovely final week. He spent more time with us than usual. He slept with me. He was around Sith more. He hung out with both Eric and I at night. And, he had one final blast in the pantry–we had to hang the pantry door back up* for while we were gone because he can’t be trusted in there. No matter how we arrange things such as metal jars of beans precariously perched, he manages to get on the shelf of dry goods, knock things off, and chew on them. He hasn’t actually done it for a while. Till Tuesday. He made a huge mess in between me going to work and Eric getting up. So he got in one last fling…..
When Shmi died, it was really tough because she was MY kitty. But we had a number of months to prepare for it. This time, it seems a bit surreal because Pi’s been so difficult, medicating him was our last effort to fix the problems or we were going to have to find a new home for him. So we felt wonderful–we’d finally helped him have a better life (and Sith–the fights were stressing Sith out quite a bit, of course). And he went from healthy cat to exceedingly sick in 36 hours.
Will we get another cat? When Shmi died, we knew during the months before that we’d get another companion for Sith. We actually started looking before Shmi died, and went to the Humane Society right after she was put down, as a way of dealing with the grief. At that point, they had spent every single night together except for two–when Shmi was spayed and when Sith was diagnosed with crystals in his urine and spent the night at the vet’s. We thought he needed a companion. And when Sith and Pi got along (they slept a lot together, for instance) they got along great. But for the most part, we realized Sith could be a single cat. Anyway, in the afternoon while we waited for the vets to let us know when to come back to say goodbye, I was totally thinking, no way can I go through this with more animals that we already have. No more cats. But at the vets, I thought that I really want Maggie to have another cat. Pi and Maggie were best friends and played a lot together. (I always pictured Maggie tearfully leaving for college and saying goodbye to Pi. Since he’s a bit younger than her, this was definitely possible.) But we joked that we have to get an older cat, with some health issue, so that we know in advance what’s wrong with it!
If you haven’t been a long time reader, here’s the scoop on our pets over the last 6 years: Shmi had allergies and OCD requiring daily medication and then died of congenital congestive heart failure, Sith and Pi both have crystals in their urine and require an Rx diet, Emma is deaf and has really bad teeth and gums–she’s lost her canines and another tooth and has gum surgery once a year, Jedi has allergies and had stomach troubles off and on and last fall/winter we thought we were losing him to cancer but whatever it was disappeared after a few agonizing months. As Eric says when I wonder why this keeps happening to us–it’s because we can deal with it, we can afford a higher level of health care for our animals than many families, and because we’re strong enough to get through it and keep loving more pets. Although I wonder if maybe it’s time to just get fish.
I’ll be buying a plant in his memory to place his ashes under. We’re trying to decide between the cherry bushes (because then I’d make a cherry pi someday in his memory) or some aggressive plant that tries to take over the garden.
We decided to let Maggie be a part of saying goodbye, even though we recognize that at this age she has no real idea what’s happening. She didn’t come along with Shmi–she barely even knew who Shmi was–but she and Pi were best friends. We thought she deserved the chance to say goodbye even if right now she doesn’t understand. At least in the future we can tell her about her first best friend. Although it’s hard that this happened just before a long vacation, on the other hand, it might help us all not to have constant reminders of his absence.
* Our pantry is a small addition to the house which is about 18 inches off the group with little or no insulation. With the door on, it boils in the summer and freezes in the winter. Or in April. So we’ve had a baby gate up instead ever since we got pets. The cats were always allowed in there and it’s even where Pi ate his meals. And our pasta, saltines, other crackers, beans, and grits.
April 9th, 2008 - Johnny Depp in Oshkosh
I have felt a bit remiss for not commenting on the movie production happening last week, this week, and the next week or two here in Oshkosh. I’d probably be a bit more excited if we were actually going to be in town for it. So, if anyone’s interested, head over to That’s Swell for the details. I waited long enough that someone else who’s blog I read talked about it.
In short: Public Enemies is the movie. Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are the leads. John Dillinger is the story. It’s been neat to drive downtown the past week as they are repainting lots of businesses, changing signs (many stores have small white paper up to announce their actual business name), painting fire hydrants (they used to be black), building a fake front on the park, and putting up new traffic lights. The streets close tomorrow. Some folks are writing letters to the editor complaining about all the news covered of Johnny Depp, but I’ve enjoyed it. And they aren’t really covering him (so far)–it’s been about the transformation, Dillinger, what Oshkosh was like in the 20s, etc. While we’re gone, the newspaper is going to have an edition that looks like it was from the 20s, but with today’s news. I’m sorry to be missing it. (We’re stopped the paper while gone, and donating the cost to the Newspaper for Education. I’m not going to collect the paper for 2 weeks just for that one. I can always read a copy at the library when I get back.)
April 8th, 2008 - The bagel bed
Last Thursday, Maggie switched to sleeping in a bed–a big girl bed, which when said by a 3 year old sounds an awful lot like bagel bed. This is NOT simple living. Simple was Maggie safely inside a crib with blankets and a few stuffed animals. (Until a month ago, only one plus sometimes a doll, neither of which she played with much anyway.) Occasionally through the years, we learned to not keep things close to the crib as she’d happily pull them inside and tear them apart (the diaper was a big mess!).
But we were lucky. She never tried to climb out and so we could peacefully continue on with her in an enclosed space. Till last Wednesday when Eric went in to say good night after getting home about 10 minutes after she went to bed. He found her sitting on the crib rail swinging her feet. (Reminds me of something I did when I was 16, but that was on a tennis net and Maggie never fell backwards.) Since the bed wasn’t ready and it was late and she was scared enough by Daddy’s reaction, we left her in the crib for night–with lots of pillows on the floor.
Thursday, we dressed the bed. (Okay, for anyone not in my family of origin, that means we put sheets and blankets on the bed.) Everything was pretty peachy until yesterday. She did fall out once, but onto the pillows and apparently never woke up and she seemed quite surprised when Eric got her up in the morning to find herself on the floor.
Then yesterday came. And she figured out that we wouldn’t magically appear if she got out of bed. Most of her toys are on the floor (at least somewhat contained in that corner, but it’s now across 1/4 of the room instead of about 1/8). Many of her diapers, training pants, and wipes were no longer in their containers. (After she went to bed, I discovered why her sweater front was damp. She’d also stuffed a handful of wipes into her front pocket, after apparently using some as tissues.) She also got dressed: over her PJs, she’d put on a turtleneck, sweater, and training pants. I think she tried to put her pants on, but discarded them as they were in the middle of the floor. (Plus she had a shirt on under the PJs. She must have roasted!)
The diapers and such are now in the crib instead of her! Hopefully she can’t reach them, but I’m not convinced. We should probably put them in a box in the crib.
The toys are still strewn about. I had already been thinking that we needed to get rid of more toys and books, and now I’m certain of it. But it’s getting hard to do. It’s not that she’s gotten a lot since the last time I went through them, but since I go through them so often, I’m down to mostly good toys or ones with attachments (such as from Grandma J. or Uncle Monkey). So I’ll probably just box things up this time. Especially some of the younger toys–and get them back out in a couple years. And she has so many books that I can easily box up half and no one will even notice. She doesn’t need board books (although she still enjoys them) so I might put most of those away. Then it will be easier to find the longer books to read to her. She really enjoys some of the early reader books (in particular, her aunt Karen and cousin Summer gave her a number of Henry and Mudge books [We don’t have the one that’s linked, but that’s the first one.]). And I find them easy to read to her. I don’t get bored as quickly with them like I do with board books. (I’m not one of those parents who can read the same board book over and over and over and over. Even the H&M books I have to switch around from one to another.) I’m going to wait till we get back from vacation before tackling it. I have plenty of other things to take care of before we leave.
If we weren’t planning on another baby, I could get rid of the crib, but we’ll just leave it up even if it takes a couple years. Why bother with the work when we can use it for storage? She doesn’t play much in her room (well, not during the day at least!) so it’s not like she needs the space.
April 7th, 2008 - First plantings
It took me nearly TWO hours yesterday to plant greens, carrots, rutabagas, peas, and watermelon. I do not know why it took so long. It didn’t feel like that much time so I was surprised when I went inside. No more planting till I come home. But there’s plenty of other yard work.
I need to prune the apple trees. I thought I was being good last year by not touching them. At the end of the season I re-read the pruning materials, wondering if I was to do something in the fall. I should have pruned them right after planting! Ack. So now I’ve lost a year. And I’m scared to chop them off because I might ruin them. I had to remind myself that the worst that could happen is that I kill a tree–and they only cost about $20 so that’s okay.
When Maggie and I got back from our walk, I went straight for my pruning guide and hand held cutter. I started on the shortest one–the one I was least afraid of ruining. My cutter is in bad shape and I may have injured the tree. So I stopped and am sending Eric to replace it this morning. I have to finish this before we leave.
I’m probably not going to do raspberries. I just don’t have the time and in 4 weeks it might just cause me to have bad berries. (You should plant them in really early spring.) And the area still needs to be prepared. So instead, I’ll prepare the area at the end of the summer. ::Sigh:: I was really looking forward to berries this year. Well, at least I’ll get the strawberries in. (Assuming they aren’t mailed while we’re gone and die.)
April 6th, 2008 - Spring is HERE!
It’s been tough reading blogs of folks farther south as Spring has been around for a while. I can finally say it’s come to Oshkosh. Robins appeared about a week ago and the snow is almost all melted. (Yes, almost, there are still pockets on northern sides and where tons of snow was piled up.) My bulb garden is popping out and two flowers appeared yesterday. I worked in the yard and garden yesterday afternoon. It was too windy to do the raking I wanted to do, so instead I neatened a few beds. In the garden, next to the house, I got rid of a section of plastic covering that allows me to plant another bed–I’m going to put the watermelons there so they have room to spread out for once.
This afternoon, I plan to plant my first seeds–greens, carrots, peas, and rutabagas. I’m actually a bit late on some of them! I will have my work cut out for me when we return from vacation. It’s prime time for working on the garden and I’ll be missing it for two whole weeks! (My brother’s wedding–we’re going to go to the Johnsons’ in NJ, then the wedding in MA, then the Paulukonises’ in PA.) I’m not going to stress out about planting a lot before I leave, however. Most of the rest shouldn’t be planted until all chance of frost is gone, which isn’t until May 10. But there’s plenty of cleanup to do in the yard. Oh well! I’ll do a bit some days this week if it’s nice after work. And the rest will just have to wait. (Like the raspberries!)
April 6th, 2008 - Dropping 50 pounds
On Thursday, we dropped about 50 pounds. How did we lose so much weight in one day? We finally got rid of the living room chair that we’ve not really used all winter! We Freecycled it (with full disclose of the issue and size).
Sometime last fall, one of the back supports broke. It was already a very squishy chair, and this made it almost impossible to get out of. We have long thought the chair was far too large for our space, so we had no motivation to fix it. It’s over 4′ wide and 3′ deep. It feels like half that width is the huge arms. We loved the chair–and the matching sofa–at first because they were so squishy and comfy. But they’ve gotten too squish and aren’t so comfy to us anymore. Plus those huge arms! We’d like to get another one, but probably won’t upgrade our living room until after we pay for the adoption.
It’s been in the office all winter, taking up about a quarter of the room it feels, since there isn’t that much open space to begin with. With it gone, there’s so much space now! And since we hadn’t been using it anyway, we haven’t missed it a bit. In fact, we can now do things like reach the camera recharger and the DVDs without climbing over the chair.
April 1st, 2008 - Lightening the keyring
Due to a change in mailbox location, I realized that one of my workplace keys is no longer necessary. So I took it off my keyring. Then I realized that for at least 2 years, I have not used one of the other keys, either. I used to use it on a daily basis to unlock two doors right across from my office. But while I was on maternity leave–oh goodness, it’s been 3 years!–they started to leave them unlocked. Probably because I unlocked them every day for the 6 years before that, they’d gotten too used to it and no one wanted to bother while I was gone! Also, whenever they were closed during the day, you’d have to use your key again to get back through. The doors lead to the main office area and the lab–places the 3 of us with offices back here go to many, many times a day.
Can you believe it? I’ve been carrying around a key for 3 years that I haven’t had to use! My keyring is almost 30% lighter now! I had 6 full sized keys, one little elevator key, and my bike key. I could take the bike key off during the winter–I only use it from about June-Sept after all–but it helps keep my house key separate from the others which is handy. The elevator key I use about 6 times a year, except when I’m on crutches which hasn’t been for 2 years ::cross my fingers::, so it could come off, except that it’s so handy to have on there when I need it and it’s less than 1/2 the size of the rest. But…well, maybe I’ll take it off and see how much I miss it. My office is relatively close to the elevator anyway. And I can’t reach the elevator except from down here now that I won’t have the access near the mailboxes.
When I get home tonight, I intend to check out my car keys as well. So, do you have any extra keys on your keyring(s) you can get rid of?