Cats OK so far

Fog is fine - muzzle healing up nicely. Uh - and he’s a mutant. He has two pre-molars side by side in his lower jaw where he should only have one, on both sides. So the reason I thought Fog was getting an infection was the smell of food caught between his teeth. We should keep him on the very crunchy Dental Formula, which cleans pets’ teeth as they eat. I bought two bags. It’s also very pricey.

If it causes a problem he might have to get one pulled from each side.

Cloud’s teeth are normal. At last, a way to tell them apart!

As far as the peeing goes, sine they are acting healthy the vet said to keep an eye on them and check for any new spots. The old one could be from our late cat.

Worries about cats

Some cat has been peeing blood. There were suspiciously dark spots on the floor and wall that suggest a male cat is spraying bloody urine. I dampened a cloth to wipe it up and could smell the metallic odour of blood. Now, what to do? The young cats aren’t even a year old yet. Could they be getting kidney gravel? And if so, which one is it? Blockage of the tiny ureter in male cats is a serious problem. Is there any choice but to hie them both off to the vet for tests?

More snow and c-c-c-cold

It was thawing a little bit today but the temperature is falling to -9 C tonight and the wind chill will be ferocious.

Drop options to make decisions

I sometimes tell people that I already have more windows open than I have time to look out of (quoting Peg Bracken). In a similar vein, research finds that closing a few doors makes it easier to choose which one to walk through: New York Times, “The Advantages of closing a few doors. The research in question used a computer game. It found that keeping all their options open distracted players from the high-scoring actions.

In real life, it leads to thrashing about between tasks and not doing them, throwing good money after bad, and dragging on in painful relationships.

Goals

More LOLcats

Let’ s see, now: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, ….

More sorting

Part of the solution to clutter is just to keep working against it. Today, I went through a pile of papers and recycled some of them; discarded some magazines (and just moved some others); and dug out a few books from among the papers.

My son was here to help. He’s sick, but made some phone calls and Web searches to explore options for getting my laptop computer going again: calling an independent service; getting Dell to fix it; or downloading something from the Web. If I locate my Windows disks, I should be able to boot up the computer from that and restore or repair the registry.

I tried on my winter coats and reluctantly discarded a few that I’m not wearing often enough.

I finished up yesterday’s laundry and did two more loads.

New author: John Barnes

I’ve found a new author whose work I enjoy: John Barnes. So far I’ve read “The Sky So Big and Black” and am starting “Finity.” The books are well written and the ideas are interesting.

He has a blog on Amazon. He says:

Roger DeForest interviewed me for his dedicated hard SF site, and it’s possible that I said something interesting there (interesting to someone other than me). Naturally he picked the most inflammatory quote he could find to run at the top, and removed a couple of qualifiers, because that’s what any editor with half a brain does.

(Senator McCain: “I always enjoyed wearing a dress uniform, so it made it hard for me to understand why some soldiers don’t”

….Pull quote: “I always enjoyed wearing a dress … it made it hard for me.” )

More swimming

I went this morning to practice my crawl with Oannes Swims, doing lengths and drills with triathletes to further correct and improve my stroke. My kicking is coming along nicely. And I got to try some swim fins.

A body wash instead of plain soap helps me to get rid of the chlorine smell afterwards.

Book staircase

This bookcase staircase makes the most use of space. But I think the books under the steps would get dusty very quickly.

Hat tipe to BookCrosser Aimlesst)

Financial planning

We had our annual meeting with our financial planner today. I made another appointment to talk later about wrapping up my dad’s estate.