Calamity Cat

Posted on by chappyshi

My cat, Hamlet, who is 18.5 years old, whom I have I had for 18 years, has always had problems with constipation.  Eight or ten years ago he was at the vets for xrays and a serious enema to get the poop out.  After a few days at the vets, he was still hurting and the vet recommended that I bring him home to see if he would relax and pass the rest of the poop.  Fortunately that did the trick.  He passed a huge turd!

I have been regularly (no pun intended) giving him special food, laxatives, and fiber to keep him loose.  That has generally done the trick but occasionally he has problems dropping a turd.  On Monday, he was in the hurt locker.  He was wandering around my apartment (read “not in the cat box”) trying to take a shit. I watched him do this for a bit.  The poses he struck as he tried to do this were both humorous and painful to watch.  At some points he looked like a turkey in mating season.  Hard to describe but I wasn’t into taking pictures.  Between trying to drop the massive gassive, he would lie down, breath heavily, and occasionally have spasms in his lower body.  Plus he had a wicked hardon for whatever reason.  I called the vets to ask  for an urgent appointment and they were able to get Hamlet in within about 1.5 hours.

Come to find out, he has arthritis in his spine (I  saw the xrays, did not look good) that is causing him pain getting around and particularly when getting in position to urinate or deficate.  This makes me wonder if much of the problem he has had over the years pissing and shitting are related to arthritis that started years ago.  It supposedly can set in in cats 8 to 10 years old…  Once again, Hamlet is 18.5!  Nonetheless, the vet gave him an enema and prescribed medication to reduce the swelling associated with the arthritis and pain killers should they be necessary.

So far Hamlet seems fine.  He is not taking the huge pisses he used to take that soaked a good 25% of the cat box but still hasn’t dropped a turd.  That bothers me a bit.  I had planned to go down to Suffolk, VA, to hang out with my sister Kim, her husband Don,  my brother Reid, and his family but decided I’d best stick around to be sure that Hamlet is okay.  I also did not want to leave my sister Julie responsible for Hamlet after the incident and the new medicinal regime.

Susan Tedeschi and Buddy Guy at Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA, June 21, 2009

Posted on by chappyshi

I just got back from seeing Susan Tedeschi and Buddy Guy at Wolf Trap in Vienna, VA.   I couldn’t find anyone else that wanted to go so I dropped $75 and got a 3d row seat right in the middle of the orchestra pit.  The seating was not comfortable…think unfixed metal chair with thin cushion and no arms.  I had two overweight people on the left of me and an asshole on the right of me.  I never could sit all the way back in my seat because I couldn’t scrunch my shoulders together enough.

However, and this is a big however, I have never been that close at a concert and it was well worth it.  I wish I had ignored the “No Photos” rule because everyone else seemed to including the ushers.  Buddy Guy was all in the crowd playing his guitar and the cameras were flashing left and right.  I could have brought my Nikon D60, used no flash, and got some awesome pictures from the 10 feet I was away from the stage.  Oh well.

Susan Tedeschi, who isn’t a big name by any stretch but could be, was awesome.  She  writes some very good songs.  The version of the title song from here 2008 album “Back to the River” was stunning.  She is married to Derek Trucks (nephew of Butch Trucks of Allman Brothers’ fame) and  she appears to picking up a quite a tips on lumbering from him.  She was working that axe!

Buddy Guy was a different story.  He got up there and started wailing on his guitar and put Susan to shame.  But his act was all a show.  He is such a powerful guitarist I justed wanted to hear him crank out the jams for his set.  As it was, we got about an hour and 15 minutes of his “show” which featured way too much audience participation.

As I mentioned, he did go up into the crowd which is apparently a signature thing for him.  He also did some partial covers or imitations of the likes of Marvin Gaye, John Lee Hooker, and Ray Charlies.  He somewhat redeemed himself by bringing Susan out on stage for an impromptu duet of  “Feels Like Rain.”  Buddy put on good show and was entertaining, but I would have preferred he spent his time picking and grinning!

Site Update Information

Posted on by chappyshi

After many expensive, difficult years with my web hosting service, I recently relocated my web site and email hosting to FatCow.  The price is 1/5 of what my previous service was charging me and they provide many more options for me with much less hassle.  I was able to get my WordPress blog updated to a MySQL version.  I also migrated my photo album to Coppermine which uses a MySQL backend and has much more functionality and security than the previous album software I was using.

Unfortunately, some things pretty much had to break during the migration.  I have been blogging since October of 2003 and am in the process of converting those broken blog entries that aren’t in my current blog into a month by month page format in my new blog.  I had to learn some fun, new (for me) Unix stuff to clean up the old files in a batch process rather than manually otherwise the project might have been more tedious than it was worth.

Anyhow, check up on the “Old Blog” page in a couple of weeks at which point I should have everything updated.  Hopefully you will find something entertaining.  Additionally, follow the link to my photo album to see  the new format and check for new pictures.  Lastly, the gallery photos on the right side of my blog should shortly pop up briefly a larger version of the image when you move your mouse over it.  I am coordinating with a woman in Britain to get the code to work with my photo album.

200905 Vacation in Salvo, NC.

Posted on by chappyshi

Thanks to my sister Kim and her husband Don, I got to spend last week in Salvo, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  We ate well: beef tenderloin, Caribbean Jerk chicken, bratwurst and hotdogs, Talapia with mango, habenero, and tequila sauce, Chicken Divan (an old family favorite), shrimp, and pizza.  We drank Margaritas, Pina Coladas, Mojitos, and beers, including a very good Bell’s Brewery IPA called Two Hearted Ale.

It was a pleasure to share the house with, at various times, Kim’s  ex-husband’s sons, Brian and A.J, and Brian’s wife Sarah as well  as AJ’s girlfriend Tina.  Kim’s ex-husband’s first wife,  Judy, who is a beach fanatic and the mother of Brian and AJ, joined us on Sunday and stayed the night.  That was good since she could be with her two sons for Mother’s Day.

I must say I enjoy the company of all  these people.  The relationships are very comfortable even though not blood  kin by any stretch.  I’ve known everyone for so long that the are like cousins, nieces, and nephews I never had.  I look forward to the time when my blood nephew Henry and niece Ava can hang out with us all.

The house was cool and within easy walking distance of the beach.  I must admit, that since it was early in the season, we didn’t spent too much time on the beach.  The house had a pool and a hot tub which we made good use of.  The water in the pool was a bit chilly but quite refreshing.  The ocean in contrast was much colder and rougher.  The waves and the undertow were intense.  Any time spent in the water would have involved a struggle and a swimsuit packed with sand.

We did bring the Cornhole  boards down and get some good action going.  Tina was very competitive.  She and Julie did their best to dominate the men but AJ and I were able to fairly consistently come out ahead.

I paddled twice in the Pea Island NWR.  That was okay, basically on the Pamlico Sound  side, but there were times when the water was just too shallow and I had to get out of my boot and wade to deeper water.  I had hoped to paddle twice at the Alligator NWR but worries about the weather kept me from going there for a second day.  And of course the weather was fine but by the time I saw that,  it  was too  late.

Overall, the weather was nice, and cool, enough that I slept out on the balconies for four nights!  That was good training for camping  out this holiday weekend at a friend’s  house on the Shenandoah River!

Creatures sighted include:

  • Great Blue Herons
  • Snowy Egrets
  • Great (American) Egrets
  • White Ibis
  • Red-winged Blackbirds
  • Scarlet Tanagers
  • Goldfinches
  • Ducks
  • Brown Pelicans
  • Laughing Gulls
  • Common Terns
  • Tri-colored Herons
  • Plover, Willets, etc?
  • Alligators

I am terrible at identifying shore birds so I can’t be too specific on many of the birds I saw.
Here is an alligator I spotted on Sawyer Lake in the Alligator River NWR.
Alligator from Sawyer Lake

There were hundreds of these butterfly’s feeding on these plants as I drove on the wildlife routes in the Alligator River NWR.

Monarch Butterflies?

Here I am at the end of Sawyer Lake starting my return trip…before I saw the alligator.

Sawyer Lake Water Trail

These are the remnants of a shipwreck on the beach right near our rental home.

One of the Many Shipwreck on the Outer Banks

These are White Ibis’s…many of which I saw in two paddles in the Pea Island NWR.

What I Think Is a Whte Ibis

Inertial Idiocy: Hummingbird in a Car Crash

Posted on by chappyshi

This is kind of a “canary in a coal mine” comparison.  If a hummingbird is in a hover when a car slows down drastically, might it hit the dashboard?  If your head might do so, why wouldn’t the hummingbird?

Some moron in a Washington Post automotive column called “Click and Clack” actually posed the question.  Read more here: “Click and Clack: A Real Humdinger.”  Basic physics should show that the bird, as well as your head, will  keep traveling forward no matter that the car is coming to a sudden stop.

Visit to the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Vienna, VA, 22182

Posted on by chappyshi

I’ve been laid up for months after blowing my knee out skiing at the end of January.  I should clarify by noting that I have not really been laid up but have been going twice a week for physical therapy and generally getting around as usual.  I have not been back on the slopes and nor have I been kayaking or motorcycling yet.  I did have arthroscopic surgery on my knee for what my orthopedist thought was a tear in the medial meniscus but ended up being a tear and strain of my ACL.  I am sure an MRI would have revealed this but that is not anything insurance companies are paying for too much these days.

I was actually feeling pretty good right before the surgery and not feeling that much better afterward.  I am now back in physical therapy doing strengthening and agility exercises there and at home.  We  are trying to break up scar tissue with ultrasound and massage and working to regain strength and flexibility.

Being on a restricted exercise regime for so long, even for a sloth like me, has taken its toll.  The highlights of the past four months have been going to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum down the road from me and botanical gardens in Norfolk and Vienna, Virginia.  All visits gave me ample opportunity to work with my relatively new digital SLR camera.  The following pictures and those in the “Meadowlark Botanical  Gardens” section of my photo album are from the gardens in Vienna, VA, part of the Northern Virginia  Regional Park Authority.