A sick cat and a sick car

Last fall, I made a post about our fourteen-year-old cat, Jenny. Last weekend, she really gave us a scare. We had noticed that she'd gotten thinner, even though she's usually fatter during the winter. Last weekend, she seemed especially thin, and she had no energy. She wouldn't go outside, even though it was a warm day, and she spent most of her time hanging out in a dark corner downstairs. She hadn't eaten very much of her food.

It all happened so fast that we realized we would have to take her to the vet. Since she's fourteen, we worried that they might tell us it was time to put her down. I worried this might be the last picture I took of her.

I was feeling really sad with the prospect of losing her. I never thought I would be very sad--she's just a cat, and she's not even a great cat.

On Monday morning, I took her to the vet. We don't have a kennel for her, so I improvised with a plastic crate with a towel on the bottom and a towel on top. As I carried her out of the house, she had a sad, howl-like meow. When I put her in the car, she climbed out of the crate and went and sat down on the floor of the driver's seat. She was in really bad shape, walking funny and slowly. Since it was already traumatic enough for her, I figured I wouldn't enforce the crate on the car ride, so I transferred her to the floor of the passenger seat. She kept making her sad meow, and whenever I was stopped (like at a stoplight), she tried to get up. I made it to the vet and took her in in the crate. I explained what was going on, and as I walked out, she really was meowing sadly. It made it hard for me to leave her, but what else could I do?

It turned out she had an abscess on her hind end that was preventing her from eating much, so they cleared it. The vet said it was really nasty and looked like pistachio pudding (an interesting visual, since once Valentine's Day is over this week, I'll start eating green desserts). They put a drain in to get the rest of it out. They also performed some tests to see if anything else was going on. She has hyperthyroidism, and she appeared to have high blood sugar. When we went back to have her drain taken out, they tested her again, because sometimes cats will spike when they are stressed, and that appeared to be the case, because her sugar levels were much closer to normal. She was less stressed on her second trip to the vet.

Her thyroid problem makes her lose weight even when she's eating, so the vet gave us pills to regulate it. We feel mean and ridiculous giving pills to a cat (it involves holding her head up, prying her mouth open, and dropping the pill inside), but we want to help her. She has improved dramatically, so we hope she will continue to improve and be back to catching mice this summer.

Just as the cat is improving, my car is not. I started it to go to work on Thursday, but it shook really bad and shut off. It's at the shop right now. We own five cars, but for some reason only three were at our house that day, so there wasn't a car for me to take that day, and I had to work from home. (I have that luxury, although I don't prefer it.) Talk about first-world problems. I'm borrowing the Pathfinder that used to be my sister's but my parents bought but my sister still uses.

I enjoyed some things that went on at work. Last week, I received a copy of an article I helped annotate about the first Mormon mission to China. (It just came out, so it's not free yet.)

Then I got a call from a missionary in the department. He told me that he had bought a copy of the book I coedited, A Historian in Zion, which was flattering, because I honestly didn't think anyone would read that book. But he called to tell me that on page 50, it said they traveled 111 miles rather than 11 miles. An unfortunate error, yes, but you'd really call me to tell me that? What do you expect me to do about it? It's already been published. He also called my boss, the other coeditor, who is a very busy man.

Off and on from about August 2014 to April 2015, I was able to work on a book about the pioneers, which just came out this week. My name isn't on the book, but it's in it, and I feel like this is more my book than the one that actually has my name on it. I learned so many interesting things, and I did a lot of work on it. I can't wait for its reviews to trickle in. (Although maybe I don't want to see them. :/ )

For part of my 2017 resolutions, I made a bucket list of things to accomplish for each holiday. One of these bucket list items was to make and give valentines, so I used my Cricut machine to make valentines for those I home teach. I like the way they turned out.

 I also made red velvet cookies...

 and used the leftover white chocolate to dip strawberries in.

The last item on my Valentine's Day bucket list is to receive a valentine, if anyone wants to help out with that. ;)

Last night I dreamed that I went to check the mail, and it was full of minty shamrock ice cream sandwiches and four or five valentine-themed tubs of ice cream, including red velvet, chocolate strawberry, and conversation hearts. I couldn't carry all the mail in at once, so I brought the ice cream in and went out to get the rest of it. But by the time I came back in, my dad had already thrown all the ice cream away, and I was really sad.

Do you ever wake up and have to Google something you dreamed about to see if it's real? I had to Google conversation heart ice cream. (It's not made commercially, but you can make your own.) I also had to Google snakes with the jaws of snapping turtles. (I haven't seen that they exist.)