RIP Prissy

I found this on a friend's blog. She lost her cat on Sept. 27.

Can one ever be truly prepared for the death of a treasured family pet?
Every pagan family needs the obligatory black cat.

Our family LOVES black cats. Astro was all black, but with a white undercoat, then we had 4 "black & whites". Prissy had a tuxedo & little white mittens.We lost our Prissy today. We had her put to sleep. She died about 2:30 this afternoon. I prayed last night that if Prissy died, the ground would be soft enough to bury her. I woke up to rain this morning, but it soon stopped & the sun came out. Don had no trouble burying her. He did it by himself. He didn't ask for help because he didn't think Nick or Eddie would help him. Don-Mike was at work. And I'm such a chicken, I took off for work as soon as we got home from the vet, about 3.

I posted the following on Facebook this morning:

Prissy is still with us, but I don't know if she'll make it to her vet appt. I told Mother that Prissy was very ill & she said she wants to say good-bye. At least I told her while she was at the beauty parlor. Marcella was talking with her when I left.

Mother has her hair done every Saturday morning. Arlene Wanner used to take her, but Arlene has been very ill & is still very weak. I take Mother to her hair appt., Marcella, her beautician, calls me when she is done & then Mother & I go to Subway for lunch.

After Mother's hair appt., I brought her home so that she could say good-bye to Prissy. Prissy was very still & very cold. Mother sat & held her for about 20 minutes. She kept asking if Prissy was alive. She was so cold & still. I felt for Prissy's heart & she was purring.

Last night I had tried giving Prissy some more water in the syringe, but she choked & then she tried getting out of the chair & fell. So, I decided the bathroom heat vent would be the best place to put her. She couldn't fall out of that & break her neck. Several months ago I had bought a cute little fleece blanket at Dollar Tree. I found it again a day or 2 ago & was thinking I would put it in Jae's bed, but didn't. I dug the blanket out last night & put it & an old tattered t-shirt of Nick's on the heat vent in the bathroom & closed the door, not that I was afraid Prissy would go anywhere, but that Marsha might bother her.

Prissy barely made it to the vet appt. When I got home from taking Mother home, Don said that if I would drive, he would hold Prissy. I said no, he could drive & I'd hold Prissy. I had already made the decision we would have her put to sleep. And I didn't want to have to drive on the way home. I did that when I had Boots put to sleep & it's too hard to drive when you're crying. She seized several times on the way down. The first time I thought she was trying to throw up. She had such bad breath. I had Don stop a couple of times.

She was SOOOO cold that when they tried to take her temperature it didn't register. The vet gave us several options, but his first comment when he came in the examining room was that she was trying to check out on us.

One option was to do bloodwork & see what was going on. Another was to let her die naturally or the third was to help her along. She started seizing again as he walked out the door to get something. I asked him what she was doing. He stopped, looked & said, "She's made her decision for you." 

Even though I had made the decision to put her down & not put her through what I put Boots & Astro through, I still cried buckets & have a head ache & burning eyes.

I had a busy day. I took Mother to her hair appt. & lunch; Prissy to the vet & worked for 4 hours. After work, I went to tell Mother we had Prissy put to sleep. I fixed her supper, nuked a frozen dinner. On the way home I stopped at the grocery store for groceries. I fixed supper & am now on my way to bed.

Prissy very ill

My heart is heavy tonight. Our little cat Priscilla Anne (with an e), is very ill. I'm afraid she has FIP. I'm sure that's what Boots had & Astro had it too. Prissy has a vet appt. at 2 tomorrow. Depending on what I find, I'll probably have her put to sleep.

She may also have got in some antifreeze. She's been having trouble drinking. Yesterday she was having trouble walking. Today, she can barely move. She made it to the front room from the laundry room. I picked her up & put her in her favorite chair & that's where she has stayed all day. This afternoon when I got home from work, I gave her 1 CC of water from a syringe, she sputtered & had trouble swallowing, but afterwards she tried getting out of the chair & fell out of it. Don picked her up & put her back in the chair.

Nick's been worried about her since Tuesday. It's too bad when a person is too busy, or thinks they're too busy, to stop & take a sick animal to the vet. But, this is also sad, I had to check the vet credit card to see if I had enough available credit to take her. We don't even have enough money to buy groceries. We are in pay check limbo, the period between pay checks - grrrr.

Funnel cloud over Preston

OK, the big news is the funnel cloud over Preston. I don't know if there was more than one or just one. It happened about 2:30 p.m. Karen Naylor, job share partner, came out & asked if we had felt the earth quake about 2:30. No, we hadn't felt it. But then someone emailed a picture of a funnel cloud over the courthouse. It happened about 2:30. I snagged a picture of it from Joyce Williams' Facebook photo album. Is that called copyright infringement? I hope not.

Nick didn't think it was very cool that we had a funnel cloud & was glad he was in Logan at the time. Don is disappointed because he didn't see it. Don has a degree in meteorology & is fascinated with weather.

I thought it was pretty cool. It didn't touch down, that I know of, so it didn't hurt anyone. I remember when I was on my mission, my companion & I were sitting on the porch of the mission office eating our yogurt & the sky was all greenish black & it was eerily quiet. We decided to go in. A tornado jumped the mission office/home & landed in the area behind us.

A few months before that we had to take the elders home to Oshkosh, Wisc., after a tornado had hit. They were in Appleton, Wisc., for zone conference. It looked like a war zone. Probably the same zone conference a tornado touched down in Neenah, the city we lived in. When we went to zone conference, the elders, assistants & President & Sister Peel were all worried about us. Poor innocent, naive sisters, we didn't even know we'd had one.

There were several incidents of tornado on my mission, and a couple after, but never was hurt. They always stayed away from us.

I've worked at The Preston Citizen for 12 years now. I remember sitting through a fire in the building. The press was running & we were working on the paper as the firemen ran up & down the stairs. In fact, a lady across the park called the front desk & asked if we knew we were on fire. It was a chimney fire. Jessi was pregnant with Keziah at the time & Keziah is 11 now, so it must have been right after I started.

Another time an earthquake rattled the building. I was afraid the press would fall through the dance floor. That whole building is just propped up on stilts. That's probably why the funnel cloud rattled the building. It is so old. It was originally the Persiana Dance Hall. My parents met there at a dance over 65 years ago.

On another note, Carolyn corrected my correction, hehe. She writes:

... let's make that Brenden's great-grandpa Jarman who died, Janeen's dad. Great-Grandpa Ballif works at Stoke's grocery store and actually is looking quite good.

Actually, his great-grandpa Richard Ballif, 80, works at Stokes MarketPlace in Preston as a bagger. He is out in the parking lot wrestling those recalcitrant shopping carts that people just abandon in the parking lot.

I have a migraine tonight. Worked 12 hours & still have 7 pages to do in the morning. I think I'll go to bed. I got to have lunch with Don-Mike & Nick today, so I guess I won't wait up for Don-Mike.

Corrections on Grandkids

I had to work today, Sunday. I took Friday off because my caregiving duties interfered with my "real" job. My real job is becoming a pain. I went to Kelly (Mickelsen, publisher) with a suggestion that Jean Carter help with the typing. That's when I need the help, Friday afternoon.

I got Carolyn's Clifton Rural Route column for the Oct. 21st issue. Brenden is spelled with an "e" instead of an "a" as I spelled it. His mom is Kelly, but I have a "niece" who spells her name Kelli. And it was Brenden's Great-Grandpa Ballif who died, his dad's grandpa.

Don took Mother & I for a ride up Cub River yesterday, Saturday. Mother especially wanted to look down on the ranch from Burbank's road. She likes to go up on Cemetery Hill & look across the canyon at the leaves behind Knapps too. I especially like this one. The beautiful colored leaves with the snow on the mountains behind.

I got carsick, so I fell asleep when he turned to go over into Glendale at Glen & Amy Bowman's house. Speaking of Glen & Amy, I wonder who lives in their house, now that they are both gone. Whoever it is, they are remodeling.

Grandkids

Maybe someday I'll have grandchildren. Everyone has their own timeline, so I'm trying not to get antsy. I told Don-Mike & Nick that I was going to adopt some grandchildren & that way I could name them what I want. Don-Mike will have a son named Diesel. He is fascinated by diesel engines. Nick will have a son named Axel. He is fascinated with axels. In fact, my father's first name is Axel. I wanted Nick's middle name to be Axel, but Don didn't. We settled on Elvoid, Daddy's middle name. BTW, Nick hates the name Elvoid, sigh. When we were having this discussion about the names of my grandchildren, the boys informed me that there are Dana axels, so I said he could have a daughter named Dana. No, it's a boys name. I said, no, it is a girls name. It's a moot point really. Dana is a unisex name & I'm sure he'll never have a child named Dana, LOL

Today in the grocery store I ran into Wayne & Carolyn Smart. Carolyn was telling me about their little 4-yo grandson Brendan. She said she would love to include it in the Clifton rural route column that she writes each week for The Preston Citizen, but can't because of his other grandma or something. Anyway, it's too cute not to share & I think she ought to put an account on her blog. She is such a good writer. Maybe it's not appropriate for The Citizen, other people might not have the same sense of humor we do.

Anyway, Brendan's other grandpa died. His mom, Wayne & Carolyn's daughter, was hanging back, talking to someone. She is not one to go right up to a casket, but Brendan was right there by the casket. Brendan has the reputation of doing almost anything. For all Kelli knew, he could crawl right up there with Grandpa. So, she hurries over & Brendan says, "That's Grandpa." His mom agreed. "He has a hat." A military hat was laying on Grandpa. Then Brendan observed, "He has his glasses on." Then his grandma, aunt ... I didn't get who it was, maybe Carolyn will comment & correct me. Anyway he was told that Grandpa was sleeping. I'm sure Brendan's parents had carefully explained what had happened to Grandpa, but Brendan, with all the wisdom of his 4 years, said, "Nah, he's dead."

Then in church on Sunday, he informed a lady in the ward that he didn't have any grandparents any more. They were all dead. That is the only grandparent he has lost. I told Wayne & Carolyn maybe he doesn't look at them as grandparents. Who knows what goes through their young minds?

I remember one time when my boys were little, about Brendan's age, they came home & asked me when I was going to die. I was so shocked. I told them I didn't have any plans on dying any time soon. Why did they ask. It seems that Frances, their daycare provider, was showing Disney films & the mother always died, like Bambi. So, in their young minds, they were learning that mothers always die.

Progress on eating a frog

So, who's eating a frog??? I haven't even thought about it.

Don-Mike called this morning at 10:40 when he got home to tell us that the fridge at Mother's had died. He had 20 minutes to change into his uniform & be at work. He is usually 15 minutes early. He would have been today too, but I told him to turn Grandma Bartlome's fridge on in the storage shed, if there was electricity. He did. I told him to go to work & Nick & I would be over. First thing I did was call The Citizen to tell them I'd be late. I talked to Ann & then had her transfer me to Rod's phone. I got his voice mail & left him a message. Then I called Luana & left a message. I told both of them in the message that Mother's fridge had died. The fridge, not Mother.

Don-Mike had followed Nick up to Harris Collision to get Nick's car fixed, so Nick didn't have a car. Nick & I piled into my car & drove over to Mother's. She was cleaning out the freezer. I had seen Luana pull into her driveway just ahead of us. So, I walked over to her house. She had just listened to my message & was on her way over. She remembered that she hadn't turned the fridge back on when she cleaned it on Wednesday. I don't think they lost a lot of food, just a few things like frozen celery, onions & bananas. Things I had forgotten were in there anyway.

At least she listens to her messages. When I finally got to work, about 1:30, no one knew where I had been. I said I'd called & talked to Ann. Ann didn't pass the message on to anyone. I walked into Rod's office & asked him if he'd got my message. No, his phone was still blinking, telling him there was an unheard message or messages. I told him the blinking light on his phone was me telling him that my mom's fridge had died & I'd be late.

I did get some copies made of letters I need to send. I came home & there were new piles of paper & some paper strewn on the floor. Nick dissed me for never having anything on the calendar. Yet, he had never even looked. Wednesday I spent quite a bit of time on calendaring & getting some bills straightened out. I get very discouraged.

Annual shopping trip

If you read Facebook, this is a compilation of my posts over there. I have added details to them, LOL

Nick is really picky about his clothes. He has to have certain colors (black, gray & fluorescent orange) & a certain texture (soft, no seams). He has been this way his WHOLE life. So, today we were off to Logan to get shoes & pants for him. Wish he would have done it during the back to school sales. But I wasn't fast enough to catch him at a good time. 

Truth be told, I wasn't feeling very good during the back to school sales. I should've listened to Roxanne Froerer (Nurse Practitioners of Preston) when I had the bad gall bladder attack & had my gall bladder out sooner. But I digress.


Not too bad of a shopping trip considering. We got 3 pair of shorts for $3 each at Wal-Mart. Actually, we got 4 pair of shorts. One pair Nick didn't even consider. They are a brown plaid. I put them in the cart & explained that I was buying them because they were $3 & I could use the fabric, plus things like buttons, pockets, etc. I couldn't buy them separately for that price.

Ross didn't have anything he was interested in. We must have spent a total of 5 minutes in there. I am always so uncomfortable in there. I told Nick that, & he laughingly said maybe someone was killed in there. I said I didn't think so, we'd have heard about it. But maybe someone had been killed on the site. He knows how I feel about the Bear River Massacre Site. I have a hard time driving through that section. But, the feeling I get in Ross doesn't even compare to the sadness I feel driving through the massacre site. In Ross I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. I get the same feeling in Target & Dillard's.

Next we went to Shoe Carnival. We walked right past Best Buy & he didn't go in! Wow! Miracles do happen. We got 2 pair of shoes & a WILD pkg of socks at Shoe Carnival. It was buy one pair of shoes, get one half price. I picked up some shoes for myself. The shoes I was looking at was on sale for $25, down from $69.99. They were the cheaper pair so I got an additional $12.50 off of that. I got a pair of shoes for $12.50!!! My kind of deal!! They didn't have tube socks, which is the only kind Nick will wear. His kindergarten teacher remembers him as the little boy that would play with his socks. Nick pointed out some wild fluorescent socks for me as a joke & I loved them, LOL. I couldn't decide between the bright yellow, orange & green or the green, pink & orange. Of course, the pink won. There is 6 pair of socks in one package. They were marked down from $4.99 to $4 a pkg. Then, we got to spin the wheel & got an additional $2 off of our entire purchase!! Oh, & Nick found exactly the kind of shoe he was looking for!!!

K-Mart was our bonanza today. We got a black t-shirt with a glow in the dark Ghostbusters emblem & 2 pair of black heavy sweats w/3 pockets. Kewl!! He won't try clothes on, so I said we'd buy both pair of pants, one was an XL & one was an XXL, & he could try them on at home. We would return whichever pair didn't fit him.

He came home & tried them on. The XXL pair of pants were too large, but that's good. It shows he is losing weight, course he never has had a butt. His pants always hang half mast like plumbers pants. The Ghostbusters shirt was only a 2X, & is a little tighter than he's used to wearing. He's been wearing a 3X!! It is long, but it covers his butt!

Here's another plus. He found work shirts, the kind that mechanics wear. They are a navy blue, but he said he wouldn't mind having a shirt like that to put on over his t-shirts so they wouldn't get so dirty. Then told me it was something to think about as a gift!!!

Tonight before he went to bed, Nick wanted to show his Ghostbusters shirt glowing in the dark. He & his dad could see it right away. My eyes don't adjust to the dark very well. I could finally see it in my peripheral vision, but the ghost was fading, sigh. I said my eyes have never recovered very good in the dark, maybe I was getting macular degeneration like Nana has. Nick told me I'd better start taking the same kind of vitamins I buy for Nana.

Eating a frog

OK, I have to share this link for Eat That Frog Movie. Paper clutter will be my frog for the next 24 days. Mondays & Tuesdays will be the challenge. I can barely get up & make it to work by 8 a.m., I'm usually about a half hour late.

Today I had several "big" projects to do. I should have been able to take a big bite out of all of them. Ideally, I should have finished 2 or 3 of them, but no, I didn't finish one of them. I didn't even get dressed until almost 5.

Wednesday is my day "OFF" & I really take it as my "free" day. Free of obligations.

October's habit and other stuff

Flylady's habit for October is paper clutter. I did so good the first day. I spent the 15 minutes, but then the next 5 days were a total bust. Tomorrow is a day off, yippee!! Maybe I can do some catch up. I need to go over to Mother's & do some mending. A domestic engineer I'm not.

I love to read updates on others blogs, but usually by the time I've caught up on Facebook, Parenting Bipolar Kids & played my online games, it's time to go to bed, or past time & I've not checked email.

Today was my 2 week check up for my gall bladder surgery. I have 3 little incisions & then a slightly larger one in my belly button. It used to bulge, now it puckers. Dr. Broadbent told me that by the time I see him in 6 weeks for my cancer check up, my belly button will be a nice "inny." The puckers & swelling will be gone. He didn't staple me, he sutured me & my incisions are bright red with inflammation. They are not infected. There were a couple that were infected but I washed them with soap & water 2x a day & used Watkins "tit salve" (petro carbo salve) on them. Don told me it would probably be better if I used triple antibiotic salve. So, since I didn't have any, I bought some. The infection cleared up, but Dr. Broadbent said I must be allergic to the sutures he used. Same thing happened when I had the port-a-cath  implanted. I don't remember the incision being infected when I had the port removed.

Mother's blood just gets thicker by a point or two every time we go. Now, she's telling me she has lumps. She had me feel one & it didn't feel like a lump to me. She has a doctor's appt with Dr. Carlson next Thursday, which isn't any too soon for me. She also has a recheck on the INR level on Tuesday.

Mufasa has a spiffy new dog house over at Kents. It's made of cinder block & the door faces south. He won't stay in the kennel though, so they've had to chain him up. It's been so wet & rainy & Zach has the flu, so they haven't been able to fix it. We actually can't see how he gets out. Don thinks he jumps the fence.

He looks so good with his coat clipped. I asked that it be left about 2 inches so that he could grow out his winter coat before the snow flies. They quoted me 35$. I warned them that he is a big dog & was extremely unkempt, read matted. It took her 4 hours to clip him because he was so matted. When I went to pay, it was 70$!! I asked to see him. The receptionist told me that she had to lock the door because he had gotten out of the kennel & came wandering out into the reception area. I laughed & said that is why we call him Houdini. We got back to the kennel room, yes room, & he was in a large kennel. I don't know how he got out, but he had not only got out of the kennel, which was wire to the ceiling, but out the door.

My new cell phone

Today we went to Logan to the Verizon store to upgrade my phone I've had a Motorola RAZR for 2 and a half years now & it wasn't keeping a charge. I had to charge it twice a day. I knew what I wanted in my new phone. It had to have a calendar & a notepad..

The new phone is a Samsung Alias 2 & flips 2 ways. I tried copying a picture & it had this little disclaimer at the bottom saying it was copyright infringement. So HERE is a link to see it. It's better anyway because it shows more. To the left of the pic are 4 little icons. Mouse over the icons to see them.

One way it flips is the long way & features a QWERTY keyboard. The other is the standard flip phone. Verizon.has a feature called Visual Voice Mail. It costs a little extra a month, but I can see who my voice mail is from. If I don't want to listen to a message, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO IT. I can delete it!!!

I gave up Tetris to have the Visual Voice Mail. Little did I know when I played Tetris this morning, that it was going to be my last hurrah. The boys always teased me that my phone was my own personal Game Boy, LOL

Nick was quite disgusted with me because I only got a 2 gig memory card, when I could have had an 8 gig memory card. I told him I wasn't going to listen to music on my phone. We pay extra for Don, Nick & Don-Mike to have music on their phones. You can only have 3 phones on it. They love that feature & use it all the time. I have a nice little iPod I can listen to & even then, I don't listen very often. But I had 4 voice messages saved. One I've listened to every 21 days for the last 3 years. The salesman told me I could archive it. So, I tried it & it asked me if I wanted to archive it to my memory disk!!! Kewl!!! Now, I don't have to listen to those 4 messages every 21 days!!!

I can be the texting queen with my new phone & it's QWERTY keyboard, LOL It sure was easy to text Don-Mike this afternoon. It took me a second to find the question mark, but ... it's there!