Kate's Queen City Notes

This has been such a stressful experience that I am not sure where to begin. I have an appointment to get my cat put to sleep on Monday. I have such mixed feelings about it, and I don’t really know how to go about explaining them in a succinct fashion.

She has always been a difficult cat. My older cat is attentive and responds to positive and negative reinforcement. But this cat has resisted training from day one. She has never managed her claws very well. She has always required a lot of affection, but she regularly draws blood when enjoying affection.

Aside from these things, she is a very sweet and affectionate cat. In the ten years that I have had her, I have alternately felt frustrated with her and guilty for not responding to her in the same way I do to my other cat. I don’t feel that I have been a particularly good owner to the cat. She doesn’t get on well with other animals, but I have repeatedly put her in households with more animals than she can handle. Some of these choices where solely mine. Some of the choices where outside my realm of control.

She has had diabetes for the last 2 years. During that time, I have spend more on my cat’s health care in the two years than I have on my own. The correct dose of insulin for her seemed to take several vet visits over a few months. She lost most of her muscle mass and excess fat in the first six months of the disease. She started to limp and lose her ability to jump.

Now she is resistant to the type of insulin she is taking and requires a more expensive insulin. This would in turn require many blood glucose curves to establish the correct dose. She hates the vets. The little joy that is still left in her life is when she gets affection. After a return from the vets, she hides from me for days stealing what’s left of her joy.

I’m realizing that I have been continuing treatment to assuage my own guilt for not creating the best environment for her and not doting on her as much as my other cat. While I have not been the most responsible pet owner in the past, I cannot make up for that by extending her life now through vet visits that clearly distress her. I know I am making the right decision to put her to sleep. It doesn’t change the fact that this is in the top 10 of difficult things I have done as an adult.

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The seedlings have made lots of progress since I last blogged. Here’s a picture of the sweetie tomato, zucchini and broccoli seedlings. These were taken prior to my week of vacation, on March 31st. As of this point, only one of the jalapeno peppers had come up; none of the bell peppers had germinated.

I was concerned that the plants wouldn’t survive the vacation. It’s not that I didn’t have faith in the folks looking after them. It’s that I do a fine job of killing plants and assume that others have that same talent.

My plant munching cat gets a little angry when I leave town. I got out the bags and started packing. Devil cat noticed. Ten minutes later, I went upstairs and saw that the cat had managed to get one of the corn seedlings through the chicken-wire and snarf it down. All that was left was the roots.

The devil cat is a spiteful little creature. She was content to leave the seedlings alone until she noticed the luggage out. I am certain she felt compelled to send me a message about the vacation.

Upon my return from vacation, the seedlings look a little wilted. I gave them a good watering. There were a couple of sunflowers and a couple of peas that might not return from the wilt. If that’s the worst fallout from seven days away, I will consider that success. I will have newer pictures with my next post. This week I will attempt to build my beds. This will involve me using power tools, so I’m excited.

Spring has nudged its way to the Nati in the last couple of weeks. I manage to get to the driving range with my new golf clubs. I also managed to wind my motorcycle mechanic odyssey to an end. I kicked off my attempts at growing things.

I’ll start off with the motorcycle. My motorcycle clutch started slipping last fall. The bike had to sit though most of the winter without attention. I ordered the friction discs and clutch plates over the winter and waited for the spring thaw. After facing several set backs, I stripped the screws holding in the bike’s oil pump. After several failed methods of getting the screws out, I finally found a solution. The Black and Decker tools to removed stripped screws are utter crap. Do not buy those. While attempting to use one of them the bit broke off in the drilled out stripped screw. There was a lot of cursing after that. The Alden Prograbit was awesome! They took those screws out in about 5 minutes.

Once that problem was solved, I set about tearing the clutch apart to replace the friction discs. After taking several parts off, I get to the lock nut. Note that the Honda Clymer manual says something deceptively easy like, remove the lock nut. After pawing at the nut for a while, I decided to consult the internet gods. The gods tell me that the lock nut is “staked” and will require a dremel tool to grind it out. The lock nut will also require a special lock nut tool from Honda for removal.

That’s it. I give up. I called the Honda Motor Sports. They are going to come get the bike this week. There a moments where you just have to raise the white flag of defeat and call a professional.

My quest to grow things has been more successful. I built a grow light stand to get my seedlings started early. That project went very smoothly. I planted all my seeds. I’ll post again when the first seedlings turn up.

This weekend brought a bevy of things to blog about. My weekend started with skiing on Friday night. I went with Jon and his friend Breezy B. They snowboard. I cannot remain upright on a snowboard for more than 10 seconds at a time. As you could image this is a painful way to make one’s way down a hill.

Jon took Breezy B on his virgin trip boarding years ago.  In the mean years, Breezy B has surpassed Jon’s skills. Through out the night of boarding Jon endured lots of ribbing about Breezy passing him up in boarding skills. After hours of snowy adventure, Breezy speeds past Jon and I.  He had his hand down on the ground behind his board throwing up a trail of snow. While he was looking back at us, he hit the orange barrier fence. He went over the fence. His hand got caught on the fence but his body kept moving into the woods. This resulted in a torn rotator cuff. Breezy was down. I went to fetch ski patrol. My night ended in the ski patrol office with other injured folks and in the emergency room with even more injured folks. Neato.

Saturday I got a free ticket to an event at the CAC in Cincinnati. They had Shepard Fairey’s work on display. I don’t know what I was expecting in this exhibit. I know that it surpassed whatever those expectations were. Shepard had years of work on display. He started graphics work on the idea that public space can be reclaimed from the corporate interests that manage it now. It was amazing. I suggest his work if you are at all interested in all the corporate messages that we are surrounded with.

On Sunday, I attempted to make yellow cake with chocolate icing. The cake required some mixing that I just wasn’t accustomed to. I had to mix all the egg yolks, vanilla and milk separately. It was weird. The cake turned out great. The chocolate icing had semi-sweet chocolate in it as well as coco. It was excellent.

Finally, I have a word or two to say about Joseph Stack. How does one get to a point where one can afford to own and house a plane and still feel that the IRS has wronged you so to fly your plane into the IRS building. Really? The IRS was so bad that you feel compelled to burn the house that keeps your child and crash your plane into the IRS building? That is completely crazy. I know there are lots of libertarians who might identify with Joseph Stack. I am calling them out for the crazy nut-bags that they are. If you have the income to support your house and a plane, you need to shut the fuck up.

I was headed out the door to the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. Since this has been the winter of SNOW-MY-GOD in Cincinnati snowdrifts were hanging around. I noticed that I didn’t change out of my sandals a few paces from my car. My laziness dictated that I not head back to the house for more sensible shoes.

While I was attempting to avoid piles of blackened snow and grayish brown lakes of oily snow remainder, the foolishness of my choice came into sharp clarity. I also considered this. Why is snowmelt so utterly foul? When summer rain makes lakes out of parking lots the said lakes aren’t nearly as retch inducing.

Another wave of SNOW-MY-GOD made its way from the Midwest and rolled over the Northeast. I had the unfortunate experience of driving from Washington DC to Cincinnati during the festivities. I really like Jenn’s Fit. It’s a good little car. But on this particular trip it was bringing me no comfort. The trip was 11 hours of near death experiences.

The thing I found the most cringe worthy was the enormous semis speeding past us at fifty or sixty miles per hour. With no pavement visible, I simply don’t understand how those trucks would be able to stop should something unexpected occur. I had visions of being flattened into a little blue pancake while the semi driver might continue on unfazed by that large pothole that was my life being quashed.

Me managed the trip without incident. I have learned two things. First, it is best to avoid sandals when large quantities of snow are on the ground. Second, it is best to avoid cross-country trips when large winter storms are your constant companion.