A Sense of Gladness, A Sense of Relief in Everyday Ramblings

This is the area in Mrs. Sherlock’s garden next to her capacious chicken coop. The garden didn’t get as much attention as usual with her husband’s illness but she is getting back to focusing on it. I haven’t been taking that many pictures lately as we move into high hot summer.

There is dust and residual pollen that gets stirred up by the wind. We haven’t had any rain in awhile but that at least gave me the opportunity to order rain pants in a medium so they are not so tight. Speaking of capacious! I needed new ones anyway as I wore the ones I had to the point of being frayed at the bottom when said dust becomes a more common landscape of mud and network of puddles.

Our big adventure this week, and it was a group effort, involved getting both cats to the vet for their own personal dental extravaganza. Carlo had some cleaning to be done and at least one smaller tooth being what they call reabsorbed. It is painful for the cat and the tooth needs to come out. My Sammy had this too but he was older and then developed the problems that took precedence but Carlo, while a fully grown adult is still vital and otherwise healthy.

The cats have to be anesthetized for this procedure. Diego was also doing this weird chewing motion with his mouth just anytime, not when he was eating and had an unusual smell, not bad, just animal when he got close to me with his mouth open.

It turns out, his mouth is as unique as the rest of him and he had a completely random extra tooth in his jaw, and two teeth on the other side were fused, so in the end he had the cleaning treatment and two teeth out.

It was so strange to be home working without the cats here. Our physical presence awareness has been totally merged since they came to live here. I always know where they are and they most definitely know where I am!

The vet said that you don’t do regular maintenance on cat’s teeth like you do with people. One can brush their teeth with say a little chicken flavored (don’t tell Mrs. Sherlock’s chickens this) feline toothpaste by rubbing it on with your finger (I did that for awhile with Sammy). But basically the dental work is a treatment, not a preventative measure.

I have been saving for this for six months so was able to pay for it upfront which is a relief. I am grateful to have had the resources to do it now before I retire.

The stitches are disposable and today was the last day of giving them the kitty version of an anti-inflammatory painkiller. They have not complained even a bit about only eating wet food exclusively since the procedure.

I could tell that Diego felt better later in the day he came home. He is much more active and engaged and both of them have been purring up a storm home alone with me.

Carlo is prancing around light-footed and very interested in the mixed families’ with fledglings of house sparrows and house finches at the feeders. I am happy to see the finches and chickadees again after their sequestration on the nest.

Early for us, it has been very hot here this week. The HVAC in the building at work is truly problematic and it was freezing in there the last few days. 30 degrees cooler than outside, even with a jacket on it was uncomfortable to have it blowing right down on a body. I was so much happier to work from home today and the room I taught my midday class in was fine.

And now it is the weekend! With happy, healthy cats (each with shaved patches on their front leg where they had their IVs) and a chunk of unstructured time ahead I can relax.

It is so nice to have all this over with.

And I haven’t had a migraine in five days.

Last updated July 15, 2018