Got a kitten two weeks ago and then a week ago my thirteen year old cats kidneys started to fail him. He hasn't eaten or drank on his own in over a week. I have been giving him subcutaneous fluids and feeding him baby food and chicken stock with a syringe and eye dropper. Don't think he's going to pull through, too bad, he's a great cat. My middle cat stopped eating and drinking as well. She hates the kitten and can tell that he older buddy is super sick. I don't think she is actually I'll, just freaked out. She just started eating and drinking after a five day fast. She was getting fluids and nutrition forced on her as well. I don't like her, she is a shitty cat that I would get rid of if my wife would let me but instead I'll get my ass clawed up feeding and medicating her. The kitten has no idea what's going on. He harasses the other cats with his kitten madness. He has also been snuggling with the the good dying old man. He wants to be friends but old man Jackers but Jack doesn't have enough in the tank to reciprocate. Family is going out of town for a funeral while I stay home and try to pull Jack through his illness, its going to be a long sad weekend.
My condolences, we had a cat go through renal failure and gave her subcutaneous fluids for about 6 months. Best thing we did for her was just gave her palliative care - fed her all the junk Friskies we could. My wife took it the hardest, as it was her cat since she was a child. I'm sure you're already well informed, but she wanted to pass along these links. Comprehensive Guide To Feline Chronic Kidney Disease And the kitty crack we fed her.
Today is Wednesday?!?! It's official. I have broken the wall! On two separate non-consecutive days I have run 10-minute miles, at least 2 at a time. (Two days ago I ran 2.6 miles in 26ish minutes, today I ran 3.31 miles in 33.33 minutes!) Woo! My goal of running a 30-minute 5k by March seems very close indeed! I am also working on pull ups now. They are getting easier every day, but I am still doing "assisted" - read: I jump into the pull - pulls for now. That is okay. They are hard, but fun. This weekend, I'm having a housewarming party. It'll be Mexican themed. Any advice about Mexican party food, especially slow cooker party food (I have two, so share away! Also I'm worried any kind of soup is just not party-friendly, but I really like that the slow cooker can keep the food warm without me paying any attention to it) would be greatly appreciated and welcomed! I plan on making sangria out of box wine. (I AM POOR RIGHT NOW.)
My friends love walking tacos. Pretty easy party food since you get to skip plates. Here's a picture of a similar setup to what I do: I'm a vegetarian so I do one pot veggie meat or beans and one pot meat meat. Then pico, guac, lettuce, ect. Our group has a mix of allergies and diets so a DIY meal is good because people can work around their restrictions.
It's Mexican themed, but not Mexican, but cheap: Huevos Diablos If you make them, add Cholula to the yolk mash, it's much better.
while you're right that's it's probably not souper (huehuehue) party friendly, you can probably put it in cups for people to sip. that would make them 1 handed instead of 2 at least and reduce waste vis-a-vis spoons. also i'm sorry i can't come any more. got a bunch of pre-reading to do for classes next week :(
No I made sure to RSVP because it would put it in my calendar. I'm super bummed
Aw I'm sorry you have to miss. I won't even keep friendiliy-guilting you. Maybe when the weather gets warmer I can traipse on down to DC again, we can try to time it so it hits a lull point in your classes or something. I believe I promised wasoxygen I would lend him my copy of Predictable Irrationality if he wanted it.
I blew my lunch hour, and my lunch budget, today at the World Bank bookstore. It's a dangerous place, half the stock is provocative remaindered titles selling at $5-7. If any of these look good, let me know and I'll make sure they are read and ready for exchange at the next meetup. 
I ran a five mile run on New Years. It was chip timed. I'd been hoping to come in under 45 minutes and was pleased to see my final time at 42:20. I think I'll do more organized runs this year.
So, I've been taking my Gender, Race, and Sexuality course. While its a shortened program for the winter it has led me to a lot of new material, and intrigued me to finish my reading of Foucault. So far the class has come with some level of liberation, and everyone in the class is very open. It's still a pretty basic class, but it has definitely opened my eyes.
Never got around to posting yesterday. Wednesday was good, had a conference call with my supervisory board at the NIH and they continue to be impressed with the work my clinic is doing. Eat that imposter syndrome. Today's a bad mental health day. Straight to the gym after work and early to bed I think.
Still working on my travel site, I have started to write little informational articles on my past travels to populate the blog little by little. I think I shared my little experience visiting the abandoned bobsled track on Hubski before... I found it quite hard to find information on how to get there at the time except for tours so I wrote a little "how to get there" post: http://elizabethtravels.com/sarajevo-abandoned-bobsled-track/ (don't judge the unfinished look of the site just yet, it's a work in progress, I'll definitely make a separate post one I feel it deserves the attention) My favorite gym trainer is back from vacation so excersise is back on track too! Life feels great lately :)
Edit: I've moved my original post into it's own place as I feel that is more appropriate. December has been Star Wars mania for me and I'm keeping it going by watching the original trilogy today. There's something reassuring about Star Wars for me and its helped greatly to get over bad times, maybe that should be my next blog post!
PS: Sorry for the super long downer but its been important to me to share this with y'all and its been one of those tasks I've struggled to overcome. In better news I got a Sphero for Christmas and have just gotten it talking to my Raspberry Pi so I can do some fun coding projects (that I intend to take into schools), maybe I should do a write up here!
This is great news Cedar, keep up the productive and strong attitude! I never truly got professional help but looking back, up to the beginning of last year I was definitely depressed, finding myself feeling like a burden and so on. Not as severe as so many others of course, but there's no better feeling than having been down there and gotten back up.
I've been doing CBT with a local NHS service, it's all stuff I already knew so I'm not really sticking with it but it's definitely made me be a bit more aware of what is going on around me and in my head. Main thing I identified I want to work on is stopping my knee jerk reaction which causes me to flip out or do stupid drastic things like deleting work etc.
Almost done with the hotel. I don't think I am going to add any more detail, just some color work. Starting to think about my next painting. I'm still doing 20 push-ups before every shower. I am going to start running a bit. I hate running, but it is an efficient way to get exercise.
I started running again. In fact, I just got back from a jog around the river. On Tuesday I ran across three bridges and when I got back to my door, I had run 6.2kms. This annoyed me slightly, but I was spent. I promised myself that I was going to hit 7kms today and I did. I'm definitely on my way to running that 12km race! I've been put on the coffee machine at work much more as well, so I'm getting better at steaming milk and making coffees look pretty.
back from hellifornia. family is good. I got to see my little brother in his element. He narrowly avoided failing out the first semester (finished with a 3.09 but his program is notoriously strict about kicking people out) which is remarkable considering the combination of learning disabilities + first time living away from home. He took us on a backstage tour of his zoo which was really neat. it's very comforting to see someone start to blossom, especially when it took as long as it did. i'm back at work. last full semester of classes starts next week which means THESIS TIME. scary. i won't be officially done until July though because apparently Georgetown can't be assed to make a decent credit tracking program for its grad students so I wasn't aware that I would be 1 class short for graduating in May. still walking with the spring graduating class which is really all that matters because it would be really awkward for my family to fly out only to have nothing to show.
Moved into a new place! No longer am I stuck in a shitty, cold, uninsulated student flat. This place has a fiiiiiire!! Also insulation and yaddah yaddah.. 2016 seems to be a year for revisiting old loves. I've gotten back into painting. I've gotten back into running for recreation. On top of my usual sport, gym work and that actual work-job stuff it's proving to be a hectic time but - I couldn't be happier. 3 weeks off my anti-depressants too - which may or may not be contributing to my new found energy! I haven't visited Hubski for a wee while, must say I missed you guys even though I'm one of those posters who's more in the corner reading what you all get upto :)
Lots of good posting. My life week has been up and down. After a few rant-y texts to my sister last night she said, "You must've gone home and had dinner with the parents." How right she was. My mother was in rare form. I thought about PMing you, or kb, but haven't yet. I may have successfully ranted it all out at this point, or not. I guess we'll see.
...the girl and I are kind of back together?. But not completely. We're going to a concert Saturday. Life's weird. My life is constantly waiting for the snowflake that causes the avalanche.
Congrats then? Is it a happy reunion? You sound a lot like me on the PNW vs New England thing. New Englanders are my people. They move fast, talk fast, and tell you what they are thinking. I can't handle the PNW brand of glaring passive aggression, and what I consider "honest" they consider "rude". Not to mention way, way better public transit. But the PNW is beautiful. I love the weirdness out here and the coffee / beer / food culture. There's no better place in the country to appreciate nature while still living in a big city. I've come to the conclusion the grass will always be greener. My heart will always ache for the other coast and the people I'm far from, regardless of which side I live on. But I'm lucky that I've gotten to really experience both, and maybe when I retire I'll just be a nomad and hop between each coast.
They're two completely different breeds of people, and when you spent a good chunk of time living in both places it's hard to reconcile those differences without feeling like you're mind is apart to rip in half. Although I will say a lot of the people in the local coffee and music scene are great to hang out with. Hoping to move up to Georgetown or Central District-ish in early Spring. It's great being able to see Mount Rainier from just about everywhere down this way, even from work. That's about the only tolerable thing about my job's location. But, more on topic, there's a lot to be said about Western NY and New England that I just...love...it's hard to explain. Maybe when we meet up we can get more into that. It seems like we're on the exact same boat. Hopefully it doesn't sink.You sound a lot like me on the PNW vs New England thing. New Englanders are my people. They move fast, talk fast, and tell you what they are thinking. I can't handle the PNW brand of glaring passive aggression, and what I consider "honest" they consider "rude". Not to mention way, way better public transit.
My heart will always ache for the other coast and the people I'm far from, regardless of which side I live on.
I don't take it as a bad thing. The only people I know who don't miss a place in some way or another are people who stayed in their hometown forever. Getting to experience the good in places means you have something to miss; it's a bittersweet feeling, but it's worth the cost to me. Pooh said it best:It seems like we're on the exact same boat. Hopefully it doesn't sink.
I mentioned this on IRC shortly after it happened, but I guess I should tell this story more-- concretely? publicly? New Year's Eve. I host a party with a couple close friends. Around 12:30am, 1/1/16: Me: "Anyway, who wants to make out to bring in the new year?" Ex: "Okay!" Now, I was clearly joking. She was not. I had no intention of kissing anyone, but once it was a possibility, I couldn't say no. So we kissed. And it was great, and it was a terrible idea. One of the worst decisions I've made in a while-- but I can't regret it. Things are a little awkward between us now, I don't know. It sucks. But goddamn it felt good. After I related this incident to the college friends, one said this, which stuck with me: So that's where I'm at. More generally, being home while all your friends are in school fucking sucks. One thing I really got used to about college was how close everyone else was: I could hang out with friends, like, whenever I wanted. Now I'm home, and all my friends are in school 8-4, and when they're not they're either rowing or doing homework or taking aerial classes or free but a 45 minute drive away. Shit gets old.The attractive one who does aerial acrobatics and for whom I clearly still have feelings and it's probably mutual but it's also really hard and she alternates between being perfect for me and not being emotionally mature enough to treat me with the respect I need in a relationship.
Enjoy that while it lasts. I haven't seen my best friend in a little over a month, he's coming to town tonight and we are going to get drunk and see Star Wars, possibly in that order, possibly not. In primary and secondary school, you're thrown together with a bunch of people, might as well be friendly with them. In college, you get to choose who you hang out with a bit more, but they're all close at hand. Then you graduate, people live all over the gorram PLANET, and on top of that they have JOBS. That's when you not only choose who you WANT to see, but you have to actively seek them out.One thing I really got used to about college was how close everyone else was: I could hang out with friends, like, whenever I wanted.
hurts to type, hand still sucks, and even worse is the waiting to see if the stupid biology does its auto repair routines or not. I have a big astronomy thing to do Friday and cannot lift more than 5 pound per the MD's. I have a big ass LAN party next weekend that is one of the biggest events we've had in years, and I am sitting on the sidelines. On top of that, there are a few threads that I want to jump in on, and a big reply that I promise to finish "soon" as I like the conversation, but this is about all I can type and not start to hurt. Good times for all.
Maybe we can have a thread where we all compete to find the most ridiculous "clickbatiest" collection of images/links. I guess this would be my submission - WARNING: NSFW
Your entry is powerful, but I am always amazed at how awful the bait is and at the same time how forcefully compelling it is. Obviously the result of optimizing for what works; it's a superstimulus.
I wonder if exploiting our primal responses as a business strategy will ever die off? Perhaps not until some sort of bio-tech integration.