Oh, Guliko

That's right, it's another post about the cat.  What an exciting blog!  I'm going to say once again that I am not generally the sort of person that talks about the cat nonstop, but the beginning of the blog sort of coincided with Guliko's big health crisis.  The blog is meant to be about things I find funny or interesting or whatever, and the thing that I'm thinking about the most right now is Guliko.

Anyway, she and I made it through the weekend with the girlfriend gone just fine.  Guliko is spending most of her time hiding somewhere--in one of two places in my closet, behind or under a chair in my office, or under the bed--but she does come out to eat, especially in the morning, and she does like to be petted still.  You just have to go find her and pet her in her hiding place.  And her purrs and her meows sound really funny, we think because the lymph node is pressing on her voicebox a little.  She certainly is not pouncing on things or jumping up or being her old self, but she's holding her own.

Then yesterday morning the vet finally called (she claims that their computer system was down all day Friday, which is why she didn't call).  She said that a pathologist had looked at the few cells she'd taken out when we took Guliko in last Tuesday and he thought that they were cancerous.  She did not sound upbeat.  So we went back over to the vet to have some blood work done yesterday afternoon so we could take her in for the biopsy this morning.  Poor kitty.

She didn't get to have breakfast this morning, so she was really grouchy, and now she's at the vet by herself.  They have to put her under anesthesia to take the biopsy, which means we won't be able to go get her until 5 or so this evening.  We won't find out the results of the biopsy until Friday or next Monday, but things don't look good for her. 

The worst part is that I have to go away for the weekend for a family reunion at my grandparents', which means I may not even be here when we find out the results.  Well, that and the kitty being really sick.  This sucks.

The Irritating Thing about Doctors...

The irritating thing about doctors, which at this moment includes vets as well, is that they don't seem to realize how important your, particular, animal is.  They're perhaps a little more cavalier than you would like them to be.  So, for instance, yesterday the vet told us to stop giving the cat the pain medication she'd been on because she thought that that was what was making Guliko hide under the bed and not really want to eat.  And she said that she would call the girlfriend today to see how Guliko was doing today and let us know if she'd heard from the vet that might do the surgery on Guliko's ear. 

She of course did not do that.  Fortunately, Guliko is doing much better.  She came out yesterday to eat wet food and be petted and today when I came home she came out and wanted to be petted and have her tummy rubbed and sit on my lap for a while.  Which is way better than she's done since Monday, so I'm taking it as a good sign.  This is a good thing because the girlfriend is out of town for the weekend at her step-sister's graduation, so I'm all alone with the ailing kitty.  With any luck, we'll be okay on our own until Sunday!

I have come to terms with the fact that at least until the cat's health crisis is over, this blog is going to be mostly about the cat.  Maybe after she's better I'll have non-kitty things to say.  Maybe.

Hysterical!

Just to show that this blog is not entirely about the kitty... Julia Sweeney describes talking to her daughter about the birds and the bees.  Absolutely hysterical!






More on Guliko as the situation develops. We're still waiting to hear back from the vet. Guliko is still hiding under the bed and refusing to come out when we're around. Call it a standoff.

Gratuitous Kitty Picture...

Guliko Update

Well, it turns out this wasn't actually a case of Overprotective Mommy Syndrome (OPMS).  Guliko felt better on Saturday after seeing the vet and for most of the day on Sunday, but Sunday evening, she had another one of her spells.  And another one.  These suckers are really scary and look a lot like she's having terrible muscle spasms all on her right side.  The muscles all lock up and stay that way for maybe 30 seconds or a minute, then relax so she can go bounding away.  And they clearly hurt a lot, if her yowling and attempts to stay perfectly still between them are any indication.  She had another one at around 6 am Monday morning (scared the crap out of me and the girlfriend because she had it on the girlfriend's pillow when we were both fast asleep).  She had several more throughout the day and clearly was in a lot of pain, so the girlfriend called the vet (her usual vet) and made an appointment for this morning.
We thought about driving her to a 24 hour vet last night because it seemed like she really couldn't get up after one of the attacks, but then she jumped up and moved into the back of the closet.  At this point, we were really thinking she was going to die just right there, but she didn't.  She got up in the night to use the litter box and eat and then jumped up on a chair this morning, so we were feeling a little more optimistic on the way to the appointment, even though she had a couple more seizures before we went. 
The vet thought at first that she had some sort of back injury and was getting ready to take some x-rays when Guliko had a seizure right there on the exam table.  The vet said "I've never seen a cat do that before".  Then she decided to check Guliko's ear.  Now, when the girlfriend first rescued Guliko from the streets, she was having some ear trouble and she took her to the vet and found out that the cat had a giant polyp in her middle ear.  The vet removed it, but warned that it was possible that she had some of the polyp in her inner ear, which would require surgery.  So she was checking the ear to make sure that they polyp hadn't grown back.  She couldn't tell--Guliko has a HUGE amount of ear wax, apparently--but when her assistant was holding Guliko's head so she could look in the ears, she noted a hard growth on Guliko's neck.  And when the vet pressed on it, Guliko had a seizure.  The vet needed to run some tests.
The upshot is, it's an inflamed lymph node, probably as a result of the ear not draining properly because of the polyp in the inner ear.  The lymph node is pressing on one of the major nerves in Guliko's neck.  The cat is going to have to have surgery to remove the polyp and maybe the lymph node.  The vet can't do the surgery, so she's looking into where we can take her.  Meanwhile, the cat is all drugged up, which would be funny if she wasn't so pitiful.  Poor kitty.

The Biggest Loser

I'm going to say it: I love the Biggest Loser.  Now, I know that there are plenty of reasons that the show is not a good model for how to lose weight safely, keep it off, and to encourage a healthy lifestyle.  Let's be honest, losing 10+ points in a week is crazy, no matter how big you are, and the restrictive diets and intensive exercise regimes the contestants endure should only be undertaken with serious supervision.  All of this means that the results they get are unrealistic for the average person.  In addition, these people are living on a "ranch" where their only job is to work out and lose weight, a situation that is unlikely to occur for the vast majority of the population.

So why, then, do I love it?  The show itself is highly manipulative in its editing and organization (we'll find out how Koli did...after this 5 minute commercial break!) and clearly designed to pull at your heartstrings.  The girlfriend finds it cheesy and overproduced, and I agree.  Sort of.

The thing is, I find it inspirational, too.  Not because the contestants lose hundreds of pounds, but because they want to so bad that they're willing to fight through pain and hunger and loneliness and being screamed at by the trainers so they can do it.  And, yes, they're competing for $250,000 if they lose the most weight, but they're also trying to change their lives.  That's what all the sweat and tears are about: trying to make life-altering decisions.  Yes, when they leave the show, they often gain some, if not all, of the weight back.  But some of them don't.  Some of them do change their lives. 

On the days that I don't want to work out, when I'm tired and grumpy and just want to watch bad TV, I put on a recorded episode of the Biggest Loser and usually that motivates me to get off the couch.   If they can get up and work their butts off day in and day out, why can't I do my little 40 minutes or an hour?  Why not?

Overprotective Mommy Syndrome (OPMS)

So Guliko the kitty took a little spill on Thursday.  She was trying to leap from the floor to the windowsill--she loves to look out at the birds and sniff the air--and only caught the sill with her front legs.  Her back legs landed on a pile of pillows, which fell over, so she barely caught herself on the windowsill.  She seemed mostly fine on Thursday, but Friday she was limping and having trouble getting up and yowling in pain when she had to get up.  So the girlfriend and I were worried.  Very worried.  And of course she was getting worse after 6, too late to take her to her regular vet.  After calling around, we found that the only 24-hour vet in the area was an hour and 15 minutes away, which seemed like an awful long way to go.  We decided to wait until the morning and eventually found a vet that had walk-in hours this morning, because she is still limping and clearly not feeling like herself.
The giant dog in the waiting room made us rethink the decision, and Guliko and I found ourselves waiting in the car until the vet could see us, which she did not appreciate.  But the upshot is that she is probably fine but very sore.  So she gets an anti-inflammatory and as much rest as we can make her take.  And lots of pets.  And probably lots and lots of the wet food she loves.  Man, are we pushovers.

Nerdy, but AWESOME!!!, Part 1

I apparently surprised the girlfriend yesterday by playing her nerdy music.  Now, I teach human evolution and prehistory and have been reading books about evolution in particular all year, so you'd think she wouldn't have been surprised, but there you go.  I guess I hide the nerdiness well?  To be fair, I make fun of her and her friends when they get together to drink wine and talk about...Bourdieu.  Or Foucault.  Or what grade they got on papers in their theory class last semester.  So I guess she thought that meant I was not nerdy.  Joke's on her!  So here, for your enjoyment, are...
1.  The Real Pliocene Hominin:



Reminds us that we don't know which Pliocene hominid is the actual ancestor of modern humans.  With singing skeletons.  I'm just saying.  Watch out, though, the song will literally stay with you for days, particularly if you know the song it's parodying already...

2. A Biologist's Mother's Day Song



Because, of course, there can never be enough nerdy tributes to mom's DNA.  I know it's too late for Mother's Day, but still awesome.  There's enough nerdiness in this one that the girlfriend wanted me to turn it off.  She does like the tune, though...

3. The Rap Guide to Evolution (you'll have to click on "The Rap Guide to Evolution" under discography)--I suggest "Sexual Selection," but they're all good.  Good and nerdy.  Plus, he quotes Darwin a bunch.  Highly nerdy.  In addition, Baba Brinkman (the rapper) also did the "Rap Canterbury Tales" if his nerd quotient wasn't high enough for you.

http://www.babasword.com/

And now Guliko has noticed I'm on the computer, so her next step is probably stepping on it.  I'd better sign off.  Revel in the nerdiness!

What's in a Name?

...or, why does the blog have a funny name?

Not that most blogs don't have funny names.  Most of the ones I read do.  Some of them probably have better reasons.  My girlfriend has been telling me for months that I need a creative outlet, and writing is something I've enjoyed since I was a kid.  My mom has a book I wrote in the 4th grade, about some talking sneakers.  I had another about two dinosaurs and an unpublished volume about teddy bears that come to life at night.  That story I wrote in the 5th grade but never finished.  A shame.

Anyway, about the name of the blog.  My girlfriend has a cat named Guliko.  She is one of the most adorable animals I have ever met.  Don't believe me?  See for yourself!

Guliko's name means "little heart" in Georgian.  She is, as you can see, an adorable kitty.  She is also a little bit timid.

We've been talking about moving in together, the girlfriend and I, and I was saying that I thought I should get to have my own cat.  The girlfriend is a little reluctant because Guliko is a timid and careful cat and who knows how she will get on with another cat.  It's not an argument that's likely to end any time soon, particularly since we're getting ready to move to a new city, so we probably won't be getting a new cat any time soon.  But the new cat's name will be Florain.  We know that.

So the blog is named after two kitties--the one we have and the one we will someday have.  I do hope they get on okay.

Farewell, Rosie

I was going to make the first post about the name of the blog, because "Florian and Guliko" probably needs some explaining. But my 1989 Toyota Cressida, nicknamed both "The Red Wonder" and "Rosie" blew a head gasket a few weeks ago. In a newer car, perhaps this would just be a minor inconvenience. Okay, a major inconvenience, if you're not a mechanic, because the fix for a head gasket is a $1500-$2000 repair that requires taking the top of the engine off and some work in the machine shop to make sure everything works okay and then resealing the stupid thing. And that's if the overheating of the engine and the mixing of the oil and engine coolant that happens when the head gasket blows didn't cause any damage.

But the Red Wonder is a 1989 and I just put $2000 dollars into the car in September. So it's tough to justify putting that much money in again, in the hopes of getting another 8 or 10 months out before another major fail. So there she sat at the mechanic's. And, of course, good luck selling a car that doesn't have an operational engine. Finally, I decided that I probably should just junk her, much as it pained me, and get what I could, which turned out to be about $140. When I called the mechanic to tell them my decision, one of the guys at the shop told me he would buy it off me, for $100 plus the diagnostic (about $87). So that's more than the junker would have given me and he clearly was interested in fixing it up.

Then I discovered that I had no idea where the title was, which required some negotiation with my mother to acquire. Anyway, we (the "we" will require explanation later, as well) went over yesterday morning with the title to get the stuff out of the car and sign over the title. Which took less than 10 minutes. Kind of a disappointing end for a vehicle I've owned for 10 years.

I bought the car for $6000 in July of 2000, from a white-haired woman who had driven it only to the store and back. The Cressida was Toyota's luxury car in 1989 (think Lexus before there was Lexus) and its somewhat faded leather interior and 6-cylinder engine quickly endeared her to me. Plus, I've always been a sucker for boxy old-school Toyotas.

We had a rocky relationship from the start. There was an overheating incident and the one where the cruise control got stuck accelerating,but overall she got me where I needed to for 10 years. So tonight, I'm drinking Redbreast whiskey to you, Rosie. Happy trails.