More of the Same

Hey, Everyone!

I haven't written in a while, so I thought I should so an update. You haven't missed much.

• I didn't get the job at Game Stop. They hired a guy instead. I took a day off to bawl and then got back to filling out applications... I applied to that particular Game Stop back in March. Maybe one of the places I'm applying to now will call me in another 3 months for an interview.

• Just for fun, I also applied to be on the game show Minute To Win It. And they're the place that ended up calling me back! Anyway, I went down to the audition and got to play some of the games (like "Stack Attack"), but I didn't get chosen. They were more interested in people who came as a team/couple. They put a mark on my application and said they "might" call me back if they need more single players, but I'm not going to count on it.

• We weren't able to catch Robert's Mom. We had to return the trap to FixNation. We actually haven't seen her in a couple weeks. We think she went somewhere and had her kittens. If she turns up again, we'll get the trap back from FixNation and try again.

• Since I don't have a job or a whole lot else going on, I've been working even harder than usual to stay on top of my health. My hypoglycemia was still pretty much under control, but I was starting to get lazy in some areas, so I've been re-reading my books. I have several books on the subject, but my favorite is Hypoglycemia For Dummies. Not only is it the easiest to use for reference material, but it also says this on page 107, "Recent research appears to show that soybeans may be a bit of a mixed bag." That's what made me really fall in love with it. The first book I got on hypoglycemia was written a long time ago and really pushes soybeans as a substitute for everything. It's pretty enraging because a.) I'm allergic to soy! and, b.) soy isn't really good for anyone! (you've all read my report by now, right?). So yeah. Good stuff.

• I've also re-joined "Body By Glamour." I don't use the recipes or anything, but having an online Food/Exercise journal is very handy. I'm able to log in my meals and see if I'm getting enough of what I need and make adjustments accordingly. I've used their website in the past for this purpose and it was quite helpful and I looked and felt better because of it.

I guess that's about it. Ramiro and the cats are doing fine. Hope you're enjoying the Memorial Day weekend!

--Lauren*

Ginger Chews

Hey, Everyone!

Next month would have marked ONE YEAR with NO SUGAR! But...

Between my kidney stone and my back, I've been in some pretty excruciating pain lately; so much so that it makes me uncontrollably nauseous. And the only thing that I've found that really works well is Original Ginger Chews by The Ginger People.

I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to meet the one year mark, but those chews are really quite amazing so I thought I'd make a quick post to let others know about them, in case they're having similar problems. Also, they're very tasty!

--Lauren*

Stone Pee

Hey, Everyone!

Pretty sure I peed out all or at least most of my kidney stone last night! I won't go into details, but it was very painful and I cried. But today I feel about a million times better! I still have some of the pain in my back (I'm pretty sure the docs were right about me re-pulling that muscle), but the pain in my front and side are nearly gone entirely! Actually, there's a pretty good picture of kidney stone pain on Wikipedia if you're curious.

I still have all the back exercises that I was given by the physical therapists last summer, so I'm going to start doing those again. (I did some of them still, but not all...).

I didn't get a chance to write about this the other day because I was stuck in the ER, but right before that, Ramiro and I found this under our deck:It's a cat skull. It was pretty small. We think it may have been Robert's sibling. Originally Robert was part of a litter of two and we used to see him and his brother/sister playing around out in the yard. Then, one day, his sibling was gone. We had been hoping this whole time that he/she was adopted by another neighbour, but now we think that he died... Under the deck was Robert and his sibling's old nursing ground.

Sarahe's boyfriend Paul said that the skull was proof that it's "a hard world out there." Ramiro and I gave the skull a proper burial. We're more determined than ever to take care of the cat population in our area. We don't want to find any more cat/kitten skulls! :(

Waaaaah! Too sad!

We still haven't been able to catch Robert's Mom. She's tricky! She went in the trap again and ate all the bait without setting it off. She knows what's up!You can't see her too well in this picture, but that's her under the deck:She's grey. I circled her in the pic for you.

Here's some more pictures of Robert & Ziggy:That's all for now.

--Lauren*

Kidney Stone

Hey, Gang!

I was in the Emergency Room from 8:30pm May 11th to 3:00pm May 12th.

Despite the long wait and horrible conditions of Olive View (the only hospital I can afford to go to what with my no insurance and no job), I was actually really impressed (this time) with the nurses and doctors on duty. Olive View has had some pretty horrendous service in the past, but this time, even though it took around 18 hours, they really took their time and used every resource they had to find out what was wrong with me. And I honestly can't blame them for the wait too much. There was some real craziness going on behind the scenes there... People with insane injuries and problems.

I had ultra sounds done, different drugs administered, a cat scan, and some other stuff and they finally came up with a conclusion! I have a kidney stone. And I pulled my left lower back muscle again (the one I injured working at Del Taco) when I was writhing in agony.

I'm on a bunch of painkillers right now. They're helping a lot. Though I'm really not looking forward to passing that stone... Well, yes and no. I'm looking forward to it being gone, but I'm not looking forward to peeing out a small rock. You know?

In other news, I have a job interview tomorrow. FINALLY! I really really hope I get the job. Pray that I do!

Also, Ramiro and I still haven't been able to trap Robert's Mom... More on that later though. I've gotta go rest.

--Lauren*

Ziggy's Mom

Hey, Everyone!

Those of you who read my last post know that Ramiro and I trapped a feral cat the other night and took her in to be spayed yesterday. Here she is:For those of you who would like some history on this cat, we call her "Ziggy's Mom." Because, of course, that's who she is! (How appropriate that I should have a "mom" post right in time for Mother's Day, eh?).

Ziggy's Mom has been hanging around our house for a while now and is between 1-2 years old. Her first (that we know of) litter was during the Station Fires and contained one cat. She ditched that kitten at birth and refused to come back. Ramiro waited a whole day for her to return, but she never did. In the end, he ended up rescuing the kitten and, in the end, he was given to our friend Darlene. His name is Smokey and he's now a fat & happy cat.
Here's a picture of Ramiro with Smokey when we went to visit him (and Darlene, of course!) a few weeks after he was given to her:Smokey is much bigger now.

Anyway, right after she had Smokey, Ziggy's Mom got pregnant again right away (back-to-back litters!) and she gave birth to Ziggy, the angriest cat in the world:Photo credit goes to Sarahe for the Ziggy pic.

Ziggy's Mom took care of Ziggy for a few weeks (she put in an effort!) but eventually she ditched Ziggy too. When Ramiro and I started taking care of her, she wasn't even fully weened yet. Fortunately, like Smokey, the litter that contained Ziggy was a litter of one.

Ziggy's Mom was pregnant again a couple weeks ago. She didn't have the kittens in our yard this time, but we know that she had them somewhere. One day she was pregnant and the next day she wasn't. FixNation said that she definitely gave birth recently and they seemed a tad perplexed that she wasn't still lactating. Wherever those kittens are, they're probably dead. Looks like she ditched another litter.

Anyway, the happy ending of the story is that we released Ziggy's Mom this morning and she's doing really well. And she'll never have unwanted babies again! :)

Hopefully, on my next post, I'll be telling you all about Robert's Mom. She's next on our list to Trap-Neuter-Release. Especially since she's pregnant again! We have to trap her this upcoming week, so please send lots of prayers and "good luck" wishes our way. Robert's Mom is a tricky cat who seems to be savvy to what's up. We've already gotten her in the trap twice, but she somehow manages to eat all the bait without setting off the trigger! So yeah... Wish us luck.

Until next time!

--Lauren*
PS: This is what Ziggy looked like as a kitten:She was always an angry cat.

Robert & Ziggy Neutering

On Sunday, May 2nd, we kept Robert and Ziggy locked in our room overnight to a.) make sure they didn't eat anything after Midnight and, b.) to make sure they'd be here on time for their appointment at FixNation the next morning at 7am.

Robert was a bit confused about the purpose of the litterbox and seemed to think it was a bed:My mom says it looks like he's trying to hatch something.

The next morning, at 7am, we took them both to FixNation to be neutered. Ringo was very confused around breakfast time and spent the bulk of the day until they returned looking for them:
We brought Robert and Ziggy home at around 5pm that same evening. They were both neutered and ear-tipped (if you can't afford to pay, FixNation will neuter your cats for free, but only if you agree to let them cut off a part of your cat's right ear). We hated to do it, but seeing as we have no money, we had no choice. Thankfully, the people working there were very nice about it and made sure that the ear-tipping was minimal. You can barely see it:
We kept both cats in our room again overnight. The next day, Robert was bouncing around as if nothing had happened. Ziggy, however, was having a bit more trouble. Not only was her surgery much more invasive (spaying a female cat is an internal surgery whereas neutering a male cat is purely external), but she had been pregnant! On the 5th, she was still very very weak and wasn't looking so good. She didn't want to eat or drink.

We ended up keeping Ziggy in our room for one more night (we made our own litterbox out of her carrier. We took it apart and filled it with dirt. Unlike Robert, she was able to figure out what it was for). We managed to get her to eat and drink and poop and pee:
The next morning, Ziggy was starting to act like herself again.

We've been checking their incisions twice a day and so far everything is clean and good. We have high hopes that they'll both recover nicely and be happy cats again very soon. :)

In the meantime, Ramiro and I have set about capturing the feral cat colony that lives in our area. One of the females is pregnant again!

We set traps last night (provided to us by FixNation) and managed to catch one of the females in the colony, but unfortunately it wasn't the pregnant one. We were happy we caught her, but we're worried... FixNation is closed over the weekend and the pregnant female looks like she's ready to blow any second now! We're praying that she doesn't have her kittens over the weekend.

The female that we caught last night is at FixNation being spayed and ear-tipped right now.

More updates soon-ish!

--Lauren*
PS: This product is AMAZING! If you ever have animal "stinks" to deal with or stains/odors you need to get out, I highly HIGHLY recommend getting some Nature's Miracle.

Free Comic Book Day

For those of you who didn't know, today was FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! It's an event that happens every year on the first Saturday in April.

Ramiro and I went to the following places:
House of Secrets
Halo 13
Legacy Comics

And here's our loot:

Here's what Ramiro & I got for Free Comic Book Day:

Fraggle Rock/Mouse Guard
Blondie/Classic Comic Strip Action & Adventure
FAME: Lady Gaga/The Puppy Sister
War of the Supermen
G.I. Joe
The Oni Press Free For All
YOW!
Fractured Fables
The Tick
DC Kids
Bongo Comics Free-For-All
Sonic the Hedgehog
Archie's Summer Splash
Owly and Friends!
Iron Man & Thor
Iron Man & Nova
X-Men Second Coming: Prepare
Toy Story
Doctor Solar Man of the Atom + Magnus Robot Fighter
The Amazing Spider Man
The Invincible Iron Man
Shrek/The Penguins of Madagascar
Atomic Robo + Neozoic and B13x
Artifacts/Magdalena

I put a "/" for the ones that have "another" comic when you flip it over.

We also got a one-of-a-kind comic that a local artist drew. Pretty neat. Good haul. I've read almost half of them already. Most of them are pretty lame, but there are a few that are actually really good like The Tick comic and YOW! and I also liked Owly and Friends. :)

We got the bulk of our Free comics at House of Secrets (they're the BEST!), but they had run out of the Lady Gaga comic so that's why we went to Halo 13. And then we just got carried away and went to Legacy Comics. Which only had the Artifacts comic left over from the morning swarm... but that is where we got the original comic from the local artist (so that worked out well in the end).

Hope your Free Comic Book Day went just as well or better!

--Lauren*