This morning, while feeding the cats before doing my rounds, I made sure to be on the lookout for the newly snipped boys, and the kitten I found yesterday.
I’m happy to say the kitten is still hanging around the sun room, and I think I even saw one of the creche mothers – Adam – nursing it.
As for the newly snipped boys, I saw Syndol in the sun room a lot yesterday evening, but not this morning. I did see Stinky and Nosey, who were their usual selves. With Nosey, that means a combination of PET ME NOW and I’M GOING TO BITE YOU! Of course, I checked their nibs, and everything looks fine.
There has been no sign of Collin since he ran out of the carrier. It may be a while before we see him again!
I was scheduled to help my mother with her grocery shopping this afternoon, but I remembered that I still hadn’t picked up her bloodwork requisition at the clinic. I was supposed to do it while going to and from the city, since this town is on the way, depending on which highway I take. I completely forgot.
So, after I finished my rounds, I left early enough to pick up a couple of packages at the post office before they closed, then drove the 45 minutes to the clinic, got the requisition printed out, then drove to my mother’s place.
She didn’t quite understand what I was giving her when I handed her the printout. She thought it was test results of some kind, but she hasn’t had any tests done recently. She just remembered that they took 5 vials of blood last time, and thought this was the results. I had to repeat myself a few times, and read out what she is being tested for (she might be getting 6 vials taken, this time) and why. The call from the doctor telling her to stop taking her water pills for a month was based on her last bloodwork, and this is to see if anything has improved.
Once she understood, she said she would go to the local lab and get her bloodwork done, no appointment needed, on Monday. The town she lives in has a handi van available that, for a few dollars, will shuttle people with mobility requirements around town. It would be far easier for her to use that, than for me to drive her in the truck.
After getting that cleared up, we went over her shopping list, for both a pharmacy trip and the grocery store, talked about potential substitutions if things weren’t available or didn’t look good, and then I headed out.
I had a pleasant surprise while at the grocery store part of her shopping. I ran into an old friend/former co-worker and her kids that I haven’t seen in ages. They live on a farm in the area, and I pass their place fairly regularly, but we just don’t cross paths very often. So that was really nice.
After the shopping was done, I went through everything with my mother while I put things away. While talking about her blood tests, I’d asked her about drinking more water, and she remembered to add water bottles to the shopping list. I was happy to hear she found them very handy, though I got the impression she has not been drinking more water like she’s supposed to. Anyhow. The water turned out to be on sale, so I got her a bigger case this time. Water bottles will help her keep track, visually, of how much she is drinking, too.
She didn’t have protein of any kind on her list, as she apparently still had, but there was such a good sale on chicken legs and thighs, I got her a package. That one package could last her a week. She was quite happy with my additions and substitutions (all within her budget, of course), and even complimented me on how I’ve got so much “experience” with this sort of thing. I’m not entirely sure how she means it, but I’ll take the compliment.
In fact, the entire visit with her was good. She definitely was having one of her good days.
She had something going on in her building in the afternoon, so I wasn’t going to stay long. I did remember to ask her about the commode home care got for her. She told me, she doesn’t use it.
??
The problem was in emptying the reservoir. It’s light and easy to remove, but requires two hands to carry it. Since she would have one hand either using a cane, or using the walls and furniture to steady herself, she can’t carry it to the bathroom to empty it. So she has continued to use an ice cream bucket at night, rather than going to the washroom. How using the ice cream bucket is easier than walking to the bathroom in the first place, I can’t understand. I have no idea how she actually uses it, what with her messed up knees, but it has handle and she can carry it with one hand, so…
The solution turned out to be easy.
The ice cream bucket fits inside the commode reservoir, and the seat opening fits over it, almost exactly. She can use the commode, then easily carry the bucket away to empty it during the day.
Problem solved.
There was one other thing I remembered to ask my mother. When arranging for me to come out today, she mentioned having an appointment this morning – but it was a secret and she wouldn’t tell me what it was, and no one else was supposed to know.
Which means, of course, I had to warn my brother about it, because she has a terrible habit of causing problems he ends up having to fix.
So I jokingly asked her how her seeeecret meeting went this morning.
Well, it turned out, our vandal had somehow arranged with her to come over for a visit. Since his phone number is blocked, I don’t know how this was done.
The first thing I wanted to know was, was he alone? He has been behaving properly, when there is someone else there as a witness, but when it’s just him, that’s when he is verbally abusive towards her. It did turn out that he was alone.
I’m not sure what he was after, but whatever it was, I don’t think he got it. Apparently, he’s got cancer and is undergoing chemo, but she can’t even remember if it was his lungs or kidneys or whatever. But he’s taking lots of pills, and is getting surgery soon.
Whether this is true or not, I have no way to know, but I’m guessing he’s going to milk it for all he’s worth on her for… something. Usually, money, but who knows. Whatever it is, though, it’s going right over her head. After only a few hours, she was already forgetting most of what he talked about.
At least he didn’t start yelling at her in the doorway, like he usually does when he’s on his own.
After that, I headed home. Before settling in, inside, I made a point of doing some outside stuff first. Our high of the day was supposed to be 26C/79F, which I’m sure we did reach. As I write this, it’s past 4:30, and we’re at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 30C/86F. It was definitely feeling hot out there, and the humidity isn’t helping. Especially when it comes to mosquitoes. We have SO many mosquitoes right now! They are just loving this weather.
I went to top up the cat kibble outside but, in this heat, they aren’t actually eating all that much. I still made sure to leave some spread out in spots around the house, where I know kittens are starting to come closer.
Then I was going to continue my evening rounds, when I saw a cat lying in the grass, in the shade of the storage house, looking like it was asleep.
Except, cats don’t sleep there. It’s too open and exposed.
It turned out to be Driver (Adam’s sibling), and he was dead.
There was no sign of injury of any kind on him. Since the snow melted, we had only been seeing him every once in a while. The few times I’ve seen him recently, he was very skittish and nervous around the other males; particularly Shop Towel. There was no evidence he’d been in a fight of any kind, though. He was just lying there, like he was taking a nap in the shade.
So bizarre!
I then had the problem of finding a place to bury him. We’re running out of places to bury cats and kittens. Too many big tree roots and rocks. In the end, I buried him where we were supposed to have a poppy bed this year, but it never got cleared out in time for sowing. We can build up the bed and plant flowers over him, next year.
*sigh*
This has been a pretty rough week or so for that. The litter of newborns, the baby raccoon, and now Driver…
Yeah, I know; this is to be expected when you live in the boonies, and we do have way too many cats, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Ah, well. It is what it is.
*sigh*
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 