fidlmath

Diana the Spider Wrangler

Kitties, litter and Sapo

After several weeks, mind you weeks, with no poop in sinks or tubs, the miscreant has struck again - in the sink in the downstairs bathroom, which has had no water in it for several weeks.
RECAP:  when 2 new young kitties were acquired several months ago, the problem began.  Poop in the downstairs sink several times, followed by same in upstairs tub [but not sinks. Hmmmmm.]  After talking to the previous owners of the 2, it seemed pretty likely that it was Milo - who has, probably, the dimmest bulb of my, now 4 kitties [ranging from now 11 months to 16 years] but is very sweet and purty.  So, at the advice of several of my Motime friends, we kept water in the downstairs bathroom sink and kept the one upstairs bathroom door closed.  Also, for awhile, there were 3 litter boxes, 2 short of what one veteran cat owner from Motime advised, but all my smallish condo can reasonably support. 
UPDATE:  several weeks ago, I determined that one of the 2 litter boxes upstairs wasn't getting much use, so I discontinued it.  Since then I have scooped litter at least once a day almost always and everything has gone sufficiently smoothly, that for several weeks the water has been gone from the sink and the upstairs door left open with no problems.  It seems that yesterday, since I was away from the house for most of the day and preoccupied with several things that kept me busy when I came home, the litter didn't get scooped.  This morning, poop in the downstairs sink.  The first thought was just that Milo had suddenly recalled his former behavior and decided it was a good idea to resume.  However, once I recalled that I hadn't scooped yesterday and saw the extreme condition of both litter boxes, I realized that might be the cause for the relapse.  I will keep water in the sink for a few days, scoop religiously, and try waterless sink again then.  I will leave the upstairs bathroom door open - just for kicks. Wish me luck.
BTW, daughter, J's dog Sapo is now home, we are poorer by a fair amount of money, but fortunately only a fraction of what human surgery costs, albeit no pet insurance.  Sapo still has a lowgrade fever, but is getting not 1 but 2 antibiotic pills, in addition to anti-inflammatory and appetite stimulant ones.  So it seems as if all is OK.

posted by: mafidl at February 25, 2007 09:00 | link | comments (2) |
pets, kitties

surgery

Sapo's surgery seems to have gone well.  He has a plate with screws in it in his leg.  The surgeon also cut some bone out of his shoulder and packed it into the break.  This will make the break heal in about 3 months.  [To me this is little short of magic].  In the mean time he has a splint which has to stay on for about 2 months and the plate and screws will stay in the leg permanently unless the skin over it gets irritated or a screw migrates.  He has to stay at the vet's until tomorrow since his temperature was a bit elevated this morning and he wasn't eating.  That may have been due to the anesthetic wearing off.  Anyhow, I took some chicken broth for the vets to put into dry food, which is what he's used to eating.  So tomorrow AM I will be picking him up after I go out for breakfast with a friend.  Then Sapo's owner, daughter J, will be at some sort of a fair where she will be selling some of the jewelry she has been making over the past few weeks.  It is really pretty, so I'm hoping people will want to buy a lot of it.  So at some point she'll reacquire Sapo, I guess.  I am assuming she'll want to keep him instead of having ex-boyfriend have him - at least while he's recovering.
I have a test to write for Monday and 4 quizzes to grade.  Somewhere inbetween looking after Sapo, going to breakfast and the jewelry fair tomorrow and lunch Sunday, I will get my work done, I will, I will.  Work this evening?  Probably not - time to chill after being at the Zoo and then taking care of Sapo.

posted by: mafidl at February 23, 2007 16:59 | link | comments (3) |

Voodoo update

His weight is only down a tiny bit, despite not taking the med for pancreatic insufficiency.  If I would try to give it to him, in any form, he would, after a day or so, run when he saw me coming.  Stress is not going to help any condition.  The consensus [the vet and I] is that I'll just make sure that he is eating well and take him back in 1 month to see how his weight is. 
Other good news, the bone biopsy for daughter, L's dog Sapo's leg showed fibrous tissue - indicating an old fracture.  Not sure when or how, but he will have surgery to repair it, whatever that entails, Thursday.  So things are looking up in the pet world.
And, not to anger the bad pet behavior genies or gods, I dumped the water out of the downstairs sink a few days ago, as well as am leaving the door to upstairs bathroom open - and NO POOP!  I'm hoping this means that Milo, who is not a genius, has forgotten that behavior.  Only time will tell.

posted by: mafidl at February 21, 2007 09:51 | link | comments (3) |
kitties

websites

I found 2 websites today that I'm in love with.  This one is on the American Mathematical Society website.  Don't let that scare you off - it is a collection of posters that tell where mathematics is used in modern life.  They are informative and, I believe, very interesting.  For me, they represent a way for me to convince some of my students that math is useful [as well as frustrating and ornamental - lol].  The other website has a political message that is extremely interesting and was the reason I went to that website.  However, that isn't the reason I'm in love with it - it's the ad that appears when you cursor down a little way, for what is apparently an album created exclusively [?] for Rolling Stone.  If you click on it you can listen to a group of songs with Kevin Bacon and his brother, Max, I believe - maybe some of the other players are brothers.  I like the music, and was able to save it to favorites on the Real Player.  Also, there was a link or something to Rhapsody, where it is possible to download music.  I know this mostly old hat for many/most of you, but I'm just learning.  The truth is that I listen to either NPR or a music station on my radio in the car, and have not seen the need for an MP3 player - or whatever is the latest toy.  Anyhow, I thought maybe some of you might enjoy checking these out.  Oh, BTW, I just tried to open the music file with Windows Media Player, which friend, NN, believes is better in some ways than Real Player.  Problem - it wouldn't open it.  There is a file extension .smi which wmp can't manage, I guess. 

posted by: mafidl at February 20, 2007 19:10 | link | comments |

polygons

Last night I couldn't seem to sleep worth a hoot.  Would feel sleepy, then no luck.  For some reason at one point I started wondering what the sum of the angles in a regular n-gon is.  Had I been thinking of that during the day, no.  So where that came from, I don't know.  Anyhow, I thought I'd share this with you for the heck of it.  We all know [ahem] that the angles in a triangle sum to 180 degrees and for a rectangle it's 360, since each one is 90 and there are 4.  Now with any regular polygon, it's possible to draw lines from a vertex to each of the other vertices - to form triangles.  For instance, a square yields 2 triangles [sum of the interior angles is 2X180 or 360 degrees and square has 4 sides].  A pentagon yields 3 triangles [2 less than the number of sides - see?] and so on.  So the total number of triangles, and hence multiples of 180 degrees is 2 less than the number of sides of the regular polygon.  Square - 4 sides, 2X180 degrees; pentagon - 5 sides, 3X180 degrees; duodecagon - 12 sides, 10X180 degrees; so in general, n-sided, (n - 2)180 degrees.  Cool, huh?  Then if we want the size of the angles, we just divide this number by n, the number of sides.  So the angles in the pentagon are 3(180)/5 = 108 degrees, etc.  To see pretty pictures with this explained, you can check out this website.

posted by: mafidl at February 20, 2007 09:21 | link | comments (7) |

good news

Daughter L's car was found and her bag was, apparently, untouched.  So she hasn't lost her license, etc.  Just canceled credit cards.  There was damage to the car, but her insurance will evidently cover it.  Whew! I've been stressed all day. The other problem is that due to stress and fatigue, I wound up yelling a bit at a student who got uppity at the fact that the quiz today covered 2 sections more [earlier ones] than some of the class thought.  I did put the correct info on their webpage, but not until last evening.  So I apologized, gave a couple of hints and one formula that I normally wouldn't have done - and will probably have to grade more leniently than usual.  So that's been my day.  Pizza and wine may not do the trick - but will try.

posted by: mafidl at February 14, 2007 19:06 | link | comments (2) |

When it rains ....

This morning at 5:30AM my phone rang.  That is about 9:30PM in Tasmania, where younger daughter, L, is currently.  Seems she drove to a place where she likes to run and her car was stolen.  Her purse was in it and she needed me to cancel a credit card that I maintain as a backup for her.  Done - no problem.  She hopes that her insurance will cover it.  Sigh. I had been worried about her boyfriend in Salt Lake City after that shooting.  It turns out that someone else had contacted her about it.  I was afraid to and for good reason.  Turns out he works in that mall - but the good news is he was up in Logan [about 90 min. north of SLC].  None of her other friends were there, either.  Now to wait for info on J's dog Sapo.  The bone biopsy and ultrasound were both performed, but the results are not available, yet.  Patience, patience,... Not my long suit if you know what I mean.

posted by: mafidl at February 14, 2007 12:49 | link | comments |

stuff

Right now I'm at work, should be writing quizzes for tomorrow, but, as usual, am procrastinating.  One reason is that I am a tiny bit anxious, having heard about the shooting in Salt Lake City.  My daughter's boyfriend works at some bar, probably not in Trolley Square, but when one hears about something like that and is far away it can make one nervous.  I'm not really obsessing about it, but have only the home phone number, not his new cellphone, and wasn't able to get him last night or now. He might be sleeping or up in Logan, where he goes sometimes when he isn't working.  Of course there are several friends of my daughter there, too - but I doubt any of them would have been at Trolley Square at night - but I might call one of them later, just to check.
OK enuf of that.  Voodoo is resisting taking meds, but I may try Jabberwocky's suggestion of coating the pill in petroleum jelly - or maybe something more edible.  The other worry is daughter J's dog, Sapo, who is currently at the vet specialist clinic.  They don't seem to have the idea of communication down very well.  She took the day off from teaching to take him there yesterday, left him, called to verify that they were going to do the ultrasound as well as the bone biopsy, only to be told, then,  that the vet who was looking after Sapo hadn't been informed about the ultrasound, which had to be given first to determine if the bone biopsy was required and evidently the person to perform the ultrasound wasn't there.   After my experience with them Friday, I am not happy about this group.  J has had to enlist the help of one roommate [to pick up Sapo, untreated, yesterday] and another friend to take him back to the clinic today.  She or I will then pick him up this afternoon, and he might have to go back tomorrow.  Poor little guy with his broken leg - it will almost surely require surgery at the least. 
OK - now to write a quiz or 2.  TTFN.

posted by: mafidl at February 13, 2007 11:57 | link | comments (2) |

Update

On Voodoo:  he has had 14 days of antibiotic which hasn't cured his weird poop - so it's pretty certain that he has the pancreatic insufficiency.  Now if I can only get him to take the med that is to predigest or help with the digestion of his food.  Problem 1: he won't eat food with the powdered form of the med in it.  Problem 2: the pills are large and rough - would be OK to give a dog, but I don't know if it will even be possible to poke it down his throat - and if I put it in anything he smells it.  Cats don't bolt down bites of food like a dog would.  I did try the yoghurt [sp?], cream, etc - no dice.
On data and graph:  I managed to produce a rather pretty 3-D graph of it - which revealed absolutely no useful info - other than that the failure rate is lower in the summer - which may very well be due to the fact that we have fewer students and more visitors from other schools who may be better students and/or desperate to finish this class in the summer.
On tests: finished grading the 3 and returned them - means and medians all below 60%.  It is discouraging.
Also gave the 4th and am in the process of grading it.
On another, possibly sad note: one of daughter J's dogs broke his leg a few days ago - in the house.  Seems that the bone[s] is[are] weak.  Maybe due to a bacterial or fungal infection [he did have a fever], or worse, cancer.  If it's cancer and specific to just where the break is, the leg could be amputated.  If it's metastasized ... I don't know what she'll want to do.  I've dealt with some of this for her, including trying unsuccessfully to take him to the specialist clinic today - for a bone biopsy.  The 2 surgeons, one of whom had to see the dog before I could leave him, both got too busy with surgeries and previously made appointments, so can't see him until Monday, when J will take the day off and take care of him.  The poor little guy is getting around pretty well - mostly on 3 legs with this funny, inadequate-looking splint, antibiotic and pain killer.  Oh, and to complicate matters, he has some sort of mass in, probably, a lung - but the vet thinks that's unrelated to the leg break, probably benign, in which case it can be ignored - but this requires ultrasound and another specialist, mo money etc.  There was a woman waiting to pay for an appointment, had her wee little doggy who has 2 bad knees and will require surgery on at least the worst one - cost for 1 is between $1000 and $4000, depending on what is needed.  Ye gods!  But she said it was her baby [13 years old] - I guess she doesn't have children - but we all seem to do this if we can find the money.  I mentioned in an earlier post the $4000 that my friends had to pay for treatment and surgery of their 12-13 year old cat, who then had to be put to sleep.  Maybe there's an epidemic?

posted by: mafidl at February 09, 2007 14:33 | link | comments (3) |
teaching, kitties

online purchases and other stuff

Lately I've been braving online purchases - from reliable sources such as Amazon [vendors not parent company],Travelsmith, Coldwater Creek and Lands End.  There has been something of a comedy of errors with some things.
For example:  I ordered 2 Sharp calculators through Amazon which seemed to have exactly the features that friend, NN, and I wanted.  For some inexplicable reason Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc did not have a suitable one.  Turned out, to make a long story short, that Sharp no longer makes that calculator and we were sent a less expensive one, which didn't seem to do.  A funny aspect of this is that Amazon's info listed one vendor, but it came from a different one and neither new anything about the other.  I finally talked to someone very helpful at the actual dispensing vendor, who was able to sort out what had happened - after she had sent a replacement which was exactly the same as the original we'd received.  Are you following this?  There WILL be a quiz.  Anyhow, she determined that the one we'd received was the best we could do and we returned the duplicate.  Seem like the one we got has more features than we'd expected, so we're finally OK.
Now for the pants that I ordered which were only about 5"-6" too long, stretchy, so I wasn't game to try shortening them - so offered them to daughter J, who turned out to be allergic to them.  So had to return those.  Now for the pants I ordered for me, 2 pairs of which were too small [dang!] so had to return them.  What fun!  I did, however, wind up with a couple of skirts, one pair of slacks that are OK [and the calculators]. 
Life is becoming more complicated in other ways.  I have to gather and sort some data for my chairman and put it into some sort of graph - so have to figure that out.  Also, he made me chairman of an instructor search committee, so I'm having to deal with that [he graciously offered to handle the ads, thank goodness].  In the meantime I've given 3 tests in the past 2 days, have graded and returned one set, working on the second, will try to finish the 3rd and give back Thursday, and am giving another one on Thursday - yeekkkk!!!  that's tomorrow [or manana as we say here in this here third world country, Miami].  Also, I'm day captain at the Zoo on Sunday to round off my week.  Pant, pant!  Later, y'all.

posted by: mafidl at February 07, 2007 13:08 | link | comments (4) |

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