fidlmath

Diana the Spider Wrangler

Pooper etc

Despite the fact that there are now 3 litter boxes, Milo pooped on the downstairs bathroom floor.  I asked the vet the other day about getting some of the Cat Attract litter and adding it to other litter.  She said that probably isn't a good idea, because a change in litter can upset cats [she has 2 as well as 2 dogs].  I think I might get some anyhow and add it to 1 of the 3 boxes to see if that helps.
Some whimsy?  First draft, first verse: [Jawbone is one of the latest "blue tooth" devices for [nearly] handsfree cellphone use]

The headbone's connected to the earbone
The earbone's connected to the Jawbone
The Jawbone's connected to the cellphone
Oh hear the word of Ma Bell

Dem phones, dem phones, dem damn phones
Dem phones, dem phones, dem damn phones
Dem phones, dem phones, dem damn phones
Gonna be the death of me

posted by: mafidl at August 31, 2007 07:50 | link | comments (7) |
humor, kitties

Good News

I took Milo [pooper kitty] and Voodoo [old guy] to the vet this afternoon, with N's help.  Voodoo was just there for a weigh - and he's actually gained about 6 oz!!! So the combo of medicines seems to be working.
Milo is apparently healthy, despite the pooping outside the box.  I'm going to try something new - putting a 3rd litter box in the big tub - maybe he'll get the idea?  I'll let you know.
I've survived the first 3 days of my 5 day schedule - with 2 double period classes today.  Not as bad as it might have been.  Strange - 3 students who are supposedly registered for this afternoon's class didn't show up when I downloaded the classroll last night, but should have. 
Later.

posted by: mafidl at August 29, 2007 17:35 | link | comments (4) |
teaching, kitties

Bad Kitty Redux, W$#k and Voodoo

I tried Rusty's suggestion and took the covers off both of my litter boxes.  It seemed to work for 2 days, then last evening - poop on the floor again.  Since Milo was doing the same thing at his former owners' house, I've assumed that he isn't sick - but I might try taking him to the vet just to be sure.
Tomorrow I go back to w$#k as Rusty might say.  I've enjoyed my 2 week vacation and even managed, despite my excellent practice of procrastination, to get my 2 schedules on my school website.  Whew!  I resisted until Friday, got one done then and the other yesterday.  It amazes me that I'm that well organized, since not too many years ago I wouldn't have my stuff ready until after classes began.  In fact, it hasn't been that many years since we were able to hand out paper schedules, but due to state budget cuts, that changed.  For awhile, the administration that insisted that we not hand out any more paper items than necessary [I decided that quizzes and tests were those] also kept sending out multiple unnecessary copies of our class rolls and memos that could easily be emailed.  Now the class rolls are available online and can be downloaded in Excel and manipulated easily.  I'm wondering how many other schools have similar issues.  Probably a lot? Also, we have a system that is supposed to check prerequisites, but isn't doing a great job of that.  Anyhow, I'm really not that bummed about going back to teaching, except that I'm not happy about having to teach 5 days a week.  Welcome to the real world, eh?
My best news, which isn't really mine, but older daughter J's, is that she not only got a full time high school teaching job, but also has a great salary, has been given carte blanche with her classes, is helping with the volleyball coaching [which she at one time loved] and is very happy with her move.  I guess she wouldn't say w$#k, huh?  Although younger daughter, L, isn't so sure about hers, she is trying to deal with it. 
Back to kitties for a moment.  Voodoo, my 16 year old, is supposed to get Viokase with his food [it helps digest what he can't] but he won't eat anything with that in it.  So the compromise that I worked out with the vet is to give it to him just before he eats.  That is the problem - he hates having stuff squirted in his mouth, but not as much as he hates being given a pill.  I have the powdered version of Viokase, which I more or less dissolve in some of the juice from canned food, suck it up in a syringe [minus needle] and squirt it that way, so it should taste more like the food.  Lately, he doesn't seem that enthusiastic about eating even the canned stuff, and none of the other 3 seem very happy with it right now, even though I buy a variety of flavors.  So this morning I decided that I wouldn't give it to them - but Voodoo needs to eat.  I even bought some of Iams' new Digestive Care dry food, which all 4 seemed to like at first - even better than the Purina Indoor food that they've been getting.  I did put both down and the DC disappeared at first, but now it's not being eaten as well as the other.  So, I keep trying.

posted by: mafidl at August 26, 2007 10:23 | link | comments (2) |
teaching, family, kitties, poop

Bad Kitty

Look at these faces - could anything be more innocent?











OK - now you may not be able to see this very well - taken on my cellphone which was handy - but here is the culprit, actually caught in the act!!!!!
Finally - no more "just circumstantial evidence".  It's taken long enough.  Of course, there's nothing I can do about it - I did say "bad kitty" to him.  He had just been cuddled up to me in the living room.  Then I had to go to the loo, he followed me in, I had my cellphone with me and took the top left picture, he was acting a bit strange - scratching at the bit of litter that was on the floor where he is now squatting.  Then I spoke to him, whereupon he went over to climb onto and look into the [recently flushed] loo.  I walked away briefly, came back and this is what I saw!  and when he finished he again tried to scrape the very small amount of litter near it over it.  Oh well, at least I now now who the culprit has been.

posted by: mafidl at August 22, 2007 19:02 | link | comments (5) |

nostalgia?

Remember these?   I have one that ain't so purty, but when I don't feel like hauling out or carrying down my vacuum cleaner, it does a slightly more than adequate job of picking up the detritus on my carpets.  Speaking of that, why is it that we seem unable to keep food [eaten in the living room in front of the TV, of course] on the plate or in our mouths?  Oh, and the other place bits of food or spots of drinks wind up is on my "shelf" - as one better-endowed friend my first year in college used to call what I now seem to refer to as a woman's "superstructure".

And BTW in case you haven't figured this out, housekeeping is definitely not my favorite activity - definitely not.

posted by: mafidl at August 18, 2007 12:53 | link | comments (6) |
housework

and again

There was an article in my school paper about profs not speaking English well enuf to be comprehended by their students.  I wonder if this is a problem elsewhere - and believe it probably is, at least occasionally.  As far as our adjuncts [part time instructors] are concerned, good ones may not be as scarce as hen's teeth, but close to that.  We have some great adjuncts, but we also not only have some of them that speak with heavy accents, but have a couple of tenured professors who do also.  In fact there is one person in particular who not only is very hard to understand, but stands with his back to the class blocking their view of what he is writing.  Couple that with the fact that the textbook a) doesn't explain some things adequately and b) has a complete solution manual that we make available to our students that doesn't provide adequate solutions to many of the problems.  The difficulty with that last is that we don't usually see a solution manual until after we start using the text - and I am going to try to change that in the future - at least if I stay around here long enuf. [Retirement and leaving Dodge is around the corner, just not sure how far that is.]

posted by: mafidl at August 18, 2007 11:48 | link | comments (3) |
teaching

Phantom Pooper revisited and recent tragedies

The circumstantial evidence against Milo as the Phantom Pooper would not hold up in court.  He has been seen leaving the scene of the crime as well as in the act of trying to cover up the evidence, but never in the actual act.  This morning Emmy, the 3-4 year old female was heard in the litter box, and then was seen coming out of it and there was the poop on the floor - but I don't think she had done it, since she'd definitely been in the litter box.  Nosedive has never seemed to be associated with the act, although since some of it has been light colored and occasionally  too soft, Voodoo could be the culprit.  That would mean that poor Milo was just trying to do a little housekeeping - there's always a small amount of litter just outside the opening to the box and that is what he has apparently been trying to use to cover the mess.  As I said in an earlier post, even when I'm sitting only 10 feet from the little bathroom door where the downstairs litter box is, I have yet to catch the culprit.  I have noticed that Milo doesn't seem as social as he was a couple of weeks ago.  I might take a small sample to my vet next time in case the culprit has something wrong with him/her. But, what good will that do if I don't know who's doing it?
On another note.  Was it only last week that I was glued to the TV watching the coverage of the tragic collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis?  and then this week earlier - no, damnit, last week, so the Minnesota bridge collapse was at least 2 weeks ago - the horror of the miners trapped in Utah.  and now the earthquake in Peru.  Are we seeing/having more such occurrences of late - or is it just that the TV coverage is so pervasive?
Arianna Huffington's post sometime earlier last week was asking tough questions about the mine collapse.  In particular she was asking why the TV journalists and newspapers were pussyfooting around [actually not asking about or commenting on] the subject of what caused the tragedy in the first place.  Apparently the mine had numerous safety violations - and large fines - in the past 18 months or more - but the co-owner, Murray, kept trying to blame it on an earthquake.  The seismologists at UU [University of Utah] has said repeatedly that there is no evidence of that sort of seismic activity.  In fact, if I've understood it correctly [?] the energy or force released from an earthquake is directed upward, whereas that of a cavein is directed downward - and the latter is what their instruments are showing.  The description of the second occurrence was that the pressure on the tunnel where the rescue workers were working was so great that the one wall "exploded" inward toward the other wall - right where some of the rescue workers were working.  I'm wondering if I also understood correctly that for some reason, support pillars were gradually removed?  Would anyone in their right mind want to work under 2000 or more feet of mountain without adequate support for the tunnel?  I believe that some of the miners had been questioning [complaining about] that approach to mining.  Why is it that such decisions are only made by the people who are the moneyed owners and not by the mine workers whose lives are at stake and the engineers who should know what's going on?  I guess I am too naive about such things.

posted by: mafidl at August 18, 2007 11:31 | link | comments (3) |
politics, nature, bridges, kitties, poop

language

At lunch today, I was reminded of a phrase that a friend of mine in college used to describe various adequate items, from meals to ?  Anyhow, it was something like this: "...... was very good - such as it was and what there was of it."  Damned with faint praise?  My lunch friend, R, then was reminded of something that Groucho Marx apparently said to his hostess as he was leaving after dinner or a party: "I've had a great evening - but this wasn't it."  I plan to use that one soon. 

posted by: mafidl at August 16, 2007 20:04 | link | comments (4) |

daughters

I was trying to figure out what happened to my latest post - then realized it wouldn't publish, and I had someone waiting to take me to lunch, so ditched the post.  So, herewith, a second try.
My daughters are both artistically very talented - to view some of J's creations, go to her blog and cursor down to her Aug 1 post - for pictures of a couple of her jewelry creations and, further down, her new business card.  I will try to take pictures of the jewelry sets that she made for me - all different and lovely.
I do have this picture below of daughter L's Tiffany style stained glass lampshade - which she presented to me several years ago.  My only worry is that one of my large young cats may do what #2, Emmy, did when she first entered my household - jump on top of the lampshade.  I nearly had a heart attack when she would do that, but fortunately she didn't knock it over and the younguns haven't, so far, tried to do that.
This doesn't show the entire shade, but does show one of the 5 [all different] lovely fish, made with some extra beautiful glass with ripples in it [I can't remember the name of that].  Needless to say that is one of my favorite possessions. 

posted by: mafidl at August 16, 2007 16:46 | link | comments (5) |
family, kitties

political musings

I love this cartoon by Jim Morin from Tuesday's [8/14/07] Miami Herald on Karl Rove's departure and I can't resist putting it here.
I  am also enjoying reading this article by Eugene Robinson in the WaPo - sorry if I'm stealing your thunder Just Me 63, but again I couldn't resist. 
I wonder if anyone remembers Max Ascoli, editor of a great weekly magazine in the 50's?  It was called the Reporter and was full of great liberal political articles.  One time Ascoli wrote an article that I have often wished I'd kept.  It was written way before Nixon was elected president, started out praising him and saying what a great guy he was, but then gradually, subtly shifted around to Ascoli's real belief that Nixon was a deceptive, lying, crooked, SOB.  I couldn't believe, when I started reading it, that it was real, but by the end of it, I was delighted - not only with Ascoli's real sentiments and analysis, but the beauty of the writing.  I was devastated when that magazine died and also when Ascoli died.  I have tried, at least briefly, to find that article and am now wondering if a local library might have past copies of the magazine somewhere, maybe on microfiche - if that's still used. 

posted by: mafidl at August 16, 2007 09:42 | link | comments (1) |
politics

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