Weekend Plans Post: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans
One of Maribou’s besties is visiting from the coast and they’re spending the week reading books (mostly about Batman) and watching cartoons (mostly about Batman) and talking into the wee hours (mostly about Batman). It’s my job to wander in on them from time to time and ask if they want popcorn or ice cream or nachos or something and they giggle and I come back later on with one or more of those.
Which was supposed to be the plan for the ENTIRE visit but…
Well, there was a Russian novel that I read in college a million years ago that I can’t remember what it was and there was an amazing scene that a funeral for someone. The mother? Wife? Daughter? Wore a black veil in her grief and as she was walking from one of her rooms, the veil kept getting caught on little items as she walked past them. There were arguments over whether this symbolism was ham-handed and clumsy or delicate and beautiful. Personally, I thought it was great.
Anyway, Momo’s kidneys failed at some point this week. On Monday, he was fine. On Tuesday he was a bit barfy but I figured that, hey, he had his teeth removed and now he’s finally able to groom himself properly and that means that he’s working on one heck of a hairball. Yesterday he was sluggish and refused food and we left a message with the vet asking if they had any openings… And, today, we said goodbye to him at the emergency vet’s because his something-or-other levels were off the charts and he was in great distress.
As I sat there and thanked him for being my computer buddy and the cat who fell asleep under my hand at night, I thought “I am so sick and tired of writing essays about cats dying.”
And so, this weekend, I’ll grieve a bit. That said, we also have a houseguest (who was GREAT with helping us… I mean, they got here and the cat was fine and now the cat’s dead and now they will forever be “the dead cat friend”), we have errands to run (though we can put off the getting cat food and cat litter for 33% longer than we would have otherwise… or is that 50% longer?), we have chores to do, we have books to read, we have cartoons to watch, and we have to get from here to there. I imagine that my attempts to grieve will get caught on all of the little things that I have to do while I walk through the weekend.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Photo is Momo. Taken by the author a few years back.)
Bowling Friday, chores and dancing on Saturday, and maybe going to the Warhol exhibit and laundry, definitely, on Sunday.Report
The Warhol exhibit?Report
My little town has a thing they do every Thursday in the summer, having bands play in a park by the river, River Rhythms. So, tonight I can hear from my back yard Tracy Byrd, and in the past, we have had Baha Men, Chubby Checker (did not know he was still alive) and last week, Sugar Ray.
I am not sure how I feel about this.Report
Chubby Checker? The guy who worked with The Fat Boys?Report
Sorry your cat pal passed.
Out here on the land our outdoor cats just wander off to the West, like Elves. So they all have Elven names. And they all go to the West, eventually. But we still remember them. But those are outdoor cats, distant and aloof…elvish; not inside companions like yours.Report
There needs to be a science fiction story about humans making contact with little wonderful creatures who are playful and cuddly and sometimes violent and they have some kind of intelligence and, after half the book, we find out that they’re the alien version of cats.
Some cats are indoor ones. Some are outdoor ones…
Oooh. We could even have them be mostly violent and then, halfway through, we find out that, no, they’re just kinda outdoorsy.
And the cat owners are mostly crazy and mostly deal with the indoor ones.
It’s probably been done.Report
David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. The tree cats live on a planet called Sphynx, which humans colonized.Report
Fuzzy Sapiens?Report
No, I’m more talking about meeting creatures who aren’t sapient but we mistake them as being so and we spend half the book trying to figure out what these creatures are, how they communicate, and what they want.
And *THEN* we meet the owners who say something like “oh, you met Mister Pickles! He’s a big old marshmallow, id’n’t he?”Report
Sorry about the cat loss. Losing pets is rough. Our dog is 13 years old and doing okay, but I know her clock is ticking.
We’ll be relaxing this weekend, maybe streaming some stuff. We have the second season of Dark to finish, and we started The boys and like it enough to finish.
We spent most of the week going to the hospital for my father in law. He had pancreatitis, gall stones, and a touch of pneumonia and because of his age didn’t feel the pain he should have for his serious condition. He’s okay now. And early in the week my brother in law had a mild heart attack. He’s okay now. My wife and I are exhausted.Report
It’s stuff like the latter that keeps the cats’ passings in perspective. Louis CK had a bit where he talks about getting a pet and it’s “yay! I bought us crying in seven years!”
Glad your peoples are okay. It’s always scary when one of those might have a big, big problem.Report
Thanks, one of the docs said if they had waited another day to bring father in law in, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Scary. But my wife’s cousin had a baby yesterday, so that’s good. Circle of life and all that.Report
Oh, and I am so sorry about Momo.
We lost too many cats over the last few years. It sucks.Report
Thanks.Report
Godspeed Momo.Report
Thanks.Report
Very sorry about Momo, Jaybird.
My house officially empties of house guests today, so I’ll be spending the weekend not having house guests and dealing with a basement that ships water like a German submarine in a WWII movie. It seems the previous owners were absolute jackasses and bored a 1-foot diameter hole through the foundation to accommodate the chimney for the iron stove they put in the basement. Well, whatever they did to seal it has finally given out after 20+ years so I’m in the process of ripping out the stove and probably prepping the outside for a contractor to come in and restore integrity to my foundation (that’s what she said?).
Otherwise, the Premier League starts again today and I’m looking forward to watching an Arsenal club that signed some actual, real, corporeal world-class footballers, and a few even in positions the team needed!Report
Hey, you can’t complain about a 15-year solution lasting 20+ years.Report
FYI: Moving a cast-iron stove by yourself is difficult. That is all.Report
I turned some planting beds last weekend and the sun is sterilizing them of any stray sprouts that may be lingering.
Muzzleloading shotguns are weirdly expensive in these parts. As fortunes would have it, I found a very reasonable front stuffer rifle that someone had let the bore rust up, so I planned on making a .50 cal shotgun of it.
I went about checking iron sight alignment, which isn’t that critical for a shotgun. The thing is, the groupings were actually pretty good using my standard .50 rifle rounds. Good enough to possibly restore the riflings.
So I went on a long process filling the bore with vinegar and soaking it a day then flushing it, brushing it, and adding more vinegar. After about 6 soaks the vinegar had stripped the rust from the grooves, and the landings are looking good. Followed that with some bore cleaner, and a insane amount of brushing, and a final steel wool pass. I think it is good to go.
If the chores are completed, the plan is to mount a scope, run some groups and see how well the process worked. Worst case, it’s still a shotgun candidate.Report
Muzzleloading shotguns?
I… I mean, for a few weeks there in the late 90’s, sure. I smoked a pipe. (Who didn’t?)
After a couple of weeks I said “you know what? If I’m going to smoke anyway, at least the cigarette doesn’t take 5 minutes of proper prep first.”
I can’t imagine that shotguns would be that different.Report
My father-in-law did a bit of muzzleloading. He liked the slowed-down aspect of it, forcing you to make every shot count. I must admit, the one time I went out with him, there is a lot of appeal to itReport
For rifles, maybe, I can understand the thought process. One of my cousins in Michigan took me to a re-enactment event where people were proud of their muzzleloaded rifles and gave me a speech about the glorious Michiganders during the Revolutionary War.
For shotguns? That’s not what shotguns are *FOR*.
Seriously, if you’re within shotgun range, you already messed up.Report
I have read that buck and ball was a prefered battle load of George Washington.
Even in smoothbore, buck and ball increase accuracy to a pretty high contact probabilities at 200 yards. (Funny side note, i have all the casting molds to make 12 gauge buck and ball, just haven’t got around to it, maybe this winter)
British soldiers mentioned about conflicts during the battles of Lexington and Concord that the colonists made good use of their ‘goose guns’.
Rabbits, quail and turtle dove are abundant out here. Neighbors may frown if I start sky shooting birds with .50 cal, so i decided it would be better to front stuff .177 bbs for the airborn. Plus the .177 are steel shot and doesn’t scatter lead in the environment.
Marchmaine is spot on about closed breach systems they are a pain. Removable breach plugs have made the situation better.
If someone were pretty talented on how to dampen the peak pressure of smokeless powder then the requirements of cleaning become much better also.Report
Definitely have a viable rifle. It makes me chuckle a little bit at how a .50 disappears a bullseye. The 7mm will punch part of it or punch out the center, the .50 just disappears the entire thing, and your left with taping over where the bullseye was. No flyers, which was another one of those issues I thought could develop.
Will probably wait till winter to go out past 100yrds. The long walks to the target are a bit warm in the summer sun.
As far as the vinegar process goes, it appears to work if the lands are good and the grooves aren’t completely pitted or cratered.Report
Even my muzzle loaders have breach access.
It’s the closed system that makes old style muzzle loaders a pain in the ass when it comes to cleaning and hanging fire.
Mine is like the Keurig of muzzle loaders…imagine if you had Keurig for pipes. Then again, I hate keurig coffee so I get what Joe is doing.
We all just hate different parts of the keurig life.Report
My condolences on the kitty.
This weekend will be spent hanging some new cabinets (8 of them) and putting together a puppy feeding station for when the dog arrives over labor day.Report
Getting the new pet is one of the best parts of having it. I mean, that along with pretty much everything up until the week before the worst parts of having it.
Have you picked a name, yet? A backstory?Report
This is Cricket. No story, Bug picked the name.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W-2uGab9qAGls1H-guGe0QCm7YYF9noA/view?usp=drivesdkReport
Patience is 16+ and in similar straits. She will not be long for this earth. So we cuddle and scratch and I send pictures to her mom who no longer lives with us. Her mom will be invited when we go to the vet….so I know what you’re going through. Other cats of ours have taken a similar journey that Patience will soon take, but I try to think of the positives: she is warm and fed and safe and no longer on the street…..and nothing is too good for her…
You have my sympathies…been there…will be again…wouldn’t have it any other way…because then I wouldn’t have had her in my life… now excuse me why I go hug her 🙂Report
Yeah, we’ve had no small number of cats who have shown up in our lives (none of the ones currently in the house were deliberate acquisitions) and most of the ones previous to these cats were hoboes who wandered into our lives from the outside and who managed to both communicate how joyful they were at no longer being outside and how disdainful they were of being picked up and having us yell “nom nom nom” as we pretended to eat them.
It’s the day they go away that we ask “why do we do this to ourselves” but, at night, the others squirm under our hands as we fall asleep and we say “oh… yeah… that…”.
Good luck with Patience.Report
So sorry, guys. RIP Momo.Report
So sorry to hear about Momo. It sucks to lose a beloved pet.
I just got home today from an extended trip for my own bereavement. My weekend was spent sitting and fuming on a very delayed Amtrak train (the delays were largely bad luck/Acts of God, but the fact that no one would tell us squat about ETAs or what was going on made me low-level crazy).
It’s gonna be an early night for me tonight; tomorrow I have some work to do to get ready for the start of the semester. I can’t believe the summer is over but given how the second half of summer 2019 went for me personally, I’m happy to see the end of it and go back to teaching.Report
Yeah, you had a crappy couple of weeks. That really, really sucks.Report