The past few months have been tummy-turning—but I'll talk more about that when/if I know more. Hopefully I will after today.

Stress makes a person a little uptight, prone to bad moods, easy to snap. On Sunday, trying to wrap up my capital budgeting assignment for Finance, Sophie was climbing into my lap, licking my face, kneading my shoulder, purring, chasing my pencil…I let out a sigh of frustration.

Nick called from the other room, "Now, Dear...isn't Sophie the cat you always wanted? You said you wanted a cat of this breed because they are people cats…" It's true. I wanted a cat who didn't pretend that I didn't exist. I put down my pencil and picked up the fluffy ball weaving between my legs. Her purr motor revved as she contentedly leaned against my chest.

Yes, quirks (she brings up dirty laundry from the basement and steals my writing utensils), personality, and all, Sophie is the cat I have always wanted. And her backside is adorable:

Life is just so gosh darn busy! I turned 27 last Sunday, and once again I was lucky enough to spend my birthday in the Florida Keys. Birthdays usually do not bother me, but this one did. You get into traps where you remember what you were doing x-amount of years ago. "Five" was my magic number...five years ago this time of year we first learned, out of the blue, that my mother had cancer...and end-stage at that.

What else is going on with me? Oh, SCHOOL. It's sucking the life out of me. I just finished with a course in accounting and nutrition, and I am in my final two courses (Finance and International Business) for the associate's degree. My bachelor's program begins toward the end of November.

We were going to go on a hot air balloon ride last night, but it was canceled due to weather. The conditions must be near-ideal, so I may have to reschedule several times. I gave the tickets to Nick for his birthday last June, and we have scheduled one more try at a ride this year—the end of September when autumn colors are at their prettiest.

Nick thinks that during this time, when I am too busy, too tired, too spent to blog like I used to, we should turn LL into a site where we post funny things we've heard or said. This came after watching a really pathetic movie called "The Polar Bear King" wherein one royal sighed, "Why can't everything be as simple as.........snow?" and Nick felt my kneecaps after we made a pact that neither of us shave during our vacation and declared that my legs don't feel like his face.

We'll see where this website goes...

Hi, there! Remember when I used to write every single day, sometimes twice a day? Did the days have more hours back then? That must be it.



I discovered on the verge of tears last night that I aced my Economics final. I tried sharing the overwhelming joy with Nick, but he seems to consider my A's a dime a dozen. I'm like an obedient pooch: I'll gladly do my trick as long as you promise to pat my head afterwards.

Last Wednesday was Nick's birthday. We spent the afternoon biking and the evening dining with friends. It was a good day and the bad storms never came. I gave him two tickets for a hot air balloon ride. After I purchased the tickets, I nervously text-messaged Brenda to see if she thought he'd like the gift. She replied that if he didn't, she would go with me. He liked them. Sorry, Bren.

Sophie is becoming such a lap cat. She's panting more often now that the days have grown humid. Nick turned on the air conditioner last week because she's really quite pathetic with all that hair. I've known all along that she's part-dog but a lot less maintenance. It is very nice to have her run to us when we get home at night.

What else? Oh, I've been diagnosed with yet another digestive disorder. I tell ya, I feel sexier as the years go by. Add more foods to my list of what to avoid. Citrus, pineapple, tomato, anything high-fat...and coffee should be there, but I just can't bring myself to avoid that one. So I take my medication like a good girl and avoid most of the things I should.

Last Saturday was Rhythm and Booms. Great show, bit of a storm scare early on when we made a mad-dash to a nearby gas station while the hail assaulted the ground.

That's all I can remember at the moment. Time to head off to work...we're carpooling today. Ciao!

I can't decide if she's happy that I've taken to feeding the squirrels or not…she seems to jump at the screen an awful lot while they're out there. Nick tries to cheer her up, telling her that those squirrel tails have nothing on hers.

Sophie went in for her follow up appointment on Saturday morning. Her bladder wasn't full enough for the urinalysis when we arrived, so they pumped fluids into her and held her for a few hours. The vet walked up to us saying, "Good news, bad news…" She had no crystals in her urine—amazing after having too many to count (excess of 100) in the small sample they viewed a month ago. The prescription food has done its work...even though she hates it.

(But, as Nick points out...she eats it. She eats everything. She just keeps eating and eating...)

Bad news, the new urine sample was riddled with bacteria. We have to pill her with an antibiotic twice a day for two weeks and then go back for another follow up. She no longer has to take solely Prescription Diet S/D; instead, she has to take Prescription Diet C/D. But now she can have Pounce again. Still no pretzels.



I had been holding her stock of Fancy Feast Marinated Morsels hoping that one day we would get the green light to give them to her again. I asked the question point-blank on Saturday, and that one day will never come. Not worth the risk. That afternoon, I emptied her place in the cupboard, moving the cans to a paper bag to take to her cousins' house. She was so excited to see me in that cupboard, fingering those cans. Nearly dancing with excitement, she stood on her back paws and braced herself on my leg. STUPID PH!

Sophie went back to the vet on Tuesday; her father took her. I was concerned about her long stretches of sneezing and a weeping eye that I first noticed Saturday. Sunday night, she went potty—first #1, then #2—in my closet. Monday morning, I called the vet to see if my fears were unfounded: nope, they wanted to see her.

Her eyes looked good (I keep thinking of her sister whose eye infection caused them to remove her eye when she was a kitten...so weird eye stuff with Soph freaks me out) and her sneezing has stopped. BUT, it just isn't normal for cats to do their business just anywhere. Instinctively, cats look for soil or sand-like material to eliminate…shag carpeting does not so much meet the prompt.



So they did a urinalysis and found crystals. Feline cystitis has ruined our little kitty's life. I gave the unopened bag of cat food that I had to a friend at work. (When I handed over the Iams Naturals she exclaimed, "My cats have never eaten so good!" and somewhere Sophie was weeping at her lost lifestyle…) I want to have a vet tell it to my face before I give away her precious Fancy Feast—she will be on low pH food the rest of her life. Dr. Larsen told us that her infection is very rare in a female feline.

She is on Hill's Prescription Diet s/d for at least the next 1-3 months (at which point we would be able to switch to the over-the-counter version), but possibly forever. As I rearrange my budget to accept that I can probably live off on an English muffin a day, I am planning to call PetSmart (where I get an über low price) to see if Sophie's clinic needs to fax over her prescription for a refill, or if I can walk in there with the copy they gave Nick on Tuesday. I will also call the vet today to see what I can give her for treats since she is used to getting them in the morning (it's the only reason she gets me up at the most ungodly hours, but I enjoy her enthusiasm), and OTC treats are a no-go.

We read over her diagnosis and her new diet, Sophie sitting on the counter-stool next to Nick. He looked at her with sad eyes and said, "You know what this means, don't you? No more potato chips." And I swear, if she was any kind of a teenager she would have ran upstairs and slammed the door while screaming, "I HATE MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!"

A Life Gone By:

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I am almost afraid to mention it, but I think Spring is well on its way. It has been over 40° most of the week, and after a winter season that seemed to start in October and during which we broke snowfall records from 1978, 40° feels just about like paradise. Finally I can look both ways without edging halfway into an intersection, and that stubborn icicle on the edge of the garage has bid us farewell. Good riddance.

My car said it was 50° when I got in after work. I rushed home to turn off the furnace and open the windows and the patio door. Immediately, Sophie scrambled to the edge of the now screened door. She sniffed excitedly at the smell of real air, so excited in the exercise that she began to sneeze, sniffed more, sneezed more, and then rolled to her back, stretching all four paws in opposite directions as if to say, "I love life!"

And then she sat up to clean her butt.

She has an appointment on Saturday, March 15th: her one year check up! She has no idea, as I can assume that she's pays about as much attention to soothsayers as she does to me or Nick. She's a cat: if it isn't sparkley or jingly, why should she care? Though, I must say she always comes when called, even if she's in the middle of doing her business downstairs where the litter box resides. She's good like that—which is why Nick was alarmed Monday morning when she wasn't underfoot and did not come to his call. I, slower to stir after that nasty bout of Daylight Savings Time, awoke to his frantic looking for your favorite cat and mine. We found her in the garage. Even though it was her own lousy fault for somehow sneaking out there, I felt incredibly guilty and bought her several toys and two beers.