And poor Shu, excited perhaps by the storm, took a flying run to the tip top of his over 6′ tall cat tree—against the wall and beside the fireplace—only to have the connection for its topmost structure fail on him. Do him credit—he didn’t go for the mantel with all the fragiles, though the piece fell against it: he jumped clear entirely and bounded off a footstool.
We need to fix his favorite climbing toy. The Christmas ferris wheel/ice rink/merry go round have survived another season on the hearth—but if he has to find a new way up, I think it may imperil those. He is, despite many quirks, a very good kitteh.
Seishi was just quietly appalled. He’s sure somewhere in his previous lives he must have done something terrible and people will find it out and chase him. He tends to be a very anxious cat.
I note the house across the street is now losing its front gutter from the snow weight.
I think we are getting closer to calling out to order our groceries in—I’ve never used ‘delivery,’ but it is good and reasonable here granted you get enough to make it worth the trip. And we could.
Walmart lets you shop on line here and then you drive over to the store, let them know (by phone or text, one presumes) that you’re outside and they will bring it out and put it in your car for you. I don’t think there’s anybody here who will actually deliver groceries though.
Hey, if the garage door is frozen shut and you can get your groceries delivered, go for it. However, if you don’t feel it justifies the expense, I hear Campbell’s soup goes great with a nice red . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xty-X5lYUGs
Also, in other news, scroll past my favorite signs from the women’s march to pictures of works still in progress: https://theowlunderground.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/meanwhile-back-at-the-ranch/
(being mindful of the numbers, the blue one will have three solid blue stripes. . .)
The picture of the ladies in Suffragette garb has made the rounds over at BoingBoing as well, and I swear I know the lady carrying the sign “I can’t believe I still need to protest this fucking shit”.
Your living room looks so tidy compared to mine, although we have gotten rid of the YUGE old CRT TV set and accompanying entertainment center in favor of a wall mounted LCD smart TV. Now we just need to make sure we can tape ‘The Expanse’ in HD. We had to do it because we lost our weekly RPG venue and suddenly needed to accommodate between 10 and 16 people every Saturday night. It’s squishy, but we can.
Have you seen the images going ’round under “She persisted”?
So glad to hear the biopsy result was good!
Oh, and that quote from Lois McMaster Bujold at the beginning of the post about “Schrodinger’s cat carrier” was priceless.
From Randi — You could always try the rubbing alcohol method of snow/ice removal… Mix 1/3 water to 2/3 rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle. Spray on ice you want gone and watch it melt. Works wonders on a iced-over windshield. Turn on the heater inside the car, put it on defrost, spray this stuff on and you’re ready to go amazingly quick. Can be used on the outside of iced-over car locks and ice-jammed car doors, too.
But if you have a service that delivers in, go for it. Better to be inside, safe and warm. Hugs to you both.
I try to remember to lift the garage door a couple of inches before snow – having had to hack it loose once when I was heading out to bring a friend home from the hospital.
No snow here, though 1.5″ of ice was predicted for the Columbia River Gorge. (That’ll cause a “standstill”.) No snow, but my local Weather Underground site (~200yds away is pretty local) says I’ve gotten 5.84″ of rain (and counting) in the past week! Last Thursday was dry, it didn’t contribute. We’ve landslides all over town. I have standing water on the lawn where it’s flatter. It’s running off, not soaking in, anymore.
It started snowing yesterday around 11:15AM. Big, fat, fluffy flakes….they didn’t stick. Then around 5:15 or so, they did start sticking, and there was a mix of rain, freezing rain, and sleet, then back to snow. The storm stopped dumping around 1:00AM today, but the mix of rain had frozen on the roadways, then a blanket of snow, and with the vehicles driving across it, packing it into ice. For whatever reason, I decided to use my father’s car yesterday, whether just to get it out and driven, or because I had a premonition about the weather. Either way, it was fortuitous, as his car has 4-wheel drive and an electronic stability system. On the way home, I encountered at least 3 cars that were all light in color (white, gray, tan) on the road with me, visibility with the snowfall of less than a quarter mile, it’s dusk (5:45 PM), and do they have their headlights on? Why would we do that? We can see just fine……never mind that nobody else can see YOU…..Ohio law says that headlights must be on no later than 30 minutes after sunset or 30 minutes before sunset…AND, if you’re using your windshield wipers, your headlights must on, as well. All three of these cars were running their wipers…..blatant disregard of the law!!!!
Anyway, as I was nearing my dad’s house to drop off his car, I did skid a bit on some slick spots, and the anti-lock brakes took over. I never had a problem with handling on the way down. This morning, I got up and went out to see him, and as I was turning into the driveway of the rehab facility, I skidded on glare ice, and ended up running into a small bank of snow that they had piled there after plowing the driveway. No damage, and I went on to see Dad. On the way home about 12:45 PM, there was a car in the ditch just before the driveway I had skidded into. Nobody in the car, they probably walked to the rehab facility/rest home to get help.
Today is supposed to be partly sunny, cold, tonight clear and cold….Saturday it’s supposed to get up to 55 degrees and rain. I didn’t pull out the snow thrower last night or today because nature will just take its course in a couple of days….
Well, I called in a grocery order—never have done that before, but I made a large order, and there’s a 7 dollar delivery fee, no tipping. Which when you add up the fact our door won’t work, there’s a lot of icy spots out there in the melt, and that the grocery parking lot isn’t real well cleared—I think 7 dollars is a good bet against the dent removal people AND the emergency room people. We did get out and shovel the front walk to lower the snow not all the way to ice, but down to a surface that will give a delivery person traction.
That might be a use for the old kitty litter (unless you use the clumping kind) 😀
Snowing and blowing up a lovely Northeaster here in the Boston area! Hard to tell how much we’ve received so far as it continuously drifts. Tomorrow morning, when it is all finished (I certainly presume it ends by morning), we’ll go out and shovel — well, I shovel and my spouse snow-blows. It’s good, cooperative system.
Glad that my day job said yesterday that we shouldn’t bother coming into work today. Everyone was delighted at the unscheduled holiday. With the rise of accurate weather predicting, my work and the rest of Massachusetts often sends out that alert before a storm actually hits. Feels a bit wimpy to me, who grew up in Montreal and very snowy NH and then went to college in northern Vermont, but today certainly they made the right call (actually, they generally do and everyone loves the time off).
It’s still in the Central Coast, but the rain’s stopped north of SFO. It’s supposed to get to my part of L.A. about 7am, and taper down in the evening, with another burst Saturday afternoon. Half an inch, maybe more, they’re predicting. And windy on Sunday.
(I’m not used to all that green on Oat Mountain. That’s how long it’s been.)
And it’s still an hour or so away…
Speaking of calling in food, I think I may need to call in a pizza strike here directly.
As for the biopsy result, “not breast cancer” was the good news. I’ve since had a lymph node biopsy (and ll stitches in my armpit) and bone marrow biopsy and they confirmed the bad news: CLL/small cell lymphoma, low grade, with 25% marrow involvement. But, my blood counts are normal and the few symptoms I have are no biggie. They don’t treat at this stage, just watch and wait. The bone marrow biopsy on the right side made my sciatic nerve pitch a big hissy fit. Hopefully the resultant hitch in my get-along is only temporary, but having to hike all over the dern hospital to go to my appointments was no fun yesterday. I’ve put over 1000 miles on my car in the last two weeks driving to and from the VA hospital (4 trips) in Armadillo.
Ow, Wol, I’m sorry to hear that! I hope CJ is right and it’s treatable and it doesn’t cause more problems – 11 stitches and a sciatica attack are bad enough. Do you need some assistance with the gas money?
I get so mad whenever I think about the broken healthcare system everyone in the USA has to suffer, I always wish there was something I could do to help.
Wol — tell your body to fight back against those small cells!
Thinking of you,
Raesean
Beaming good healthy thoughts to you, WOL <3
Well, that sort is definitely beatable. And ow! for the bone biopsy. Really ow! Hope the weather holds.
Dad is scheduled to go home tomorrow, but this morning they did an X-ray on his chest and he has viral pneumonia in his left lung. They have him on a nebulizer 4 times daily and an antibiotic shot every day for 10 days. I refused to give him the shots, so he is forced to have a home health care nurse come to give him the medication and check his vitals. I can play a stubborn game, too, especially when I have the nurses on my side. The nurse only has to come in, check his vitals, give him the shot and leave. But that is for 8 days more after he gets home. He can be a stodgy old man who doesn’t want anyone around him, except for me, but I can’t do everything that he needs, especially the shots.
Good call, Joe. Sorry for the setback, but being in his own surroundings with a nurse to lay down the law is a good thing. Wishing the best.
WOL, Sorry about your diagnosis. We hope your medical care is effective. Remember that you can claim a reduction on your taxes for your mileage if you itemize deductions. Start planning now and keep good records. Since you live so far from your VA hospital, ask whether you are eligible to use a local doctor/hospital. It’s 75 miles to a VA hospital for ReadyGuy and me, and the VA allows us to use our local hospital and my primary care physician is “on the economy.” The only downside is the $12 co-pay. We get our meds from the local military dispensary or the mail scripts service, both at low to no-cost. We could not afford the ACA monthly payment but I carried hospitalization into retirement before I switched to my husband’s TriCare eligibility.
I’m elligible for Tricare, but the way it seems to work is you get it done fast and drive a lot (126 miles to nearest VA hospital), or you get it done through Tricare, eventually.
maybe it’s the regional coverer that’s to blame….I’m in TRICARE North, and my coverage has been pretty good. I don’t have to drive too far, 45 miles, to get to the nearest military medical facility. The VA hospital is about the same distance, but has a much poorer reputation. So, I pay for the TRICARE coverage, which will become secondary in a couple of months, as I will have to sign up for Medicare A & B. TRICARE will cover my Part D requirement. I can still use the VA Hospital, and at no charge (unless they changed the rules) because I have a 50% disability rating from the VA. But in all the years since I retired from the Navy, I’ve seen a physician at the VA Medical system one time….the rest of the times were technicians and nurses.
Other half has IPF (Ideopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) and is stuck on an oxygen concentrator at 9.5 l/min at home. The VA Home Health Service is extremely goos with aides, if needed, Ensure by the case load, Personal Care products, etc etc as well as checkups by a nurse, dietitian, chaplain (if requested), psychologist (a lovely girl who is ex Air Force) and his PCP who is a Nurse Practitioner who comes by when I ask. He also has Hospice from a local hospital with nurse visits twice a week for now and a very, very useful 24-hour nurse on call. Also there is a raft of expensive free meds that live in the back of the fridge, some of which have a high street value. He’s been on Hospice for 18 months and as long as he is slowly declining Medicare Part A (Hospital) picks up the tab. His PCP from Hospice – a DO – comes by every month or two to recertify him for Medicare.
Tulrose,
Sounds like you and your spouse have a lot of support from “the system,” which is good to hear, in this long, has got to be stressful time. I hope family is nearby for both of you too.
Thank you Raesean,
Family for me is 10K miles away in the southern hemisphere and family for him has dwindled to such an extent that there is no-one left alive that he knows of. The large families of yore didn’t happen in our generation.
Instead of the “camel” that came out of the Congresscritters, they should have just let people buy into medicare/medicaid. But the health-care insurance industry was having none of that. And now they’re bailing because they can’t make enough money to satisfy Wall Street. Fancy that. [/sarcasm][/soapbox]