My Bloody Valentine

[shannon_a]

Kimberly & I had a pleasant Valentine's Day tonight. Nothing super special, as we've been too busy and/or stressed to do anything as complex as make reservations for dinner. But I had come up with a plan which didn't involve reservations.

So, after work, Kimberly and I biked up to North Berkeley, mostly along Channing, then Milvia, both of which are relatively pleasant for biking even in rush hour. In North Berkeley, we landed at Andronico's where we stocked up on dinner. She got a prepared salad; I got a deli sandwich. We got some mushrooms & parmesan and some potato salad to share. For desert, she got a chocolate eclair and I got an "adult" brownie. Thus fortified we headed home and had a fancier than usual dinner. Oh, and to be totally classé, we ate that dinner while watching Chuck (season 3, episode 12, to be precise, which seems to mean we just passed the halfway mark a couple of days ago).

We also did a bit of gaming in the evening (Lost Cities), some reading aloud (Dresden #11), and even read together quietly for part of the evening.

Altogether, a pleasant evening that was quiet and calm, which is the sort of thing we need right now.

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Cat drama does continue. Cobweb is continuing to eat better since we started giving her anti-nausea pills twice a day and Pepcid AC once a day. In fact, she appears more lively and interested in eating than I've seen her in some time. So, I have some faith that nausea and/or acid stomach was the problem and had been increasing for a while. (Poor kit!)

We haven't tried to return Cobweb to a regular wet food or dry food diet, and I have some trepidation about doing that. But, we need to do it soon, as we're going out of town in a couple of weeks. And giving her chicken breast six times a day wouldn't be sustainable even if we weren't. (She has, though, been eating wet food when we put it out generally, so I have hope that we will be able to steer things back to rightness.)

OK, here's the bit that you will fucking not believe. Munchkin mostly stopped eating two days ago. She's also been wandering around the house looking sick a lot of the time in these last two days. We got her to lick some gravy from food yesterday and today she spent several minutes eating actual wet food in the middle of the day. Most of the time she ignores food, though, even great stuff like Bonita Flakes, which Cobweb ate even at her worst.

Kimberly thinks it's stress, but we've also become aware that it's years since Munchkin had a check-up, and she is almost 17. So, if she doesn't show interest in treats when I give Cobweb her morning prednisolone chew in the morning, she's getting a vet appointment too. And a "senior" blood screen. (Gonna be an expensive month for the cats.)

Kimberly & I would both love to see her eating happily in the morning, but have come to terms, I think, with the probable need to bring her to the vet too.

Sigh.

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After Cobweb got sick 2.5 years ago, I said, "We should never getting two cats from the same litter", as I suddenly envisioned having two cats come down with cancer simultaneously due to genetic disposition. Now, I'm starting to think that we shouldn't get two cats of the same approximate age.

Because, whenever we talk to someone about Cobweb's chronic illness, when we mention she's almost 17, they say, "Ah ..."

When I was growing up, I thought all cats lived to 20, just like all people lived to 100. Sadly, neither is true.