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shannon_aTHINGS I LEARNED AT THE DENTIST
Just one thing, really. It turns out that Hawaii doesn't have fluoride in its water. I was quite shocked, having lived the majority of my life in the California Bay Area, which does. I assumed it was a national thing, since the fluoridation of our water supply has been touted as one of the biggest health advances of the 20th century. But nope, Hawaii is #51 on the list of the 50 states (and DC) for fluoridation level. Apparently 10% of the water in the state is fluoridated.
(Waiting to see if there are any anti-fluoridation conspiracy fantasists to block after this post.)
The context is unfortunately some small cavities that turned up at my dental appointment on Monday. My dentist had turned them up last year and put "watches" on them, hoping that they'd improve, but they instead got bigger. It turns out this is a somewhat frequent problem when someone moves from California (or somewhere else with properly fluoridated water) to Hawaii.
Things you never knew.
So I annoyingly am going to have to make some return visits to the dentist to deal with cavities. And I'm swapped out my normal toothpaste for one with fluoride and also gotten a high-fluoride prescription toothpaste for use at night.
SLEEPING WITH THE ORANGIES
I slept in the Guest Room last night because Kimberly had some standard medical testing that she needed to get ready for in the middle of the night. This is Kimberly's Office, where we kept the orangies locked up for their first days with us, and where we still locked them every night for months. I used to sleep with them there every other night, to help get them socialized and fond of us.
So last night I washed the sheets and made out the bed, and was surprised the orangies weren't more excited. But then when I went to lay down last night, Elmer suddenly let out two pterodactyl-like mews and RACED into the bed. He was clearly SO thrilled.
Elmer slept with me all night, occasionally waking me by getting in my face and begging me for pets. Mango came to visit from time to time. There was at least once when I woke up and was surprised to find two little cats pressed up against me.
When I woke up and went for a shower way too early this morning, I found poor Lucy sitting on the edge of the bed in the Master Bedroom, clearly still waiting for me to go to sleep.
THE LUCY UPDATE
Speaking of Lucy, she again is eating better.
When last we saw the vet, last Thursday, she acknowledged that the antibiotic was likely not helping, agreeing with the internist's theory that it wasn't a gall bladder infection after all. So last Friday we started her on the next step, which was an increase in her steroid to start trying to deal with any ongoing inflammation.
On Sunday (which was also Lucy's last day of the antibiotic, meaning it was still at full strength), Lucy started eating well again at lunch and dinner. That's continued every day since.
So, we don't know what to make of that, and honestly I'm not sure I have a lot of hope because Lucy keeps pulling the football out from in front of us. (That's metaphorical Lucy, not real Lucy.) This will be the third time Lucy has started eating well during this ordeal, once for a week, once for a week and a half. I mean, we certainly hope this is it, but it's been such a long mess.
Next week we'll start weaning her off anti-nausea meds, and see how that goes. Moving from anti-nausea meds seems to have precipitated each of the previous collapses, but who knows, it's hard to find causality in any of this.
LUCY GROWLS
A funny little tidbit: one evening, Elmer started yowling downstairs, as cats do. So I called out "EL-MER!" to let him know we were upstairs and he should come visit us, as cat owners do.
And Lucy GROWLED.
What's up with that? I thought. And continued on.
But a few minutes later, Elmer cried out again, I called out his name. AND ANOTHER GROWL.
I'm looking at Lucy funny at this point, and I try experimentally, "EL-MER!?"
Growl!
She was genuinely growling every time she heard his name!
Now Lucy doesn't like either orangie, but I think she really doesn't like Elmer, because sometimes he gets aggressive enough not just to *get* her, but to *get* her and make her retreat. But I was astounded that she knew his name and offered her opinion.
(I've repeated the experiment since on other days with no reaction, but not too much because I don't want to upset Lucy by shouting out Elmer's name!)
LAPTOP WOES
Funny situation with my laptop. It stopped charging correctly when connected to my UPS. It was right after a blackout, so I figured something had happened to the UPS.
But I moved it to a counter in the mud room, and it worked fine.
Weird. And then it didn't charge in the mud room one day.
I finally figured out that my MagSafe cord was the problem. I replaced that with a (slow charging) USB-C/Thunderbolt cord and all is well again.
So what happened to the MagSafe cord? It's a braided cord, which makes them hard to destroy, but looking at it carefully I saw that bits of braid were pulled out here and there, like pulls in a sweater.
So I'm pretty sure a little Elmer kitty was getting it, hopefully some time ago when he was smaller and really bad at getting cords.
And I think it didn't work when connected to the UPS because it was hanging vertically and putting weight on the cord, whereas on the counter it was laying horizontally.
But weird to figure out.
New MagSafe cord ordered. And I made sure to get an original from Apple, not a knockoff, so that I know it's well-braided and less likely to electrocute a gnawing cat (though he doesn't seem to do that nearly as much!)
THE ONCOMING STORM
We had a tropical storm whiz by the islands yesterday. It apparently caused some rain on The Big Island. On Kauai we had some deep overcast, but the rain that constantly seemed to be oncoming rarely materialized.
Supposed to be a high hurricane season. We'll see how it goes.
HOSPITAL PARKING
When I dropped Kimberly off for her procedure this morning at the hospital we were somewhat bemused to see that the first few rows of parking nearing same-day surgery are all marked "physician". The patients have to park in the back half of the third row or further. (We'd never noticed before because previously we'd used disabled spaces because of Kimberly's problems walking for several years.)
As K. said, "So the healthy physicians park close and the sick patients park further out?"
THE ONCOMING TRIP
I figured out my itinerary for my trip to Germany in September and sent it off to the workshop folks for approval.
I've been reluctant to pull the trigger on that in part because it's a real pain finding my way to Europe and back. (The way back is the hardest, since I do that in one gulp, so on the way back from The Netherlands I could only find two itineraries that got me back home in a day, this time I could only find one, and it has two layovers.)
But, I've also been reluctant because of Lucy's condition. Yes, that's almost two months away, but we're also two months into this.
In any case, I'm ready to buy my tickets at this point, and then search up housing. Hoping to find a nice Air B&B for the majority of the trip, and then I'll stay at the airport hotel the last night, since the airport is over an hour from the venue, by train.
Busy, busy!
Just one thing, really. It turns out that Hawaii doesn't have fluoride in its water. I was quite shocked, having lived the majority of my life in the California Bay Area, which does. I assumed it was a national thing, since the fluoridation of our water supply has been touted as one of the biggest health advances of the 20th century. But nope, Hawaii is #51 on the list of the 50 states (and DC) for fluoridation level. Apparently 10% of the water in the state is fluoridated.
(Waiting to see if there are any anti-fluoridation conspiracy fantasists to block after this post.)
The context is unfortunately some small cavities that turned up at my dental appointment on Monday. My dentist had turned them up last year and put "watches" on them, hoping that they'd improve, but they instead got bigger. It turns out this is a somewhat frequent problem when someone moves from California (or somewhere else with properly fluoridated water) to Hawaii.
Things you never knew.
So I annoyingly am going to have to make some return visits to the dentist to deal with cavities. And I'm swapped out my normal toothpaste for one with fluoride and also gotten a high-fluoride prescription toothpaste for use at night.
SLEEPING WITH THE ORANGIES
I slept in the Guest Room last night because Kimberly had some standard medical testing that she needed to get ready for in the middle of the night. This is Kimberly's Office, where we kept the orangies locked up for their first days with us, and where we still locked them every night for months. I used to sleep with them there every other night, to help get them socialized and fond of us.
So last night I washed the sheets and made out the bed, and was surprised the orangies weren't more excited. But then when I went to lay down last night, Elmer suddenly let out two pterodactyl-like mews and RACED into the bed. He was clearly SO thrilled.
Elmer slept with me all night, occasionally waking me by getting in my face and begging me for pets. Mango came to visit from time to time. There was at least once when I woke up and was surprised to find two little cats pressed up against me.
When I woke up and went for a shower way too early this morning, I found poor Lucy sitting on the edge of the bed in the Master Bedroom, clearly still waiting for me to go to sleep.
THE LUCY UPDATE
Speaking of Lucy, she again is eating better.
When last we saw the vet, last Thursday, she acknowledged that the antibiotic was likely not helping, agreeing with the internist's theory that it wasn't a gall bladder infection after all. So last Friday we started her on the next step, which was an increase in her steroid to start trying to deal with any ongoing inflammation.
On Sunday (which was also Lucy's last day of the antibiotic, meaning it was still at full strength), Lucy started eating well again at lunch and dinner. That's continued every day since.
So, we don't know what to make of that, and honestly I'm not sure I have a lot of hope because Lucy keeps pulling the football out from in front of us. (That's metaphorical Lucy, not real Lucy.) This will be the third time Lucy has started eating well during this ordeal, once for a week, once for a week and a half. I mean, we certainly hope this is it, but it's been such a long mess.
Next week we'll start weaning her off anti-nausea meds, and see how that goes. Moving from anti-nausea meds seems to have precipitated each of the previous collapses, but who knows, it's hard to find causality in any of this.
LUCY GROWLS
A funny little tidbit: one evening, Elmer started yowling downstairs, as cats do. So I called out "EL-MER!" to let him know we were upstairs and he should come visit us, as cat owners do.
And Lucy GROWLED.
What's up with that? I thought. And continued on.
But a few minutes later, Elmer cried out again, I called out his name. AND ANOTHER GROWL.
I'm looking at Lucy funny at this point, and I try experimentally, "EL-MER!?"
Growl!
She was genuinely growling every time she heard his name!
Now Lucy doesn't like either orangie, but I think she really doesn't like Elmer, because sometimes he gets aggressive enough not just to *get* her, but to *get* her and make her retreat. But I was astounded that she knew his name and offered her opinion.
(I've repeated the experiment since on other days with no reaction, but not too much because I don't want to upset Lucy by shouting out Elmer's name!)
LAPTOP WOES
Funny situation with my laptop. It stopped charging correctly when connected to my UPS. It was right after a blackout, so I figured something had happened to the UPS.
But I moved it to a counter in the mud room, and it worked fine.
Weird. And then it didn't charge in the mud room one day.
I finally figured out that my MagSafe cord was the problem. I replaced that with a (slow charging) USB-C/Thunderbolt cord and all is well again.
So what happened to the MagSafe cord? It's a braided cord, which makes them hard to destroy, but looking at it carefully I saw that bits of braid were pulled out here and there, like pulls in a sweater.
So I'm pretty sure a little Elmer kitty was getting it, hopefully some time ago when he was smaller and really bad at getting cords.
And I think it didn't work when connected to the UPS because it was hanging vertically and putting weight on the cord, whereas on the counter it was laying horizontally.
But weird to figure out.
New MagSafe cord ordered. And I made sure to get an original from Apple, not a knockoff, so that I know it's well-braided and less likely to electrocute a gnawing cat (though he doesn't seem to do that nearly as much!)
THE ONCOMING STORM
We had a tropical storm whiz by the islands yesterday. It apparently caused some rain on The Big Island. On Kauai we had some deep overcast, but the rain that constantly seemed to be oncoming rarely materialized.
Supposed to be a high hurricane season. We'll see how it goes.
HOSPITAL PARKING
When I dropped Kimberly off for her procedure this morning at the hospital we were somewhat bemused to see that the first few rows of parking nearing same-day surgery are all marked "physician". The patients have to park in the back half of the third row or further. (We'd never noticed before because previously we'd used disabled spaces because of Kimberly's problems walking for several years.)
As K. said, "So the healthy physicians park close and the sick patients park further out?"
THE ONCOMING TRIP
I figured out my itinerary for my trip to Germany in September and sent it off to the workshop folks for approval.
I've been reluctant to pull the trigger on that in part because it's a real pain finding my way to Europe and back. (The way back is the hardest, since I do that in one gulp, so on the way back from The Netherlands I could only find two itineraries that got me back home in a day, this time I could only find one, and it has two layovers.)
But, I've also been reluctant because of Lucy's condition. Yes, that's almost two months away, but we're also two months into this.
In any case, I'm ready to buy my tickets at this point, and then search up housing. Hoping to find a nice Air B&B for the majority of the trip, and then I'll stay at the airport hotel the last night, since the airport is over an hour from the venue, by train.
Busy, busy!