Hi, it’s me, Olivia. Here’s a flattering photo of me back in January when all was calm here at home, before my brother had pooping problems and all kinds of people traipsed through our house too many times to count. Through all that, I was a good girl. Don’t let the scratched up couch in this photo lead you to believe I was anything but good. I keep telling Dad we should get a new couch but Mom always finishes my sentence by adding, “. . . to destroy in mere minutes, too.” Mom’s a killjoy.
Isn’t the month of May just whisking by so fast? Well, all but this last week when my brother had to stay in the main bedroom alone. Who was I supposed to snuggle with? It’s been a long week in a fast month. I’ll admit I did give serious thought to . . . no, I can’t honestly say I was thinking of that. I did get really close though.
*shudders* I don’t have a real reason why I don’t like my baby sister Viola. I just . . . don’t. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be the baby. But she’s the baby. Life isn’t fair.
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From our hearts to yours, THANK YOU friends of Colehaus for your generous donations to help with Quint’s vet bill. He’s back to eating, and pooping, like his usual self, and we’re sure he’s added white rice to his list of foods he hopes to never partake in ever again.
Here’s Quint. He’s antagonizing someone by hovering over them, vulture-style. He doesn’t do this often, but it can be annoying, as other cats will tell you.
Last week, he gave us a scare by exhibiting problems pooping. He went through a similar episode a few years ago and spent a couple of expensive days and nights at our local emergency vet. The good thing that came from that was he finally transitioned from dry kibble over to wet canned food. Eight months later.
Last Wednesday, Quint spent a very long day and night at the same emergency vet and Thursday, spent a very, very long day in a town not so nearby getting an ultrasound to rule out a couple of things. He’s home now and has full run of our main bedroom all to himself (leaky bathroom number 1 excluded), while at his beck and call over the next seven days, harried servants dish up a bland vet-recommended diet of shredded chicken and white rice laced with a probiotic in shiny, silver bowls. Diagnosis is a mild case of pancreatitis and slightly inflamed lymph nodes near his lower intestine from trying to poop when he didn’t really need to, and most likely reactive to his mildly hypoechoic pancreas. Which also includes, in part, he has a small fatty glob in there that needed to be ruled out from being a cancer mass. And it isn’t. Whew!
If he thought he was going to continue raiding the last, lonely kibble-eating cat’s SureFlap feeder, he’d better think again. It’s the only thing anyone can think of that may have triggered this event. And while we can’t officially call him our million dollar cat, yet, he did ring up a nice, fat bill, and between running him back and forth and all the waiting, Mom went without sleep for 43 hours straight. So much for any weekend.
On the other side of the house, while waiting even more for a plumber/restoration guy who’s dragging his feet with an estimate and a timeline to get our main bathroom functional again, we discovered our adjoining bathroom shower/tub combo has started leaking as well. Good thing the entire original leaky shower had been removed down to the bare studs to be able to view this new delight in homeownership!
And now, our homeowner’s insurance company have decided to drop us as of next month. Thirty-two years with them doesn’t mean a thing. We’re just a number on some sheet of paper and we fell under some magical threshold number. There aren’t enough tissues in the world for how we feel right now. And that’s pretty low.
The consequences of all this happening at once are headache inducing. So let’s look at some Around Colehaus beauties instead.
Mom remembered to remove a third of the old growth blueberry canes back in February and it seems to have revitalized two of the three blueberry bushes we have. That third blueberry is harder to get at but she’ll find a way. Blueberry bushes can live up to fifty years, so it’s important to keep care of them and not write them off if they stop producing after a single decade. Removing a third of all old growth canes each year brings about new life. Who knew?
That lupine, grown from seed in 2021, that threatened to take over a third of our backyard (and made a respectful run at it) is thriving in its new location. We suspect it will overtake the tall red flowering plant next to it who was overtaking that part of the flowerbed anyway. Both attract a quarter ton of bumblebees and nearly as many hummingbirds so we expect that third of the yard to be one happy, buzzing, humming spot. There needs to be one somewhere around here, and this will be it.
The rhodies are blooming and near blooming. We’ve been unseasonably cold and wet here throughout April and May so every blooming thing has been delayed a bit. Fine by us. We have other fish to fry.
It was Pia who was minding her own business, mostly, by sniffing pillows stored in an off-limits downstairs closet while Mom had her back turned. Afterward, Pia hissed at Quint and waddled off to sulk and Quint spent the rest of the day lounging upstairs, snuggled in a fort of his own making, like he does.
