silly things

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Cat Report, Sports Snacks, Dinners This Week

I am assuming that you want an update on the cat, who, when last we spoke, was at the vet getting neutered. 

He is fine. A little depressed, in my estimation, and possibly a little bit embarrassed and/or miffed by the state of his testicles, but fine. Also, if you’d rather not read several tedious paragraphs about my cat’s post-surgical experience, I urge you to skip right on down to the list of dinners below.

I am FINE.

The recovery period after the neutering procedure is supposedly two weeks. The instruction sheet the vet sent home with me says that under no circumstances are we allowed to remove the cone they sent home with us. (The vet doesn’t call it a cone; they call it an Elizabethan collar, and it cost $20, by the way. For $20, I would think that it wouldn’t rotate so that the Velcro/opaque segment of the cone is directly in front of his sight line, but apparently I’m wrong.) With the cone on, the cat cannot eat well or drink water easily, he cannot clean himself, he keeps running into things, his balance is off so he can’t successful jump onto something even as short as a step, he cannot rest his head comfortably, his neck is constantly itchy, and he adopts various mournful positions that make him look very pitiful indeed. His fur is greasy and he lies around a lot more than is typical. I do not see how this is sustainable for two weeks. 

So: We have been removing the cone as frequently as possible and simply supervising the cat so he doesn’t lick anything. He does wear the cone – excuse me, Elizabethan collar – at night, when he sleeps in a bathroom we’ve converted into a temporary cat cave. 

Image from OldWorldPetPortraits.com where you can buy a print of this fabulous painting or many other works of pet-themed art, and at a 20% discount with email signup.

The vet and the internet insisted that I buy special litter for him, post-surgery. It’s pellets made up of newspaper and it’s probably much better in many ways than the litter we’ve been using since we got him, but he refuses to use it. He has taken to meowing at us when he has to go to the bathroom, and one of us has to escort him to his regular litter box. (The litter box is in a part of the basement we don’t want him in when he’s not in a cone; too many niches for him to hide in and commence furtive licking.) 

One of the other admonitions in the vet’s instructions is to keep him calm. For two weeks. He’s actually been pretty good, so far. We have a shoe box he likes to play in, and he’s been batting springs and fuzzy worms around inside the box, and that seems to occupy him pretty well without requiring a ton of athletic movement. Carla made him a special water toy that we learned about online but he wasn’t super into it. Maybe we’ll have to try it again. He’s also spending a lot of time in the sunroom or at the window in my office, monitoring the bug and squirrel activity outside.

Okay, okay. Here is a photo of him in his Elizabethan collar. Please don’t tell him I shared this with the entire internet. 

Revisiting all his life choices, trying to figure out which one led him here.

Okay! Enough about the cat! Let’s discuss my other favorite topic: FOOD.

Now. It is September, and school is back in session, and I need to get back into the dinner planning groove. Let’s see: we’re visiting friends for dinner tonight. Carla is trying a new sport this fall, and she has games every week. That means I need at least one meal each week that produces enough leftovers for us to eat after her game. We’ve been pretty consistently doing at least one night of Search the House for Your Own Meal, and one night of takeout. So that leaves me with three meals to make. 

Oh – that reminds me: I keep trying to figure out snacks I can send to school with Carla that she can eat before sports practice or before a game. The snacks can’t have nuts, and I would prefer that they have some nourishment in them, rather than just calories. I’m not opposed to “just calories,” and in fact have been sending her with Cheez-Its and cheese ballsand granola bites and fruit snacks because she will eat those things… but I would love ideas for things that have other benefits besides calories. I’m not sure those things exist, though, especially nut-free things that do not require refrigeration. I am happy to BAKE things, as well. And, even though my “she will eat this” expectations are low for most new/nourishing foods, I am willing to TRY things, even if Carla ends up refusing to eat them. If you have any ideas, let me have ’em. 

Okay, back to the dinners. 

Dinners for the Week of September 1-7

  • Greek Salad with Grilled Chicken: My parents return to our part of the country this week, and I want to have them over for dinner and to meet the kitten. Greek salad has kind of become my go-to for guests – it’s so easy to prep in advance, and it’s so tasty. 
  • Beef Birria: You know what else I have in the freezer? Beef birria! And we have enough for at least two meals. I plan to make the tacos in the oven (as in this recipe) rather than on the stove. And then maybe I’ll turn the ingredients into enchiladas (a la these chicken enchiladas) the second night.

What are you eating this first week in September?

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Shotgun!

Carla’s impending twelfth birthday marks a milestone of sorts: she will now be allowed to ride in the front passenger seat of the car. 

(I realize that lots and lots of kid ride in the front seat earlier than this; no judgement; you do you.) 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Because my husband and I both realize that there’s nothing magical about the actual day of her twelfth birthday, we’ve already started letting her ride in the front on occasion. Which led to the interesting experience of me riding in the back seat. 

When I was a kid, when I rode in the car with my parents, I was in the back. If one parent was driving, I would be in the passenger seat. If my brother was with us, he rode in the back. There was a clear hierarchy. 

Was this spelled out for us at some point? Or learned? 

When my parents or in-laws are visiting, and we all need to take a single car somewhere, my husband usually drives and I usually ride in the passenger seat. I almost always offer the front seat to my parents / in-laws. But they typically defer to me. 

I do recall one evening when we left a restaurant and my mother-in-law simply opened the passenger door and got in beside my husband. It felt strangely displacing, which I recognize is silly.

If I ride in the car with my parents now, my dad drives and my mom is in the passenger seat. 

Aside from preferring the front seat on long car trips (I tend to get nauseated in the back after awhile), there’s no real reason that I need to sit in the front passenger seat. And yet, in my car, with my husband driving, I kind of feel like it’s My Seat. 

Is this weird, or typical? Who typically drives in your family? Who typically sits in the front passenger seat? If you have multiple siblings or kids, did you engage in the time-honored tradition of yelling “Shotgun!” as you elbowed one another on your way out the door?  

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Saturday Randomosity: Distracting the Brain from Dream Grief Edition

I did my at-home sleep study last night, and had a terrible night of sleep (not surprising). The last straw was a horrible vivid nightmare about someone I love dying. I think I squeaked in at least six hours in bed, if not six hours of sleep, so I called it quits. Now I’m trying to banish the dream-grief with mundane things like de-scaling my tea kettle and washing sheets.  

Why do some dreams linger? The last dream that lingered was a nightmare about someone I see on a regular basis. He – let’s see; how much do you need to know about how disturbing my psyche is? – attacked me in the dream, and then, upon waking, I had to see him randomly out in the world while the feelings of the dream clung to me and to him. It was not pleasant. Poor guy! He is by all appearances a kind, friendly, hard-working person who would never dream of attacking anyone, except maybe the weeds in his garden. And yet now I feel all weird about him, as though my mind has secret perceptive powers. Yes,  yes, Gavin de Becker would probably tell me that I am indeed perceiving something real about his character (either that, or I am giving my own anxiety too much power), but I really think in this case IT WAS ONLY A DREAM.

Let us swiftly change subjects!

I was telling you the other day that I did buy the anti-cellulite cream and had started using it. I am going to continue using it. And I am also here to tell you that you should never, EVER apply it directly after taking a shower. The instructions say this: “You may start to feel a warming sensation, that’s totally normal! If you’re not into the tingle, we recommend waiting at least 20 minutes after a shower before applying. Use twice a day for best results.” I read the instructions, and found the wording peculiar. But I waited twenty minutes after showering to apply it the first few times, and then applied it a second time in the morning well before showering. But then. The other day I just… forgot, I guess? My husband and I had a date night planned, and I was doing all my normal getting-ready things, showering, doing my hair, etc. I slapped on some of this cream instead of my good ol’ Eucerin. This was the fieriest it has ever felt. And we were on a date! I was so uncomfortable! It wasn’t painful, just… deeply, deeply uncomfortable. I was wearing a dress and anytime my thighs touched, the heat intensified. I will not be doing that again.

It’s got to be working, right? I hope you are enjoying my play-by-play of this experience. I am nothing if not ever-hopeful when it comes to cellulite magic.

You know what I would like to magic into being? My kid’s summer schedule. I finally sat down with some calendar pages and plotted out all the camps that she’s expressed interest in, and there are a few overlaps but mostly I think she can do everything she wants to do. One of our neighbors has also asked if Carla will be available to do some dog walking this summer, which of course Carla is delighted to do. And then there will presumably be A Cat to play with, too.

I am fully on board with Carla having a relaxed, pet- and pool-centric summer. That sounds fabulous, and I am happy to limit the driving I need to do. But I do need her to do SOME THINGS. Maybe not every day, but probably most days, for a couple of hours. Otherwise, the battle over screen time is going to ruin our relationship. I wonder if I could simply BAN SCREENS during the day? Would that be doing myself a disservice? I just know that if I set a limit, that it will gradually erode. I’m not tough enough or disciplined enough to stick to, say, two hours a day, and Carla can smell weakness and will exploit it. (This is not a dig at her, it is purely about my own shortcomings, I hope you understand.) But then again, if I ban her from screens, and then am sitting around typing away at my own screen – which I need to do in order to achieve my own goals – I feel like that’s a massive double standard? I can already hear the relentless arguments about how unfair it is. No. Better to whisk her away to camp for some period of time each day so that I feel less terrible about the inevitable screen time taking place the rest of the time.

(I feel like I have to include the caveat that different kids are different, and can handle screen time differently, and that my kid’s needs are specific to her and don’t reflect on you or your kids at all. And also that my parenting strategy, lackluster as it may be, does in fact involve some modicum of boundary-holding; I just recognize my own limits and the value of picking battles.)

Oh – I finally, after dithering about it for eons, and being terribly afraid I will offend someone, have added a blog roll to my site. If your blog is not listed, please know that this is purely user error, to be blamed on me and my current unworkable hodgepodge method of following blogs, which uses a combination of Feedly, bookmarks in various browsers, and the power of memory which we all know is subpar at best. If your blog is not featured, it has NOTHING to do with YOU. I want to read your blog, I want to list it in my blogroll, so please let me know if it is not there and I will add it. I promise to comment as erratically as I post.

The other thing on my mind today is my niece, who is turning TEN. Even though Carla is not quite two years older, I am at a loss for what the ten-year-old set is into these days. NOT makeup; my father-in-law noted that my niece is overrun with Ulta and Sephora gift cards, and hasn’t really found a use for them. She used to like robots, and this looks pretty cool. She likes math; would a math game be a good birthday present? (I would not like a math game for myself.) A Pokémon gift bag might be cool, if she is still into Pokémon. Although wait – shipping starts at $175? Never mind. Clearly, I do not know my niece as well as I wish I did, so I am drawing a blank. Any ideas????

Okay, that’s all I’ve got this morning, Internet! Hope your Saturday is off to a great start!