Every year a retreat center south of here asks for volunteers to deep clean the center; bathrooms, dining hall, bedrooms, the Dharma hall, teachers cottages. And the great outdoors-fallen tree limbs, errant bamboo, etc.
Judith and I went in spite of a flat tire and a sick kitty. Lola stayed at the vet for 24 hours getting IV fluids and waiting for labs. A bladder infection, as I suspected. For $900!!! Egad.
Then they gave me a wee bottle of antibiotics and say, "Once a day, orally." They don't say, "Ha ha, good luck with that."
Cats are smart. They feel that something terrible is about to go down as you approach them with a towel and a syringe. So they head out to spaces where you are unable to reach them. And you are dragging them out by a leg or the tail and further traumatizing them because they are thinking you're about to kill them or put them back in the cat carrier of death.
When you finally wrap them in a towel, then they throw their head around so you're basically aiming for the mouth/teeth area when it whips by you, getting fish flavored medicine on your shirt and all over their face. Hopefully some of it landed IN their mouth and you're good til tomorrow when it's time to do again. For 10 days.
At least it's not a pill. Pilling a cat is pretty much the worst situation. No cat will stand for it. It is beneath them. It doesn't matter that you've explained that they are ill and will feel much better. They don't give a shit. Giving a cat a pill guarantees that you will be bitten and/or clawed. You will be bloody and your cat will hate you. They give side eye and start growling. Then comes the slashing.
Anyway, the retreat center is sparkling and when I got home with Lola, I found that Felix had torn up the rug that I just bought. He is in the bedroom on an extended time out. As least the rug (screaming deal) was only $100.
Why do we have animals? I know this is a rhetorical question...and by the way, why is there an 'h' in rhetorical? Seems completely whimsical.
5 comments:
I have no idea why we have animals but it would seem that we must.
I remember pilling a cat as a girl and years after kitty was gone I found a small mountain of said pills hidden behind the fridge. She had been secretly spitting them out.
Love
Rhebecca
Why indeed? Because it's complicated and we like weird and complicated stuff?
I like what you did with Whimsical :-)
Hi, Beth!
I haven't commented before--I recently found your blog through Linda Sue (Lady Margaret's Curlers), and I've been enjoying reading it backwards in time.
It's hard to know when or if to jump into commenting as a new reader, but I'd like answer your question, "Why is there an 'h' in rhetoric?"
I am not a language pedant, but I do love some of language's intricacies...
I took Classical Greek years ago, and it answered the mystery of a bunch of weird-to-me spellings, such as that "rh"--in "rhythm" too.
In the Greek alphabet "r" is one letter: ῥ .The name of the letter is "rho", and it's transliterated into English as "rh".
"Rhetoric" is from the root word ῥέω = rhéō, pronounced hreh'-o
a verb that means to utter, to pour forth.
There ya go! :)
Thanks for your interesting blog. My mother took her own life 18 years ago, so I'm watching for the thread of that topic in your posts.
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