What’s best after a nap, Andy?

Yeah! A nose “boop”!

He waits patiently.

Sad kitty….awww!

This is all he wants for now. He’s my kitty!

Of course! Time for a kitty nap.

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Good grief! My heartbeat exceeded 100 after petting Andy! And my oxygen went down four percent. Being a kitty person has a price I guess.

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Kristen the hospital dietician brought our blood reports to us at dialysis yesterday. I had some low points, some of which are indirect consequences of diet, others that can be affected by medication dosage, and the simple one that just means I need to add more protein to my diet. 

Confession is good for the soul.

The latter, protein in diet, I confess is hard for me because I don’t like a lot of meat in my diet so try to get it through yoghurt or plant protein. Clearly, that’s not working so I decided to try my favorite restaurant-sourced protein, a half-roasted chicken with velvety, perfectly prepared and seasoned mashed potatoes and the vegetable of the day for yesterday, a corn prepared with a hint of blackened chiles and just enough salt and pepper to bring out the yummy qualities of the kernels.

What else? A loaded Bloody Mary. (I should have gone with a simple lager beer). It came with a stalk of celery, a vegetable that the strings sometimes causes me problems, though this stalk had been crisped in the refrigerator and was crunchy, cool goodness! On a skewer: a shrimp (yummy!), a pepper (I left it there), and a couple other things I forget but ate. The Bloody Mary, unfortunately, was too spicey, something I forgot about this drink I haven’t had in forty or so years.

I savaged the crunchy-coated leg, first with a knife and fork, then by picking up and attacking like a caveman! Yum! I always take off the skin or buy skinless chicken parts at home, but this was a celebration of naughty variations on a food so, well, “skin and all”!

The thigh I tried to return to civilization with knife and fork, but finished with the caveman approach when I saw too much meat left on the bone. Likewise the wing. Well, not the wing, which I just said to heck with civility and chomped down on with gusty till every tasty bit of it was in my tummy!

What about the breast – this was a half of roast chicken after all? Sadly, it was a bit tough and I tried to eat most of it but gave up halfway. I hate to waste meat because some creature sacrificed its life to sustain mine. In part, that’s one reason I don’t eat a lot of meat.

I tried vegetarianism a few times in my life, yet, as a son of the West, this is cattle country; my town used to be the Cattle Capital of Nebraska; the police badges used to feature a bull and that slogan on them; lots of cattle were sold and shipped from the stockyard where the railroad now has a repair shop; my best friend’s father was an auctioneer who helped sell those cattle; and one of the world’s best pastures, the Nebraska Sandhills is east of here… Yeah, I like beef! Chicken is fine, too, though breast meat typically is two meals for me.

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Not a lie detector, but a measure of the effort it took to tell you my “meat story”. Oxygen saturation up from 95% and heart beat down from 107!

But what about the too spicey Bloody Mary, you [don’t/do] ask?! Don’t leave us in suspense, Doug! Well, I wasted three-fourths of it. It came is a huge 20 ounce/0.6 liter glass, so you do the math! The best part about it was the cool crispy celery stalk, many of which I could have sucked down instead!

Andy had a surprise for me.

Something Doug was looking for…

…showed up on the floor near the place Andy gets his Greenies! 

That’s Doug in the television screen, using the newly-found telephone. He suspects Andy knocked it off the table, the last place he could recall seeing it.

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I spent the week looking for things I misplaced. I hope this is it for a while.  

Two groomings ago, Andy came back with a lion cut tail. Ugh.

See how “floofy” it’s regrown? Much better! Andy’s best feature is his “floofy” tail!

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No phone yet. I’ve no clue where it is in hiding. I’m sick of this hide and seek game I’ve been playing all week! I did have friends call me on the chance it would reveal its general location. Didn’t hear a thing.

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Up to Rapid City for a 10:00 AM annual car appointment. Tires rotated, oil changed, windshield wipers front and real changed, and that sort of thing…

I thought the Birbug was “hot” again.

Andy shows interest in something else.

Whatever!

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What interests a cat can be a surprise. I know this fixation on the toy’s clasp caught me off guard.

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Misplaced my phone. It’s been a week like that, driving me crazy looking for this or that. This might be the last post with original photos for the time being. Gad! 

What’s got my little “killer” wound up?

What the RAWR?!

Why, it’s the old Birbug kitty toy! Haven’t played with this one in a while and Andy is really, really, really into it.

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Little by little, I’m getting used to how to get around my apartment dragging oxygen line behind me. The number of times I let out a string of US Army “naughty words” (and they are extremely naughty…) has gone down , which Andy appreciates since I rant them in a very loud voice. 

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I have a haircut appointment today, so this mug will disappear for a few months.

Vic always is in motion!

Mountain man, Karl Marx, Solzhenitsyn???

Thanks to the mastery of Vic, I turn into plain Doug again!

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Cinco de Mayo, right?

So I treated myself to a meal at Mi Ranchito. Mainly, I wanted the 12-ounce blended lime margarita. Woohoo! Very refreshing! The meal was a bit more than I could finish, though the “margie” wasn’t. I use a spoon to enjoy mine. 

Andy may watch television, but better yet is a good “scritching”!

When sleep hits, it hits hard!

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Now – yawn! – I need a nap.

A dark presence, a blur on the shower stool…

Turns out to be…

..the “Snoop Meister”, Mr. Andy!

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My current state, weakness, was all it took to move a shower stool from the guest bathroom to the shower I use. I should have done it years ago. It definitely makes cleaning up more comfortable and a lot safer since I use a hand shower, now, sitting down. Until recently, I had to end the shower once my legs started to give out. I barely got clean!

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What a week! I spent yesterday afternoon (01May23) hooked up in the Box Butte General Hospital ER to be monitored for heart and respiratory functions.

It started when I took a heart medication instead of the pills I usually take at lunch. It was a stupid mistake, the 10 heart pills were in the same size and and type of pill container as the pills I meant to take. As soon as I swallowed the heart medication, I had one of those “Oh sxxx!” moments where I realized what I’d done.

I called the pharmacy to find out what I should do. They gave me the poison control telephone number. The people there told me to go to the local ER, which they alerted beforehand to let me know I was coming. There, I was hooked up, as noted, to be monitored for heart and respiratory functions.

I didn’t suffer any side effects but had a lovely rest instead. After six uneventful hours, I was released. Even after the six-hour hospital rest, I was able to go to bed around 7 PM and have a full night’s rest. I’m still exhausted from my weekend hospital stay in Scottsbluff.

Why is Andy so sad?

He wants me to get up and give him Greenies.

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It’s been less than an hour since he got his morning kitty food and a bit early to get into the Greenies. Sad kitty!