Here’s seeing you!
~ wink! ~
=(^+^)=
It’s been a busy few months, off and on, of sorting and trashing stuff. I’ve lived in the same apartment for almost 19 years. I recognize that someone will have to empty and clean this apartment if I were to die or move to assisted living or a care center. I recognize, too, that my general health now allows me to do a fair amount of cleaning and trashing, but that could change any day! It’s imperative, then, that I continue to neaten up the apartment and do the cleaning necessary to make it suitable for habitation!
So far, I’ve pretty much filled three or so dumpsters full of trash and things I no longer use. Yes, I could have a yard sale, I suppose, but I have better ways to use my time inside. I have another half dumpster’s load staged inside for after trash pick-up Friday. At least two other people use the same dumpster, so I left some space for them. I could have overloaded it, no problem, with what I have staged inside! I was tempted. Once, someone put a sofa in our dumpster, making it impossible for others to add much to it that week.
Coincidentally, the landlord’s doing apartment inspections in the middle of September, so I’m glad I’ve got a good start on cleaning, creating concealed spaces for things that had been on counters and any other available surface, and getting rid of clutter. I still have a great deal to work through, lots of dusting, lots of spider webs in high places that need knocking down, washing, and floors to sweep, vacuum, or mop.
A good cleaning and sorting is good for the soul. 🙂
I gree!
Decluttering is a major project. Is that why Mr Andy is giving you a wink?
I’m not sure why. Perhaps to let me know that he knows I know he knows we know a lot of the decluttering and cleanup is because of one ten poundish kitty boy’s doing!
Not 5that he is about to lend a paw!
You know it!
The attempt to insert Pyshka into the carrier resulted in several scratches and a serious bite, but the carrier stayed devoid of Pyshka. We had to cancel the appointment. They are suggesting putting a sedative into her food, but that’s a problem because all three of them eat from the same bowl. We’ll see…
I had that same problem with medicating one or other kitty boys when I still had Dougy. As for getting Pyshka in the carrier, I totally know how that can go as Louie was hell to pay getting him into a carrier!
I don’t presume to be Mr. Know-It-All, but here might be an answer to saving your skin and “skinning the cat” to get Pyshka into the carrier: use a cat carrying bag instead. They let the cat’s head stick out so it’s less psychologically confining.
I don’t know your kitty, of course, so don’t know if that’d work.
I leave a carrier with the gate open for Andy to explore and sleep in if he wishes. Though he puts up minor resistance when I put him in a carrier these days, that’s helped desensitize him to the sensation of being in one.
Another thought – and I won’t be giving you a pop quiz on stuffing a cat into a carrier later! – is to try the cat burrito technique that works giving them medicine. I suspect Pyshka would require a pretty tight wrap to avoid escape, though, and that would just complicate your future efforts.
My guess is that you’ve tried many variations of stuffing a cat in a carrier, so this may not be helpful. It is frustrating when you have a cat that is so uncooperative, I know, but I wish you best of luck working the Pyshka dilemma out!
I thank you most profusely for your advice, Doug!
The burrito method was the one we had tried, resulting in “battle injuries” and subsequent escape. The cat bag, however, might be a workable idea, and I will explore it right away.
All of us cat people need to share out carrier tricks, don’t you think? It is especially frustrating when the reason we need to put them in the carrier is to transport them to health care. The late Dougie was the second worst for putting in a carrier after the late Louie, who screeched like a Banshee and fought carriers with all the power of an almost 24-poiund cat! Good luck, Dolly!
Thank you very much, Doug!
Your late Louie looks very much like Pyshka, only brighter orange (our young lady is a study in pastel colors). She is not 24 pounds yet, but getting there, and I think it’s the tendency of the breed. Perhaps this kind of personality is also the breed characteristic?
Louie also was a lap cat by his choice and very sweet-natured except to other cats. The carrier thing, though, might be typical of ginger tabbies. I don’t know.
Pyshka is an “under-my-arm-and-eat-my-shirt” cat, rather than a lap cat. She really treats me as her mommy.
I get Mommy moments from Andy, too, though he choses how to manifest it. Dougy was more the Mommy’s kitty.
They all have Mommy moments with me, in their own ways, but Beba holds long and meaningful conversations with The Boss, staring at him with adoring eyes.
LOL! Sweet!
😻
P.S. She managed to bite the vein which most phlebotomists have a problem doing. The Boss almost fainted when the blood started gushing. I am fine, it doesn’t even hurt, and it’s not a biggie, but he got seriously scared and released “the burrito.”
Ha! I respect a phlebotomist – or cat – that can hit the vein first time! As a dialysis patient, I’ve gotten over my reaction to blood. There are times the access will not seal over completely or at all though we hold pressure on the two for 10 or so minutes after the needles are extracted and gauze and special bandages that are extra absorbent are applied. The amount of blood one can have in a fistula bleed out is so alarming that one time a woman saw me in the hospital parking lot, clothes covered in fistula bleed out, came up to me, very alarmed and asked me if she could help me! I used to be like The Boss at the sight of very little blood.
Yes, Pyshka would make an excellent phlebotomist. LOL
Many years ago, in the old country, I happened to be in the hospital for quite a while, and there was only one nurse who could get into my veins, after several tries. On her days off, they called my father at work, and he would leave the clinic and come to draw blood or set up an IV. And before you ask, ports did not exist, so every IV was a separate affair.
I can have blood samples taken out of the lines at dialysis but IVs get set up the same way – needles jabbing veins that seem nearly impossible to find! Infusions, too, require jabbing veins. The fistula takes big needles to access, but, depending on the nurse and the day, almost never involves much more than a slight pressure. Sometimes the nurse has the needles in and I didn’t notice she was done with that part of the process!
What a trying procedure!
It leaves me very exhausted.
I am sure it does.
Kuddos to you for going through your things and decluttering. After losing my sister last year and having to go through her belongings, I was inspired to do a lot of decluttering this year. I finally got my hubby on board too.
It has to be done some day and by someone who oftentimes isn’t the one who made the messes. I’m trying not to be that person who leaves the mess!
It’s great that you are cleaning your home up, Doug. What would the owner say about your place if it were not clean enough? Tell you to leave? You won’t find clutter at my place, I can’t tolerate that.
I suppose eviction could be one option. Certainly, they keep the deposit on the chance – likely – that some things won’t be the same as before the tenant took the apartment.
You should own your home now. You’ve been there a long time!
You never know which way to go. Stupid one way, stupider another.
I get it, Doug. Three divorces later, I’ve been through the buy and sell thing.
Here’s a more civil answer, John: I came down with Wegener’s granulomatosis in circa March 2003. By December, I no longer could ignore the symptoms, ended up being transported to the hospital on 19 December. From there, I was transported to the regional hospital in Scottsbluff, then to University Hospital in Denver, where the disease process was brought into control. I was off work from 19 December 2003 till the first workday of March of 2004.
Until 20 November 2004, I lived at my parents, where I recovered sufficiently to move to the apartment where I currently live.
My father went into the care center in August 2004 and the decision to sell the house necessitated the move. Neither my mother nor I would have been able to maintain the property without significant help (paid, of course), which is why she and I shared the apartment till I came down with what my doctor called the worst case of herpes zoster (Shingles) he’d seen in his career: I ended up hos[italized again.
I came out of that seriously weaker than before and I’d been weakened quite a bit already from the 2003 episode.
My mother was moved to the care center the day I was transported to the hospital for shingles care, where she joined my father. (They both lived there till the end of their lives – separate story.)
I have an annual review of my finances with my financial advisor and interim ones when I have questions of issues come up. Among those has been a periodic review of the benefits vs. complications of moving from an apartment to buying a house.
While there have been optimum times for me to buy a small home financially, this is a property tax state, I’d be responsible for maintaining the yard and snow clearance of sidewalks, among the usual issues of home ownership.
Yes, I looked into it, and came close during one short period when my health looked like it was getting a bit better. Then I had another medical emergency!
I am disabled. Though I could afford one property and it would have been economically slightly better than renting (based on my financial advisor’s evaluation for me….), the physical aspects of property maintenance and property taxes just made the deal look a bit overwhelming.
Mowing a lawn and scooping snow alone made the deal look dead to me because neither is something I can do using a walker! I’d be paying someone to do these things.
Hey, I pay someone to do those things here as well as part of my rent. Same with utilities, trash assessment. Also, arranging the move would have necessitating paying someone to do the job since most of my friends are old farts, too. Staying put just made sense at the time and more so now.
Do you have Thrift Stores that might pick up some of the useful items? I try to help others before trashing stuff.
I guess Some things might have usefulness to others, though most of what’s going out is worn out or things like trash. I doubt most of the things going into the dumpster would be accepted by Goodwill, which does have a store here. Some is suitable for the recycling center.
That’s such a cute wink!
That it is! I didn’t notice it until after I looked at the photo during light editing.
Sensibly considerate, Doug
I know I will leave a big enough mess to sort out, so I will, at least, minimize the size of it. My sister has moved several times during her life so has downsized each time. Also, I think she probably doesn’t accumulate lots of extraneous stuff because she is aware of the hassles it brings. I, on the other hand, have lived two places in my adult life and haven’t been that disciplined. I’m paying for that now!
Moving home is a grand – and a big chore
Yes, and an opportunity to sort and trash!
That was the missing word
My landlord also does inspections in the fall, though the maintenance guy who does most of them said he just makes sure all the appliances are working, the drains and toilet aren’t clogged and are relatively sanitary, and he can walk around without having to move huge piles of junk. We have hoarders in my building, and on occasion the landlord will have a junk removal service go in and take out an alarming amount of ‘stuff,’ the sort of things that can collect and get out of hand if you don’t keep chucking it out. I hear you on filling the dumpster, though. One of my neighbors generously threw a La-Z-Boy recliner in ours, making it impossible to put anything else in!
[Winks back at Andy]
Such great portraits of Andy! Sounds like you are keeping busy!
That was supposed to go to the whole group, sorry.
I haven’t reached the hoarder stage, but, having filled the dumpster several times, I realize how easy it would be, especially my increasing disabilities, to become one. The difficulties I previously had getting trash out without it getting piled up in the apartment I mercifully resolved by working smarter, using my station wagon to transport the bags to the dumpster instead trying to hand-carrying them to the dumpster instead. It looked like I was going to have to hire someone to take trash out or impose on friends who offered to help do it. My attitude was if I couldn’t do it, I needed to consider assisted living or the care center. For that reason, I am glad I figured out the way to get it done by myself.