Hi. I’m Mateo.
The Mother of Cats has been ignoring us for days and days. I mean, our food bowls were almost empty, and she ran out of tuna over the weekend. I seriously question her fitness as a pet parent at this point…
First it snowed. Like kind of a lot of the wet sloppy stuff. Hannah refused to even go outside on the catio, and I could only stay a few minutes without getting covered in the white stuff because IT KEPT FALLING OUT OF THE SKY!! The Mother of Cats wasn’t letting me out all that much either because for the most part, we couldn’t get her to get out of bed. Seriously, she is the laziest human on the planet. She just stayed in bed listening to books, sleeping, working on her computer, and basically ignoring all of our needs. Finally, it stopped snowing, and the sun came out again. Like magic, the Mother of Cats also started to pay better attention to us. She charged up the laser friend that Hannah likes to chase and ordered me more toys from Amazon. Also, she had some tuna delivered because we needed it DESPERATELY!!
Once she was back into the kitchen, she made more of that crazy squash soup that she likes and spent some time playing with the lemons that her niece sent her. She cut them all up and put them in the countertop oven on the dehydrate setting for hours. Kind of a stupid thing to be doing when I NEED TO GO OUTSIDE AND SEE BUNNIES!!! Luckiy, she had taken care of the tuna issue already… I’m a good boy, but I do meow in emergencies!
Now she can put lemon slices into her tea while she is being lazy in bed and ignoring our needs. Thank heavens the new toys arrived, and the laser friend kept working because I never got to see any bunnies or squirrels or anything for the whole weekend.
The only other thing that she did last week was to set up an experiment with dirt and seeds and stuff.
The Mother of Cats collected the seed pods from her roses last fall, and they have been out in the cold of the garage ever since. She carefully planted half of the seeds and put the trays onto a warm pad on the floor because Hannah pushed the trays onto the floor from the table in the craft room. Silly Mother of Cats, doesn’t she understand that they needed to be on the floor in the first place?
Now the rest of the seeds are chilling in the refrigerator that I like to shove my toys under where they are going to stay for another few weeks. They will get planted then if the first seeds haven’t sprouted. She also put milkweed seeds into dirt that is out in the cold of the garage or outside under the snow: another experiment! She likes to do stuff like that. I think that she would be happier if she played with chirpy toys instead, but what can you do. I’m only one cat, and she is a lot to handle, let me tell you.
This is Mateo, signing off.
Note from the Mother of Cats: The barometric pressure really dropped quickly when the snowstorm came in, and I evidently developed a bit of pulmonary edema when that happened and gained almost 8 pounds in two days. Friday night I realized that I was dizzy and having trouble breathing: diuretics to the rescue!! It has taken several days to get the weight back down and I’m breathing a lot better now, but the cats sure were neglected while I was in bed on oxygen dealing with it. Just another scleroderma adventure…
Also, Amazon delivered the tuna and the chirpy toys overnight. Yay, Amazon. It is good to live in a city with a fulfillment center…
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Dear Marilyn – it is good to see you recovering after a bout during which the cats had to make the the best of it.
I’ll be keeping a cache of tuna on hand from now on. Poor kitties!
I trust the Mother of Cats will keep us up-to-date on how the seeds are doing ..
But as to the neglect you had to undergo – why, you must surely understand that she isn’t feeling too good if and when that happens, Mateo. Suck it up, mate ! – you know it will come to an end.
Dear MoC: you’ve been having a pretty good run of late, so it’s not astonishing to read that you had trouble. As ever, though, you knew how to deal with it. I wish I could do as well with my grossly swollen ankles.
Hannah: I’m keeping my eye on those seeds!!
Mateo: I’m considering opening up a DoorDash account…
MoC: I realized what was happening when I took a good look at my feet and ankles… when I weighed myself it was kind of shocking. We’re heading into another day of very low pressure (29.3 mm of mercury) and I think that I will handle it better this time. Have you tried compression socks? I gave them a try, but my toes turned blue…
In truth, Marilyn, I’m supposed to wear those ghastly stockings ! – but the heat and humidity dictate that I simply refuse. I don’t remember why my GP took me off the blood pressure pills that also include a diuretic and put me onto the ones without; but I can tell you that the result was disastrous for the ankles. Now that I’m on a couple of meds for coronary anxiety (on her part – although the cardiologist is sending me for another echocardiogram) things are looking down, ankles-wise. Sighh ..
I tried the socks for plantar fasciitis (the toes are cut out) and I tolerated them a little better. I wonder if there are foods that will help a little… more googling!! I just made an appointment for another lung scan; good vibes for you echocardiogram. The last one I had done the technician had zen music playing and soft lighting 🙂
Crikey ! – he must’ve liked you a lot ! [grin]
Thank you for taking good care of things whilst the MoC lounged around in bed, Mateo and Hannah! As I’m sure you know, nothing is quite like having cat nursing care to make someone feel better more quickly. 🙂
(MoC: Really glad that you’re on the mend a bit. And were able to stay home and manage symptoms without an admission. Do take care – all joking aside – and get as much rest as you need to.)
Hannah: I’m the best caretaker ever. I stand on her every few hours to check her vitals…
MoC: I’m pretty proud of myself for avoiding a trip to the ER. I guess that I need to stay on diuretics now…
I hope you are feeling better now. That’s got to be challenging. I can’t imagine the amount of pressure you must feel in your chest. Thankfully you have two very good and patient cats. Are you propagating roses from the hips? I’m intrigued.
My chest was pretty unhappy; much better now. I am going to try to propagate from hips. I’m not sure if they offspring will look like the parent because of cross pollination, but it will be fun! Also, I don’t know if these roses are hybrids, so there will be variability even if pollinated from the same rose. I went online for directions…
I’m going to look into that for my roses.
I’m glad you’re feeling better! I had never considered dehydrated lemon slices in my tea, but now I’m intrigued.
I decided to dehydrate the rest of the lemons when I read online that lemon peel is very anti-inflammatory. I noticed that I improved after eating the lemon marmalade, so I was interested and did some googling. The lemon is great in the tea, and these lemons are kind of sweet as that is a bonus too.
Oooh, that’s really interesting! Science is so cool.
MoC, if you had to spend some time in bed, that snowstorm was a good time to do it. Prime time for snuggling under the covers. Sounds like you dealt with the situation quite handily, but then, you had some expert supervision. (Take a bow, Hannah and Mateo.)
I’m intrigued by the rose hip propagation thing and look forward to updates.
Mateo: we are the best kitties ever!
MoC: the peat pots that I planted the rose seeds into were moldy when I checked yesterday: goodbye, peat pots! I will try again with the seeds that are chilling out in the refrigerator in a few more weeks.
MoC, I’m so sorry that you had such a rough patch there! I’m glad you are feeling somewhat better, and that you had such good company 🙂 What a cool idea for your lemon bonanza! They will be delicious in tea, and maybe you will find other uses for them too,
My niece is talking about dehydrating her lemons for Christmas tree ornaments… I’ve used the lemon slices in tea now and they are great!
I bet!
Sorry to hear about your latest set back and hope you are feeling better each day. We slide lemons and put them on a baking tray and freeze them and then bag them so they are easy to take one from the bag and have in boiling water. I love the flavour of lemons. Amazon does a lot wrong but it sure is convenient and a life saver on occasion.
I could not survive without Amazon at this point. It is so eary for me to locate just what I need and then it shows up at the house in a couple of days. I can get lots of things overnight, too, which has been really helpful.