I Call Him Chance

Hello, my special friends!
I'm as happy as my friend Joan here..... walking around the house in her red party dress smoking her crazily mild Camels! Ah- Blissful and Elegant!

Why am I so happy?
Because homework is DONE.
Yes.
Final project for head trauma victim instructor?
Ready to turn in and have her grade it with her special brand of nonsense evaluation.

All that is left is the stress inducing NCLEX.
Enough about that.

It's also time for some of my favorite things - Christmas movies and making cookies.
Also this year we are undertaking a total renovation of our living room - which will begin next weekend and hopefully will be finished by Christmas. I hope to be baking cookies the weekend before Christmas and then (as is my tradition) finish off with a martini and a viewing of Black Christmas. Ah, the holidays!

But this year is different for yet another reason - we are temporarily fostering a homeless cat until he can go to an adoption center.

Last month, November 5th to be exact, Papa Cash and I were outside cleaning our cars. If you can remember that day, it was unseasonably warm here in Milwaukee. (Hard to believe with all this snow outside that I was out in the WARM a month ago) We had the garage door open, and when I was going from one car to another, I saw a small cat come walking down the sidewalk towards me. I see a few cats in this neighborhood from time to time, but they're all so skittish that it was already odd to see this cat walking right towards me....and as he got closer I could see that he was
1)severely skinny, and 2) looked like he'd slept in a mud puddle the night before.

I said, 'Hi, Kitty!' as I greet all cats (Yes, I greet cats whenever I see them) and he started crying back at me, walked under my car, and right past the floor vac and into our garage......over to the shelves and jumped in a box on the bottom shelf filled with oil changing supplies. He kept crying, so we decided to give him some food, go back to the cars, and see what he did. I kept sneaking a look at him and saw him (very slowly) crawl out of the box, eat, and go back to it. He could barely move and it was obvious to me that he was very near starving to death.....I even thought maybe he was just looking for a place to die.

We finished up our work, and he was still in the box. I didn't know what to do but I knew people who worked in pet rescue who did. So I made him a litter box, got him some water, and we took an old blanket and Papa C folded it up and laid it on the floor.....the cat watched everything and as soon as the blanket hit the floor, he crawled out of his box and went to the blanket. We left him and I made some calls and sent some emails...

Later that night I went down to see how he was, and thought I'd try to put his blanket in a box for a more insulated bed. I knelt down and put my hand out to him....and he came right to me, purring, talking, rubbing against me and just generally sealing the whole deal that he wasn't going anywhere until I could find a safe place for him.

Then I pet him and I almost cried.....I didn't even know how he was walking around. He was literally a skeleton covered in fur. I could completely palpitate EVERY bone in his body...his legs were like sticks..I've never ever seen an animal so malnourished and I wasn't sure how he was still alive....and still had my doubts that he would make it.

Here are some photos taken roughly a week after he got here.....they're not pretty, but bear in mind that he looked even worse the day he arrived.

I talked to a friend of mine who fosters cats, and she provided me with a flea treatment, ear treatment, vaccine, and dewormer. I was nervous about giving an unfamilar cat all this treatment.....but he just purred and kneaded the towel, even during his injection.

Another week later we gave him a bath - he was still dirty and smelly- and he took that as about as well as a cat being drenched with water can. At one point I had Papa C hold him up so I could wash his belly, and I found a small wound about the size of my pinky on his chest. Also, the washing caused all the hair (which was probably on its way out anyway) on his underside and inside of his legs to fall off. Now, I had twice checked this cat for wounds and found nothing......but he was so dirty and matted that it took a flashlight for me to figure out he was a boy!

Now, for those of you that know me.....you have to admit that all this was pretty amazing. For one, I managed to procrastinate cleaning my car all spring, summer, and most of fall.....and part of the actual day we did it.....and when I finally resign myself to one of my most hated tasks, during those two hours, this cat picks THAT TIME to walk down my sidewalk.
Also- I love cats and there was no way in hell I was going to kick out any homeless animal like that...AND.....I had just completed an 8 week internship in home care, where my primary focus was.....wound care. Yeah. Someone gave this cat my address for sure.

Anyway, at the time I originally saw the wound, everything about it said healthy wound, good healing, no infection. I checked it daily and everything was fine...till three days later when it blew up to the size of a golf ball.

I have seen and smelled some nasty things as a nursing student and I've been as cool as a cucumber.....but you show me a hurt animal (especially a cat) and I'm suddenly a panicking emotional mess. Thus my decision to go into health care for humans and not animals. I can feel emotionally for people but focus on the situation at hand and remain able to make good decisions.....if I worked in veterinary care, I'd probably be crying daily.

Long story short, I tried to get him into my regular vet (who is awesome) but I ended up in his secondary location with another vet he practices with. Not my ideal but she assessed him and cleaned him up and prescribed antibiotics and a warm compress 2-3x a day to assist in draining. She also determined him to be in good health otherwise and about SIX years old. Which at the time, I found hard to believe because of his size. Now that he's putting on weight, I can see he's not a kitten. He was also BARELY four and a half pounds. This was roughly two weeks into his stay here- and he had put on weight- which probably made him roughly three pounds when he got here. THREE POUNDS.

So I spent almost a week taking a warm compress, putting it on his chest, and wrapping him up in a towel for cuddle/drainage time. He would purr and biscuit me and generally charm me with his affections. Here's some pictures from that time.


He is cleaner, softer, and at this point I could finally feel muscle developing around his neck and between his ribs...although when I held him I could feel his bony backbone very easily through the towel.

His wound healed well, and after the vet visit, I found two more small wounds on the back of one leg. They were scabbed but all scabs have dropped off and only scar tissue is left. His neck was covered with matts, which I finally was able to remove a couple of days ago....everything on his underside is covered with soft down, which is white with a couple of large black patches on his belly and black stripes on the legs.

So Chance survives yet another setback.....as if near starvation, attack by someone or something weren't enough. I can't express what a wonderfully sweet loving cat this is. He loves to be held and pet and has started to climb up and walk on my shoulders when I hold him. He purrs nonstop and you literally can't give him enough love. He will be VERY attached to whoever finally adopts him. That person will need to understand how much reassurance and love he needs and be okay with him being right next to them constantly. This may change as he adjusts to being in a home...I'd like to see him being more playful but for now I just want to see him eat, rest, and keep gaining weight.

I wish I could keep him- I would in an instant- but I already have three and one of those believes that she is the ONLY cat and all others should be swiftly and methodically annihilated. But that's a story for another day..... right now my biggest wish for him is that he finds someone who will give him all the love he needs and never EVER put him outside again.

That's another thing- I can't begin to imagine what circumstances led him to being homeless-....he had been on his own for quite a while to become that thin. I don't know if he got lost or someone just abandoned him....but watching his reaction when we've had to open the garage door- (he hides in his box) I just can't imagine that this cat just accidently wandered away from home.

I frequently watch the Specialty website where I got my cats, just because I like to read the stories and see the cats get adopted. Lately I seem to read more and more cases where the cats were found as strays and near starvation. Are people just dumping their animals because of this recession? I just can't even begin to wrap my head around that......if someone honestly cannot afford to feed their pets, then can you really not be bothered to actually take them to a shelter? As much as I hate to say it, if they ended up euthanized, as much as that breaks my heart....I'd prefer that ten times over an animal starving to death. Especially animals that have no clue how to survive outside. I really have no sympathy or understanding for people that would do that.

Well, off my soap box, and back to Chance. Unfortunately (I really hope this is the LAST setback for my little guy) he developed intestinal upset due to the antibiotic. I'll refrain from details, but any of you who have taken or given a child antibiotic for a long period of time know what I mean. I am now giving him Pedialyte, and mixing a bit of yogurt (to replace the good bacteria in his gut), pumpkin, and baby rice cereal into his food. I think things are beginning to clear up - at least I hope- and that we don't need another trip to the vet.

We are hoping that in two weeks, he will finally go to foster care. The deal is that he will be displayed in public, so the main concern is that he look good for this. He does look much better, and I think in two weeks it will not be so obvious that he is bald on the inside. As much as I will be sad to see him go....he is living in my garage, which obviously is not the best situation. We do have a very well insulated garage, so it is fairly warm considering the weather....and we have built him a special box that is insulated on the top, with a heating pad on low tucked in under his blanket...so he has a little warm cave to crawl into.

But- if anyone reading this lives in the area, or knows someone who might be looking for a pet......personality wise you couldn't ask for much more. He is a little love machine. He does seem at times to have some hesitation about men (maybe he was abused by one?) and the first time Papa Cash went down there to get our snow shovel, he ran and hid. But I think in time he could overcome this as well. I haven't seen him around other animals, so that's hard to say.

But even if you can't take him, or don't know anyone who might want him, please take a moment to say a prayer, light a candle, or anything for my little friend. We really need him to get over this latest hurdle so all his energy and nutrition can go to building muscle and growing fur. Trust me, Chance will love you for it.

Hugs and Purrs,
Mother Firefly

Back To The 80's

Hello, loves!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was great, I cooked as per usual....which is one of my favorite things to do. I'm finally at an age where cooking Thanksgiving dinner is programmed into my brain, and it's mostly autopilot. I even make my own cranberry sauce, which is really freakin' good........I remember as a kid, every year we'd have that can shaped red jelly mass on the table. Always one single spoonful was missing from it when we cleaned up. I'm still not sure to this day who was actually eating it.

But when I started cooking my own dinners, I vowed......
No Jelly Masses on My Table! Not that I made a speech or signs or anything.....and guess what, nobody noticed. Then a couple of years ago I found a recipe for cranberry sauce made with rosemary and white wine.....it was easy AND it was some killa cranberry sauce......now it's become part of my T-Day repertoire.

I spent Thursday night recovering from cooking all day, and I spent tonight recovering from Black Friday shopping. So tomorrow has to be all about finishing my LAST project for this semester, one which I have an absolutely FANTASTIC job of avoiding. It's also being graded by a professor who seems to have no rhyme or reason to her grading patterns............who gives a bare bones of instructions written in a language only SHE can decipher......and then expects us to somehow provide details and nuances that were never asked for..........and whose favorite phrase is:
"I have a head injury, you know'.
Nope- not even kidding on that last one. Even a little.

So I firmly believe that my getting a good grade on this project really depends on her mood at the time, blood levels of her medications, alignment of the stars, etc. Which kind of takes the pressure off, when you think about it. At any rate, I just want it done and over and then be able to focus on studying for my boards.

So I decided to soak my feet and take in a movie. For no real reason, I picked 'Critters' from 1986. I remember seeing this at the theater and I don't really remember anything else about it. So it was kind of like watching a whole new movie.

Critters is a movie that was probably inspired by the success of Gremlins, although the 'critters' didn't have half the money, technology, and creativity that Gizmo and his evil offspring had put into them. They're apparently some kind of convicted felons on their way to an intergalactic prison when they break out and take off for other parts of the galaxy. Bounty hunters are released to go after them, and the critters end up landing outside a farmhouse that Dee Wallace and her family live in.


The most enjoyable part of the movie to me is when the intergalactic bounty hunters go around town, busting into churches and bars, looking for the Critters, and pretty much making a huge mess in the process. One of the bounty hunters likes to pick a new face every time they come across a new set of humans, and keeps morphing to look like different people in the town.

Whoever decided the 'critters' would move by curling into a ball and rolling was a freakin' genius. Talk about $$$ saved by not having to have the creatures ambulate very much. Whenever they needed them to move on the set, all they had to do was lob them across the set. Whoo-hoo. They're basically balls of hair with red eyes and lots of teeth. And oh yeah, they throw poisonous quills. Conveniently, they don't have to move for that either.

We also have a 'cute' part set to funky 80's music where the Critters tear up the son's bedroom to a funky 80's soundtrack. They tear up pillows, knock everything off tables, and eat the fish out of the tank. Those crazy Critters! In one scene, a Critter faces down a stuffed E.T. doll and ends up tearing the head off it when it won't talk.
Oh, the IRONY!

Eventually the bounty hunters end up accidentally getting to the place where the Critters actually ARE, thanks to the spunky little kid who decides to make a run for it and bike into town to get help for his family. One of the Critters hides in the toliet! Funny!

It sounds like I'm making fun of this movie - because I am- but it wasn't a bad movie to watch while my feet soaked. If you're a fan of fun 80's horror, this movie is for you. I don't think I ever saw any of the sequels, so if anyone did, let me know how they are. I might consider checking them out if I get a good recommendation - or a really bad one!

Love,
Mother Firefly

Blissed Out

This is our number two cat, Nissa. She is pretty happy in this picture, laying in her favorite place in the office, hanging out with Papa Cash, and dreaming happy dreams.




My cats hardly ever get called by their 'official' vet names, i.e., the names I use when I make appointments for them. I called her Bunny for a while when we got her, because she hops like a little rabbit. Then we started calling her The Notorious L.G.K. (Little Girl Kitty), or just L.G.K., or Little Girl. Sometimes we even call her Office Cat, since that is her favorite room.


She may or may not be the youngest (we don't know Puff's actual birthdate) but she is definitely the baby. She and Puff were both adopted from the Specialty Purebred Cat Rescue here in Wisconsin. She is a Chocolate Linxpoint Ragdoll who was listed as 'special needs' and had been through three foster homes and one adoptive home before she came to us. She was nine months old and barely weighed five pounds. These last two pictures are the first ones I saw of her.



She was born with some kind of IBS - she went through every test they could do on her and everything came up negative. But she had chronic diarrhea and was almost put down until some kind person fought for her and got her into rescue. Another very kind person worked and worked with her, trying different kinds of foods until she finally came up with a combination of two different wet foods that seemed to work for her. Then she went to a foster home to await adoption, and she was adopted- but allergies in the home brought her back to foster care. Then I found her on the website.

She eventually progressed to regular soft food - the only restriction now is that we have to keep her away from hard cat food, which she loves. But that isn't too difficult since she CAN'T JUMP. She can make it as high as the seat of a chair and that's about it. So Ash's food is up on the counter where there's no way in hell she will ever reach it.


Her First Birthday

Nissa also has a very weird personality. Since she doesn't meow, she makes a funny little noise that sounds like 'meh'. In some ways she's more 'special needs' than my cat with asthma. She HATES to be picked up, brushed, touched on the sides or the belly, and will 'bitch' at you if you try and do any of that. Say 'mehhhhhh' like you have laryngitis, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what Nissa says when we do anything she doesn't like - which is pretty much everything.

She acts like a badass but is really a HUGE baby. So we just do whatever we want anyway because the 'meh meh' sound is actually pretty adorable. Like if I bug her when she doesn't want to be pet, or if she actually feels like playing with me, she'll nibble at my hand and push it down on the desk. Then when I say 'kisses', she licks me. She will also tolerate Papa Cash picking her up and feeding her treats - he holds them away from her and she verrrrrrrrrrrrrry tenderly and slowly will wrap her paw around his hand and take the treat ever so gently from his fingers. Badass, indeed.

She also is notorious for her 'late night love a thons'. Sometimes if I sleep on the couch, she will wait till I'm sleeping, crawl up my body, lay on my chest, and bite at my hands until I scratch her neck and behind her ears. She rolls around, head butts me, and nibbles at me if I happen to fall back asleep and stop. The next day I always wonder if I dreamt it. I'm pretty sure she does this because she thinks we won't remember it, and can therefore maintain her reputation of aloofness. But I know better. She's a big lover inside her crusty exterior, once you get past the bitchiness. And we think her 'act' is pretty adorable.

Which is why I'm so happy she ended up with us and not someone else who wouldn't find her odd personality irrestible. I often wonder if the people who claimed 'allergies' got her home and said, I think this cat is malfunctioning......what is that noise it keeps making??? And then brought out the old 'allergies' excuse and took her back for a cat that worked right.


Meh-meh, my little L.G.K.
-Mother Firefly

The NCLEX and VH1

Hello, my loves. I have been on hiatus (except for my movie update last week) but please don't think I've not been busy.




It's always rushed towards the end of a semester, but this one is especially hectic because I'm also preparing to take the NCLEX on December 16th. It literally took me almost two weeks from the time I recieved official permission to test to the day when I pulled the trigger and scheduled the damned thing. My selection was made easy by the fact that every test was at 8 am except for this one, which was at 10. If I have to be there at 8, I'll never sleep the night before because I'll be terrified I'll oversleep. Having to be somewhere at 10 am vs 8 am lets me breathe just a little easier, and I may actually manage 2 or 3 solid hours before I start having nightmares.

Oh, and the day after I scheduled the test? I sat down to work on my online test - prep program, opened up a practice test (that I thought I felt excited to take, to see how well I would do) and promptly had yet another minor anxiety attack (roughly # 56 of the semester for those of you playing along at home)

Last week I finished the last of the assignments for two of my classes, and am very close to finishing a third. That only leaves one last big project for my fourth class (which I am doing a GREAT job of procrastinating) and studying for the NCLEX.



I also recieved a nice bunch of horror movies from Amazon that call my name every day to watch them and blog about them. SOON. Very soon.



I have made time, however, to watch my favorite TV shows, most of which are on Vh1. I watch just about every damn stupid show on there. This fall they decided to lay on every show they could think of, so now I have FIVE damn VH1 reality shows I am keeping track of.

Sunday:
The Pick - Up Artist: This one I might not watch if it weren't for Papa Cash. I could care less about what guy becomes the pick up artist. But what is an endless source of amusement to me is how seriously the master pick up artist, Mystery, takes himself. He has a 'wing-man' named Matador, for crying out loud. MATADOR. And at the end of the show is the handing out of medallions. Try to watch at least the last fifteen minutes and see if you don't laugh while Mystery explains the name of the medallion and what it stands for.

Charm School: (rock of love version) I think I just watched all these chicks compete on I Love Money, didn't I? (See, told you I watch ALL these shows) I like Sharon Osbourne and how she calls all of the girls 'Misses'. I'm not sure why I like this show, but I like seeing Sharon call out the bitches and put them in their place. Go Sharon!

Monday:
Scream Queens: Probably not too hard to understand why I'd watch this one. Actresses compete week after week acting out scenes from horror movies. Some of the actresses are really good and fun to watch. Although the prize might be the lamest ever - a role in Saw VI. Really? That's the best you can do?

Real Chance at Love: My favorite. I love the crap out of this show. Real and Chance make great TV. I think Chance is a little childish but hey, he ain't my BF, and he's funny. Real is the romantic one, and I am rooting for him to find a good woman since New York and Hoops both broke his heart. But I have to say at this stage in the competition, I am not feeling any of the women competing for him. Step it up, ladies!

Thursday:
Celebrity Rehab: God, could there ever be a more exploitative show? It's also a show to make you feel really, really good about yourself. No matter how depressed you are, you can always watch an episode of this and come away thinking, hey, the economy might be lousy, and I might not have a date tonight, but thank god I'm not Gary Busey! I think Gary Busey could actually become a kind of inspirational speaker, send him around the country to talk to people- call it the 'Thank God You're Not Me' tour. Would inspire millions, I think.

Anyway- if you do watch this show and pay attention to the explanations and observations of Dr. Drew, I think you can learn some things about addiction and addictive personalities and why addiction is so hard to break. And if you watch the show at MY house, you can hear Papa Cash's impersonation of Jeff Conaway.
It still makes me laugh. Every time.

And my favorite part of the show? The Dreamboat that is Dr. Drew. Sigh. What a babe. I wait for the 'short sleeve' moments in the show when I can catch a glimpse of the guns. The man has arms that make me weep.



So inbetween all those shows, I still have my tried and true, the Ghosthunters on Wednesdays. And we're also fortunate that Sci-fi runs a couple of older episodes as well before the new one. I watch them all, doesn't matter if I've seen them three times. However, this last week I realized there is an aspect present in the older shows that I don't see in the newer ones- and I'd really like them to bring it back. Not only does it lend itself to a bit of day to day reality, it also improves the hotness quotient for me. Which, when you get rid of everything else, is really all that matters.

I'm talking about - the GH boys discussing the latest case while doing their day job- working on someone's plumbing. Last week's episode went something like this:

Jason: (working under a sink) Hey Grant, don't you think it's weird that Brian and Steve went through all those hours of tape from that last case and didn't find one thing? Hand me that wrench.

Grant: (Hands Jason wrench) Yeah, they're not even bringing us pictures of dust.

Jason: (tightening up various things) I think the problem might be more with Brian getting sloppy.

Grant: Yeah, I think we might need to talk to them and go through the footage ourselves.

Jason: Great, just what I want to do, go through hours of footage again. Turn that faucet on for me, Grant.

Grant (running water) Yeah, unfortunately I think we might need to look at it for ourselves at this point.

Jason: (satisfied nothing is leaking) Wonderful. I can't wait.

YES! I miss the days when Jason and Grant discussed ghosthunting in their Roto-
Rooter uniforms while fixing pipes. It just made them even more awesome.

I kind of like knowing if I ever get a ghost infiltration, not only will my ghosthunters know exactly how to capture evidence, they can also fix that leaking faucet in my kitchen. Gotta love a man who knows how to fix shit, ladies. Saves some $$ and you gotta admit, it's kinda hot.


Now go watch some TV. It's good for you.
-Mother Firefly

My Year of Free Movies Part 3

Thought I'd update my list from the last couple of months. Unfortunately the first couple months of this semester we didn't see much, but we've been seeing at least one a week for the last month or so....




The House Bunny - I heart Anna Faris. She is completely underrated as a comedic actress. She is the reason I own the first two Scary Movies and Just Friends. She's also in a great horror movie called May, with another actress I like, Angela Bettis. but I think Just Friends is probably her funniest performance ever. She completely kills in that movie. This one was good also, I hope it gets her more roles.


Elegy- The movie is interesting but the take-away message for me was :
Ben Kingsley is 65 FREAKING YEARS OLD.
And he is all kinds of SEXY in this movie.
Seriously.
Not kidding even a little bit.

Burn After Reading - I read some bad reviews for this movie (kind of almost saw that coming for their follow up of No Country For Old Men) but I thought it was fun and Brad Pitt was great.

Eagle Eye
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Body of Lies

Quarantine- I think this was the first mainstream horror movie that I saw at the theater this year that I really loved. Unfortunately during my year of free movies, there have not been many horror films. It's been a slow year. I know this is based on a Spanish film called [Rec] that I have not seen yet, but have heard that it's excellent. Usually the original is the better one, so I can't wait to see that if it's better than Quarantine. It was scary, fast-paced, and I held Papa Cash's hand through most of it. Also what else I liked about it - you never really knew what caused everything to happen. They give you hints, but never a complete and total explanation. And I like that. Some mystery can be a good thing. Mother Firefly does NOT need to be spoon fed. I wish other filmmakers would take a clue from this movie.

Secret Life of Bees- If you read the book, you've pretty much seen the movie. It wasn't a bad way to spend an evening, though.

W.- No big surprises here, didn't make me hate Bush any more than I already do, but Josh Brolin did a great job.

Pride and Glory: I'll watch Edward Norton do just about anything. I even saw the Hulk, for crying out loud, and that one movie where he plays a priest and Ben Stiller is in it and it's really lame. EN was great in this as per usual, but something about this movie was odd. It felt like one person directed the first half and then another one did the second half. I thought some plot and character choices were kind of odd but hey, it was free, and Edward Norton was in it. Enough said.


The Haunting of Molly Hartley: Okay. So remember I said not many horror movies came out this year? And I just cannot make myself see Saw V, so I picked this instead. I saw the ad. I knew and expected it would be somewhat retarded. But I really had no idea of the 90 minutes of pure unadulterated stupidity that I was in for. Holy shit. There are no words to describe just how full of DUMBASS this movie is. I will say that if you intend to see it anyway, make sure you have at least a slight background in movies about SATAN because this movie is pretty much going to assume you already have some ideas about SATAN's motivation for oh, anything SATAN might want to do, because the movie is really not going to fill you in. Nope.

Role Models- This was a last minute decision last night, and the only free one we could make it to in time. Hysterical. See it.

Enjoy the popcorn,
Mother Firefly

Halloween Film #7: Dawn of the Dead

Saving the best for last!
And ending with zombies makes it even better.
This is not only my favorite zombie film,
It's my favorite film of all time.
Ever.

Someday maybe I will talk more about the impact this film had on me the first time I saw it.
But tonight I am just going to sit and enjoy it.
I hope you watched a film tonight that you loved.

Happy Halloween,
Mother Firefly

Halloween Movie #6: Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman

The day isn't going to be complete without
SOME kind of film from my Universal Monsters Box.


So I picked my favorite,
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.