PLAYING CHEF TO FINICKY CATS

Some cats won't eat anything new; some want it all.

Why are cats so finicky? Or, I guess I should say, why are domesticated cats so finicky?

I mean, feral felines do just fine scrounging for scraps and hunting for mice and birds. In fact, they establish vast colonies that become problematic in cities and on islands, making it necessary for humans to trap and neuter them to reduce their number. So, why must my fat, lazy and lovable companion animals demand that I search the earth for the most select morsels of tasty delights to place in their dishes before they will deign to eat?

Now, to be fair, it’s only my younger cat, Flash, who is the picky eater. Shadow, my older cat, will eat anything. She’s lived on the streets and eats like every meal is her last. That’s the problem. She’s overweight and has health issues, so she needs “special food” (read: expensive food) to manage both.

For a while that meant actual diet food, which she happily ate, but it did nothing for the health problems. So, I switched to “fresh food” for both cats, which I buy on subscription and arrives frozen. Shadow scarfed it up, so no problem there. And it helped. She lost some weight and her health issues improved. Hurrah!

Flash, though, doesn’t like change. The transition to the new food was rough. She turned up her little nose at the new food in her bowl. I mixed it with her old food. Nope. I put salmon flakes on it. Some interest. Beef was a complete no-go. Turkey was only occasionally okay. Chicken was acceptable.

Oh, but then there was an interruption in shipments from the food supplier! (There was a mix-up with an order.) To keep the flavors and texture similar, I ground up canned salmon and chicken for the cats until the cat food folks could get back on track. All well and good; the cats ate it. The fresh food has arrived this week from the cat food supplier, but now I’m back at square one with Flash, who won’t touch the “new food” again. AAAGGH!

My daughter, whose cats willingly eat plain kibble, thinks I’m crazy. Maybe you do, too. But “free-feeding” isn’t an option for my cats, since Shadow would eat her food AND Flash’s food all at once, then throw up. I have to measure out her food in three feedings and monitor the meal so she doesn’t eat more than she should. Plus, wet food is better for elderly cats, who need more water to avoid kidney problems. Yeah, I know, the things we do for our pets!

On the other hand, my daughter’s cats aren’t the least bit friendly. They hiss and won’t let me pet them. Mine, meanwhile, like to cuddle and purr. Shadow seeks out pets from our guests, and Flash likes to play with the dogs. So maybe all that fussing over their food has some benefits, after all.

Cheers, Donna

 

THE ROBOT VOICE IN THE NIGHT

The robot voice spoke in the night, disturbing the silence of the dreaming household.

There was a beep, then a string of unintelligible words. Befuddled by sleep, I couldn’t make out the words at first, had no idea what the message meant. No alarm screamed. No dogs barked out an urgent warning. There was just the persistent beeping. And the calm words.

Which finally resolved themselves in my foggy brain: “Low battery.” And again. “Beep. Low Battery.” Every thirty seconds.

What a freaking pain in the rear. Why is it that the batteries in the smoke detectors that are required by law in every home always run out in the middle of the blinkin’ night? Never in the daytime, when it might be reasonable to haul out the ladder, scrape up a new battery, shove it in place of the old one, and test the alarm at ear-piercing decibels without waking up the dogs, cats and people who were happily dead asleep at 4:00 a.m. before the female version of HAL started with her dire warning.

At least this particular smoke detector was conveniently placed in the hallway, where the ceiling is at a decent eight-foot height. Several years ago, I had the same problem with another alarm installed far up in the vaulted living room ceiling. That one just dispensed with the robotic warning and decided to let me know there was a problem by going off at random times, shrieking at nothing late at night or in the middle of the afternoon and responding to no blandishments of any kind to “shut the hell up!” I replaced that one with a new unit boasting a ten-year battery. Take that, spawn of Skynet!

I find it ironic that the battery that disturbed our sleep last night decided to give up the ghost a mere three days before it was due for replacement as part of our usual routine maintenance. Sunday, we advance our clocks an hour for Daylight Savings Time, at which time all good citizens are also advised to change our smoke alarm batteries. Apparently, that was not soon enough for our diva batteries.

Well, now we’ll only have to circle the house looking for clocks to change Saturday night. (My poor husband went ahead and changed out the batteries on the other alarms while he was up before dawn today in his PJ’s.) I don’t really have a rant to share about the time change; I’m neutral on that subject. My body tends to wake up with the sun anyway, so I’ve already been opening my eyes earlier and earlier as the days grow longer. I’ve always said I would’ve made a great cavewoman. I could have spent most of the winter hunkered down, telling stories around the fire in the cave and emerging only now as the weather warms and the sun returns.

And I wouldn’t have had to deal with smoke alarms in the middle of the night.

Cheers, Donna

 

 

VIRAL WARS: REPORTS FROM THE FRONT LINES

The novel coronavirus AKA COVID-19 in its spread from Ground Zero in Wuhan, China has engaged the attention and the fervid imagination of the world in a way nothing short of the Second Coming could do. As one meme I saw recently put it, climate change needs COVID-19’s publicist. Surely if we paid as much attention to that slow-acting certain disaster as we have to this fast-acting potential problem, somebody would be doing something—even if it was wrong.

And so much of our reaction to this viral threat has been wrong-headed, misdirected, unintentionally comedic and just plain dumb. I’m reminded of the old Laurel and Hardy routine where the hapless pair attempt to clean up a pile of scrap lumber. Stan moves a plank to one side of the room and turns back to get another; Ollie, humming happily, goes behind Stan’s back to get the same plank and takes it back to where Stan got it. Lots of activity; nothing gets done.

Yes, the coronavirus outbreak, now officially a worldwide pandemic, is serious business. People are dying, trade and commerce are being affected, lives are being disrupted. But there is a lighter side to this story, too. And sometimes it helps to laugh rather than run screaming in panic.

Some randomly chosen examples from my Facebook news feed (Thanks to Lea Kirk for posting several of these!):

Toilet Paper Battles—Someone please tell me what TP has to do with a respiratory virus. This is not a snowstorm or a hurricane that requires everyone to add to the stockpile in their basements, and yet Lea reports the crowds at her local Costco required rent-a-cops to direct traffic in the parking lot. Apparently, the hoards were all out with one objective—MUST HAVE TOILET PAPER!! The comments on Lea’s post were helpful: Who knew you could find TP at Lowe’s or Staples? I don’t usually worry about toilet paper; in fine European fashion, I have a bidet. But, then, there’s always Amazon. Why fight any crowds?

 

NAW, SHERIFF, I'M JUS' MIXIN' ME UP SOME HAND SANITIZER!

 Other Supplies Gain Value—Just try finding hand sanitizer or Lysol at Walmart right now. And there has been a run on face masks, even though medical authorities have warned repeatedly that the masks DO NOT protect you from the virus. They’re only useful in preventing the spread of germs if you wear one when YOU are sick. (But God help you if you go out in this fear-filled environment with a sniffle. A crowd is likely to gather bearing torches and pitchforks threatening to burn you at the stake.) Here in the mountains of North Carolina, we have our priorities straight. A woman was seen at the local grocery store purchasing five cases of pork-n-beans. Either she’s ready for the coming apocalypse or for a church barbecue supper. Not sure.

Too Many Zombie Movies—Proof once again that Twitter is the Land of the Intellectual Giants and Halfwits, comes this exchange between horror/SF author Stephen King and, uh, an idiot: 

King: No, coronavirus is NOT like THE STAND. It’s not anywhere near as serious. It’s eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions.

Idiot: And how the hell would you know?! Did you even read that book?

Meanwhile, me: SMH.

Got your flu shot? –A few things to note here. The coronavirus is NOT the flu and CANNOT be prevented by a “super” flu shot. But I would wager that a large proportion of the folks panicking over COVID-19 haven’t even bothered to protect themselves from the deadly disease that IS preventable—the flu. Only around 37 percent of adults do get the shot every year and the list of excuses is legion. There have been 45 million cases of flu in the U.S. this year, with 46,000 deaths, many of them children. Why are we not freaking out about that? Because we’re used to it. We’re familiar with the flu, we recognize its course through the body and through communities AND we have vaccines and anti-virals that do some good. Not so yet with COVID-19. The other vaccine that would be advisable right now is the pneumonia shot. Many of the deaths from the coronavirus are due to secondary pneumonia.

Come clean—Okay, quick now, what’s the best way to prevent getting sick with any virus? You learned it in kindergarten, or you should have: WASH YOUR HANDS! Often. With soap. Now, we’re advised to wash for 20 seconds. How long is that? Long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” all the way through or to recite the alphabet twice. But if you’re a Star Trek fan, you can have even more fun with it. This famous recitation also takes 20 seconds (courtesy of my friend and longtime TREK fan Beki Weight):
 

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.

Of course, if you’re a Next-Gen or later fan, you can replace “five-year” with “continuing” and “where no man” with “where no one.” In any case, the cadence, and the required number of seconds, is the same. (As long as you pause appropriately, like Shatner.) 

No more kissy-face—It stands to reason that handshakes, hugs, kisses-as-greetings and other signs of casual affection between people you meet are out in this Era of the New Plague. But TREK fans have this covered, too. Just use Spock’s Live Long and Prosper salute, fingers split two-and-two and thumb apart. Vulcans aren’t known for hugging, either.

Live long and prosper. And outwit COVID-19.

 And don’t worry. We’ll get through this. Or, at least, most of us will. 

Cheers, Donna