Still Knitting

I have loved this cowl pattern for quite a while, even though I have very little call for wearing  a cowl made of thick yarn like this one. The pattern is called Vitamin C, and it was really fun to knit, except for the middle patterning that I didn't really understand and wasn't that impressed with anyway, so I just skipped. I always think open pattern work with thick yarn is just an invitation for snagging. I plan to give it to a friend from Maine, who loves the color green and who has a vacation house on the beach near Pismo, where it gets a little chilly at nights sometimes. If that fails, maybe she'll go home for Christmas one year, and it will come in handy.

 We're one of those families that probably loves their pets a little too much. We recognize that they're animals, and not people, but that still leaves lots of room for doting on them inordinately and being tremendously sad when they are sick or in pain. This picture is of my daughter's cat, Pip, after getting his first bath just after she brought him home after I told her not to, but then convinced me to just see him so that she could "clean" him up so she could find him a home. He smelled terrible, had fleas, and an infection in his ears, and...was obviously in pain, but still had the loudest purr I've ever heard, and, of course, ended up staying with us until Paige took him back to school with her in the fall

He grew up into a beautiful, though somewhat awkward kitty who fit in well with his "sister,"Cozette, who Paige had gotten at the shelter in Davis. For a variety of reasons, Paige decided to come back to Bakersfield to finish her degree, and so we have ended up being Pip and Cozette's caregivers since their "mama" is gone most of the time. (I've told Paige that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and we don't intend to give them up when she has a place for them.)

 A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that Pip wasn't his perky self, as in he didn't get me up at five in the morning by licking my nose. I petted him and noticed an injury of some kind on his haunches, like a bite, which it was. Our local, seventy-eight year old vet gave him some antibiotics, and we thought that was the end of it...until a week later, when I noticed some inflammation near the wound. To make a long story short, after three different visits, our vet misdiagnosed the second problem, and Paige, fortunately, recognized that something was very wrong. We ended up taking Pip hurriedly to a Vet Hospital 25 miles away with a much more sophisticated staff, where they diagnosed a bladder infection and didn't give us too much hope for him to recover. I really thought he would die in the car on the way there. If he had been an old cat, I would have said it was his time, but let's just say, I paid a whole bunch of money on the off chance I could prevent all of us being really sad.

 

After three days in the hospital, two days, of which he had a "catheter" inserted, which I now kind of think is funny--"CAT"heter-- he was miraculously on the mend. I credit Paige with a large part of his recovery since she spent every free minute she had, visiting him and probably annoying the staff a bit by staying well past the usual time limit for visits. I really didn't think he would make it, but, as my son, Kai, says, it seems like some people and animals have a stronger will to live than others., and Pip is definitely one of those. I have spent the last two weeks being mostly in charge of his meds since Paige usually either stays in Bakersfield during the week or isn't home from work until nearly midnight or later.

I've had to give him an unpleasant tasting little pill twice a day, and he's been unhappy, but never batted at me or even seemed remotely interested in biting me. He definitely quite a unique kitty, and he joins the ranks of what one of my friends calls "the million dollar kitty" club, cats that were free but end up costing a fortune.

He's not back to a hundred percent yet, but he's getting to be more and more like himself, napping on unmade beds with Rolly, which is supposed to be forbidden, and just walking by us and "pipping," which he hasn't done for a couple of weeks now.

Paige says that she's going to pay us back, but I won't hold her to it because I would have paid to try to give him a chance anyway, but I do hope she maybe gets the idea that pets can be expensive and keeps her pet family to her two cats, that is, if we ever let her have them back.