The House of Bodily Fluids

Me and the missus were awakened at 5:00 this morning to the sound of our cat Fred retching on the bed between our pillowed heads, as this is the area that Fred has deemed his favorite sleeping spot. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but this time the missus was able to grab said Fred in mid-retch and fling him off the side of the bed to do his puking on the floor instead of the bedsheets. Fred is about 21 years old and has gone from being a magnificent specimen of over18 pounds with a long, luxurious gray coat and a long, luxurious gray tail to now a skinny, stinky, matted-haired, no-tailed 7-pounder who poops and pees and vomits all over our lovely home. God love him, he tries to get it in the litter box, but he usually manages to pee on the floor around the box (thus the adult-sized pee pad ever present at the litter box). He’s lucky to poop at all, so the poop ends up wherever he can get it out, i.e. this morning after cleaning up the spew on the bedroom floor, my bare feet encountered Fred’s night-time stool sample as I was preparing to throw out the cleaned-up vomitus. Fred has a chronic kidney problem and is prone to urinary tract infections, and to keep him alive I have to force-squirt Clavamox antibiotic into his mouth twice a day (he really loves this), and we have to inject him with lactated Ringer’s IV solution subcutaneously nightly (he doesn’t seem to mind this so much). Indeed, I got a good deal on a case of lactated Ringer’s at Costco a couple of weeks ago. Otherwise, Fred sits on the kitchen counter all day long and screams for food. His food is on the kitchen counter because the damn dog will eat it if it’s on the floor, but that’s another story.

Our beagle, Lenny, is a rescue who had been passed around from house to house and shelter to shelter and finally hit the jackpot when we “adopted” him. Lenny thinks that the bodily fluids constantly emanating from his buddy Fred are a delicacy, so another consideration in cleaning up Fred’s vomit this morning was once again trying to keep Lenny from licking it up. Lenny can tell when Fred’s working on a poop and will follow him around with his nose in Fred’s butt waiting for the warm loaves to fall from the vault, so to speak. (As I sit here typing, Fred has again shat on the kitchen floor and Lenny snatched up another treat) He can smell Fred poop a mile away, and I think Lenny has managed to dispose of more of it than I have. Lenny has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to snack down on a newly-expunged Fred turd out in the hallway. Lenny himself is a mighty urinator and goes outside to pee on an average of 8 to 10 times a day. As we don’t have a back yard for him to just go do his thing, this means getting the leash out and walking him those 8 to 10 times a day. Otherwise, Lenny will just pee on the floor. Lately, he has taken to peeing on our balcony (and trying to lick it up), so in the relative heat of the summer, the smell of urine seems ever present in the background. I do a Lysol-and-broom on the balcony about every day, but like lilacs or honeysuckle, some smells linger and just don’t seem to go away. As mentioned, Fred’s food is on the kitchen counter, but when we’re not paying attention, Lenny manages to get on a kitchen chair and leap to the kitchen counter to devour any food left on Fred’s dish. Lenny knows he’s not supposed to do this, but it’s one of the great joys of his life, so he’s always alert for his next opportunity. Well, a couple weeks ago, he was once again on the counter eating Fred’s food when I happened to catch him. On leaping to the chair and to the floor, Lenny accidentally caught one of his back claws somewhere on the chair and yanked it clean out, so when he hit the floor and walked away, there were little puddles of Lenny blood all over the house as he walked. More bodily fluid. So, Lenny went to the vet and had it cleaned and dressed and had to wear a dressing and a sock and a cone on his head (and be dosed with the above-mentioned antibiotic Clavamox) for a couple of weeks. He really, really loved this. I’m starting to get some insight on why Lenny was passed from house to house and from shelter to shelter.

Ah, the joys of pet ownership.

Jury Duty

I was summoned for jury duty this past week. Here in California, we have what they call one day--one trial jury duty. You're on the hook for a week, and if you're called in to report for jury duty, you only have to hang out for one day waiting to be chosen for a jury panel, and if you're actually selected for a jury, you only have to serve for one trial. After either one of these takes place, you're off the hook for another year. I'd been summoned a couple of times before, but I was never called to a jury panel. This time, I was called along with 40 other people into the courtroom to select jurors for a DUI trial. They finished the tedious jury selection process yesterday, and I ended up being juror #3. Testimony was supposed to start today, so we jurors reported to the courtroom and waited outside for an hour or so while they took care of other business, and then we were sent to the jury room downstairs to wait for another hour or so. After a while, the judge finally came down and told us that "the case had been resolved." I assume this means they either dropped the charges or the guy pleaded. So that was my jury duty experience for this year.

While I was waiting in the courthouse for those three boring days, I played the look-alike game for various people milling about the courthouse. There were look-alikes for Karl Rove, John Bolton, Jada Pinkett-Smith, my neighbor Warren, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, Matthew Modine, the bald guy from the last installment of Top Chef on television, and a few others I can't remember right now. The best part of jury duty was the cafeteria. I generally like grill food and cafeteria food anyway, and this place was great. The first day I had a chicken taco that was big and juicy with delicious chicken and great toppings for about $3.50. The second day I had teriyaki chicken with fried rice that was almost as good for about $6.50. Today I had the fish & chips with French fries straight out of the deep fryer that was great for about $6.00. So if you're ever in the neighborhood, I recommend the Airport Courthouse cafeteria for lunch.

Happy Birthday

It's the boy's birthday today. Time marches on...... Happy birthday, son.

I Wonder About Stuff

I wonder about...coffee. Cowboys used to drink coffee out on the range, didn't they? I saw it in Dances With Wolves so it has to be true. There's no percolator or Brewmaster or Mr. Coffee out there on the range. What did they do? Did they boil up a pot of water on the campfire and mix in some ground coffee and let it steep and then strain out the grounds? Mmm, that sounds good, doesn't it? Yikes.

And how did people start drinking coffee, anyway? Did someone find or grow some coffee beans and try to eat them raw and say, "Well, this tastes terrible, but I got a buzz. I know! Let's roast 'em, grind 'em up, and make a hot drink out of it."? How do you make that leap? It's hard enough to make a good cup of coffee with a drip coffee maker and some decent commercial ground coffee. How bad did it taste in the old days? And people still kept drinking it? And why do some people still say "expresso"?

I wonder about...gold. Is there something intrinsically valuable about gold that makes it the basis of our currency in the U.S.? Or is it just because it looks pretty? Imagine, an entire system of currency based on something whose value is simply looking pretty. Our currency used to be redeemable for an equal value in gold from the government. I think it was also once redeemable for an equal value in silver. But not any more. What makes a ten-dollar bill worth ten dollars' worth of goods or services? Certainly not the value of the paper and ink. You can't even redeem it for shiny pretty metal any more.

I wonder about...croutons. How did croutons come to be something you put on a salad? I worked in a commercial bakery one summer, and they used to put loaves of old, outdated bread out on the loading dock to dry out and get stale so they could make croutons. Why in the world do we put old, dried-out cubes of stale bread on our salads and call 'em croutons and say, "Boy, I really like these croutons on my nice fresh salad."?

I wonder about stuff...

Bad Mickey

First of all, I'd like to thank all of my readers for their thoughtful and insightful responses to my first annual Reader's Survey. My staff is still analyzing the data, and we'll implement changes to You'll Have This in keeping with your suggestions.

Some days it just pays to read the news. Redux Beverages LLC based in Las Vegas has been selling and marketing an energy drink called "Cocaine." Seriously. Cocaine energy drink, by the way, contains no cocaine but does contain 1,100 mg of caffeine, an amino acid called taurine, something called guarana which is a stimulant from a South American plant, along with vitamins and other ingredients. Redux recently stopped shipping Cocaine and will change the name of the drink after pressure from the FDA and the attorneys general of Texas, Connecticut and Illinois, but they're still fighting for their right to sell Cocaine. Apparently, the FDA thinks that Cocaine energy drink will unfairly cut into the market share of legitimate cocaine distributors or something like that. I don't know which is more ridiculous--the fact that Redux is actually selling a drink called Cocaine or that the FDA and others are trying to stop them.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have reported in the New England Journal Of Medicine that promiscuous oral sex can carry a higher risk of throat cancer than smoking or excessive alcohol consumption. Here's the official report from the New England Journal and here's a snarky summation from The Register in the UK. I was going to write something clever here, but these guys did it much better than I could.

Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Al Aqsa TV has been featuring a television program with a Mickey Mouse look-alike (the link has been corrected) urging Palestinian children to fight Israel and work for global Islamic domination. When questioned at the Home For Retired Non-Digital Disney Cartoon Characters in Burbank, CA, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, and Goofy had no comment.

Reader Survey

Dear readers, please participate in my first annual Reader Survey to determine direction and possible changes to You'll Have This. Thank you very much.

1. Is this blog a waste of time?

2. Does anyone even read this any more?

3. Should I just stop wracking my brain and feeling bad for not posting regularly?

4. Does this shirt make me look too fat?

Please post your survey responses in the Comments section. Your input is greatly appreciated.

Chad

The country of Chad and neighboring Sudan just signed a reconcilliation agreement pledging to cooperate with the United Nations to help stabilize Sudan's Darfur region and neighboring areas of Chad.

I'm sorry, but every time I see the country of Chad in print, I immediately think of some guy named Chad that everyone went to high school with. Ol' Chad has become pretty important in the world lately. Last I remember, Chad worked at his dad's auto repair shop and was flunking English.

Darfur is obviously a very serious subject, but I just love that the warring militia is called Janjaweed. Also, the president of Chad is named Idriss Deby.

Didn't Chad and Deby go to the prom together?