Regarding yesterday's moan: I have a vague semblance of a plan and have been given a couple of suggestions; let's see how many spoons I have for dealing with the problem after (if) I manage to get more sleep (leg cramps woke me this morning after only about an hour of sleep).
For a cat who keeps puncturing me by accident when expressing how
content she is to be perched on my thigh or my ribs, Perrine is
frustratingly skilful at keeping her too-long claws sheathed when
I'm trying to snip them off with the claw scissors. In the amount
of time that it takes
anniemal
to clip all four feet, I can manage to clip two claws on each of
Perrine's front feet, having to make repeated attempts over the course
of a few days to finally get all her front toes ... and I haven't
managed to clip her hind claws at all yet. I'm still learning.
Three Four times in the past month, I've woken from very
vivid dreams set at The
Pennsic War, three times with different dream-variations on the
actual Pennsic geography (in at least one of the dreams, walking
down one of the roads took me to the Maryland Renaissance Festival,
and back to Pennsic again; one dream re-used the geography of an earlier
dream). Two have been about the end of the War, starting a day or two
before the everybody-has-to-leave deadline; one was about the start of
Pennsic and setup / land grab. Two of the landscapes have featured
rivers and lots more shade than the real site. And one involved a
really elaborate wooden fort/castle/manor encompassing one group's
campsite, with very smoothly (and shiny) polished walls and floors,
gardens and plazas, and tunnels with big doors and wide stairways.
One of those dreams happened Sunday morning at Darkover. (And I really need to write up how Darkover was, in its own entry.)
Sometime last week, that annoying electronic sound a few doors
away changed again. Currently it
goes something like this (I'm not going to bother counting it out
exactly or matching the tempo precisely):
I'm less certain of the distance and direction than I had been, as it sounded like it might be coming from the north one night when I was leaning out a window (but with all my windows closed it's always louder on the south side of the house). It's possible that what I'm hearing is from two different sources half a block apart, but I don't think so because the synchronization between the two voices seems consistent, to the extent that I've paid attention to it. It runs for ten to thirty minutes then falls silent for thirty to ninety minutes, but I don't think that ratio has been consistent.
Whatever it is, it no longer has that "dying battery" vibe to it. I figure it must be driving some of my neighbours crazy by now. Ifwhen I'm up to some extra walking, maybe I'll stroll around the block and try to get a better fix on the source. (But considering that for the past two weeks I've been trying to get out to the pharmacy but haven't had a day when I felt I could walk that far -- wish me luck trying to get there today; if I fail today I'll need to beg a ride 'cause I'm out of some of my meds -- I'm not counting on a day with that many extra spoons very soon.)
(no subject)
Try to do it when the cat is drowsy, less fight in them! :)
Also a cat can't keep their claws sheathed if you gently press on the paw pad. Put one finger on top of the paw and one on the pad and gently squeeze, the claw will pop right out, snip and your done. Be careful to not cut into the pink part (the quick) of the claw.
Cats often do not need to have their rear claws clipped. Cats can't sheathe their rear claws so they wear down and tend to not be as sharp as the front ones. It's rare that I have to do my cats rear claws.
Hope you are feeling better soon.
(no subject)
Re: making claw come out: I know the theory, and when I'm not holding the claw scissors in my other hand it works exactly that way in practice. When I am holding the snips, she manifests the perplexing talent of keeping them sheathed (though I know this has to be her taking advantage of a flaw in my technique, not a mutant feline superpower, because I've watched
Re: rear claws: I didn't realize those didn't retract. I haven't been worrying about them as much because she rarely catches me with them -- only one poke when losing her balance in my lap, and a couple of painful scratches when she's misjudged her leap onto the bed and caught my exposed leg or foot in her scramble.
(no subject)
I pack nail nippers, so next time you want me up, I'll do her. Must teach you to know the quick.
(no subject)
(no subject)
It's loud enough that if I'm watching television at a comfortable volume in the bedroom, or even at a "hear the dialogue while washing dishes" volume in the kitchen, when the sound starts up it sounds like it's part of the program and the characters should be reacting to it. When I'm not watching television, it's loud enough to be mistaken for one of my computers desperately trying to signal a meltdown if I didn't already know it's coming from outside the house (and whenever it changes to a new pattern, there's another round of "is it that thing outside again, or is something if my house feeping urgently?"). Make it stop? I wish.