Kyrielle
New member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2007
- Messages
- 1,294
- MBTI Type
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 4w5
I had a blog here once before, and then I saw this new blog feature, so I'll just start posting here. This will be something stupid. Like a blog for my newly adopted cat. A reason to make me take pictures of him (I'm bad about not taking pictures of things) and a record of growth.
But that's not all that I'll put in here. I have other things, just not a whole lot of things that are as easily retold.
A quick recap of where Kyrielle is now:
I've worked at the local Tag and Title Office for the past year and a half. Meaning I'm the clerk you see when you come to pay taxes on your car, renew your registration, and title and register your vehicle. It's not a bad job. Every day is different and presents new challenges. I have to both follow the law and accommodate the needs of the customer. It's a very interesting challenge learning to work within the rules to solve something that laws have made almost unsolvable. I end up looking for a lot of loopholes and workarounds. What's actually fulfilling about the job itself is that I help people by solving these problems. That's what pleases me. I love helping people by helping them solve a difficult conundrum. By passing knowledge and understanding to them. (Though I deeply resent those that refuse to try to learn and understand and just expect me to work miracles for them.)
And then there's the actual customers. I see everyone. EVERYONE. From the poorest to the richest. From the one-toothed to the brilliant-grinned. From the locals to the foreigners. If there was any way to make me get used to all walks of society, this job is one of those. Now, don't go thinking that working at the Tag Office is like working at the DMV. It's completely different. 98% of the people I see are perfectly pleasant and polite. It's maybe a 1 in 50 chance that I'll run into someone with a stick up their ass.
Anyway, now that I got my position full-time, I've moved out into an apartment on my own. It's great. I've also learned to play the guitar (I started that back in April) and am slowly on my way to learning all of my favorite songs by the band America (America is officially my favorite band EVER and "Ventura Highway" is going to be my song forever.)
Last year in September, I went with my boyfriend W (same guy I was seeing when I left this place) out on a trip to Colorado and Utah. It was life-changing in a way. Not in any major fashion. I didn't change my habits radically or change my thinking. It was a more subtle change in that I spend much of my time mentally travelling out there in those mountains and deserts. I love those places more deeply than I ever suspected I would. At some point, I have to go back out there...
Now for the proposed purpose of this blog.
To begin... Sunday, August 13 W and I went to the local animal shelter to just look at cats. "I'm not gonna adopt," I said, "just look." In my heart I knew I wasn't just going to be satisfied with looking. (W felt this way, too. If there's one thing that breaks his heart easily, it's seeing an animal in a cage.) We walk past the cages, occasionally taking a cat out to hold and pet. I consider adopting the cat in cage 666 just for laughs (it was, regrettably, not completely black). There were two rooms in the facility, so as we're walking into the second room, W is drawn to this strange-looking, scrawny little 2-month-old kitten with eyes that look too big for his head and a head too big for his neck. He takes the kitten out to hold it, while I look around the rest of the room. As I was turning to leave, I look at the scrawny kitten and he looks at me. He meows and gives me this "Oh god help me this place is awful" look (a perfect puppy dog look) and I knew. That was going to be my cat.
I had to walk out into the hall to gather myself and think. Because I wasn't sure if I was ready for a cat. I had the money, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to commit. Staring that kitten in the face and not feeling sure was emotionally upsetting. I had to work hard not to cry at the thought of leaving that poor thing to its fate. So, I sat down on a bench and weighed the pros and cons of each decision. It was 50/50 either way. There was no clear logical winner, so I decided to go with what felt right, which is to say, taking the kitten home with me.
When he came home, he wandered around the living room a bit, then around the apartment at my heels. He never hid or acted frightened. All he wanted to do was sleep in my lap, really. He didn't eat or drink much, but I didn't expect him to. The next day, Monday, things got worse. While he was already very, very thin (you could count his vertebrae just looking at him), he seemed to have some kind of flu to boot. He never drank or ate anything the entire day, and, worried, I asked W to take him to the vet the next day. At the vet he was given fluids, antibiotic, and Nutri-Cal gel. Nutri-Cal is like space food for cats. It's just sticky, greasy gunk that's supposed to be filled with nutrients, but probably isn't the most appetizing.
At any rate, for the next 48 hours, W and I force fed the poor thing this paste in addition to his medicine and some water. It wasn't until he started to really fight us with claws and teeth that I considered him ready to eat by himself (that and he started to bathe himself and sniff things, which meant he could breathe). Thursday, I created a soup out of his paste, canned food, and water. He'd drink the soup, but wouldn't eat any of the solids. That was all right for the moment, since he was still low on fluids and still pretty sick. Thursday he also started acting more like a kitten should. Friday was much the same.
Yesterday, while I was making his soup, he walked over to the dry food I'd been leaving out and wolfed down everything in the dish. And then he refused my soup.
He ate twice more, always on his own. Though he prefers me to be present for...I dunno. Encouragement?
Since I'd rather he eat canned food, that's all I've fed him today. (W went and got the dry food. I didn't protest, because ANY food is better than no food.) He hasn't complained. As long as I sit nearby.
It's amazing how fast he's recovered. In the course of a week, he's gone from a body condition of 1.5 to a 2.5. At the vet, he weighed 2.1 pounds. Now, I'd put him at around 2.6. In another week, I'm sure his hips will stop showing as easily and his things will even out. I'm also sure that by next weekend, he'll have completely stopped sneezing and wheezing.
Since he has survived the week and is rapidly improving, I took the opportunity to name him. After some thought, I decided on Kamino, after the Star Wars ocean world where the clone army was grown. While he hates water, he does have an alien look about him sometimes.
Here he is yesterday, being a ridiculous cat and climbing along the bottom of the couch on his side.
And with that, I'm starving and I need to go make lunch...brunch. Who cares. It's time for french toast!
But that's not all that I'll put in here. I have other things, just not a whole lot of things that are as easily retold.
A quick recap of where Kyrielle is now:
I've worked at the local Tag and Title Office for the past year and a half. Meaning I'm the clerk you see when you come to pay taxes on your car, renew your registration, and title and register your vehicle. It's not a bad job. Every day is different and presents new challenges. I have to both follow the law and accommodate the needs of the customer. It's a very interesting challenge learning to work within the rules to solve something that laws have made almost unsolvable. I end up looking for a lot of loopholes and workarounds. What's actually fulfilling about the job itself is that I help people by solving these problems. That's what pleases me. I love helping people by helping them solve a difficult conundrum. By passing knowledge and understanding to them. (Though I deeply resent those that refuse to try to learn and understand and just expect me to work miracles for them.)
And then there's the actual customers. I see everyone. EVERYONE. From the poorest to the richest. From the one-toothed to the brilliant-grinned. From the locals to the foreigners. If there was any way to make me get used to all walks of society, this job is one of those. Now, don't go thinking that working at the Tag Office is like working at the DMV. It's completely different. 98% of the people I see are perfectly pleasant and polite. It's maybe a 1 in 50 chance that I'll run into someone with a stick up their ass.
Anyway, now that I got my position full-time, I've moved out into an apartment on my own. It's great. I've also learned to play the guitar (I started that back in April) and am slowly on my way to learning all of my favorite songs by the band America (America is officially my favorite band EVER and "Ventura Highway" is going to be my song forever.)
Last year in September, I went with my boyfriend W (same guy I was seeing when I left this place) out on a trip to Colorado and Utah. It was life-changing in a way. Not in any major fashion. I didn't change my habits radically or change my thinking. It was a more subtle change in that I spend much of my time mentally travelling out there in those mountains and deserts. I love those places more deeply than I ever suspected I would. At some point, I have to go back out there...
Now for the proposed purpose of this blog.
To begin... Sunday, August 13 W and I went to the local animal shelter to just look at cats. "I'm not gonna adopt," I said, "just look." In my heart I knew I wasn't just going to be satisfied with looking. (W felt this way, too. If there's one thing that breaks his heart easily, it's seeing an animal in a cage.) We walk past the cages, occasionally taking a cat out to hold and pet. I consider adopting the cat in cage 666 just for laughs (it was, regrettably, not completely black). There were two rooms in the facility, so as we're walking into the second room, W is drawn to this strange-looking, scrawny little 2-month-old kitten with eyes that look too big for his head and a head too big for his neck. He takes the kitten out to hold it, while I look around the rest of the room. As I was turning to leave, I look at the scrawny kitten and he looks at me. He meows and gives me this "Oh god help me this place is awful" look (a perfect puppy dog look) and I knew. That was going to be my cat.
I had to walk out into the hall to gather myself and think. Because I wasn't sure if I was ready for a cat. I had the money, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to commit. Staring that kitten in the face and not feeling sure was emotionally upsetting. I had to work hard not to cry at the thought of leaving that poor thing to its fate. So, I sat down on a bench and weighed the pros and cons of each decision. It was 50/50 either way. There was no clear logical winner, so I decided to go with what felt right, which is to say, taking the kitten home with me.
When he came home, he wandered around the living room a bit, then around the apartment at my heels. He never hid or acted frightened. All he wanted to do was sleep in my lap, really. He didn't eat or drink much, but I didn't expect him to. The next day, Monday, things got worse. While he was already very, very thin (you could count his vertebrae just looking at him), he seemed to have some kind of flu to boot. He never drank or ate anything the entire day, and, worried, I asked W to take him to the vet the next day. At the vet he was given fluids, antibiotic, and Nutri-Cal gel. Nutri-Cal is like space food for cats. It's just sticky, greasy gunk that's supposed to be filled with nutrients, but probably isn't the most appetizing.
At any rate, for the next 48 hours, W and I force fed the poor thing this paste in addition to his medicine and some water. It wasn't until he started to really fight us with claws and teeth that I considered him ready to eat by himself (that and he started to bathe himself and sniff things, which meant he could breathe). Thursday, I created a soup out of his paste, canned food, and water. He'd drink the soup, but wouldn't eat any of the solids. That was all right for the moment, since he was still low on fluids and still pretty sick. Thursday he also started acting more like a kitten should. Friday was much the same.
Yesterday, while I was making his soup, he walked over to the dry food I'd been leaving out and wolfed down everything in the dish. And then he refused my soup.
He ate twice more, always on his own. Though he prefers me to be present for...I dunno. Encouragement?Since I'd rather he eat canned food, that's all I've fed him today. (W went and got the dry food. I didn't protest, because ANY food is better than no food.) He hasn't complained. As long as I sit nearby.
It's amazing how fast he's recovered. In the course of a week, he's gone from a body condition of 1.5 to a 2.5. At the vet, he weighed 2.1 pounds. Now, I'd put him at around 2.6. In another week, I'm sure his hips will stop showing as easily and his things will even out. I'm also sure that by next weekend, he'll have completely stopped sneezing and wheezing.
Since he has survived the week and is rapidly improving, I took the opportunity to name him. After some thought, I decided on Kamino, after the Star Wars ocean world where the clone army was grown. While he hates water, he does have an alien look about him sometimes.
Here he is yesterday, being a ridiculous cat and climbing along the bottom of the couch on his side.
And with that, I'm starving and I need to go make lunch...brunch. Who cares. It's time for french toast!
