Addicted to the Dot.

My cats are addicted to the laser dot.

It’s problematic in that I keep 2 lasers hanging on bedside table. Every morning, I let the cats into my bedroom and they begin a quest to reach the lasers.

I’m not a fan of playing laser dot. It eventually cramps my fingers from pressing the button and it’s awkward to run two different dots in two different parts of the room.

But they won’t share a dot. And Tim is ruder than Bijou, he is entirely focused on the chase and has no boundaries when the chase is on. Her calico highness will just sit back and wait for him unless it’s directly in front of her. But that means she gets very little fun or exercise from the dot. So I usually have two going at once.

It’s the quest to reach the lasers that is annoying. Because I’m between them and the bedside table. More accurately, I’m the path they prefer to the bedside table. They could just jump up from the floor, but that isn’t quite so annoying and therefore not Good Cat Policy.

And then once on the table there is a great deal of pushing and biting at the pointer as though this will some how create a dot that they can chase. This often involves knocking things over and is noisy.

They understand I’m the one moving the dot. It’s not a mystery to them. They still adore it. Lily loved the dot as a kitten until she realized it wasn’t real and that I was the one creating the moving dot. Then she lost interest entirely and never did more than watch it with bored disinterest.

But they get it fully and still ADORE the dot. Related image

Work and Kittens and Medical Tests

So I changed jobs a couple of months ago. Same company, different department. I work in Billing now. Accounting. It’s fun to learn new things. The actual job though is often tedious. However because they are working in a crazy old fashioned system and because the people who work in the department aren’t really trained bookkeepers (myself included) it’s all kind of crazypants. Yesterday we discovered a rather large error that made my stomach hurt as I was auditing the bill and finding more and more not right.

I am a LONG WAY from perfect in my work life, but I have this ideal of what things SHOULD BE. And sometimes I internalize it, so when I see a mess like that it makes me stressed even when I’m not the person who made the mess. Maybe more so out of empathetic stress for the person who quite unwittingly caused the problem. Because I’ve never met anyone who deliberately messes up. We all want to do our jobs well.

I feel like we need to change things up on how we process the work, but I’m the new girl so it’s definitely not my place to direct that and I’m not even sure what would be the best solution. So.

+++++++++

The kitten is a panter. Like a dog pants. He runs around like a banshee and then jumps on my lap panting. It’s SUPER adorable. But it’s odd too. I mean I’ve seen cats pant, but generally it’s rare. Tim pants daily. Probably several times a day. After each session of zoomies he’s panting. I’m wondering if there is something wrong or if that’s just his little quirk.

So naturally I looked it up. The list of potential medical issues is very disturbing. I am now considering taking him to the vet. Because even though it’s only after exercise, it’s also ALWAYS after exercise. We can’t have him be sick. It’s not allowed. He’s the young one. Also Bijou and I have grown exceptionally fond of the little brat.

++++++++++++++

So, I’ve been having chest pains. Daily. I’m fairly sure it’s anxiety, but it’s there. And I have other risk factors. My father and both grandfathers died of heart disease. I’m overweight. I have high blood pressure that I control with meds. I don’t exercise. I eat terribly. I’m basically a walking statistic. So I told the doctor on my last check up. She ran an EKG in the office and there was one odd thing on it that could or could not mean something.

So she ordered a stress test with echo. I scheduled it. And then they called me to tell me that insurance wouldn’t cover that test. How nice. My doctor specifically told me she was ordering that test because it is much better at catching heart issues in women. But I guess it’s more expensive and so now I have get a different, no doubt inferior, test. This has naturally led to more anxiety and chest pains continue. I don’t get the test for a couple of weeks because that’s how the urgent things work in health care.

Still, I think if it was my heart I would be dead already because it’s literally daily for periods of an hour or more. So it’s probably anxiety or possibly it’s GERD. We will see. Or not since I’m getting an inferior test.

everything is fine

Watering the Beasts

rebel tim

Above us is the Rebel, Tim. He is usually referred to as The Kitten. But I think he’s all grown up now. He’s not a big cat though, so I will probably always call him The Kitten.

He’s excellent at distracting me from my chores and just generally being in the way. In other words, he cats very well.

One of his peculiarities is that he insists on drinking his water just when he knows I will be picking it up to change it. I’m not sure why. It’s not because he prefers the old water because he will also immediately drink the fresh. I’m pretty sure it’s because he knows I will stop and wait for him. And any action that causes me to change direction or pause is GOOD CAT POLICY.

Recently I’ve taken to putting a giant ice cube in the water bowl. I don’t actually have an ice cube tray. I freeze water in solo cups. I keep two standard size cups frozen and one small dixie cup frozen. I put the dixie one in the cat’s water. It bobs around and makes for an excellent distracting toy and he likes to lick it. Bijou shows zero interest. She’s above such things. Royalty does not deem to notice icebergs in water bowls.

Seeing that he is interested in water generally, I decided a water fountain would probably work well. So I bought one. Naturally, since I’ve invested money he just stares, doesn’t drink. At least so far. I really need for it to work because I’m supposed to take a small trip and this water fountain will make me feel less worried about the water situation with the cats. It has a large reservoir and a filter. So I think it will keep fresh water for up to 4 days. And hopefully I won’t be gone more than 3.

The more you rely on cat’s reacting a certain way, the less they are reliable. sigh.

img_20180321_103801028_hdr — Here’s a young Tim, involving himself in my interests. 🙂