Psychological Warfare with Cats

"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even." - Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
I have 2 cats.
 
I'll make formal introductions another time, but they are named Sam and Kate.  Both are female, about 10 years old and I adopted them from a friend of mine.  Fantastic cats with definite personalities.
 

Kate (left) and Sam (right)

Sam has been losing weight for a while, but I didn't really think too much of it at first because she was overweight.  Then she started to lose too much weight and I found out she may be closer to 16.
 
Off to the vet we went.
 
Hyperthyroidism.
 
According to Mirriam Webster Online: excessive functional activity of the thyroid gland; also: the resulting condition marked especially by increased metabolic rate, enlargement of the thyroid gland, rapid heart rate, and high blood pressure

She needs special (read expensive) food.

Have you ever tried to feed one cat one kind of food and keep the other cat from eating it?

Yeah.

It's ok for the other cat to eat this special food, but as it is very expensive, I'd rather she stuck to the old food.

I started off mixing the new food with the old food.  She would pick around it. (point to the cats)

I tried the "you'll eat when you're hungry" method.  After three days of looking at her recently acquired thinness, I gave in.  (another point to the cats.)

Sam couldn't jump very high - not the most graceful of felines - so I fed Kate her old food on the bathroom vanity.  Sam was hurling herself up there to get at the other food.

I tried the canned version (even more expensive).  Sam would eat this, sort of, but Kate was jealous, shown by increased aggressivness in their play.  (point 3)

Of course, Sam didn't like it in a chunk from the refrigerator.  So I'd have to mix it with water and feed her on the couch next to me to keep Kate away (yet another point)

Kate was even more jealous so I bought her some cheaper canned food for her.  (how many points is that?) 

Funny, I seem to be losing this battle.

At this point, Sam has decided she doesn't like the canned food either and she wants Kate's food while Kate is avid to get Sam's food.  (I can't win.)
Finally, a PLAN of ATTACK.  I continue to feed them separately but I give them the SAME(expensive) canned food.  I check back and Kate is happily eating Sam's food and Sam is happily eating Kate's.  (Finally, a point for me!)

The next day, Sam is not eating again and Kate is eating two servings and getting fat!

Cats 8
Me 1 (ish)

Sigh.  I surrender.  Back to the vet to discuss alternate options.

Stress

 “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” ― Leonard Bernstein
 

I hate it when I let stress affect my life.  I rarely let it but sometimes I can't help it.
 
And it's the reason I haven't blogged in a while.
 
I got my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification three years ago, but I only started working in the field in October when my company finally opened up a position for me. 
 
The certification is good for three years and you either have to renew it or take and pass another test of equal or greater significance on the Cisco heirarchy of certifications. 
 
Mine expires in the middle of April. 
 
The CCNA material was actually fairly easy for me once I got the hang of subnetting and binary math (not as difficult as you might think).
 
I say this because when I took a class for Advanced Routing, the first exam in the track for a CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), you will understand what I mean when I felt like I had been transported to mars! 

Clear as mud?  I just didn't get it.  At all.
 
So I took another class.  These were at the same community college campus where I took my CCNA courses.  Then my company sent me to a corporate training facility.  Ok, a little clearer but still pretty dim.
 
Thousands of practice questions later, I was finally so sick of looking at it that I just said "screw it" and signed up to take the test this past weekend just to get it over with, pass or fail.  At least that way, I would know what areas I needed to work on instead of just answering question after question over and over.

I then proceeded to get food poisoning. 

Great, what if I'm still (actually) sick on Saturday?  I would be out the (not insignificant) test fee as it was too late to reschedule.

Thankfully as Saturday dawned (it's not like I could sleep) my stomach was settled (or at least not unsettled by bad food) enough for me to get myself to the test and be relatively confident I wouldn't have to go running out in the middle.

And....

I PASSED!  I passed so well, if I hadn't screwed up one, yes ONE, simulation, I would have gotten 100%.

So much for stress. 

Unfortunately, while I apparently understand the concepts well enough to answer multiple choice questions and a few basic simulations, I still can't acutally set up a VPN tunnel with IPSec without looking at the notes.
 
So, now the test is over and I have another three years on my certification. 

And two more exams to actually earn the CCNP...

I'm off to study.

Home, Home Again

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” - Lin Yutang

I'm back home from California.  The amount of stuff you have to deal with when you come home from a vacation is a real deterrant to going in the first place, but I'm getting through it all.

One of my last outings in California was a hike in Riley Wilderness Park.  Anyone who has watched rich women behaving badly in Real Housewives of Orange County may be familiar with the area, it is just outside Coto De Caza where that show took place.

I went there, because I had never acutally been there before and most of the trails were listed as easy with only one listed as moderate.  Apparently, my definition of "easy" is much different than theirs, considering much of it was fairly steep hills.  The best part was trying to get my extra-large, less than agile body across a small creek with no bridge.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the sides hadn't erroded away making the banks at least twice as wide as the water was.  The long jump is definately not my sport.  But I made it with a small splash and a lot of mud, but there was no one to see my ungraceful bound so it never happened, right?

After wheezing and panting up a hill more vertical than horizontal, they were at least kind enough to provide a bench on which to die. On the way down the other side, I came to a fork where one way took you to more trails and some "scenic view" spots, and the other took you back to the parking lot. I'm sad to say, I took the second. My back and knees don't do well on hills, especially when schlepping many pounds of camera equipment around with me.

But I enjoyed the shortened walk on a beautiful day and leaving early put me in the path of the cutest squirrel (or maybe a chipmunk?) trying oh so hard to tug some potential nest bedding out of the dried mud and having very little success. Way too cute for words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target

"Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain." - Doug Coupland

Yesterday, I went to Shaw's Cove in Laguna Beach.  I grew up here, but I don't think I've ever been there before.  Like 1000 Steps, you have a long staircase to traverse to get to the beach (58 steps, with camera gear, ugh!).  Its a small cove often used for scuba classes but I was mostly alone and company was few and far between.  It was a very low tide so a perfect time to check out the tide pools.

 

 

Today, I indulged in a couple of my Orange County favorites. First stop, A's Burgers for some fried zucchini with ranch dressing and a root beer. These are not your ordinary fried zucchini. A's slices them long ways and they are long sticks of fried gushy goodness, dripping in ranch.

Conveniently, the second is right down the street.  I love to go to the jetty at Dana Point Harbor.  It's so peaceful and usually attack free.  Except this time.  I took my yummy zucchini and went out to the jetty to sit on a bench and watch the waves.  I was just about to put a zuccini in my mouth when a sea gull swooped down and tried to steal it from me!  Right out of my mouth!  Bonking me on the head with it's wing for good measure.  Cheeky bugger!  It didn't get it, but at that point I didn't want it any more so I threw it into the air and the bird caught it before I could blink.  Wow.

Then, suddenly, there were two gulls.  Then four.  Then seven.  And more coming.  Ummm.  Yeah.  I finished my zucchini in the car.

California Here I Come...

"You can't go home again" - Thomas Wolfe

I'm off to California to visit my parents.  It's nice going home again, visit my friends, places I used to hang out.  And Southern California is a landscape photographer's nirvana.

It was overcast and rainy my first day, Saturday, but stormy weather always offers stunning sunsets if it clears.

 

Sunday morning was cloudy and gray.  With visions of fog shrouded sea shots, I headed for the San Clemente Pier, but not my luck.  Instead of fog, I just got overcast gray.  But the sun did peek out a few times.   
 

Southern California family activity

 

San Clemente Pier

 

A portrait of a local.

 

 

 
On Sunday afternoon we went to a production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two at the Laguna Playhouse.  The playhouse often puts on fantastic productions and this was no exception.  It was clever, funny, and well acted and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The theater, of course, doesn't allow flash photography, but I snuck in a quick shot, sans flash, at the intermission, of the wonderful set.

Conscious Choices

 After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully.  After five years, look at it with suspicion.  And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.  ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958

I follow a financial blog called The Simple Dollar and yesterday’s post was about “Training Your Intuition” and how to basically make good choices you can trust. 

First, you have to take a serious look at the choices you’re making and be willing to say, “Yes, I am making poor decisions.”

Of course, he was speaking mostly of financial decisions but it also lends itself to any decision in life.  In my case, how I spend my time on a daily basis.

look for a single decision that you make regularly in the wrong direction. It could be anything. Maybe you come home from work and vegetate for too long.

This is me.  I make a decision to come home from work and turn on the TV and stay there until it’s time to go to bed - ignoring housework, friends, studying, writing, taking pictures.  All those other choices I COULD be making on how to spend my time.

IT IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION.

Whenever I approach one of those decision points, I attempt to do things as close to my visualization as possible. The goal is to make the “right” way of doing things feel like the natural way of doing it.

At some point, your conscious decision becomes an unconscious habit.  My next goal is to work on consciously changing that old habit.  Visualize the life I want to be living and make appropriate choices on how to spend my time in accordance with the life I want.

Busy, Busy

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau

I thought it was supposed to SLOW DOWN after the holidays.  I've been busier than ever.  It seems like everything is coming to a head all at once.

I am studying for my certification exam.  I hope to take it by the end of February and have a LOT of studying to do.  It seems my first exam was a cakewalk next to this one, the material being exponentially more difficult.  (At least in my opinion and I finished at the top of my class for the first one!)

I am scrambling to get this trip to Scotland planned so I can make reservations before every place gets booked up for the season.  The Alaska trip seemed a lot easier to plan than this one.  Alaska sort of lends itself to where you are going and what you will do when you get there.  Go to Anchorage = take a glacier cruise.  Up to Fairbanks?  Stop at Denali.

But the Hebrides are many, many islands with many places of interest across them.  Do I visit this castle or that standing stone?  This village or that one?  Stick to the Outer Hebrides or stop off in Mull?  Some of the smaller, less known islands?  Does the ferry even run on the day I want to get off that island?  Geesh!

I'm going to visit my parents in a couple weeks so I have to clean my place.  One cannot leave a messy house when travelling.

Before I go, I have to get my cats to the vet, and myself off to the dentist.  Not to mention a training webinar I have to attent for my future Red Cross volunteering.  And every book I was on a waiting list for at the library has come in all at once.  And since there are people on the lists after me, I can't renew them so I have to read them ASAP!

This is what I get for wanting to stop being a couch potato!

At least I'm being treated to some beautiful (if COLD!) mornings on my walks.  (sorry, most pictures from walks are taken with an iPhone so the quality is pretty bad.)