ProfessorTomoe

The sequel is rarely as good as the original. Shouldn't make a difference since the same grounds are being used, but in this case you're right.

Dear Lord, I just realized that we're on page 50 of this thread. Yikes!

6:33 a.m. CDT 20170715. WTF is going on here? I'm getting a sore throat again, even after the ENT doctor's "magic mouthwash" chased it away. I've just started on Augmentin for an alleged infection in my broken left big toe, so here's hoping it'll knock out the sore throat as well. I'm drinking hot coffee to soothe it. It's doing a little bit of good. However, this is a Sudafed day (one of the three days I have to take a break from my Afrin), and it's not getting the job done as well as the Afrin does. Damned coffee gas isn't helping matters either. I've sent down a generic Phazyme 250 to show it who's boss around here. I've given up on sleep this morning, between Loudmouth's demands for attention and Baker's fly stalking. I'm not waking up Mrs. Prof since she was up so late at the vet last night. Qualifying for the British Grand Prix starts in a little while, so I'm going to go grab another cup of coffee and see if I can override my pills and stay awake to watch it. My stomach is now arguing with the generic Phazyme. I'm not sure who's winning, but I think I'd better let them settle that battle before I actually start drinking that second cup of coffee. At least the stress level around here has gone down. Loudmouth isn't banging on his door anymore, and Baker has reverted to road block mode. I say the stress level has gone down, but it's not gone. I'm still getting the occasional twinge from the 2nd and 3rd metatarsals in my left foot, despite the cushioning glued on top of them. Nowhere near as bad as on Tuesday, but just enough to remind me that I'm not done with this foot yet.

Fresh Roasted Coffee dot com's Organic Bali Blue Moon coffee, from the Keurig 2.0 compatible cup. For some reason, it's not as good as their Keurig 1.0 compatible version of the same coffee. Something got lost in the translation.

Dear Lord, I've created a monster ...

Thanks, both of you. 4:35 a.m. CDT 20170715. Loudmouth is home and actually eating again after $355.89 worth of vet's bills. They ran the urinalysis "w/micro", whatever that means, with the comment "Cocci noted on sediment." They also ran a "General Health Profile/CBC/Electrolytes" test. Three items were low on the ProCyte Dx test, while three items were high on the Catalyst Dx test. They are as follows: RBC low at 5.79 M/µL HGB low at 8.7 g/dL PLT low at 88 K/µL GLU high at 164 mg/dL TP high at 9.1 g/dL GLOB high at 6.3 g/dL All other values were within the normal range. Everything that was high or low was barely high or low. In the end, after getting subcutaneous fluids, he got injections of Meloxicam 5mg/ml and Convenia. The most expensive test was the Health Profile, while the most expensive drug was the Convenia. He woke us all up at around 4:00 a.m. CDT, banging on the cat room door and sticking his paws under it. I'm glad I fell asleep with my shoe on, because Mrs. Prof and I got to the door at about the same time. We herded him away from the door and gave him some attention. I picked him up—he was noticeably cooler, and actually purring. I put him down, after which he went to a cushion to start kneading, or "making biscuits," as my smallish-town-raised (Victoria, TX) Mrs. Prof would say. (I spent most of my growing up years in the Metro Houston area, while she spent *all* of hers in Victoria before both of us moved to Austin (back to Austin, in my case, where I was born).) After a bit of kneading, Loudmouth surprised the hell out of me by going over to the now slightly-opened window and eating! (The window is open and a fan is running because Mrs. Prof is trying to get the Feliway odor out of the room, but then what does she do? She puts a Febreze diffuser in its place. I worry about her at times. The Febreze has been removed. Now I'm going to have to convince her that the Feliway didn't make Loudmouth sick. Wish me luck.) I'm going to go and get another glass of tea now. If I weren't on this damned hydrocodone, I'd say this calls for a nice Trappist ale (I've got a bottle of Chimay blue in the fridge, and I can't touch it due to the pain pills). Sigh.

Mrs. Prof is at the emergency clinic with Loudmouth. He has a 104°F fever and is dehydrated. His lungs and heart sound fine now, although the vet techs had to stabilize him when he first got there by putting alcohol pads on the soles of his feet. Their first level of treatment is to give him subcutaneous fluids and antibiotics, then take a urine sample once he's hydrated for analysis. I've also asked her to inquire about how much a CBC/basic metabolic panel would cost. If it's not exorbitant, she's going to get that run as well.

Watching live Aussie Rules Football from Melbourne. Geelong is beating Hawthorne 21 to 6 in the first quarter with just over 5 1/2 minutes left. And waiting for word from Mrs. Prof about Loudmouth from the emergency vet.

10:57 p.m. CDT 20170714. Fish goes down much easier than beans on a burrito. Mrs. Prof brought home Long John Silver's Buttermilk Battered Cod tonight. It's not as good as their beer battered cod was, but it's still better than their regular polygonal whitefish, whatever the hell that might be. Then again, I might have been cheating just a bit. Earlier in the day, I felt a twinge of nausea on an empty stomach. I took a Phenergan tablet for it. No nausea since. Lots of drowsiness since, though.

Loudmouth might be sick. You know about him peeing on the bed, which stopped. You also know that he barfed his wet food last night. Well, tonight he hasn't eaten or drank anything, and he's running a fever. He is urinating and defecating, but otherwise he's not acting normal. Mrs. Prof knows a 24-hour emergency vet, so she's going to take him in. EDIT: Loudmouth really must not be feeling good. He let Mrs. Prof pick him up and put him straight into the cat carrier without any objection. That's unusual behavior.

Worst medicine I ever got put on (that didn't threaten to kill me) was Actigall, after my gallbladder came out and I kept having liver/bile duct problems. The stuff made me sweat profusely at the drop of a hat. Example: one of my trips to E3 left me looking like I'd been doused by the ice bucket challenge halfway through the exhibits. I had to go back to the hotel room and take a second shower just to look decent, and I still wound up looking like I'd been through a workout by the end of the day.

We've rotated a scratching pad back and forth between the main house and the cat room so that Loudmouth and Baker can get used to each other's scents. I've suggested to Mrs. Prof that she put some of Baker's other toys in the cat room to get more scent in there. Right now, she's just trying to get Loudmouth to come out from under the bed. She thinks he's freaking over the scent of the last cat she worked with at the pet adoption center. Mrs. Prof is preparing, as am I. She's got experience separating cats at the Garland pet adoption center. They use strong cardboard. She says it works, and she says we have some. I'll stand as backup with a broom, or with my cane if I'm having trouble walking.

That shirt I'm wearing in the above picture got worn in another brush with fame, this time a serious one, still 3D Realms related. I kinda had mixed feelings about it, being the company composer, but it was still a neat event. I got to meet KMFDM back stage at Liberty Lunch in Austin. I think I also stood at the urinal next to Sascha Konietzko before the show began. We didn't brush there, thank goodness. The producer in charge of the original Prey project—the *very* original one—apparently had connections to Sascha. He managed to get the entire Prey team All-Access passes to the show in Austin. It must have been in early December of 1997, since Rammstein opened for them. (I walked past their lead singer, Till Lindemann, after the concert, too.) I stood far away from the mosh pit and wore ear protection, since the acoustics inside the former Liberty Lunch building were ear-shattering. KMFDM did a good show, but I remember thinking that we should have signed Rammstein instead of KMFDM (this was back when Rammstein had just started their Sehnsucht Tour that would blast them to popularity). Anyway, after the show, we went back stage and drank KMFDM's vodka. I got to hear En Esch make fun of Till Lindemann's opening line from their first song and asked him about it. He didn't have a high opinion of Lindemann, apparently. It was a kick-ass experience, nonetheless. I've still got my pass out in a box in the garage somewhere.

I don't know why I forgot to mention this: we did about a 7-minute switch between Baker and Loudmouth. Baker usually sleeps on his window perch in the master bedroom midday, so we closed the bedroom door and opened up Loudmouth's door. Loudmouth needed a little coaxing to come out. Once he did, he tentatively left the room. I had Mrs. Prof take something out of his room and put it out in the main computer room to expand his territory a bit. It worked—he walked back and forth between the hallway and the scratch pad she pulled from his room, tail up and confident. He tried to explore under my computer, but I said, "No." He immediately complied, doing a 180° and getting out from under my computer table. Makes me wonder what he went through when he was someone else's cat. The whole time, his tail was up and doing this crazy little shaking movement at the tip. He did a lot of face marking on Baker's things, but no spray marking. All in all, it was a little nervous trip for him, but not a bad experience. Eventually, Baker must have either woke up or figured out what was going on, because I heard him scratching at the bedroom door and meowing. We led Loudmouth back to his room. Lo and behold, he went right back in with no argument. Mrs. Prof closed the door and went to release Baker, who came running out of the bedroom. We watched for signs of odd behavior, but we didn't see any. He didn't try to re-mark anything that Loudmouth had marked, nor did he act suspicious about another cat being in his territory. I don't know what this test will prove, but we were both excited by it. I think we might try it again, this time with the smell object either down the hall or in our living room.

Mrs. Prof has decided that approx. 100 square feet is too small for a Feliway unit designed for 700 square feet. She's unplugged the unit in Loudmouth's room and is saving it for when we do the "base camp switch" to the larger bedroom that's usually Baker's territory.

I did. I went through two bottles of water, just for a 30-minute each-way trip in an air-conditioned truck. Still felt like crap. That's what this thread is for. Yeah, sorry about all of that yesterday. Thanks for giving me leave to vent.

I don't normally stand in line for autographs, but I made an exception for this one: I got an autograph from Mario Andretti when I was at E3 in 1998 at Atlanta. Joe Siegler of the company I worked for, 3D Realms, took the picture. The irony is that I'm an A.J. Foyt fan.

Bailiff, strike this man and his comment with a lint roller.

11:55 a.m. CDT 20170714. I think I've figured out why I've felt so bad all day. I've taken a gas pill and other medicine to prevent this from happening again. Not sure it'll have immediate effect. I've had trouble all week long.

Mrs. Prof just heard Loudmouth meowing. She wasn't sure why, so she went back and checked. Seemed like he just wanted a bit of attention. She made a discovery, though—the Feliway is an overpowering scent. She's not one who can pick up on smells easily, but even she picked up on this. The cat room is, unfortunately, rather small. It's not much bigger than 100 square feet, which is why I've been pushing to get the meet & greet out of the way. Anyway, the Feliway can handle a room up to 700 square feet. Suffice it to say that Loudmouth is getting a hefty dose of pheromones from the thing.

10:15 a.m. CDT 20170714. Coffee helped a little bit. Managed to get my pills down and keep them there. Also managed to get some soft food down and, again, keep it there, without the help of Zofran. Still tired. Got Formula One practice to watch at 1:00 p.m., so I'd better get some sleep before then.

8:34 a.m. CDT 20170714. Still haven't mastered the art of putting on the orthopedic shoe. Mrs. Prof did clear up when I started wearing the moon boot, though—mid-May. Sure seems like longer when you combine it with the shoe. Anyway, a right-handed person putting on a left-foot shoe does not make for an easy task. I'm really afraid to eat much of anything, because I don't want a repeat of last night's gastric troubles. I feel overall terrible, in a way that's hard to describe. Headache, malaise, clogged sinuses, foot pain (not the bullet kind), and more. I'm risking a cup of coffee to see if it'll help, but a few sips in I can feel that it's not going to do me much good. My sine wave is way below zero on the Y axis right now. I think the drama with Mrs. Prof (see Loudmouth's Journey Inside thread) has taken a lot of energy out of me, and the day has barely started (for the second time). Could be due to the infection in my big toe. I predict that this is going to be another one of those days where I spend most of my day asleep.

Better news this morning for Loudmouth, post-Feliway installation. He used his litter box for both functions and has not thrown up his breakfast yet. As for Baker, Mrs. Prof claims she forgot to move his feeding station. I'm not buying it. She gave me flak last night over the move, saying she wanted to leave it in the same place for a couple of days and not just one-and-a-half. Well, whatever the case, she didn't move his feeding station. I did, and obviously so. I even followed up the move by giving Baker his daily freeze-dried chicken treats a bit early, right by the feeding station. Baker did his tricks (up, shake, sit, high five) by the feeder, then went on to eat from it briefly before doing his covering action. I'd say it was a success, despite what I suspect was Mrs. Prof's alleged attempt to torpedo it. N.B.: I could be wrong on the torpedoing, since she claimed early morning syndrome (just woke up, first cup of coffee, etc.), but she seemed awfully damned chipper for someone who'd just woke up. I'm usually the morning person (gack), but she was cheerful until I asked if she'd moved the feeding station. Too cheerful, if you ask me.

I've reached my like quota for the day, somehow. Consider this post liked.