Overheard At Ryerson

While I'm standing in an elevator...
Guy #1 - Hey, you lied, you said this building had a 5th floor
(The buttons only went to 4)
Guy #2 - No it does, I will show you how to get there tomorrow
Guy #1 - Ahhh, Hogwarts
Guy #2 just nods in quiet agreement.

Let's Give It A Few Days

I took a train home on Monday, trying to prepare myself for the possibility of having to put Binx down. (Note: There is no way to prepare for that, I just found myself crying a lot.) Sure enough when I arrived she was in rough shape. She could move her back legs, in that she would stretch them and pull them up if I tried to tickle them, but she had no control of her back legs or any strength in them. She had to drag herself places, which she did often because she hates being made to stay in one place. Trying to get her to stay in her bed turned out to be quite a chore. She slept a lot. She also recognized me and stretched out to me when I arrived, always so nice and so cute when that happens!

Tuesday morning my Dad and I headed into Port Dover to see the vet. I wanted to have a consult in the morning and then if she needed to be put down we would arrange for that to happen in the afternoon, I wanted a little more time with her. (So much crying.) The vet told us that it is very rare for a cat to have a stroke, as we had thought she had, since they don't get blood clots the same way as humans. After giving us a couple of options, I decided to have her X-rayed to help with a diagnosis. It was the right decision, as the X-ray showed that she had fractured her pelvis.

That is crazy, who has a cat that breaks their pelvis? Oh yeah, me.

The vet did say it was not very usual to see a cat with a broken pelvis who hadn't been in some sort of accident. Binx just jumped off a bed and did it, we guess. (She has never been all that graceful.) The vet was also surprised that Binx was not in more pain, she seems very unhappy and uncomfortable, but not in as much pain as would be expected from the fracture that she has. The good thing about it is that it isn't displaced much, meaning the bone can grow a bridge, over time, and heal itself, in theory. The way to do this with a cat is cage rest, and basically not let them move for 6 weeks. Fat chance with Binx, but it is worth a try.

I have left her with my parents at The Cottage and she is being given pain medication twice a day. (Note: So far this has been less than successful, anyone who has tried to give medicine to cat knows that it is near impossible.) She is staying in the walk-in shower, which restricts her movement. Though at any possible chance she frantically dives to get out and tries to escape, and it is only a matter of time before she figures out how to open the doors. In with her is a small tray of litter, which she hasn't been using. She just pees wherever she is at the time, usually in her bed. (This is quite gross as it gets all over her, and she obviously can't clean herself.) There isn't really a reason why she doesn't use the litterbox, she has enough maneuverability and it is just as close to her as her food.

If by Friday she is not showing improvements that suggest the fracture is on its way to healing itself, and if she is still not using the litter box, I don't want to put her through anymore time like this. I will take the train home this weekend and have her put down on Saturday. I hate this, obviously it is horrible. Sadly, I don't have a lot of hope that she will start using it, she has always been bad about the litter box and I think she has just given up on it. BUT, please keep your fingers crossed, pray, send karma etc. because I'm still hoping for a miracle.

MouseMouse

My parents called last night - Binx is not well. It sounds like she probably had a stroke. She has lost the use of her back legs. (Very suddenly, at noon she is running around yelling to be fed, and two hours later she has to move by dragging herself places.) I called for updates a couple of times last night and a few more times today. No improvements. I had my mom take her to the litterbox before heading to bed, after being placed in it she pulled herself forward and then did a somersault out. This was probably pretty amusing to see, as Binx has never been a graceful cat. I am pretty shaken up by the news and had a horrible nights sleep, interspersed with bouts of crying. I'm heading home on the train this evening and will be taking her into the vet tomorrow to have her put down.

My parents say she seems very unhappy at the moment and her quality of life has taken a nose dive. She was a fairly happy blind cat, but she now can't really move anywhere and has possibly lost control of her bladder (or just can't get to the litterbox because she can't really move.) I don't want her to be unhappy. I am going to spend tonight and tomorrow morning with her before taking her in. It isn't a tough decision, it is the only option. While they may theoretically make kitty-wheelchairs, Binx is too old and too dumb to ever use one. It is her time. (She is 18! Which is 88 in human years.) What makes it more difficult is that she isn't in pain particularly, and if it is a stroke she won't really deteriorate much past this until something else happens. However, I feel like this is the right thing to do. I hope that upon seeing her, this feeling will be confirmed.

I am just so sad. I don't want to live without her. (There is no way to write that without it sounding melodramatic and suicidal, which isn't what I mean. I mean, I love living with Binx! I only didn't live with her for one year when I was in residence and for the last couple of months while I was travelling and painting the apartment here.) I hate the idea that she isn't going to be coming to live with me here in Toronto.

I love her.

In A Cocoon

Taylor came to visit this weekend and she came baring gifts. First off she brought Raspberry Squares, which are to die for! Secondly, she gave us two plants and a tree for our apartment and I feel like greenery inside will add to the adult feel. Lastly, for my housewarming gift she got me a set of really good sheets. I will be warm indeed! Bamboo-Blend Sheet Set - 60% Rayon from bamboo and 40% cotton, 320 thread count linens. Bamboo-blend fibers are soft as silk, breathable and come from a sustainable resource. They are cool in the summer and cosy warm in the winter. I have never had a really great set of sheets before, and trust me, there is a difference. They are actually pretty hard to find, since my bed is an Extra-Long Twin and you have to get a special fitted sheet so as to fit it. I slept in them last night and they were amazing. I may go and enjoy them again with a little bit of a nap.

Samberg vs. Johnson

I had seen the preview for this and couldn't wait for the full music video to come out. (Especially because I am not that big on Jack Johnson.) Every time Andy Samburg parodies him on SNL, it is just hilarious. Sadly, I can't find any of the clips of it. Here Jack gets his revenge... or does he.

Oh, There It Is

I was on the phone with JennB. I forget what we were talking about but for some reason I needed to find my cell. I can't remember if I needed to look at a text message or find a number or something. Anyway, I searched for maybe 10 to 15 minutes for the thing, all the while complaining to JennB on the phone that I lost it. I have made a mess of the living room couch which is covered in my school stuff, so I thought it might be under all the papers and books. Then I thought it might have fallen under the cushions on the other couch, we have lost the remotes there many times. Finally I realised, I was on my cell phone!! I had called JennB from it instead of the house phone. Also the land line doesn't even have a cordless yet, so of course I was on my cell.

So Far

What I love about Toronto so far...
-Rrunuv Bayit, our huge and crazy cheap apartment
-Grocery shopping and cooking with Kristen
-The big TV in the beautiful IKEA stand
-Being a TA and experiencing 1st year from the other side
-Playing games with Teri and her Toronto friends
-Amazing readings for school, though never enough time
-Having a cell phone and texting friends in Ottawa
-Having so much to see the I will never be able to get to it all

And So It Is Named

I like to name my houses. It tends to happen naturally, when you listen to people talk about places they live they tend to have a name for the house, though it is often related to the address. I find that a tad boring and in Ottawa, stepped it up a notch. Especially moving into my second house, which was an epic mansion (may it rest in peace) that was falling apart but totally worthy of a great name. So far in my life, these have been my houses...

1984 - 1985 - Cambridge - I was born in Cambridge, Ontario. I lived with my parents in a small house until I was one and a half. I obviously don't remember it, though they have shown it to me a few times since.
1985 - 2003 - Paris - So, the first two are named for the towns. I only lived in one house in Paris so instead of calling it by the street, I always just say Paris. The house was sold this past summer.
2003 - 2004 - Rez - While I was living in residence, Glengarry House, at Carleton Steph, Em, and I called it Glen, to distinguish it from the other residences on campus. However, after moving out it just gets referred to as Rez.
2004 - 2006 - Glen - This house is named after the street and even though it could get confused with my residence house, especially as I was living with the same people, it never was.
2006 - 2008 - Le Manoir - It was this mansion that inspired the need for awesome house names. I wanted to make it sound ostentatious, so picked to name it in French. It means The Mansion, however we have always pronounced it so horribly that it would make anyone who speaks French cringe in pain. It seemed like an ever revolving door of roommates there (including Ami, Em, Anna, Wes, Jake, Jer, and a few others) but they all called it Le Manoir.
2008 - 2010 - Die Höhle - Following in the foreign languages vein, Jer, Em, and I decided to name the next apartment in German. This was because the outside of it was very ugly, a big grey 1960's box of a house in a beautiful Victorian neighbourhood. It look like a German war bunker. Translated it means The Cave and again we mispronounced it terribly, much to the dismay of the one friend I have who speaks German. During the second year Linds lived with us and later on JennB, they both called it Die Höhle.
2010 - 2010 - The Cottage - We got the cottage when I was 16, so sometime around 2000. About 4 or 5 years back my parents tore down the original building and set about building a house on the beach that they could eventually live in full time. Well, the time has come. They sold the other house and live at The Cottage, though the name remains. I have never really lived there, but I would consider it an important residence in my life.

"So what about the new Toronto apartment?" you ask. After about a week, Kristen and I set about coming up with a name. Our landlord is Jewish and we live in a fairly Jewish neighbourhood. (Though there is a Catholic Church right down the street from us that plays its bells all the time and I have seen actual nuns there. However, I don't know where our closest Synagogue is.) We are basing this assumption about our neighbourhood on the number of people we see in yarmulkes walking on the streets, that the local grocery store has a huge kosher section, and the ice cream parlor sells kosher brownies. It seemed fitting that the language we pick for naming this one be Hebrew. This was easier said than done!

Hebrew uses different letters, not just some fancy two dots above the 'o' like in Die Höhle but a totally different thing all together. Hebrew does not have an Alphabet it is instead considered an Abjad. (This means it is a segmental script containing symbols for consonants only, and the vowels are optionally written with diacritics or 'pointing'). We decided that we wanted to called it Grown-Up Apartment. We are working hard on this place to make it nice and to avoid that student feel. But, even with all the online translating sites out there, we couldn't find out how to say that in Hebrew. We had to settle for Adult House (which has some funny connotations on its own). I'm sure, like the other houses I have named in languages other than English, I am screwing this up horribly, but we have called our place...Which seems to be spelt in the Latin (or Roman) Alphabet, which English uses, as something close to Rrunuv Bayit. Obviously pronouncing it is also challenging. The 'Rr' is rolled but then the rest of Rrunuv sounds like it is spelt and Bayit is more like 'buy-it'. Though I'm sure this is wrong. When in a rush, we will sometimes refer to it as just Bayit, and that is currently our wifi name. Now, I need to go and finish painting, unpacking, cleaning, and in general settling in, so that Rrunuv Bayit can live up to its name and truly be a Grown-up Apartment.