Slow Down Woton!

I was at Petsmart the other day, looking at pet food bowl for the outside feral colony we are managing, and I saw a dog food bowl that I had to try for Woton- the slow down bowl! Woton eats his food way to fast and often pukes because he inhales his food like a marine cadet in boot camp. Of course, we give him no time limits, those are all self imposed. Anyway, we have tried putting a ball in his bowl so he has to push the ball around to access his food, but really it doesn't even phase him.

When I brought home the slow down bowl, I put food in it right away to see how it would work. I put in wet food, so Woton was trying to stick his head in the depressed areas of the bowl (a dog would be able to fit his snout in there), but Woton's head is too big unless he sticks it in the opposite side of the bowl, but he isn't really that S-M-R-T. But he is clever, because the next thing I see is him pulling out his wet food, flying portions of it across the floor, and then gobbling it up. The next day we tried with dry food.

After seeing the bowl the first day, Woton was no longer excited about it and he simply sat there and waited for me to get out his wet food. He was NOT going to work hard for the food in the slow down bowl, and honestly, he looked a little pissed off (I was wondering if I should check my favorite shoes the next morning). So we settled on half and half: half of his dry food goes in the slow down bowl, while his wet food and the remaining portion of his dry food goes in his regular bowls (with the ball). He takes quite a while to go through the food in his slow down bowl, sometimes coming back later after a meal to eat morsels. Take a look:

Happy Easter Sunday!

From my parent's zoo, Sake and a friend:

Ich bin ein Beliner

I am a jelly donut. -JFK

Ich habe ein Deutsch group gefunden. Jeden monat sie treffen fur drei Stunde und nur auf Deutsch sprechen. Viele Leute sind sehr gut (sie kommen auf Deutschland oder haben da wohnen) und venige Leute (endlich Mich) kann nur ein bissen auf Deutsch sprechen. Diese ist sehr gut fur mich weil ich muss mein Deutsch ubungen. Wann ich kein Deutsch sprechen, vergesse ich alles.

I once was blind, but now I can see

I guess it is time to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. I hadn't said anything to anyone because of how freaked out I was leading up to the surgery... but I finally got me some new eyeballs! Paul and I have been discussing (and saving) for lasik surgery for a long time now. I finally have an eye doctor, Dr. Matsuda, who I trust and like; she is thorough and explains the pros and cons of everything.

She sent me to an eye-surgery specialist, Dr. Maloney. Believe it or not, he actually was the person who did the surgery on my eyes and he even saw me at my follow-up visit. I might have known I was going to the best surgeon because he is ranked in the top 10 by some Optometry board, but I definitely knew I was going to the best when I saw that people who could go anywhere went to him too- Nicole Kidman, Denise Richards, Drew Carey, and the list goes on.

The whole process is not on my list of things to ever do again, but it really wasn't bad at all. First my doctor had me come in for 3 visits and bunches of tests, then when I went to Dr. Maloney's office, his assistant, Gabby did another series of tests. One of the tests included holding up her fingers to see how nearsided I was. She did this a number of times from different distances, then left the room to get something. As soon as she left the room, Paul busted out laughing. I had gotten nearly all of them wrong; I couldn't believe it!

I want to take a moment to explain the whole procedure, but those who are prone to sensitivities hearing about that kind on thing, should skip this paragraph...

I was given a Valium to relax, but it really didn't work. Paul was allowed to come into the operating room with me, which was really great for me. Paul held my hand during the whole procedure. They have you lay down, then they strap your head in. Next, they numb your eyes numerous times so you cannot feel anything on your eyeball. Then they put a big suction cup on your eye to keep it from moving, and it presses down so hard on the optic nerve that you lose sight in that eye (it looks like a big grey and red doted blur). That is when the first laser machine was used to make a flap on the cornea. After doing that with both eyes, the doctor removes the suction cup and he pulls the flap off with a metal wire. You can see this happening, and I jumped a bit when he did not pull it lose on the first tug.

After the corneal flap is opened (it is still attached, just flipped "open"), the second laser cuts your eye to the specifications set by all the previous vision testing. I was told to look at the blinking red light. Because your eye is not secured in place, the laser has a pupil tracking device. I tried to hold as still as possible anyway. As soon as the laser starts to pulse you can hear the machine working and you can immediately start to see results. The blurry red light gets clearer- it was amazing. Not until he sealed the corneal flap back onto my eyeball and asked me to look at the clock did I realize how quickly I would see results. I could read the clock on the wall without glasses on! (Although I did have a slight panicky moment when he asked... I was stressed from the procedure, drugged, AND it was an analog clock. I had a flashback to learning to read clocks in second grade and for a moment, I thought I might fail ;-) )

The ride home was the worst part of the procedure (except for paying for it). My eyes were in so much pain, I wanted to rip them out. No one else I know who has had this surgery has had this problem, so it might have been a function of how bad my eyesight was. I took the Ambien when I got home, but it took a while to take effect. Eventually I fell asleep and after 8 hours, I awoke with no pain at all. I had to wear some space age goggles for the first few nights, diligently put antibiotics and anti-inflammatories into my eyes, and not touch them, but now they are perfectly normal. The first few days I couldn't drive at night because of the halos, but they went away as the swelling decreased.

The results are amazing- I was once legally blind. I could only see things across the room that were large enough that the average person could see them from over 400 feet away (like the wall- anything smaller I was sure to trip over.) Now, I wake up and can see the wall, the furniture, and I can read the alarm clock (I am not sure that has a large advantage since it always tells me how late I am, but at least I can see it!)

Jacob told me it would change my life, but I am not sure I understood what he meant until now. I catch myself every so often just looking up disbelievingly and saying out loud, "I can see!"

Midway between midterms

Well, last week I had my accounting midterm, which was scaring the ever living jeebers out of me. (WHY? you ask? Because I haven't had enough time during the week to do all my homework, so each week I was getting more and more behind, and frankly more and more confused. Maybe not working while in grad school has some advantages.) I studied so hard that I was the first person to turn in my exam. I handed in my exam to my professor and he asked, "Are you done?" I smiled and said yes. He said, "Already?" and I tentatively replied, yea... and he said, "I didn't expect anyone to finish this quickly." Well NOW I am REALLY freaked out- did I totally miss part of the exam? Not understand a key concept? Mess up completely? Oh golly! And I have to wait until next week to find out!

In the meantime, I am on spring "break". Whatever that means. I have a midterm after spring break, so you know what I have been spending my week doing? Working on the take home portion of the midterm, studying for the in class section, reading the next chapter in accounting, reading the case studies for my management class, writing up an analysis for one case study, completing the online modules, oh yea, and working. Not to mention the 20 page research paper I should start or the additional article summaries that are due soon.

This weekend Paul and I were hoping to go hiking in Joshua tree, but he is ill (which means I may be soon too if cramming down vitamin C everyday doesn't save me). It might all be for the better, now I have one additional day to study, oh, and probably try to find a summer internship- do you think I can do that all in the waking hours of a single day?

Strangeness finds me

So yesterday I was at Borders and a nice middle aged Asian woman approached me and asked if I would help her with some questions she had about the right way to say things. She actually spoke English fairly well (as in I understood her and her vocabulary was reasonable), but she wanted help on knowing the RIGHT way to say some things. I helped her by answering questions like,

Do you say "I have a winding watch" or "I have a wind up watch"?

However, I came back to Borders today to study for my IS midterm (next week!) and she stopped by my table again. LOL. I am beginning to think that maybe she enjoys a bit of conversation and company. It cracks me up, especially since she really is so unimposing and unassuming (otherwise I probably would have said I was busy).

We caught GO!

Our fifth kitty is in the bag, so to speak. He is really in an uncomfortable metal wire cage with a mere newspaper covering the bottom of it so his paws don't go through the spaces in the floor of the cage. But really, it is all for his own good (and maybe ours too, since there will be less kittens if these guys cannot have any!)

An archive photo of the soon to be named GO cat:



After we have caught, neuter/ spayed, and clipped these guys ears, they rightfully so, have not been by our doorstep to eat since. They are getting fed other places too, but I am a little saddened by the disappearance of them from our stoop. Oh well.

UPDATE: 5pm
Go is a female cat roughly 1 year old.

Woton the menace

It is true, we have a humongous cat-dog monkey. He gets into everything mainly fueled by his food obsession. He can open everything. He believes in escalation, we bring home a cat proof food containers, he evolves and learns to open it. Next he will probably grow opposable thumbs.

In the meantime, here is his newest find:





He says, "What mom? Nothing happening here."

Week two, victims 3 and 4

We caught two kittens at the same time on Friday. Paul rigged the trap so that we could pull a string and release the door when we wanted to, instead of when the cat walked on the trip wire. We caught the black kitten and the white and black kitten, which turned out to be female and male respectively.





I think we need to start naming them, since referring to the black and white kitty only means 8 of the 9 I have seen running around. I propose we name them after the numbers in Japanese:

1 - Ichi
2 - Ni
3 - San
4 - Shi
5 - Go
6 - Roku
7 - Shichi
8 - Hachi
9 - Kyu
10 - Ju



These two would be named San and Shi, since they were the third and fourth cats caught. LOL.

Huntington on a whim

Paul had been stressed about me being stressed about midterms (I was freaked out about taking my accounting midterm) We decided to go over to the Huntington on Sunday to see the new Chinese gardens (yea, they finished... I guess some people are coming out to visit me soon!)

The entrance to the Chinese gardens:






There is lots of detail everywhere, including the courtyard outside of the little eating area:



(eating area)

There are large amounts of waterways in the Chinese gardens, but this is the small one that attaches the Chinese to the Japanese gardens:




The back side of the Chinese gardens:



Heading into the Japanese gardens you can see a wall of bamboo on one side and a wall of cherry blossoms on the left:



Us having fun:

We have another customer!

But this might be the last of the "willing" customers. We have caught, I believe, the brother of the first feral cat.



He was quite willy and hissed to the point that he was barking at Paul. We left him in line to get snipped at the SPCA this morning. Next on our waiting list are at least these four cats (two kittens) that came out for food this morning, but I am sure I have seen half a dozen or so more cats. It is hard to tell, since about five look identical.













There are at least two sets of kittens. The first two ferals we caught are from a litter this last summer (10 months old) but these three are only a few months old:

Trapped again!

Paul and I have always been advocates of animals... we have many that have come in and out of our lives- our three cats, our family's animals, the feral colonies in Austin, and of course the rescue cats and dogs we place in homes. And now we venture into managing a feral colony in Pasadena.

Austin, and now Pasadena support feral colonies of cats. The SPCA has a program (SNiP) to neuter or spade feral cats, so that the cats can be returned to their territory and maintain a stable low population by not reproducing.

Paul and I ordered a Havaheart live trap cage for this very purpose. Paul also bought an instructional video on trapping feral cats, which had some incredibly good pieces of information (such as cats define their space by what they can see, so they ram the cage and will hurt themselves trying to get out, but if you cover the cage, they "calm down").

We left the cage outside for a week, so the cats could get use to it. We would have preferred to leave it open unset, so we could get the cats used to going inside for food, but it seems this is a downside the the Havaheart cage we got (there are Havaheart cages that you can leave unset in the open position.) So last night, after asking our neighbors to bring in the food they normally leave out, we set the trap. We placed a blanket over the cage, paper on the bottom (so we can pick the cat up and it has a "floor"), fresh wet food in the back and a little teaser on the way in... and we waited. I left the window open so we could hear the trap going off, and within a few minutes we had a cat sniffing around the cage. Paul thought for sure they would not be used to going in for food and we would have trouble catching anything, but alas hunger prevailed! We heard the trap door snap shut within 5 minutes!

The poor kitty had to spend the night in the garage, but I left the light on for it (okay, it was really so I felt good, since, as Paul points out, cats like the dark AND it was under the blanket). This morning I dropped it off at the SPCA and I should be able to pick it up tonight! We will release it tomorrow and begin the process over once again.



UPDATE 2/4/08 2:07PM
Our MALE feral cat is doing fine and will be picked up tonight. :-)