with a bang *and* a whimper
Jul. 22nd, 2006 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonwas how my week ended.
On my merry way home, tired but excited to see Bellyqueen, I got a call from M. "Don't freak out, because everybody's ok, the ferrets are ok, I'm ok, the house is ok. But when you come home you'll see there's a tree on our front steps and you'll have to explain to the policemen that you live on our block, and we have no power..." The tree in front of a house one door down on the other side of the street toppled in the storms yesterday. If the tree were ten feet taller it would have been in our front vestibule, but as it was, the crown of the tree rested on our front steps. The head of a street light rested in pieces on the sidewalk, and electrical wires rested wherever the hell they felt like it. When I arrived, the policeman didn't feel like getting out of the squad car in the rain to stop me, so I ducked all the caution tape, strangely feeling entitled yet like an interloper at the same time, perhaps some small shade of what it would have felt like in New Orleans last fall. I looked at the tree with its scattered limbs, and all I could think was "but I just weeded and cleaned up the garden!"
M told me that he had to convince firemen to break into our apartment to let him in, since he couldn't go up the front steps (at that point, they weren't sure if the tree contained any live wires or not). A firefighter told him we should always leave a window unlocked. Yeah, right. It took telling the fireman that we had pets who would roast in their sealed room if not let out to get them to break in for M. They wanted to smash a window but he convinced them to take out a screen instead.
Because the fireman hadn't wanted to let M in, we were a bit nervous that we might be told we had to leave (the downed wires were connected to our house), so we decided to stay home and not go to the Bellyqueen show. I am increasingly sorry to have missed it as time goes by, but missing the show is much better than going out and coming back to discover we weren't allowed back in, with the ferrets at home. Plus with no AC option we didn't want to have to close the windows. M told me I should just go and he would take care of things, but mostly I just wanted to be with him. I console myself by recalling that while I admire popping and all that, it isn't really my thing, and hopefully they'll be back, or produce a DVD, or something. They played such a small venue this time that I suspect it might have been a testing the waters kind of thing, hopefully it was at or near capacity.
So we sat with candles and flashlights and ate pizza (to hell with good eating, that's what I said) and did the things people do on a Friday night when there's no power, and at midnight men with chainsaws showed up to start demolishing the tree. I was pretty impressed, as I didn't expect any work to start before dawn. I would not want to be out there in the dark using a chainsaw on a wet tree while thunder rumbled and live wires were tied in knots above my head. Whatever they get paid, I'm sure they're worth three times that. I went to bed shortly thereafter, but the tree demolition continued until about 3am, making sleep elusive. Very surprisingly, the power came back on at 3:30, and I slept so soundly from then until 7:30, when I got up to get ready to take the ferrets to the vet.
What is generally a 30-40 minute annual check up turned into a three hour test festival, because of Ronan's issues. He very obligingly provided a couple of stool samples while we were at the vet's, demostrating not only how wrong in appearance his stool is but also how very terrible it smells. Dr. R.: "The lab is going to love us!" A fecal smear and some x-rays later, we now know that he has an enormous outbreak of clostridium I-forget-which-variety, causing enormous amounts of gas build-up in his small intestine (the x-ray was really quite impressive). Poor guy must be in awful discomfort. Ferrets, like many mammals including people, generally have some amount of clostridium living in their gut, but his level is out of control. So we have him on good old metronidazole, aka the most vile substance known to ferretkind, for the next three weeks. I had it compounded in poultry flavor and watermelon flavor, hopefully he'll be able to bear one of those. Seti's exam went fine; he was cranky about the rabies shot, but who wouldn't be?
I liked that the new small animals waiting room is right next to the cat adoption center. There are windows between the waiting room and the center, and the cats come and watch what's happening in the waiting room. The ferrets watched them back and entertainment was had by all. The new adoption setup is pretty cool, if i were in any position to have a cat I would have taken half of them home.
I had all kinds of plans for this afternoon, but mostly I think I want to doze on the couch all afternoon. Then after an exhausting day of that, I will go to bed.
On my merry way home, tired but excited to see Bellyqueen, I got a call from M. "Don't freak out, because everybody's ok, the ferrets are ok, I'm ok, the house is ok. But when you come home you'll see there's a tree on our front steps and you'll have to explain to the policemen that you live on our block, and we have no power..." The tree in front of a house one door down on the other side of the street toppled in the storms yesterday. If the tree were ten feet taller it would have been in our front vestibule, but as it was, the crown of the tree rested on our front steps. The head of a street light rested in pieces on the sidewalk, and electrical wires rested wherever the hell they felt like it. When I arrived, the policeman didn't feel like getting out of the squad car in the rain to stop me, so I ducked all the caution tape, strangely feeling entitled yet like an interloper at the same time, perhaps some small shade of what it would have felt like in New Orleans last fall. I looked at the tree with its scattered limbs, and all I could think was "but I just weeded and cleaned up the garden!"
M told me that he had to convince firemen to break into our apartment to let him in, since he couldn't go up the front steps (at that point, they weren't sure if the tree contained any live wires or not). A firefighter told him we should always leave a window unlocked. Yeah, right. It took telling the fireman that we had pets who would roast in their sealed room if not let out to get them to break in for M. They wanted to smash a window but he convinced them to take out a screen instead.
Because the fireman hadn't wanted to let M in, we were a bit nervous that we might be told we had to leave (the downed wires were connected to our house), so we decided to stay home and not go to the Bellyqueen show. I am increasingly sorry to have missed it as time goes by, but missing the show is much better than going out and coming back to discover we weren't allowed back in, with the ferrets at home. Plus with no AC option we didn't want to have to close the windows. M told me I should just go and he would take care of things, but mostly I just wanted to be with him. I console myself by recalling that while I admire popping and all that, it isn't really my thing, and hopefully they'll be back, or produce a DVD, or something. They played such a small venue this time that I suspect it might have been a testing the waters kind of thing, hopefully it was at or near capacity.
So we sat with candles and flashlights and ate pizza (to hell with good eating, that's what I said) and did the things people do on a Friday night when there's no power, and at midnight men with chainsaws showed up to start demolishing the tree. I was pretty impressed, as I didn't expect any work to start before dawn. I would not want to be out there in the dark using a chainsaw on a wet tree while thunder rumbled and live wires were tied in knots above my head. Whatever they get paid, I'm sure they're worth three times that. I went to bed shortly thereafter, but the tree demolition continued until about 3am, making sleep elusive. Very surprisingly, the power came back on at 3:30, and I slept so soundly from then until 7:30, when I got up to get ready to take the ferrets to the vet.
What is generally a 30-40 minute annual check up turned into a three hour test festival, because of Ronan's issues. He very obligingly provided a couple of stool samples while we were at the vet's, demostrating not only how wrong in appearance his stool is but also how very terrible it smells. Dr. R.: "The lab is going to love us!" A fecal smear and some x-rays later, we now know that he has an enormous outbreak of clostridium I-forget-which-variety, causing enormous amounts of gas build-up in his small intestine (the x-ray was really quite impressive). Poor guy must be in awful discomfort. Ferrets, like many mammals including people, generally have some amount of clostridium living in their gut, but his level is out of control. So we have him on good old metronidazole, aka the most vile substance known to ferretkind, for the next three weeks. I had it compounded in poultry flavor and watermelon flavor, hopefully he'll be able to bear one of those. Seti's exam went fine; he was cranky about the rabies shot, but who wouldn't be?
I liked that the new small animals waiting room is right next to the cat adoption center. There are windows between the waiting room and the center, and the cats come and watch what's happening in the waiting room. The ferrets watched them back and entertainment was had by all. The new adoption setup is pretty cool, if i were in any position to have a cat I would have taken half of them home.
I had all kinds of plans for this afternoon, but mostly I think I want to doze on the couch all afternoon. Then after an exhausting day of that, I will go to bed.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-22 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-22 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-22 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-22 09:28 pm (UTC)It's a mixed blessing, but I'm glad that Ronin has a definite diagnosis and treatment plan. Flagyl is YUCKY! I hope the flavorings help.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-22 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-22 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-23 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-24 03:34 am (UTC)Well. How many of us can say that and live?