(sigh) There were days where I worried about posting too many cat pics, or too many cat stories and turning this blog into a "cat blog". Well here we are in 2014 and there is probably some question about why I have a blog at all, as much as I use it. There was only one post in 2013 and it was my post about Heisenberg dying. Now I have to write about Schrödinger dying and it's not just a cat blog it's a cat death blog, which is a hideous idea. But still, I feel I should write something about my best little girl.

Two weeks ago I noticed she was having some trouble peeing and that she generally seems a little listless. I needed to schedule a checkup for her in January anyway so I went and scheduled her an appointment for the following Monday. She seemed better but not 100% on Saturday and Sunday and so I took her thinking she probably had some sort of low-grade illness. The doctor said she was constipated and so they gave her an enema. I had to leave her for most of the day but I picked up her up in the afternoon. She seemed upset, but understandably so and we spent a fairly stressful evening and night with her sleeping alternated with complaints and more … let's just say evacuation.

Tuesday rolled around and she was very listless and I couldn't get her to eat anything. I talked to her doctor, and we confirmed that she had a bladder or urinary infection. Her doctor said the listlessness could be discomfort from the enema as well as pain from the infection so we started her on antibiotics and a painkiller. Wednesday she still wouldn't eat and I was planning on bringing her in to see the doctor in the afternoon but before that she had a seizure. After the seizure she was almost completely paralyzed so I rushed in for the doctor to see. She was dehydrated and her body temperature was low so they kept her overnight on an IV. Thursday she was still cold and they warmed her up but she never really regained consciousness. Best guess now is that she suffered brain damage during the seizure and by Thursday afternoon it was clear she wasn't coming back and we had her put to sleep.

When Heisenberg died I was worried that Schrödinger was going to take it poorly and I thought she'd be very negative about any new kittens. I have to admit she stepped up to the plate and was more than willing to snuggle with Karin like Heisenberg had all his life and she generally did a bang-up job of being the only kitty in the household. We'll have cats again around here again, I'm not sure when but for now we'll get used to being a family of two. We need a bit of a break before having cats around won't be a painful reminder of the two we've lost.

Seventeen years ago I saw this tiny little runt of a fuzzball bossing around all the other kittens and I fell in love immediately. Since then I was privileged to be bossed around the the mouthiest little cat I've ever known and to learn her increasingly intricate little rituals. I learned how to make a fort out of pillows, an armchair and a blanket that she could sleep in when she was cold. I learned when she needed a snuggle, when she needed to be chased up into one of her "safe bases", and when she just needed to sit on the back of an armchair while I read a book. Well, I've made her last fort, I've given out her last piece of crinkly crepe paper to tear up, I've taken my last instruction from my bossy girl, and I've snuggled my last snuggle with my mouthy, smart little sidekick and companion. She's followed her brother off on their last adventure.

Farewell Schrödinger.

Oh yeah, this thing. Here's the ridiculous thing. I've been meaning to write a whole mess of posts. And in fact it had reached a logjam of stuff. I was paralyzed on writing any given post because I knew there were so many to write. So then I decided I was going to declare "blog bankruptcy" and just write one post touching briefly on all of the topics. The thing is that I decided that in early December and I've had a task sitting in Omnifocus about it for over two months. In that time frame even more shit has transpired that needed to be in the post. In short, it wasn't going to happen. So here we are. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to dump a list of interesting things, no more than a couple of sentences on each. Once it's all here maybe it will free me up to write more on particular topics. Feel free to jab me if any of these catch your eye and you want to hear more.

We got a new TV! We replaced the old set with a projector and an 84" retractable screen. It's pretty sweet!
While doing all of the projector install and wiring I put my foot through the hall ceiling, so we had a big hole for several weeks. This was less sweet.
Back in October Schrödinger got really sick and we had to take her to the Cat Hospital. Turns out she's having renal (kidney) failure and was super-dehydrated. They had to keep her there on an IV for five days, one of which we couldn't visit her at all. That super-sucked and now I have to administer fluids subcutaneously to her daily. (Translation: I have to stick a needle under her skin and give 100 mL of lactated ringer's fluid.) She's doing fine now and she's got a special diet that helps her along.
Not to be outdone Heisenberg had some sort of hypoglycemic shock in January. I came in and found him passed out on the floor with his face in his food plate. He couldn't stand and when I checked his blood sugar it was drastically low. He only had to stand overnight in the hospital but we're still adjusting his insulin trying to find the right balance. He seems OK for now, so we'll see what happens.
Since my last post talked about iTunes Music Match I should probably mention that I turned it on since then on my iPhone and it works well. I find that I can't stream music from the internet down to my phone and then wirelessly to the Airport Express but that's a pretty edge case. It is pretty cool to be able to search my entire music library from my phone. Macworld has a useful article describing how to upgrade crappier audio files after using Music Match. It worked for me and upgraded 4,788 tracks so that's awesome. I did notice one example later where my "explicit" CD rip had been replaced with a "clean" radio edit so keep an eye out for that.
I got Skyrim for Christmas. Probably my vote for best game of 2011. So good!
I also got Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS. It's a lot of fun, but the last few worlds get ridiculously difficult. At one point I was up to well over 100 lives but I'm on the last 2-3 worlds now and I've gotten down to a bit over 25.
Playing the 3DS again really drives home the odd conflict in Nintendo's hardware these days. I like the 3DS and the 3D effect does make some sections of Super Mario easier, but I've also died many times because I move my head or arm and lose the sweet spot mid-action sequence. It's weird that over with the Wii they've made this big push towards getting non-games, this "blue ocean" strategy and then their handheld is so weirdly finicky as to require serious training in how to use it.

So there you go! Hopefully this will clear the decks and I'll resume posting. I have some pictures of the projector install and ceiling repair that I intend to post at the very least.