That's what I was for many years with Smoke the cat. Joan was Momma, I was the Feed Me Guy. While Steph and Dan are on vacation, visiting Dan's family in Wisconsin. Joan and I are taking care of their 3 kitties. So, I'm feeding 4 cats daily for now, plus giving 2 of their cats medication. They are sweet cats...
That's Tasha (the Queen) on the left, Tango (the orange boy) in the back, and Alfie (with his back to the camera). These 3 eat twice a day. Murphy gets 4 smaller meals daily. Joan, Murphy, and I spent some time at Steph and Dan's home last night, so the kitties could get some human interaction.
This morning, I fed Murphy and took him outside for a while. Then, over to Steph and Dan's to start the feeding and medicine process with their 3.
One of the advantages of our "compound" (with our adjoining residences) is that we can help out each other and share the joint responsibilities. Steph and Dan have been dependent on a cat sitter who would come to their house to feed and spend time with their kitties twice a day when the kids need to be away; that person does not travel to Lavene. For us, leaving our house in Texas for our get-ways meant a closing down procedure for the house, and being dependent on security cameras to keep an eye on things. While we have all the security cameras and such here in Arizona, we can keep an eye on each other's place as necessary.
I'm pretty sure Steph lobbied for this living situation so we could see more of each other... not so they'd have a built-in free cat sitter. ;-)
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And now time to get on with my day: today is oil change day for the bikes. I may "pre-skin" my knuckles before I get started just to get that over with.
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I was done with the bikes by noon. Well, the two scoots went uneventful. Joan did help me pour used oil into containers to take for recycle, in between getting things in the yard put away (and there is a LOT of stuff out there). We're not leaving for 10 days or so, but Joan likes to get things done in advance.
I mentioned the scoots being uneventful. Not so with the CTX. It took an exhausting amount of tugging and grunting to get the oil drain plug loosened. In fact, I broke one socket in the process. Then, the even worse task: getting the oil filter off; it is tucked up under a lower fairing. Joan ordered me a set of oil filter wrenches (2) in anticipation of this. Neither of them would bust the filter loose. Joan took a try at it - same non-results. In the process, it beat the heck out of the filter, so I can't just "change it next time." We decided to let the dealer deal with it (see what I did there?) when we get back. We put the CTX into the Tuff Shed, so there is extra room in the garage.
I mentioned to Joan that "if I had a motorcycle lift" I'd be able to get a better angle on that filter. A short discussion about "space" (and not the kind from Star Trek's final frontier) ended that thought.
Later this afternoon (after I cool down and clean up), I'll get the used oil to O'Reilly's. We keep chipping away at projects.
4 comments:
Good luck with cat sitting and being outnumbered. Fortunately they are all sweet kitties. Your hopes for survival seem good.
Poor Lucy is beside herself. I have some weird sacroiliac thing going right now (no prior history) and can't lie down with her. She needs her cuddle time on me and just cannot understand why I visit but won't lay down in the preferred position. After about three minutes horizontal I cannot take the pain any longer, and it lasts for hours. Hopefully a therapeutic massage will help later today. As Alice says, "You seemed so durable when I married you. I really should have sprung for that extend warranty".
We drove out to Weiser yesterday and spent some time wandering around the campgrounds at the fiddle festival. No good jams were happening at that time of day with folks we knew. The real plan was to watch a series of excellent bluegrass bands in the city park, sitting with some music friends. That was wonderful and at 72° the temperature was perfect. By the time we left town at 9:30 it had been a full day and I had no desire to look for late night jams. It was day trip, whereas in past years we have camped out there for the whole week.
Sorry to hear about your back issues, Earl - that can make any day tough. Women seem to hold up better than us guys... well, our particular women.
72º? Oh, that sounds SO nice! Today is supposed to be *only* 108º... and up to 116º by Friday. Overnight lows are in the 80s. If your back will let you, enjoy the fiddle festival and that beautiful weather.
88° today and we're looking at 99° by the weekend here, but we won't be outside much. We got the one comfortable day yesterday.
After a dealership put on the oil filter once with about 200 ft-pounds of torque, I vowed never to let them do that again. The filter was on so tight that the motor actually rocked up off the motor mount when I tried loosening it. Maddening...
We just got back from the massage therapist and she worked my lower back over real good. It was muscular and likely a result from banjo camp ten days ago, aggravated by lawn mowing last Tuesday while i5t was still vulnerable. It hurt a LOT but feels much better now. With any luck, Lucy can have her big buddy back tonight.
Hi Earl - glad to hear your back is hurting less; you need to keep yourself in good shape so Lucy can have her snuggle buddy back. Wow, I just read that back - I may have to turn in my Man Card. LOL
I am a bit achy this morning, mostly from laying on the garage floor while trying to get a good angle on that oil filter. A definite sign of aging. On the bright side, no scuffed up knuckles.
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