Tuna Talkin

Posted by on May 13, 2019 No comments

I like tuna fish salad and that is what this post is about.  I have tried a lot of different tuna at different places and here is a quick roundup of the different majorly-available versions.

When I moved here in 2004, there was a local sports bar called Touchdown Eddies.  They had incredible tuna salad.  I would eat there kind of regularly and was never disappointed.  Sometime around 2007, they closed down and I have missed them ever since.  In fact, my very first Facebook post (I was a really late adopter) was a lament on the demise of Touchdown Eddies.  And since their closure, I have been trying especially hard to find tuna salad that is as good as theirs.

My quest for the best took many years, but you should know, I have found it.  Obviously, my preference may not be the same as anyone else’s, so I’ll run through my experiences and indicate what’s different about each recipe that makes it unique.

  • Subway – This is the barebones version of tuna salad.  Just mayo and tuna.  Inoffensive and probably a decent choice just because it’s so simple.  There’s nothing odd to turn anyone off or strike up any allergies.
  • Firehouse Subs – This recipe has relish in it, which is not to my liking.  If you like your tuna salad with a bit of sweet in it, this might the one you’d like.
  • Jason’s Deli – This recipe has hard-boiled egg in it.  It’s ok, but not exactly what I’m looking for.
  • Panera Bread – This recipe has mustard in it.  I ate it for quite some time wondering what the weird flavor was in it.  It tasted a little like lemon to me.  One day, it was much stronger than usual and I was concerned that something was spoiled.  They also season it with pepper, which is nice.
  • Toojays Deli – Another bland version like Subway. 
  • Jersey Mikes – This recipe has celery in it, to give it some crunch and also a tiny bit of bitterness or tang (as celery has).  They also use pepper mixed in.

And the winner for me is Jersey Mikes.  It ended my search as it has the same special ingredient that Touchdown Eddies had.  I originally went to Jersey Mikes and I got my usual test for new sub places – turkey.  It passed, so I ate turkey subs there infrequently.  One day, I asked for a sample of their tuna and was sold.  I only eat tuna there now and I visit multiple times a week instead of once every couple months.

I had told myself numerous times that if I found a place that had tuna salad as good as Touchdown Eddies, I would be eating there all the time.  I have found that place and am making good on my promise.

Changing My Tune With A New Band

Posted by on May 10, 2019 No comments

I posted before about the recent death and dismemberment of the Microsoft Band.  I had pretty much given up on fitness tracking and fitness in general about a year ago.  In that time, as you might expect with someone not as young anymore, with more health issues than none, it had a detrimental effect on my wellbeing.

Without dwelling on the negative aspects of that situation, I powered back on again.  With a new blog tagline to lead the way, I began mentally preparing myself for change.  Positive change, I mean.  I’ve had plenty of other changes already.  Along the way, I happened to see something about a high-feature, low-cost fitness tracker, the Huawei Band 3 Pro.  Very interesting.

In my mind, I was just imagining it as the next version of the MS Band (which stopped at v2), but the design was more standard – no extra bits in the strap and clasp.  But, it did have the one feature that kept me from immediately replacing my MS Band – built in GPS.  And the price was about 25% what I paid for my last MS Band.  And it’s waterproof, which doesn’t mean much to me, but might for others.

I bit the bullet the other day and ordered one, in blue of course.  I’ll be able to use it this weekend.  In the meantime, I’ve begun walking on work breaks again, which is something that ended with the departure of AK, right around the time I gave up on my Band.  Of course I would begin this just as the furnace of summer heat is kicking on.  But a start is a start; building momentum and all that shit.

So, to remember a little about my last post, I’m putting my trust in a new company to let me use their hardware and software for as long as I can.  Will the hardware outlast the software this time?  We’ll have to see.  At least I won’t have paid too much for the experiment.

Another Glorious Microsoft Sunset

Posted by on May 9, 2019 No comments

I remember when Microsoft discontinued Live Spaces, which held my blog.  Obviously, I’ve been happily living in WP Land since them.  I remember when Microsoft discontinued MS Money.  I switched to Quicken and eventually switched back and lived with the limited functionality provided in the sunset edition.  I remember when Microsoft discontinued Zune.  I enjoyed my devices until the point that a Windows 10 update disabled the syncing capability in the Zune software, then they were thrown away.  I remember when Microsoft discontinued the MS Band.  I used it for another year after that and for whatever reason, I just started feeling jaded while wearing it.  It sat on the shelf for months and eventually got thrown out.

It was only a couple of months ago Microsoft decided to discontinue the software that drives the Band.  The hardware is useless without the software, so even if I did still have and want to slap the Band back on, I would have no way to use it.  Along with that discontinuation, they are shutting down HealthVault.  That is a major capitulation.

HealthVault was where the band stored all its data.  It created nice graphs and charts and had the capability to hold all your medical history and data.  It was the data repository for a lot of actual medical devices like scales and glucose meters and heart monitors.  And it’s all going away.  I took a look at my old data before it all disappears.  It looks like my two MS Bands recorded data between 7/17/2015 and 1/28/2018.  All my walks, all my sleeps, some random exercise sessions, and my daily step counts.

And this is something I want to say over and over and over.  FUCK THE CLOUD.  FUCK IT TO HELL.

The fact that you can’t own anything anymore is absolute bullshit.  Let’s look at my history.  Live Spaces was free and it was taken away.  I was able to preserve my data my moving it to WordPress, which is also free and could disappear at any time.  True, but, I can install WordPress on my own web server (and I do have an instance running on my web server!) and it will never go away again.  MS Money was not free and was discontinued.  I was able to keep using it afterwards.  This is how things should be.  MS Band was not free and was taken away.  Microsoft offered refunds to recent Band purchasers, but the point is, the maker should not determine when you will stop using something you paid for.  And all this cloud-powered bullshit, there needs to be an offline version available.  Is there anything that can function anymore without being online??

And this whole, giant, disgusting concept of “it’s free as long as we want to make it available” has got to stop.  It’s only a matter of time before people get burnt enough that they will refuse to use your products at all because it’s a given it will disappear at a random future date.  Make a product, sell the fucking thing, and let people use it.

Old And Desirable

Posted by on May 7, 2019 No comments

Today, out thrift shopping, I happened across a couple of pieces of stereo equipment.  You know, that’s exactly what I need is more stereo stuff.  I must have a third stereo in my house.  Maybe it will go in the guest bathroom.

That’s not what I was thinking, exactly.  The thought I had was, “I’ve seen this before.”  I’d seen pictures of it in forum posts of people bragging about their systems and others drooling and praising those people’s stereos.  This was one of those stereos.  It was old, like older than me, old.  And it was neat looking in that retro way.  From pictures I’d seen, I knew what it would look like powered up.  The power level meters would have a beautiful, soft aqua glow.  But on the whole, it’s not my aesthetic.

BUT, it is one of those impossibly rare finds, and the price was reasonable.  Only $20 per piece, $40 out the door.  This is the same thrift shop at which I bought my other retro stereo.  That stereo only cost me $18.  So I walked swiftly back up front to get a shopping cart (because these components are easily 60 pounds together) and made off with my spoils.

Back at work and back online, I do a quick search on the eBay for the components.  Each one is selling for about $1000.  So, assuming these pieces work, I have a $2000 stereo for the price of $40.  But again, it’s not really my thing.  There seems something sacrilegious about running a CD player through a 60’s era stereo.  This system was made for vinyl, and that’s not what I do.

In fact, to give an idea of what the preamp is capable of, it has inputs for two turntables, three (3!) tape decks, radio tuner, and another input.  You can output to three different destinations including a monitor output.  It almost seems like a piece of equipment you’d find in a broadcasting studio.  It has a function called “expansion” that is supposed to work the opposite of a compressor: make quiet parts more quiet and loud parts louder.  Crazy.

So my initial plan is just to clean it up and flip it, assuming it works well.  Even if it doesn’t work well, the place I plan to sell to is a repair shop.

The New Retail

Posted by on May 6, 2019 No comments

Here’s one of the ideas that could be extremely lucrative until the tide changes and the master takes control.  By that I’m referring to cases where the market fills a need until the need is fulfilled natively.  For example, a lot of add-ons, plug-ins, and utilities are written to work around shortcomings of software apps, either online or otherwise.  This is great, until the application developer writes the functionality into the main program, making all the plug-ins unnecessary.  The plug-in writers lose a potential large chunk of customers and if they aren’t on to the next big thing, they’re out of business.

My idea is one of those things that is probably going to be inevitable, so it’s really a matter of how quickly can someone implement this and can they bank enough and have a solid enough exit strategy to not lose it all when the hammer falls.  And I’m talking about an Amazon-sized hammer.

Enough teasing.  This is the idea: Create a showroom for Amazon products and provide ordering stations that use Amazon’s affiliate program to gain revenue.

So what does this take?  Lots of space and either enough money to buy floor samples or a really good salesperson to convince manufacturers to provide a free floor model for promotion.  Considering the current retail apocalypse, space is easy to come by.  But, I’m going to predict, Amazon is going to eventually do this themselves and no one is going to compete at the scale of which they are capable.

But let’s give some consideration to the idea in general.  We know that retail is dying and most all sales are moving online.  But there are some products that you really want to see and touch and experience before you purchase them.  Furniture is a strong example.  Appliances can also be in that category.  These are large purchases.  But to a lesser degree, electronics are also something people want to see in action.

What happens now is people go to a retailer and get their touchy-feely on, then go to Amazon and buy it for less, screwing the retailer.  So then, let’s just eliminate the retailer and use their space for what it was used for anyway – showrooming.  Wipe out all their back-room space for stock and open it up for more display.  Also, invite manufacturer representatives.  Schedule demonstrations.  Or even better, take it to the next level.

Schedule shootout demos.  Have three or more competing products and have a representative pitch their product to a crowd.  It’s totally different when you’re at a store that specializes in one brand; there’s no competition.  But put against each other, there has to be a more honest product placement strategy.  It’s not a battle royale with one winner.  It’s a legitimate selling point to say your vacuum cleaner doesn’t have the power of a Dyson because maybe you only have two rooms of carpet.  So why spend so much on a tool that would be used so little?  Record the show and put it on a video channel.

But, I digress.  This concept is about creating a showroom to sell Amazon products.  Now to make the money.  Every product would have a digital sign which would display the current price, availability, and a QR code to place an order.  The QR code would contain an affiliate code so the showroom gets a small portion of the sale.  There could also be kiosks around the store to place orders or look up more information on larger screens.

And that’s the income concept in a nutshell.  Maybe you could sell off floor models when they get discontinued for some extra income.  Maybe manufacturers would pay you to have a premium display.  So what would the expenses be?  Rent, utilities, a small amount of labor, typical things like insurance and licenses.  But rent would be the biggest expense.  Now, how much would you need to sell to make enough affiliate income to cover all those expenses?  Well, I don’t know.  I didn’t do any research to see if this idea was even feasible.  It’s just an idea.

And feasible or not, it’s only a matter of time before Amazon decides to do it themselves.  They could buy an entire mall and turn it into a massive showroom for their products, plus a Whole Foods.  They would have the clout to negotiate free samples from manufacturers, or just use customer returns.  They have the means to create closeout, as-is centers in their showrooms to sell off excess inventory.

Maybe the future of retail is stockless.  You never walk out with anything, it always gets shipped to you.

It Just Doesn’t Come Cheaply

Posted by on May 3, 2019 No comments

In another blog of mine, I discussed improvements I was making to my house.  In some posts, I talked about making quality purchases and how we have all become conditioned to expect great stuff for low prices.  In reality, that doesn’t happen.  You might get good or ok stuff at low prices, but when you really want something good, something unique, something that will last and continue to look good all the while, you’re really going to have to pay for it.

Of course, I’m not talking about a $12,000 chandelier, although there may be a rationale for it, especially for uniqueness.  But I am talking about buying things 3-4 times more expensive than you might originally have in mind.  In my current situation, I want a chair.  Just one chair.

You might think, ok, go to Walmart and buy a $30 chair.  No, this is a listening chair for my music room.  Ok, go to Staples and get an office chair, maybe $150.  No, I really want something like a recliner.  Then go to Ashley Homestore and get a recliner, they can’t be more than $300.  I want leather.  Ok, $400.  I want a modern style.  (After searching modern leather recliners)  You’re not thinking of a $5,000 Herman Miller Eames, are you?  No, but you’re thinking the right way.  You have to see where you could end up so you feel better about where you actually end up.

So, I’m not planning on getting an iconic art piece of furniture for $5k.  More reasonable is another famous brand you might have heard of, Stressless by Ekornes.  I was surprised to see they’re almost in the $2k range.  But it seems you can get them just about anywhere.  Stressless is a very popular brand and that lends it to a lot of flattery in the form of imitation.  So yeah, you can get a chair that looks like a Stressless for $300.  Great, you say.  Cheap and done.  Looks the same, is the same.

Well, no.  Far from it actually.  First and foremost,  I’m not buying a piece of furniture my ass has to enjoy until my ass has given it the thumbs up.  So no blind internet ordering for this piece.  With that restriction in mind, I begin stopping at furniture stores in my surrounding area.  One thing I quickly learned is that my vision of “modern” is not the same as theirs.  If it doesn’t look like an overstuffed box with tufting and pillowtops on every edge, then it’s “modern”.

I began being more specific in what I was looking for.  I started with a half-apology because the question could rub a salesperson the wrong way.  “I hate using a brand as a description, but I am looking for a recliner in the style of Stressless.”  You might think I was just a cheap bastard – wants a Stressless, doesn’t want to pay for a Stressless.  One salesperson clearly had no idea what I was talking about and showed me a typical recliner, (as I’d begun referring to them) a box.  You’d think if he was selling furniture, he’d be knowledgeable about top brands.  I guess not.

So I looked on and on.  Of the six places I visited, only one had any recliners of the style I wanted.  So I guess they won by default.  But I didn’t just concede the win.  I went online and researched the chairs and found out who the manufacturer was and compared prices to Internet stores (it was comparable, actually).  And I went back to buy the chair the next day, while the store was having a 20% off sale.  The chair is on backorder for oh, about a month, so I have plenty of time to look forward to it.

And how much was this not-$5k chair?  $700 before discount.  I did see similar chairs online for $300, but during my research after finding this chair, I learned a lot about leather.  The key takeaway I got was that a lot of “leather” is of “bonded leather” construction, which is complete garbage.  What you want is top-grain or full-grain leather.  A lot of the lower-priced chairs were upholstered in bonded leather, which is why they were so cheap.  They wouldn’t last a few years before flaking apart.

The chair I bought is top-grain leather with a caveat.  It’s leather on all seating surfaces and vinyl everywhere else.  I’m actually ok with this design since I won’t be sitting on the back of the chair, nor on the sides.  It saves natural resources and keeps the cost down, but still has the durability wherever it will be used.

With my recent purchase of patio loungers, I will soon be able to nap just about anywhere in my house I want.

I Made It Work Again

Posted by on April 30, 2019 No comments

Over the weekend, I made a roadtrip in the interest of thrift shopping.  It was a generally easy-going, low-stress trip that turned up plenty of CDs, mostly smooth-sided cases.  Along the way, I also picked up an early CD player, 30 years old, for $7.  I figured it would be interesting to have an opportunity to experience newer and older players and see if I could determine sonic differences between them.  The price was good, so why not?

When I got it home and fired it up, I found out why not.  It wasn’t operational.  When powered up, it would immediately eject the CD tray.  Pushing the close button did nothing.  If you pulled the tray out a little further, the close button would work, but after a second or two, the tray would eject again.  Huh.

My first thought was that there were some sensors that were dirty.  The ones that tell the player when the tray is fully opened or fully closed.  It seemed like something I could fix.  So I opened the case and disassembled the tray assembly.  I didn’t really see any sensors like I expected.  I did see a pressure switch that would toggle when the drawer was open or closed.  Opening and closing the drawer, I could see that when closing, the switch was not being contacted.  I think I was on the right track here.

Considering why the drawer wouldn’t close fully, I had a memory of a web page I had read about CD player troubleshooting and the primary takeaway was that the great majority of player failures can be fixed by replacing the drive belts.  I inspected the drawer assembly and found only a single belt.  It seemed to be in good condition, maybe a little loose, I don’t really know.  But I figured I could change it out easily and maybe that would do it.

I ordered a pack of various sized belts from Amazon and they arrived the next day.  Without too much trouble, I installed a new belt of near the same size, maybe a little smaller.  The reassembly was a little sketchy since I wasn’t exactly sure where to set the gear so that the open/closed pressure switch would get hit in both directions.  But for my first test, the drawer stayed closed when I powered on, which it should because the switch indicated the door was closed.  I pushed the open/close button and the drawer ejected.  I checked the switch and it indicated the drawer was fully open.  I pushed the open/close button again at the drawer closed.  Then I saw something I hadn’t seen in previous attempts: the laser lens moved up and down trying to focus on a non-existent CD.  And the drawer stayed closed.  I ejected the tray and put a CD in.  I closed the tray and the CD spun up.  I pressed play, the CD spun and the display counted up the time.  I fixed it!

That’s a plenty good feeling to repair something so easily, just a single part replacement and the part was a tiny piece of rubber.

What Has Brown Done To You?

Posted by on April 26, 2019 No comments

I mentioned in another post that I was expecting a package and got a solicitor instead.  So, now on to the story of that package.  I was at my computer at around 8:00 and an email came in saying, sorry we missed you.  Your package requires a signature and you weren’t home.  Bull. Shit.  I’ve been here all night.  I went to the front door and there was no post-it saying they had been there.  There was no doorbell ring (and I know it works because, solicitor dude).

I’m buying a box of wire from Amazon.  No shipping notification from either Amazon or UPS said the delivery would require a signature.  Why would a box of speaker wire require an adult signature, anyway?  I think someone ran late and decided to go home for the night.  I’m sure their tracking software doesn’t have an option for “Don’t feel like it”, so the driver flagged it as needing signed and no one home.  All done for the day!

Some part of me is annoyed by this, but another part of me isn’t.  It’s not like I needed that wire tonight.  But what if it was something I needed right away?  And this driver, he’s lying.  I’m not sure what sort of repercussions he could face if I should call him out on it.  He’s human, he’s a lazy American, just like the rest of us, he wants to go home after probably a 12-hr day.  And I can’t fault a person for not working hard at their job.  I’m a lot of things, but not a hypocrite.

Here’s how that one progressed.

I went to UPS’s site and changed the delivery to go to my nearby UPS Store.  I chose this for a couple of reasons.  If they were correct about the delivery needing a signature, I didn’t want to miss out again.  If they were lying about needing a signature, I wanted a person to confront about it.  I submitted the change and stewed about the situation for the night.

I had plenty of time to stew.  The missed delivery happened on Tuesday.  I got no notifications and the tracking showed no movement for the rest of the week.  The next Monday, I stopped by the UPS service center and asked if they could find my package.  The manager there took my phone number and said he’d call me with an update.  I told him, “I don’t care if it comes to the house, the UPS Store, or here.  I’ll get it.”  Oh, and I did ask about the signature required.  He said that the package probably came back and was scanned incorrectly.  So I guess, there is no commitment to deliver everything on the truck for the day.  Huh.

I did get a call later from the UPS manager who said the package could not be found and I would need to call the corporate office and “open an investigation”.  So I call their number and tell them I need to “open an investigation”.  The operator said I’d be transferred to the right department.  I ended up getting a voice menu of options that were way above my head, full of international shipper industry terms.  I heard “lost” in one of the options and chose that.  The person that answered, after hearing the full story, and probably expecting to be talking to a fellow UPS employee, said that Amazon has to initiate the claim, not me.  Ugh, fine.

So by this time, I could have re-ordered the speaker wire 3 times over and gotten it delivered.  An “investigation” doesn’t sound like it’s going to get me my package anytime soon, so I place a new order on Amazon for the same thing.  Then I research my options for filing a claim for the old order.  The option I was steered toward was contacting the shipper to file a claim.  Great.  No one wants to take responsibility here.  Eventually I found Amazon’s general chat help link and got a resolution.  They refunded my money.  But I wasn’t all that happy, because UPS should be paying for this, not Amazon.  I apologized that they were being hurt for this, and actually, it’s not them being hurt, it’s the small business seller on Amazon being hurt, because Amazon just won’t give them the money they refunded back to me.  It’s a shitty resolution.

I’d already received the replacement and finished my project when, two weeks later, I get an email.  My package is ready to pick up at the UPS Store.  I jump back on Amazon’s help chat and ask if I should just refuse the delivery and have it sent back to them.  The CSR says, the refund has already been issued, take the package as a gift from Amazon.

On one level, I get it.  The amount of money already spent on the package to ship it, then again to return it would be a waste of time and money, resulting in a net loss.  But that’s Amazon’s loss.  Or is it?  The seller still won’t see any money for the product lost.  UPS is getting off the hook and if I returned it, would be making more money of their fuckup. 

But really, we’re talking about a $10 purchase here.  This is nothing to a large business.  But multiply that by however many fuckups UPS can make, and it could be terrible for some smaller businesses along the way.

In the end, it didn’t matter.  I got an email from Amazon saying, “give us our shit back or you’re going to be charged for it.”

It’s Not Always About The Benjamins

Posted by on April 22, 2019 No comments

The other day, I was at home and the doorbell rang.  Yay, UPS has dropped off my package!  But, no – That’s a story for another post.  I opened up the door and a dude was outside.  Yay, a solicitor!  He introduces himself as being from Spectrum.  I suppose I’m fortunate in that I don’t live in a place where the cable company has a monopoly.  Instead it’s a duopoly, between Spectrum and Frontier (formerly known as Brighthouse and Verizon – how weird).

Dude says he’s in the area to talk about their services, and who provides me my cable, phone, and Internet?  I reply that I just recently had Frontier drop my cable and phone and now I have 100MB Internet only.  Dude wants to know how much (of course).  It’s something like $75/month.  Jackpot, I can hear his brain announcing.

So, Spectrum offers 100MB Internet for something like $50/mo.  Or you can get 400MB for about $75/mo.  He’s got his clipboard out and ready to sign me up.  But I just said, no, I’m ok with what I have.  He had a confused look on his face, which really pissed me off, because there’s no way it was an honest confused expression.  It was a insulting, “are you stupid”, reaction.  And in a similarly confused tone, he asked, “But… it’s faster… for less money.”

I tried to explain my reasoning, but I don’t think it came out well.  I said that it would be a hassle, ending one service, scheduling a new install, then if it didn’t work out, cancelling the new one and setting up the old one again.  He tried to defend his company by saying they didn’t have any contracts, so you could leave at any time for any reason.  I just replied that if anything went south in my current setup, I had his card and I would definitely call.

After I closed the door, I realized what I really wanted to say.  Yes, his offering was cheaper, and I am personally biased against internet over coax, vs internet over fiber, but the point that I really wanted to make was that Frontier/Verizon has been rock solid for me for over a decade and aside from one billing issue after the ownership switch, I have zero complaints.  What dude wanted was for me to jump ship to a company I have no history with and no idea of their service or quality.  The best I could hope for is going from great to great and saving some money.  But, I could be going from great to nightmare and saving money as well.  That’s not worth the risk to me.  Besides that, there is also the installation fee.  Then if it doesn’t work out, the installation fee to revert back to Frontier.  Not worth the risk to me.

Parenting

Posted by on March 27, 2019 No comments

Anyone that knows me well knows that I don’t have a fondness for children.  Those same people probably know that I have a great fondness for my own children, who happen to be feline.  Some people think it’s cheating to consider yourself a parent to pets, because animals are somehow less worthy of love and care than humans.  I’ll be honest, it is easier to raise pets than humans, which is why I do it.  However, this last week or so has leveled the experience between kids and pets for me.

One of my kids had the shits for an extended period of time and the other one needed caught up on shots (no anti-vaxxers in this household).  So I took them both to the vet and left them for the day for their procedures.  When I picked them up after work, I was given a prescription and a special diet for shitty.  Yay, we get to spend $50 for a bag of cat food now.

As soon I got them loaded in the car and we started moving, the big boy sneezed.  I was like, “no fucking way.”  Little girl had an upper respiratory infection early in her life, so I knew what a sneeze means.  Over the next couple of days, he seemed to be fighting it off pretty well.  However, little girl did not.  I took her back to the vet and got her diagnosis and a prescription.  $100 for meds!  And that’s where I felt like a parent.  I took my kid to see you and you got her sick and now I have to pay all this money for drugs and I have to dose her 2x a day and she’s going to hate it and what the fuck cat wants to eat berry flavored medicine?

Surprisingly, she bounced back after only about 3 dosings, which I think is impressive.  But, while she was improving, big boy was failing, hard.  I called the vet to get a second prescription for him, and unfortunately, I lost a full day in getting the new drugs.  If they could have told me the dosing for his weight, I could have just used some of my existing medication.  But whatever, my cat is miserable.

Having a sick, miserable kid makes you sad, which is my next parental experience.  All you want is for them to get better.  And his little sister wants him to get better, too.  I could tell by the way she would constantly check up on him.  And he was in really rough shape.  He wasn’t responsive to any stimulus.  For a couple of days, he didn’t want to get out of bed at all.  He stopped eating wet food because he couldn’t smell.  But he still had the energy to resist medication.

This cat has a big fucking mouth.  In fact, one of his potential names when he first came to the house was “mouth”.  It’s like a bear trap, and like a trap, he can clamp it right down and refuse to have any medication shot in.  My eventual success came when I switched from a 10cc syringe to a 3cc syringe.  He needed 12cc dosings, so 4-3cc shots was much easier with a skinny syringe than working with that fat one.

Big boy did not bounce back after a few dosings like little girl did.  It took a few days and the improvement was really slow, but faintly noticeable.  Yesterday, he turned the corner and I knew it when I went out on the patio to check on him and he came and greeted me with his tail held straight up.  It was a pretty joyous moment to see him happy again.  He still sniffled and sneezed, but his mood was improved and that was a sign that things are going to be ok.  Later in the evening when I checked to see if he was ready to come inside, he bounded away with his tail up.  After a couple of days picking up and carrying a limp and listless bag of fur, it was a wonderful sight.

And that’s the last parental similarity.  You want to see your kids happy.  I’ve been very lucky in my time to have not gone through the experience of having sick pets.  This last week or so has been revelatory in how much emotional investment you have in your kids and what they mean to your own happiness.