Yesterday I put J.J. down in a patch of sunlight for an hour (his favorite thing in the world), then gave him 150 mls of sub-q fluids and got him very reluctantly to swallow about 3 ml of watered down Lick ‘n’ Lap. After that I gave him a long cuddle, reclining on the couch and letting him curl up on my chest with his head on my shoulder while I petted him and told him what an awesome cat he is, before putting him back on the futon to sleep.

He was in the same position this morning that he was in when I went to bed last night, and his bedding was soaked with urine. I bathed him, put him on clean bedding and switched out the wet pads and bedding, then ran out and picked up some kitten formula. He even more reluctantly swallowed about a ml before gagging, tossing his head back and forth, and holding his paws up in front of his mouth. So yeah, I think he’s officially done.

I’m working downstairs today so that I can listen for him and give him water every hour, change out his bedding as necessary, and give him cuddles. He still lifts his head when he hears my voice, but he doesn’t have the strength to get up or do much more than flick his tail. This is breaking Lyndon’s heart because it makes J.J. still seem compos mentis, but I know how tired he is and I’d rather take him in to the vet now than make him suffer for another week or however long it would take before his body finally gives up.

His appointment is at 1:30 PM tomorrow. And I’m sitting here crying as I write this because I am going to miss him so damned much. But it’s the right thing to do.

After a long night of crying where I became fully convinced that it was J.J.’s time and we would have to take him on that final car ride on Monday, I came downstairs wondering if I would find a little black body curled up and cooling on the futon.

Yeah, no. J.J. lifted his head and meowed cheerfully at me while I started to get everyone their food. Then while my back was turned he got up, rolled off the futon onto the ottoman, then rolled down the ramp to the carpet where he wiggled into a patch of sunlight and basked. I ask you.

I brought him some water (he still won’t eat, not even tuna water) and noticed a king god hella killer eye booger in his right eye so I gently pried that out, then realized that he kept smacking his lips and tossing his head like he was trying to clear his mouth before drinking the water. I tried to look in his mouth and it seemed mucusy as hell, plus his breath was really rank.

I think the Elderly Gentleman has a raging upper respiratory infection. The other cats have been sneezing and the symptoms fit him to a T—eye and nasal drainage, squinting, no appetite, lethargy, some sneezing. And while a URI usually passes on its own in a younger cat, he doesn’t have the reserves to fight it off due to his age.

TL;dr: He’s going into the vet tomorrow (either our regular one or the ER vet if we can’t get a slot) to be evaluated and hopefully get an antibiotic shot, some B-12, and an appetite stimulant. This cat has been faking us out for years by appearing to be on the brink of death and then recovering at the last moment. Let’s hope he has one more recovery in him.

The first major non-ice storm of 2023 just went over us and I have to say I was quite impressed. According to WFAA we had 80 MPH straight-line winds, lots of donder and blitzen, large hail in some areas, and a couple of tornadoes around the Metroplex (but none in Plano—yay for TI Skunkworks!). It’s now headed towards Arkansas and points east, and part of it is going to head north and dump a buttload of snow on the northern states from what the weather report is saying.

Of course, the sirens sounded pretty much continuously for about fifteen minutes while the light show went on outside. The power flickered a number of times, which apparently was the last straw for the UPS in my office that powers my writing desk because the battery went poof. Lyndon dug out a massive surge suppressor for me and I have everything plugged into that for now (I’m more concerned about everything being on a surge suppressor than a UPS. If we lose power and the desktop shuts down over night, oh well). There are a couple of places in the area where I can pick up a replacement battery so I’ll see about doing that over the weekend.

I am also sincerely grateful that we still have power, since apparently a lot of local friends don’t). The fence seems to be okay from what I can see and I’ll do a roof inspection tomorrow once it’s light.

As of now, I have put together all of the half-done or cut out quilts that have been languishing in my closet, and I have three quilt tops that need to be quilted. Tomorrow I’m changing the sheets so while I have the bed denuded I’ll spread out each of the tops on the mattress and take a picture so that you’d get a better idea of how they look.

And now I’m thinking about using up the extra strips I have for the Sunflower quilt and turning it into a queen top by adding a 1″ border in a coordinating orange between two 4″ borders. I am officially insane.

I have just completed one of the two yearly scheduled road trips. Our accountant’s office is just a touch west of Arlington (the accountant was recommended to me by a friend when I used to work in Irving. They’re so good at what they do that we don’t want to switch to someone local), which means I have an hour and a half round trip to go out there, drop off our files, and come home.

And yes, they have a secure online server where I could upload scanned files (and I have a printer that is also a scanner and will work such arcane magic), but I like the drive. For one thing, the hillsides of the various highways are usually carpeted in bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and other wildflowers, which is always pretty, and even a short road trip is kind of fun for me.

This year, however, I got the taxes finished in record time (I usually get everything done in March) and the hillsides showed nary a bluebonnet as I drove down 181. Bit of a bummer, but there’s a nice field nearby that usually gets carpeted with bluebonnets and I can always get my fix when that blooms.

While in previous years we usually got some pretty tasty returns due to me having a small business and a home office, I’m hearing that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2018 is going to adversely affect a lot of people for fiscal year 2022 so I’m not holding out hope for a big return. If we don’t owe anything, I’ll be happy with that.

Well, the red twill jacket is done. And it doesn’t quite fit me. The sleeves are golden but the chest is definitely too tight and I needed more room in the stomach area than I expected.

I’m a bit bummed because it’s a really pretty color on me and once it was washed the twill was so soft. But it was an experiment to use up some old fabric and I don’t actually need the jacket so it’s no great tragedy. I’ll see what I can adjust with the seam allowance I have left, then put it away and make all the necessary adjustments to the pattern. Once that’s done I’ll run up a muslin before I try using it on the black brocade fabric in the closet. *shrug* Live and learn.

So I was studying my office closet today, as you do, and gazing with pleasure upon the gaps where fabric used to live. Fabric that has now been turned into a dress, a jean jacket, and three quilts (the fourth is in progress).

And then I made the mistake. My gaze fell on a bundle of black fabric on a cubicle shelf. When I pulled it down and unfolded it, a fine dusting of silver glitter fell onto the carpet like tiny snowflakes.

Which is when I remembered. This was six yards of a silky black fabric embossed with outlined silver fish scales that I’d bought back in 2014 with the intention of turning it into a dress. And I finally made the connection to one of the dress patterns I’d found in the closet—I was going to use it as the pattern for this fabric.

Well, now I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to get six yards of fabric for this dress.

Mind you, I’m not going to do this particular project for a month or so. I really want to finish the quilt first, plus I’d like to get some jewelry made out in the garage if the weather continues to be nice. But when I do, I already know I am going to wind up scattering glittering craft herpes from one end of this house to the other.

It’ll so be worth it.

Sooooo … I may have another project. My chair in the living room is currently unusable, mainly because the seat sags so badly when I sit in it that the front edge starts cutting into the underside of my thighs.

Thing is, I loved that chair. I got it from one of those cheapo “furniture sale” places that set up in old stores and flog floor samples and whatnot. This chair cost a skosh under $200 and was sooooooo comfortable for so long.

And then we got the Girls, and Jessie started peeing on everything in order to show Jasmine who was boss, and I had to haul the damn thing outside more than once to hose it down and hit it with enzyme cleaner in order to get rid of the pee smell. I suspect that with all of those washings the webbing that supports the seat stretched or might even have dissolved for all I know.

Long story short, I haven’t been able to sit in the living room for well over a year because of this (the futon belongs to the cat, and the couch is not what I call comfortable), and I would like to be able to do that because it’s my damn living room and I’d like to watch movies on the big screen TV instead of my laptop. So…

*touches fingertips together* How crazy would it be for me to take a crack at reupholstering this chair? I know the basics, I’ve reupholstered kitchen chairs before, I have powered staplers and the assorted tools necessary for reupholstering, and I know where to get discounted fabric on Harry Hines (I think a nice denim in red would work well and discourage the cats from sharpening their claws on it). It would be quite the project and would probably cost about $140, but considering that 1) it would cost me at least $300 to find another chair that I liked, and 2) I like doing this sort of thing, I may take a crack at it in February.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I not only have three novels and one novella in progress at the moment (all of them for my Nicola M. Cameron SF/fantasy/paranormal romance line), I’m also editing my first full-length novel to be published under my own name, A Most Malicious Murder (aka Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll team up to solve a murder in 1851 Oxford).

Granted, MMM has been in progress for about ten years, ever since I saw Jeffrey Combs’s one-man play Nevermore, and finished for about eight of those years, but I’m finally at the point where all I need to do is give it a good whack or two with the editorial machete, have my regular editor check it to make sure I haven’t screwed up anything, and it’ll be ready for release.

I hope. We’ll see.

At right, BTW, is the draft cover. Once I get the text done and off to the editor, it’ll be time to buy all the requisite images and do the final version. Oh, this is gonna be fun…