the trifecta

Though I spent most of the last twelve hours sticking needles in to sea lions, the highlight of my day was definitely watching Monkey complete his trifecta. He's obviously been planning it for weeks. The first step was dominating the big screen TV. It's old school and boxy so the surface area on top has been irresistible to him. My attempts to restrict his access proved fruitless so I finally removed all things breakable from my favorite clutter zone and surrendered it to the kitten. Though the TV was fascinating before, once Monkey was allowed on it, he decided to jump from the TV to the top of the pie safe. That's fine, I figure. Nothing up there to disturb and I found he would still land fairly lightly on my beloved TV. The pie safe proved to be only a pit stop, however, as Monkey soon decided to jump from it across the doorway and onto our slanted stove hood. His first attempt happened early in the morning so I only heard it. The bending of metal, the scraping of claws, the mew of exploration. Erik promptly rescued the stranded explorer and I thought little of it. A couple days later I found Monkey there again and had to coax him down myself. This morning I finally saw it happen and I'm even more amazed he can pull it off as his front paws land way lower than I might expect. Anyway, today he had no interest in rescue. He had a plan. He jumped from his slanted perch all the way across the kitchen to the top of the fridge. Pie safe, stove hood, refrigerator. Trifecta. He was so proud.

I couldn't stick around to celebrate long, however, as Spooner, yesterday's sea lion from our south county, needed more pain meds. He was so flat yesterday that he was rescued with a towel - no net. This is unheard of, really. Unfortunately, he never got much perkier. In addition to the wounds on his flipper (a shark, we'd guess) he had a throat full of brown slobber (so probly also suffering domoic acid toxicity). Even though he was needy and kinda sad, I'm glad we kept him overnight as we are much better equipped to give round the clock care than our neighbors to the north.

If we had decided to ship Spooner yesterday, we probly would've aborted the plan immediately. We got the call on this fellow right as Spooner would've hit the road. As I mentioned yesterday, this sea lion's call (like Spooner's) sat with the answering service for three hours before it made its way to us. Thus we named him Three Hour. He was a little too crazy fresh off the beach to do much last night, but we did give him some of the good drugs later on to help him sleep. And today we got some fluids in to him. He never did fully seize but he had the bobbing head, seizy eyes, and trembling so he got some more good drugs for the road.

Then, ironically, we had to wait nearly 3 hours before we could ship them off today. The gal I had lined up to do the transport got tied up at church. It turned out to be a good thing, however, as both Spooner and Three Hour looked the most seizy just before they shipped. I was glad we were able to treat the convulsions they might have otherwise had on the road. I was pretty happy to see them go, though, cuz it meant I could finally get on with the scrubbing and mopping and ultimately find my way to a shower and a nap. I forced myself to get out of bed to post this blog (and to not destroy my sort of morningish post LSAT lifestyle) but soon I will snooze again.

So today I am thankful for my folks cuz today they bought me a plane ticket to go visit them for Christmas. (Wendy, I'll be there late the 19th, leaving early the 28th - let me know if you can play any time in between?...)

And I'm grateful for fuzzy socks. I usually only wear mine when I've been lax on the laundry, but whatever, they're super cozy.

And I'm grateful for help. The last time I had seals I had to do all the clean up alone and it really sucked. Life is so much better when you've got people on your team.

And I'm super grateful for OC's health. As of yesterday he's gone six weeks without incident. He's been around a bunch everyday (mostly in his bachelor pad half of the house) but this morning he hung out on the couch with me. He even had bore witness to the trifecta. (He seemed unimpressed.) And he grabbed my head and bit it, but I think it was a display of affection?

Ugh. And I'm grateful that now that I am done with this post I can scoop Monkey's stinking litter box. I really think this new litter (Arm & Hammer) is extra lame at stench control. I do like the lemony scent it gives off while scooping, but seriously, who wants to smell anything while scooping? Anyway, it's been so bad that I've tricked myself into buying the most expensive litter (World's Best? it's made of corn or something...) to try next. I'm almost wondering if I scoop too often? If I'm always stirring it up, so to speak. But I don't think twice a day is extreme (generous, but not obsessive) and it seems counterintuitive to suggest that a dirty box might smell less...

So on with it, I guess.