My sick kitty

After a couple of weeks of trying to convince myself that there was nothing really wrong with my cat Freya, I finally decided to call the vet today. She had a serious fever of 105.1 about 3 weeks ago, that required a 3-day hospitalization. After a week of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds, she was doing much better. But she never really got her mojo back. Typically, she's ready to go out first thing in the morning and start her day. But she has been very quiet in the morning, sometimes not even getting up to eat for more than an hour after we awake. When she did go out, she came back after about an hour and collapsed. So today we went back to the vet, who examined her carefully.

Good news was she has no fever, and all vital signs were good. But her breathing had a little "squeak" in it, and the vet believes that she has asthma. She had a serious respiratory illness during the summer that caused a nasty cough, and it's possible it damaged her airway. Having a serious fever probably knocked the stuffing out of her, leaving her weakened. So she got a steroid shot to help relieve the inflammation. I hope it works. She is functional, but just not herself. I've had lots of cats, but this is the first time I've had to deal with asthma. I hope we can get her by this, because she is a cat that just loves life and likes to live pedal to the metal. We'll know in a couple of days if the shot worked.

Gorgeous sunset

Here's what the sunset looked like from my front yard on Wednesday, Nov. 11. It seems like the sky is on fire.

Today I did a groundwork training session with my Appy mare, Sailor. She did really well - and so did I! This is our third session within the last week, and I push her a little farther each time. It's been a while since I trained her all by myself, so it's a confidence builder for me too. She is so bright, she remembers mostly everything. But she is not a confident horse, so I have to work on inspiring her to have confidence in me. If I can conquer that, I believe I will be able to ride her again. She is a horse who wants a strong leader, and I have to prove to her that I am that person. When she believes in her leader, she is a wonderful horse to ride.

Catching up

Well, it's been a long time since I last posted on this blog. Life has been eventful, although not in a great way. On October 16, I was notified at work that my position was being eliminated, and therefore they did not need me anymore. Of course nothing could be further from the truth - there was still plenty of work that needed to be done (with a full slate of events). The real situation was that the guy who was brought in to be "Community Connection Coordinator" (a made-up title to create a job for this loser) was threatened by the fact that I knew he was a fraud whose M.O. was to do NO work. To cover up for his lack of doing anything that resembled work, when the s**t hit the fan, he would throw the blame on me. Needless to say, I would not stand for this, and immediately notified the general manager that this guy was lying and what the real truth was. The bad news for me, was that while the rest of the staff knew this guy was bogus, the G.M. thinks he walks on water. So I became a liability to the Mr. Work Avoider, and a major threat to him. In addition, he has worked there before, and I had already been told that he will want an assistant - a much younger, cute assistant - preferrably under 25 years old. So I certainly didn't fit the bill. I was forced out, given severance pay, and sent on my way without even being able to say goodbye to any of my coworkers. It was a shameful and disgusting way to treat someone who gave 110% every day for three years. I won't be going to the Northshire Bookstore again for any time in the future.

In other not-great news, I didn't win the election for the Town Council seat. I worked my tail off campaigning, going door to door to 1,000s of homes. Unfortunately, being a Democrat in a Republican town was a huge disadvantage, combined with the fact that I have only lived here for 4 years. In a small town, I was viewed suspiciously. The really irritating thing is that of the 2 guys who got elected, one did absolutely no campaigning, and his entire platform was that he has lived in the town all his life. I don't know him, but I've been told that he is a slacker who can't hold a job and is very lazy. Oh well. On the plus side, I made a lot of new friends and had a wonderful group of supporters who worked very hard for me. So all in all, it was a great experience.

A few days before the election I was asked to stand in for our county Democratic chair at an informal meet and greet with NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. It was a thrill to meet her, and get my photo taken with her. She's a real fireball, and a nice person. Here we are at a restaurant in Queensbury, NY.