Heat wave

So our heat wave has begun. I'm just glad it didn't start a week ago, for my birthday. I was able to bake my (meh) cake without feeling bad about turning on the oven. Definitely wouldn't want to do that today! And there's no end in sight for the heat. I read somewhere that it was supposed to last 10 days, so that would be until a week from tomorrow, roughly. We'll be on vacation by then, so we won't know for sure.

It's a little scary with no air conditioning. Right now our house is comfortable, but not wonderful. It's 4:30 pm and the temperature in the hallway is 79 degrees. Outside on the front porch it's 97. We're all kind of taking it easy, not moving around too much. I scolded Rocket Boy for using the oven to reheat a slice of pizza. I'm trying to figure out how to make dinner this week without turning on said oven.

Looking back to last Sunday, the rest of my birthday was nice. We went to the Shakespeare Festival that night, despite both of us not really feeling it. On July 3rd (which Rocket Boy had off work) he discovered that mice had colonized our garden shed and were eating all the grass seed he had stored there. So he embarked on a weekend project to take everything out of the garden shed and clean it thoroughly. He worked on this on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th, pausing to make the 4th of July barbecue happen and go out to lunch on my birthday, but otherwise working straight through. So when we left for CU at about 7 pm on Sunday night, he was a wreck. But he's a sweetie, so he didn't complain.

CU has redone the outdoor Mary Rippon theater and it was very nice. I remembered, too late, that in the past people in the know always brought their own seat cushions. But it was OK that I'd forgotten, because now they're provided for everyone, free of charge. Makes those red rock benches a LOT easier to sit on for three hours. 

It wasn't 97 degrees on July 5th, but it was still hot, even at 7:30 pm. As we settled into our seats and waited for the performance of "Shakespeare in Love" to begin, I thought, why am I here on my birthday? Is this really something I want to do? But it turned out OK. The performance was very good, great performers especially the guy who played Will. I was glad I'd gone.

The next day, Monday, it was back to real life. Our cat Sillers had an appointment with the cat neurologist at 9:30, so I had to get up when Rocket Boy did (at 7 am) and get my act together. I was pretty tired at the vet's, though, and gave some dumb answers to their questions. Based on those dumb answers, the neurologist decided that Sillers needed to have an MRI of her brain and neck -- for $3000 (including anesthesia, because obviously you can't ask a cat to hold still for an MRI). I gulped. But, you know, I knew it would be expensive, and what was the point of coming here if we didn't do the testing? So I said yes. I left her there and picked her up about four hours later.

And the results of the MRI were interesting. Sillers' brain is fine, but she has some sort of "lesion" or "growth" or "obstruction" or whatever -- not in her brain, but in her brain stem. The vet thought this could explain all of her weird behavior. It is probably not cancer, but it is not curable -- you can't go into the brain stem and remove things. However, you can try to treat it. We're going to try first with prednisolone (the same thing Baby Kitty takes for his asthma) and if that doesn't help, with gabapentin. The vet said we would do prednisolone for a couple of months and then repeat the MRI. I smiled. Of course we're not going to do that. I'm not going to spend another $3000 to see if a drug is working. But we'll have that discussion later. 

The problem is that the prednisolone apparently can't be mixed with her food (even though I mix Baby Kitty's prednisolone with his food). It's in liquid form, and I'm supposed to shoot it down her throat after each meal. This will not be fun, and I do not want to ask the cat sitters to do it. Therefore we're going to postpone starting treatment until after our trip. So poor Sillers will go untreated for another few weeks. Two days ago she peed on my pillow again -- and looked startled and started sniffing around to figure out what had just happened. I grabbed the pillow and the cat blanket and the bedspread off the bed and threw them straight into the washing machine. Most days she throws up at least one meal. I'm afraid she's going to die of starvation before we can start treating her.

But it's always like this before a trip! Something awful happens and you feel like you shouldn't go. Sillers will (probably) be OK while we're gone. She'll try to be good for the cat sitters. We'll put plastic on the bed (under the top coverings) so that if she has accidents while we're gone, they won't penetrate further. The cat sitters can clean up whatever accidents they find on the floor, and otherwise we'll clean up the rest when we get back. It will be OK.

Before I took Sillers to the cat neurologist, I told Teen B that on the forms they have you sign, where they ask if they should resuscitate your pet if it goes into cardiac arrest or whatever, I was going to check "no." Then, if Sillers went into cardiac arrest, all our problems would be solved. But I couldn't do it. She got sick on the car ride to the vet, threw up in the cat carrier, had bile dripping from her mouth, looked So Incredibly Pathetic. I couldn't do it. She's my baby, for better or for worse. I told them to resuscitate her if necessary (it wasn't necessary).

However, I'm not going to keep spending $3000 on repeat MRIs. There are limits. 

Not much else happened during the week. Teen A, who got a flat tire the week before (necessitating the purchase of two new tires, so they would match, only one of which was covered by the warranty), hit a raccoon on 36 north of town, and broke a piece of plastic that was attached to something near a wheel. So on Friday he and I went to Boulder Hybrids for them to take off the broken thing and put on a new thing. Cost: $175 (less than the tire). I paid it. I know, I know, at some point I should probably start charging him for things that happen to the car. But it's still my car and I figure as long as I can pay for it (easily), I'll pay for it. 

It was a very bad cooking week, and I'm sure this week will be just as bad. The combination of heat plus my drug makes me just pathetically useless. I did manage to make a pasta dish and a curry with rice. That might have been it. What in the world will I cook this week, with the terrible heat? 

This coming week I finally get my new fake tooth, that's tomorrow. I'm excited (a little). I've had a hole in my mouth for over a year now. Then on Tuesday my car goes to the shop for an oil change and a checkup. Hopefully nothing terrible will be wrong. And the rest of the week we will just try to survive the heat and get ready for our trip! 

***

Yes, the trip! so now we're planning our trip across the country. We're going to drive to California and back, be gone 11 days. We leave next Saturday, so I probably won't write any blog posts for a while (can't do it on my phone). We don't have the whole trip planned yet, but I'm getting there.

Next Saturday we're going to drive across Wyoming and Utah, past Salt Lake City to a hotel near Tooele, practically on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Sunday we'll do the rest of Utah and most of Nevada, stopping for dinner at the home of my old college roommate, Grace, who lives in Reno. Then we'll stay the night at a hotel in Carson City. Monday we'll drive to the Bay Area via highway 88, a road I've never (to my knowledge) taken before. It will be slower than I-80, but it will avoid Sacramento and other population centers, maybe be slightly more pleasant than I-80. I don't know.

Monday afternoon we'll show up at my sister's in Santa Clara, and we'll stay with her for five days. I also got a hotel room nearby, so that we can take a little pressure off her house and the family -- people will have a place to go to get away, things like that. I think I'm thinking of myself, mostly. Not that I would get away to the hotel, but if my husband is driving me crazy, I can send him off to the hotel to swim or rest. Not that my husband drives me crazy, but he likes to be active, always wants to have a plan and a goal. I might like to spend some time just lying around watching television, petting dogs, chatting with my relatives. That's when it would be nice to have a place to send him to.

Wednesday of that week we'll drive up to my cousin's house near Kenwood, to visit and see his vineyard, etc. We haven't been up there in seven years, and he and his brother are getting so old, 86 and 83. His wife died a few years ago, so we won't be seeing her, and his brother's wife is younger, but not that much younger. How many more chances will we have to see them? Not many.

The following Saturday (the 25th) we'll pack up and drive to Solvang to visit my father's cousin and her husband. They are very old too -- my cousin is almost 88 and her husband is 93 (or thereabouts). So again, how many more times do we get to see them?

Then on Sunday we're going to Chino to visit Rocket Boy's aunt (his late uncle's second wife), who we haven't seen in ages, maybe, hmm, not since his uncle's funeral? December 2002. Is that possible? More than 23 years. She's 95 and still sounded totally on top of things when RB called her yesterday. We'll probably have lunch with her and her son, who lives with her.

And then we'll get on the road again. I made a hotel reservation in Needles for that night, but beyond that how we're going to go home is still up in the air. Probably we should just go the fastest way. It's 868 miles to Boulder if we just take 95 to I-15 to I-70, and that's probably what we'll do. Just haven't quite committed to that plan yet. I'd like to take 40 to 89 to 160 to 285, go through Navajoland and southern Colorado. It's about the same mileage, 864 miles, but would take about an hour more. Does an hour matter? Will have to give this some thought.

Rocket Boy likes to see unusual things on road trips, and I mostly focus on getting us to the places we're going. But I try to leave room for his enthusiasms. For instance, on the way to Reno we're going to try to see the Sutro Tunnel. I'm not sure why this is so interesting, but I put it on the itinerary. Then, after we leave Chino on the 26th, we're going to visit Amboy, California, which I guess was featured on a Huell Howser program once upon a time. It sounds as though maybe the whole town is closed down now, but it's on Route 66, so that'll be fun, and hey, why not?

See you when we get back...