Trip to the Coast

Yesterday I took a long planned trip to the coast clinic with Sassy.

I knew she was having mouth problems.  She would drop food she was trying to eat and sometimes work her jaw.  Sassy is feral but even without any drooling, I could tell from a distance she had trouble going on.   I have had this appointment for over two months.  Sometimes its hard to get a dental appointment at the coast clinic as they are so popular.

The day before yesterday a friend had volunteered her husband with his chain saw to cut down what is left of the maple.  I want to revamp the cat yard, put up a house around the stump, left at 10 to 12 feet, when the maple was cut above the cat yard wire a few months back.  But to do that, I needed it cut way down, so I could work around it, to either nothing or much lower, like to about four or five feet tall.

I first tried to get ahold of the tree cutter who cut down the maple, to cut back the stump left.  But he did not answer.  That's when the friend offered up her husband.  Ha.

I thought it would take like ten minutes.   But his saw bar was short and he worked and worked at it, but never could get it cut clear through so the larger piece would fall.   I tried then, in one of his half cuts, with a hand saw, for a couple hours but made no progress.    Finally I had to put the cat yard wire back together there.   It's kind of a mess, however.  We did get that staple out that held a rope wire up that holds up the cat wire.  The staple was embedded deeply in the tree at about ten feet high by now.  With it out, the wire sags now, so the cat wire is not even as high as I am tall on that end.  Oh boy.

By end of the day Thursday I was beat and my shoulder twitched, but I'd taken Aleve before hand and limited the suffering with ice too.

So I was tired already yesterday when I rolled out of here at 4:30 a.m. for the coast.  Once there, I checked Sassy in at the clinic, then found a parking lot at the beach, and fell asleep in the back of my car atop a comforter. 

I dreamed at least I thought I was dreaming, that I heard children and woke to see kids staring in at me, and an adult woman staring into the front of my car.   I thought it was a dream but when I finally woke up, two and a half hours later, I saw the same lady with two children walking off from their car, parked right behind me, for a hike.   There was her large V8 Toyota SUV parked just a couple feet behind me and another Toyota, a pickup with a large fancy camper, parked facing the front of my car, in an otherwise almost empty parking lot.  It was a little strange.  I should have taken a picture before I left.  My tiny little car with those two huge vehicles behind and in front of me.

I drove to another beach, nearby, and took a short walk to the waters edge (tide was way out) then back up to my car, realizing it was surgery time at the vet clinic and this beach is in a cell phone dead zone.   I needed to be reachable during surgery hours.  But no call came from the vet clinic which I knew was a very good thing.  I had been worried that Sassy might have mouth or jaw cancer.  Like Jade did.

I went back to Astoria for lunch.  I stood in the long line of people waiting for fish and chips at the Bowpicker, a boat on dry land rigged into a short order fish and chips place.  It's a popular place and quite famous.  Usually I just eat something at Costco for lunch or from the Mexican food cart at the gas station (good food there by the way)  but this time I wanted to try it.  The fish is tuna, fresh caught, and quite delicious. I could have done without the chips.

Back to the clinic parking lot then, and right back into the back of my car to sleep another couple of hours.  That's about all I really did yesterday was sleep after working too hard on Thursday for so long on the tree.

I picked up Sassy around 3:00.  She'd had all her remaining teeth pulled, poor girl, although she didn't have that many left.  She got a long lasting antibiotic shot too, and updated on her rabies vaccine.   She was quiet as a mouse on the drive home, and slept.   Portland congestion was at its finest and it took over an hour to get from highway 217 to I5 then down past Wilsonville, stop and go, not fun but what can you do these days.    Traffic north on I5 now from Albany on is often clogged and slow even on weekdays.  Too many people.  I would have been home by 6:00 if not for the congestion issue.   As it was I got home by 7:30 or so and got the litter boxes cleaned and the cats fed and was again in bed early.   Nice and well rested this morning and so happy I got Sassy into the vet.   Will take a week, but she'll feel so much better.

Sassy just before I took her into the clinic

I'm currently experiencing computer issues again.  Something about the mouse click.  It deletes things.  Or, instead of being able to click a history link to go to that page, it deletes the link instead.  If I try to delete one email, instead four or five emails vanish, etc. etc.  I have to be really careful when in my records.   So anyhow.....getting a new mouse to see if that might help.