Don’t Poke the Monster

After a long, cold and lazy winter, I awoke yesterday morning to a beautiful day (note: it’s back to the long, cold and lazy winter today). I was aware it was going to be a nice day and so the night before I got the Red Communist (bike) down, oiled up the chain, pumped up my tires and make sure the breaks were working.

I got up a bit earlier than usual. Gave my bike another once-over. Packed up my lunch in the panier and took everything out of my Indiana/Camel bag and loaded up my biking backpack for the biking season. When I used to bike to Marketwire it took me about 10 minutes. Zoom is considerably further. Plus, I really didn’t know where I was going.

The ride started out great. It was a beautiful day. Going down Centre Street was a blast, just as I remembered. And the majority of ride was along the Bow River (park). In total it was about a 25-30 minute ride, which I am pretty sure I can get down to around 20. But, after about 15 minutes, I became aware that I may have done something terrible.

I don’t know if this is true, but I have heard that it’s never a good idea to flush the fluids out of your car. It sounds like a good idea. Clean out the system, right? Wrong. Sometimes, it’s better to leave the mud, dirt and grime where it is because it’s blocking leaks and keeping everything happy. Well, I can tell you, as my heart rate sped up and I started breathing harder and harder that I was, effectively, flushing my lungs. Yes, I am talking about phlegm and lots of it.

Now, it’s my opinion that spitting is fairly gross. However, my opinion that supersedes the aforementioned opinion, is that phlegm is worse—whether I am sick or working it out—is not doing me any favours by staying inside my body. Plus, I am really good at making cool sounds when I spit.

Not only during my ride was I coughing up a winters worth of laziness, but all day at work I had to make special trips to the bathroom to alleviate “build-ups”. And the worst part, is that I think I may have unlocked a sickness that was trapped in all that phlegm, because both Leah and I are feeling rough today (Leah more than myself).

Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that if you are planning to do exercise after a long winter of laziness then don’t do it. Or at least, build up to it. Don’t think that just because you are 25 that you can pick up your bike and ride hard without consequence. Because there are consequences. And you or someone you love will get sick.

Coming Home

It’s been a while since I have posted a song and lately Dallas Green has been the big winner. His songs go from brilliant to so-so, but his voice is so haunting. Frankly, I can’t believe he got Saskatoon into a song and it sounded decent.

6 Ways to Get Your Cat to Stop Peeing Inside

Yesterday, as I looked around at my co-workers who are all sick, I thought I feel great; I never get sick. Last night and today I am feeling a bit rough. I hope I won’t get sick, but I can feel my body beginning to ache and complain. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I am pretty sure we have passed the phase of JD urinating all over our apartment.

The reason JD (3 year old male/neutered) was peeing was simple—he was stressed out. Originally, just adding Elly (our now 10 month old female kitten) to the mix caused him a great deal of stress and he peed a few times. When your cat is stressed out and peeing/marking your house the solution is simple—eliminate the point of stress. Unfortunately, eliminating Elly was not really an option.

Part of JD’s problem is that he is highly dominant and it was suggested to us by our Vet that another younger cat might bring out his paternal side. It did not (not really). Leah and I got proactive to attempt to relieve some of the tension in the apartment and this worked for a while, until Elly went into heat. Then JD turned into a sprinkler system. Last time I posted about JD he peed four times in the matter of a couple hours.

So what did we do?

1. Took JD to the vet to see if it was a medical problem (urinary infection, etc). It wasn’t but that seemed to scare him straight(er).
2. Elly got spayed.
3. Bought a pheromone plugin (like a Glade plugin) to calm the cats down.
4. Bought a pheromone spray to target the repeat areas that he peed and sprayed them daily.
5. Bought two kitty litters and scooped/changed them regularly
6. Loved him (JD).

Getting Elly spayed was huge. But both Leah and I would attribute our success in curbing JD’s habit to the pheromone. We had the plugin by itself originally and it was more or less just a bubblegum fix. However, paired with a spray that we could target the specific areas really helped. Finally I really do think that, even though JD would never admit to wanting love, giving him positive reinforcement and being gentle with him (even when we wanted to throttle him) actually did help. I think we likely could have reached similar results if we hadn’t, but we likely would have done more psychological damage and alienated him from us. It actually may have been more important to us to continue to be affectionate with him so that we would continue to work for a successful resolution.

Who wants to put money down on the fact that I will come home tonight to cat pee? I hope not.