Catching Up

Abby, our little patient has really developed a personality and is beginning to grow. She eats twice as much as he used to and lets us know when shes hungry! She like to jump and has surprised us with her bravado!

The veterinarian said the problem with her eyes was caused by severe dehydration. Her body was so dehydrated it started looking for sources of water and unfortunately had gotten to the point where her eyes were affected. If you click on the image you an see how she is cross-eyed in one eye and most likely blind in the other.

Our other cats are not so crazy about Abby, with some hissing and fur raising now and then.

The cats situation at the market seems to have gotten a bit worse. Of the original four orange kitties there is only one left and she was the runt of the litter. Nobody knows what happened to the other cats.

So Chris fired our maid Monday. She said we could live without one, I thought we should still hire one. So she quizzed me on why we needed one, ironing? Take my clothes to the cleaners. Washing dishes? We can load the dishwasher or wash our own dishes. Pay the bills? I can run down to the bank and pay the bills. It was moot point, really what was the point? So, I gave her two weeks before she would say "We need a maid". Nope, 72 hours, she said it at dinner tonight.

I worked today with a gentleman that I worked with in Baghdad back in 2005. He is an old "salty" Marine, when you think old Corps Marine Corps, he is it. He is retired from the Corps and retired from the company but does small jobs for the company now and then for extra money. We had some great conversations about being back in Baghdad.

The rainy season has started. I remember how much it rained last year. The worst part is when I walk to work, I'm usually half soaked. I also need to watch out for the buses as when they hit the rain puddles you're taking a shower!

Book Corner - Finished Reading

Cross by James Patterson
Paperback
400 pages
Detective thriller/Alex Cross series

Well it goes without saying I did it again, read another Patterson. I'll have to say though that this one was an improvement over the last Cross series I read.

So I've pretty much decided to give in and read all of the Patterson's I can get my hands on. I only started keeping track of the books I read about two years ago and already not sure of which ones Patterson's I've read and which ones I haven't.

Happy Birthday's

Today is my brothers birthday and tomorrow is my Dad's.
Happy birthday to them both.
As always, wish I could have been home to see them.

My Dog Friend

Street dogs. There are so many of them and I pass the same ones on my way to and from work. I've been carrying some doggie treats with me and giving it to them as I see them, and at first I thought that they weren't eating them, but now I notice that they have been waiting for me to walk away before they eat them.

One dog I always notice stays a block or two away from our apartment on the main road. She's a mutt, much like any of the other mutts on the street and has had a litter or two.

Well lately as I approach her she starts wagging her tail and gets up and starts hopping towards me. She was hit by a car and had a broken leg. I remember seeing her months ago before she had a broken leg. It's quite sad. I see many dogs around here the same way.

I scratch her head and her fur feels so course. I know it makes her happy just to get some attention.

I'm happy when I see her, but it makes me sad when I see her hopping towards me. I see the dog lady feeding her rice the other day and also had some water for her which is good.

I will try to get a picture of her soon.

So many animals in need here.

You're Fired!

As of yesterday we have parted ways with our housekeeper. She was good to some extent but Chris was getting annoyed having to tell her over and over again how she wants things cleaned. This is really pretty normal for housekeepers around here, mostly due to the language barrier. You have to pretty much physically show them how you want something clean, if that doesn't work reinforce that with the possibility of being fired and in the end, firing them.

Most housekeepers that work for American's find their next job by word of mouth as if they do a good job their employer will recommend them to someone when they leave. Working for American's usually is a good thing for housekeepers as they usually pay a little bit better and lots of times give them items they don't need.

So, we probably won't recommend our former housekeeper to anyone. I wish her well.

The Call - The Walls Came Down

I was and still a big fan of The Call. Saddened to hear of the death of their lead singer Michael Been.
http://the-call-band.com/home/home.html
This is one of the bands older songs. Got more college radio air play more than anything else and an occasional rare play on MTV.
They never claimed to be a Christian band but many of their songs do reflect a Christian theme.
Hope you enjoy this.

Book Corner - Finished Reading

Same Kind Of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
Paperback
237 pages
Spiritual/biography

I'll have to say that this book has leaped to the top of my best books read list. I didn't read the cover of this book and began thinking it was a fiction novel, it wasn't until I was about halfway through that I caught a glimpse of "true story" on the rear cover.

A synopsis. One man the son of a sharecropper, never went to school, never earned any money only picked cotton all of his life before jumping on a train to Texas and ended up living on the streets. The other man is a millionaire. The millionaire befriend the homeless man because of his wife's vision. The homeless man ends up teaching the millionaire things that you can't learn in school.

I did a pretty horrible review, I suggest you visit their web site to learn more.

http://www.samekindofdifferentasme.com/about.aspx

Kollupitya Market Kitten Update Redux

After reviewing some pictures I took of the cats yesterday I realized that the one orange kitten we thought was nearly dead was in fact alive. At least in the pictures its head was raised. It's most likely very sick though.

I'm not going to post the pictures as they are not pictures of three cute orange kittens, but three very sad kittens.

Kollupitya Market Kitten Update

Went to Kollupitya (Colpetty) Market with Chris for her usual feedings of the stray cats. Things have gone from sad to sadder there. Of the original four orange kittens one turned up missing the other week or so, nobody was sure what happened to it. The mother cat had moved them several time and most recently to a dark alley that ran behind the butchers stands. It's unfortunate but it could be anywhere or worse and you just have to move on. The three kittens have been moved to the front of the butchers stands and they don't look well. One is a runt, one has his or her eye swollen shut and one of them will most likely die soon. In fact Chris didn't touch it as I think she didn't want to know if it was already dead. The mother cat is pregnant again and she doesn't care about the kittens.

We found a whole new group of very feral kittens on the third floor with another pregnant mom. Not so feral that they wouldn't eat kibble, but they did hiss and spit at Chris.

Chris' favorite sibling kittens have been moving between their old hiding spot on the second floor to the fish mongers floor, but today we found the shy one on the stairs, one eye almost swollen shut and his or her sibling hiding in their old spot.

All in all a sad situation. Four pregnant cats and several tom cats that are more than ready to do it again. At least fifteen kittens all together (Not including pregnant mom cats and tom cats)

I know what your thinking. Get them spayed, get them neutered. Not so much a money problem as where to let them recover, that's the problem. If we had that solved we could do that and release them back at the market.

The company newsletter and bulletin board is full of kittens for adoption, to include a pregnant cat and one of her kittens from her last litter.

Bad Day For Abby

Well bad day for Chris. But let me back track. Our last assignment was in Uruguay. The Uruguayan's loved their pets, especially dogs. There was a vet on nearly every corner, with good service and ample pet supplies, so that was Uruguay.

Chris took Abby in for a check up as who knows what happened to her on the streets. She took her to the same animal hospital I took Cricket to. She explained what she wanted and they handed her some paperwork, she turned around and looked and they had already injected the kitten with something. No questions, no nothing just gave her a shot. On top of that they didn't check her out, just stuck her back in the carrier. Chris then reiterated what she wanted done and they told her they didn't have all of the necessary vaccine's, maybe a few weeks. She asked if they could tell her what gender she (?) was, nope.

When Chris got home the cat started coughing. She looked at the paperwork and saw that they gave her some sort of oral medication for worms, not a good thing for little kittens and she most likely breathed in some of the medication into her lungs.

The only good thing that came out of the visit they explained her eye problem is common amongst street animals and they gave her some eye drops. They didn't look at her eyes, just told her that with the information she provided.

I got quite the earful about Sri Lankan pet care when I got home. She found a Brit vet and is taking her there nex.

Book Corner - Finished Reading

The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper
By Jack Caughlin and Casey Kuhlman
Paperback 320 pages
Military/Autobiograohy

I wish I can say I liked this book but it was rather disappointing, although it was interesting to a certain degree. The author brings us behind the scope and we learn what he see's and what he's thinking before he pulls the trigger.

What I didn't like was the remarks about a certain officer that he is blatantly disrespectful to and says the worst things about. True? Possibly. But he makes you want to believe that he pretty much turned the tide of the war. He didn't come off sounding like a good Marine to me.

All in all, not a good read, not recommended.

Patient Update

It was pointed out to me that I should post an update on our little patient.

She is doing much better now and has a big appetite!
She is also litter pan trained and very playful.
We think that she maybe blind in her left eye. You might notice in all of the pictures something
is different with her left eye (Looking at the photo her right eye of course). When we found her her left eye was encrusted shut. She is also cross eyed.
Chris found my earlier post about not planning to keep her very amusing as she did laugh to tears.
Oh, she has a name now, Abbey.
Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image.

This picture shows how she is cross eyed pretty well

Captain Canine

afghanistan
Originally uploaded by The U.S. Army

Pretty cool picture of a working dog in Afghanistan. WOOF!

Book Corner - Finished Reading

Run For Your Life by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
384 pages
Paperback
Detective thriller

Yikes, another Patterson? Yes, I caved in. I was in the middle of reading another book and it was quickly approaching the "Quit Reading" category so I grabbed this for a diversion and read it over the long weekend.

A bit disappointing as Patterson novels go. Trying to much to mimic his Alex Cross character and quite a bit of smattering of promoting this or that throughout the book, especially the Palm Trio 750. My goodness it must have been mentioned ten times in the book.

You can skip this series.

Kitty Rescue (Me!)

We were returning from a walk yesterday and took a wrong turn that made our walk a bit longer, it was a little past 6:00pm and was about dusk.

As we passed a dirt parking lot we could hear the unmistakable sound of a kitten crying at the top of its lungs. Chris stopped dead in her tracks and headed for the parking lot. It didn't take long to find it, It was all by itself under a car. Chris tried to grab it but it went further under the car. Someone came over and was able to grab the cat from the other side, he handed it to me and walked away, as in "Your problem now". I handed the kitten to Chris who wrapped in a towel. It kept crying and crying, It did not look well. One eye was encrusted shut and she was very skinny. What were we to do? We couldn't leave it there.

We took a trishaw home and it cried pretty much the entire way.

When we got home Chris went straight to work taking care of our little patient. She found a rubber squeeze bulb and made some broth from cat food and water and fed it to the kitten. Her little tongue couldn't lap it fast enough. She was very dehydrated. Then Chris washed her. I was out of the room when Chris called me very frantically. She thought that kitten was dying and it may very well have been. Its eyes were closed and not a peep was coming from it. Chris kept massaging it with her fingers and all of a sudden its eyes opened and it let out a little cry. It could just as well have been a real baby crying when it's born, we were so happy.

She also took a heating blanket and put it under a cat carrier and lined the cat carrier with a sheet.

Several times throughout the night she woke it up to give her more to drink, but she never urinated, and when it did she only urinated two drops, not good.

Today after giving it more to drink it finally urinated a normal amount for a small kitten.

Now we have no intention of keeping the kitten. One of our cats is already mad even though she hasn't seen it, she has heard it.

Pictures soon.

The Problem With Peppers

I love peppers, hot ones, mild ones, in between ones, I love peppers. But I also like to know what I'm getting.

The first time we bough some chili peppers here we brought them home and both thought they must really be hot, I mean this is Sri Lanka, home of spicy foods. I took a bite from the tip of one, not wanting to over do it, and nothing, no heat at all. Chris took a bite, same thing. They were fakes! Sure looked like something that was hot.

So Chris goes to the market and there are some chili peppers. "Are these hot?" and the vendor says that they are, they're not.

Another time, smaller peppers, these look hot, the vendors says that these are hot. They were, very hot.

Well a Korean lady from work gave us some Korean hot paste (Kind of hard to describe). I have always loved this stuff and have been looking all over for it. The great thing about it is that you can use it on raw vegetables and eat it with rice. I like it with banana peppers.

I noticed that there has been lots of banana peppers for sale at the market, so we bought some.

My mouth was practically drooling thinking about dipping them in the paste and eating them with rice.

When I think of banana peppers, I think of something with no heat all, or so I thought. Chris took a bite and handed it to me. I couldn't believe it, they were the hottest peppers I have had since we've been here, off the scale hot!

I think I'm going to have to stick with bell peppers, those I know are not hot!