A Little Catch-Up

Alright, so its been a looooooong time since I have done this, and I figured some catch-up/introduction was in order.
I am going to try and do this regularly, figuring maybe it will help with my somewhat-addled brain in the current state of the world.
I know I blogged years ago under the header of a "somewhat cluttered mind," and then "somewhat-less cluttered mind." If any of you were here for that shitshow, welcome back.
If this is your first go with my ramblings, welcome.
I am always open to questions if you have them; drop them as comments or drop me an email.

We just finished with Mardi Gras here in New Orleans, and after the Superbowl was also here, I felt very much like Davis from Treme, where he said "I just want my city back."
Alex and I drove through the city yesterday to take Wilson to the vet (he's fine) and it was less-touristy than I have seen it in a minute. And I know, we live in a tourist economy. They're good for everybody in the service industry. But having it a little calmer for a while will be nice. We won't get long, though, before its French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest and then its too fucking hot to do anything except watch the weather and hope the Gulf (of MEXICO, y'all) takes a seat and keeps its elbows in.

Speaking of the weather... there is already some bullshit in the Atlantic Ocean. Uh... No. Just, no.
I'm hoping that we either get our fence replaced before we have a good storm, or we lose enough of it in a storm that our homeowner's insurance pays for it to be replaced. It definitely needs to be, but this house, and the issues we've had since we bought it, is a separate subject all together.

In case you don't know, we have a lot of cats. Well... not a lot-a lot, but more than average, I'd guess.
We have 7 inside and about 10-15 we take care of outside.
All of our outside babies are TNR'ed, except for this one orange-and-white fellow that the woman who traps for us just couldn't get. He was *very* trap savvy. I don't know where he learned it. His (I presume) sister, still shows up to eat every day, but has been giving me wicked stinkeye since she got spayed. Oh well. Die mad. You're gonna be mad a long time, girl, because I just took away some of the causes of you dying young outside.
And inside-7 beautiful babies. All but 1 is FeLV positive.
Chestnut is almost 5 and she is our negative baby. But she came to us under a whirlwind of circumstances. She was being neglected by the person who had her before, and the best thing he did for her was advertise that he needed to rehome her on Facebook. Since we have gotten her, we have gotten her up-to-date on her health, and we had her tail amputated, because it was in such bad shape that when Dr Wisdom amputated it, she found a lump near it that pathology identified as a lymph node. Chestnut was SO infected that her body made a lymph node where there usually shouldn't be one.

Ghost Pepper is almost 3(!) which is huge for a felvie who got it when she was a kitten. She also had a ruptured eye, which Dr Wisdom removed and it took a long time to heal. You wouldn't know now how sick she was. She has also fought off FIP on the way.
I cannot say enough good things about the GS injections used for FIP. If you have a cat, you should have some GS on hand. It works SO fast. If you're questioning if your cat has FIP and you start injections, you'll know for sure in 24-48 hours. That's how quickly they start making a difference. Sometimes even faster. We saw a change in Ghost Pepper 12 hours after her first injection. I was absolutely gobsmacked.

Next we have Wilson, who is 2 1/2 and all floof, no brains. Nah, he's actually really smart, he just doesn't like to let you know.

Then there are Sunchoke & Rutabaga, who are 2. Orange. So they're both sweet as they come, but definitely share a brain cell. Rutabaga has it most of the time because Sunchoke is dumber than a bag of rocks.
Rutabaga had major dental surgery about a month ago, and is just starting to act like himself again. Its been a long process and I am SO glad to see him being him.

Last but not least we have Mushroom & Kassava. They are not related at all, but we got them at the same time and they were quarantined together, so they act like littermates. Mushroom is a Siamese, and soooooo vocal. He's always meowing or chirping or otherwise letting you know where he is.
Kassava is a grey tabby, and homie is an asshole. He is just not a nice cat a lot of the time. He's not outwardly mean, I guess, but he's fiesty. He's a typical cat-knocks shit off shelves, looks at you and does it while you're telling him no, breaks stuff.

We are waiting on PCR results for two right now, both still kittens. I guess I'll let y'all know. 

What else? Its almost the end of the school year and the kids are DEFINITELY glad about that. I am too, honestly. I'm getting tired of getting up early when I'm not going to school.
It is my fondest hope that this year, they won't be doing construction on the apartments across the street all summer, and I might be able to sleep past 7am.

I'll do y'all a separate note about what we've gone through with the house, and maybe one about how Mom's doing with chemo this time around.

For now, I guess I'm out.