Giving medicine to a cat

August 26, 2009 — xanthippa

This is Bo-Bo:

His full name is ‘Snowball’ – but he usually responds to the diminutive ‘Bo-Bo’.

This past weekend, my neighbours (and friends) went away for a 4-day trip.  As I am the local animal-lover, they asked me to look after their cats (Snowball is one of 3 felines in that family).  At the last moment, Snowball (he is a little dominant…) got into a fight with another cat in the neighbourhood and the vet said he must get 2 antibiotic pills a day… could I handle the challenge of giving Bo-Bo his medicine?

I agreed to give it a try – my friends deserved a break!

Snowball was happy to see me when I came in and fed him – the first time.  Then he got annoyed that I would not let him out (he was to stay indoors while recuperating).  When I gave him his medicine – he got really, really mad at me.

The next medicine time, he was ready!

There was no way he would allow me, an outsider, to come in, hold him down in a chair and shove a pill down his throat!  His family may be away, and he may not be feeling his best and I may have taken him by surprise the first time… but – no more!  He would fight against this indignity!

Bo-Bo put up a mighty battle…

I did learn some things:

  1. Cats can – and do – growl.
  2. If you do NOT allow the cat to ‘have the last word’, the ‘next time’ will much easier.

Yes, I am glad to report that now, Bo-Bo is all well and healthy – and he does NOT growl at me any more.  Not even when I put him into the ‘medicine chair’, make him wait till I get the pill, sit beside him, open his mouth and pop the pill in!

Quite a change of attitudes!

And I did not do anything other than outlast his ‘bitching’ and ‘have the last word’.

One could say, I suppose, that I have learned how to ‘out-bitch a cat’!

Posted in about, Humour, language. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

A few banal observations…

August 21, 2009 — xanthippa

Rabbits may be reluctant swimmers, but they are very, very fast swimmers.

rabbits are very fast swimmers

Also, they have an incredibly keen sense of direction!

If you are ever stuck in the middle of some body of water, and you need to figure out which direction the closest land lies in – and you need to figure it out really, really fast – just put your rabbit into the water.  He’ll immediately and unerringly begin to swim towards the closest land.

Hip Hop swims to shore

And, they look cute in a little ‘jacket’:

A handsome rabbit with his wet dog

Another, completely unrelated observation:  if you tell your kids to turn the oven down by 25 degrees, it is very important to specify that you mean 25 degrees in temperature (naming the scale would not hurt!), and not 25 degrees as in the angle through which to rotate the temperature dial….  Not being clear on this will, at times, result in the oven being set to the wrong temperature!

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More photos from ‘The North’

August 20, 2009 — xanthippa

It is difficult to describe just how awesome the nature in Canada is.  It is bautiful, stunning, and any other totally complimentary word you’d like to use!

Every year, for our holidays, we go a little bit north:  only a 3-4 hour drive but a world apart!

The nature – both the fauna/flora and the physical formations – are completely breathtaking.  There is no other word for it, except, perhaps, ‘paradise’!  And, while I enjoy the sights and ‘feeling’ of the places we go to (we have our favourites – and we explore at least one new place each year), I try to take pictures I can look at later, when I am back home, and I need to ‘recharge my batteries’.

Please, don’t get me wrong:  I am not one to rough it.  My standard little joke is that I love camping – as long as the giftshop downstairs is good….

I cannot understand why, when we have spent millenia developing running water (flushing toilets), electricity that comes from a plug (and the appliances it runs), houses that are (relatively) bug-and-other-pests-free – and which have nice dry, un-lumpy bed, why we should snub all this which our ancestors have worked hard to develop and invent, and sleep on the lumpy ground, protected from the elements by nothing more than a flimsy bit of cloth stretched over some sticks!

That just seems like dissing all our ancestors have done for us!

Still, looking at nature (as long as one does not overdo it) is a balm to my soul….

So, here are some more of my favourite pictures:

Reflecting

Boating boys!

Ducks

shiny rocks

more shiny rocks

berries

'Life of the rocks' (as opposed to 'The Madonna of the rocks'...)

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Recharging is exhausting work!

August 19, 2009 — xanthippa

Evening boat-rides,

Evening boatrides

morning sunrise,

Morning sunrise

sandy islands,

Sandy islands

rocky islands,

Rocky Islands

active pets,

Active pets

resting pets,

tired pets

resting feet,

resting feet

…

What can I say?

In order to truly ‘get away’ and re-charge, we were isolated from the news, the internet, and everything else that was not within a boat-ride of where we were. So, it is taking me a while to catch up on what happened…

Somehow, my brain does not want to get back into the ‘old tracks’!

In surroundings like these, it is easy to ‘get philosophical’ – and we did (as we do every year).

Last year, we got into the whole ‘if a tree falls in the forest…’ thing – and decided that the answer will vary, depending on what is meant by the words ‘hear it’ and ‘sound’.  Though these are ‘simple’ English words, they can be interpreted in so many different ways that they alter the nature of the question:  the very essence of what is being asked about!  (As in, measurability vs. perception/relevance of reality…)

This year, we discussed much different things – no less philosophical, but certainly more ‘practical’.  At the core was the concept of the diaspora (not the ‘capital ‘D’ diaspora’, which refers to the dispersion of Jews once they were exiled from Israel by the Romans, but the ‘little ‘d’ diaspora’, which refers to any group of people who immigrate not as individuals,  but as a society which does not integrate, but rather enforces its own separate cultural and/or religious norms) and its effects on host societies and vice versa….and the reasons for these effects.

I’m sure I’ll be writing this all up, just as soon as I can formulate it from ‘discussions’ and ‘debates’ into a more tidied-up prose.

Still, it is difficult to discuss – and write about – the diaspora in a way that does not send people screaming and calling the thought police and shutting their minds to the very human qualities which are at the core of all the prejudice against the people who immigrate into a land and snub that land’s culture…  not because of the end-concepts, but because in order to discuss this subject, one has to address many topics which are taboo to even mention, much less dissect and debate, in our politically correct society. And, one has to use language that ‘points stuff out’, instead of ‘normalizing’ things and hiding their true meaning.

Yet, I am convinced that unless we understand what is happening inside us, unless we discuss it openly and without reservations, we cannot begin to fix some of the systemic prejudices inherent in our society!  And, reducing (even a tiny bit) some of these ‘barriers’ is a good thing for our society in the long term, even if right now, discussing it openly may feel like pulling a band-aid off…

After all, unless we recognize our prejudices and understand their roots, we cannot hope to overcome them!  It’s just too bad that in our society today, even raising the subject is taboo… yet I intend to not just raise it, but to examine it and the very things which produce visceral reactions in us, human animals.  Politely, of course….  ;0)

At the same time, there is so much which is happening now that I ‘ought to’ be writing about and screaming about…. that I feel pulled in so many directions, I keep hopping from one draft of a post to another, not finishing any!

Yet, I am making progress and I hope to be posting some thought provoking ideas soon.  In the meantime, please, enjoy these pictures!  And, if you’d like to see more, please let me know:  I took a few thousand shots over those days, and some of them have managed to capture the ‘mood’ of the North!

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Summer holidays

August 8, 2009 — xanthippa

For the next little while, I will be away for summer holidays…far enough North that no internet signal is available nearby.  In he meantime, please, enjoy reading these fine blogs:

The Lynch Mob

Blazing Catfur

The Reference Frame

Just Right

Speak Out on Copyright

Stubblejumping Redneck

Tea and Politics

The Blog of Walker

John Robson Online

Dvorak Uncensored

In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying views like these:

Big skies

Rocky shore

Long evenings...

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7 things I like: I’ve been ambushed!

August 4, 2009 — xanthippa

OK – so going to parties is not a ‘hazard’ for most people.  But, I am not ‘most people’…. and, being on meds that seriously suppress the immune system, going to any gathering of people has serious risks for me that do not exist for other people.  And, having gone to a political ‘meet&greet’ last week had left me…well…a little ‘under the weather’ – no fault of the organizers of the event!!!

The truth is, I started to write a post a week ago – a post I actually went ‘into the field’ and met people and talked to them and took pictures and all that – and then got feverish before I managed to post it….and have not even booted up my computer since!

My apologies….

Still… during my absence, I have been ‘tagged’:  now, I am supposed to list the 7 things I like!  And, since this is something I can do without the ability to apply higher reasoning (like, say, writhing a ‘real’ post would require….something my fever-ridden brain is not quite ready for…), I will be happy to oblige and list 7 things I do like:

1.  Freedom of speech!

‘Freedom’ is NOT something I take for granted:  I was born in a totalitarian country where ‘freedom’ was not a concept that was valued at all!  Freedom of speech is the most important of all the freedoms, because it is the means of opposing oppression and the only way of ensuring all the other freedoms are indeed ‘applied’/’allowed’!!!

Without freedom of speech, there will never be freedom of thought or freedom of religion:  one only has to follow the most basic of logic deductions for that…or to look at history:  both are in agreement!  Without freedom of speech, there is no freedom of thought, no freedom of religion and, to a great degree, no freedom of association!

Personally, I think freedom of speech is essential for humans to truly be ‘human’!!!

2.  My family

My children and my spouse are the most important influences in my life!  Short of breaking the law, I would do anything to protect them and to ensure they succeed in their chosen fields. 

While my nuclear family is my utmost priority, my extended family (nieces and nephews in particular) are also extensions of my ‘self’ (whether blood or marriage related – they carry some of the same DNA as my offspring do, and that makes them important to me) and I will go to great lengths to help them succeed in whatever they choose to do.

BUT!!!

And this is  an important ‘but’:  I would NEVER wish to put my opinions and my priorities above those of the next generation – my kids, or my nieces and nephews!  Their own free will is more important than anything else and I WILL always do my best to allow them to achieve according to THEIR standards!

After all – it is Free Will which makes us who we are!  And, helping my family members (my kids first) to fulfill their Free Will is the most beautiful and important goal ever!  Without it, I would never be able to know who these people truly are:  and to appreciate them for it, and learn from them!!!

3.  Mammalian ‘babies’/fellow ‘living beings’

OK – this is strictly ‘biological programming’!!!

I cannot help it:  even though it’s been almost a decade since I have had my last surviving offspring, when I smell a ‘mammalian baby’ (human, canine, feline, rabbit…it really does not matter), my body immediately triggers lactation!

It fascinates me just how deeply this instinct has to be programmed!

And it fascinates me just how similar the facial proportions of most mammalian infants truly are!!!  It’s almost as if…. Nah!  I’m just a freak!!!

But… this ‘love’ extends to all types of living beings:  life is just ‘the universe’ learning about herself…one person once told me.  Perhaps.  Or not. It does not really matter, in the grand scheme of things…

Either way, I love all forms of life and wish them no ill and the minimum of suffering, even as I must kill some in order to survive:  but, survival is the name of the game, so no guilt comes of it. ‘Killing some’, as long as the killing is as ‘cruelty-free’ as possible, is necessary for life to go on – ant therefore it is not a bad thing.  After all, even ‘breathing’ kills some microbes… and I am not about to feel guilty about being alive and breathing!

4.  Languages/Mythology

Some peole might consider these to be two separate things:  language is a ‘means of communicating‘ while mythology is a ‘belief system‘.

Except that…

The language used is a result of the same environmental conditions which shape mythology…. and the points a mythology makes affect the ‘secondary +’ meanings of words in any language! 

Example:  my native tongue does not have ANY words designating a female dog which have seriously negative meaning:  at worst, the word ‘bitching’ means ‘having a fun time within bounds 0f politeness’…  The phrase ‘son-of-a-bitch’ had always puzzled me; even though an artificial ‘negative’ word for ‘bitch’ had been crafted, I never quite grasped the negative meaning of that phrase until I learned a few ‘foreign languages’!

In other words, this is a bit of a self-enforcing ‘circle’:  what is valued in the culture coloures the language;  what is valued in the language colours the mythology; what is valued in the mythology colours the culture… or something like that!  I am sure better people than I have articulated this better!

Still – it is highly educational to study various ‘mythologies/languages’!  I do not think it possible to separate the two and effectively master one ‘foreign one’ of them!

Yet, studying them gives one an insight into what it means to be human….something we ought to value more than we do…

In other words, language/mythology are essential to our perception of ‘the world’ – even as they differ from one human to another.  I find that fascinating –  and elucidating!!!  I love it!!!

Note:  Mathematics IS the language of science. It must NOT be left out of this section:  it is beautiful in itself and it contains a most wonderous mythology of its own.  As such, ‘Mathematics’ is both a language and a mythology…plus something more….a means of expressing a ‘universal awareness’…the most ‘perfect’ of all mythologies!!! (In the true sense of the word ‘perfect’, of course!)

5.  Books

OK – this is a ‘thing’ of mine…. I LOVE BOOKS!

Perhaps this is a redundant thing:  books only record the ‘language/mythology’ of a particular culture at a particular point in time. Still, this gives us an important insight into the psyche of ;’living beings’ – mostly, but not exclusively, human ones (this depends on the intelligence and interest of the writer).

Still…

There is something uniquely sensual about touching dead plant matter which transmits coded messages about living matter…

Fascinating!

(And, yes, I DO collect books…and have several thousand in just my house… many of them are over a century old…and only very few of them will I ever loan out again…  And, aside from reading them and learning from them, I do derive a physical pleasure from touching them….yeah, I know, I am a freak…)

6.  Science

As in, GOOD science – NOT bad science!

It is the bane of our culture that bad science has overtaken good science in public opinion.  It has become so entrenched in our culture that most of us are unable to tell the difference between ‘good science’ and ‘bad science’.

It troubles me greatly when people in positions of power use ‘science’ (well, actually, abuse science) to increase their power over people!  The examples of this are so numerous, it is difficult to pick just one….from legislated vaccination to the latest statistics, science is being misused to engineer the behaviour of our society.  And that is wrong!!!

Science – pure science, it its true form and without all the ‘political spin’, has improved our standard of living to an unprecedented degree!!!  That is a GOOD THING!

Yet, because it is so powerful – and because so many people mistakenly believe science is beyond their grasp (something our ‘approved’ teaching methods in high-schools and grade-schools perpetuate) – it is easily used by few to manipulate the many, just as religion was once used! 

That is bad!!!

Really bad!

But, the underlying science:  understanding that ‘science’ is not a ‘collection of facts’, but rather a ‘method of enquiry’ which will separate one’s prejudices and politics from the data….that will (given freedom of speech and thought) set us (humans) free of the superstitions which the ‘ruling class’ have always used us into submission… 

In other words, ‘science’ will set humans free from manipulative control by opportunistic oppressors!

Last, but not least…

7.  Crafts

This may not seem to be ‘obvious’…

BUT…

I truly admire all the artisans and craftsmen who have become masters in their field!  It is THESE people who have advanced the ‘development’ of human culture!

Just think….

Without people who figured out how to build stuff out of wood, or rock, or how to make bricks and build stuff out of them… Without people who figured out how to make usable fibers from the refuse of ‘food stuff’…and how to spin it into threads and weave it into fabrics….both for clothing and for blankets/tapestries…

The ancient Greeks separated ‘art’ into two major classes:  Apollonian and Athenian….  The art ‘ruled’ by Apollo was just ‘art for art’s sake’:  art which fails to have a function beyond being decorative.  In contrast, art ruled by Athena was ‘usable art’:  art which has a secondary purpose, from ‘clothing’ to decorative baskets that held ‘stuff’ to anything else that was both beautiful AND useful!!!

As such, I have followed some of the paths of ‘crafts’:  the very first commercial business I started was in the field of clothing design….I made the pattern and had immigrant women (who spoke little or no English, and who were not allowed by their husbands to have a j0b outside the home) make it come to life in their homes…  We were good enough to get the attention of at least one the ‘big guys’ in the field…

Still, clothing design is just one of these crafts:  I love and admire anyone who can actually use their own hands to crate ‘stuff’ – especially awesome, beautiful AND awesome-looking stuff!!!  From cooking to carpentry to painting (yes, I see it as a ‘craft’ more than as an ‘art’ – and that is a compliment to ‘painting’) to clothing and furniture and home design…all are beautiful crafts that fascinate me and which I wish I could master – one at a time!

Of course, all the 7 things I have listed are connected to each other, very very closely… They are all means of observing the pattern ‘humanity’ leaves on the face of this planet…. which makes them beautiful!  And, worthy of study…

Sorry if I sound all stuffy and all that…but, these are the things I truly like and love!

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I’m back!

July 6, 2009 — xanthippa

Thank you, all, for your well-wishes and words and thoughts of support!

I’m back home, and now that the ‘morphine haze’ is beginning to lift, I’m back online.

However…

…for about 2 weeks (I think!) I have been isolated from the ‘great wide world’ out there!  No news, no internet – so, I am going to need a bit to get caught up on what has been going on!

A lot of things I was ‘working on’ have probably dropped off the radar, others have been resolved, and so on.  Plus, despite the painkillers and all that, I have made some interesting observations of our healthcare system (yeah, they can drug me – but that does not stop me from accidentally finding out things I’m not meant to) that I’ll need to do some follow-up on:  are these observations accurate, are they as systemic as they seem and can I get someone to talk about them more.

So, I’m back – but I’ll be at ‘half volume’ (or less) for a bit…

Thanks again for all the support!

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‘Xanthippa on Aspergers’ – a new spot for my Aspie stuff

June 10, 2009 — xanthippa

This blog does not have a very tight focus…to say the least!

I bounce around, from current political stuff – global, Canadian and local to me, to a bit of political theory/history (with help from others!), to philosophical/religious stuff…and just about everything in between.

Oh, and I also have a few post about Asperger Syndrome:  my experiences in living with it and some of the perspective from an Aspie point of view, as well as some things that worked when I helped my – and other – kids master their Aspieness and turn it from ‘a curse’ into ‘a gift’.

Well, it seems that some of the things which I tried and which worked for me and mine have also worked for some other Aspies!  And, it has also attracted the attention of some educators of Aspies – and, perhaps, over time, it could become an unlikely resource.

From what I hear, many professionals who work with Aspie kids have great amount of theoretical information available to them, but very little practical ‘stuff’ to go on.  So, reading the experiences of an adult Aspie – even one who is not a specialist in their field.  Perhaps they can read my experiences and see what worked for me, and interpret it at a higher level than I could hope to.

While I think that my ‘Aspie posts’ fit quite well in with my other rants, I cannot but help thinking that my other rants do not exactly fit in seamlessly with my ‘Aspie posts’, so to speak.

Therefore, I have decided to start a blog to house just my Aspie things.  It is called ‘Xanthippa on Aspergers‘.  OK – so it sounds a little pretentious:  but, I wanted the title to retain some of the keywords which get rated high on Google and help people looking for my take on Aspergers…

One advantage of this place will be that the tags/categories will be more specific, so it will be more easily searchable.  And, since none of the political or philosophical or religious rants (yes, I am a tiny bit opinionated) will be there, it will be a little more acceptable to ‘educational professionals’.

Over the next little while, I will re-post all my Aspie things on the new site – starting with the most read ones first.  (Of course, I will not take them away from here!)

In the future, I will post my thoughts on Aspergers on ‘Xanthippa on Aspergers’ – but I will still cross-post them here.

Thank you all for all the feedback and support!

Posted in about, Aspergers, education. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

Lily of the valley

June 4, 2009 — xanthippa

The other day, I was in my front ‘shade’ garden…

… when an elderly couple inquired if I ‘needed help’!

I sat up, pulled my camera down and embarrassed the kind folks… I was just taking some pictures of my flowers!

Of course, lily of the valleys are pretty low – so, to get the best shots (the sun was just setting, and I ‘had to’ capture that ‘kiss’ of ‘setting sunlight’ on the delicate blossoms…), I had to be lying down in the grass, and angling myself for the ‘best shot’!

I suppose it is easy to mistake an amateur photographer’s attempts to get the ‘perfect shot’ with random writhing in pain…art hurts, and all that…

Enjoy!

(Updated to include the title…and fix some spelling….)

Lilly of the valley

Lily of the valley

more lilly of the valley....

more lily of the valley....

even more lilly of the valley

even more lily of the valley

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…been quiet lately…

May 15, 2009 — xanthippa

Perhaps you have noticed that my posts have been less frequent than usual – my apologies.

There is ‘stuff’ happening in my extended family, and my attention has been there…  I will be back to my earlier frequency of posting, once my family’s needs return to their usual levels.

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