Samy's Vet visit

Today, we took Samy to the vet for his rabies and distemper shot. Whenever we mention the word "vet" around Mary (our other cat), she conveniently hides so that we can't find her. She thinks that if she hides, she won't have to go in the horrible car to the horrible vet. Somehow, she hasn't thought this through, because we always find her and put her in the pet carrier.

Because of the above, we try not to let on that something is about to happen. Corinne and I got dressed, and then we grabbed Samy threw him in the carrier. Up until this point, he was happy, had breakfast, played chase with Mary, and was curious about everything we were doing. I felt guilty when the meowing started as we headed out the door. I took one last look at Mary before we closed the front door and noticed that she was VERY happy about not being the one to go. She knew where Samy was going.

We get in the car and of course we had to hear many choruses of "The Meow", with various key changes. This is usually accompanied with me saying every couple of minutes, "It's OK, Samy." Fortunately, the vet is not far, so we didn't have to hear it too long.

Samy was a gentleman. Corinne took him out of the carrier and he began exploring the exam room. The vet came in and as he asked if we had any questions, he stuck Samy with the two shots. He did it so fast and quietly that Samy didn't even howl. We found out that Samy was 9.07 lbs. The vet said he is a little overweight for only being 6 almost 7 months. The average weight for a fully grown male cat is 10 - 12 lbs. We have to do something about his diet.

Samy hasn't quite learned that he doesn't need to eat everything in sight. When we got Mary from SPCA, she was like that, but soon learned that we will provide for her dietary needs. She learned that there will always be food for her to eat. Samy was a stray that came from CAPS, but he hasn't quite learned that we will always give him food, so he thinks he has to eat everything until his next meal. Hopefully, he will learn soon that he doesn't need to do that and gobble everything up quickly. That will probably help him with his weight problem.

Other than that, he is doing well. It's amazing how much he has grown. I'm always please to see his coat is nice and shiny. And his "tiger" stripes are becoming more pronounced and darker. He will turn out to be a beautiful cat. He is my "bubby".

19 years old!

My baby is 19 years old today. Happy Birthday, Corinne (or Catt, as she prefers to be called). Yes, she is 19 years old, but no matter how old she gets, she will ALWAYS be my baby. My one and only.

I made her a waffle and sausage patty breakfast and then her boyfriend came over. You know that they are getting old when they haven't asked you for a party, they spend the time with their significant other, and you are one of many stops along the way. Actually, they went to a movie and dinner afterwards. I'm going to make a cake so when they come back, we can have cake. The least a mom can do.

An update to her illness: She started to get better in a few days after the ER incident. We still don't know exactly what it was, but I'm glad that she is doing better.

Dude, what is wrong with my car?

In the month and a half ever since I got Cara Ann, she has slowly started having problems with the transmission. Or so we thought. She would lunge as I try to put her in gear, and once in 3rd gear, she would jump down a gear and get stuck. The only way to "unstick" her was to pull over, put her in park, turn the van off completely, then turn her back on. This somehow would reset the computer and it would act normal again.

After taking her to several shops and no one knowing what is really wrong (one shop wanted to rebuild the transmission for $1500), one of the car clinic guys and I started doing some research on the problem. What we found out is that the problem is not really a bad transmission. There was a whole list things on particular website to try that costs less than $100. The first thing they did was to replace the input speed sensor. With this replacement, it seems to help resolve the problem of it jumping down a gear and getting stuck. It still lunges (three times) as you go from 1st to 3rd gear, but once it's in 3rd gear, it's fine.

So, in order to resolve the lunging problem, I spent this morning going to three places. We thought if we can get a transmission flush and change the filter, it might solve the problem. The first place I went to was one of our church members, however, he couldn't do it because he was way too busy and couldn't get around to it today. He sent me over to another place, who said they couldn't do it either because they didn't have the proper fittings to do the job. So, he sent me down the street to a transmission place. We told the guy what we wanted, and he recommended that we don't since we haven't done a flush on the van before. (Since Cara Ann is new, we don't know what has been done). He had one of his guys put Cara Ann on the computer to see if any codes come up, and nothing came up. Then he drove Cara Ann with us in the car, and when he parked her, he recommended a complete tuneup.

The decision was to wait and do some of these things at the next car clinic. Hopefully, a tuneup will clear up the problem.

It's interesting how the deeper we get in this problem, the more we find out things, and the further away we get from our original diagnosis. The lesson: Do your research. I could have gone with the first guy and had him take apart the transmission for $1500, and still not found the problem. Even though it "felt" like a transmission problem, my gut instinct said to get a second opinion. Just like doctors, don't be afraid to get a second opinion, or even a third. As women, we should arm ourselves with knowledge and don't get taken advantage of. Unfortunately, that is what happens a lot in the auto industry.