Monday, January 19, 2015

Damn! Missed My Own Deadline.


Doesn’t speak well for someone who advertises “writes to size, listens to criticism, and delivers to deadline and budget.”

I’d arbitrarily picked Sundays for posting and was doing pretty well until this week. However, there’s no excuse for missing a deadline, and if I were writing this for some editor I’d be prepared to take a loss of some kind, maybe even of employment.

But it’s not being done for a client, it's just for me, so anyone who keeps reading is going to get an explanation that’s going to sound a lot like an excuse.

My cat has diabetes.

How could that be an excuse for missing a deadline? Watch me.

Squiggles has been put on a restricted (and expensive) diet, under which regimen he can eat only twice a day. This is a dramatic contrast to his previous mealtime accommodations, which ran to all-day availability of dry food supplemented by handouts of treats any time Jean or I had occasion to walk into the kitchen. 

Walk into the kitchen any hour of the day or night, and there he’d be, sitting quietly in his “begging spot,” not saying anything but giving you that look they show you in the children’s charity appeals on TV. The goodies, named “Temptations,” must be 90 proof catnip because he would just vacuum them up.

Well, that’s all over now. He gets prescription dry food once in the morning and once at night, and he gets insulin shots as well. Think about it. Deprived of your favorite food, and some guy sticks a needle in through your fur twice a day.   

Squiggles is feeling bad and has taken to sunbathing under the lamp on my desk. This interferes with my use of the keyboard and my view of the computer screen, and that’s why I couldn’t post anything yesterday.