http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php Copyright 2008, Emily Elizabeth Moser Emily Elizabeth Moser en-US SPHPBLOG 0.4.8 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080610-223001 article, and the comments posted along with it. The essential idea behind the article is that the author feels a little "uneasy" with the fact that veterinary medicine has improved, and thus the length of a pet's life can be increased, often with a large price tag. "I think I'd be a better person to let my animal die naturally and then give $1,000 to combat child poverty, or even animal abuse." And many of the comments, at their core, reflect the sentiment that people deserve advanced medicine, while animals do not... as well, people are better than animals.

Somehow I feel that it is necessary to respond to this in some sort of way, as many of you are aware from me telling stories, my cat has had extensive surgeries, at a cost of upwards of three thousand dollars. And since the surgery he has been required to eat a special diet of prescription pet food. At around four years old, my cat was diagnosed with Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease. He was unable to urinate due to blockage, and was brought to the vet several times to be catheterized, in order to empty his bladder, and to clear the blockage. Unfortunately these measures were unsuccessful, and we had to bring our cat late in the evening to an emergency veterinary facility in Hartford, a forty-five minute drive. We were told that toxins were building up in his system, death was imminent, he might not even survive the trip to the hospital. At the hospital we had to make a decision: emergency surgery, or euthanasia.

Let me just say this: if your child needs surgery, there is no way in hell that you are ever forced to make a decision for surgery based on economics, you either pay for it, or we let your kid die. I suppose this is where the issue gets touchy. Euthanasia is acceptable for pets, it is not for people. I will say that I don't totally agree with that idea. For an old, sick, animal, (or for that matter a person) with a low quality of life, I see euthanasia as an acceptable option. However, my four-year-old cat hardly fit into that category. The average lifespan for an indoor house cat is around fifteen years, and so I reasoned he had significant time left to live. Ending a life, any life, due solely to economics seems wrong to me.

We opted for an emergency perineal urethrostomy: the necessary surgery to save my cat's life. His penis was removed, and his genitalia were reconstructed to prevent future blockages; he essentially had a sex change. I attempt to explain this to people and generally they think I am a dipshit and I don't quite understand what happens when a cat gets neutered. I do wonder about what exactly would happen if my cat were to go missing and I made a poster... list him as a male, or female? Nomatter, my cat is now celebrating his tenth birthday. He has lived six years since his surgery and is in wonderful health. There is no doubt in my mind that he will live many more happy years.

As I sort of draw my little quasi rant (that likely no one will read) to a close, I will step away from the possible open door of making a statement about religion; it tends to be my experience that people who clearly view human life more important than anything else as religious. I will also ignore the "normally intelligent" comment by the author, which seems to imply that they view pet owners that believe that the value of a pet's life with the same respect as a human life, as stupid.

Was it worth spending more than three thousand dollars for a surgery to prolong my cat's life? I say, hell yes. I view the life of my pet and his right to live equal as that of any person. Would it be acceptable to allow a person to "die naturally?" What in the heck does that even mean anyways? If you want to get right down to it, if we lived "naturally" I'd have died as a kid, picked off by predators. I'm scrawny as heck, with horrible vision. If we lived "naturally" I'd be dead, and not ever have the chance to reproduce: the "better" humans would. We don't live naturally, we do, however, live based upon our morals. Failing to give medical care I just don't think is morally right, human, feline, canine or otherwise.]]> Web Links, Rants http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080610-223001 Emily Elizabeth Moser Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:30:01 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080610-223001 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080602-205030 news fatigue" and have "trouble accessing in-depth stories." Riiight. Most news is bullshit nowadays anyways. If we are having difficulties accessing these stories, it is a high likelihood that it is because you fucking idiots are not reporting it very well. I truly wonder wonder whether I was just oblivious in the past, or news really has gone to shit recently.

There is the obvious stuff you can find on the internet, beating this subject like a dead horse. CNN headlines = FAIL. Britney Spears news trumps earthquake coverage. Etc... But even watching local TV news I feel that it is being sensationalized and exaggerated to get more viewers. Controversy is created when none exists. And bullshit continues to get reported as if it were news.

But seriously though, news fatigue? More like fucking sick of this bullshit people pretend is news. I'll just continue reading "it's not news it's fark.com." NOT news. Drew Curtis is an expert on that subject, and apparently doesn't bullshit us like the rest of them. ]]> Web Links, Rants http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080602-205030 Emily Elizabeth Moser Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:50:30 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080602-205030 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080601-220526
"WHAT KIND OF PANTIES GIVE YOU YEAST INFECTIONS?!?! THE COTTON OR THE SILK?!?!"

I LOLed.

I was also unfortunate enough to run into my old roommate. The... disturbed / psychotic one. I will not elaborate further, however, when I saw her I intended to shout out something stupid like, "Well now, look who it is!" ... except I failed because I shouted it out in Portuguese. Do other people that know multiple languages have issues like this, or am I just a nutjob? I find that when I get very emotional, I stop thinking in English. Most times though, random Portuguese words find their way into sentences, or better yet, I attempt to conjugate Portuguese verbs in English (or vice versa). In fact, I think this annoys people. Well shit, it annoys me too sometimes. Fail.]]> Random Junk, Funny Stuff http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080601-220526 Emily Elizabeth Moser Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:05:26 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080601-220526 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080527-173131
Before going to work today, my sister made it a point to ask me if I happened to have my period, while I was looking for something to eat for lunch. It was a random question I wasn't expecting, and I assumed that she was about to get mad at me for stealing some of her tampons or some other thing that she has fabricated... (though in this case I had actually stolen some tampons, so I thought I was busted). Of course I played it cool and asked back, "Why do you ask?"

She then informed me that there was blood in the bathtub, which she thought was from someone's period. Even if there truly was blood in there I reasoned that it could not possibly be mine, as at least two people had showered after me and if there were any, it would have washed away by that point.

Of course, there was no blood, and I had a good laugh when I went to go and inspect the shower. The first picture shows the "blood" and the second one is to show scale, my hand is at shoulder level...

Needless to say, if that was my blood, I would have some issues... Because I would most certainly need a geyser in between my legs to shoot period blood that high. I never did tell her that it was my brother's body wash... maybe I should do that??]]> Random Junk, Funny Stuff http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080527-173131 Emily Elizabeth Moser Wed, 28 May 2008 00:31:31 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080527-173131 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080520-161023 I've discussed this several times with Liz, and she finds it rather odd. When she sees a baby, she always thinks it is so adorably cute. It doesn't matter whose baby, even babies she sees in public. I, on the other hand, think they are terribly awful looking creatures. Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. Babies are NOT cute. I think Liz somewhat accepted this about me, although she thought it a little odd. But I have now determined that I even find *snakes* cuter than babies. This is a slightly disconcerting thought to me.

For you see the picture above, is my snake Cas (short version of Cascavel, the name of a city I lived near to in Brazil, and the Brazilian name for a species of South American rattlesnake). If you were to ask me a few weeks ago if I would ever keep a snake in my house, I would seriously think you nuts. But now I find myself taking care of a snake, and also finding this snake CUTE. Perhaps it has to do with the situation in which I acquired the snake: he was found during a rainstorm, caught in a deep trough full of water, accompanied with a larger snake (which my brother assumed to be his mother), near drowning. Unfortunately, the larger snake did in fact drown and was dead. Cas was near dead, and we took him in.

I took the initiative to scour the internet for information on caring for snakes, my sister on the other hand worried about how the snake was going to live without it's mother's milk. I attempted to explain the whole mammal/reptile thing, but she didn't pay much attention, and had moved on to giggle about whether mother snakes had "boobies" or not.

But seriously, Cas likes to hide in corners and dig little holes for himself. He frequently pops his head out of the hole, looks around, and then ducks back in. I find this very cute. Most likely this is further evidence that I am "animal lady" in the future... fifty cats and maybe a couple snakes... hmm...]]> Funny Stuff, Rants http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080520-161023 Emily Elizabeth Moser Tue, 20 May 2008 23:10:23 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080520-161023 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080519-090813 futureme.org/... Actually, to clarify, it was an email that I sent myself, scheduled to be delivered one year in the future. And today was that day. It is most definitely an intriguing way to look back at the past, reading your old thoughts, some of which were buried and you didn't quite remember.

I think I will be sending more emails to my future self later today.]]> Web Links, Cool Things http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080519-090813 Emily Elizabeth Moser Mon, 19 May 2008 16:08:13 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080519-090813 http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080513-164626 Cerulean Town http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/index.php?entry=entry080513-164626 Emily Elizabeth Moser Tue, 13 May 2008 23:46:26 GMT http://www.ceruleantown.com/myblog/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080513-164626