Notes for the next Christmas we host

Our Christmas feast was really fun but very tiring! In future we should think about:

• Less food. It's all very well to say that leftovers are good, but we had too much food to fit in the fridge, or in the enormous table, and we then ran out of Tupperware when it was time to send leftovers home.


• Way less glögg. People brought (and left) two bottles of berry glögg but we already had more than enough of the delicious local gourmet apple glögg.


• I guess the people who ate ham would call it a success, but the ham was so much work considering how few people ate any.


• A bunch of effort went into trying to duplicate MIL's favored fancy salad (my idea), but it didn't come out that much better than regular salad and the effort wasn't worth it. Way too much leftover salad too.


• We didn't even remember the fudge until we were packing leftovers. At least we were still able to get rid of most of it.

Snookums' feline dental surgery and follow up care

Snookums had to go under anesthesia Friday to finally get his teeth cleaned, an operation that had to be postponed like a year from when it was originally intended for Various Reasons. Anesthetic is slightly more dangerous for diabetics, so I was pretty nervous about it, but it went fine. His blood sugar was a little higher than usual that morning, which is good because it didn't have a chance to fall too low while he was unconscious. He had two back teeth pulled and was a very good boy and did great. His mouth is a little swollen and he's got a few days of painkillers, but he's not upset enough to not take his treats when given them.

The absolutely hilarious home care instructions were just like "rinse his mouth with tap water twice a day" with no further instruction. So we were like, "How?"

This isn't a VIOLENT cat, bear in mind. He's a completely non-dangerous kitty. Cornish Rexes aren't aggressive towards people - that's a serious breed flaw and very rare for them. But however docile they are about being handled in general, most of them will still wiggle to get away if they're too uncomfortable or in pain, so holding one immobile to examine their mouth when it's swollen and hurting them is likely to cause some resistance.

1. With the little plastic syringe for giving liquid medicine: it just sort of dribbles out and doesn't go into his mouth. He closes his mouth again as soon as you stop holding his lip up out of the way.


2. "What if we try tap water?" It was obviously going to be a bad idea and it was a bad idea. Who knew? Water splattered everywhere. The tap water was an okay temperature and not going too hard, but you'd have to have his whole head sideways and immobile to rinse his mouth that way. He was baffled and offended, but he accepted apology treats.


3. We tried the hand shower and it was... it's also bad. It's still too big to aim with. Wax's interpretation of his response was, "Why are they trying to waterboard me?"


4. I went looking for a squirt bottle, like you'd use for plant misting, but Wax thought it had too much water pressure.


5. Fortunately Wax said "Don't you have some syringes for your fountain pens?" I have a package of cheap disposable eyedroppers for fountain pens! And one of those turned out to work just perfectly.

So Snookums and we came to an understanding because the disposable plastic eyedropper method was quick and painless. He's got a couple more days of pain medication, but he seems better today.

Sadly, Snookums isn't great at cleaning his own toes and now that he's old he also has to have his ears cleaned, and those are his two least favorite activities, which provoke the most wiggling and avoidance and complaints from him, so I haven't felt able to subject him to these treatments while he's convalescing. My little man is therefore slightly more stinky than usual.