WeBuiltThePyramids

Had a vet appointment today with Eliza thinking she had a UTI, since she peed outside the litter box (and in a completely different part of the house) and that's not normal at all for her. Long story short, she does indeed have a UTI, but she's also pre-diabetic, so now we're on prescription food to see if we can manage it that way, if not we start insulin shots next month.

At the start of the visit when they took the sample for urinalysis, the vet said by eyeballing what the sample looked like "it could also possibly be kidney failure" and at that moment I was SUPER glad I'd taken Xanax before bringing her in. Fortunately after looking at the results and confirming with bloodwork, her kidneys are fine, and her glucose levels while higher than normal/expected (even considering the stress of being at the vet) they're still well below what's expected for a diabetic cat. So hopefully when we go back in a month, the prescription food will be helping.

FoxPhile

Oh goodness! Hopefully the special diet will help.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Fingers crossed! The vet said some cats don't like the new food, but I gave her a few pieces when we got home yesterday and she wolfed them down, and definitely isn't ignoring them in her bowl (food is mixed for now) so that's great.

FoxPhile

Excellent!

Shilo has been on a diet for a couple of months because she was getting a bit overweight. Her diet basically consists of cutting back on treats. Diabetes is a problem in Shih-Tzus, so I watch her weight pretty carefully. She's lost 1.5 pounds so far and she has her annual checkup in two weeks, so I'm hoping the vet will say it's okay to reintroduce the treats, just not quite as many.

FoxPhile

I went to a community theater to see The Music Man yesterday. I went last year to see The Wizard of Oz and it was wonderful. I've worked with community theater in the past and I'm aware of how hard you have to work to put together a stage production with a budget that doesn't even constitute and entire shoestring. I was very impressed with both the talent of the cast and the creativity of the production crew on Wizard.

Sadly, I can't say the same about The Music Man. The title character and one very young little boy were actually quite good, but the female lead was singing at least an octave above her range and sounded pretty awful at some points. The audio person also couldn't seem to balance the sound coming from the orchestra with the cast - who were all wearing microphones. All you could hear for most of the numbers was the orchestra blasting out the music. The singers were drowned out most of the time.

It's good to know that they aren't consistent - so I won't be expecting as much. But it also makes it difficult. They only do tow or three shows a year, and they are only $20, but I'm going to have to think long and hard before I waste another $20 on a show that may be mediocre at best.

WeBuiltThePyramids

This reminds me of a school play my high school did that was VERY male character heavy when they knew good and well they had one good actor.

FoxPhile

That's sad. Regardless of the talent ratio, schools should really endeavor to do productions that have a balance of the sexes so that both genders have equal opportunity. Like everything else in school, the purpose of school plays is for students to learn and that shouldn't be focused on one group over another.

WeBuiltThePyramids

What was even worse about it was it was a play about Santa Claus and like...the elves could in theory have been played by girls. But they insisted on casting all boys (so there were two roles for girls one of which was Mrs. Claus) and the play absolutely sucked because the boys were all shy and even if they could remember their lines no one could hear them.

FoxPhile

The drama department in my school must have been before it's time. We did Oliver in my senior year, which has a pretty good division of male/female parts.

The year before, however, they did Sound of Music, which is a little more female than male. Five of the seven children are girls and then there are all those nuns. There are a few sort of "extra" parts that can be cast either way, but those generally don't do any singing. So the director made an interesting cast adjustment. Our nuns were joined by two priests who in the numbers that were staged in the convent.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Hey, that works!

FoxPhile

It probably helped that the head of the Performing Arts department was a woman who was active in the Equal Rights movement. She was an amazing lady who encouraged students to pursue whatever their interests and abilities led them to do, regardless of societal norms. For the time, that was pretty unusual. And she didn't restrict that to theater roles. My only involvement with her was during the senior play, but she took the time to get to know every student she interacted with and she was the only teacher who encouraged me to pursue something math related as a career. She commented to me once that she noticed I was really good at math and told me that I could, of course, become a math teacher, but that I should also consider taking some computer courses in college and just see if I like it. I didn't take her advice because I was convinced I wanted to teach foreign language. But I wound up with a career in computers anyway.

FoxPhile

Made homemade pizza today. Given inflation, it's cheaper than having pizza delivered. It was also really good.

WeBuiltThePyramids

I love homemade pizza. I love all pizza of course, but there's just something about the homemade.

FoxPhile

I like that you can do exactly what you want with it. For instance, I don't like tomato sauce. I just don't. Several pizza places have started offering alternatives, but for years if I wanted a pizza without tomato sauce, I had to either order one with no sauce at all or make it myself. When I make it myself I spread a little softened homemade garlic butter on the dough before I add the other toppings. YUM!

R.I.P. Nichelle Nichols. Hailing frequencies are open at the pearly gates.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Awwww I don't remember if I saw her star when I was there.