Heat Wave

Even cats have a rough time dealing with the heat. Mine can't even stand to sleep on his stomach.

Moving, Cats, Dust

There is an old woman sitting dejectedly on a chair on a balcony across the courtyard and two floors up. She looks like she's being punished. The door is closed behind her and she looks less than thrilled to be out in the fresh air. I wonder what she's done wrong.

Irrelevant. Today is the final day in the Riga apartment. Excitement and sadness. And a bit of frustration. I'll start with frustration. I love my (now former) flatmate and she's a wonderful friend and person, but when you move out and leave your key in the postbox without cleaning anything in the apartment and leave a bunch of your unwanted items behind for me to clean up, my positive feelings become a little harder to dole out. Good thing my best friend is coming out later to help me put this place back to order.

Sadness. This is a good place. It's a good location. The rent was decent enough. The landlady was a riot. The fridge is big enough to hold all of our assorted jams, mustards, and sauces (as we rarely had real food around). My cat had plenty of windows to guard from the onslaught of angry, dirty pigeons. Etcetera. Also, moving in general is a stressful undertaking.

Excitement. I leave with a few friends for a 10-day trip around Germany(!!!) and France. Then I get four days to pull myself together again before jetting off to the US for the rest of July. This will involve carting the cat, howling and piss-stained (the cat, not me), through four airports and three flights, followed by a two-day car ride across the eastern states. I'm excited for all of this, minus the piss part, but am also concerned for the cat. After today's vet visit, he has even ME convinced that I'm the worst person on the face of the planet. I hope the huge bay window facing the bird feeder in Minnesota will more than make up for what is to come.

As soon as I publish this post I'm off to keep throwing my belongings into unmarked boxes and bags -- it'll be like Christmas when I open them again in a few months or just days. I always want to write something more frequently, but June was a wild month in Latvia. I finished my contract at work and went in part-time to help out until they found someone to replace me (which has yet to happen), did some driving around Latvia with my dad, who was here on research/vacation purposes, and then the whole moving thing.

I can't keep my family obligations and thoughts straight right now. Hopefully I'll get some mental air cleared soon so I can make things interesting on here again.

That old woman is still out on the balcony. Now she's chewing her nails. What a world.

Garlic and Vets

Saturday night some friends and I went to Kiploku krogs – The Garlic Bar – and had a very flavourful dinner. As far as I know, almost everything on the menu has some amount of garlic in it, including some of the desserts and beverages (ice cream with honey-garlic sauce, anyone? Or how about some delicious garlic mulled wine?). The joke/saying that goes with this restaurant is that if you plan to go, it is recommended to spend the rest of the evening hanging out with the same group of people who were at dinner, as you are the only ones who will be able to stand the garlicy company. I don't think any of us ate enough garlic for it to be seeping out of our pores, but I definitely still had the taste on my tongue the next morning.

But the food was delicious, the garlic mulled wine was as well (for this they don't actually crush the garlic, just drop one steamed clove into the drink, so the garlic taste is almost undetectable) and the prices were decent. Definitely a must as far as going back for more.

Now about the visit to the vet. Oh, experiences. First I called the taxi company to make sure I could transport the cat that way (by car from my apartment is the most direct, as with any other transport I would have to walk through the city for 10-15 minutes to reach the respective tram stop or the main train station with a howling, dagger-spitting cat, then sit on said mode of transportation for another 30 minutes while people eye me either warily or with annoyance as the cat makes horrific "I think I'm dying slowly and painfully so I'm going to make you experience every second of it" sounds. The cab company is run by saints who allow pets and even said "Hey, if you have a kennel for the cat - even better!" Like I was going to just carry the cat down to the car without any problems. On the way to the vet the cat literally crapped himself silly (at least we had some fecal samples for the doctor when we got there) and stunk up the cab. Not my problem.

The visit itself went well; the vet was a younger guy who kept dropping things all over the place, including at random and uncontrollable intervals from his pockets. He also knocked a few things off the exam table and expressed his frustration that something was going strangely that morning. He couldn't find anything wrong with the cat, and I started to think it might be because of his own judgement. The man is holding my cat down while sticking a thermometer up the poor animal's butt and tells me, "Wow, your cat is really freaked out." I just looked at the vet and kind of laughed. If he can't see the reason for the cat's nerves, then he's beyond my help.

The cat got a de-worming pill, prescriptions for a kind of anti-diarrhea pill and a "natural bacteria" balancer, and I got tagged with an LVL 19 bill (NOT bad at all - this price includes the medicine) and the strong suggestion to take the cat in for more de-worming and the next round of shots once he feels better.

The cab ride back started with the cabby picking up the cage and looking at it, then up to me with eyes glowing like a small child's and asked excitedly "A kitty!?" The cat was able to control its bowl movements better during the return trip and immediately forgot his recent trauma once back at home and stretched across the top of the radiator.

At this time it seems like the cat has gotten better. It was absolute hell trying to get the medicines in him; the pills were ridiculous (my cousin, also a vet, said that he doesn't even give that specific type of pill to clients for their pets until he chops them up and puts them into gel-caps to mask the bitter taste) and if I fail miserably trying to shove those down the cat's throat, I was generally too tired to try to get the other paste (which is apparently semi-delicious and tolerable) into his mouth. But the symptoms of whatever look like they're gone and I was able to call the clinic and let them know that everything seemed to be back in order. The cat is now splayed out on my lap, but little does he know that another vet visit is just around the corner.

Tonight I also went to choir practice with the Martinu koris. It went about as well as I could have expected it to go. I haven't completely forgotten how to sing, though practising my violin more will definitely get that hearing back into shape. Tomorrow night I go to play my violin in a Latvian fiddle-type setting with some folk dances/games people. That may be a bit more nerve-racking.

Looking the Other Way

Yesterday I had an appointment at a nearby clinic with a surgeon. During the visit I had my lower abdomen poked and prodded and was then instructed to turn my head and cough.

I was lying on the exam table and almost lost it in a fit of laughter. Turning your head and coughing is something I associate with the 1970s-1980s, males and prostate exams. I guess it works both ways. It was all I could to to turn my head quick enough and cough extra loud to mask my guffawing.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: the Latvian health care system never ceases to amaze or amuse me. I get to go back tomorrow (Thursday) and expect a whole new adventure.

Also, after several days in a row of rainy and overcast weather and general fall frigidness, it promises to be a nice 12°C today, which means I may be able to finally get a decent run in. My flatmate Julija is also back from Russia -- TDA Ligo, the dance troupe she rolls with, won the Grand Prix in St. Petersburg.

I look relatively dishevelled this morning because my cat has taken to lovingly kneading the back of my head while I sleep. The effect of his furry pads and ruthless talons digging into my scalp create a nice 80s prom look that is hard to brush out or comb down. I will have to find a way to avoid this. The easiest ways probably involve wearing a hat or reactivating my ebay.com account and researching whether the sale of animals is legal.