Going vertical
My quest to examine my home from a cat's perspective has helped immensely. It's all about the vertical space, and as we add more of that, we get fewer arguments which means happier, less stressed cats and humans. We finally got our wall climbers hung (with the help of my brother-in-law), and they have been in heavy usage since. They LOVE these shelves!
They scamper up to the top and nap, watch the world, and feel like the ruler of the second floor territory. They also spend a lot of time up on the shelves playing--jumping back and forth, skittering across, around, over, and under the shelves.
The climbers are fairly expensive (though not overpriced), but they are handmade by animal lovers (yay! no corporate fat cats to collect my money) and they are remarkably sturdy and solid. I will definitely be ordering more as we can afford it--the peace and happiness they are bringing to our household are priceless! We ordered them from Crazy Cat Condos, and we started with 'package C'. It's fun to look at them and dream up fun and exciting configurations that will allow our little furballs to be jungle cats, peering down at the world from high in the tree tops. 
We did attend the wedding I blogged about--the much-too-young bride. It was a very, very hot day and an outdoor wedding; my arm was really hurting. The heat tends to make it swell more, which increases the pain. I'm glad we went, though, because as it turns out, we were the only people there who were not closely related to the bride/groom. It was a very small wedding, and our absence would have been very noticed and very hurtful, and I would be absolutely sick about hurting any of them. They are so young and inexperienced! I really wish them the best, and hope the young bride beats the odds and finds happiness. She's a beautiful girl and was a gorgeous bride.
Dej came over a few days before the wedding with a new dress she had gotten to wear for it. She fell in love with the dress, but it was strapless. Busty girls and strapless tops are never a good mix, so she planned on having me fix it for her. With the condition of my right arm, however, that was impossible. I measured, we went out to JoAnn's and found some crochet lace that worked perfectly, as the dress already had crochet lace at the hem. I measured again, cut and pinned the straps and talked her through the sewing process. It was a success and the dress looked great on her! I briefly entertained the notion that she would be able to do her own mending after this (and the child rips clothes like nothing I've ever seen--I'm always repairing things for her). I was wrong. She brought two dresses over this week for repair. Her cats chewed the strap off on one side of each dress. They will be sitting here for a while before I am able to sew again!
We were having lots of fun and Luciana was MUCH more confident on skates than she had been before. There was a church youth group there that had been driving everyone crazy the whole night. They had never been skating (or it appeared that way) and were constantly falling, causing others to either have to avoid them quickly or fall themselves. They were easy to spot because they were all wearing red t-shirts with big crosses saying, “We stand for life”. Too bad they couldn’t stand for skating! We managed to successfully avoid them most of the night, until a little girl fell in front of us, knocking Luciana down. I was holding Luce’s hand and almost made it upright, but the little girl’s wheel caught my wheel, and I went down, tried to catch myself out of instinct and shattered my right wrist. The little girl felt very bad about tripping us up and was very apologetic. 
It was my first broken bone (other than a finger), and I did it well. It shattered the end of my radial bone. I had to have surgery to repair it and now my arm is full of hardware (plates, screws, and pins). It looks absolutely disgusting. It’s been three and a half weeks since it happened and it’s slowly improving. I’m still in a lot of pain and very limited with what I can do. My ability to clean and care for all the animals is extremely limited which leaves extra work for Mark and Luce. It’s been a huge pain in the ass and has left me feeling really vulnerable and ‘breakable’. I don’t like being dependent or feeling weak, so I’ve been extra crabby lately.
In May, we gave my M’s motorcycle to my dad, as Mark just didn’t use it. He had big ideas years ago when he got it, but it’s just sat in the garage since then. My dad passed his written test and started riding all over town right away—he was so happy on the bike, and I was happy to see it finally getting some use! This past Sunday was the final class for him to get his permanent license, and about midway through that I got a phone call from him (my mom was out of state with her sisters). I could tell by his shaky voice that something was wrong. He still doesn’t know what happened to cause it but the bike ended up tipping on him and he landed on his right side. His right leg was badly broken, with the ligaments badly crushed. He also has lots of nasty road rash and bruises. He also had emergency surgery and is now in the painful recovery stage. He said he will never ride a motorcycle again.
From the time I arrived in the ER and was put in a bed, I stayed on the same bed until I went home. No painful transfers. They put me on ice and gave me pain meds immediately. The brought the xray machine into the room to take xrays. I never had to move, and if you’ve ever broken a bone, you know that moving it around while broken is excruciatingly awful! He was moved SEVERAL times, each time was incredibly painful for him. One time they used a board to facilitate moving him, which was much better than the other times where they had him scoot very painfully to a new bed while supporting his own unset, painful leg
My dad called from the parking lot where the accident happened and was waiting for the ambulance to arrive (while sitting out on blacktop on a 95+ degree day). The toes on his right leg were pointing backward instead of forward, so there was significant pain involved. We beat the ambulance to the hospital by about 45 minutes--not sure what they were doing, but he was NOT given any pain meds, nor did they put ice on him. I was put on ice immediately and given fresh ice throughout my stay. 
As always, Mercy was understaffed, and the care he received was woefully inadequate. I would like to send them a bill for the nurse/CNA duties that we had to perform while he was there, because nobody could be found. The care and attention I received was wonderfully. I rarely even had to call for a nurse, and if I did there was an immediate response. They kept my pain meds coming (though I didn't partake in much), kept my fluids/IV bags changed as needed, and made it as pleasant as such a stay can be. Conversely, Mercy was a comedy of errors--forgotten, long-empty IV bags, they forgot to put any ice on for swelling, didn't bring a vomit receptacle until I tracked someone down for one (which barely made it in time), never checked on the rapidly swelling leg which was getting squeezed painfully and dangerously in the splint that we had to loosen (again...staff?), forgot to put the compression cuffs on his legs... I could go on and on as there where several other instances of poor care. Like every other experience I've had at Mercy it was just disgusting, unprofessional, and NOTHING they should be able to collect money for. I wonder if anyone has ever disputed the charges based on lack of quality care, sanitation, and overall subpar experience.
I find it quite hard to stomach the Mercy joke of a hospital, knowing that they are literally rolling in profits. Because they are a "non-profit" hospital, their number one concern is trying to spend the massive quantities of money that they made in profit, so they can retain their status. I really hesitate using the term non-profit on an organization whose CEO makes as much money as he does. It's appalling the money that they are pissing away on damn near anything, yet somehow it never crossed their mind to improve the quality of care, get adequate staffing, or consider the patients' comfort.
I'm just now able to take pictures again for the first time. It's still a little awkward, so I'm not getting great shots. I was so bummed during my recovery that I didn't get any shots of the hundreds of asiatic lilies that were in bloom. It was stunning, and they were gorgeous. They are at the tail end now, with most of the asiatics being done. I took a few shots tonight of the garden, but it was definitely at its best about two weeks ago. I'm hoping M got some shots of it at that time. 
I took this photo during dinner tonight. Charlie always hangs off things in the strangest ways. He seems to always have at least one set of legs hanging off the surface and sticking straight out.
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