Day 139: The day Greyson scared us half to death

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 139: The day Greyson scared us half to death

There are people who complain that their life is boring, that nothing ever happens. In my opinion, those are lucky people. Here there’s always something happening and none of it is good. Take the past weekend for instance …

After a long hot summer, last Saturday the temperature dropped to about 18 degrees C (64.4 degrees F). Not exactly cold, but the air was definitely chilly. Still, I saw no reason not to let the cats out on the balcony. Dieter even took a nap in the swing there, joined by Halley and Greyson.

Saturday evening Halley and Greyson were playing, as usual, racing in and out of the living room to the balcony and back again.

This continued on Sunday morning. Halley and Greyson were playing while I showered and got ready for the day. And then suddenly things went wrong.

When I presented my fur kids with breakfast, Greyson didn’t take one bite. Thinking that he didn’t like that type of food I scooped meat from another can on a plate, but he didn’t want that either. Instead, he curled up on the couch.

When I remarked “Oh this is no good,” Dieter thought I was panicking for nothing. “So Greyson doesn’t want to eat, so what?” he said, “perhaps he’s just not hungry.” This sounded absolutely ludicrous to me. Greyson is always the first one by his plate and the last one to leave. That kitten has an appetite that makes me wonder where he puts it all.

For the rest of the morning, Greyson remained on the couch. Dieter thought he was just tired and sleeping, but I knew something was wrong. I know the difference between a cat who rests, who sleeps and who doesn’t feel well. Still, maybe he just had a cold from being in the chilly air the previous day, so I tried not to be overly concerned.

Dinner time came and went and again Greyson didn’t want to eat. Okay, so now even Dieter had to admit that something was wrong. I called out vet, but unfortunately, the doctors at the clinic were fully booked.

Now it so happened that Greyson had an appointment today, Monday, at 9:30 a.m. for his second inoculation. If he couldn’t see the doctor on Sunday afternoon, at least he would be able to be seen the next day. He wouldn’t be fit to receive his inoculation, but at least he would get a doctor’s attention.

By 6:00 p.m. his situation turned into an emergency. Greyson became unresponsive and we decided to take him to the emergency hospital. I called a cab, we put him in his carrier and took him downstairs to the lobby of our building.

And then something strange happened. While we waited for the cab to arrive, Greyson got up on his feet, took an interest in his surroundings and seemed so much better. He clearly wasn’t as sick as I thought he was so I canceled the cab and we went back upstairs.

Back home again Greyson curled up on a blanket on Dieter’s bed and went to sleep. Thinking that he had to eat at least something, I opened a tin with lots of gravy and let him lick my finger. After licking my gravied finger perfectly clean a few times I switched to a spoon. I loaded the food onto the spoon, presented it to Greyson and he licked/ate the gravy and meat. Ten minutes later he had finished his plate.

That made me feel a whole lot better. He had eaten and with this food, he would get his strength back.

From there on it got better and better. About an hour later Greyson came and ate from the big plate, a little later went for seconds and finished off his dinner with some kibble and a drink of water. Another half an hour later he was playing with Halley with a ball.

Today he’s back to his usual self. He eats, drinks, grooms himself and plays. It’s hard to believe that this is the same kitten that was so sick yesterday to the point that we thought we had to take him to the emergency room.

 www.connymanero.weebly.com

Day 138: Weruva Cat Food

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 138: Weruva Cat Food

A couple of months ago, Holly developed a problem on her backside. She kept licking and licking back there and I could see that it really bothered her. We tried to clean her up as best as we could, we shaved some of the surrounding hair, but there was no improvement. So, we took her to the vet.

In the vet’s opinion, Holly was suffering from a food allergy. We had to take her off whatever she was eating now and feed her a better-quality food.

I felt a nightmare coming on. Holly is a notoriously picky eater. Still, a constantly itchy butt was no joke and if the better quality food would make her better, then better quality food she would get.

Not knowing what she and the other cats would like, I stocked up on a bit of everything: Blue Wilderness, Wellness, Royal Canin, etc.

The switching of food was indeed easier said than done. Holly and the others took one whiff of the better-quality food and turned their tails. Great, I had spent all that money and they didn’t like it. Now what?

A friend told me that I was going about this all wrong. I couldn’t switch my cat family from one food to another overnight, I had to go about it gradually.

“Give them a tin of their old food and a quarter of a tin of the new food,” she said, “and gradually increase the ratio.” So, I did that and all went well, the cats gobbled up the new with the old and within a few days Holly butt problem got better.

The next time Dieter went to the pet store to stock up on food, he came home with Blue Wilderness, Wellness, and Weruva. Weruva … what the heck was that? The cats never had this before. Would they like it? I fed the cats what they were used to by now and avoided the Weruva. When next Dieter went to the pet store he could take the Weruva tins back and exchange them for something else.

That is … until one day I ran out of cat food and the only thing left were the Weruva tins. With more than a little doubt, I took the tins out of the cabinet and … OMG, the label stated, ‘Green eggs and chicken’. What the hell were green eggs? I was almost positive that the cats would not eat this. I certainly wouldn’t eat green eggs. Still, having nothing else I had to try.

I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the tin and there were no green eggs to be seen, just slivers of white chicken meat in gravy. Did the cats like it? Hm, they didn’t just like it, they devoured it! While there are usually some leftovers from dinner, now their plates were licked clean to the last sliver.

The next time I fed them Weruva it was Herring and chicken (an odd combination but they love it) and a few days later they got mackerel and something else. They only get fish twice a week and, on both occasions, they loved what was on their plate.

So, I guess the search for a quality food is finally over. The winner is Weruva. Of course, I’m subscribed to https://www.petful.com/recall-lists/cat-food-recalls/ should anything ever go wrong with Weruva or any other cat food, I’ll be informed.

www.connymanero.weebly.con

Day 137: AWAI Online (Follow up)

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 137: AWAI Online (Follow up)

After yesterday’s post, AWAI Online has been bombarding me with emails:

[FINAL NOTICE] Just a few hours left to improve your life forever…

I just wanted to quickly remind you that this is the last day you can take advantage of the very special offer we put together especially for you.

This is it, Conny … Your very last chance to access our popular B2B Writing Successmembership site. Last chance to become a member. This is the last time we will contact you. We didn’t hear from you so we’re giving you another chance. Last chance to take us up on our offer. On and on it goes. One email after another. Just how many last chances do I get? If nothing else, this confirms that AWAI Online is a scam. No legitimate company pesters potential customers with so many emails, time and time again repeating the same offer. What’s worse, no matter how many times I unsubscribe from their website (and I never subscribed to begin with) the emails just keep coming. This borders on harassment.

Day 136: Halley and the Geese

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 136: Halley and the geese

I just dawned on me that it’s been a while since I’ve given you an update on the 2.5-million-dollar project. The last two pictures I posted were these:

 For about two weeks after these pictures were taken, I didn’t see anything happening. Not that the men weren’t working, they were – as I now realize – busy placing supports in the parking garage in preparation for the next phase of the project.

Last week Monday I came home and was greeted by this sight:

From then on, the pit just became bigger and bigger.

The noise of the jackhammer (white machine on the far left) is deafening. The works starts promptly at 9:00 a.m. and continues until 5:00 or even 6:00 p.m. I try not to let it bother me, but after a few hours this is getting more and more difficult. More so because watching something on TV is impossible as I can’t understand the dialogue. The same with listening to an eBook, I can’t concentrate on the narrator.

Even Halley has a hard time dealing with the noise. She was sitting on the ledge, watching the men at work, and her eyes were clearly asking … what are they doing? 

She was trying to attract the attention of one of the men with an “Hey you! Can you keep it down a bit? Some of us are trying to sleep up here.” 

When that didn’t work she decided to call on a higher power with a “Please God, make it stop!”

Last Friday the noise did stop for a little while as the foreman came to inspect the site and he and the six men took a stroll in and around the pit. While one of the workers did a lot of gesturing, the foreman stood with his hands on his hips bobbing his head. He seemed pleased with the progress.

Then on Saturday, a different kind of inspector and his entourage came to take a look at the works. I heard a strange noise, went to take a look and there they were ... five Canadian geese, casually taking a stroll along the construction site. 

Not one but five of those big birds were just waddling along, seemingly belonging to nobody. Now that was of interest to Halley. 

Day 135: AWAI Online

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 135: AWAI Online

One of my pet peeves are people trying to take advantage of other people: Nigerian princes who want to share their millions, financially strapped mothers who can’t provide for their children and ask for support, and writing sites making unrealistic promises to aspiring writers. One such writing site is AWAI Online.

It’s understandable why freelance writing has become so popular. Men and women of all ages get to work from home, get to be creative, and some of them manage to earn a decent income.

AWAI Online recognized that freelance writing has taken off faster than a car on nitro and zoomed in to lift unsuspecting people of their hard-earned money. The plan is simple, get people’s attention with the line

““The Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting salary”

When I see a line like that I immediately know that I’m dealing with a scam. No copywriter, amateur or professional earns a six-figure salary. If they did, everyone and his uncle would choose that profession.

Generally, freelance writers work for pennies, they are among the most underpaid people in the world. Some of them get paid 3, 5 or 10 cents per word and gradually work themselves up to a better payout.

A friend of mine is such a writer. She started out working for pennies, build up a portfolio and a reputation and today she is one of the most successful and respected writers in the business. Save to say, she makes a very nice income but she earns nowhere near $100,000 a year. However, she is one of the few, the rest of us take what we can get where it comes to writing.

But let’s get back to AWAI Online. As always I did some digging and found this article:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53003768@N06/8494566540

At Writers Beware I found the following:

https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-barefoot-writers-club.html

At the time of publication, there were 127 comments pertaining to AWAI Online. Let’s have a look at some of them:

The head honcho of AWAI, calls herself "Katie Yeakle" That happens to be a fake name, as are the names of many of those who run or write for AWAI. Hmm...

Check Elance or oDesk if you want to find out what freelance writers really earn. Those sites are chock full of very capable writers charging $10-$20 per hour.

If AWA has accomplished anything aside from making "Yeakle" and her insiders fabulously wealthy, it has flooded the market with pipe-dreaming wannabe $500-an-hour writers, which by their sheer volume have eliminated the chance that many will earn a reasonable living off writing.

I just found out they are taking $49 out my credit card account every year, and I have not authorized this repeated charge. Also, I cannot find anything in "My Account" on their website that shows I will be or have been charged or how I can stop the charges. This qualifies as a scam. I've never gotten anything worthwhile from them either. Stay away.

Thanks for this post! I've been wondering about these AWAI people. I signed up for their mailing list at some point but I've never spent money on them. I just get emails from them every few days that always sound about the same and never give me any actual info. Like you said, it's just all fluff that reads like one of those get rich quick scam pages. Sure it sounds glamorous and beautiful and who wouldn't want that... but it's got way too many red flags.

If I call in the next 30 minutes, I will receive two, that's right, TWO subscriptions for the price of ONE! They'll even throw in a free shower head valued at $19.95! But wait--that's not all. As a special introductory offer, they will provide me with a 1,000-page email list that I can use to spam unsuspecting people with the hypnotic power of my newly-acquired copywriting genius! If that's not a deal, I don't know what is.

On second thought, it might be easier to just take a blunt blow to the head.

There is only ONE way to be a profitable writer--have talent, wow a publisher. Get your education in the field of writing from reliable educators, work, work at it until you have a WOW piece. Now go out there and WOW one.

There is no way, as I see it, that some snake oil salesman on the internet can make you a writer.

What I want to know is, "who are all these people writing the testimonials?" 

AWAI is pretty much of a joke.

Unfortunately, the naïve, and the ones who don't do their homework on AWAI get sucked in.

I have lost count the number of business owners I have written for who got burned after hiring "copywriters" through AWAI.

The stories I could tell you about this place. Just the way AWAI advertises themselves should tell anyone with a half a brain that they are not good at copywriting. Their lame articles alone should tell you plenty. Buyers beware. 

I guess this just about sums it up. If you go searching for AWAI Online, you’ll no doubt find favorable reviews, but the question is … who wrote those reviews, even if the writer states that he/she is unbiased.

Take it from me, anyone who believes that earning a six-figure salary (meaning in access of $100,000 a year) with copywriting is possible is dreaming.

The only ones who make money from the six-figure writing course are AWAI Online and you can be sure that they’ll be smirking … we caught another sucker.

You want to learn how to write? There are two ways of doing that: 1) go to school, an actual school where a teacher/professor will explain the process and the finer points; 2) go online and read everything you can get your hands on. Don’t just read through, study the material. Next, you practice, practice, and practice some more. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough and it won’t cost you a dime.

Day 134: Puss in boots

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 134: Puss in boots

Most people you meet will tell you that they have no problem remembering something that happened years ago, but don’t ask them what they had for lunch yesterday. I’m one of those people. I remember my first date, how I felt when I first sat on a horse, and what I wore to a friend’s wedding. Safe to say, there’s nothing wrong with my long-term memory. My short-term memory … hm, that’s a whole different story. For instance …

Last week I was ready to go out when I couldn’t find my shoes. As always, I turned to my son.

“Dieter, do you know where my sneakers are?”

“Where did you take them off?”

Yeah, what kind of a dumb response was that? If I knew where I had taken them off, I would just go there and put them on. It was Dieter who eventually found them. “They’re over here,” he called, “under the kitchen table.” 

Under the kitchen table? Now that was strange because I never leave my shoes in the kitchen.

The next day it was the same scenario.

"Where were my shoes?"

“Again?” Dieter asked, slightly annoyed. 

Yep, again. A search party was dispatched and this time the shoes were located deep under my bed. Once again, I thought this was strange. While I sometimes place my shoes under my bed, I never store them in a way that I can’t see them anymore.

Two days later it got even stranger. Now I found one shoe behind my bedroom door and one shoe in the laundry cabinet. Something was definitely happening, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what kind of strange forces were at work here. Was I the victim of a ghost who was playing a prank on me?

Having had experiences with ghosts in the past, I wasn’t particularly keen on that idea. Fortunately, before I could get myself too worked up about the possibility of a spook, the truth was revealed, and its name was … Greyson.

While folding some laundry, I saw Greyson coming into my room, grabbing hold of the laces of one of my sneakers and dragging the shoe with all his might into the living room. Considering that Greyson is a 10-week-old kitten who barely weighs 1,5 kg and the shoes are twice as big as he is, this was quite a formidable task.

The question is … what was he trying to proof by stealing my shoes? Play a game of puss in boots?

Then again, the way Greyson runs and jumps it might be a good idea for him to have some supportive footwear. At the rate he’s going he’s going to wear out his poor little feet.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Day 133: A day in the life of a kitten

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 133: A day in the life of a kitten

For those who are following Greyson’s adoption … he’s been with us for 11 days now and the little fellow has made himself quite at home.

In the beginning he hesitantly traipsed around the house, curious but scared at the same time. And who could blame him, for such a small kitten, the rooms and the furniture must have looked enormous. He quickly overcame his fear though and now his careful traipsing has been replaced by running at full tilt. When he gets going it’s a case of … get out of my way! His partner in crime is Halley, and the two of them take turns in who does the running and who does the chasing. In the process rugs go sliding, bowls of kibble go flying while water bowls get tipped over.

The running and the chasing doesn’t limit itself to the living room, kitchen and bedrooms though, they also take it outside on the balcony. For instance, on Saturday Halley and Greyson saw a fly outside they absolutely had to have. Both of them has just had their breakfast, so they couldn’t have been hungry, but apparently they still had room for a snack.

They chased the fly all over the balcony, zipping from left to right and right to left, occasionally jumping to catch the bug mid-air. Time after time they came up empty handed, but they did manage to make a mess by jumping on a flower pot which toppled over. By the time I got there, Halley was nowhere to be seen, leaving Greyson to face the music. (Not that there was any music to face.)

          

          

All this running around makes a kitten tired, so shortly after lunch Greyson went down for a much needed nap. Unlike people who battle insomnia, Greayson was out like a light in 3 ... 2 ... 1. 

When he woke up he lazily opened his eyes and stretched, no doubt wondering when dinner would be served. 

After all, if there's one thing Grayson loves besides sleeping, it's eating. No matter where he is, no matter what he's doing, when he hears a can opening, he would go over corpses to get to the plate first. He's also still eating long after everyone else is finished. Of course, eating can be tiring too, so after dinner and a quick wash, it's time to sleep again. This time nestled against mommy's or daddy's arm.