Ellen In Amerika!"MY EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND MY ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE IN CALIFORNIA SINCE SEPTEMBER 2008"

Fawn is not here anymore. We had to bring her to the Cat Clinic to put her to sleep. Today, she suddenly went so weak. She could not stand anymore. She was wobbly and fell down on her side. There were more things that made me decide to call Dan. We talked for a while, and we decided it was time. On his way home, he called the clinic and made an appointment for later in the afternoon. At home we sat aside Fawn for a while, and then we went to the Cat Clinic. They were very sweet and understanding. They gave her two injections, and Dan had Fawn in his arms until she passed. We were pretty heartbroken, but we knew this was the right thing to do.

Again to all of you, who were so warm and loving toward us: Thank you from the bottom of our heart. It meant a lot to us.

Everybody, thank you so much for all your kind and comforting emails and comments regarding Fawn. She is still here. doing poorly, but it looks like she is not in too much pain. Dan has been in contact with the Cat Clinic and they also called us to hear how Fawn is doing.  It looks she is having kidney failure because she has the side effects of this disease: ulcers in her mouth, bad, bad breath and symptoms of a flu. She sleeps a lot.

Dan called the Cat Clinic at 6.50 AM to let them know that Fawn is too sick for a urine test and that we first want to talk with the doctor. So therefore our early rising meant we had more time to read emails etc. before I went to the hospital.

It was a normal morning in the hospital. There was a code green, which means Trauma at the ER.  Those announcements over the speaker make me always sad. A bit later, I was off, and when I went to my bike, I saw 3 ambulances, a helicopter in the air and a fire truck at the parking lot. Brrrrrr.

At home, Dan and I stayed for a while with Fawn and then I made some sandwiches and did laundry. Luckily I could hang it outside in a nice wind. Around 2.30 PM, I took my bike and went  to the imaging center nearby for the 2 year mammogram. That was, as most of you know, no fun at all.

Back home, I was so exhausted of almost no sleep last night, I took a nap.  Afterward, I started to make Habbesous a bit late. It is a great recipe of my sister Lotty. (You can find it under: Recipes/Tomato Recipes/ second one.) It is quite some work, but you can make it for two days.  After dinner we watched the news.

Tomorrow I should have a lunch meeting with two friends of the hospital and also I have an eye doctor appointment. Both I had to cancel , because I do not know how things will go with the cat, and I do not want to let here alone too long.

Sunday morning, I usually call one of the boys or friends back in the Netherlands, but this morning we concentrated on the kitty cat. She was doing so poorly last night, we were very concerned. Today she was doing about the same.

The backyard looks awful. There are so many mushrooms and weeds. It still is too wet to get them out of it. The cauliflower (bloemkool) has been growing big! I think we can eat that next week. Yesterday, when I was doing the groceries, I must have had my wrong lenses in or so. I have bought several things which i did not want to buy. For instance, I wanted to eat tonight kale (boerenkool), mixed with mash potatoes and smoked sausage. I found out I have bought curl mustard green! It looks pretty similar, but still I should have paid more attention to it. The taste of mustard green is less strong than Kale, and we do not have these vegetables in the Netherlands. It was not too bad to eat though .

In the morning I worked with the new look of the website and translated some Dutch pages in the top menu bar (see “what is New” in the left side bar). I also added at the left more weblogs from other bloggers. Dan worked for a long time to install my stuff on the “new” computer. There is still a lot of files that have to be transferred.

After lunch, I thought we might not go to the gym, so I started up the Wii for a short workout. It turned out again I played with it for an hour. I had a lot of fun and I felt I had done something. Then Dan asked if I still wanted to go to the gym because he was into going. So we went to the gym! I still wanted to watch the American Football game so I did not mind, because I could watch it during a cross trainer session. We were not able to watch the whole game there.

We went home after an hour, and I started to make dinner. After dinner we heard the Minnesota Vikings lost  .

I hoped so much for Joy and the other blog women that the Vikings would win. I know how it feels when your favorite team does not win. Now, in two weeks, we will have the Superbowl, if I am correctly informed.

Tomorrow morning we will have to get up very early, the appointment at the Cat clinic is 7.00 AM!!

What a blessing this morning! The old trustful Californian Sun was back! And man, how nice did it feel! The warmth on my skin, the smell of fresh grass and soil. I hope the neighbors did not see me this morning.  I stood outside, in my bathrobe, my arms wide spread  and breathing deeply. This was a little bit of heaven……..Over the top? Probably. But now and then you can react over the top when it comes to nature, I think. I complained about the rain, even it was very much needed. And now I am happy the sun is back. My backyard is full of weeds, green grass and almost red tomatoes and bell peppers!! yeah!

After our brunch (Ryan thought it was strange, but it was already 11.00 AM!), we were paying attention to our cat for a long time. She is doing very poorly. We are both pretty sad. She has trouble with her balance, it looks as if she had a little stroke. She doesn’t lift her right back paw well when she walks and she doesn’t eat anymore. All her treats she cannot eat anymore. But the most sad thing is she is moaning. It is as of she is in pain and cries softly. This coming Monday morning we’ll go to visit the vet.

Around 1.00 PM we went into town and dropped off my resume at a big clothing store downtown. I had a little talk with the assistant manager and we will see how it all will work out. The position is coordinating a part of the store, which I thought it would be a nice job. After this done, we headed toward the grocery store to get our fresh food. I was glad we went by car, because I wouldn’t be able to get this all by bike.

At home we all felt pretty hungry so we had an early dinner. I made Tjap Tjoi with rice, it tasted very nice with all the fresh vegetables. Even Ryan ate all the veggies!!

This evening Dan and I changed the color of this website. I wanted that for a long time, but it is quite some work to do that. It took us more than 2 hours, but I am very happy with all his work and the results of that! Some issues are not working as we want but that will be fixed soon. I hope that you like the lighter color better. I think it reads easier. If you have comments, please let us know!

Also this evening, I got a cute update email from Nikki. She is one of the 5 women who writes for the same weblog. They are huge Viking Fans. (For you Dutchies: An American football team who may make it to the Super Bowl, they only have to win tomorrow from the New Orleans Saints). She inserted a video clip of the Viking song. It is one of my favorite songs and they customized it to their team. Here is the website where you can see it.  http://joyerickson.wordpress.com/

When we are done with the websites, we’ll going to watch 24. We have recorded all episodes so far. I am not sure what time we’ll go to bed .