As most of you know, I have 3 cats – Olivia (13 and about 9 lbs), Herbie (7 and about 11 lbs) and Blaze (7 and about 23 lbs).

Since Sunday, Olivia and Herbie have refused to eat.  Blaze is eating a bit – but isn’t his usual little piggy self, gulping down his food and then trying to steal everything else.  He eats half his own food and that’s it.

First I tried different cat foods, wondering if the food I had was somehow bad.  Nothing.

First trip to the vet was Tuesday morning……with Olivia and Herbie.  It is so difficult to lug Blaze anywhere, that I always start with the little guys.  They were both checked over to the tune of $304.00 and nothing was found that would relate to their refusal to eat.  The vet did find a problem with one of Herbie’s teeth – extraction required – estimate a further $1,000.

This morning they were all 3 waiting for me to get up, kept me company in the bathroom while I had my shower and then raced into the kitchen for breakfast.  AHA, I thought – all is back to normal.  But no.  Blaze ate a bit and the other 2 walked away from their food.

Second trip the vet at 10am this morning.  Another vet (their usual one) checked them both out and found nothing out of the ordinary.  Blood taken from both and a wide variety of tests will be run.  Today’s bill was $567.00.  I may or may not have the results before the weekend.

So, I am up to a cost of $871 with a further $1,000 needing to be done – and they still aren’t eating.  The vet suggested I take all food away and give them nothing until suppertime and then try the usual wet food that they like.  In fact most mornings there is a cacaphony of meows as I dish it out.  This is all very stressful, not to mention expensive – and expenses I wasn’t planning on.

I sent an email to my financial guy asking for more RRSP money to be cashed in.

I am scheduled to go on vacation May 9th – I do have a live-in cat sitter – but I hate to leave unless things are settled.  Hopefully the blood tests will show up something that can be treated.

The only thing that is different in the house is my switch from a hot water tank to a tankless hot water system – and that took place late in March.  I have asked Reliance Holmes Heating to come and do an air quality test and to double-check the installation.  I have no idea what that will cost.

I absolutely have to find something to rave about soon – I’m over my rant quota for the month!!

Sue

I usually try to add a rave or two before I rant again – but this one just has to be vented.

There are a great many financial benefits for being part of a couple……even more if you are part of a senior couple.

• two incomes to share the costs of accommodation (housing, maintenance, utilities, insurance, property taxes) – or rent for that matter
• two incomes to share the costs of owning a car (having two cars is a choice)
• income splitting at income tax time
• it’s always less expensive to feed more than one on a per capita basis
• spousal RRSPs

Where, oh where, is some sort of dispensation for being single?  Benefits for married folk have changed over the years – but they have been around since long before my time.  Anyone who lives alone will tell you it is very expensive and there is nobody to share the basic costs of living.  Does nobody care?  Are we not standing up for ourselves?

Have you ever tried to travel anywhere by yourself?  They slap a whopping “single supplement” onto an already large sum of money because you are “alone”.  If it’s a cruise, it’s as much as another 50% of the total package cost.

One thing worse than being single is being a single senior – one pension (maybe one), one OAS, one CPP……so I  might, grudgingly, even settle for some special dispensation for being a senior – reduce our property taxes, reduce our utilities – we no longer have kids in school and goodness knows – we’ve paid for the infrastructure many times over.

There are a great many people talking about how difficult it is becoming to keep your financial nose above water these days.  There is talk about helping those with the lowest incomes.  I don’t have a problem with that.  However – I would truly like to hear some talk about helping single income households.  It is long overdue.

My first rant goes to my municipal folks.  That water “service post” thing that most of us have somewhere in our lawn is, in my case, smack in the middle of my driveway.  The spring thaw usually causes it to pop up out of the ground a couple of inches and then it eventually goes back down.  This year it has heaved the asphalt so I now have a little mound around it – and cracks in the pavement.  Enter the city.

In response to my concern, they sent an email giving me explicit instructions on how I should cover the service post with a block of wood and then bash it down with a sledge hammer (one of those tools I don’t have) – or they could do it for me at a cost to me of $140.  They will, however send out a team to look at the damage to my pavement – just look, not bash – while they were here.  It figures.

My second rant goes to public sector unions who have decided to “sign a pact of mutual support” in defence of what they call a war on labour by our current premier.   I don’t usually have too many (if any) good things to say about her but I have even less positive to say about whiney public servants who make very good money, have to-die for pensions and benefits that most of us could only dream  of.

One of these days unions are going to be the death of themselves.  I only hope I am around to see it happen.