For All Eternity

Time to sleep | Ossi Saarinen

The seed prevents farmers from re-planting seeds throughout the seasons by producing a sterile seed, which is unable to reproduce.

I’m reading a fic, and it’s excellently written 99% of the time, aside from the constant use of “to ex” (”to exe”?), which is not a word AFAIK, at least not like this, and aside from a truly glorious example of my biggest pet peeve in fictional coffee shop scenes:

Alex is one of the regulars at The New Ark Cafeteria, so the first thing Jungkook learns about him besides his name is his love for obnoxiously complicated coffee orders. Large, weak soy mocha with a pump of vanilla, no chocolate on top. Almond milk caramel latte macchiato with an extra espresso shot, make it extra hot, please. Iced cold brew with two pumps of pumpkin spice, extra whipped cream, and cinnamon on top. Thrice blended almond-dream-frappuccino with a drizzle of maple syrup, no sugar, extra espresso shot. He is obviously having the time of his life coming up with them and every barista hates him, but Jungkook knows a challenge when he sees one and he makes a game out of getting the order perfect within four minutes and Alex is impressed enough to tip his imaginary hat and soon enough it feels like they are friends.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

First off, these all sound disgusting.

Second off, they are not actually complicated or hard. They just involve remembering how many pumps of gross syrup to put in your obviously burnt-tasting Starbucks coffee that needs the flavor covered up.

Maybe this is what coffee shops in Berlin (the setting of this scene) actually serve. I wouldn’t know, but I haaaaaaate it so much in fic.

I hate it when instead of details on what makes a frou-frou coffee shop actually fancy or the details of what a coffee snob thinks makes for good coffee, the focus is on Starbucks-sounding nonsense, including trademarked shit like frappuccinos.

I’d be surprised if they serve that in Berlin anywhere BUT a Starbucks.

The only place like that I’ve ever been in was in North Beach, and it was…lost on me, frankly.

I think they’re trying more for the “college town coffee shop” feel–those places don’t have the pricey stuff and I’ve never heard any coffee roasting wank in them, but their offerings are limited to basic things like mocha, espresso, lattes, cappucino, etc.  They might have cold coffee drinks, too, and some teas, but they don’t have either exotic bean tasting menus OR pumpkin spice syrup and unicorn fraps. *shrug*  They feature beat up couches, tables where you can play games, study or work on your fic.

I don’t think most fic would benefit from roasting wank. That’s more an illustration of what would actually make sense for the Difficult Customer waltzing into one of these places and demanding something specific and fancy. Basically, people write coffee snobs and then give them basic-ass tastes. If they meant them to be tryhards who know nothing about coffee, it wouldn’t annoy me. If the fic focused on traditional coffee drinks like cappuccino, I would have zero objections either. I’ve seen fic where the lead character makes up cutely-named drinks and names one after their love interest to flirt that managed to produce a menu I believed could be served in the style of coffee shop they claimed to depict. If the author wants them to work in a Starbucks, great, but if they don’t, I don’t want to see brand name shit like frappuccinos.

In my first apartment, there were four of us, and the kitchen had like 3 pretty small cupboards to fit all cooking utensils, spices, cups, mugs, bowls, etc, with no viable place left over for plates. Solution? Stack of paper plates stashed behind the drying rack.

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Medicating cats can be a lot especially with lifetime medications that have to be maintained for years. I threw this together because I really believe it's vitally important to make medicating as easy as possible for everyone. Difficulty medicating can strain the human/animal bond, increase stress for cats and owners, and decrease medication compliance. If you're in vet med, this can be a good list of things to discuss with clients when they're struggling. A lot of these tips can apply to dogs too, but I know cats are often a particular pain.

To be clear, this is NOT a substitute for advice from your DVM and is just intended to be general tips that may or may not be helpful for your individual pet. I've tried my best to discuss any potential risks/considerations where applicable, but I am not a DVM and your personal vet needs to be the ultimate authority here for your pet's own safety.

Compounding

Compounded medications are a LIFE SAVER. I don't know about anyone else, but I HATE pilling cats and, frankly, I'm no good at it. It's also doubly hell for owners at home who have to do towel wraps/get assistance/etc especially when meds are every single day for the rest of their pet's life.

Liquid

The most frequent compounding I've seen is just making pills into liquid. This can be required sometimes in order to get smaller doses (say you need a 10mg dose and the tablets only come in 100mg), but it can also be done just to make administration easier. If you use a pharmacy that often does pet Rx, they'll have beef and chicken and fish and chicken marshmallow, etc flavoring that can use to make things taste better. I always like to ask the pharmacist/pharm techs what they recommend as some of the medications have major bitter tastes (looking at you metronidazole) and can benefit from the sweetness of chicken marshmallow over just chicken, for instance.

Chewtabs

I see it less commonly used in cats, but a lot of pharmacies also offer flavored chew tabs and other "treat" style formulations that may work.

Transdermal

There's also transdermal medications. These go on the inner, hairless part of the ear and are applied with gloves as they'll absorb into your skin too. Some medications have a more "proven" track record than others with absorption/symptom resolution than others given they're aftermarket formulations that haven't gone through the same absorption/dose testing as, say, mirataz (a transdermal med sold by a manufacturer), and it's usually not a 1:1 ratio dose wise if, say, you've got your cat's hyperthyroidism well controlled on oral meds (meaning you may need to retest bloodwork and adjust if you want to switch to transdermal), but in really aggressive or otherwise difficult to medicate cats, transdermal meds rock.

Mail order compounding pharmacies are usually cheapest (I've seen Wedgewood and Roadrunner used often), but you may have a local brick and mortar compounding pharmacy in your area if time is of the essence (and yes, they ARE different than regular pharmacies, though some may do both).

Hiding Meds

Considerations with crushed/mixed in meds:

Avoid mixing your cat's meds in with their regular food ESPECIALLY if they're on a Rx diet or if it will otherwise be difficult to find another food they'll eat. There is a nonzero chance they'll taste the meds and decide they absolutely HATE their regular food now because of the association.

Make sure the medication is okay to crush/mix into things with your DVM as some are not (especially extended release meds).

Avoid crushing/mixing for anything where exact dose is really important (ie thyroid meds, heart meds) as any leftover food in the bowl could contain part of the dose.

Always use a smaller amount of things if you're going to crush/mix to make sure there's not a huge bowl of food they have to finish in order to get the whole dose.

Considerations with pill coating style options:

If using a really bitter pill, try your best not to touch the outside of the pocket/holder with the same fingers that touched the pill.

If your cat is on a Rx diet, there's usually Rx pill pockets that won't mess with their diets through either the same company or a comparable one

it can be helpful to desensitize your cat to having a hard pill-like object hidden in the middle of whatever you're using by using hard treats or pieces of hard treats so they're less likely to hunt down the offending pill and reject it. It's best to do this BEFORE they develop a sensitivity to it (and ideally before you even have to medicate them), but you can try to do it after. You can also do like 2 treats and a pill every time you have to administer meds to make it less likely they'll figure it out.

Be mindful of what you can and can't use of the list below if your cat is on a Rx diet (ie urinary, kidney, allergy/limited protein, etc), is diabetic, or has other conditions. PLEASE talk to your vet if your cat has any special needs!!

Things you can hide meds in:

gravy treats (churu, other "lickable" treats)

tuna/chicken juice (with no added salt)

canned food (like mentioned above, avoid their core diet staples or ones that may need to become diet staples in the future ie Rx options)

pill pockets and other similar things: just break off a piece and wrap it around if they're dog sized. I had good luck with tomlyn pill masker for a while with my cat

moist treats as pill pockets (I had good luck with chicken flavored bandit ferret treats, oddly enough). sometimes getting them wet can help make them more moldable.

marshmallows: they're technically just gelatin and sugar

Other tips/thoughts

If you have multiple medications to administer, try doing one in the morning, one at night to see if they tolerate it better. Sometimes rapid fire medicating can be worse for them.

There's lots of youtube videos out there (look for ones from vet staff. bonus points if they mention fear free/reducing stress) about cat restraint/medication administration, but you can also always ask your vet office for a demo/help. Be advised, they may charge a small fee for their time in training.

Towels can definitely be your friend in restraint, but be aware your cat WILL associate the towel/blanket with medications and it can create some aversion/running away scenarios which can increase stress for everyone.

In terminal pets that are truly just a nightmare to medicate or where it's just making them miserable, it may be worthwhile to discuss quality of life with your vet. It's okay to make that call.

A little bit of green has a great effect on happiness.