PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means the patient has less than four hours to live.
“He doesn’t make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,” Dr. David Dosa said in an interview.
The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses.
After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He’d sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.
Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his “compassionate hospice care”.

My two favourite things about this article, is how CNN very professionally said patients “wind up dead” and the fact that Oscar has a plaque. bwahahaha

On Friday morning at 5:40 we turned out alarms off and slept til 7:23. After we packed a bag and treats we forgot about and left to a melty demise in the boot of our car, we started the drive to Oregon.
We were itrip-less so we had:
1 Mix CD
1 Strokes album
1 brief interlude of a 2 year old dance party mix cd I had. *Andy made it through 2 tracks before ejecting that one.
Other than that, we just sat quietly or slept, or chatted. well, the passenger slept, the driver tried not to.

I think they are fabulous/ugly as sin. They come in a variety of styles (polo neck, athletic hoodie, lightweight winter jacket) and colours to help you blend into various surroundings (mossy oak, spring forest, open country). I also spotted the taxidermy kits I noticed in Highlands Cabela’s. Incase you want to stuff your own duck.

* Andy only likes about 4.8% of music i listen to, which is a compliment. As Griff rightly said, Andy enjoys good music for what it is rather than hunting around in either wild abandon or vacant appreciation.

We attended a family reunion in Baker, Oregon this weekend. We met in a chapel to eat oversized Subway Sandwiches and flip through Funeral scrapbooks. Emilie defined the actual reunion as Prime Material for Napoleon Dynamite. Andy & I left early and meandered back to the hotel past trade stops, tractor stores and an ice cream parlour which served Andy and I strawberry cheesecake ice cream and mango sorbet respectively. the latter had an untimely death when my cone broke and the mango goodness fell approximately 3 feet and hit the sidewalk. I was most disappointed.

We had a bit of a shopping spree while we were up there actually. We were in this amazing antique store full of beautiful old melamine bowls, record players, vases and ornamentation. We bought this cast iron, painted red Christmas Tree base which will probably last longer than the duration of our lives haha. Its so heavy and beautiful. We then made a trip to the Salvation Army store which had a selection of frightening clothes and scatty couches, upon which a cat was lying. It looked quite dead. Andy found a working typewriter for $1.95 and I found a green glass lamp base with bronze leaf detailing over it for $6.95. Later in the afternoon, Liz found an identical lamp in a fancy thrift store “downtown” Baker! The woman who ran the shop was, unfortunately, far too thrift savvy. We talked her down from $45 to $25 on the lamp and so essentially bought the pair for just over $30. Not bad. The next picture is Andy and I squashed in the back of a VW Passat with our new purchases.

The picture on the right is not Andy and I squashed in the back of a VW Passat with our purchases. That is evidence that we attended a Bull Riding Rodeo! Some woman pop-sang a country version of the national anthem while a girl cantered around the rodeo on a flag-bearing horse. Everyone stood up for this. American Patriotism fascinates me. I have been never seen such displays of love for a country before. I guess that you don’t need to love a countries leaders to love a country, but in one as small as mine, Patriotism takes two forms: you want England to beat Brazil in the next world cup, or you are actually into the monarchy. I’m simplifying, obviously, but you get the idea. I like that Americans put their hands on their heart during the national anthem, and they stand for the flag. Something that seriously ticked me off though, was something the rodeo announcer said after saying that we should not only be grateful for the soldiers giving their lives and fighting for our freedom. He said we should be grateful because America, “frees the world”. The general belief that America is saving the world is absolute fallacy in my opinion. I haven’t met many Americans that feel the same way as Mr Rodeo, but the ones I have, have been extremely vocal about it. Historically, that arrogance and consequent oversight has led America into some of its most sticky consequences. Maybe I misunderstood Mr Rodeo though, who knows.

Anyway.
This picture is Andy by a sad little shop that had been closed up for what the rotting plywood evidenced as a long time.

The problem with both Andy & I working desk jobs equipped with high speed internet, means that we look up all sorts of fantastic things we think we want/need/must read/have to have. On Saturday we got up and went to Cabella’s to look at gun’s. I looked at fancy tents and $300 sleeping bags while Andy, Tyson and Todd admired various weapons. I don’t really know anything about guns, but I do know that Andy would like this one:
It is a Marshall Stampede .357 with a fancypants handle/grip. I have issues with guns. The moral implications of owning one bother me. Having a gun opens the “Do I kill/maim this intruder or not?” door on home security. Guns are made for killing, and are therefore in my opinion a total no go. but at the same time, I respect that some people like to go out and shoot targets – it’s definitely a skill to be a good shot. Andy, is a good shot.

We had this ugly, cheap candle holder in our house when we moved in. Andy took it out to the garden and managed to shoot the candle platform off by shattering the 1cm wide stand underneath it with a BB gun from right across the garden. I was suitably impressed.