Category: Companion Animals

Mike brings dinner and “something for the kids”

Mike brought marinaded chicken, with a side of rice, and I made salad and bought tiramisu cups from Langley Farm Market, and we watched the latest episode of True Blood and T2.  (After Keith and Mike had a Star Trek match).  My new fave movie scene is Linda Hamilton’s escape from the fool farm.

Mike said, “I brought something for the kids” which proved to be one of those motorized balls that wibbles and wobbles and scoots all over the floor.  The boys ignored it.  Margot LOVED IT, but doesn’t actually play with it, she just chases it around.  Will provide video once it’s available.

Mike recently had the astonishing experience of having an ex a) apologize for any harm caused and b) repay the money owing.  The universe did not fall off its axle, but I damn near did when I heard about it.  Wonders cannot cease while we live.

Today, return library books, add receipts to our monthly who-owes-what-to-whom reconciliation (grr, I lost my second biggest receipt this month), tweak various recordings for posting and adding to running-total list of songs, clean house from top to bottomus, prep for dinner with Tom and Peggy, try to get hold of Cindy to see if she can come tonight as well, laundry, and mow grass.  I will try to squeeze one song in there if I can, next up is “Beloved Coworker (I guess I never felt this way).  Which I wrote in Montreal.  I wrote “She” and “Evening News” in Montreal; my dwelling there was an interesting failed experiment in many ways, but at least I got some good songs out of it. Living in Montreal and Toronto have definitely brought me to a finer appreciation of Vancouver; with all its flaws it’s a very good place to live.

The weather has been overcast, occasionally rainy, and cool. Feels like fall already, but we had a deliciously hot summer and I had lots of beach days so no whining here.

Off to do the first load of laundry now….  Should think about what to bring up from the freezer while I’m down there.  It’s cool enough I could cook indoors, and I’m thinking meatloaf?  with spuds and veggies?

Snakes, dogs, Wagner, hail

Wagner was very smart and very musically influential. Even if he believed some nutty things.

Yesterday I walked with Paul in Robert Burnaby Park, a nice long walked that stretched my legs.  We saw a woman who runs a doggie daycare (Canine Corner in North Burnaby) and she had 7 dogs off leash with her (and only the terrier barked, of course, but not at me.  For some reason my ability to interact appropriately with dogs has magically improved over the last year).  We talked to her for a good long while – she also has an elderly orange cat who was a Katrina rescue.  In exchange I told her about Molly. Anyway, if her ability to cope with 7 offleash dogs is any recommendation, I recommend her facility.  She was amazing, and those were very happy dogs.

Then we went into New West and went to the Deli on 6th Ave. next to Galloways which we also shopped at and got food for ourselves and Katie.  Then I found out my bank card was compromised AGAIN and was declined, call bank.

I had cash to pay for the transaction, but I didn’t have any ID, which was naughty of me because as is customary these days, I drove.  I went to the TD Canada Trust on 6th St. expecting to be told to go home and get picture ID, but wanting to know what happened to the card.  Ross said, Tell me about your accounts, which I did, down to the penny in some cases, and then answered a couple more questions, and then bingo – he was getting an override from his supervisor and I had a new card.  Total turnaround 5 minutes.  I was astonished and pleased, and even happier than normal that I bank with TD Canada Trust.

Then Paul and I went to see Katie.  Kashka was the only other roommate home, which meant SNAKES.  Yes, they have a rosy boa (a boy, Speck, finger thin and 18 inches long) and a ball python (a girl, Opal, pushing 5 feet and forearm thick and very large for her age not to mention bloody strong) as well as a mini dobie named Piper, who jumped into my arms as soon as I saw her and a ten week old black kitten named Pan(dora). And dead rats in the freezer.  Opal was traumatized by a live rat once and now she only eats drowned thawed ones.  Anyway, we got them out and handled them, and we took some amusing pictures which I am hoping to coax out of Paul if chance affords so I can repost them (including one of Speck hanging out in my hat).  Speck likes noses, Opal likes to drape herself around necks.  Both have recently shed their skins and have a healthy glossiness that anybody who loves animals would rejoice to see.

Then I went home and tried to write down “Back in the City” and got about two thirds of the way through, I will finish today. It’s done now.

Then, True Blood from last night.

I just leaped up in consequence of hearing hail and got Granny’s chairs off the back deck.  It was 5:52 in the morning when it stopped, and as is normal around here, it was heavy rain mixed with graupel.  There was a bit of lightning too.  Noisy!  It was pinging and spoinging all over the show.

more True Blood and more cat fur

Another great episode.  This one Eric is barely in, but it’s still good.

Jeff and I have a busy day planned, culminating in  a barbecue for Katie and all the women she lives with.  First, a trip shopping, then District 9 at Metrotown (it will likely be nuts), then the barbecue.

My efforts to keep hair out of Miss Margot’s digestive tract have not been entirely successful.  She produced a tiny, ladylike little furball yesterday.  Hopefully this will inspire me to brush her more often, although considering I’m brushing her at least twice a day, while she grouses and grumbles and tries to bite and wriggles like mad OR sits there purring like mad as if she’s glad I finally got round to it.  Sometimes she asks to be be brushed – and still complains – and sometimes she runs away and wails.  The other night she spent I don’t know exactly where, but when she returned in the morning she had half the undergrowth of Burnaby lovingly stowed in her belly fur.  Normally I only brush her for about 2 minutes at a time, this time I locked the bathroom door and got really thorough.  MASSES of fur and crap came out….

I compost everything I pull off her.

Finally saw Driving Miss Daisy.  I liked it, but there were specifics about it I didn’t like all that much, like the soundtrack.

Unca Dave and others

Unca Dave is in town this week for cancer treatment, and Paul and I went to see him at the Lodge downtown.  It’s a really nice place although he says the one in Kelowna is nicer.

What can be said?  It’s all management; of energy, of medications, of treatments, of emotions.  He is as cheerful and forthright as ever, and it was great to see the names of his other visitors in the guest sheet.  We had a cup of coffee and visited for a couple of hours.  Paul will be taking him back to the airport today.

After the visit, we poked our heads into MEC, where I got two of these in black.  (Always ask if they have some in the back… I had checked inventory and there were lots of black ones, but not on display.)  Paul had loaned me a carrier and I fell madly in love with them and got two of my own.  They are only fifteen liters but I got four bags of groceries into one on Wednesday… I had to get some.  Also I got a map, because I like maps.  They don’t have topos of the city any more, pity.  Paul got raingear for his trip with Tish and Terry. After that we went to Pho Hong and I had one of these. Then we went to Rona and recut the keys that didn’t work.

pOp got himself hauled off to the emerg in Victoria in a most discomfiting fashion recently.  He’s back at home looking forward (not) to further tests to find out which end of the malingering/mad-with-worry pole he should be attached to.  And of course there are two other members of my family experiencing health problems that we know of – I light virtual candles for all them not because it will do a bit of good, but so I can turn my attention elsewhere.  Really, hard core atheists don’t know what they’re missing out on with church.  It’s just so comforting.

Fed the cats the free food that you get as a sample from the pet store for breakfast this morning.  Margot makes the most astonishing assortment of grunts and duck calls when she eats – she literally quacks when she’s excited or disturbed.  I put her on the Star Trek pinball but it’s too noisy for her, even though she did chase the ball a couple of times.

Sundry and various

Laundry all done.  Much practicing on mando yesterday, at least 90 minutes and my fingers are all callous-y again.

Family barbecue with lamb, chicken and steak (mmmm) and garlic bread and pan fried enoki mushrooms and couscous and greek salad and beer and green tea ice cream.

Katie got her documentation from the Hair Design School – she passed all exams with flying colours and got her certificate.  Yeah!  Should make job hunting a bit easier. We celebrated her success but she skated out right after True Blood to go keep an eye on a friend of hers (long story, likely tinged with fiction).  But it was great to have the fambly including Mike to dins.

MANY WASPS…. the funniest incident was when I was done with my steak and an extremely determined wasp tried to fly off with a hunk of meat still attached to the steak by a tiny thread of connective tissue.  He kept trying to lift off and then whizzed around like a tiny tethered helicopter, setting down, trying to chew through….. I finally took pity and took the knife to the meat and he took off, flying low but triumphant.  Keith had an interview yesterday, it didn’t go as well as the previous one but he is still looking and still hopeful.

Margot was batting at Gizmo’s tail the other day.  He just lay there, looking long suffering.  Gizmo and Eddie are both, very suddenly, much more affectionate with me.  Eddie has gotten up into my lap a couple of times (he’s not a lap cat).  Margot sticks to Giz like glue when they are outside at night.  Hopefully he will teach her not to be an idiot around cars.  She already runs away if you come up to her outside, always a good sign.

Brian C’s 50th.

The Charbaums very kindly put up their land for a party; the usual gang of well loved friends was there, as was a proper portable Finnish sauna.  Yay is for Jarmo.  Mike and I slipped away at midnight; he had to go look after his Spuddy-buddy.  I could have spent the night, but I didn’t want Mike driving back by himself.  No, he wasn’t impaired; he’d quit drinking around 8:30; I wanted him to have the company on the long drive back.

The downside is that somehow, probably because I was sitting in Very Bad Chairs, I have put my hip out very badly.  I suspect this is actually referred back pain.  I am stumping round like an old lady.  Jeff will be back with pain killers and milk shortly, and then I’ll make brekky and start laundry and all that domestic style stuff.

I got to meet Braden, Jerome and Shannon’s baby. Never in my life have I seen a 15 day old child with that much blonde hair.  We’re not talking that flossy blonde hair you get on babies, this is like Spike’s do in Buffy, and there is SO much.  I got to see Sarah and Ian’s young pjokk, and had a boo at Vijay’s two gorgeous boys (oldest is 8 already… and I can remember Vijay going through hell trying to get Lakshmi into the country… how long ago it seems) and then there was Elise and Arden (Elise is heartbreakingly gorgeous at almost three) and there were Sigrin and Lobo and Max the dogs, and Ariel, Megan’s daughter, in pre med at UBC while her parents explode with pride. Jenn and Rob, Kyi and May were there… Wally …. Tom U… Otto… Mike of course and Jim E., all the good folks.  Jarmo and Susana, without the boys.  Remember when the boys locked me in the outhouse?  How long ago that was.  Brian said friends and relatives he hadn’t seen in years were there; he was a little overwhelmed.

Next Friday is Sarah’s last at Xantrex.  I’m going to the golf course to see her off.

We didn’t have a campfire…. we respected the fire ban and used a portable campstove on ‘simmer’ for a fire. A beautiful, happy, mellow time was had by all.  Yes, I went in the sauna; yes, I let Jarmo beat me with hot wet birch branches.  It felt UNBELIEVABLY GOOD.  Especially on my back. It was so funny sitting outside the tent and listening to other folks get whacked… the noises!  People might have gotten the wrong idea…..

Storm Brewing Keg.  Jarmo fries.  Nuff said.

Salt, sand and sunjuice (the day at Wreck)

Mike picked me up around 2:30 – wearing his kilt.  Ten minutes later we were at Suzanne’s; she was waiting downstairs after I called her to come on down, and you should have seen her mile wide grin as she saw Mike’s ride pull up.  They introduced themselves.  We had a gorgeous, rather warm ride in Mike’s Mustang convertible.  We spent about ten minutes gossiping about family members – neither of us being too pleased with the respective number two childer in our families, nuff said, and then dispensed with further whining for the rest of the day. Continue reading Salt, sand and sunjuice (the day at Wreck)

Furbabies & Gilgamesh

This morning, while Eddie was grumbling the whole time, Eddie and Miss Margot played over the same little  stuffed mouse.  I am trying to train Miss Margot to run along a track (which is interesting, because once she has ‘prey’ in sight she’s indefatigable, like a squat and furry greyhound) and Eddie got into the act.  Then, grumbling still, he walked away.  Twice or three times this morning he’s bopped her on the head.  She never says a thing, just flops on the ground.  She’s 1/3rd his weight, it hardly seems fair.  Gizmo never hisses at or hits her.

Yesterday I wrote another tune.  The recorder was sitting in front of me. I recorded it.  What was so hard about that?  Why have I not done that before?

A zillion years ago Loki told me that the oldest story was the epic of Gilgamesh.  It’s been on my list of things to read since I was a small child.    The most recent reworking of Gilgamesh is by Stephen Mitchell, a noted scholar, writer, translator, and custodian of wisdom literature.  I heard about it when the book was released on the CBC and put it on my list; it seemed that finally the translation, or retelling, worth reading now existed.

Yesterday I went to the library, because the *^%&$$ ICBC finally got off its duff and sent me my address change, without which I would not be able to get an update to my library card.  I did so, and Gilgamesh was waiting for me; that and a number of other fine books and movies.

I highly recommend it.  I wish a really good animation studio would bring it to life; there’s no way you could do it as a live action film, in my view.  What a different world that was, even in the mythic retelling.  To read the flood myth…  a snake stealing the  plant of immortality…. to feel Gilgamesh’s grief when Enkidu dies…. to shake one’s head how the gods cluster round the first offerings after the flood – they are so hungry because their humans are all dead and there’s no one to make offerings …. to smile at the wisdom of the tavernkeeper Shiduri, taking shelter on the roof of her tavern when Gilgamesh shows up, not wanting to be killed by the powerful and crazed-with-grief man…. it was all very beautiful, and very strange.

I have had dreams about Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh.  I just didn’t know that’s what I was dreaming about at the time.

I had a productive and happy day yesterday.  I ran errands on my bicycle, and Jeff and Keith and I watched The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, saw Katie, and Paul briefly, and Mike came over for dinner.  Mike’s kilt came, so I gave it to him and he was VERY happy and immediately donned it. Best gag of the day – BOTH KIDS assumed we were watching Court Jester, because there’s Basil Rathbone in the same sets.  Anybody ever notice how Una O’Connor and Mildred Natwick look awful similar?  I didn’t until yesterday.  And Errol Flynn is among the hottest men who ever lived.

Anyway, if you like costumes, you have to see Robin Hood.  Olivia de Havilland’s gowns are swoonderful.

We watched Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey (the documentary by Sam Dunn, which like his followup Global Metal, was awesome… and SO Canadian) and we celebrated Jeff’s birthday by eating barbecued chicken, and steak, and heart of summer salad with blackberry vinaigrette, and home made garlic bread, and bear claw ice cream.

This morning Jeff walked to 7-11 and they were OUT OF MILK.  Why?  Because their fridges were not able to maintain safe temps for dairy.  Kinda tells you what the last week in the GVRD has been like.  So he went to the other 7-11, which is a bit closer as it turns out, and they had some, and I made Jeff waffles and bacon for brekky.

Here is the recipe for heart of summer salad.

1 mango

1 small purple onion

1 tomato

1 orange pepper

1 red pepper

Cut everything into half inch pieces and drizzle either store bought raspberry dressing or home made blackberry dressing over top.  Take a tablespoon each of Tom’s blackberry jelly and olive oil and three tablespoons of vinegar, add basil, parsley and garlic to taste, then mix well.  If it sounds yummy, it is.

If I was making it in quantity I would likely add half an english cuke and more tomato.

Wreck yesterday

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In the morning I loafed and lazed, squeezed in a grocery shop, and then reverted to dawdling and doodling; around 1 Mike came and fetched me in the convertible, and then we went down to New West to get Katie and Kashka.  (One half of the reality show girls).  Kashka is covered with ink from her ears to her ankles, including Betty Boop as a skeleton, which is freaky, because Betty Boop’s skull looks exactly how I would imagine Margot’s skull to look.

It was very pleasant on the beach.  There was a kicking breeze all day, and it was not from the usual angle, and pushed the incoming tide up the beach.

At first Mike tried to fly his approx 4 square meter kite but the breeze was so stiff he was getting dragged 10 and 15 meters down the beach, which I watched with the kind of chill consternation which is all you can muster when you’re feeling so mellow.  Then he tried smaller kites, which was much more successful, and provided us all with much in the way of aesthetics.

Liz, Kashka’s ex, joined us.  I’d met her when we were still living at the Augur Inn and really liked her; I still do.

As the tide came in (Mike always checks the tide tables and parked us WELL up the beach) the breeze shifted until it was straight onshore.  Surf’s up kids!  The girls were bobbing up and down in the waves several times – they’d come back out to warm up and then go back in.  I asked Katie if it was awkward to go the the beach with mom and she just laughed and said after ten years she was used to it.  And it’s been ten years since we started going as a family.

Odd, isn’t it?  I got in to waist height and let a couple of waves slam into me, because I wanted to say I had gone in and had some idea of the physical exhilaration of it all, but I’m 50, and the idea of trashing the bottoms of my feet and then having to climb all 407 stairs (counts vary!) had very little appeal, and at the end, the girls complained that their boobs had been thrown around so much they were all sore.  Mmmm… My kind of fun doesn’t have that kind of toll, but that’s just me being lazy again.  Also, Mike and Liz and Kashka and Katie all complained about how much salt water they swallowed.  Ick.

A man with t shirts and beaters went by; one showed a parody of a Starbucks logo with beers and WRECK BEACH instead of STARBUCKS, and the mermaid wearing sunglasses.  Kashka leaped up and said, “I want one!” so I obliged her.  I laughed, “All your mother’s many kindnesses to Katie are coming back for YOUR benefit, how annoyed Suzanne will be!”  But no probs, I’ll be seeing Suzanne later this week to catch up on the buzz.  Katie is living rent free at Kat and Kashka’s, so I am being politic.

I ate the best hotdog ever on the beach.  Those three jalapeños I added made for just the right amount of heat.

I wrote a song on Mike’s parlour Larrivée – no lyrics yet. Which reminds me I should pick up my guitar and make sure the tune is still there.   I believe so.

The GVRD but not the cops were on the beach.

All in all, it was a lovely, lovely day, and I got home around 7:45, very crisp around the edges. Tonight, off to see Patricia for the long promised Cavalcade of Cheese.

Finally! A job I can do!

Reddeer sends me the following link:  Get a Job in Wookey Hole!

I can cackle! Anybody knows I can cackle.

Yesterday I made up the downstairs bed, made banana bread, added a new verse to “Give me Five, Give me Ten”, made an appointment to get Miss Margot’s stitches out today (I chickened out of doing it myself), found a FREE LAWNMOWER (now that was a good day’s work) which now I have to borrow a car to collect.  I also filled up more bookshelves, bought some more of the Santa Cruz lemonade – Gosh I love that stuff, and so does everybody else who comes into this house and drinks it all; made Thai Basil Beef for supper, had an idea for a science fiction short story, had a FANTASTIC idea for the McGuffin in the zombie movie, thought very sadly about a friendship – if I can call it that – I have, which I am going to have to jettison (all in the “Allegra, stop hurting yourself on things that you know hurt you” vein), talked briefly to Mike, visited with Paul, managed to call my son without making stupid noises about how it’s his 23rd birthday today and how does he feel about that, discovered his potential job (he’s on tryout this week) is working out, so far as he can tell, practiced guitar for a while, played with the cats – all of them, they appeared to be in a good mood and much more kindly disposed to me these days, and shot, edited and uploaded a youtube video; and I slept in a different room than my laptop, and thus slept way better and longer.

Today I am going to FORCE myself to finish Grieg so I can work on Give me Five, Give me Ten, which seems to want to be worked on a bit more.  And take Margot to the vet.   She’s not gonna like it.

Dominion Day Roundup

Stop gay marriage or straight women will have no husbands!!!! Eeek.

Folks, even if that is all true, how can the accompanying drop in the birthrate be bad for the planet? I love how bigotry gets dressed in ‘utilitarian’ arguments.  That said, any time I detect bigotry in others, I allow myself a quiet moment to reflect on my own.  Sigh.  It is hard to be a grownup.  PS, Mr. Berman (as reprinted by Mr. Klinghoffer), sex toy technology has come a long way since the Roman Empire.  Your concern for my satisfaction and prospect of landing a sperm donor is touching, but completely unnecessary.  After all, the POINT of marriage (the cart, after all, needing to come behind the horse) is BABIES.  And those I can get – did get – without recourse to marriage at ALL.

Oh look, Dan Savage linked to the above noted link and Klinghoffer says that Dan Savage can’t be a good father because he uses bad language!

One of these days I’ll have to find that bit of writing “How to Teach Your Children to Swear.”  What we didn’t teach the kids, back when, was that swearing is a class issue.  The very most self-controlled and self-willed people do not curse, because it shows either lack of breeding or lack of self-control. And self-control, narrowly defined, is a necessary precursor to maintaining control over others.  That’s what it’s all there for.  Swearing as far as I’m concerned is part of the palette of human communication; blunt, uncompromising, emotional, limbic, genuine.  Disgusting, disturbing, vile, creepy and disrespectful, too.  Swearing is a signpost toward the things we find most frightening and, let’s face it, human. As blasphemy, it is anti-hierarchical and owns of no master; as language charged with sexuality and excretions, it voices what we strive to keep silent in daily life; as racial and ethnic slur it speaks to how easily we fall back into our emotional enclaves to lash out at a world of strange/different/smelly&rude.

Best things about Canada.  Apart from Hockey, mea culpa, I’m in.

Look at that… Miss Margot has decided to like raspberry jam.  This is a cat from MARS.

I can now see large swathes of my bedroom floor, but more cleaning and laundry delights await me.  Later I hope to go to the Burnaby Village Museum – it’s free today, and in homage to John, who never paid for a damned thing he could get for free, and to celebrate being Canadian, I thought a step back into the days of my foremothers might not go amiss.

Cinnamon buns are medicinal.

Having said that, I’d better get a batch of bread dough on…. Jeff is highly suggestible about any hinted-at treats.  And I have to sign off so he can update wordpress.  Have a great Canada Day, everyone!

I have finally listened to John and Brooke’s album.  It’s really, really good.  It’s also, coincidentally, among the top sellers on CDbaby right now!  Katie and I listened in the CanCar yesterday.

Pondfilk

Pondfilk / John’s memorial was great.  A neighbourhood stranger wandered in with his daughter and picked up the guitar and started singing Wish You Were Here and THAT was the point I had to flee.  I like two people singing that.  One of them is me, and the other is Mike, and this guy’s version was raucous and came close to being guitar abuse.

I wandered around the pond, talking to Katie on my cell phone, and cherishing the tech that allows me to do that, and all the men and women who maintain the network… because I could BE there for her while she was crying and unhappy about her life.  I told her to quit worrying so hard about finding a job.  To tell her to stop feeling bad about Dax – who has another girlfriend named Kayla now – is pointless, so I didn’t try that.  And I talked to her for 45 minutes.

My Unca Dave is going back for more radiation therapy in Kelowna next month.  He had a health blowout that sounded, and was, very scary, and I got the description from his own mouth yesterday in a phone conversation.  I chaffed him – people who are quite sick get sick of being treated with a pall of frightened solicitude, so I decided to be bracing, rather than go all, There There on him. 

Paul turned up at Pondside about 7 and we sang and played and talked until about 11, when I hauled him out of  there pleading exhaustion (no, it was some guy playing Wish You Were Here with no delicacy or spirit of overwhelmed longing).  Thank you mOm for putting up with both of us.

Breakfast (porridge and decaf coffee with skim milk and no sugar) has been consumed, and now Paul and I will turn to the great Stack of John’s Books and try to make some sense of them.

Carrie and her spouse John attended, it was lovely to meet John.  They are headed back up to Telegraph Creek soon.  She seems to think I’ll be going up there, but alas, unless I fly most of the way, or somebody gives me a ride in an extremely comfortable vehicle, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell.  The wine was awesome!

Douglas sang Bigfoot.  I updated John’s memorial site… the man who wrote, and taught John, “Hit them in the Bottom Line” Alan O’Dean, was there so I got the skinny on that song and by the blessings of reason, did we make a loud singing noise on the choruses.  Or Chori, as Douglas would say.  Also found out that the Mother Nature song was written by the Berrymans.

It will be sad to see them go.  With John dead, Juliana has little reason to stay in Victoria; she’ll be heading off to Columbus OH sometime later this year.  They have purchased a house there.  They’ll need somebody to stay in the house but she’s hoping to arrange that through church. 

I missed Tom and Peggy by minutes.  Sigh. Her bass on Tapioca is always something to look forward to.

The Devon Rexes, especially Sugar, previously shown on this blog, were in fine form, as was John’s erstwhile cat, Vincent.

Anyway, apart from a little residual sadness from talking to Katie, who really is having a rough go of it if her facebook posts are anything to go by, I am in a really happy, centered place.  So I guess I can be more or less guaranteed that something interesting and challenging is about to happen… cause you know, it never lasts.

I only THOUGHT Miss Margot’s preop screen came back okay

Doc Mehdi says her platelet count is so low that if he operated now she’d bleed out.  Good thing I went for the pre-op screening.  One of two things is going on.  Either the results were f*cked up, AND they didn’t call me to tell us before Jeff took her in, or she’s genuinely sick (which, given her behaviour is virtually impossible to believe) and, I say again, how come nobody called? I quoted LM Montgomery when remonstrating with the doc this morning, “Sad mismanagement somewhere!”  So I have to pay for yet more tests but they are keeping her overnight for free.  Apparently no work is getting done in the office as all the assistants are ignoring the phone for a chance to play with her; she’s already giving orders and being carried about from place to place.  Nobody who has met Miss Margot will fail to see that it’s just as well somebody as heartless and callous as me got her, or she’d be ruling the world by now.  Honestly.  She’s not a cat, she’s a benevolent dictatrix in feline form.

Anyway, I am so heartless that if it turns out she’s a goner, I’m going to keep her skull.  It is an entirely remarkable shape, and I would mount it at the top of a staff as an extremely scary object.  I mentioned this to Jeff earlier and he was grossed out. Hope you are too.  Mind you, if she’s okay and they just screwed up her bloodwork, I’m going to find another vet, after the operation.  She has to be spayed, she’d die if she ever was bred to anything but a very tiny male purebred.  And in the meantime, if she doesn’t have cancer or untreatable thrombocytopenia, I guess I’m on the rack for a LOT of expensive vet bills.  Cazart.