When I got home from synagogue tonight, Gracie was by the food dishes, rubbing against the wall, and asking for something more interesting than dry food. So she got some of her tuna-flavored Fancy Feast, and I got a great big grin on my face to see her out of my laundry basket and down where she’s supposed to be. The Prednisone works fast!

I also have some kind of antibiotic that will attack the bacteria in her intestines. It’s topical. I have to rub it into the hairless part of her ears. Oh, that’s going to be fun. Twice a day. Pill plus ear-goop.

I’ve been putting off the ear-goop until bedtime. Damn. It’s nearly bedtime.

Y’know, I think I got some of the real tunafish in my system. My stomach’s been bothering me since last night, and that’s when she got tuna. I think I may have gotten some on my fingers and neglected to wash my hands before preparing my own dinner. Yeah, I may be that sensitive to fish. The last time I ate fish at all, I tried a one-inch square bite of freshwater trout. I had forgotten I was allergic to fish, as it was kind of a new diagnosis at that time, and by the time I remembered, I’d already swallowed the little bite. Four hours later, I was heaving my guts up.

I have latex gloves for the ear-goop. Maybe I should wear them when doling out the tuna.

Oh, right—funny story from this morning. About 5:45 a.m., Tig was yowling. I thought he was yowling for my attention, so, since I wasn’t quite awake, I patted the bed and called his name to get him to shut up and come to bed to be petted. He kept yowling, and yowling, and yowling. Turns out he was standing next to the laundry basket, yowling at Gracie to get out and go down to breakfast with him. He didn’t stop until she got out of the basket and started walking out the door with him. That’s when I finally woke up, because I thought he was picking on her, so I leaped out of bed, scared him down the stairs, and Gracie decided to just wander into the guest room and then go back to bed. Which is what I did.

I think the vet smell is no longer a problem.

They do that to each other, actually. If Tig’s hungry and wants company, he’ll mrowr at Gracie until she goes with him. She’ll eat a tiny bite and then walk away, and he’s fine. If Gracie is hungry and wants company, Tig will go with her and chow down. Which is why he’s so fat.

They’re both going on a diet when Gracie’s better.

If one needs to open a can with a can opener, one should probably not put it in the dishwasher and then run the dishwasher before one opens the can.

Just sayin’.

It’s IBD.

It’s totally treatable.

And it’s only taken an extra three weeks due to sheer incompetence at the old vet’s.

I have an appointment with the new vet this afternoon. I had them fax him the lab results, and then told them to pack up both my cats’ records and send them to me next week.

We’re done with them, and on to a vet who knows what he’s doing.

Gracie is going to be back to her old self in no time.

I am a happy, happy woman. Gracie will soon be a happy, happy cat, though this morning, after her breakfast of tunafish, her deep, throaty (normal!) purr told me she was already getting fairly happy.

These few words said by Virginia Republican Senator George Allen, when he conceded his defeat after the elections, will forever remain in my memory (aided by this post, of course):

My friends, sometimes winds - political or otherwise - can blow the limbs off branches or break limbs. But a deep-rooted tree will keep growing.

Besides being so true, these words echoed the inimitable Chance / Chauncey Gardener of Being There:

As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.

It is always nice to know that a politician drinks from that pure well of art. But of course, this well is deep, an there are always more, deeper thoughts. From the same Chauncey Gardener:

In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.

And this will be my free gift (as they say in commercial nowadays) to the outgoing Senator. No need to thank me, there is much more where it comes from.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

I promised you a picture where Tig does not look like a goofball.

Here he is, looking ultra-dignified out in the sun. His ruff is wider than usual for several reasons: He was recently brushed, it had rained before he was brushed so he was even cleaner than usual, and his winter coat is coming in.

The handsome devil.

Have you ever notice that the more stressed out and angry you get, the stupider the world gets?

I swear, my IQ must go up fifty points when I’m going through tough times.

Do you know what you never see in the Washington Post? A story like this about the many victims of palestinian suicide bombs. Although the last paragraph in the quote was a surprise.

“You see the sadness everywhere,” said Rawda Hamad, 40, one of scores of women in enveloping black gowns who had gathered at the burial site. “And violence will bring violence.”

As the mass funeral unfolded, Palestinian leaders compared the Beit Hanoun shelling to the Israeli airstrike that killed at least 28 civilians in the Lebanese town of Qana this summer. Meanwhile, Israelis debated what appeared to be another military mistake, with reaction ranging from abashed to unapologetic.

The Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem has called for a war-crimes investigation. A prominent Israeli journalist, however, attributed the incident to unabated Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, arguing that “such behavior carries a price tag.”

“When you fire rockets, shells fall,” wrote Ben Caspit, a senior columnist for the daily newspaper Maariv. “When one of them strays it is a shame, it is disastrous, it is bad, but that is how it is. Every other method has been tried, and failed. With scoundrels, you behave like a scoundrel, and with murderous, bloodthirsty terrorism that wants to wipe you off the map, you have to respond accordingly: Wipe it out.”

If someone can find the sympathetic portrayal of suicide bombing victims’ families in some of the big media outlets, feel free to alert the media.

Whoops.

Never mind.

Dancing on the graves - this is the only image that comes to mind while reading the following in Globe and Mail under a headline: Truce with Israel over, Hamas says.

Khaled Meshaal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, told a press conference in Damascus that his group’s military wing will respond with “deeds, not words.” He said a ceasefire that the group reached with Israel in early 2005 is now completely finished.

“The armed struggle is free to resume, and the resistance will be dictated by local circumstances,” he said. “There must be a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those victims.”

The threat to return to the violence of the worst intifada years was made as the extent of the carnage in the town of Beit Hanoun became clear.

So, the group reached a truce with Israel in 2005? Interesting - because no one in Israel knows about this happy occasion. Is it the same Khaled Meshaal of Hamas that encourages the development of rocket science in Gaza for the last several years? Same Meshaal that promised to make Sderot “a ghost town”? Same Meshaal that pulls all strings to sabotage the negotiations about release of our kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit?

Khaled Meshaal - a nasty residue of an unfinished job.

Truce - a nasty lie by a nasty residue of an unfinished job.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews