This is the latest Gracie picture, taken only yesterday, and in it, you can see the striking changes since she came home in November after her second operation (and three weeks without eating). She has regained most of the weight she lost. She is happy and energetic. The fur is starting to grow in nicely (you can see especially on her front paw, which was shaved halfway down for the IV). Her white tummy fur is growing in as well, though slowly. Strangely, the fur around the scar is growing in the fastest. Perhaps she knows how much I hated looking at it.

With the exception of the limp, she’s close to fully recovered. Of course, she still has IBD. I feed her a diet of wet and dry food. She tolerates the wet food completely, but the dry food sometimes irritates her stomach, particularly first thing in the morning. She often throws up on an empty stomach if I don’t feed her within a certain number of hours. I spoke with the vet yesterday (the new vet; I haven’t so much as glanced at the old vet since they botched Gracie’s case so badly). He suggested raising Gracie’s nightly dose of Prednisone to prevent her from vomiting in the morning if I don’t feed her in time. I got up late today, and Gracie did not throw up before breakfast. The man’s a genius.

Have I mentioned how much I like my new vet?

We had a double bellyrub a few nights ago, the first once since before she got sick in October. And Gracie is in bellyrub mode more and more often. She still hates being dosed with pills, but I’ve gotten it down to a science. I grab her, pull her head up and open her jaws and just drop the pill down her throat. It usually works, and is fast enough that she doesn’t get too upset about it.

Meantime, our routine is getting back to normal. Tig has been playing cavekitty because it’s wintertime. A few weeks ago, I started searching around for him frantically, unable to find him anywhere, and started to panic. Then I realized that I’d forgotten all about the covers. He likes to crawl under them in the wintertime. Sure enough, there was a Tig-sized lump at the foot of the bed. I poked it, and it mrowed. Now, when I can’t find him, I check the bed. This morning, I was treated to the sight of Gracie deciding whether or not to walk on the Tig-lump under the cover. She tested it with her paw and was clearly thinking about it, and then stopped and walked around him. I suspect it had nothing to do with pissing him off and everything to do with Gracie not wanting to walk on an unsolid surface. But I was much amused.

She runs up the stairs again, two front paws first, then two back paws, faster than I could possibly run up the stairs. (Tig walks up them slowly, like an old man, looking up at me the entire time.) She leaps effortlessly on anything she cares to jump on, and we’re back to the deep, throaty purring that I missed so terribly while she was ill and recovering. And best of all, no more bony butt. The limp remains, though. Her left hind leg now curves inward, so when she walks around my bed for an evening visit, I hear tick-tick-tick thump instead of tick-tick-tick-tick. It saddens me, but I won’t take her to the vet until he says he needs to see her. And I suspect there’s nothing can be done. Chalk up another reason to hate the old vet.

Since I’ve been home while on the job hunt, she mostly stays downstairs and sleeps on the sofa. And she visits me periodically while I’m writing, jumping from chair to chair and meowing for attention, or food.

One of the few positive side-effects of her long illness and the many trips to the vet is that I can pick her up from time to time, and hold her for a few seconds. She never really liked being held, except when she’s frightened in the vet’s exam room. Tig, of course, is a huggy bear. Most Maine Coons are. If I ask him, “Do you want a snug?” he will meow to be picked up. As I write this, he is on the chair next to me, falling asleep. Gracie is on the sofa, doing the same.

The cat life in the Yourish household is returning to normal. Purring will commence at once.

Hassan Nasrallah, the chipmunk-cheeked leader of the terrorist organization that murdered more Americans than any other until 9/11, admitted that he screwed up last summer:

Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah once again admitted that he erred in his management of the conflict against Israel leading up to the recent war in Lebanon .

Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam reported Saturday that during a meeting with an Egyptian researcher, Nasrallah said, “We may have erred in our judgment, but only God doesn’t make mistakes. We have already apologized to the Lebanese people, and we paid a heavy price in blood. In spite of this, we wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice our sons for our cause.

He also said that Iran aids Hezbullah, and the aid comes through Syria. That aid, of course, would be weapons. Syria, I might add, is the nation that the Baker Commission wants Israel to talk to with no preconditions—such as stopping the rearming of Hezbullah.

The researcher, chairman of the Ibn Khaldun center for strategic research in Egypt, Saad a-Din Ibrahim, told the newspaper that during his conversation with Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader admitted that his group received military and financial aid from Iran.

“Iran helps us out of religious solidarity and ethnic identification,” Nasrallah explained. “The aid comes through Syria and everyone knows it. Hizbullah is strengthened by this aid, and will also welcome any similar aid from any Arab or Islamic source, such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Everyone but the commander of the UN peacekeeping mission charged with preventing those arms from reaching Hezbullah, that is. It’s good to know that the UN is keeping up its history of ignoring, or actively aiding, Hezbullah in the murder of Israelis.

Hamas has upped the ante, possibly farther than they realize. It may be time to make the Palestinian Civil War into an initial-cap phrase and a proper noun, because I think it’s finally hit the point of no return.

Hamas operatives in Gaza completely destroyed Fatah’s security headquarters in the Gaza Strip, at the height of another day of inter-factional violence in the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas gunmen set fire to the Palestinian Preventative Security Forces building in northern Gaza, burning it to the ground. Immediately afterwards they continued on the Force 17 headquarters – Fatah’s general and military intelligence staff, and destroyed it as well.

The attacks came in apparent response to Fatah’s raid on the Hamas’ Agriculture Ministry earlier Saturday, in search of weapons and gunmen in hiding.

There’s this thing about the palestinian culture that boggles most Western minds, because we haven’t really thought in tribal terms in millennia, and we have courts to administer justice for us. But they are still a tribal culture, which is what causes much of the violence in the name of reprisal attacks. The clans go back and forth until and unless someone outside intervenes to stop the bloodshed. Many people have used the phrase “honor/shame” society to describe them (without really understanding what it means, and the reason you never see me use it is because it has become a meaningless phrase in the blogosphere). But the point is, the tribal culture contributes to that honor/shame custom (as well as to its dark side, the so-called “honor” killings of women).

The question is, will Force 17 will take this “insult” to their honor? Or, since the building was apparently empty, is this just another empty symbol?

Less than a day after another ceasefire agreement was attained between Fatah and Hamas, on Saturday morning violence between the factions erupted anew, and at least eight Palestinian were wounded.

Severe gun battles erupted on the streets of Gaza City, near President Mahmoud Abbas’ office and the Palestinian security headquarters in the city center. Witnesses reported that gunmen from both camps were positioned in the area and there was heavy gunfire.

Early Saturday afternoon Hamas gunmen set fire to the Palestinian Authority’s Preventative Security Forces headquarters, burning it to the ground.

Hamas operatives also destroyed the command center of Force 17, Fatah’s general and military intelligence branch.

Mind you, I’m wondering where Force 17 was while all this was happening. They are, for those of you who don’t know, they were the bodyguards of Yasser Arafat, and they are also the perpetrators of dozens of terror attacks on Israelis.

So. Those of us watching from the sidelines will be eagerly awaiting the outcome of this action. Perhaps Hamas has “opened the gates of hell” on its own self.

That would be lovely.

Of course, the terrorists do have a history of teasing us. Then again, a lot has happened in the last three days:

Since Thursday 25 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the inter-factional violence, including four children. Additionally over 250 people were wounded.

And once again: I hope both sides lose.