One Year and Counting!

It's a red-letter date. It's just about this time last year when I was diagnosed with my breast cancer.

I had my lumpectomy on December 22nd or 23rd, so right now, a year ago, I was waiting to be scheduled for surgery.

Then I started my chemo treatments the first week of January. My last treatment was in June.

By early August, they found a small nodule along my original scar line--so I had my radical resection surgery in mid-August.

And you know what? I'm still here! And I'm doing well! Mom just made an appointment for my one-year follow up with Doc Josh. We go to see him on December 18th.

I'm now officially a one-year cancer survivor. Yippeee!

Mom would toast me with champagne, but I don't think either of us would feel very good afterwards. She says I can have another duck and goose patty, and she'll stick to her coffee. Giggles.

Happy Thanksgiving Effurybody!

We hope everyfur and their pawrents had a really nice holiday.

It was quiet around here—well sort of. Mom sort of took a break from the ‘puter today. She spent less than an hour on it this morning. Us ‘girls’, Samsara and I, could see she was really tired and she had another migraine, but she was trying to rush around anyway. That’s ‘cause she still needed to make a pie to bring to our Auntie Joany for Thanksgiving dinner. She was way too tired by the end of the day so she didn’t get to make it yesterday.

We pretty much stayed out of her hair this morning and then she left us alone all evening. When she came back she plopped a shopping bag on the floor and darned if it didn’t have a box in it that smelled like the most delicious ‘burd’ we ever smelled! No sooner did we get into the bag than SHE TOOK THE BOX AWAY! :(

Oh well…. I’m not sure what Samsara got for supper, but Mom made it up to me. I’ve been liking my kibble less and less lately. Mom says I have to eat something and she finally found something that she thinks I can tolerate. She’s been crumbling a little of the Stella & Chewy’s ‘Duck Duck Goose’ doggy raw patties over my kibble. I love it! Don’t tell anybody. Our vet would not be happy with Mom if she found out.

My IBD has been a lot better ever since I started my chemo treatments. Mom decided she preferred to err on the side of getting me to eat. In other words, she found two new ‘novel protein’ sources my body hasn’t rejected—duck and goose—the food I’ve been getting is based on pork. I’ve been eating my food mixed with the doggy patties for over a week now and they haven’t upset my system. The problem we had with the kitty foods was probably because they have trace amounts of fish oil in them. The doggy patties don’t have that ingredient. Yayyyyy!

We’re still not quite back on Catster. Would you believe it? After all the help that Samsara and I have been giving Mom you would think….

I even keep trying to distract her every night by sinking my claws into her calf while she’s working at the computer. (That’s a good way to get attention. You just keep it up until they get the hint and pick you up and put you in their lap. Make sure they can only type with one hand. If that doesn’t work, headbonk the notebook across the table.)

We know, we still haven’t answered your p-mails or thanked for gifts. We weren’t around for Misha’s Bridge Day last week. Mom was thinking about him a lot. She remembered all the funny stuff he did and thought a lot about what a great cat he was. She says she misses him and his mischief terribly. If he had lived this long he would have been 22 years old.

Anyway, we have an important announcement to make. It will still take us a few weeks before Mom has completed everything she needs to do, but the most important stuff is done. We can’t advertise here in the Catster diaries, so we’re going to have to keep this to a minimum. Mom sent out her pawtography business launch announcement to over 150 e-mail addresses early yesterday afternoon and posted one to FaceBook as well. WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS! We’re called ‘Friends FurrEver, Pet Portrait Photography’ and we have our own web site now!

We posted a few of the photos of me here on Catster, but there are lots more on our web site. Mom didn’t have the time to change Samsara’s photos on Catster, but there are lots and lots new photos of her too. I have to admit, she looks like a real beauty.

There are also tons of photos of all the doggies Mom has been photographing since early spring, including doggy lady’s doggy, Misty. (You know something? Samsara hasn’t been smacking her lately!) Anyway, there are also photos of some of the pet pawrents, and ones from Mom’s travels, and stuff she’s photographed in and around New York.

We just thought of something funny—if we have a pawtography business and Mom has been taking pictures of doggies, does that mean she’s been pawtographing them?

Come see us, and if you have a FaceBook account, please be sure to ‘Like’ us.

Friends FurrEver Pet Portrait Photography


Okay, back to putting holes in Mom’s leg. She’s been working entirely too hard.

Headbonks….

COTD!

Sniffs around.

Gee, I think I’ve been here before.

It smells familiar…..

Woo hoo! It’s Catster, it’s Catster, it’s Catster! Yaaaaay!

And, and they made me COTD yesterday. Yaaaaay. That’s why Mom said we could come back for a little while.

I’ve missed effurybody. And effurybody, thank you for the prezzies. You know, I’ve really missed effurybody!

It’s been too lonely here with just Mom and Samsara, and with Mom with her camera in my face all the time.

It’s going to be a little bit longer before we can stay back. Yeah, we got mad at HQ but we didn’t mean to be gone altogether. It just happened that way.

Mom has been trying to put together her pawtography business. You might remember that she got a new camera back in May. In the meantime she also got new editing software and a new lens, and she’s been working in overdrive trying to learn how to work with all the new stuff. And she was out and about for much of the summer taking pictures of (gasp) doggies! to add to a pawtfolio. She says what a journey it’s been for her. And she still thinks she’s got an awfully long way to go.

Our web site is just about done. It took about 2 months for Mom to build it herself and put up all the pictures. And now, since we have new ones we want to switch out some of them. Then we’re going to buy our domain name. Once that’s done, we’re going to announce it and give effurybody our web address so you can come visit us. Mom thinks it’ll be one more week before we’re open for business.

Okay, so what about me and Samsara? We’re both doing well.

Some of you who’ve been on FaceBook know about my operation over the summer. I finished my chemo treatments in June and we thought I’d graduated with flying colors. Then, in August, Doc Josh found a small nodule growing along the scar line of the lumpectomy I had last December.

That’s when he ordered something called a radical resection. (I didn’t know that I could be resectioned, but that’s what happened to me.) Seriously, what that means is I had an operation to remove all of my mammary ducts just in case there was some of that nasty cancer hiding out there. I had the operation in mid-August. They sliced me open all the way from my arm pit down to my leg pit. I had to stay in the hospital for 2 nights. Then, at the end of it, they lost my sections somewhere on the way to a biopsy. (Seriously.) Well, knowing would have been lagniappe anyway. It’s not like there would be anything more they could do for me if it turned out that the tissue was malignant. Mom says sometimes ignorance is truly bliss.

I was really doped up at the hospital, but not doped up enough not to know that I hated it. Stacy Ann, my vet tech, even told Mom how unhappy I was. OMC, I wouldn’t let anybody go near me. I was growling and hissing. They didn’t want to upset me any further so they didn’t try to clean up the drool from the pain killer they gave me. But the vet watching over us intensive care patients started laughing when Mom came to visit. I quieted right down and started purring for Mom.

Mom says she got back one grungy kitty when she took me home. (Tee hee—this time she couldn’t give me a bath because of the wound from the operation. She tried pet wiping me down. It took the next two to three weeks till I stopped smelling like the nasty pain killer and till she had all the mats either cut or brushed out of my coat.)

Then, the next couple of days were kind of touch-and-go. Who knows what happened. Mom took me back to the ER ‘cause I was running a really high fever. Well, by the time we got there, Mom was standing there with the (human’s) oral thermometer she slipped under my arm pit, trying to prove I even had the fever. (Another caveat—they cracked up when they saw the thermometer. It’s one of those old glass contraptions that work on how much the mercury inside expands.)

Anyway, I went back for my one-month follow-up and Doc Josh said I looked great! (But of course I do. I’m Colette, right?)

Now we’ve got another thing going on: my kibble. We think Hills must have changed the formula for the w/d. It spoils too quickly and it just doesn’t taste good. Mom’s pulling her hair out ‘cause neither Samsara nor I want to eat it. She’s been doctoring it up so it tastes better. Mom called our regular vet to talk about that. Mom says that we kitties are putting her in the position of having to choose between keeping us eating by giving us the wrong things or having us starve ourselves ‘cause we won’t eat the right things. I heard Mom say that she’s choosing in favor of us eating. Giggles.

Okay, so what else? We weren’t around for my Birthday or my Gotcha Day, and some of the paw’s Moms and Dads reminded Mom about both, but that didn’t stop Mom from realizing just how far I’ve come in 4 years.

I have a couple of confessions to make. Actually, they’re not confessions ‘cause I’m liking these things too much to be embarrassed about them. I love my brushies. Mom walks into the bathroom effury morning and so do I. I’m there, front and center, trying to get her to notice me and hoping she’ll remember my brushies. Wow—why did I ever hate them??!!!!

And, every night, while Mom is working on the ‘puter, I’m right there, raking my claw down her leg (see, she can’t ignore that. She might get mad, but she knows that the only way to get rid of me is to give in. Tee hee. She doesn’t get rid of me, she just gets a temporary respite from the pain.) You know what I want???? Lap time! I am turning into a lap kitty. I have my own style for this—I do. I will not work for it. I work hard enough with my claws—does she really expect me to jump too??? Uh, uh. The proper way to go about this is that you get your human to pick you up. I’m not jumping! Do I look like a kangaroo or something???!!! Next, I will not lay down. Even when I sit up, I spill over onto the pillow on the ‘puter chair. (There’s not enough lap :( .) I also don't want Mom working too hard so I headbonk the notebook across the table.

And the weather? We got our share of Hurricane Sandy, but we didn’t get even half of the grief that nearby areas got. We had a couple of trees come down in our neighborhood—that’s it. There wasn’t that much rain and since there was so much wind, it dried up almost as soon as it hit the ground. We live a bit farther inland. The awful flooding you saw was the result of the tidal surges. The area where we live doesn’t get anywhere near where we would have to worry about that. Ditto with regard to what happened to so many families having to go without electricity. Our neighborhood had power throughout. Our Auntie Joany wasn’t so lucky. She lives inland on Long Island. She didn’t get the flooding, but her neighborhood is prone to power outages. When Mom called her tonight she still didn’t have power. (Auntie has been charging her cell phone at work.) She’s been doing okay though. They’re buying wood for the fireplace, storing their frozen food at the food service place next to where Auntie works, and washing at the gym. Their house is dark and cold except for the room where they have the fireplace. So, they’re doing something they haven’t done in years, we suspect: spending time together as a family. Mom said it sounded like they were making the best of things and actually enjoying their time together.

And now winter snuck up on us. It was pretty warm here until Hurricane Sandy hit. Then the temperature dropped. Today we had the noreaster and it’s 32 degrees out there. It’s way too early for this kind of cold and snow in our area—and yet we’re getting between 2 and 3 inches accumulation. Again, there was no problem for our neighborhood. We heard that a lot of the families who had their power restored last week are in the dark again. Sigh. At least the storm waited until the day after Election Day. I would have pitied the poor humans who would have had to stand out there in the snow and cold if the storm would have come one day sooner.

Anyway, thank you again, effurybody. We’ll try not to be strangers. Hopefurrly, my new pics will be up tonight and maybe one or two for Samsara, then Mom will put up some more new ones for Samsara later.

Sorry we’ve been away this long.

Headbonks and huggies,

Follow Up to Yesterday’s Post

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this since Friday. (Oh, oh!) The more we think about this the more it keeps opening new cans of worms.

Yes, there is such a thing as ‘freedom of speech’ in the U.S. It’s one of the central tenets of our Bill of Rights, Milo ‘n Furrmily. But as I’ve said before, (I think it was last August), that doesn’t mean that you can say anything you want irrespective of whether or not it hurts somebody. The Bill of Rights doesn’t give you the right to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire. You could cause a stampede needlessly and someone could get hurt.

Mom’s voice coach likes to tell her (as she’s working on what she will say between the songs she performs—that’s called ‘patter‘ in performing parlance) that you can say anything you want, it all depends on how it’s delivered. (He makes the leap of faith that one isn’t going to say something that’s just plain inappropriate or said in order to hurt someone.)

So how does all this apply? This story. We all would still have found this piece of ‘news’ extremely distasteful –it would have made us uncomfortable, upset us, turned our stomachs, gotten our hackles up and claws out equally. We still would have been hissing and spitting. But… if Catster had said something to the effect of ‘OMC, please join us in our efforts to get some kind of legislation passed to ensure that this kind of horrible practice is banned’, or perhaps taking a less active stance, ‘have your pawrents contact their legislators so they might get the Dutch government to do something about this atrocity’, or less active yet, ‘OMC, we don’t believe this! How awful!’ our anger would not have been turned against Catster. One photo would have still done the job; we didn’t need to be put through the hell of the entire video clip. (Purrsonally, we couldn’t even get more than 15 seconds into it before we couldn’t watch anymore.)

What Catster did was they came right out and told us they LOVED it! And, therein, m’furriends, lies the difference between sensationalism and responsible reportage.

Another thought: Catster, would your editors have dared to wear fur coats to a PETA meeting? We think not.

Phew! Okay, now that’s out of the way.

Here’s our next mind-bender….

We were mulling the question around in our heads of why Catster couldn’t ‘see’ how upset this would get us. Sadly, the only answer we could come up with is that it’s a reflection of society as a whole, and, perhaps, even how our pawrents have been conditioned by society since they were little.

The whole article almost resonates as something from a ‘Far Side’ comic strip. The strip is supposedly funny because it remains within the ‘safe’ realm of fantasy. It uses fictional animals that pose as you and me. What happens once you release these fantasies from the ‘confines’ of the comic strip?

Okay, the Far Side didn’t exist when a lot of our pawrents were children, but what about:

Road-Runner being beaten to a pulp by a falling anvil (which was dropped on purpose by Wile E. Coyote)

or

Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny bopping each other over the head with baseball bats…

In the real world those actions would be prosecuted as manslaughter, or, at best, assault and battery. (We were thinking about that yesterday when we asked about grandma being sent to the Bridge as a helicopter.)

About two years ago we met a guy who’s training to be a professional stand-up comedian. He had to explain to us that what makes stand-up comedy so funny is exactly the dark edge it has to it. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we’re belong to the type of kitties who look at the ‘Far Side’ comic strip and go ‘OMC, how sad!’

Purrs,

Colette & Furrmily

Da Tabbies - So Sad

By now, I don’t need to tell to effurybody that our dear friends, Da Tabbies o Trout Towne, made the decision to leave Catster.

Why, Catster? Have you absolutely no sense or no feeling of what might pawssibly… pawssibly be offensive to someone who loves their kitties as much as we all do????!!!

We saw that article and video clip on the home page that upset Da Tabbies so much. IT IS HIDEOUS! It is AN ABOMINATION. Okay, each to his own with the skull, but…

Where on earth did you find the overwhelming need to condone the use of the remains of a beloved creature as a curiosity and 'objectionable' d’art???

Doing something objectionable to gain notoriety may not be illegal but it stinks. If someone made a dry poop sculpture out of their dead kitty would you still say you loved it? It stinks! Try sending a grandma off to the bridge as this ‘artist’ did and watch what happens! Bet the laws of the country where this guy lives would be on him as quick as the laws of the U.S. would be.

At least to us true kitty lovers, kitties are not a commodity; they are furrmily.

That video clip and article condones the lesser valuation of the sanctity of a creature’s remains!

The fact that the story made the news in the Netherlands is because of how notorious it was. This is tabloid press at its worst and from a country that doesn’t even give much credence to tabloid press. May we remind you that it was the tabloid press that was responsible for the death of Princess Diana.

Just because it’s out there doesn’t mean that Catster should have picked it up, much less condoned it. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that we members of the Catster community expect every furr to behave responsibly. When HQ doesn’t behave responsibly you lose our members because you’ve lost our trust.

And now we are all paying. Our beloved friends, Da Tabbies, have left the community. It will be a long time, if effurr, before they trust you enough to come back.

Let’s just hope that this doesn’t lead to a mass defection. Bit by bit, the actions of Catster HQ are eroding the sense of trust and community you (and we) worked so hard to build.

Sad purrs,


Colette, Samsara, (Angel) Marrakech, (Angel) Misha, (Angel) B.A., (Angel) Cappuccino, and Mom, Carol

Here’s Looking at You From A New Profile Picture

And, hopefurrly being seen in a ‘different light’. We haven’t been around much and we apologize. Mom is busy trying to get a purrfessional pawtography business off the ground. She finally broke down and got a good camera and she’s still trying to learn it and find out what it can and can’t do.

We know, the pictures Mom posted aren’t the most interesting, but she was trying out the effects of incandescent lighting in the room along with low natural light conditions. She was also trying out things like sports mode to see how well the picture comes out if we’re moving around a lot.

She decided she’s still got a lot to learn.

In the meantime, she’s been all over the park, taking, of all things, pictures of doggies, trying to put together a complete purrtfolo. OMC, what a difference the camera makes! She says it’s a shame she can’t post those pictures.

One thing we noticed with the camera is it makes my eyes appear a lot more vivid blue than they truly are. Mom likes my ice blue eyes, but we don’t have software in the ‘puter to change the color back to what it should be. (And, you can bet, if my eyes are coming out too bright, you can imagine what Samsara’s look like. Giggles.)

Oh, one more thing. I should have gotten my last chemo treatment last week. It didn’t happen because my WBCs were too low. Dr. L. didn’t want to push me over the edge and compromise my immune system with the chemo. Then I should have gotten my last chemo treatment today and it didn’t happen again, for the same reason.

I went through an itchy episode last month and, ahem… took my spring shedding into my own paws. I have a couple of spots on me where my coat is a bit on the thin side. They tried giving me antihistamine; it didn’t work so they put me back on prednisolone. It took care of the problem.

I also had another ‘issue’ with my food last month. I didn’t want the wet food and I didn’t want my kibble. Even with Mirtazapine I wasn’t eating very much. Dr. L. was baffled. You know what it was? The last part of the bag of kibble got old—it happened to Samsara with her kibble too. And they kept giving us both appetite stimulant. You know how they figured it out? We were reaching the bottom of the barrel on my food and Mom got a new bag. When I saw what she had I couldn’t wait to bust it open to get to it. Samsara too. That kibble is our favorite.

Around the same time, I was doing so well with my IBD that I was off all my meds except for lysine gel. Then Mom tried sprinkling a little deVour product over my wet food for a couple of nights and I went right back to pudding poops and had to go back on Tylan for a few days. Thankfurrly, I’m back to where I was before.

I still don’t want the canned stuff and they weighed me last week —I lost weight. Would you believe they’re not happy about it? I was skimming 11 lbs. around Christmas and I’m down to 10 lbs. now. Don’t worry, they’re still calling me ‘chubby’!!

We’ll try to post more pictures at a later date. We still love effurybody; it’s just we can’t be around so much right now.

Purrs and headbonks…

True Colette Confessions

This is a first. Don’t expect anything more like this from me any time soon.

I fell over and landed on my butt. You know that funny pill that I’ve been getting, the Mirtazapine? I had another one last Tuesday. OMC was I hungry. I was doing this dance for my kibble (Mom calls it my dancing bear routine) when Mom came zooming in with the bowl from behind me. I craned my neck to get a better look at it and wham! Ouch. No fair! I just wanted to make sure she was really gonna’ put the bowl on the floor!

I am turning into…. A… lap … kitty. There, I said it. Gulp. I keep going up to Mom and putting my paws in her lap while she’s at the ‘puter. That usually means I want another bowl of noms. There are times, though, when I’ve just eaten. Mom has been trying to scoop me up but I back off. Giggles, she’s usually that close to falling out of the chair. I’ve been letting her catch me lately. I sat in her lap last night getting hugs long enough to make Samsara jealous. Samsara wanted to sit there too, but, heck, it was my lap. She managed to get her front paws there but she had to sit next to Mom while we both got hugs at the same time. Mom was laughing. She said she was covered in kitty.

I like … getting my brushies. There, I said it. When Mom uses the bathroom mirror, I sit on the toilet waiting for her to notice me. Then, when she does, I let her give me my brushies and purr up a storm for her. Of course, all of this is still on my own terms. I call the end of the interview as soon as I feel like it. I just want Mom to be grateful that I’m even letting her brush me.

If any fur has the need to make a confession, feel free to do it in the comments section of this diary entry. We’d love to hear from you. (And the only furs that will ever know about it are the ones that stop by this diary entry. Tee hee. I’ll never say a word—I promise!)

And, no, I’m not saying this ‘cause it’s April Fools Day. (Now you’re gonna’ wonder, aren’t you?)

Headbonks…

No Chemo This Week.

We had a surprise on Tuesday: no chemo. Dr. L. took some blood and his in-house lab results said my WBC was slightly too low. He thought at first that the results might be wrong so he sent some blood out to the lab to look at it again. Nope. The first result was right. He thought he might do it today (Wednesday) and then reconsidered. I’m scheduled for next Tuesday.

He and Mom talked about my eating (not). He wants to test my kidney values on Tuesday. He’s wondering if they deteriorated since December,if they're causing the eating issues because it’s taking longer for my kidneys to process the chemo. He didn’t want to put me back on the Mirtazapine ‘cause it made me so nuts. He thought about that again too—he doesn’t want me eating so little that it compromises my immune system any further. I got Mirtazapine yesterday but I got half the dosage. So I only got half as nuts—still too much.

Samsara got the Mirtazapine yesterday too. By the time our regular vet, Dr. V., and Mom talked today, Samsara was also making her crazy. Our vet heard Samsara over the phone and started laughing. (And before they hung up, Dr. V. giggled and told Mom to enjoy her kitties.) Mom growled after she got off the phone. (She couldn’t even sing today ‘cause Samsara was singing right along with her.)

Anyway, the upshot of the conversation was that Dr. L. and Dr. V. talked about what to do with me with regard to stimulating my appetite. With the Mirtazapine it’s too much and without it I eat too little. Dr. L. thought we might increase my prednisolone again—something Mom and Dr. V. really don’t want to do since I’ve been on it so long; they’re both afraid of it causing liver damage. (And, when Mom thought about it, that wouldn’t work anyway. Whenever I get a dose high enough to make me hungry, my rhinotracheitis surfaces and I end up with an URI.) Of course, the other option Dr. L. was considering was changing my food. To what? That’s another ‘no can do’. Everything else we’ve tried makes pudding poops with blood.

Everybody finally settled on trying a new appetite stimulant: cyproheptadine. With this one we have to watch out that it doesn’t make me too sleepy. To be continued—it’s going to be a good few days before anyone wants me to take it.

Mom is also complaining about my ‘feed me’ routine now. I put my front paws in her lap and start raking downwards with my nails. Eventually, she scoops me up and puts me in her lap. I only stay there for a minute or so and then I’m right back to bothering her.

Now Mom is starting to get even. I lead her to the kitchen with my tail in the air. She gets hold of my tail and uses it as a rudder to steer me to the kitchen. I don’t need steering—really I don’t. MOL! I know the way, and Mom, I know that you know that I know the way. You know?

Headbonks…

Visit with Dr. L. and Spring Pictures

Wow; it’s been a long time since I got to write anything in my diary. Diary Gal kept Mom way too busy with Keshy. (Not that I have anything against her—she turned out to be okay towards the end.) But…

Anyway, last week was the first of my monthly visits with Dr. L. (Even before that Mom saw Stacey-Ann at Dr. L.’s gig on St. Patty’s day.) I’m losing my touch—Stacey-Ann said that I’m sweet! Mom asked her if she was sure she was talking about the same kitty. Stacey-Ann laughed and said that I was all ‘mouth’ and no follow-through. (That’s not what Jasmine, the vet tech at Dr. V.’s office, thinks.) Oops. I think it’s time to sharpen the claws a bit.

Last month, after I stopped eating for 48 hours, I dropped down to under 10 1/2 pounds (from 11.2 lbs.). I’m up to 10.7 lbs. again. You know that funny tasting pill (Mirtazapine) Mom’s been giving me? It made me want something like 3 or 4 bowls of food in a row and I was still hungry.

The last phone call Mom made to Dr. L., she was saying something like “Help—I just fed her 4 bowls of food, she doesn’t want to eat any more, and it looks like she’ll start gnawing on my leg any second now. She doesn’t know what she wants!” Yup, side effects. Mirtazapine can make us kitties hyper. And, by the way, Mom was so mean on St. Patty’s Day. She gave both me and Samsara the Mirtazapine and she only fed us something like 4 bowls of food before she left the house!
She left at something like 6:00 in the evening and didn’t come home for almost the whole night! Where was our food???!!!

Given my weight gain and the side-effects they want Mom to stop the pill unless I don’t eat for 24 hours. (They want me to keep my girlish figure.) Without the pill, the kibble doesn’t look so good and I don’t really want the canned food. (Mom’s fish chowder smelled yummy, though. Why won’t she give me fish? The stuff only has tomatoes and chili pepper in it. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt my IBD ….) Besides, I’ve been off Tylan for a week and since this past Thursday I’m down to getting prednisolone only once a day. My poops have been really good.

Anywho… we took the subway to see Dr. L. It was scary down there, but I got to see all the birdies and sniff the air that smelled like spring when we walked (I rode) home. Mom and I both complained all the way there and all the way back. (She remembered the time she took late brofur B.A. to V-lady and couldn’t carry him the last block home. She set down the kennel cab and said, ‘That’s it! No more ice cream, no more potato chips, and no more pretzels!” And she got caught lecturing the kennel cab—some guy saw the whole thing and started laughing.)

I have my next appointment tomorrow morning. Dr. L. thinks I’ll be good to go for my chemo treatment.

Speaking of spring, we did our spring photo shoot. Most kitties get to be spring chickens and bunny rabbits and stuff—I get to be different. I get to be the centerpiece in a Victorian post card! Huh? Mom says she hates her camera. I won’t look at it anymore if I can help it. I hate the infra-red light and the flash hurts my eyes even more. (Oh, c’mon, Colette—I haven’t used either the fill light or the flash in over a year—I know they hurt your eyes!) So the fill light feature is off, but I still don’t want to look at the camera. (The feature is off, and since your fur is so dark in places and so light in other places, and since the camera is crappy and over-lights any lighter places in the picture…)

The pictures were perfectly good but they were too ‘hot’ in places—they hurt our eyes and we were sure you wouldn’t want to look at them either. Who knows what happened—Samsara’s pictures needed very little adjustment. The light must have shifted in the few minutes between the time Mom took her pictures and the time she took mine. Mine seemed to be a disaster. At first we thought we didn’t have one picture we could use. Then we started to play with them using our software. By the way, the flowers really are there—they aren’t software generated. And, understand this isn’t an apology: we love the final results. We hope you do too. (It’s going to take some time to post them—bear with us.)

Headbonks…

No Understand Human…Can’t Hear You

9:00 PM

‘Colette! Finish your supper!’

Huh? What did you say? Sorry, speak up.

‘Colette, your supper!’ Fingernail to bowl: ‘plink, plink, plink’.

Huh?

‘Co-lette!!’

Samsara: ‘Let me out of the bedroom! Let me out! There’s food in Colette’s bowl! Hurry up!’

‘Colette, if you don’t finish your supper now, I’m letting Samsara have it!’

Huh? No speak human. Can’t understand a word you’re saying. Speak ‘Cat’, woman!

‘CO-LETTE, YOUR SUPPER!!’

Huh?

‘PLINK, PLINK, PLINK.’

Huh?

‘Sigh.’

Samsara: ‘LET ME OUT. YEOW, YEOW, YEOW, YEOW, YEOW, YEOW!’ I’M FREE!!!! WHERE’S THE FOOD? WHERE’S THE FOOD? WHERE’S THE FOOD?’


11:00 PM

Mooom! I’m HUNGRY! NYEH, NYEH, NYEH. WHERE’S MY KIBBLE?

‘Sigh.’