holyoutlaw

Whale Tail



This is one of the whales that joined us for dinner. Here it is diving for another helping.

( Three more behind the cut )

There's a tree swallow nest in a pipe we can see from our kitchen. Over the previous weeks we've seen the adult swallows come and go, and now we can hear the chicks peeping for their food. The parent swallow has just fed the chick and is leaving again.

Fremont, Seattle
July, 2007

I know that the problems of an old rat don't amount to a hill of beans in this troubled Casablanca reference, but...

A couple days ago, Jane realized she'd have to medicate Peaty by herself while I was gone. He continues to struggle quite actively whenever we try to medicate him, and this worried us: Would he hate us? Would we hurt him in some way? Etc.

So, at her request, we went to the vet again yesterday and spoke to the tech who likes rodents. We were relieved to find out that Peaty was as difficult for the tech to control as for us. "Here's the mixed result that's good news," he said at one point. "Yep, he's difficult to medicate. And if he's capable of struggling this much, he's not too badly off." The tech kept pausing to soothe Peaty and compliment him on his ability to get out of any grip. "Are you ready for The Stunner? Oh, you're gooooood."

Basically, it requires patience, soothing, and a little medication at a time. On the way back, Jane mentioned several times that she was relieved we'd done this. As patient readers know, Peaty's health has been one of my ongoing concerns for the last couple months. By visiting the vet tech yesterday, we took care of an important variable: how one person can medicate him. So now, if he should (heaven forfend) die before I return, that's the breaks of the game. We know what it's possible for us to do, and the rest is out of our hands.

Even before I read the singing translation of The Ring of the Nibelung, I was thinking of wrapping Peaty in a shroud and taking him to Golden Gardens and giving him a fiery, sunset sendoff there. Yeah!

Today's Wednesday. Friday, I hit the road. Whoops. Better get ready. Hah!

Spanky!

This is one of the cats for whom scarlettina is staff.