Friday, September 25, 2009

Mister Update

First big kitty news, Mister had his first vet appointment yesterday. Well, not exactly his first, but his first with us. He had two vet appointments in NJ before coming down here. But this was his first time seeing our vet, Dr. Shah. It was so cute. We walk in a couple minutes after 8:00 a.m. (our appointment was at 8:00), and there is half the staff waiting to see our new boy! They all loved Buddy so much, they were all excited to meet Mister. Naturally, they all thought he was adorable.

He was very curious about the new surroundings. He jumped on the exam table, jumped down, did a few laps around the room, jumped on the counter, jumped down. At one point, he tried to jump up on the top edge of a corkboard on the wall. That didn't work out so well. But he was able to push off before falling down and he landed safely back on the exam table. Best of all, though, he got a clean bill of health from the doc. Yay!

Even though he was really good while he was there, he still wasn't too happy about the whole experience. When we got home, he pretty much ran for the bed and stayed there most of the day. He seems to have settled down now, though, and he's looking forward to a visit from his Aunt Noelle this weekend.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Vacation and New Beginnings... and New Beginnings?

Well, we're back. We spent last week at the beach in Wildwood, NJ. Naturally, it rained almost every day there. Of course, except for Friday, when we were packing up to head back. But, as the old saying goes, a bad day at the beach is better than a good day at work. Seriously, though, vacation is vacation. I always feel that you can't control your circumstances, you can only control how you react to them. Whether we were able to sit out on the beach, or were stuck in our room, or wherever else we went, it was up to us to have fun. And so we did. We went to the Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum at Cape May Airport. We went down to the Boardwalk one morning when it hadn't started raining and rode rented bikes. We played Rummikub. We visited Douglass Fudge for the first time, where I found that the fudge well exceeded that of any other I have tasted. In fact, they have sugar-free fudge that tastes better than any other regular fudge I have ever tasted! (sorry James). We finally got to try chocolate-covered bacon from Laura's, after seeing it on Dinner Impossible! Everything really is better with bacon.

We did finally have to come back. But we were not alone. As you know if you read this blog, last month, we had to put our beloved Buddy to sleep. Well, about four or five months before that, a young cat began loitering in my mother- and sister-in-law's garage. After a several phone calls, discussions and back-and-forth decisions, they decided to keep him. Not for themselves, but for the unfortunate, inevitable time after Buddy was no longer with us. We knew we would want another cat at some point, we just weren't sure how soon. Well, a month later, we knew we would be in NJ for our shore vacation, and decided to bring Mister home with us when we came back. They had taken him to the vet, so we knew he was a healthy, neutered male about two years old (sadly, many people in that area drop unwanted pets off in the countryside, rather than find homes for them or take them to shelters). It has been just over a day, and he seems to be adjusting pretty quickly. After the initial lap around the apartment looking for the way back to the garage he knew, he worked is way under our couch. He stayed there for about an hour, before finally coming out. He walked around again, trying to figure out where he was. He eventually got used to us enough that he sat in my lap for a few minutes. Then he wandered again, eventually ending up on the couch. He spent most of the afternoon sleeping (he had a rough morning), with periods of waking up to explore. He still hasn't eaten or drank much, but we're hoping that, as he gets used to the fact that he is safe here and his food is safe here, his appetite will pick up.

The other, fortunate-yet-unfortunate new beginning was the new football season which began this weekend. The Redskins lost their opener to the Giants 23-17. The game really wasn't as close as the score and stats might indicate. They looked fairly outplayed in many aspects of the game. I don't know what happened to the much-touted West Coast Offense that we displayed to great effect against the Steelers' 1st team in preseason. It looked like Zorn had abandoned the passing game and reverted to the Gibbs run run run game. The "upgraded" defense looked like it got some of the big plays (a sack and 2 turnovers) it wanted, but at the expense of basic good play across the board. DeAngelo Hall got an INT, but missed several tackles that let big plays get by him. Haynesworth created some pressure, but not enough to collapse the pocket on the QB as we wanted. Orakpo was virtually invisible all night. I certainly hope this was just a rough beginning and we'll shake the rust off next week. There's no reason we shouldn't beat the Rams next week, but then again, there was no reason we should have lost to them last year!