Sleepy time for humans must be "get wild-ass" time for cats. I'm putting in another coupla hours tonite working on the Austin Screenwriters list, Website and Michael Hauge workshop. My eyes are heavy. I needs ma sleep!

But orange Manx kitty Mojo just came tearing in from the living room, whipped down the hall to my office and HA! flang a toy at my foot. It's one of those white plastic circles you pull out of the orange juice carton to unseal it. She loves those things -- will roll them around for hours.

I think it's Fetch time in her little cat brain....

Today is the official Wendy Birthday Day. But I've been celebrating with friends and family for almost a week now. Tonight, J4 took me to a new place called Olivia's on S. Lamar. Trendy place, delicious food (scallops!), and a waitron we knew from Hyde Park B&G too. Plus J4 gave me an Andrew Davies DVD of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED and President Obama's book. Cool!

Last Wednesday, Leslie took me to Eddie V's Edgewater Grill. We ate late (9 pm) and the usually crazy-busy place was not busy. Then she showered me with a dozen gifts, most of them lavendar related or purple, including a honking 3-carat tanzanite ring!

And I must've gotten 12-15 wishes via FaceBook and on my Writergrrls list. Very sweet messages too! So I'm feeling cherished.

And just for grins, here's a photo taken of me on my first natal anniversary. Fierce concentration in the face -- look, I had it even then!

That's also my very first pet, a cat! (How could it not be a cat?) She didn't have a name until she had kittens, then she was forever "Mama Cat." She lived a long time, liked me best, and had dozens and dozens of kittens that we gave to good homes.... Ha, I knew I was born with the pale, fine hair, but I see here it always had the cowlicks that give me fits unto this very day...

... as in Jabba the Hutt. Tucker is 10 years old, 26 pounds, and 36 inches from nose to tip of tail. He's a BIG boy!

Because he's so big and old, he can't groom his long fluffy hair like he needs to. So summertimes, he gets shaved down. It makes him a little chilly, but he seems to love the freedom.

He's been spending 90% of his time on the sofa these days. Sometimes when he props himself up to lick his belly, he just kinda slumps there, watching TV. Like a chubby human, or Jabba the Hutt. Check it out:

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(GumOtaku)

As I posted earlier, it's a season for medical problems! Just came back from Seton Medical Center visiting JohnP. Late this evening I got a tense phone call from his gf, LeslieC, saying he'd had another set-back and was now in ICU. We came in as they were pumping him full of blood products and saline. Turns out he's having aneurysms -- one in his leg they knew about. They didn't realize he was also bleeding in his abdomen! It made his blood pressure go so low that he fainted in his hospital room bathroom. Luckily a male nurse was on the scene. And John was sleepy but remarkably clear about dates, medicines, history, etc. when we went to see him. Also, very pink! He's a pinkish, silver-haired man in his natural state, so that was good to see. Poor guy, he's been there 11 days and they haven't stabilized him enough to do defribrillator implants... Leslie wanted me there because she's been so stressed with all this and was hyperventilating unless somebody reminded her to breath slow.

Then my poor Tucker took 3 trips to the vet to get something that finally worked. They had antibiotics, painkillers. He got some sort of muscle relaxer so his bladder wouldn't spasm and make him run to the litterbox every 10 minutes. But it wasn't until he got a steroid shot Monday that made his bladder stop being so inflamed that he started acting like the hungry, lazy, affection-demanding cat he normally is. Except that he's sleeping even a little more than before (he got tired with the bazillion litterbox trips, I guess), he's really back to Good Ol' Tucker.

Visited my friend Deb who had the throat surgery to remove nodules on her parathyroid and thyroid, and all biopsies were benign. Plus, they glued her one throat incision, no stitches! Supposed to heal with very little scarring that way.

Thanks for the good wishes and concerns sent this way.

Whatta week for medical emergencies! Leslie called me to say her bf John had heart palpitations and shortness of breath and was rushed to the hospital. Two days ago they were thinking he was pretty much okay and were just doing a small angioplasty. Today they find both the top and bottom chambers of his heart (he's 66) are misfiring, so he's getting many miracles of modern science installed. He should be fine, poor guy.

My dear friend Deb goes under the knife tomorrow to have a necklace of incisions made to remove her parathyroid gland. That little organ had gone wacky and by doing so had blocked various hormones from going to their intended organs. Like, who knew that when the heart is denied the calcium it needs, you get high blood pressure? Luckily they'd figured out the parathyroid was the culprit last month and had her on pharmaceuticals to correct it. So already her blood pressure went normal. Her high blood sugar went normal. And after the surgery, the medicines no longer will be needed. She should be fine also, poor girl.

This morning, my furry, four-legged boy child, Tucker (feline; 25 lbs; 36 inches long; 9 years and 5 months old, which is 51 in people years) didn't run up to greet me good morning, but laid on his side on the living room carpet, yowling. I petted him and he yelped. When his beloved sister Mojo came to touch noses with him, he hissed at her! He's one of the most mellow cats ever to score catnip so I knew something BAD was up. A day at the vet's, many blood tests, x-rays, injections and catheters later, he's home. The theory is that he had a kidney stone he passed, but I have to watch him carefully for 24 hours. He seems happy, but not interested in jumping up on anything, like the couch or my lap. I think he'll be fine, poor cat. Meanwhile, his sister still hasn't forgiven him plus now he stinks like the vet's office so she won't come near him. As I type this, her pumpkin head is resting on my shoe while she snoozes far far away from the brother she thought she knew.

( A picture of a shaved pussy cat... )

One of the youngest members of our family passed away over the weekend, and all who knew him are very sad. I myself have had a couple of sobbing episodes -- over a ferret!

My brother Andrew, the odd, smart, curmudgeon guy I post about often, loves animals and prefers their company over people. So when he decided to get a ferret, he saved for months (he lives a simple lifestyle on his tiny income) and got two brothers. Ren and Stimpy had the run of his place, and his vet would remark how they were the healthiest most socialized ferrets he'd ever encountered. Then a college guy heard Andrew had happy ferrets and gave him a 3rd one. The guy had grown disenchanted with the smell (they are called "European polecats" for a reason) and the destructiveness of his pet. So the 3rd ferret -- named Rikki Tikki Tavi for the beloved Kipling character -- joined Andrew's household and all the animals were happy.

But ferrets live only 7-8 years typically. They all died of old age. Then Andrew moved to a new part of town, a nice trailer park off Slaughter. He was watering his new front yard when a famished ferret ambled up and began drinking from his water hose -- ! That was Cecil. Nobody claimed him. In fact, when he carried him from door to door to see if he was a lost pet, people said "What is that thing? It's been eating the cat's food and I didn't know what it was."

Cecil's past was a mystery, but we know he'd been a pet by how friendly he was to people. Andrew would say that Cecil was the most affectionate ferret he ever had, and he loved to sleep with Andrew, burrow in the laundry hamper, etc. We think it was because Cecil had had to fend for himself. He was a smart animal too, and had all kinds of tricks he taught Andrew to do. He also had a great relationship with Andrew's other pet, Earl, the Earl Grey parrot. When Cecil was hungry for fruit and nuts, he'd amble over to Earl's cage so Earl could drop him some parrot food. Earl would greet him with (imitating Andrew's voice and exasperation): "Weasel!"

When Andrew and his friend Hagar would dress up as Vikings and go camping with their Amptguard friends, Cecil would come along and live in the tent quite happily. All he required was the fur-lined sleeping bag that Andrew sewed for him. If he could be near Andrew, and he had his bag to keep him warm, he was a happy ferret. He'd even revert a little to his self-sufficient ways and hunt tasty grubs and acorns.

In the past year, however, Cecil was obviously elderly. He got cataracts so moved slowly because he was almost blind. He also developed a type of slow cancer that flooded his body with estrogen, so his gray and black fur had gotten sparse. Andrew kept him going with a daily squirt of ferret vitamins, but we knew the end was near. He greeted Andrew's feet on Monday morning with his usual nips, but didn't take any food or water. He crawled into the Cecil nest Andrew made him and never woke up again.

He was a good little guy.

My my. Got back from the Washington trip 2.5 weeks ago. Must... Finish... My Trip.... Posts....

Really, not to be obsessive but I designated my LJ as my journal for writing, traveling, social and political events. So now to quickly recap -- with photos -- the rest of my visit with Samily and their 1960s condo high on a hill in Alexandria, Virgina. In their town, in fact, right between their condo and the King Street Metro Station, is the otherworldly George Washington Masonic Memorial. It sits on its own hill and has Masonic attendants who whisper to you with awed voices about the murals and the stained glass. My dad made 32nd degree Mason in Texas in the 1950s and then received an honorary 33rd degree for some hard work he did. This made the mustachio'd Mason on duty quite impressed! Sam whispered, "I think you're descended from royalty."

The place was otherwordly in that the stained glass panels were akin to those I viewed at Sainte Chapelle in Paris. Only these are U.S. Patriots: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc. With tiny little stained glass scenes from their lives around them. Did you know Jefferson died but arose three days later? And Washington had but to gesture with his walking staff and the Delaware turned red and parted so that he and his troops could walk across to attack the British? At least, that's what I think these murals and glass windows were telling me. Plus the view was awesome! You could see Washington DC and the Jefferson Memorial and Capitol Building.

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