Wow. Eleven comments on the last entry. I think that's a record.
This is a cat blog. Last night was extremely amusing. I took Mr. Kitty to the vet. The neighbors we "inherited" him from hadn't taken him for his shots in over a year.  Nice, I know. I am happy to say that Mr. Kitty did not disgrace his new family name (unlike my other cats who are extremely embarrassing to take to the vet). He only lost a ton of hair due to the stress of the appointment. Turns out $135.00 later (yikes!) that he is in excellent health except for that fact that he's a three year old that looks twice his age or something like that...he has stress-related age spots around his eyes, mouth, and nose. Poor little guy has definitely had a tough life!!!  I find the stress thing kinda odd since personality-wise Mr. K. is definitely more laid back than my other cats. They are definitely high maintenence.
Before I can proceed with the rest of my story I need to say that my Dad has achieved a certain notoriety in town...I guess it comes from being a professor for over twenty years. His nickname is "Dr. Dirt." Sometimes he complains that too many people "know him."  When he got his first truck a couple of years ago he wouldn't tell any one he worked with or his students what he was driving because he wanted to be anonymous. (Prior to this he was highly recognizable driving around in a 1984 Chevy station wagon...that thing was huge! And ugly...big time ugly. It used to get bombed by birds all the time. I could tell a lot of stories about that car's long, slow, painful death...)
So Mr. Kitty saw one of the new partners at the vet clinic last night. Dr. A. walks in and says "I never took one of your father's classes but I used to hear him in the hall." (Huh? Not sure what the "hear him in the hall" part meant. Generally speaking my father is a man of few words. I wanted to tell Dr. A. that it's a good thing you never took one of my Dad's classes as I don't think soil science and turf management credits would really apply towards a veterinary science major...and if you were a soils major what the heck are you doing examining my cat?? But I was good and kept my mouth shut...didn't want to sound smart alecky and besides Dr. A. was too cute!!  LOL!)
Then Dr. A. proceeds to say "But I heard all about your Dad. He has quite a reputation" (this is too true). "He has some theory about sand causing cancer..." (I couldn't really think of any response to dignify this with except "oh really" and this always-eloquent Xanga smiley...  . I asked Dad about this when he got home from work. He *claimed* it wasn't his theory, it was the Wall Street Journal's theory...like that clears this up...I hope this had to have been some kind of typo. I told Dad that he should really get out in public more often to refute these theories floating around about him...people are going to start thinking he's seriously eccentric...) Now I have to take Pepper & Salty in for their shots before I can try to introduce Mr. K. to the house. That'll be fun...if I think of more I'll write later...happy Tuesday!
 Whoops...almost forgot...Terra sent me a much better scan of the cover to Ekaterina, since the only scan I found online had an ugly price sticker on it, so here you go (isn't it much nicer??)...
I read more in Chateau of Echoes last night but didn't make too much headway...more book updates later.
Oh, and for Emily's benefit, here is a link to the Chronicles of Narnia album that I talked about yesterday. | 
