Brief paws for an update:

For anyone who might be interested, Sam the Cat recently had his annual shots with a check-up and pedicure, and he received a relatively clean bill of health.  He still has a little heart murmur and arthritic hips; likewise he still had tons of chronic itchy black yuck accumulating in his ears, and so was given a ten-day course of antibiotic and antifungal drops which seems to have cleared up the problem at least for now.  Meanwhile, his teeth look pretty good, and he has attained a shapely weight of 9.2 lbs.

Comments

[John]

Yes, I am interested in Sam. I like to read about
Sam, he has no idea how lucky he is. And i like
to follow how you are coping. I hope your bodily
problems fade into remission, and your digestive
troubles clear up soon. I was quite concerned a
while ago, when you did not post for a long while
its good to see you back.

John (UK)

[Ron Sullivan]

Well hell. A surfeit of decent news!

[kathy a.]

ooh, svelte spoiled cat! glad sam's doing fine!

we can't even catch 2 of our 4; they came a year ago as feral rescue kittens, and they've gotten all domesticated except for the humans-holding-them part. i'm still working on them. they will eat out of my hand -- gingerly, and with scardyness -- if i am sitting in the "magic safe chair." one even sleeps on me, so long as i act asleep. progress, i tell you.

i know they need shots and stuff. if i get them to the vet and hear anything at all about tooth-cleaning, i will be humming a lot and not listening.

[Michelle]

I'm so happy to read that Sam is doing so well! You are fabulous kitty caretakers :)

[aura]

Thanks for a good laugh, (I needed it!) When I got towards the end of the IKEA description, I was literally laughing out loud so hard, that it took a long time to continue reading. Then I would start laughing again at the next paragraph.

You know, we have several IKEAs around here. When my little girl was very small, and could not stand to ride in a car more than one hour; we used to travel from IKEA to IKEA and take breaks at the stores. When she had finished running around and playing, and could face more of the journey by car, we would resume our trip.

Everything at IKEA is small. It reminds me of Israeli furniture made to fit in small Israeli apartments. I can't figure out why it is such a hit in the US with our big houses and the need for big furniture to accommodate big people.