Bandit & Big Bertha

An 18 year old cat was recently dropped off at the animal shelter. I can't fathom how anyone could own an animal for 18 years and then just take it to a shelter, and situations like this make me kind of bitter towards people. Of course the cat, Bandit, ended up getting sick--she was stressed out so her immune system faltered, and there are so many germs at an animal shelter. Young cats generally recover quickly with antibiotics, but I was scared that such an old cat wouldn't stand a chance, so I ended up fostering her until she got better. Here she is hanging out under the Christmas tree:
I learned many things during her stay at my house. Useful things, like if you are trying to squirt a syringe full of Pedialyte down a sick cat's throat, and said sick cat squirms and writhes and you accidentally squirt it into your own eye, it stings like a bitch! And similarly, if you are trying to squirt Zithromax into a sick cat's mouth, and said sick cat squirms and writhes and you instead squirt it into your own mouth, it is sweet and sticky and will make you gag (not so much the taste as the realization that you probably squirted some sick cat saliva into your own mouth too!) I also learned that a sick, old cat who crawls into my lap and starts purring and kneading her little paws will melt my heart. Finally, I learned that there are some truly wonderful, generous people out there--Bandit was just adopted this weekend. The family knows she doesn't have lots of time left, but they wanted to give her a good home for the remainder of her life. I am so happy for her, and it makes the inadvertant Pedialyte eye wash totally worth it!

On a completely unrelated note, our 14 year old TV gave up the ghost a couple of days ago. Kevin and I discussed it and decided that we would get a moderate sized plasma flat screen to replace it. You know how when you go to a Christmas tree lot, and all the trees seem really small, and you end bringing a much bigger tree home than you had intended, and then you end up lopping a bunch off the bottom just to make it fit in your house? Yeah, same thing happened at Circuit City--the TVs all seemed kind of small and unimposing, so we ended up getting a 50" model. We can't lop any off the side, so I guess we're stuck with a ridiculously massive TV. We have named her "Big Bertha":

And yes, we watched "Darjeeling Unlimited" starring Owen Wilson for Big Bertha's maiden voyage, and no, it was not very good. And then we watched the "Daily Show" starring John Stewart, which was very good indeed!