Adopt a Friend

Finding Balance

Happy 9th birthday, Simon!

Today was  Simon’s birthday, or at least it’s the day we celebrate it. Since Simon was a rescue that we adopted while living in Tucson, AZ, we kind of had to estimate by the age he was when we got him. We can’t believe he is actually NINE!

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There was vanilla ice cream, and cheetos, two of Simon’s favorite things…

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… though there was also no shortage of volunteers offering to help him finish the ice cream.

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It being the first birthday party Paddy has attended, he had some etiquette issues involving others’ ice cream and had to have a leash.

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Cricket was proud of her party outfit, which she got from Wag!

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Winter chose to show up fashionably late and missed the ice cream.

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Olive isn’t much for crowds and watched from a distance.

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Calvin didn’t have time to pick out an outfit so he made his own.

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After the ice cream, everyone headed out to the park to play soccer.

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Simon got to play first, it being HIS birthday…

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…but Calvin couldn’t resist jumping in…

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… and like many good parties (and sporting events) it kind of ended in a drunken brawl.

Medical supervision

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This is Agatha. She came into the shelter so terribly matted she had to be sedated and shaved down. She didn’t recover well from the sedation so she spent Friday night at our house with blankets and a Snuggle-safe, while her body temperature came back up and she slowly came back around.

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The boys were happy to help supervise her recovery.

Brotherly love

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Simon loves his little brother… sometimes.

Dances with bees

This past weekend was a long weekend for us; Joy had Friday off so I took the day off as well. We’ve both been having trouble sleeping lately so we spent a lot of the weekend hanging out around the house. It’s been an unintentional tradition of sorts to spend long weekends at the vet’s and so we were a bit wary…

Cricket was the first to throw her hat in the ring; she erupted with a case of ‘gurgle-gut’ on Thursday evening, an affliction that involves losing her appetite, noises coming from her innards that can be heard from a mile away, and nasty colitis-y diarrhea. No dice, Cricket, that’s why they make Pepto Bismol.

Next there was Lindsy’s collapsing back legs, brought on by her pacing incessantly for hours outside. But after resting a while she was once again able to walk, more or less. Her health situation is getting pretty bad but she still seems mostly happy.

No, our bet for “who is getting rushed to the vet?” would have been either Calvin or Paddy, both of whom got to spend a lot of time in the yard and encountered bees for the first time in their lives.  Paddy was particularly drawn to the carpenter bees, enormous bumblebees that mocked him by hovering just in front of his face. Calvin didn’t discriminate. He attacked anything that flew low enough. We joked that his Indian name would be “Dances With Bees” but by Sunday had changed that to “Stung Forty Times.” He is one stubborn little dude.

We did get through the weekend without an emergency bill. And think that Calvin only got stung once.

Isn’t it the second one you actually react to, if you are allergic?

Sunny Saturday

Well, it’s raining again today but yesterday was pretty nice… if a bit chilly. We had a vet appointment in the morning to get Paddy’s DHLPP booster and then bundled up a bit to sit out in the sun with the critters. Calvin is now allowed out with supervision (at least until we get the tree scrunchies installed on the cherry tree) and Winter didn’t get photographed much because she was off stalking birds. Olive didn’t make it into the photo gallery at all, because I figured we already have a bazillion pictures of her sitting watching for moles… but then again,we did take yet another picture of Simon upside down. Honest, the cat is not paraplegic, he does walk sometimes. Paddy is on a leash only because we are being very slow and careful about introducing him to being outside with the cats (blame that, again, on Arthur) but he is doing really good. Lindsy is having a harder and harder time getting around and it shows in these pictures, sadly.

Anyway, here are a few highlights and the full album can be found in the gallery. There’s even a few rare pics of the critterweb humans.

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Simon appreciating the chilly day from the comfort of a lap.

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The mini roses all survived the winter and are getting leaves already.

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Cricket also subscribes to the ’sunbathing is better on a lap’ ideal.

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Last year’s parsley, still going strong.

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Unbeknown to her, the huntress (Winter is on far right of pic) is also the hunted.

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A photo op goes awry.

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Lindsy, Chris, Simon, and Paddy

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When I was taking this, I wondered if Joy was having a creepy sensation of being spied on?

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Calvin had a great time outside.

There are  21 more pictures in the full album.