Nov. 04, 2002 ~ Cat hospital
Soldier Boy called last night, and while there is now no "official" date for their departure, they are supposed to go to Afghanistan sometime late this month. They've been attending classes on Aghanistan, learning all about the culture, geography, etc., and some of it is very disturbing. The little bits he shared were enough to concern me, so I expect there's a lot more that he held back. The good news, though, is that most of their patrols will be mounted. Mounted? My first thought, of course, was on a horse, but noooooooo, he said it means they will be in Humvees. Or is that HumVees? Those big monster jeep-like things.
"That's good, right?"
"YES, that's good! It means we won't be walking targets. We'll have some measure of protection, and can move around a lot faster. Plus there's a lot of territory to cover."
Great. Good to hear that, son. He also told me about some of the insect problems, about the grossest spiders I've ever heard of, and a lot of other really disgusting things, so I can see that there will be plenty of things to worry about in the next six months.
Anyway, he asked how we were doing, if anything was new, and I listed the cats' various ailments. Sheesh. Yesterday we came home to find Star, one of the front porch kitties, with a large bite mark on her side. A really nasty bite. So I hauled out the bottles of drugs and drew up an injection for her. Antibiotics, steroids, and vitamins. She was good about taking it. She complained, but she didn't bite or scratch, so it was a success. I hope. It was a subcutaneous injection, given under the skin, and later it dawned on me that it really was a BIG bite on her side, and I wondered if it were possible for the medicine to... leak out. Ick. But it doesn't look like it did. It looks like a dog bite to me, but Husband thinks it was more likely one of our own cats who did it, as he saw the two of them in a vicious battle a while back. Bad blood between those two, no doubt.
And our new black kitty friend just has one eye. The guys want to call her "One Eye," which lacks dignity, in my opinion, but her official name is now "One Eyed Blackie." Hmmmm. When Susan comes over this morning, I'll see if she recognizes the kitty or knows of anyone who's missing a cat. Highly unlikely, but you never know. Blackie is almost friendly, coming within a couple of feet of me when I feed her. I suspect she will eventually be pettable. I worry that with all these strays showing up, sooner or later one of them is going to have a really nasty, contagious disease, and it will wipe out our entire cat population. How sad that would be. But some of these cats are absolutely wild, perhaps even born in the wild, and attempts at trapping them (humanely) have failed. So it's a risk we take, having this "open door," or "open barn" policy.
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