I’m trying to embed a Flickr slideshow here from Caitlyn’s fifth-grade music class concert this afternoon. (If I get a big ol’ FAIL on the slideshow, you can still see the photos here.) They’re some of my favorite snapshots of me, Dee, and Mom with Caitlyn from this year.

I don’t even care that some of the event photos are too yellow and fuzzy; my heart is melty. :o)

P.S. It’ll be later tonight before I get videos uploaded to my YouTube account. Family members who couldn’t be there — check out my YouTube page in a few hours. :o)

We were in Greenville, Miss., most of today, anxiously waiting for my husband’s brother to come out of diaphragm hernia surgery (he did fine). While we read our books and drummed our fingers at Delta Regional Medical Center, that’s where I learned about one distinctive element of the city — its brown water.

I first spotted it in the potty and assumed that someone (*cough*hubby*cough,cough*) had lost his veneer of civilization and forgotten how to flush. Eww! Then I ran water in the sink and … well, you see the picture, right?

I sniffed, but it just smells like plain ol’ water. And braver people than I say it tastes good. Apparently, it’s not from rusty pipes (my first guess) or effluvia from the nearby Mississippi River (my immediate second guess). It’s tinted by the local aquifer, where water seeps through three ancient cypress swamps.

Still … I drank the diet Coke today, just to be sure. I’d have gone for wine, but — curiously — the hospital doesn’t dispense that.

Pity, really.

Dear Crazy Cone-Collar-Wearing Cat Who’s Sulking Upstairs, aka “Nibbles”:

I wish we could figure out what cat food ingredient makes your wee little head itch so badly. Failing that, I wish we could either (a) find a readily available food that works for you or (b) just remember to go shopping when the vet’s office is actually open so we don’t run out of the special hypoallergenic food that must be made of angel’s tears and gold-plated unicorn farts (if I’m judging by the price).

I’m glad that we and our vet guessed correctly it was some kind of food allergy when this happened previously, or otherwise I’d have been clueless when we spotted you trying to peel your head again. So I whipped out the ol’ cone collar (you’re a clawer), the SoftClaws (you’re a fighter), some ear cleaning and ear mite meds we had on hand (just in case), the credit card for the catfood/angel tears (you’re also pitiful), and some salmon kitty treats (we DO have hearts). We’re all waiting most anxiously for you to recover so you can lose the cone collar and stop sulking up in your favorite corner of Caitlyn’s room.

I can only imagine how hard it is for you to traipse up and down the stairs with said cone head, like you’re an ambulatory satellite dish. That’s why you’ve now got litter boxes, food, and water both downstairs AND upstairs. We’d even carry your furry princess butt wherever you wanted to go … if you didn’t completely spaz out whenever we pick you up.

Until that happy day comes, however, wouldya couldya not do your Linda Blair-slash-Freddie Krueger imitation when we apply the antibiotic and the anti-itch meds? You’re waaay good at it, but the twice-daily bloodletting is a bit tiring. I’m beginning to suffer from anemia. And I really miss some of those chunks of my flesh. Thanks ever-so.

Love,
Mom

More pix of Nibbles and her fuzzier brethren, Larry, here.