Got three cats, and an albino leech.

We took the cat.

I know, I know. What can you do? The poor little thing didn't deserve being abandoned after its owner moved out. I think the vet and I have some work to do to rehabilitate the little guy/girl (still can't tell, but if it is male it has been neutered - definitely there are no visible testicles), but the cat has potential to be healthy and happy. All it wants to do is to be cuddled and petted. We can't get it to play, or do anything other than beg for affection. Poor thing. I suspect it may have worms or some other sort of intestinal parasite, because it is very skinny. I think it is pretty young - maybe 4 months or so. There may be an abcess in its mouth (bad breath and it drools a bit). But all of that is fixable. We gave it a bath today. The cat's coat looks and smells much better. That is a start.

I had a bad morning, however. Since the glass turntable in the microwave is broken, I reheated a cup of tea by putting a plastic container in there upside down and put my teacup on top of that. Well, apparently the handle was in some sort of microwave focal point, because it was about 4000 degrees when I reached in and pulled it out. Never mind that I've reheated a half cup of tea for 30 seconds several hundred times with no ill effects. This time, the handle burned my ring finger on my right hand as bad as I've ever been burned before, and I have been burned many a time. I now have a blister that is over an inch long and about a quarter inch wide, and jammed full of fluid just waiting to pop at the wrong moment. Talk about painful! Yowee! It looks like there is an albino leech sucking on my finger. This blister is huge. That really put a crimp into my weekend plans of doing lots of yardwork and housework. Kind of tough to do anything when you can't fully use your dominant hand. And I know this big-ass blister will pop soon and then I'll have to guard against infection. Nice. And I still need to do some machine tests at work on Monday. It will be just swell having to do all this with a bum finger.

Also, my football team managed to lose yet again. Thanks, guys. Very disappointing once again. Congratulations to Wake Forest for a great season and winning the ACC championship. Way to tough it out! I can't hate them for that - they played better than our team and had coaches that made better decisions than ours did. And they did it without multiple starters. And they graduate 96% of their athletes, which kicks butt! I hope Wake does well in the Orange Bowl. We'll be going to the Gator Bowl, which by the way, doesn't want us but is obligated to take us. I pin the last two losses squarely on our offense. The defense has been playing great, but the offense has been disappointing over the last two games. We've got the best wide receiver in college football, and somehow can't find a way to take advantage of that. Pitiful. And extremely disappointing. But it is almost over, and our basketball team, which is full of freshmen, is doing very well. Moving on...