The Tail's Tale

UPDATED Saturday morning, February 9 - see below.


Zima, being stealth cat.

The droopy tail? Turns out to be soreness caused by a cat bite! It is a tossup whether it was Silvio or the neighborhood bully that did it. She'll be OK.

Update! Zima's dramatic tail has another chapter. This morning she was sitting on the pile of newspapers to recycle, minding her own business, when Silvio attacked her and she backed up... right into a gas burner on our stovetop. A burner that was on high at the time. I pulled her away before her tail actually caught on fire, but there was some smoke and the strong scent of burnt hair is permeating the kitchen. Zima has a big patch of singed fur on the underside of her tail now.

I wish I could tell you that this is the first time she's nearly set her tail on fire. It's not. There have been several unfortunate incidents involving her tail and candles over the years. I know from experience that within an hour, Zima will have cleaned up the burnt area so well you wouldn't even know it was there. She never seems to realize how close she comes to actual, painful physical damage and/or burning down our house.

Multitasking Exhaustion, Dark Evenings, Droopy Tails, and Signing Day

I multi-tasked my butt off at work today. It was mentally exhausting. We've had a lot of people out this week - some due to business travel and some due to illness - and the rest of us have to pull up the slack. What we do is too important to risk sleepwalking through it, or not paying attention. I went through the day feeling like a juggler with 2-3 balls constantly in the air. When I got home, I immediately flopped down on the couch for a long winter's nap. Then we went to a local mom 'n pop Italian restaurant, because neither of us felt like cooking. Chicken piccata... mmmmmmm. And as an added bonus, there are plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

How long until daylight savings time kicks in? Another month? Can't be soon enough. I'm tired of dark evenings. For me, it isn't about energy savings (there really isn't any savings - it is a wash). It is about having more daylight in the evening when I get home from work and could make use of the time to do outside stuff. Or just not feel like it is later than it is...

In the bad news department, when he got home from work PDM noticed that Zima cannot lift her tail. The part nearest her body lifts up, but the rest of it just sags and drags. No visible damage other than the droopiness, but it is very sensitive to touch judging from her reaction. Not sure what happened or exactly when, but it looks like I will be calling the vet tomorrow morning to get her checked out.

Last but not least, today was Signing Day for college football. This is a Big Deal here in the south, where college football is at least as important as religion or politics. Unlike the pro draft, where the worst teams get a shot at the best players, in college football the best teams generally get the best players. Sure, there are a lot of NCAA rules about how it's done, but the bottom line is that all is fair in love and recruiting, and there is usually some drama right up until everyone turns in their letters of intent. In our case, Duke stole back a recruit that we stole from them. C'est la vie. (Aside - why on earth would anyone want to play football for Duke?!?) In spite of both a coaching change and a major change in the type of offense we will run (switching from pro-style to the spread option), Georgia Tech managed to pick up twenty new Yellow Jackets. All in all, we exceeded my meager expectations. I don't get too excited about individual recruits until I see them on the field. Put up or shut up. But I'm already looking forward to August. Go Jackets! THWUGA!

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...