Brave New World

It's another cool and rainy day in Wisconsin and Fall is definitely in the air even though it's technically still summer.  Katie has now had three weekly treatment sessions of the UW Protocol for lymphoma chemotherapy in cats.  She's handling the chemo remarkably well with just a little anemia and a bad food day a few days after the treatment.  Nevertheless, she is gaining back weight and her kidney tumor was not palpable on exam at her treatment last Tuesday.  Most days seem to be good food days for Katie and great food days for her sister Bella.

I love Duncan's bed

I know they're up there

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we gave the girls the run of the upper level of the house, with the child gate to keep them apart from Sophie our aging female cat who has been savage with other female cats brought into her home.  It wasn't long, however, before Bella discovered that she could easily jump the barrier and have access to the whole house.  Katie followed shortly after.  We were quite concerned that Sophie would go nuclear and we'd have frightened or even possibly injured cats on our hands but it seems we worried for naught.  Sophie has been entirely passive, never once showing hostility despite close encounters of the feline kind on a daily basis.  The girls have now been everywhere in the house and have discovered the joy of an other cat's food and the earthy pleasure in using someone else's cat box.

Sophie sees you...

I must be putting on weight

Janet decided that if Katie loved Duncan's bed so much, she should have one of her own.  It happened that a friend at work had a little dog bed that had been used by her tiny toy poodle before it died so she gave it to Janet for Katie to use.  Predictably, Katie has no interest in that bed being perfectly satisfied with the larger bed with it's homey doggie ambiance.  Bella, however, seems to have taken possession.  We had put it in our bedroom, of course, and when Duncan saw it, he immediately tried it out.  He went round and round trying to find the perfect position.  See picture.  Somehow, he did manage to get himself into the bed.  He looked trussed up like a chicken for the oven or a scoop of ice cream on top of a cone.

Today Janet's cousin Char and husband Phil are coming up from Illinois for a brewery tour and dinner at a German restaurant.  Uncle Bob and Aunt Jeannie are going to be here for dinner (they're in Madison for most of the day) but we'll be taking Char and Phil to Sprecher for the tour.  Brewery tours are always fun and Sprecher does  make good beer (also good root beer and other sodas).  Fortunately, brewery tours and German food are not affected by the weather so I'm sure a good time will be had by all.  While I'm not a huge fan of hog knuckles and red cabbage, I do like a good Wiener schnitzel and I'm also partial to sauerbraten the way Grandma used to make it mit knadeln und ginger snap gravy.

Finally, the vegetable garden is on it's last legs as summer comes to a close.  I've had some fun with eggplant making a chinese eggplant dish that got a thumbs up from Janet (no such luck for Dal Curry).  I've laid in some coconut milk and will use another for a Thai red curry.  I absolutely love Thai curried eggplant so I'm probably going to go for it next week.  I still have to dig the red potatoes I planted in Spring but I'm looking forward to trying them.  People say that home grown is much better then store bought potatoes. We'll see.

Auf wiedersehen.