We watched a little bird couple building a nest on a post in the visitors parking area of our underground garage. I’d been keeping my eye out for the babies for ages but had seen nary a beak or feather sticking out of it. Plenty of back and forth parental action though. We were driving into the garage after visiting my Mother at the hospital and I caught some movement. I hopped out of the car while Tom went to go park it and lo and behold thar be babies!

I swear the babies are as big as Ma and Pa. Maybe they stay hidden in the nest until they are too big and pop out? While I was filming one of the parental units kept a wary eye on me and the other flew around my head cheeping out a warning. In my old place a bird couple would nest in a vent by my front door and those guys meant business, I would run to the door with keys in my hand to avoid the inevitable onslaught of swooping, diving, screeching and yes, hair pulling. This time, no hair loss..and the babies were pretty darn cute.

One of the requirements of boarding the fuzzy ones in the cat hotel is to make sure their shots are up to date.  When we used to board them AT the vets we were never actually present for the shots (and annual exams), but this time we got to experience it first hand.

Now, we’ve been REALLY loyal to the vets that helped look after Sage before he died and who through a year long quest helped get Cinny back on four paws again after shattering her leg, but for the shots a drive across town with Cinnamon howling just didn’t merit ignoring the fact we live about three blocks from a vet. Can we say short car ride?

I have to say the place was terrific and the ladies working the reception desk were awesome. While we filled out the initial paperwork we kept them entertained with stories about the cats, current and past and one of them said I should write a book about them, like Marley and Me but with cats. Ha! No dog has anything on these monsters.

When we were done filling out the “parental” paperwork we sat in the waiting area with a couple of other people all as it turns out, with cats.  They had settled down a bit giving the room the shifty eyed look around through the bars. I’m sure Cinnamon was expecting Dog! ANY! MOMENT! The people across the way smiled and said hello and did the usual “peek in the cages thing” seeing the sweet Nutmeg face and the tiny delicate Cinny face and commenting how gorgeous they are then Cinny opened her mouth and ruined that illusion. Yeah way to blow the whole delicate thing there Chickie. I always get a kick out of the looks on people’s faces when they hear the Tomcat voice coming out of that tiny tiny head.  When she isn’t happy people within a three block radius know she’s not happy.

When it was our turn we took them both into the exam room and were told to wait there for the doctor. She came a few minutes later, introduced herself (man either we are getting OLD or she looked like a teenager!) and said “well lets see who we have here”  and had a look in the cages. She started to ask us who she should take care of first but Cinny started up her caterwauling again and she said that the loudest one gets to be first.

She came out of her cage fast enough and was ok with the vet checking her eyes and her mouth and running her hands across her flanks and stuff, she wasn’t particularly thrilled with her digging her fingers in around her joints and kind of grumbled but NOTHING prepared her for what was about to happen. Doc pulled out a thermometer and bloop in it went. The look on Cinnamon’s face was PRICELESS.

She pulled a Regan-like neck move and she howled a “what the HELL do you think you are doing back there” wail and bucked and bucked and bucked some more. When the thermometer beeped  the Vet looked down and said “well now that’s not your temperature, that is the air” and BLOOP back it went. Now by this time she was GROWLING in earnest and bucking and we ALL had to hang onto her to get this one to take while LAUGHING in hysterics. When it was all over Doc figured she would save the whole weighing thing until after and put her down on the ground to recover from the anal invasion moving on to Nutmeg.

At this point Tom had said to me it was too bad I didn’t have my camera. OMG I effing did! This would have been SOOO funny to get on film! Grr@me! So I grabbed old Pinky and took a few shots of Cinny running around exploring the office and cursing all of our names. At every single noise she looked backwards. I think she was expecting some kind of anal probe army to sneak up on her or something.

Nutmeg was a little slower to come out, she encouraged him with treats which if you know Nutmeg works like a charm.

Once he was out though the whole STRANGE PLACE!!  paranoia set in and he ignored the peace offering. I have to say though he took everything except the mouth exam like a man, including the anal probe.

He was weighed (18.3 pounds, still shy of Sage’s 21) and we got the usual he needs to lose weight talk. The boy was slim for a good part of his life and now boy’s old and lazy. Denying him his kibble is like taking chocolates away from my Mum, it just ISNT’ done. I agreed to try and cut him back some and to get him some of those hard treats that will help to keep his teeth tartar down but this lil face hungry is heartbreaking (though less blurry in real life).

Cinny was finally recovered enough to be weighed and came in at a slim 7 ish pounds. The way she runs around I’m surprised she weighs even  that much. It was funny to have her referred to as ‘geriatric’ I know in cat years she is but acts anything but an old lady. Maybe an old lady that runs marathons at hyper-speed.

Clearly Cinny loves pens.

Spammers all seem to be following the same tactic lately, one that I will call suck up spam. Suck up spam is probably geared to try and fool a blogger who needs validation to approve the comment and hopefully lure some gullible individual into checking out the link on the comment. The comments are geared to be as vague yet complimentary as possible and based on the subject matter of a post can be downright hilarious.