Violet and Wub go to Taurus

My girls go to Taurus Doggie Daycare (http://www.taurusdogtraining.com/.) They have fun running in the yards, and Violet immediately showed them her jumping, bouncing Frenchie trick. The other day I got an envelope from them in the mail, and in it were two refrigerator magnets with pictures of my girls. Mollywobbles is extraordinarily photogenic, but Violet is another story. This is probably the best picture I've ever seen of her au naturale!!

Here's a short video of our apartment in Austin.

Meet my friend Vaclav

I have a new friend. He is an older fellow, over 100 years old. He is handsome, dashing, and full of love. His name is Vaclav. He is actually only 16 in human years, but in cat years he's an old-timer. He likes breezes, paper bags, and long walks on the beach. He also very much enjoys black and white cows. He has various black and white cow toys, which he kills over and over again every night, and perches over them and shouts "MaCOW!" My friend Vaclav is always good for a snuggle when I visit, and when I've stayed overnight at his house he has presented me with a cow-kill more than once. I'm one of Vaclav's "special friends" (or so I like to think) and I love him dearly.

Vaclav has an unnatural (but very funny) attraction to paper bags. He likes to play with them, but mostly he likes to crawl inside of them. If, however, someone has the audacity to place a paper bag on top of him rather than his crawling into it on his own, it instantly renders Vaclav completely immobile. See here:

Cat Hospital of Austin

I've been talking about work a lot, and I figured that if you're reading me rambling about it, you must be at least a teeny bit interested in what's going on there. So I'll show you! I took some photos today around the work place. They uploaded in sort of rearranged order, but oh well. You get the idea.

*This is Tom. Tom is a flame-point Siamese. He's an out-door cat, and his name describes his personality to a T. You can't see it in the photo (and believe me, you're glad that you can't) but he was in a neighborhood cat fight around his house, and he needed some repair to his left ear this week.

*Below Tom is our boarding area. This is where boarding kitties stay when they are visiting with us. There are pass-throughs in between each condo so that the kitties have more room.

Here is our delightful signage. I love the cute little kitty-cat face on the white background that's Dr. P's logo.

And below the sign is our lovely little cat hospital. We are a cat-only facility, which is a great idea for many of our clients. It helps nervous cats who can't stand the barking in the waiting room at the vet, and it makes many cat owners feel more comfortable. Dr. P is like the Cat Whisperer... she speaks cat better
than anyone I've ever met.

This is our cute little cat hospital. It's small enough to be personal, but big enough to work. I feel incredibly fortunate to have joined the team here.

Here's where I get the opportunity to play with my chemistry set. Above is the lab. I do lots of things like blood and serum tests, thyroid tests, fecal floats (gross, but not actually that gross) and more. The formatting is off between these photos and my text, but hopefully you can keep up, because I don't know how to fix it. Below the lab is the surgery room. It's pretty straight-forward, and much simpler than I thought it might be.

The next photo down is the back area. Many things are done here, like dental cleanings and general bloodwork, fecal samples, medicating, shave-downs, etc.

Here's a close-up look at the countere on the front wall of the back area.

This is our sick kitty area. It can be used for boarding, too, but it's primarily for the cats we treat each day (like Tom. See him there?)

I'm really LOVING my job. My boss is wonderful, my coworkers all know what they're doing and they have great work ethics, and things are good. Sometimes some of the evil cats scare me, but I'm getting over that. It took me a bit to grasp, but I'm learning to understand that a pissy cat is a scared cat. It's all fear or pain. I'm about to fall asleep in my computer chair as I write this, so for now I'll go. More later.

A car crash killed Lily and James Potter!?!???

It's an outrage. I've had yet another car accident that tried to kill my car. Luckily, it didn't try to kill me. This is two accidents in 6 months that were completely not my fault. The first killed my Tercel when a large tire was in the middle of the road. The second was last Wednesday, and some dumb broad t-boned my car while I was driving down the road. I was on a main road, having just pulled out of the Cat Hospital, and not 50 yards from our driveway some woman pulled out from a side road and right into my passenger side. The car is a tank, luckily, and I was safe and fine. But I am rather annoyed at being without a car again. Luckily, dumb chic had insurance, so Geico is getting me a rental car while my car is in the shop. Thanks, Geico. Otherwise this would be VERY grrrr.

Work is cool-i-o

I'm totally digging my new job. I've learned how to do at least 100 cool things, and though some of them were rather grody (like totally gag me with a spoon) most of them have been really cool. I know how to hold/restrain a cat for pretty much anything... even evil mean cats. I'm learning to speak cat bit by bit, and I'm really beginning to enjoy it. My boss is great, and her partner is super, too.

Here are a couple of pictures of my evil little devil kitty to whet your appetite until next time. He photographs horribly, and looks evil at every click of the shutter. I'm going to try to take him outside to take some good daylight shots of him, as the flash always causes him to squint.