Sands in an hour glass

No, I did not watch Days of our Lives, but just caught those who know the line!

Its been some time since the last post and I must admit, life has been flying by.  The weekend after the baby shower adventure Jonathan returned to the Garden State for a Rutgers buddy's bachelor party weekend.  Man adventures, included paint balling, a pro hockey game, and unknown debauchery, within reason.  While in Jersey Jonathan sent me a picture of falling snow, to which I chuckled as I shifted my lounge chair to a better shaded section of the yard.  Mid to high 70s in March is this cat's meow.

Only a few days after Jonathan returned home, I headed out to LA for an office move.  I will not bore with too many details, and it was certainly no pleasure cruise, but I managed to sneak in 5 minutes at the beach for the very first time since having supported the office for over two years. I was in Malibu, yes, on a work mission, and having arrived 10 minutes early, booked it to the beach for a quick toe in the pacific before returning to work.  As much as I love California, by the end of the 6th day of nose to the grindstone working, I was quite delighted to return home.

While I was out of town, Toby kept with his tradition of keeping veterinarians happily employed when he 

 managed to come down with a rather serious spontaneous illness.  Sunday night, while chatting with Joanthan, he mentioned that Toby was acting odd, wasn't eating, was lethargic, was hot to the touch and actually panting.  We agreed he was not well and Jonathan rushed him over to the kitty ER. By the time they'd arrived the poor little guy's temperature registered at 105, which for cats that normally range from 100-102, was mighty high.  The doctors knocked him out, set him up with an IV for hydration, and ran x-rays to verify he didn't have any throat or intestinal blockages.  Jonathan had to leave him overnight for additional observation, but thankfully was able to bring him home the next morning.  Toby was still noticeably uncomfortable and had a wicked cough, but despite it all, he was doing much better than the night before. He was still hiding on occasion, but thanks to follow up from our terrific dog walker/cat sitter, we learned that on Tuesday afternoon he was feeling energetic enough to greet her when she came to walk Jackson.

After several days of antibiotics Toby's bronchitis like cough didn't seem to be improving, so I stayed home with him Wed and attempted to get him a last minute vet visit.  Toby's eating habits were still less than normal, and he rarely meowed which is not normal for a cat who can be quite chatty when he wants something.  The vet gave him a shot to help with the inflammation, prescribed him some more meds, noted that his temp was normal, and said despite a cough, he was a mighty healthy young bob-cat, I mean, kitty.  I expected the cough to fade away faster than it was but the vet clarified that these types of illnesses can take quite sometime to kick, usually around 10 days to 2 weeks.

Within the last few days Toby's 4:30 and 6:00 AM serenading wake up visits indicate his health is steadily returning to normal.  As much as I miss the quiet mornings, I'm glad our kitty is back to near perfect health  His cough has noticeably decreased and his resistance to me flinging a pill down his throat has gained considerable strength. Three more days of meds, and soon enough Toby will be back to routine which includes his much missed unsupervised outdoor adventures.

This past weekend Jonathan, Jackson and I took a trip up to Prescott to check out some national forest land, do a little Prescott shopping, and of course enjoy some delicious brews at the Granite Mountain Brewery.  We took an off road adventure route to see the land that ended up much to bumpy for this lady, but I certainly appreciated the fresh mountain air, the greenery. We finished up the weekend Sunday night with some new dinner recipes.  Joanthan worked the grill to smoke some very tasty pork chops while I gave a go at mac and cheese from scratch.  A tasty way to finish up an interesting week.