Surprises Come in Threes

By Susan Esther Barnes

It's been a month of surprises.

First it was Thomas-kitty, poor thing, who had to take two trips to the vet. Both of our cats get pretty freaked out at the vet, and who can blame them? They get shoved in a box, take a car ride, during which Thomas gets car sick, then some stanger pokes & prods them and sticks a needle into them.

So Thomas, who at home assumes every human who walks through the front door must be there to pet him, hisses and spits at the vet staff. They are very nice people, and they try to pet him and make friends before they do whatever they have to do, but both our cats have large, clear warning labels on their file to tell the staff to watch out.

One time after we boarded the cats there, the summary from the staff said of Thomas' sister, "We tried every day to pet Amber, but she let us know that if we tried to touch her there would be a fight, and she made it quite clear who would win."

So, after eight years of the vet staff unsuccessfully trying to make nice with Thomas, on his last visit they determined they couldn't get him to stay still enough for the x-ray he needed, and they had to muzzle him.



Lo and behold, as soon as the muzzle was on, Thomas relaxed. Note in this picture how his ears are up, not flat back as they would be if he were scared. Note how relaxed his right paw is. He is not using it to try to push himself away. In fact, the staff says he was purring. They were so amazed, they took this picture. To paraphrase an old saying, blind cat finds a bone. Go figure.

The second surprise was on Monday this week when I found out that the husband of someone I know had hit her so badly she had to spend a couple of days in the hospital. Sure, it's something you hear about, but it's completely different when it happens to someone you know.

Of course she feels embarrassed about it, and of course she has absolutely nothing to be embarrased about. She says he has yelled at her before, but this is the first time he's hit her. The only good thing about it is it looks like it'll be the last time. There's a restraining order against him and she acknowledges the marriage is over.

The third surprise is my oldest niece started a blog. Pretty cool, huh?