oh hai

*Sigh*



It's been a while, hasn't it? I must say that the past three weeks well and truly flew by. Work has been nuts. M's visit came and went far too quickly. There were also a few rather stressful days this weekend where we Shorty was behaving strangely and it appeared that he might have developed some sort of urinary problem. Knowing that urinary problems can quickly become fatal, especially for male cats, I decided to call the emergency number for our local vet. My call was received by an answering service that promised the vet would return my call (I must say, I don't know where the emergency service is based, but they seemed to not be directly linked to the local clinic, that is not part of the actual clinic). More than three hours later, I still hadn't received a call from the vet. Worried about Shorty and not quite knowing what else to do, I called the emergency number again. Again I was promised that I would receive a call, but the vet was currently dealing with an emergency.

I felt a bit chagrined, for Shorty seemed normal aside from the strangeness related to his bathroom habits, and that some other animal, likely in far worse condition, needed the vet's attention more at that moment. But, when Sunday morning turned into Sunday afternoon, and it had been twenty-four hours since I'd called the emergency line with a problem that I considered serious enough to warrant emergency, and expensive, attention and I still hadn't been called by the vet, I was angry and more than a little worried. What if Shorty had been in the condition that he was two years ago. Surely not being able to see a vet right away would have been bad news.



I've tried my best to be sympathetic and understanding, but the more I think about it, the more it disturbs me. We live in a relatively rural area and I'm not sure if it's the rural aspect, the limitations of the vet clinic, or whether farm emergencies take priority over domestic ones, but by the time the clinic opened on Monday morning, I hadn't been called back, when I'd been assured so convincingly by the emergency dispatcher that I would be. Maybe all of this is moot, because by Monday morning Shorty seemed to be improving and when I called the clinic and explained the weekend's events, they seemed upset that I hadn't been attended to, and said to bring Shorty right in.

To bring my long ramble to a quick conclusion, thankfully whatever was causing Shorty some distress over the weekend was not a blockage or crystals (the two big concerns). The very kind and thorough vet suspected it was some small infection or inflammation which, by Monday, had started to clear itself. Armed with some feline anti-inflammatories, we returned home, me with a few more grey hairs.

All is well now. Shorty's an old pro at being pilled and seems to have returned to his normal bathroom habits. Oy vey, I'd not like another scare like that any time soon.

Given how rushed and frazzled I've felt for much of October, it should come as little surprise, then, that I've fallen off the Socktoberfest wagon with a resounding thud. I've been knitting on three different pairs of socks, so I'm not a complete failure. The crisp fall air has also stirred in me a serious case of startitis, and I've cast on for a couple of new projects as well. I've been working away at my Through the Loops Mystery Sock with great interest, but haven't finished the first sock yet. This is the sock as it stood a few weeks ago:



While this isn't a pattern I normally would have chosen if I'd seen it beforehand, I do enjoy knitting it. Sadly, I don't think this yarn does the pattern justice. Check out Tiennie's lovely yellow pair. I fear that once my first of the pair is finished, I will have to turn my attention to other projects for the next few weeks. Because guess what, Christmas is only eight weeks away. Seriously, how did that happen? And winter is coming even sooner and I don't have a pair of mitts or a warm hat. I need to get cracking.