Umbra and penumbra

(Truffle on the left, Tolly on the right)

Visit with family

My little sister was up in the area visiting one of the local schools to look at a graduate program. She came and stayed with us over the weekend.

It was a lovely visit! The remnants of hurricane Earl were wafting around the area so we decided to stay in on Friday night. We got Thai takeout and watched "A Very Long Engagement".

The bad weather cleared out overnight, and we had one of the loveliest days we'd had in a long time! After brunch with bagels, we drove into town and visited the aquarium. (We'd hoped to try a whale watch, but it'd been canceled because of the hurricane weather, alas!) Then we strolled around the historic North End, ruining our appetites with lovely Italian pastries, and then picking at our food at a little hole in the wall Italian restaurant. (Sadly we couldn't take home the leftovers, as we weren't heading home afterwards!)

After ambling along part of the Freedom Trail, we headed over to see "Blue Man Group". DH and I have been a few times, and had tried to get tickets for Laura and Charles when they were out here many years ago, but the show was all sold out. Fortunately we had better luck this time. The show had been updated a bit since I last saw it, and I missed a few of the old segments, but it was still quite an experience (very much unique and hard to describe, so I won't even try!)

(On tap for Laura's next visit - which will be years from now, as she's heading off for a couple of years to do her master's at Oxford: whale watching, the whole Freedom trail... and we'll look into scuba in the area, since she's certified and expressed some interest in doing that here.)

Feed me, Seymour

He's here!

Tolly joined us Friday night, and has been staying in my office. He's an incredibly sweet and responsive kitty, will come over to see you if you talk to him or even click your tongue at him, and is just so grateful for every scrap of attention we can lavish on him.

The poor guy still has kind of a 'wild animal' look to him - scruffy fur and an underweight physique. We don't know how long he lived in his last environment, before he was rescued and brought to the home of his first foster mama, but it's going to take a while, with good nutrition and proper care, for him to fill out. Things are definitely moving in the right direction, though :)

Progress!

Tolly "has been diagnosed by [the] veterinarian. He had his biopsy last week and the results are in; the vet’s office will fax the results to us. He has an allergic reaction, isolated to his head area. It is not contagious, it is not fungal, and it is not auto immune. He’ll be getting a steroid injection very soon to see if that clears things up. The cause is not determined at this moment, perhaps stress, perhaps some other allergen. But first he’ll get the injection and go from there. Once we see him improving, we’ll touch base again. We’ll coordinate with the vet – once he’s improving we hope to be able to have you foster him, finally!"