Not Yet a Vet…dot net

I spend a lot of time relaxing this weekend.  I think I needed some down time after my harsh re-entry into the real world.  I know that this semester is going to start piling on the stress soon so I figured I had to take advantage of my ample free time now while I can watch TV and play Wii without feeling guilty.  I also spent a considerable amount of time on the couch with my cats.  All in all, it was time well spent.

I started to get a little bored so I wrote a letter to the Captain’s little sister (who started college last fall) and I cleaned up my kitchen a bit.  When I ran out of enjoyable distractions, I did laundry and started studying systemic pathology.  This unit is on pathology of the heart.  It never ceases to amaze me how one organ can have such a profound effect on the rest of the body.  Granted this is the heart and it is arguably the most important organ, I’m still awed by the interactions between organ systems.  I suppose that means I’ve chosen the right profession.  Either that or I’m easily amused.

I realized today that along with a general lack of pictures in my blog,  I’ve neglected to post a single picture of my fur-kids.  Well, I’m going to fix that!

Lily is my sassy orange girl and her handsome tuxedo mate is James.  Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan.  When I was in the market for my first cat, I told all of my friends that I wanted a long-haired orange female kitten.  Lo and behold, Lily showed up at the clinic where Best Friend used to work.  She was about a year old, but she fit my other requirements (well, she is technically a medium hair, but that’s close enough).  She had a pretty nasty bite wound abscess and was covered in burrs but Best Friend’s clinic sorted her out (and spayed her!). She was about 4.5 lbs when she came to live with me and she had patches of fur missing from where they had to shave out the burrs and lance the abscess.  You’d never know she had such a rough start seeing her now.  Well, that’s until you see her try to play with something and you suddenly understand why she failed at being a stray.  Even though she’s bad at stalking and often falls off of furniture, Lily excels at purring and lap-warming.

Once I adopted Lily, I knew that I would eventually need a James.  I decided that James should be black and white and that he also needed long hair.  At the time, I was working at a feline-only clinic that would do one spay/neuter for an area rescue free of charge per surgery day.  One day, the rescue brought in a tiny, terrified black and white kitten with an adorable spot on his nose.  He was so nervous that even the tips of his gigantic ears were shaking.  I had filled out the adoption papers before the end of the day and his foster family delivered him to me a week later.  He is still a giant chicken, but he loves people.  The ceiling fan is another matter.  James is everything a male cat should be, in my opinion.  He is handsome and sweet.  He sleeps on my bed in the exact same place every night.  He also excels at purring and lap-warming, but he is considerably more skilled than Lily at stalking and balancing.  James’ claim to fame is his wimpy little meow.  It sounds more like “MEEEEEP!” which is an odd  sound coming from a 12 lb cat.

It’s no wonder I have a reputation in class as the “crazy cat lady in training”