Meta: Back To Blogging

Argh, we overdid it yesterday, so today is going to be spent feeling crappy. Isn't it amazing how much fluid one's lungs can hold?

The good thing is, we can sit up. So blogging resumes at La Casa de Los Gatos.

Thanks to all for your good wishes. It appears that one parental unit is well enough to be discharged. The other is over the worst, but still has fluid in teh lungs so needs to be on a ventilator. Socialized medicine has its appeal: she is in the hospital being monitored around the clock and her doctor (who will be canonized if we have anything to say about it) is actively watching her and reporting on her condition.

Chest scan, ventilator, blood transfusions, medication, one week in the hospital, round the clock nursing and monitors, endoscopy, colonoscopy. How much did it cost, you ask? Zero. Zilch. Nothing. Not a goddamned penny. And it's a good thing, too, for a pair of hard-working middle-class people who could never otherwise have been able to afford it, and would surely have died.

Just think, they're getting almost as good health care as Dick Cheney, who makes $10 million a year, thanks to taxpayer subsidies. And he doesn't pay a penny for his health care either, because we, the suffering goddamned masses who couldn't afford a day's stay in a decent hospital, are paying for his purported heart to be periodically replaced with fresh, babies' hearts.

Socialized medicine? Bring it on!

And now, on to Caturday, which is our real reason to live.

For those who ask "Why cats?" &mdash they're the perfect writers' companion. Independent, self-sufficient, quirky, enigmatic, they want affection when they want it, on their own terms but are perfectly capable of annoying the fur off each other instead of bothering the busy writer. Attention deferred is fine with them, with the caveat that they might not feel attentive in return when one gets around to it. As long as the food is of good quality and quantity and water is available and the litterbox is cleaned regularly, they don't bloody well need you and have no shame about letting you know it.

On the other hand, if you're settling in for a peaceful sleep in the a.m.-ish, and they're of a mind to strop razorlike claws on your behind, well. That's just how it goes, innit?

Personally, we think of ours as xenoanthropologists doing their post-grad field studies. They're constantly watching and measuring one for various levels of exasperation. We suspect they slip off their little fur suits periodically and slide off to the mothership for a beer with the boys from Betelgeuse. Or wherever they're from.


Have a wonderful weekend, all.

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