So Wonderfully Wonderfully Wonderfully

The seed potatoes arrived. Hooray! Pete's off researching how to plant them just in case "place compost in bag, place seeds on compost, cover with four inches of compost, moisten and wait" isn't everything a prospective potato farmer needs to know. Upstairs somewhere, I hear him shouting on the phone to his father, who grew up on a farm in Ohio. At least, I hope that's they're talking about. When two men who refuse to get hearing aids wax marble-mouthed on the phone it can be hard to tell if they're having the same conversation.

We've had some successes and failures with Topaz's medication. The drug store promised Topaz would love the tuna flavored medicine, but Topaz wouldn't touch it. Fortunately, flavoring wasn't expensive, and when the prescription refilled, out went the tuna flavor. We discovered that if Topaz was getting tuna water with medicine, Sweetpea and eventually Drusy also wanted a treat, so after further successes and failures, we found we could get each cat to eat at least an ounce of tuna. That was great news. When Topaz got sick, Sweetpea was guarding the food bowl from all comers and both Topaz and Drusy lost at least a pound each. Seven pound cats cannot afford to lose weight, so when they started putting on a few ounces at a time, hooray! Likewise, every Sunday, the vet and I chatted about details. He wanted to reduce her medication to once a week, but when we tried Wednesday/Sunday, Topaz spent her evenings lying on my lap, making a blinky face. After two weeks of limp Topaz, we went back to medicating her Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday, and Topaz is her old cranky self.

So every day around dinnertime, three cats run around in circles, chittering. Topaz leaps onto the counter, complaining about the service in this joint and running around my arms. Sweetpea, stands on the counter, too, protesting that Topaz might be closer to food than Sweetpea. Drusy sits on the kitchen island, waiting for her sisters to act more mature, shaaaa. I pour a teaspoon of tuna water into a custard cup and put it on the floor for Sweetpea at a safe distance from Topaz; then a second teaspoon for Topaz and put that on the floor far from Sweetpea. Finally, a tablespoon of tuna in a custard cup makes Drusy very happy. At just about that moment, Sweetpea and Topaz finish their tuna water and get a tablespoon of tuna each. The remainder of the can is divided between the three cats, and then I chase Drusy across the dining room with her custard cup. Sometimes she finishes the tuna, but more frequently Topaz does.

This takes about 15 minutes and at the end of it, the cats lap up water and I want to lie down. Crap, I'm tired, but Topaz looks great, Drusy's fur is sleek and shiny and Sweetpea purrs dreamily - every day!