This Side of Lost

Good news and bad news, folks. Breaking with the traditional presentation of this sort of thing, we'll go with the good news first.

The good news is that we have a new cat. We had gotten the sense that Robert was pretty lonely at home by himself. So we got in contact with our local shelter and found a friendly young male orange tabby. He came home with us nearly two weeks ago. His name is Oscar and he's a delight. I promise I'll post pictures soon.

The bad news is that Oscar brought a nasty upper respiratory bug with him from the shelter. He came down with it after a day or two of being here. He's over it now, but Robert caught it, and caught it bad. At first it was just sniffling and drooling, but now he's feeling so bad that he won't eat. We were pretty concerned by Sunday and ended up taking him to an emergency clinic. He is home now, being subjected to a wide variety of therapies, including nasal drops and a humidifier, but he is still in a bad way.

This is not the best thing to happen to our finances, especially after dropping a significant amount of money on Angus about two months ago, not to mention moving me across the country. So we're concerned not only for his health but for our ability to help him get better.

This turn of events, along with the general malaise our country is going through right now (what with Hurricane Ike and the financial crisis and this ugly presidential campaign and all) has combined to put me in pretty poor spirits today. As Samantha put it, we're just sort of in a holding pattern, waiting for improvement from any and all sides. And waiting is really hard when your cat won't eat and your money seems to drain away like sand through a sieve.

Sorry for the big bummer today, but these are my feelings, man. Please send your prayers, good thoughts and large suitcases of cash in small unmarked bills our way. In the meantime, here's a cute cat video. The added sound effects set this one apart.