We’ve scheduled Molina’s echocardiogram for Friday morning, and we greatly appreciate the contributions that made that possible. Homeward Trails uses Chipin campaigns several times each year for special-needs cats and dogs, but we’d never launched one before, and we were impressed both by the responsiveness and the generosity demonstrated by 50K readers. You may have helped Molina graduate from 50K limbo to a realistic adoption path. We’ll see what the cardiologist has to say on Friday.

While we wait for that, we get a daily report from the scale, and we like what it’s been saying about Molina. During the last week we’ve found a couple of puddles of regurgitated fluid in the villa (and we witnessed Molina’s regurgitation a couple of nights ago), but she’s consistently been able to keep her food down, and she’s now gained weight for ten straight days.

The only food-vomit we’ve found recently in the villa was surrounding a two-inch piece of black electric tape that was part of our effort to kitten-proof a lamp cord. When we noticed that somebody had chewed on the tape, we stripped it off the cord, but maybe not before Cruz ate a piece. Her weight has been seesawing the last few days, so we tagged her as the probable tape-eater. Despite today’s slippage, we think she’s back on track, since she gained three ounces yesterday.

The other positive indicator we’ve seen for Molina is her activity level. If Cruz rates an 8 on the energy scale (with 10 being the rarely-achieved level of manic craziness defined by Chrissy), then Molina scores a solid 6 or 7. If she can maintain her current trajectory for another month or two, it’s again possible to imagine her going home with Cruz.

Watching the two of them sprint around the back room, stage leaping ambushes, and wrestle in the dog towels, we almost expect Molina to keel over during one of their evening play sessions. But it hasn’t happened yet, and their kitten-craziness won’t last forever.

Cruz is already much more of a peep-cat than she was before Albert, Willow, Bonnie, and Clyde went home. Maybe she and Molina are on converging paths after all. We’ll know more a few days from now.

filed by: TS