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Shoulder Season

Saturday
11/9/2013

Martha flew off to Tanzania last night, so I’m riding herd solo over the 50K critters for a week. We had a lot of stuff going on the last few days, socially, logistically, and otherwise, that got in the way of a mid-week blog entry. In the otherwise category was yesterday afternoon’s flat tire while driving Rte 495 in Maryland (aka the DC Beltway) coming home from a six-mile walk on the C&O Canal with our dogs.

It was pretty unnerving opening the hatchback of our crossover SUV on the shoulder with three anxious dogs inside and traffic flying by at 70mph a few feet away. I quickly discovered that our jack and wheel-nut wrench were both missing. (We’d never needed to use them in the 11 years we’ve owned our car, so they could have been stolen a decade ago.) It wouldn’t have mattered, since the spare-tire release nut proved impossible to turn without a power drill.

We called for roadside assistance, were told 35 minutes, then waited more than twice that long when the service couldn’t find us, despite the three calls I made with precise location information, while my phone battery was dying. Luckily the dogs handled the situation pretty well. And Martha’s flight didn’t leave until almost midnight.

Things have been much less dramatic on the feline front. Autumn is so comfortable roaming outside the villa now that she’s started to explore challenging terrain. Last night she slipped through the bars on the baby gate into canine country. When the dogs noticed and charged her, she hissed, flipped on her back, and raised her claws. Thankfully, she didn’t have to use them, since the dogs only sniffed before we pulled them away.

And for the last few days she’s been cautiously climbing the stairs to investigate staff-cat country. When I’m at my desk and hear hissing, that means Autumn is staring down Reggie or Yogi in the hallway. So far they’ve been tolerant and content to watch her from a distance.

After stalling out on the weight front a few days ago, the BB Boys seem to be back on track. They got their second vaccination yesterday.

Now we just need to clean up Seamus’ face. It’s so consistently muddy we’ve started calling him Pig Pen. We’d thought it was just dried food, but eventually concluded he had some kind of bacterial or fungal growth going on. We’ve been treating it with Stridex pads, and it seems to be improving slowly.

The boys continue to enjoy their sessions on the playground…

…but will always suspend the fun and games to hang out with their peeps during pre-dinner naps.

Dean has hit 3 pounds and Neville isn’t far behind, so they’re definitely ready to meet potential adopters. Maybe we should have held up a poster while we cooled our heels for over an hour on the shoulder of the Beltway.

filed by: TS

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