My instructor's yoga studio was flooded. I suspect burst pipes in our recent round of colder than normal temps. She's abandoning that location because it's the second time this has happened, that water flooded from the floor above to her studio on the second floor and then down to the ground floor. But it makes me sad. The building is an old feed store and has ambiance, windows, fresh air, light, hardwood floors and open timbers. Lots of memories in that room since Labor Day. Lots of private yoga sessions and girl-talk to pass the time. We were going to do a session or two here at Chez Walkabout Farm but haven't been able to synch our schedules yet. My leg has been bothering me again and I've backed off of the more intense workouts. Two weeks off and I'm back to working on stretching.

The Dude and I caught a cold over Xmas break. At first we thought Miss E gave it to us, but now we're not so sure because all five kittenz have had colds. The house is one big sneeze. They've been tossing this cold around since the boys arrived at the end of October. Because both Grady and Phineas insist on sitting on our heads while we sleep and sneeze in our faces on a regular basis, The Dude and I are suspicious of where we caught this thing. Phineas thinks everyone wants a coonskin nightcap and Grady thinks he's some sort of scarf. But Doodledorf Casey (the beige classic tabby) caught it and she was so miserable she was breathing open-mouthed. She managed to get a bronchial infection, apparently. So then we hauled all five to the vet. (The Dude took Doodle, Maralton took Grady, and I took the other three the next day.) All got shots. The vet seemed to think Goliath, Thomas, and PD would be immune at their age, so they were spared the trip. Doodle didn't improve much in 3 days, so yesterday I took her back and she had a steroid shot as well as the antibiotic shot they all got. She's a bit better today.

Anyway, The Dude and I have suffered headaches, vertigo, sore throats, and general crankiness. We're just no fun at all when we're sick. The Dude actually took sick days, that's how bad he felt and he's close to having laryngitis, too. Yesterday he was feeling better, though. He took the back off our front loading washer to discover where the mice were getting in and what they were up to. (Mice, in a house with eight cats!) How did we know we had mice? They pooped in the soap dispenser like it was their WC. He found two nests, at least one mousey body, and a whole lot of cat food. They've been stockpiling it. And we just thought the cats had good appetites.

Frog Out