Brief check-in

Just wanted to give an update about the kitty. When I go in to work this weekend, I will take a picture of him; I was remiss in not doing so this past weekend! He is doing fine. His name is "NoName ___" (my last name); I need to change that. I think I might name him Hudson; we'll see what my new coworkers think about that. His leg is bandaged; there will be no surgery. He will heal just fine, though he may have a limp and one day some arthritis in the leg. The veterinarian who owns the practice says he doesn't want any money from me for taking this fellow in; I intend to donate one of my paychecks from the clinic to him anyway. There is no reason for there to be no compensation at all. Compassion is often its own reward, but there are expenses involved in caring for an injured animal. "Hudson" is a doll. He eats heartily, purrs the very instant you stand in front of his cage, and is just a total lovebug (lots of headbutting, and he adores affection). There is no way in the world that this cat should have been euthanized. Despite the terrible fight I had with M. about the whole thing, I am glad I stood up for what I believe in, money or no money. There are some things that cannot be compromised. I am loving my new job, on the whole. It pays substantially less than what I'm getting here, but I like it better in some ways. I have always loved veterinary medicine, and chances are I always will. I got to do all kinds of cool things on Saturday - I drew blood, gave injections, gave enemas, read urinalyses, fecals, and CBC's, ran the blood machines, monitered catheters - in essence, I was treated like a licensed technician. It was awesome, because I *do* know my stuff. I'm a bit rusty, but I've been involved in veterinary medicine on and off (mostly on) since I was a teenager. Which is much longer ago than I would like. Be that as it may, it feels good to be back into it. What other job is there where, when you're feeling down, you can go pick up a kitten? Not very many. More soon. Ta. ----------------------------- Edited to add: Shannon (http://westeringhills.weblogged.net/) suggests that the kitty have a name reflecting the orchard he hung out in. The trees around here are: honeycrisp, red and golden delicious, empire, macintosh, jersey-mac, ginger-gold, macoun, cameo, fuji, braeburn, cortland, gala, jonagold, lady apple, liberty, mutsu, pristine, smoothee, spigold, winesap... and a bunch of cider apples whose names I don't know. We have a whole block of apples of other varieties I'm not familiar with, but they are few; the above represent what we have the most of. What do you think? Any of these names appeal? Going once, going twice....