It's UPDATE Time Again!

Mom has been really, really busy lately because the holidays are coming, and that means she has to go to parties and eat a bunch of stuff, and she is worried about getting fat like Charlie.  Last weekend, Mom went to two parties, and one of them was Saturday night, and the other one was on Sunday.  The Saturday night one was where the Humane Society board invited some nice donors, so they could get to know the donors better and also make them feel happy about giving money to the Humane Society.


And on Sunday the party was the cactus club party, so Mom had to take a gift and some food, and she also took a bunch of little plants to use as bingo prizes.  So she had to pack up all the plants in a big box, and she had to put all their scientific names on them, and then she had to put the whole box in a huge plastic bag because it was incredibly cold on Sunday, and Mom didn't want the plants to freeze.

It was also incredibly cold on Saturday, and the wind blew very hard, and it was kind of scary because we could hear it from inside the house, and sometimes little dead tree limbs fell off the oak tree.  And the sweet gum balls blew off the tree and the hit the house like little cannon balls.  Then it started snowing Saturday night, and the snow blew all over the place, but it didn't get very deep.  So Mom had to decide whether to cancel the cactus club party or not, because she's the president, and she decided not to cancel it, and everybody got there okay, and it all worked out fine.

"Magpie" by Claude Monet--
Mom's Christmas card design

So now those two parties are over with, and also Mom finally finished raking all the leaves on Friday, when it was really warm and nice before the icy cold wind came on Saturday.  Now Mom only has one party left to go to, and it's the staff party at the Humane Society a week from today.

Another thing Mom had to do was to send out a bunch of Christmas cards, and she was really late getting started doing that, but she finally started Sunday night, and she finished them up last night, so now she is very happy, and she is doing the Done With Christmas Cards dance.

But that's enough about Mom.  Now I will tell you about us dogs and cats.  Gabe doesn't have to eat fish and potatoes anymore, which he is really happy about.  Now he is eating a food called Addiction Kangaroo and Apples.  He likes it a whole lot.  I would like to eat some, but Mom says it is expensive, so it is only for Gabe.

Mom did buy us some new and interesting canned food, though, and it's from New Zealand.  It has an animal meat in it called "brushtail," which I did not know what it was, so I looked it up, and it turns out to be a possum that lives in Australia.  And in Australia, this possum is protected, but in New Zealand, where it is not a native species, it is trying to take over the whole country, and it is spreading tuberculosis to the cattle, and it is eating important crops and doing all sorts of bad, naughty things.  So the people in New Zealand are putting this possum meat in cans with some peas and potatoes and carrots, and they are selling it as dog food.  And I think this is an excellent solution to the brushtail problem, because it tastes great!

Monday Chloe had to go back to Mission MedVet to get another xray of her lung.  And this xray showed that the fluid was gone out of her lung, so she is all better now.  But the doctor wants her to keep taking antibiotics for two more weeks, just to be sure all the bad stuff is gone.

Then yesterday Mel got his teeth cleaned because they had a bunch of tartar on them.  But he didn't have to get any of them pulled, so we are all very happy about that.

And another thing that happened yesterday was that Gabe went to visit Dr. Senter, the dermatologist.  And Dr. Senter looked at the funny round spot on Gabe's chest and at another round spot that he got recently on his jaw and also at some places in Gabe's armpit.  Then Dr. Senter got some of the armpit stuff on a slide and looked at it through a microscope.  And he said he saw some cells that were probably infected and some cells that might be cancer, but they might just be infected.  So Gabe is going to take a different antibiotic than he took before.  I don't remember the name of it, but it is a very pretty bright orange color.

Okay, well, I guess that's all the latest news, and it's really quite a bit because we have such exciting lives here with our mom!