Now’s the time that I share two photographic notes from the end of my week; as always, click on the little pix to get bigger pix.

Friday morning, Boston was cold enough that I was barely able to motivate myself out the front door. My engine turned over six or seven times in order to catch, and when I looked down, I was saddened to see the thermometer on my dashboard read six below zero.

On my drive to work, NPR kept warning that, while the ambient temperature outside was in the few-below-zero range, the wind chill was making it more like forty below zero. It was the first day that, rather than spending one minute crossing the street, I decided to take the ten-minute, entirely-indoor route between my parking garage to the hospital. It was cold enough that, after doing a bone marrow harvest, I needed to again use the indoor route to bring the marrow across to the cell processing lab; we were told that the insulated cooler that we transport cells in just wouldn’t be good enough in that kind of weather.

Friday evening, I was getting ready to leave the hospital when Shannon called. She had come home to find my cat sitting there drooling with her tongue out; Sammie was unwilling to close her mouth, and didn’t appear to be all that excited about eating.

I hurried home, and after a quick search, found a great vet who was still open, and (more importantly) was willing to see us right then. We took Sammie in to get checked out, and after some hissing, scratching, and a little sedation, the vet told us that she had some dental disease but no clear reason for her symptoms. Worried about a jaw dislocation or fracture, the vet did x-rays which didn’t shed any light on things; despite that, nobody could get Sammie to close her jaw completely, and we were left thinking that there was a possibility of a tooth abscess or other hidden infection. They sent us out with antibiotics for Sammie, and also with the instruction to have her checked out again if she didn’t improve over the course of one or two days.

Last night, Sammie let me get enough of a look in her mouth to see that she appeared to have a malocclusion, and this morning I brought her in to our fabulous local animal hospital. They hooked us up with a visit this week to their dental specialist; we’ll see how that all goes. For now, Sammie has been relegated to eating soft food, and to forming puddles of kitty drool if she stops moving for more than five minutes. It’s sorta pathetic.