difficult

October 28, 2001

Today's Starting Pitchers:

Diamondbacks : Randy Johnson

Yankees: Andy Pettite

This Year's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island Year List

Today's Reading:
The Gilgit Game by John Keay

This Year's Reading:
2001 Book List

Sometime during the night Nancy's cat, Emily, took a turn for the worse. She had had a minor surgical procedure yesterday afternoon and was coming out of the anesthesia just fine before we went to bed. Nancy woke up early in the morning and found her collapsed in the litter box. She couldn't reach Emily's regular vet so we called an animal hospital near Providence that has emergency service. They made an appointment for 11:30. I called and told my mother I would be late for the family gathering at noon.

Long story short, Emily died while we were at the animal hospital. It was awful. Apparently she was too old to handle the anesthesia.

I didn't want to leave Nancy alone but I felt obligated to go to the family gathering in remembrance of my father's birthday, which is tomorrow. The idea my mother had was that we'd all sit around and talk about my Dad after dinner.

So I brought Nancy with me. We ate dinner while the rest of the family had their dessert and coffee. Then people had to leave. First Thomas, then Kevin and the kids, then the Beach Boys, then my mother...

Nothing worked out as planned.