This and that--oh, and Happy Ostara!

I want one:



That's Jake, a bobcat who lives at the Sierra Safari Zoo:

http://www.sierrasafarizoo.com/index.htm

Jake seems quite friendly. Some humans have all the luck.

Luna, my wild girl kitty, has an appointment at the veterinarian next week. I thought she had a tick on her belly, but it seems not to be...at least John is convinced it's not. It's a teardrop-shaped brown thing, and there's a lump under it. I wish I could check it again, but I'm not up for a repeat of yesterday's mayhem. Luna don't brook no invasion of her personal space.

I went this morning to the Hartford Hospital Dental Clinic, where an impossibly sweet dentist spent an hour and a half filling a wisdom tooth. Yes, that's right, a wisdom tooth. You see, since one of my treatment drugs is Zometa, a bisphosphonate used only for cancer patients with bone metastases, I can't have any extractions. One of Zometa's side effects is that it can cause a condition called osteonecrosis of the jaw, which is exactly what it sounds like--a situation where bone won't heal, and the jawbone begins to die. Exposure of the bone is one of the risk factors, and I've been told that I'm already at higher risk than many because of my historically less than stellar dental health. If the filling doesn't work--the decay was very close to the pulp of the tooth--they'll try a root canal. I guess it's a good thing that I have a high pain threshold.

The good news is, I found a Splenda-sweetened Starbucks ice cream called Coffee Fudge Brownie. Like all artificial sweeteners, Splenda is controversial, but what's it going to do to me? Give me cancer?

Here's a recommendation for you:

http://tinyurl.com/qpq6h

I don't know how long those tiny urls last, but if you're reading this in the year 2011 and looking for a totally unique piece of music, go to amazon.com and do a search on "Hymnody of Earth" by Malcolm Dalglish and the Ooolites. Dalglish, a hammered dulcimer player I saw decades ago with the folk group Metamora, put together this suite, which combines his settings of Wendell Berry's poems with some original stuff and a few things like shape-note hymns thrown in, all sung by himself and a teenage folk choir. It's one of those pieces of music that makes me feel like I'm floating above the earth, looking down and feeling real hope.

Then again, if you're into Britney Spears, you may not like it.

Time for ice cream.

Happy SPRING!!!