Very sad news chez C on the animal-companion front: our older cat, Jeremy (14) had been doing poorly and losing weight really badly for the last several weeks, so I took him to the vet on Friday, and the news was as bad as feared: his little cat kidneys are shot, and his days are definitely numbered. Neither we nor they are certain about that number, but we know it’s not a large one.

I realize the loss of a pet doesn’t fall into the same category as that of a (human) family member, but Mrs. Jay and I are both incredibly soft-hearted over our feline “kids”, and fourteen years just seems way too short a time to have had him in our lives. Especially as he had been surgically “repaired” from a life-threatening defect at seven months old (a herniated diaphragm had pushed his internals all out of place: the vet said he had only seen a problem like that once: in a cat that had gotten run over by a car). We’re going to have to book his trip Over The Bridge before too long (home treatments seem inadequate to help): I’ll post a memorial pic for him.