Miss Mia Sopaipilla is resting comfortably in her custom BedCave® after having a cyst removed from just above her right eye.
One day the thing was just sort of … there, like bad news from DeeCee. So I took her to the vet to get it checked out. Vet drains it and says: “Full disclosure: These things can come back, sometimes almost immediately, and occasionally even bigger.”
The only real fix is to take it off, she added.
Well, it did come back, almost immediately. And it looked bigger, but pretty much everything does when it’s front and (off) center on your furry friend’s face.
Thus, we scheduled the surgery, which took place yesterday. And now we can’t call her “Knothead” anymore.
God only knows what she calls us.
Mad Blog Media 
I know from experience…there damn well better be some special treats and spoiling after that trauma. Cats can and will hold grudges.
Oh, yeah. She’s getting extra helpings of her favorite frozen treat (tuna-water cubes) and a dollop of frothy cream whipped up for Herself’s morning coffee. Plus tummy rubs and chin scratches. Kitty ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
Really glad to hear that the Furrline-in-Chief is doing well.
I’m just hoping she won’t pull a “Fat Freddy’s Cat” on me and shit in my shoes, underwear, or headphones.
Hmm…just noticed POG you used the word “satchel” which is a very strong step into Old Guy Mental Place. OGMP. Next you’ll be talking about galluses and braces along with spectacles and pocket watches. Then, you’ll be saying you’re “bumfuzzled” and that Herself didn’t empty the “chamberpot” which is “balderdash” along with getting the “collywobbles” from too much caffeine. Jeezus you need to bring on some younger readers…we are likely aging you by the minute.
O, I’ve been reaching backward into the dim mists of Time for my lingo since high school, when I and a few likeminded companions often raided the B-burg thrift stores in order to dress like Cagney, Bogart and Edward G.
Thus I speak of gats, heaters, and roscoes; skirts, saps, and simps; tonsil polish, hooch, and sidewalk softener; and mothers who (a) wear Army boots, (2) swim out to troopships, or (III) swim out to troopships whilst wearing Army boots.
Do not leave the neighborhood!
Our dog Beau, AKA The Mighty Beaumaster, also had a cyst removed from close to his eye. It was interfering with his vision. Our vet said if she removed it there would be a small scar, so she wanted to refer us to a plastic surgeon vet in Tucson. We said no you can do it. After he healed we changed vets.
I carry a pocket watch in my jeans. That’s why they put a watch pocket in jeans. But, I might need braces some day.
This cyst hadn’t gotten to the point of vision impairment yet, and it didn’t seem to bother Mia in the slightest, but it was hard for us to look at, so off it came.
She’s a tough ol’ gal, Mia is. She got right back to acting the fool as soon as the anesthesia wore off. Eighteen years old and she’s still a kitten.
Got plenty of cat-to-the-vet stories, including the eight hundred dollar visit after Buddy the Tomcat swallowed a thick leaf after we moved all the plants into the house when Hurricane Iniki was bearing down, and it got lodged in him until the barium enemy forced it out. And the famed Ugo-Guido thousand dollar cat fight. When you have seven cats and four are tomcats, one can expect these things. Surprised we never defaulted on the mortgage.
We are down to one cat, a fourteen pound tom named, appropriately, Hatch. He has a sparring partner, Annie the dog. It gets interesting.
O, indeed. Turk was a $500 visit to drain the abscess he got in a fight with something (and successfully hid from us until it became a real problem). His exit from this life involved his usual vet and a veterinary ER. Cha-CHING! Chairman Meow really dollared up on the hoof (paw?) after the coyote fight and, later, the enlarged heart that sent her west.
And dogs. ¡Hijo, madre! Jojo and Samson got poisoned by some psycho in B-burg and spent an extensive (and expensive) stint in the ER. And Mister Boo was, quite simply, God’s gift to the veterinary profession, enriching various medicos, sawbones, and specialists in B-burg and Duck!Burg.
But you gotta do it. It’s part of the deal. Unconditional love is worth every penny you spend on it.
Well POG old buddy, old pal, old sockaroo, look at it this way. Add up all the vet bills you’ve acquired over the years, triple em, add another 10 grand for the hell of it, and you still ain’t near being on the hook for putting an urchin through college these days. And I doubt if any of your cats/ dogs crashed the car, had to go to band camps, needed orthodontist braces (although Mr Boo kinda looked like he needed them), out grew their shoes every six weeks, and treated you like an ATM machine once they were teens.
I’d say you’re money ahead. But it is shocking what vets charge these days. My buddy just spent $2500 trying to heal a cat and still had to put it down….for another $500! But he got the ashes back with a certificate and ceramic paw prints so there’s that.
Word, m’man. Herself and I count our blessings every day.
Me sainted mother told me more than once, “I hope you have a son one day, and that he’s just like you.”
I felt fairly certain that if I did, he would be, only more so. Envision a blend of my taste for anarchy and Herself’s ruthless efficiency. A genetic combo platter of Ignatius J. Reilly, Lex Luthor, and Curly of The Three Stooges. A living, breathing hole below the waterline of our finances. Lawyers, psychiatrists and exorcists on speed-dial.
We’d be kipping down by the river for sure, and without so much as a van, too.
Cycling related question:
I recently stumbled across a pair of Specialized Defroster winter riding shoes. They have 2-bolt cleats on them that I do not recognize. The cleats are metal and larger then standard SPD style cleats. They have a circular section about 1″ in diameter in the center with small set screws that allow for “toe” alignment. The full cleat has a width of about 1.5″, and a length of about 1.6″. The front engagement is assisted with two protruding horns about 1/2″ long with inserted cyclindricall bearings oriented at 50 deg angles off the centerline. If I were to characterize a visual description of the cleats, I would call them martian headed. They seem to be well made and a lot more sophisticated than a standard SPD cleat, I thought I would be able to stumble across a photo of the cleats online, but I’m not having any luck
Anybody have knowledge of these cleats?
Eureka ! Mr. O’Brien you were mostly correct. The Cleats I have are a set Speedplays called the Syzr’s. I recall seeing a few of these around but had forgotten that they were Speedplays. It looks as though they are a good thing that is no longer made.
With respect to the next discussion, I’m enjoying a dab of Knob Creek with thoughts toward your fine friend POG. It’s a bummer that years go by and we lose folks. Cheers to you Bill. I hope the riding is great where you’re at.
“cylindrical”
delayed ed
Speedplay perhaps?
Never mind. Getting pedals and cleats confused. I plead old age.
No, not Speedplay, Look, Shimano SPD or SPD-L, Time, Crank Bros, etc., etc. They’re an interesting design. I thought they might be Asian knockoffs as well but whoever made them has manufactured a nice product. I’ve got enough of my own pedals and cleats so I wasn’t planning on using them but I wanted to (and will) figure out who made them. When a discovery is made I’ll shot out the culprit.
I’d post a photo here of the cleats but I believe I need to be logged in to the system to do so and I’m not much of a system kind of person. I wouldn’t want to give the TG-men any more of a reason to haul me away to Cajunland.
Shawn, it sounds from your description that they’re cleats for a SPD-knockoff pedal. There are a lot of those out there, and they’re all different. So, good news is that those shoes have the two-bolt mounting for SPD-type cleats. Bad news is that you have a pair of cleats and no pedals to match. If you’re like me and have a boxful of old Shimano SPD pedals, take the cleats off and make them into earrings, then get some Shimano cleats and put the SPD pedals on the bike. That’s all assuming that the 2-bolt mounting holes on the shoes are “SPD Standard”.
But let’s get back to what matters. Our Oscar developed some sort of intestinal cancer that took him from us too early. The money flowed like water, I never got a full night’s sleep after the diagnosis, and I regret nothing. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I have had Golden retrievers over the past 30 years. The vet bills total around 25,000.00 The last round of cancer surgery and chemo cost 5500 bucks. The Treatment for Roxie the rescue was about 3500 bucks for the surgery and treatment ( chemo and radiation) plus 3-night stay in Pullman, WA not a hotspot, or garden spot, but more like a piss pot. Then my Best boy Pecos named after the NM town hit the jackpot of hemangiosarcoma. Which cost about two cases of Primo tequila @ 100 bucks per bottle for the ultrasound and surgery. The really bad part is my espousa is a Veterinarian and these prices were discounted professional prices so my cost was upfront for 3.5 years at 10000 per year plus books and equipment at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, one of the top two or so schools in the USA But as the French philosopher Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed”.
But I wouldn’t have missed the pleasure and joy those beloved dogs gave me. In the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine”. the caption read “Heaven is you are greeted by all the pets you have loved”. I hope that is true but my skeptic nature says “ain’t so Joe”.