At Least One Piece Of Good News

Our sweet Katie-girl (above) got a checkup Thursday night. She has had chronic renal failure (CRF) for at least four years. The first doctor who diagnosed her said that she might have six months to live... well, here we are four years later, and all her tests came back very stable again. She hasn't gotten much worse at all since she was diagnosed, so our vet says that so far she is one of the 'stable' cases! We are so thrilled that she's doing so well. She's got arthritis and of course has days when she doesn't feel so good (don't we all), but it was a relief to hear that she is continuing to do so well. We love our little fiery girl so much. She can be a little crotchety but when she is sweet, oh, there are few kitties sweeter.

We had some excitement tonight. Our new neighbor was trying to park in his garage but it was blocked by the people across the street. This happens ALL THE TIME; they seem to think that our garages are their parking spots. Finally he called the police, and when the police showed up, the entire household (they were having one of their large trashy parties) boiled over to 'show that new guy how things work around here." I was out at the store and when I got back, my little neighborhood was in uproar. The new guy was sitting on his porch away from the fray, while Terri and my very fierce, protective neighbor Edith were talking to a very large group of those other neighbors. Everybody was up in arms. It was quite dramatic. They were all drunk (the neighbors) and completely unable to listen to reason. It was mayhem -- some people were trying to talk sense, while others were threatening, being crazy. If I didn't know that it would all blow over and everybody's been neighbors for years and years, I maybe would have been concerned. But this argument has been happening for decades, apparently, and my new neighbor was just the next in line. So it wasn't scary, merely sort of exciting and fun to chat about with my 'nice' neighbors afterwards. But boy. Those other neighbors? Deliverance material. I love Alameda but it really is a little pocket of its own here in the Bay Area (and for that, I'm glad).

I have recently discovered 100% buckwheat soba noodles and ponzu sauce. Uh, why did no one tell me about this combination before? It's heaven.

Oh, the other news is that we got another bookcase. That makes five full-size bookcases in our small apartment. Plus at least 10 more boxes of books in the garage. Does this qualify as 'a problem' with books?