Sigh. It's been a long weekend. At about 3:45am on Saturday morning, Squeeker started meowing loudly over and over. We rushed into the computer room and set him on the couch with us. He started purring and making bread immediately, but was still very frightened and his wide eyes were looking all over the place.

He finally seemed calmed down enough that we went back to sleep. A couple other times we heard him meow once or twice but it didn't sound as urgent. Then, around 6:30am, he came into the bedroom and started meowing as he had before. We both got up, and I followed him around the apartment as he started doing some very strange things. At some points he would just start shaking, his eyes getting huge, and his head looking around quickly as though he saw some monster right in front of him. Other times, he hunkered into a half-crouch that cats get into when they're going to stalk something, and stalked in a quick but measured stalk in a tight circle, his tail (which is rather short) no more than 3 inches from his nose as he circled.

I took him to the emergency vet at 7am after outlining his odd behaviors, and he had another odd thing he started doing. He did it three or four times too. His eyes would take that scared look, and he'd drool a bit, and he'd smack his teeth. The odd thing was, while he looked like he was sort of biting at something unseen, the quick jerking motion in it was not when he shut his mouth, but when he opened it, as if that was the emphasis.

His temperature and pulse were normal, although he weighed in at only 6 1/2 pounds (I had already known he'd lost weight from a lack of appetite). After a bit, the doctor came in to see him, asking the routine questions (Had he possibly gotten into anything?). He'd been in the room less than 5 minutes when Squeeker freaked out like he hadn't ever before. When I picked him up to comfort him, he fought me and the doctor told me to put him down. Before I even got him all the way to the floor, he went into a seizure. The doctor immediately picked him up and rushed him into the back.

After a few minutes of leaning against the door frame crying, a vet assitant came back to tell me Squeeker was fine and that the doctor would be back to talk to me in a few minutes. I was able to stop crying and waited for the doctor. When he came back, he said they were able to stop the seizure without giving him any Valium, which he said was good, and that after a seizure they like to keep an animal for 24 hours after the seizure for observation. Also, he recommended a complete blood workup, which I of course okay'd. He left again, and another assitant came in after a few minutes with a low and high estimate of costs, depending on how long his stay was, if he had anymore seizures (he was on an IV catheter in case he did), whether he needed fluids or other medication, etc. I followed her out and paid the $200 deposit (the low estimate, which I ended up paying, was $238.25) and sat down to wait for the test results.

The vet finally came back w/ the test results, and basically the blood work showed nothing that would indicate a cause for his seizure. His pancreas levels were a teensy bit high, possibly indicative of pancreatitis, but not an immediate concern. He also had low blood sugar, but also not low enough to be the cause (I will be checking this out though, as it's still not a good thing). He said the next step, after we had him back, would be to consult with his regular vet to explore possible treatments and/or more tests (i.e. a neurological workup to see what if anything may be causing this).

I called in the evening to check on him (I wasn't allowed to see him so there was no point in driving up to do this) and they said he'd had one more small seizure at around 11am (I'd left at about 9:30) but nothing since then. Of course, that meant him staying at the vet for at least another couple hours over what he would've had to, but I'm glad he had good people to look after him, and that he was okay. I picked him up today at around 1pm (after stopping to buy some fresh kitty treats) and paid the rest of what I owed, and Squeeker was very subdued. He'd spent most of his time there sitting in his litter box! What a silly guy. The vet assitant even washed his tushy off before she brought him out, but it still smelled pretty bad. Anyway, while I was still waiting for him to be brought out, I snagged an 11:40am appointment with at the regular vet's office, so we'll see what happens.

I've finally been able to hook up my guestbook I've been working on. The link is at the end of this post, and also in my "Other" section. Who knows? You may be the first to sign it.

I got a "wild hair" and decided to redesign the front of my page, as you can plainly see.

For those of you using Internet Explorer 4 and above, Netscape 6, or Opera, one nice thing I added was little blue paws instead of regular bullets for my list items. The CSS for that little tidbit doesn't happen to work for Netscape 4.x or old versions of IE -- you'll instead see the regular bullets as usual with these browsers.

The rest of the changes have to do with layout, but all the info is still the same.

Well I think I've gotten everything reuploaded again. If you notice anything coming up missing (broken images, links that don't work, etc.) please email me and let me know about it.

Well, my site got wiped. Not on purpose of course, and it wasn't expected, but most stuff isn't here. I'm working on uploading what I can now, and I'll finish as soon as I can. So if you see broken images, broken links, etc., just be patient and I'll have things up as soon as possible. For info on just what happened, check out the Crosswinds Updates Page which pretty much explains it all.

As you have surely heard by now, the United States has experienced an abhorrent act of terrorism. Both towers of the World Trade Center were hit with a plane each, and so was a section of the Pentagon. Also a plane crashed in western rural Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. All four of these planes were commercial jets that were hijacked by terrorists this morning. For more detailed information, see CNN.com, MSNBC.com, or one of a host of other internet news websites.

I was born and raised in the United States of America, and am proud to be a citizen. I want to say that I am truly outraged by this offense, and there just aren't words enough to describe how despicable this act was. President Bush said in a press conference this evening that "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." So, when we find out who exactly did this, the country they're hiding in had best not stand in our way of bringing them to justice. I say GOOD! All the innocent people whose lives have been destroyed by this, deserve that much and more. There is no excuse for such a horrible act. NONE. My heart goes out to all the families touched by this unspeakable act.

Came home Friday afternoon from work, and Squeeker was limping on his right rear leg. So, I made a quick appointment for that evening and took him in. The only thing the vet could find was maybe a slightly swollen knee, but his leg all the way up and down wasn't very tender, and his x-ray was completely fine. She recommended half a baby aspirin once a day for two or three days and to limit his movement around the house. Well, he has been extra lazy so has limited his own movement, and I'm deathly afraid of giving cats any aspirin, so I didn't. He's pretty much back to normal, so I guess he just bumped or twisted his knee. All's well again!

Well, we had to change our wedding date. The original was June 15, 2002. My fiancé's aunt is a teacher, and her school doesn't let out until the week immediately after that, so she would've had to fly out and then fly back again all in one weekend, so we decided to change it if we could. The only reservations we had were for the reception, so I called the place, and they said they could change it, so they went ahead and changed it in their book. Now, all I have to do is go up in person and change my contract.