Max KNEW when I was taking him in for his yearly checkup. He started hissing and spitting as I carried him towards the cat carrier. He fought against me putting him inside it, but eventually lost the battle and meowed long and loudly all the way to the vet’s office. Once inside, he calmed down, but started shedding tremendous amounts of hair. Every time the vet or tech touched him, they were shaking their hands to get the excess fur off. He also refused to have his tempurature taken. Max is officially 14.8 lbs and healthy.

Gracie went in at the same time, but she’s not getting better. She’s down to 5.8 lbs (that picture of her above is from two years ago, when she was 13 lbs and much fatter), and isn’t eating all of her food. A few weeks back, she started refusing to eat solid food, but she started gobbling down the wet food (much to the annoyance to all the other cats, who think Gracie is getting treats every day). Now she’s not finishing the wet food either (but the little girls do, when I open Gracie’s bedroom door every morning.

I don’t think the little grey girl will be around much longer. Poor kitty.

I called the vet’s office yesterday, because I nearly got through the entire month of May without a single vet visit. I was correct in wondering how that happened, as I seem to have missed the reminder card for Julius, who is due for his yearly rabies vaccination. I get to see Dr Bard again, and hope to impress her with my well behaved and slightly overweight orange boy. Jules is a pretty cat, and so sweet, but his belly is starting to protrude a little. I suppose that’s normal for any adult male cat, as his activity level has dropped significantly this year. I did happen to glimpse him wrestling with Max last week, which pleased me to no end. The kittens wrestle all the time, but the big boys not so much.

I went to the first showing of Star Trek last Thursday. It was surprisingly uncrowded. Maybe 30 people in the theatre total. I predict Thursday night premieres won’t last very long. Anyway, I give the movie 6-1/2 stars out of 10.

WARNING! SPOILER ALERT! Don’t click on ‘More’ unless you agree you won’t get upset if I give away a crucial plot detail

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I can not say enough about http://www.pandora.com/ where I can listen to a random quickmix of music similar to my own tastes. First you create “channels” for each group or artist you like to listen to. Then click the quickmix button, and listen to selections from any group of channels you desire.

Today I’m listening to my Al Di Meola channel. As usual, it starts out with an actual Al tune, but starting with the second track, music created by someone else with similar tastes is played, and you have the option of “voting” thumbs up or thumbs down on each track. All your input is used to better filter their wide collection of tracks to find what you might like.

The downside is that you need to keep a web browser window open. No graphic visualizer either, like itunes gives you. Bummer.

14.2 lbs, all of it HAIR!

Seriously, Max is a sweet boy, very needy on the attention front, and the brushing part. He’s coming apart these days! Very playful still, always tackling one of the kittens, keeping them on their toes, paying them back for jumping him when he’s trying to nap.

Max respects Queen Dusty, and gets along with everyone else. Echo and Gracie are intimidated by his size and willpower. When Max focuses on something, it gets hunted.

He still loves jumping into the sink immediately after I turn off the faucet, and starts licking where the water has pooled on the bottom of the sink. Such a clown, but now he’s got little Rocky (his half sister) doing it too! I used to think Max was clumsy, but I’ve decided he knocks things over on purpose. He’s doing it for attention. Luckily my two desktop monitors have remained upright.