[sic]

I never cease to be amazed at the toughness of animals. Bink dropped half his weight on his way to the threshold of death’s door last March and comes rebounding back as if it was nothing.

Jiggy basically filets himself and manages to mask the seriousness of the wound. Certainly it wasn’t deep, but it wasn’t nothing. We had no idea how large it was (click to quadruplify):

But at least he’s back home now and wobbling around and out of the post-sedation. The red wrapping you see on his back right paw is to stay on for three days (to mitigate any scratching he might do), and the stitches come out in 10. It should be no surprise that Susan and I decided to forego any visit to the San Gabriel Valley or Olvera Street .

Not so much an emergency as a veterinary visit that was certainly due. See, our youngest cat Jiggy came in on Monday night with a wound on his flank just behind the right front leg that we couldn’t really get a good luck at because he wouldn’t let us. But three things were obvious: he was tending to it very well, it wasn’t bleeding and it wasn’t infected.

And while it clearly bothered him (especially when we picked him up) and somewhat hindered his normal agility in jumping up and down on and off things, he was eating fine and not behaving out of the ordinary. So we decided it wasn’t worth the expense of an all-night emergency vet visit and that we’d keep an eye on it.

Sure enough, his agility improved as the week progressed, but we still knew we had to get him in for some medical attention and we decided to prolong it to this morning. When the doctor at Echo Park Animal Hospital examined him it looked ultra large and nasty, but thankfully was only a supericial flesh wound requiring cleaning and stitches that the doc said was probably more the result of a slip-n-fall, not a fight.

Whew.

But anyway we’re expecting he’ll be out of surgery and ready to come home in about an hour or so. Once we get him back here, then we’ll figure out if we’re still game to go to the San Gabriel Valley for our previously scheduled visits to the Huntington and the L.A. County Arboretum, or just skip all that and get margaritas at Olvera Street.

UPDATE (12:39 p.m.): Turns out the wound was larger than the vet expected and the surgery took longer. The Jig won’t be ready to go home until 2 p.m. so looks like Olvera Street will be the extent of our travels today, if that.

Today was a big day for Ranger. I took her in to the vet’s to be spayed and to get her annual shots, and while she was under the anesthetic we threw in a nail trim and a teeth cleaning. But it’s all done and she’s home safe (if a little grumpy… but can one blame her?).

Susan and I decided to do the spaying now so that she’ll have time to fully recover in the two weeks that I’ll still be home prior to starting my new job September 4.

And from the looks of her right at this moment pretty much wiped out under my desk (sporting the obligatory cone collar, of course) she may need that entire amount of time to return to her regular and rambunctious form.

Such a good girl she is.

Back in February things frankly weren’t looking good for The Bink.  Drastic loss of appetite and weight loss brought him to the vet where we learned in addition to a hairball in his stomach the size of a golf ball and an enlarged liver, an X-ray revealed he’d been shot by an asshole with a pellet gun, the projectile of said firearm still lodged in his hip (thankfully harmlessly).

But we never gave up hope and Susan never gave up force-feeding her beloved buddy and slowly but surely he’s made a remarkable rebound. He’s bulked up a bit, he’s eating on his own and just last week he did something huge in venturing outside in the backyard for the first time since  his 12-straight day and night outing last September (thankfully this time he didn’t hesitate to come back on in).

Today I opted to keep everyone with four leg indoors, but in another minor milestone, Bink decided to come out of bedroom that is his sanctuary and station himself on  the chippendale sofa beneath the back bay window:

Nice.

Has it been since mid-April that I last wrote about our Bink and the health troubles that originally manifested February and led to the discovery of his unrelated shrapnel wound in March? Time man, jeez: zoom!

Anyway,  I’m long overdue with a status report and it’s all good thanks to our trust in his toughness and to Susan’s extended dedication in syringe feeding him for such an extended period of time.

While he still quarters himself in the bedroom and has none of his past desire for the other rooms much less the outdoors, he’s back to being his brighter, bigger-eyed and better-groomed (and semi-cantankerous) self, fully eating  breakfast and dinner on his own, and and has been getting some of his strength back as well as some weight, too. Yesterday Susan even spied him boogeying down a bit on some catnip that wound up on the bedroom rug.

Not only did I just send out a rambling email updating the handful of interested individuals (to varying degrees) in joining me for all or part of my Sunset Boulevard walk February 10, but I whipped up a commemorative t-shirt, too:

Perusing the inside of today’s Times I found this article about how smoking addiction can sometimes just disappear. The piece goes on to document how a USC/University of Iowa study linked injuries sustained to a specific area of the brain called the insula (which apparently holds sway over urges such as smoking) with the immediate and complete cessation of tobacco use.

One man who smoked an average of 40 cigarettes a day before a stroke damaged his insula was surprised to suddenly lose all cravings for tobacco. He told researchers his body “forgot the urge to smoke.”

In the 10 years since I last stopped smoking my pack-aday cigarettes cold turkey I occasionally think back to how “easy” it was to do so; sure the first few weeks were hellish, but ultimately I just made the decision and stopped. Susan did the same thing before we got married. Though she was a far more occasional smoker — maybe only a pack or two a month, if that — it was nevertheless an habitual behavior that she was successful in breaking.

But during my time as a smoker (from age 15 to 32), having tried quitting plenty of times in between, including once for a year and another time for more than three years, I will never forget how no-quotes easy it is to start back up. I also think back to the several years that I tipped the scales at 260 and how I was unwilling to do anything but bitch about it until I finally and abruptly went on a successful diet this time last year. I was also able to do the same with some brief binge drinking I found myself doing in my early 20s. I recognized that slamming up to eight shots of vodka before going out to drink more was the beginnings of a serious problem and I promptly corrected the problem.
But still I wonder why I’ve had a decade-long success streak in regards to smoking whereas someone like my mother says she can never and will never give up the habit. In her case it might have something to do with her age. Maybe she figures she’s made it this late in her life with them, why stop now. Me, I don’t think I’ll ever be too old to teach myself a new trick. At least I hope I won’t be. I may not work the solution as quickly and decisively as my smoking or drinking, but I hope I’ll always be open to giving whatever it is the proverbial shot.

Seeing as I have to average 167.5 miles a month to make this year’s target, I’m off to a bit of a slow start. But getting back in the saddle with Friday’s night c-c-c-cold 33.5-mile ride up through northeast L.A. to Pasadena’s Rose Bowl and back, I finally kicked off my resolution to bike 2,007 miles this year. And as such you’ll notice I’ve dropped in a little Bike Mileage Tally off to the right where I’ll be recording every single dangitty-dang-damn mile that gets me closer to my goal.

In addition I’ll be routing each via the Gmap Pedometer Cyclometer site and posting the links to every single trek to be charted — no matter how big or small — on this dedicated Bike Routes page.

Seeing as my parting gift from the temp gig I had for the last couple weeks was a bug from whoever that started off as a sinus infection a few days ago but yesterday pretty much blew up into a full-on headcold (that 28-mile megaloop ride Saturday probably didn’t help) it will probably be a few days before I get physical. But starting tomorrow it’s time to get calorical again via Fitday.com.

That free online program enabled me to drop 52 pounds, going from 260 pounds last January to an adult record low of 208 by the time we got back from our roadtrip vacation in the middle of July (speaking of the roadtrip incidentally, thanks to Susan picking up the ball I dropped and doing the photo selecting, I’m happy to announce that our 2007 calendar is now available for purchase over at my shop on Cafepress.com).

Since the summer I’ve been playing it by ear keeping myself around the 215 mark, but beginning with all that leftover candy from Halloween and continuing through to today with a soon-to-come visit to my mom’s for her homemade Hoppin’ John, I have taken full advantage of the eating season while turning a blind eye to the scale.

So I stepped on it today and in fear of finding 225 or more on the read out, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself at 221… better than expected. And so Susan and I get ready to get our slim back on again, with my goal being to get down to 195 by the end of May. Only this time in addition to my cycling and walking I’m going to be including daily crunches and pushups in the mix.

I figure by L.A. Marathon day at the beginning of March I’ll be back around the 210 zone and ready to walk the 26.2 miles and finally attain that long-elusive six-hour walking finish time.

My friend and biking bud Steve today sent me a pic he snapped of me hoisting a thirsty-two ouncer of Kirin at Joy Mart in Little Tokyo after our regular Thursday night bike ride:

And dang was it good to the last drop.

By way of catching up, here are links to photo sets and videoclips of some of my exploits this weekend:

• Thursday: IAAL•MAF Bike Ride
• Friday: RIDE-Arc Bike Ride | Video Clip
• Saturday: U.S. Bank Tower Stair Climb To The Top | Video Clip
• Sunday: New Street Art-In-Progress By Cache
  

I also had time to watch the excellent Thank You For Smoking with my baby and introduce her to Scoops, my favorite ice cream place. And we had a really romantic outing this afternoon to the supermarket where we rented a carpet cleaning machine and came home and de-dogged the livingroom area rug.