Thursday This and That ...

A couple of days ago, I received a very special surprise card in the mail from my dear friend of many years, Willow ... 

Cat-in-the-box ...

While I was boxing up some of my excess clothing, Leo decided he wanted to play!

Sir Leo

This pic was taken a few hours after I came back from my late morning walk. Upon taking a closer look at it, I noticed a little brown dot on the front of my head ... it was a live tick that I had apparently brought in with me on my clothing and had made its' way on to my scalp. The ticks are absolutely horrible this year here! I immediately flushed it down the toilet and took a long, HOT SHOWER afterward. These nasty things carry Lyme disease (particularly a problem here in PA) and usually plague our wild deer as well as domestic dogs, cats, etc.

"Hmm, that coat hanger just moved ...

... I'd better attack it now before it gets away!"

Speaking of cats, we had Merlin to the vet yesterday because we could not seem to get rid of ear mites which appeared a few days after we had him for his first initial check-up. Dr. Mike told us that ear mites can lay their eggs on the cats body and therefore do not necessarily show up right away. He gave us something to kill them for all of our cats as ear mites are extremely contagious. We also scheduled his neuter surgery for the end of September. 

Anyway,  I have two birthday's this week to help celebrate - my friend Deb's birthday is today and I will be having dinner with her tonight and my mom's 79th birthday will be this coming Saturday.