Paying Attention

This week Paul was a "techie" in the school production of Cinderella. He had a major rehearsal on Monday afternoon and productions on Tuesday and Wednesday night, and still had to get his school work done. On Thursday he went on a school field trip to see Annie, for which he had to be attired (one of his vocabulary words this week) in the "concert dress" he'll wear when playing in the Christmas concert next Tuesday night. Concert dress means a white dress shirt with a button down collar, black pants, belt, dress shoes, black socks, a nice tie. These are all things that Paul never wears, so that meant shopping and trying on and taking some effort to be ready.

In the midst of this busyness, Fetcher got into a quarrel with some other outdoor cats in the area. Paul and I heard a loud and long caterwauling and then the cat door slamming as Fetcher ran into the safety of the house. We rushed downstairs to see what had happened, but Fetcher refused to come out of his hiding place in the basement. In the days after, he acted quite strangely, staying inside and finding cozy spots to sit tight, like the bathroom sink! At other times, he would cry even though he didn't want food or to go outside.


After a few days Paul said that Fetcher's left back leg hurt him. Fetcher wasn't limping, so I was doubtful, but made a vet appointment anyway, since he was due for his rabbi shot. And sure enough, when we took him to the vet yesterday, he found that Fetcher was running a temperature and had a large abscess on his left leg which needed to be drained.

All is well now, due to Paul's impressive attention to his pet.