Thursday, October 12, 2017

Cats & Nats






Hello there, and suddenly we're into the middle of October and today the temperature plummeted after heavy rain on Tuesday.

Of course Ryan decided to still wear a t-shirt & shorts...... then complained he was cold in the car. 

So to the cats, Jet was the source of much concern last time, in fact we'd almost decided she wasn't having much of a life and took her to the vet fully prepared to not come back with her. Trying to explain this to Ryan led to this epic exchange.  "Ryan, we're taking Jet to the vet, she's sick and she might not be able to come back". "Why don't you burn her?" "Ryan..... that's not nice!" "No, I mean like ashes, like Nugget & Nathan" "Oh, you mean cremate her... well yes, but you do that when they're dead, not to make them dead".  

Fortunately the vet took some blood, decided arthritis & general pain could be managed  by medication and we decided to give it a shot.  Jet's general attitude in the run up to this appointment and the few days after can best be described as "spirited" as if she was aiming to convince us she's still got life in her.  Turns out she had an overactive thyroid in addition to the arthritis so more meds than expected but she's doing ok to date.

Poofy decided not only did he like the extra soft food - part of the overall Jet investment to get her weight back up - but the attention was worth it, so he's walking round sneezing.... including an impressive launch off the perch, landing next to Jessica on the sofa and looking right at her and launching a large amount of cat snot directly onto her!  Top Work!

Meantime thug is busy creating thug shaped beds on top of each and every sofa. he just loves to curl up and rest there, much to Jessica's displeasure as she comes along and thumps the sofa back into shape, only to see him back there inside 5 mins.

Kids are fine, Hannah still being a smiling assassin as she plots a killing spree, bopping along to Coldplay, Ryan is now enjoying Star Wars Battlefront (not telling him there's a new one out soon!) He's still progressing at school, still needs to work on his reading & comprehension, but is getting more confident as he gets older.

Sitting here cheering on the Nats but thinking back precisely 5 years since the collapse vs St Louis.... and so far as it's shaping up, this looks to have a similar fate, and as I say that it's another shit show -  FFS.   Anyway, I'm regularly surprised by how often baseball managers are caught out by events, the differences can be so minute that a poor call looks horrible, Nats lost the 3rd game not because the starting pitcher was pulled (justifiably, despite giving up only the 1 hit) but because despite the open base, the decision not to walk the best hitter in the lineup backfired.   In the 162 game regular season those choices are forgotten, but in the post-season the top managers get those calls right 90%+ and that's the reason they lead their team to wins that truly matter.  Proper planning prevents piss poor performance - sometimes you have to say well played, but don't simply play the so-called odds, the easiest opponent is the predictable one.  Here's hoping for a comeback along the lines of Istanbul 2005!

Late addendum - Also hoping for a heavy defeat for Man U this weekend, ok, every weekend, but especially THIS weekend!

Till next time,
J, J, R & H