tripleransom

Watchcats

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 03:38:46 GMT

These are watchcats watching You!
Obviously, I fail at dw. I can't figure out how to get my picture in here. Oh well.
Do i have to link it from somewhere like Dropbox, rather than uploading directly?. ARGH. I used to put pics in my lj all the time. Geeze!

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Tiger the cat

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 01:22:10 GMT

My Tiger cat died 4 years ago today of an apparent stroke. He was by my side in bed when he had the stroke, but he settled back to sleep.
When he didn't come out for breakfast in the morning I knew something was wrong. His paw was ice cold and i took him in to my vet immediately. They said his heart was enlarged and he was in pain (i could tell about the pain part). They only gave him about a 50% chance of surviving this episode, so reluctantly i decided to have him put down.
He was a farm cat who wandered in from down the road, but was way too sweet to be just a farm cat, so he came up to the house to live.
He was only 10 years old and he was the sweetest cat. I miss him terribly still.

RIP my Lucky Tiger.

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Well, howdy

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 22:17:31 GMT

Is there still some activity hereabouts? I've been in hospital and rehab for the last 3 years, just now getting back to the comms. I'm stll interested in Sherlock Holmes and would like to fi ish up the loose story ends i left hanging, but i havent had a keyboard for a while and i'm not that keen on typing stories with 1 finger. But i'm back and want to see what's going on.

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Wed, 22 Apr 2020 23:22:41 GMT

Once again, it's been a while since I've been here, but with everything that's been going on, I guess that's excusable. I hope you all are OK and that COVID hasn't hit anyone too hard. I had it - apparently very early on and and though I spent 2 weeks in a state of compete and utter exhaustion, and lost my sense of smell and taste (and therefore my appetite), I seem to have come through more or less OK. Our restrictions out here in the countryside have not been too onerous. Mostly what I'm noticing is very little traffic, but then I don't have any horses for sale and those I do have are here at home. Many of my friends are not so lucky and my heart goes out to them and all of the rest of you who have lost friends, family, and their livlihood. I suppose the biggest effect on me it that the hospitals are closed to all except emergency operations, so my hip replacement has not yet been done. I have been promised the first slot that opens up, so I'm hoping it won't be too long now, since this is very painful.

Although I can't blame COVID-19 for it, I am saddened beyond words to tell you all that my dear Triple Ransom had to be put down earlier this week. He colicked and although it was mild, we were unable to resolve it. He was just about a week past his 30th birthday and just short of 25 years with me. He was fine and in good health and spirits right up to the day he passed away, for which I am very grateful.

He was a funny, goofy, talented horse who truly enjoyed his life to the fullest. It was a lovely spring day, he was standing in grass up to his ankles, with a last dandelion in his mouth when he went down, and we buried him where he lay in my back field.

I want to thank my amazing vet Mia Lee for her compassion and great care over the years, as well as Thomas Manning my farrier, who puzzled (and puzzled) over Trip's front legs and kept him sound all those years, and all our friends who cheered us on and supported us.

I know I'll miss him terribly, but don't be too sad for Trip. He was a horse who was supposed to have been loaded on a slaughter truck 25 years ago, but wound up on the most amazing carousel ride with me instead. Just remember all those other amazing Thoroughbreds out there who are waiting for someone.

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Sherlock Holmes

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 17:49:08 GMT

Happy birthday Mr Sherlock Holmes!

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Why is There Always Drama?

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 16:39:00 GMT

As some of you may know, my "young horse" (not so young anymore, but nevermind) Ricky has been fighting a mysterious back problem for the last couple of years. He has had acupuncture, chiropractic, and steroid injections multiple times, none of which seemed to make him better. However, slowly, he seems to have healed up. He used to hitch visibly with his left hind when stepping over a pole, even at the walk and it was quite apparent at the trot. But I watched him gallop up to the gate and swap leads along the way the other day and thought "by cracky he looks OK". So I started cautiously riding him, just walking around, which is about all I'm good for anyway right now. Then some friends came out and we watched him go and Lo! he is OK. My vet gave me a go-ahead also.

So I decided to ride this morning, put him on the cross-ties, and noticed that he kept kind of looking behind him at the open door, but didn't think much of it, tacked him up, led him out, and...the barn cats have evidently decided to turn into a pair of panthers. They had caught and killed a full grown rabbit almost as large as themselves and dragged it up to the barn door and were trying to decide how best to eat it. Of course, they had a full bowl of cat food, but it's not the same as fresh caught, I guess.

So I led Ricky out, eyeing the rabbit fur scattered on the grass, and got on. By this time, the cats' antics had attracted the attention of a buzzard, who proceeded to circle above my head for a while, then perched on the fence. Pip spotted the buzzard, and decided that some stalking was in order and started slinking s-l-o-w-l-y across the grass to sneak up on the buzzard (who was sitting on top of a 5' fence, so good luck) Eventually, she got too close for comfort and the buzzard took off, flapping heavily across the ring just over my head and Pip returned to her kill.

Luckily Ricky is a very quiet horse, but he's till pretty green and this huge bird overhead was a bit too much ("those things eat horses, Ma!"). He started getting nervous, I know when I'm beat, so I rode for a few more minutes and got off, took him back, cleaned him up, put him away, and found that the cats had dragged their rabbit into the barn and were lying next to it, like some kind of illustration of lionesses with a kill. Too bad I didn't have my phone, but it was a bit grisly, anyway.

Why me?

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Random movie thoughts

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 11:37:02 GMT

I found that lovely old clunker Boy on A Dolphin on Youtube the other day and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has a wonderfully lush score and was shot on location, so there was beautiful scenery with 1957 cars and tourists, plus Greece!. Nice underwater camera work also.

Clifton Webb was waspish, it was Sophia Loren's American movie debut and they gave her plenty of time to show off her...um...talents. She obviously could do Greek dancing and for once, she as the heroine had something to do besides scream and be rescued the the hero, so that was refreshing.

Poor Alan Ladd spent most of his time standing on boxes. It was fun to see how hard they had to work around the part where he was about 6' shorter than Sophia Loren, too. And of course, in the end, good triumphed over evil and the hero got the girl - it was, after all 1957.

The only problem was that I kept hearing the voice-over from Guns of Navarrone in my head (Grrreece and the islands of the Aegean Sea...)

Anyway, definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it for a while.

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Huh - look at this.

Sat, 25 May 2019 00:30:15 GMT

Some dyer has made a yarn that looks exactly like my new cat, Miss Ember.

Ember

Yarn
Pity it wouldn't knit up that way.

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Mon, 20 May 2019 00:08:38 GMT

I'm still struggling with this $%^&&** Lyme disease. I finally tested positive (yay - I guess) so I've been on Doxycycline for the last month, but I can tell it's not quite enough. The crushing fatigue is a little better, but I still have migraines and random joint pains. I have an appointment with an Infectious Disease Specialist in a week or so and then we'll see if he wants me on I.V. antibiotics (fun) or just to stay on the oral for several more months. It's frustrating, because the weather is nice and I want to do more, but with Evan's death I don't have a horse I can totally trust to get on by myself, plus I still get so tired anytime I do anything much. Thank goodness for knitting anyway.

Also thank goodness I said i would take those little rescue cats last Fall. The love their new life as barn cats. They scurry in to their nice safe office at 5 pm every day and scurry back out every morning to spend the whole day doing cat-type things (which unfortunately, do not involve catching mice) but that's OK

They are so sweet and cute and such good company that it doesn't matter.

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Miss Ember

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:41:55 GMT

I know I posted a few weeks ago about adopting a new kitty. She has fit in amazingly well with the two boys. There was a certain amount of hissing at first, but now they are all pals together. She's younger than they told me - my guess is she's not much more than a year old now, because she's grown so much since she came. She's mostly Maine Coon, I guess and pretty laid back, but she is blindingly fast when she wants to move.

It's been such fun to watch her learn about toys and how to play with the various cat tunnels, caves, and other stuff around here. I'm very glad we adopted her. Plus, I'm going to be totally shallow and point out that she's drop dead gorgeous!

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Triple Ransom

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 18:19:33 GMT

I was feeling so poorly that I forgot to post about a Very Important Anniversary last month.

My dear Triple Ransom (the original) turned 29 years old on March 9th. We're coming up on 23 years together in May and I can honestly say I couldn't have wished for a better pal. He was a decent race horse before he came to me, a good show hunter, an outstanding pleasure horse, a top-notch trail horse, and he is one of the nicest guys ever. I'm glad I am able to give him the retirement he deserves. Happy belated birthday to Trip!

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Happy Easter

Sun, 21 Apr 2019 12:10:36 GMT

Happy Easter or have a lovely day if you don't celebrate. Note that this is not my view. My view is of muddy (but happy) horses chowing down on new grass.

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Well, I've done it again

Sat, 20 Apr 2019 23:23:19 GMT

...been AWOL for a while that is. I'm still struggling with Lyme disease. Both the disease itself and trying to get my doctor to grasp that just because I keep testing negative, does not mean that I don't have Lyme disease. Fortunately, on my last blood test, an additional Lyme band showed up, so that's something and my doc has finally decided that I should take a month of Doxycycline. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is now recommending that doctors go less by test results and more by symptoms in trying to diagnose people, because false negatives (and positives) are so common.

So: evidently, I have late-stage Lyme, which has by now wrecked my left knee completely. Oh well, it was going to need a replacement anyway. But the complete exhaustion was/is the worst part, I think. At least, after a few days of Doxy, that has lessened. But I have now lost almost a year and a half of my life to this. Grrrr.

That, plus the death of Evan, which I did write about, has kind of knocked the props out from under me. I have been knitting a lot - that was about the only activity I could do - and I'm still plugging along sporadically on the current story, but I decided to skip Holmistice this year; I just couldn't face coming up with something else creative and no-one was going to ask for a story about - well, that would be telling. .

I missed an important anniversary last month, which I am going to post about, but I think I'll leave that for tomorrow. To coin a phrase, I'll be back.

How are all of you?

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New Kitty

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 23:49:16 GMT

Some of you (I charitably assume) will have read my post from a month or so ago about how my big Tiger cat passed away form a heart attack or stroke. I still miss him terribly, too, but the younger cats, especially Radar weer just lost without him. He raised Radar from a kitten and Radar doesn't have the desire to be an Alpha, so he has been pretty unhappy without anyone to look up to. It's not been so bad for Blue, he still had Radar, so his world hadn't really changed all that much.

So a couple of weeks ago, I started the search for another cat. I wanted a female, because I thought they would be more likely to accept her, and an Alpha. It had to be one who liked other cats, especially an obnoxious overgrown kitten like Blue, and one who would generally fit into the family circle.

Last weekend I turned up a good candidate. After meeting her at an adoption event, I brought her home. Meet Ember

She's very sweet, but she has the right amount of tortitude to stand up to the boys. It's been 4 days and so far there hasn't been anything other than a bit of wailing. I think it's all going quite well. She came from somewhere down in Southern VA and she's about a year old. Naturally, she had a litter of kittens which had already found homes, but she's since been spayed and I think she's gorgeous. The boys are not so sure.

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RIP Evan

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 22:19:54 GMT

Seems like all I do here lately is post bad news, so here's some more.

I'm having a difficult time finding the words to tell you all that one of the horses, Evan, colicked and had to be put down Tuesday. He had been with me almost all his life. I fell for Evan when I first saw him as a yearling and bought him a year later. He turned 20 on Monday. Evan and his half-brother Brahm were two of the very best horses anyone could ask for and I was very privileged to have them both in my life. He was still doing great, looking good with no soundness issues at all, clearly still loving his job, and I was looking forward to another show season with him, thinking I had finally licked the worst of my own Lyme disease.

He was fine when I checked on him late that evening, but in the morning I found him trembling, sweating, and in deep shock. My veterinarian made it here within the half hour and we did everything ethically possible to save him, but realistically it couldn't be done, so we had to make the call to euthanise him to spare him any further suffering.

It was terrible to lose Tiger the cat. He lived in the house, he slept next to me every night and you might think that it's hard to have as close a bond with a horse. While it's not quite the same, they are partners and true friends as well. Ev was the ultimate Peter Pan. Although he grew and matured as he learned to use his enormous talent, he had exactly the same outlook on life at 20 as he did when he as a two year old.

It's just a huge loss and I miss him more than I can say.

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A mixed kind of day

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 21:16:51 GMT

The household is still kind of reeling from the sudden loss of my Tiger cat. The younger ones don't know what to do without their 'Uncle Tiger' who raised both of them and I'm still missing him terribly. Maybe it's just as well this sudden extreme cold snap came along to keep me busy taking care of the horses. It was 9F (-13C) last night with 25+MPH winds last night and not above freezing all day today, still very windy and about that cold again tonight before we get a warm up.

When it's that cold, water freezes in the barn even with the horses in, so the hoses have to be taken off, which means carrying buckets of water. Back to the good ol' days, although I'm still lucky to have hot water in the barn, which I certainly didn't have back then! The outside troughs froze despite the de-icers, and walking outside is a nightmare due to all the ice. I thought I had it all covered by using the RTV to clean the stalls into, instead of using the cart - until it refused to start this am, in the middle of the aisle. Grrr!

Luckily, I had just enough room to squeeze all the horses by so I could get them in. They were only out for a couple of hours, because it is so cold and they were quite anxious to be back inside the warm(er) barn. I made it plain that they would have to behave and bless their hearts, they all trusted me enough to squeeze through the 2' clearance, even with a Strange Thing in the way.

Of course, today is a holiday, and no one has a replacement battery in stock. Maybe it will charge up, but that's a job for tomorrow when I have a minion here to help me. ARGH! Have I said before how much I hate cold weather?

On the plus side, a friend called and wants me to judge 2 horse shows for her this spring. It's a paid gig, plus I love judging, so yay! for that.

And now it's time to go take care of the horses again. Sigh.

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Tiger the cat

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 23:50:31 GMT

My Tiger cat is gone. He had an apparent stroke late last night.

He was fine early in the evening, sitting next to me as usual, playing with his scratching post, just like usual, but he kicked up a fuss about 3 am on the bed next to me. I patted him and he settled down, but when he didn't come downstairs for breakfast, I knew immediately that something was very wrong. When I searched him out, his paw was ice cold and he couldn't stand on it and his breathing was labored. So we called the vet and I took him in.

They did some diagnostics and found that his heart was enlarged and he had a lot of fluid in his lungs. They gave him less that a 50% chance of coming through this episode alone. I could tell he was in a lot of pain, so reluctantly, I opted to have him euthanised. He was only 10 years old and had been given a clean bill of health less than a month ago when he had the dental work done. I stayed with him and, of course, the end was very peaceful - at least I could give him that.

He was the sweetest, most empathetic cat and I miss him terribly already. Go give your pets a hug. You always think there will be another time, until suddenly, there isn't.

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Twelfth Night

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:33:02 GMT

Happy birthday, Mr Sherlock Holmes!!

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Tiger the cat

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 20:53:12 GMT

My poor Tiger cat suddenly started drooling and licking on the 22nd. Luckily, the cat vet had an appointment that afternoon, so off he went. Turns out he had an abscess and needed surgery. Sigh. She was closed for the holiday, but the local vet hospital is a 24/7 deal, they do surgery on Mondays, and not too surprisingly, had an appointment for the 24th. Being Christmas Eve, there wasn't much competition for slots. So off he went for first and evaluation, then surgery. Of course, he's the worst traveller of any of the cats.

Most cats are not too keen on car travel, although I've had two that loved it, but poor Tiger is the very worst and three trips in 4 days, including surgery was pretty tough, especially since it's 1/2 hour each way, each time. He kept up a non-stop barrage of wailing and pawing at the carrier the whole way. In addition, he came home with an e-collar, which he hated, but I had to leave it on him overnight in case he started pawing at the sutures.

AND of course, the bill was something over $1000, right at Christmas. Not to mention that I was worried stiff about him. Merry Christmas! Thank goodness, I wasn't planning an elaborate dinner and family over or something! So now he's sacked out under my desk, refusing to even look at me, and I have to be the heavy and give him meds for the next few days. Again, sigh.

There's some champagne on ice. I think I'll take care of the horses, pour myself a stiff drink, and fix us a steak before I tackle the meds. I hope everyone's Christmas went slightly better than Tiger's.

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Happy Winter Solstice to all!

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 20:58:37 GMT

Well, the Solstice is here and the longest night of the year has come and gone at last. Even though we have the worst of the winter weather ahead, it feels like a real milestone - like there is some hope now that spring will come again. Thank goodness for that. and truthfully, by now we are about 1/3 of the way through. By late February, we will be well on the way to spring here in Virginia. I don't think I could face living in some climate where winter lasted into April - three months of this is quite enough, thankyouverymuch.

On that topic of hope, I managed to write both a Holmistice fic archiveofourown.org/works/16776214 on AO3 AND a WAdvent story, watsons-woes.dreamwidth.org/2018/12/19/ DW on Watson's Woes. WooHoo! It feels good to be writing again.

Next up - the follow-on to Intermezzo, starring Miss Irene Adler and someone who is not Sherlock Holmes (he's probably somewhere near Lhasa at this point) which has been about 1/2 written for months. It's a small, but crucial piece of the whole Hiatus saga that may someday get itself done. There's a Christmassy part also, but that probably won't happen till midsummer at this rate. Oh, well.

As far as traditions go, I hope we're not starting a new one here. Last year DH spent Christmas in the ER after being taken away be ambulance at 3 am with what Watson would have called enteric fever. This year, poor Tiger the cat is going in for surgery on a dental abscess on Christmas Eve.

Fun.

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DW Redux

Sun, 09 Dec 2018 00:08:36 GMT

This is so exciting - just to see all the activity going on. I only hope it continues. For a while there, it was like shouting into the void and that's discouraging.

In that vein, I'll tell you that my 2 rescue kitties are having the time of their lives. They are now installed in my barn office, making cautious forays into this strange new world of horses! and grass! and rabbits and deer, and...they are just so excited. They zoom from one end of the barn to the other and out the doors and OMG! it's SO BIG out there! So in they zoom again! Finally, they are exhausted, then they happily come back into the nice warm office and collapse for a while until they are ready to roll some more.

And I think I've finally got this stupid Lyme disease on the run. Thanks to modern antibiotics and a good doctor who was able to do not just one, but 2 shots in just the right spot in my hip, I can ride a horse again - something that I haven't been able to do since last summer. All I had to do was throw a leg over and it was like someone was sticking a knife in my hip and twisting it. But now that's gone and I am sooo thankful. It feels so good to ride again. We'll see where I get to, but so far, so good. Finally - dare I say it? Things just might be looking up!

I've started work on my Hiatus fic again also. Trouble is, I have no idea where to put the next installment. I don't think anyone is ever going to ask for a chapter that stars Mycroft Holmes and Irene Adler. Watson is nowhere in sight, and Holmes is off in Lord-knows-where - visiting the Dalai Lama, maybe. It might just have to go straight to AO3. Now all I have to do is figure out how to do an AO3 link.

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Weirdness

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 19:44:06 GMT

Yesterday has to have been the strangest day of my life. Not bad, but just...strange.

It started with a note from a relative I've never actually met, though we've 'talked' on the internet before. She's, hm...let's see if I can figure it out, the grand daughter of my uncle. Not quite sure what that makes us, but something. First cousins once removed, maybe? Anyhoo, she's very interested in geneology and through some site or other, came to the attention of someone who was looking for descendants of one of my grandmother's sisters. This lady died in the Great Flu epidemic, almost 100 years ago. I vaguely remember seeing a photograph of once, but that's about it. She and her husband may or may not have had a daughter, who - if she ever lived - died as a child, predeceasing my Great-Aunt. Her ex-husband then married again and may or may not have had another daughter who also if she was ever born, died as a child, in the 1920's sometime.

So there were many phone calls and emails back and forth and there may or may not be an addition to the family tree that none of us knew about. And wow - there may be some surprises in store. Or not. But it was all like being touched by some hand from the past that you didn't even know existed before. It all makes you kind of reflect on how ephemeral life really is. Those children, if they ever were, are only documented in a handwritten entry somewhere like in a church record. Maybe they don't even have grave markers that are left to find. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust". I guess that's it, right there.

Like I said, strange.

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West Virginia Kitties

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 00:01:18 GMT

I don't think I've posted about my little West VA rescue kitties. They were two of some 25 cats living at a self-storage place, being cared for by the manager. It was sold and the new owners wanted them gone, so the local rescue had a lot of cats to place. I have been barn cat-less since the death of my beloved Kevin (snif) last year, so I volunteered to take 2 of them. I also have another black so-called barn cat, Argos, about whom more later, but he's still superferal.

They are sisters, one all-black, one with just a couple of white spots underneath; which is unfortunate, because I can't tell which is which from a little ways away. One - Pip - is quite friendly. The other - Gaia - is more shy, but they are both very sweet. Apparently, these two spent most of their lives in a storage unit, poor things. They are now ensconced in my deluxe heated barn office. The transition was quite a shock for Gaia, who spent several days looking as if the executioner was coming for her at any second, but Pip was fairly cool right from the get go. The office has 2 windows with sills to sit on and a sofa and a fridge, which they can hop up on from the top of their crate, so it's basically a kitty jungle gym and they seem to be a content enough, but Pip especially has been quite curious about the door I keep coming and going through.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I let them out in the barn today with the outside doors firmly shut. OMG! Zoom! Zoom! They had clearly never seen such a Big Space before. With such Big Animals (the horses) in it. They ran and ran and ran. No pictures, because they were moving so fast! Finally, I opened 'their' door and they both zoomed back in, completely exhausted, but content, and flopped down next to me on the sofa. I think they must be the happiest cats in Virginia right now.

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Roswell

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 18:36:06 GMT

I don't know how many of you there are left from the early days when LJ was THE happenin' place - you know before F___B__k and T______R and I_______M and what-all else. I think I started there in 2002(!)

A few years later, I happened on https://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/ - Kyle Cassidy's journal when he adopted Roswell, a teeny stray kitten who nearly died, then recovered, and went on to become in Internet Star. (along with Kyle). Kyle has been posting the chronicle of her wonderful life illustrated with his wonderful photographs for 12 years and now, it's coming to an end. Roswell was recently diagnosed with cancer and Kyle and Trillian Stars have vowed to make every day she has left the Happiest Day of Her Life.

Roswell's story begins in August, 2006 on Kyle's LJ and continues sporadically through kylecassidy.livejournal.com/839330.html although he updates daily on Facebook as well. It's not meant to be a sad story; Roswell had 12 good years when she almost didn't have any, although I start dripping tears every time I see an update.

If you remember back to the days of yesteryear, or if you want to take a nostalgia trip, or if you just want to see wonderful kittypics, tune in, let it motivate you to donate to the organization that helped save Roswell citykitties.org or maybe just give your own kitty a pat.

'Scuse me, I've got to go get the Kleenex out again.

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Happy birthday Jeremy Brett!

Sat, 03 Nov 2018 22:04:43 GMT

Today, November 3rd would have been Jeremy Brett's 85th birthday. Sadly, he was taken from us too soon. Happy birthday Jeremy - the definitive Sherlock Holmes!

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