Meditation

Today, in an attempt to give Dmitri a break from the cage in which he's been confined since he experienced his "stroke" two weeks ago, I let him sit on a window sill in the sunlight for half an hour. At the same time, I pulled up a chair and sat next to him so I could keep an eye (and a restraining hand) on him. He quickly dozed off while I zoned in the sun. This industrious little guy was just outside the window, and I watched in pure delight while he chomped his way through a couple of inches of an enormous fennel plant. I was reminded of a song Frank Sinatra recorded back in 1959, called "High Hopes", with a verse about an ant bringing down a rubber tree plant. Even if this caterpillar can't bring down this fennel bush, he'll have the freshest breath in all caterpillar-dom, and that's gotta be worth something... right??

I'm happy to report Dmitri is doing pretty well... he's eating okay, though he insists on being "finger fed", he can walk a little, though his right hind leg doesn't work very well, and he's tolerating his daily regimen of four different meds and two doses of subcutaneous fluids very well. He's alert and responsive and definitely seems to enjoy all the attention he's getting, and, I have to admit, I'm enjoying showering him with said attention. I'm just so grateful I have the time to supply it. So what if I don't have time to do a whole lot else in my life? In the end, pampering a sick companion animal is, to me, more worthwhile than just about anything else I can do.