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A day about town

King Kameha was looking particularly regal today, don't you think?

I saw a great bumper sticker out and about this morning.  It said, "Don't believe everything you think." Something to ponder, eh?

Hoppsy and I returned to the vet for some X-rays and hope for some definitive answers to why she is walking so oddly.  Her gait is all out 'o wack.  It's as though her back legs have only one slow, stiff speed and her front legs must stutter to maintain the pace.  It also seems that her hips or lower back are sore, since she now hates when I try to feel anything back there or massage her.  X-rays were, unfortunately, inconclusive.  She has an arthritic spur on one of her vertebrae which could be the cause, but only slight signs of any arthritis anywhere else.  So, we're trying some prednisone (yuck!) for a few days to see if she responds.  It's a powerful drug, not to be taken lightly with nasty side effects if taken long term.  I took it for four days to get control of my asthma last fall.  Hated it.  Hope she tolerates it better than I did and it helps shrink whatever swelling she has.  The vet also found one of her many lumps to be suspicious, so a biopsy was taken and sent to a lab.

While Hoppsy was being radiated, I went to the farmer's market to pick up some local honey, a couple of chicken musubis, some papayas, bread and best of all, Kamuela Strawberries.  They are excellent, almost as good as those I grew up with in Oregon.  Today, the berries you buy in the market are much like the tomatoes, their flavor pale and watery.  These taste like strawberries.  I think they're growing one of the older varieties here, not the new-fangled, hybridized berries they grow nowadays, bio engineered for extra yield but failing to resemble good, old strawberries in all ways but color and shape.  It's amazing to me that they grow so well here.

Tonight, grilled cheese with tomato soup.  It really doesn't get much better than that.  Not on our budget, anyway.

A hui hou.  Aloha!



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