Goodbye sweet Chloe...

Today, the wife and I lost one of the members of our family. After many visits to the vet, medications, and finally a surgery performed on Friday, we decided to let Chloe stop suffering, and we put her to sleep. Over the past month or 2, she had been sick several times, she got better, and then re-lapsed back into illness again, and last week, she had urinated on the floor, and it didn't look good. She had been losing weight again, and she was just not her sweet normal self. She didn't appear to be suffering, but she didn't look too well either. We entrusted her to our vet at All Pets hospital in Asheville, who gave her the very best care, but in the end, it was our vet's recommendation that we put her down. Biopsies had been sent out to see if she had lymphoma, but again, she was a sick little girl. We did get to go over to the vet today, and spent an hour and a half with her, rubbing her head, seeing if she would eat some food from us, and basically doting on her like we normally would. We spoke to the vet, and we decided, together, that the best thing to do would be to put her down, and end her suffering, and unfortunately knowing that even if we didn't put her to sleep, she would probably not recover, and she would probably not come home again. 

Chloe was a recent addition to our family. After our friends had a baby, they found out that their new child was allergic to cats. Of course, we decided that we would take her in, and make her at home in our house with our other 2 cats, and 2 dogs. She fit in pretty much from the start of things. She was a little shy at first, but after she got used to all of the new additional pets, she adapted quickly to the house. She enjoyed sitting on the back of the couch at night with us as we watched TV, and she loved to have her head scratched. Often at night, she would get into bed with us, and sleep basically on the top of our heads at the tops of our pillows, purring all of the time. She was doing that right up until the other day. She would chase paper balls through the house, and tackle our other cat when he wanted to play. We came to call her, affectionately, The Chubby Nub. Mostly, because she was a Manx cat, and she didn't have a tale. Chloe had little paws that sort of looked like a white rabbit's feet, and generally, she was just a super sweet, super nice cat, who we grew to love in a very short amount of time. Chloe truly enjoyed her life, and she enjoyed being around us, and the rest of our pets. We will miss her greatly, and will always cherish the time that we had with her, even though it was far too short. We love you Chloe and we'll miss you forever!

Many things going on...

It's been awhile. Again. Things have been moving along well out here in Asheville, and by well, I mean, lots of things have been cranking up.

First of all. We moved into our new house (I'll add some pictures below). This process took about, oh, I don't know, 2 weeks to really get complete. And after we moved in, we did some painting, some other stuff (put in the mailbox, hung up the bathroom hardware, hung up the knife strip, working on installing a ceiling fan, and a whole host of other jobs, not to mention, just plain old unpacking, and putting things away). Now, we're pretty much done with moving in, which is nice. We've had some time to kick back this weekend, and just be in the house without having to do any major, or even minor projects, which again, is nice. At some point in time, I will ride my bike again, it's just not happened this weekend is all. Ah well, maybe some day I will ride again. Don't know when that's going to be, but at some point in time no doubt. 

The wife and I did have an interesting weekend. First, we went to get some Indian food in downtown Asheville. The couple of simosas that I had were good, but it's interesting that we went to an alleged Indian restaurant, and they had things like Reubens, pasta, and other things on their menu that weren't, well, so much Indian. I have seen this several times throughout this area. Such as, the Greek restaurant that I went to, that really didn't have much in the way of actual Greek food. I don't know what the deal is with that. Anyway, we finished off our semi Indian food, and then walked across the street to the old Woolworth store in downtown Asheville. Which has been turned into a local artists' place where a ton of locals sell their artwork, and other handmade goods. There was definitely an interesting mix of things in there. And yes, there was some just plain old crap as well, well, at least I thought that it was crap. Then again, my artwork is nothing to praise either, not that I have any artwork, but if I did, it would be crap too. 

Our last stop of the afternoon was the Asheville gun show. Yes, I said gun show. I have been sort of pining for a handgun for a long time now, and we had talked about potentially getting a shotgun for skeet shooting, and also for potential home defense, should that unfortunate day ever arise. It was actually the first gun show that I had been to, and I've got to say, that's a section of the population that I've not had a lot of contact with over the years. But you could get just about anything you wanted there. They had .50 cal sniper rifles for about $15000. They had used old guns for about $100 or less. They had night vision goggles. They had silencers, which apparently are legal to purchase, and, this best part of all, they had a booth for the North Carolina Citizen's Militia. Yeah, I said militia. I thought about joining up, but then realized that I don't have the 2 required items. 1 being a gun, and 2 being a lot of camo gear. Oh, and number 3, a severe paranoid distrust of the government. Me being me, I walked out of there with a hand stamp for my entry fee, and nothing else really. I saw a few things that I liked, and felt like I wanted to get, but then again, I didn't want to spend the money at this point in time. Maybe the next gun show, I'll get something. They did have some nice stuff there. Ah well. 

Check out the pictures of the house as it is now (more to come later, this was during the moving in phase):