05 | August | 2023 | WEGGIEBOY'S BLOG by Doug Thomas

The e-mail wasn’t unexpected because Lavinia kept me up to date on Nano’s condition. Still, the sad news from Oregon came today: Lavinia and Rick Ross report Nano’s fight for life reached a point where nothing could assure he had any quality of life. He was euthanized today after medical care no longer helped his failing body.

Lavinia wrote this last note:

Hi Doug,

Rick wrote a guest story for Katzenworld back in May based on his own recollections of Nano. He doesn’t have the story quite right regarding the time Nano escaped early on and I was up most of the night trying to catch him and get him back inside, which I did about 4:30 AM that day. Nano bit me hard, not scratched me. I had to go to work that day, the hand swelled up and I took myself to the ER that evening. I had to produce a valid rabies certificate, and I was on antibiotics for a good week if not 10 days. You can go ahead and use his story, though. Close enough. I’ve attached one of my favorite photos of him, taken through the window from outside the house. Makes him look other-worldly, which he is indeed now…. Also another photo of Nano from 2015. A bit on the dark side though as I was trying not to use the flash.

https://katzenworld.co.uk/2023/05/27/guest-star-cat-saga-of-nano/

He had a good quality of life until late June, when he started going off his feed. I took him in to the vet on June 30th for blood work and urinalysis. The vet and I looked back over the last few years of testing, and it seemed like his kidneys finally hit a tipping point. Prescription food, supplements and finally subcutaneous fluids were tried. Too far gone, and his quality of life was not so good the last two weeks. It was time to let him go, peacefully and quickly. He is lying in state right now, and I will take care of burying him this evening.

Thanks again, Doug. I know you understand what we have been through.

Lavinia

It’s never easy to say goodbye to a family pet. They are family. The Rosses took this kitty into their home when he showed up, then he entered their hearts. Hugs and condolences to Lavinia and Rick. Their memorial gardens gained one more soul this evening.

The Cats of Salmon Brook Farm | Salmon Brook Farms (wordpress.com)

Andy likes to be left alone here.

I see him there and I want to “luv” him!

Anywhere else he likes me to massage his shoulder muscles.

Ick! But not here!

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This is close-up of the cover of a folding mirror shown on “Antiques Road Trip”. The voice over called attention to the putto on the upper right of the cover, but the closed caption wrote it is a “pooto”. Sometime the closed captions are a hoot! For those who didn’t grow up as a naughty-mouthed little boy – I know most of you fit that category or you wouldn’t follow a kitty blog! – a “putto” is Italian for that cherubim in the upper right hand of the photo; a “pooto” (or “poot” more correctly) is a wee fart!

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Growing up in the 1950’s, my friend Terry and I were curious about what appeared to be the rim of a huge bathtub growing out of a neighbor’s vacant lot. My late mother, a life-long swimmer and Red Cross swimming instructor, once told us she swam in that pool as a young woman and that she suffered a bloody noggin driving into it and hitting the bottom. Other than that small detail, we never knew more about it until Terry found this information in an item in the newspaper.

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“The present pool” mentioned above was one now used as the Sallows Military Museum, which also includes the least cold tolerant species of the Sallows Conservatory & Arboretum, which is part of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum.

A replacement city pool now is the site of a tennis court north of the high school and a new pool across from Laing Park replaced that.

The bath house for Big Blue, the newest pool, is named for my mother, Jean R.A. McKenzie Thomas, in recognition of her 60 years of teaching area children and adults to swim. Actually, the only reason to give this little bit of local history in excruciating detail is to recognize that incredible accomplishment of my mother, of whom I am very proud, who spanned the complete history of swimming pools in Alliance.

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Watching “The Third Man” some time ago, another closed caption made me laugh! Here’s what I wrote in the review in this blog at the time:

Andy moved just in time for me to catch a caption error – or was it a caption writer’s joke or way of adding suspense for the caption reading audience?? – where German is translated into… German! Fortunately for me, with my considerably crappy 1st Year College German for help, “passiert” happens to be in the classic line in my Conversational German book’s second lesson: “Wenn es regnet, passiert des meistens”. (“When it rains the most happens.”) I get it. Hee! Hee! I get it!