Even though Mark will be here by himself after I leave for Louisville, we took the cats to be boarded this evening. They will have their annual checkup and vaccinations, as well as have their teeth cleaned, while they're there. (The estimate for their surgery costs, because teeth-cleaning requires general anesthesia, makes me think that looking into pet health insurance might be a wise move. Yikes. But I digress.)

Anyway, I haaaate having to take the cats to the vet. Stanley gets this horrified look on his face whenever we put him in the cat carrier. I honestly think that whoever had them when they were kittens used a carrier to take them somewhere to dump them. Fortunately, someone ELSE came along who found them as "strays" and brought them to the animal shelter, from which we adopted them, so it obviously worked out with a very happy ending, but STILL, when I think of someone pulling a dirty trick like dumping two kittens somewhere, I get angry. I think Stanley still associates being put in carriers with something terrible happening. If my theory is correct and someone dumped them, I'd like to dump the guilty party somewhere in the dead of winter -- like, say, the middle of the Alaskan tundra -- and see how THEY like it.

But anyway, I digress. The Kitty Committee will get petted and played with daily while they're being boarded, and I'm sure they'll charm everyone to bits like they did last time they were there. :o) And I am going to miss them terribly until we bring them home.

While I was filling out the paperwork, someone came in with a very tiny black kitten -- 4 weeks old -- who was being treated for a sinus infection. OMG. It can't possibly be legal to be that adorable. WHAT a cute little micro-kitty! I hope she recovers quickly from her sinus trouble, poor little furball.

We had some issues with Mark's car on the way to and from the vet's office. His car overheated on the way there. So while I was inside filling out paperwork, he was parked outside (miraculously, a spot right in front of the vet's office became available) with the hood up, adding coolant (which, apparently, was low) and trying to cool the engine down. When I came out, I told him what my dad taught me eons ago: if your car overheats, run the heater full blast to draw the hot air out of the engine compartment. THAT did work nicely. It made the interior of the car hot as blazes, but by gosh it got the engine thermometer indicator down from the red letter H.

When the needle got down to about halfway between C and H, we decided to head home. Two or three times, within about three miles of city driving, we had to use the heater again during the ride in order to cool the engine off, but we made it home.

Remember a few posts back when I said I told Mark, "You WILL bring this car in to the mechanic's"? Well, that hasn't happened yet. Now it looks like there's no choice but to bring it in to the car doctor. It wasn't overheating when I gave that particular directive, but it was acting up in a few other ways which I hope will ALSO be repaired when this problem gets taken care of.

He did, however, take MY car to be inspected on Monday. It passed the inspection with flying colors, and once again it refused to stall or act up for the mechanic. GRRR... well, at least it misbehaved for Mark a couple weeks ago, so he knows I'm not hallucinating when I say the car stalls.

FARG. Freaking expenses all hitting at once (car doctor for both his and my cars, and the vet bills). What a pain in the rump.