Rollercoaster

I just had quite a weekend.

It started off with too much driving in really awful weather, but worth it because I heard some absolutely wonderful music.

It started off Friday night with two shows by the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet. Terry is best known for his keyboard work with NRBQ, one of my favorite bands ever. Terry has been playing with this new band for just over a year now, playing a few short tours with the band. I've been lucky enough to see them several times, and have been very impressed by the way they play and by how Terry seems to really enjoy playing with them. Friday's shows were great - NRBQ drummer Tom Ardolino sat in on drums in place of regular drummer Conrad Choucroun and former NRBQ sidemen The Whole Wheat Horns (Donn Adams and Klem Klemick for this show) sat in, too. As a result, the setlists were filled with horn-based songs I hadn't heard this band perform before. There were also several newly written Terry songs and new-to-the-band cover tunes. I'm always amazed that, even as often as I see Terry perform, I almost always hear something that I've never heard him do before. If you get a chance to see the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet, do whatever it takes to go.

Saturday night I saw Geoff Muldaur perform. Geoff played with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and Paul Butterfield's Better Days, and is just a wealth of musical knowledge. He told great stories between songs, amazed guitar players in the audience with his picking style, and blew my mind with his singing. What a wonderful performance.

To top it off, my fantasy baseball and football teams had great weekends. My fantasy baseball team (Men of Leisure) finished at the top of the league - 2nd time in the last 3 years (and last year I finished in 2nd place)! My fantasy football team looks likely to be the only undefeated team in the league after this week (depending on how things go tonight, anyway).

Unfortunately, when I got home Saturday night, it was obvious that there was something wrong with my cat, Fox. She was listless, not moving, and just not herself. Sunday I took her to CARE, the 24 hour emergency vet center here on Cape Cod. They noticed immediately that she was breathing with her mouth (apparently an indicator of respiratory distress) and took her in the back to start looking at her. She was dehydrated and her temp was low, so they kept her in kitty ICU on an IV drip and with warm water around her to try to get her temp up. They also drew blood, to see what might be wrong with her, but the vet noticed jaundice in her mouth and told me she suspected something referred to as fatty liver disease (I forget the tech name for it right now). I left her in good hands. Last night, I got a call that the blood work confirmed liver issues, and she seemed to have stabilized. Unfortunately, I got a call early this morning that she had taken a turn for the worse - her temp had dropped significantly, even though they were trying to keep her outside as warm as possible. Also, while she had been able to stand up for a few seconds, now she could not even do that. I got dressed and headed to the vet's office (fortunately, very close to my house) and spent about 1/2 hour or so with Fox. It was obvious she was miserable and the treatments had not helped, so I made the decision to have her euthanized.



She was a sweet, sweet cat with a wonderful, expressive face. She never liked to be picked up or held, but always wanted to be near me. I'll miss her terribly.

RIP, sweet Fox.