A Nautical Wedding!

I'll never forget Greg and Rene's wedding aboard the Nautica Queen! The day before we had a terrific picnic at their house. Here are some photos:

Auburn, who is the Groom's niece, is also Jeff's daughter.

Bob, standing, is a friend of the family and no relation. Next to him is Greg, the Groom, who stands with his Mother, Nancy, and the Bride's sister Roberta.

Auburn with Dakota, who is Rene's son.

In the foreground is Susan, who is my husband's sister, talking to Jim, who is my husband's brother. Jim, who is Nancy's husband, is the Father of the Greg, the Groom.

Jim and I share a laugh.

Dennis is also one of the Kennedy brothers and is famed for his consumption of coffee.

Greg shoots the breeze with cousin Scott, in the red striped shirt. The other person is a friend of the family.

Greg looks so relaxed here!

Scott and his family: his wife Heidi and their child, Lyric. They sit with uncle Jim, but Scott's mom is Susan.

Jim looks relaxed for the father of the Groom!

I asked my husband to take a photo of the whiteboard in the kitchen because it will never have these notes again!

We all wait in the lobby of the hotel to go to the wedding [l to r: brothers Chris & Scott, Heidi, Jim, Rene's friend, Greg, Auburn, Nancy, Jeff and me].

The Captain reads the wedding ceremony to Greg and Rene.

The wedding vows!

The exchange of rings!

I greet the newly weds!

The wedding was held the same day as the Cleveland Air Show, so the Navy Blue Angels did their thing right after we were fed! My husband got the most fantastic photos of them as they flew all around and right over the ship! The noise of their engines was deafening.

 Care to shake hands with the pilot?

Me with Scott, Greg and Jeff.

Here are some videos that I took with my iphone:

RIP Spice

I found Spice having a seizure this afternoon when I returned to my office. John and I rushed her to the Vet's but she died there. Her doctor said that her breathing was labored and that her chest felt hardened. He tested for pleural effusions, but none were present. He supposed that there could be a mass. Certainly her death was contributed to by an underlying disease that caused her mucositis. She never was a well cat. But she looked to be in great condition, with wonderful weight gain and controlled mucositis due to the daily drug administration I was doing. We didn't want to pay for an autopsy.

At least we gave her some good months before the end. She sure had the life of Riley in my office! Now she has gone on to Bast. Rest in peace kitty!

Spice’s biopsy is NEGATIVE!

Yay! Spice does not have cancer! It seems that her severe stomatitis was caused by either an infectious process or an autoimmune process. We will continue to treat this with steroids and antibiotics as well as continue the novel protein foods for the next 3 – 6 months and see how it goes. She has a follow-up appointment with the vet on December 19th. I am thrilled!

After we brought her home, Spice had a very rough night and would not eat anything until the following afternoon. We attribute this to the pain from the biopsy. We brought her indoors, so we could keep a closer eye on her also. She is doing much better now, both eating and drinking! I had to soften up her new venison food with a bit of water to get her to eat it. It is kind of like a meat slurry. We were very excited to see her exhibit a new behavior, she cleaned herself after eating!

I have been brushing her with a furminator because I have allergies to cats and her fur is a complete mess and loaded with mats. She just loves it and becomes a little purr box when she sees it! I use it on both my cats and dogs and it works wonders; if you don’t have one, I highly recommend it!

Also, I bought some kitty litter that is for training cats to use the box and it is called Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract, and it is amazing! It has her using the box, which previously has been an issue for her. It cost the earth, but it had a money back guarantee.

But twice a day, I become the bad guy, because I have to give her meds with a needless syringe into her mouth. She really dislikes that. I give her a pain medication [Buprenorphine] and an antibiotic [Clindamycin]. She has already bitten me! Oh no!

But we wait for the biopsy results. We should know by Friday.

Spice is very sick

This is a photo of her in her hospital cage earlier this afternoon, when I picked her up.

All along she had not been cleaning herself and was getting thinner. We thought it was because of stress from being relocated and getting accommodated to Moonshadow, her roommate. But then we went on a tiny vacation during Thanksgiving and left her some dry food and water; when we got back, she was much thinner. We fed her canned [soft] food only and she ate it voraciously. The next day I thought we should feed her paté, as we had been feeding her shredded food. She also ate that voraciously. The next morning, she would only lick the goop from the bottom of the paté can and not eat anything at all. That was last Saturday. I got a vet appointment and rushed her in.

The vet opened Spice’s mouth and she had advanced stomatitis and there was a pea-sized mass visible on the back of her throat on her right side [where a tonsil would be]. He asked us her FIV status and we didn’t know, so he planned to test her for that and feline leukemia [both were negative]. He planned hospitalization with support on antibiotics and pain medications over the weekend while he did a full blood work. Then on Monday, he planned to biopsy the mass for pathology to see if it was a malignancy.

She improved over the weekend, eating everything offered, but her globulins on her blood test were extraordinarily high, so the vet suspected irritable bowel syndrome [IBS], and switched her diet to venison. Plus, her stools were bloody, which could be the cancer or the IBS and her mouth was also bloody, again that could be the cancer or the IBS. Stomatitis can be seen with either cancer, IBS or with infections. So, that is where we were at discharge. We wait now for the biopsy results and buy venison for Spice to eat. The bill so far has edged over a thousand dollars.

Spice is home and resting. She was quite traumatized by events of the last few days. We have been given pain medications and antibiotics to administer to her while we wait for her results. She is a very sick kitty. We are hoping for the best.

I've got Flare!

After the show I visited my brother in his domicile and played with my nephew's albino corn snake "Flare".


This is Flare as a hatchling. Isn't he to die for cute?

Massachusetts Orchid Society Annual Show!

This past weekend I drove up to meet my brother Verne at the Massachusetts Orchid Society Annual Show and Sale, “A New England Rainforest”, which was held at the lovely Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA.

The greenhouses were neat as a pin, with nary a stray leaf to be found on the floor. Here is a photo of the orangery.


There were many camellias in bud, but only one was beginning to bloom, it was called Yuletide.

Most of the more common orchids that we would readily recognize are of the genus Phalaenopsis. Here is a table of these orchids at the show that I took because it was pretty and colorful:

But mostly I wanted to get photos of unusual orchids that take forms I wouldn’t readily recognize as being orchids. Good thing I had Verne in tow to point them out to me!

I didn’t manage to get a photo of the label with this one, but look at how it seems to be fingers on a hand!

I could not believe that this Robiquetia cerina was an orchid! But if you look closely at the flowers, you can clearly see the 6 petal arrangements.

I just kind of liked these!

These Schomburgkia Wellesley are unusual for their lower liplessness. Whereas lady-slipper type flowers have a lower lip, these do not and that is highly unusual in orchids. There is even a fancy botanical name for it! [Of course Verne knows it!] Pretty lavender color too!

I got very excited when I saw these tiny orchids growing in moss because I had written about Teagueia orchids growing in moss for my Fair View Fantasy Ecuadorian Equinox series [NSFW]. However, this was another species entirely. But I was so happy to finally see orchids growing in moss!

These very interesting orchids have separate moving parts. The little round things bobble up and down like an insect to attract small birds and insects. The effect is more noticeable when the bobble is dark, but this flower is prettier!

This Angraecum distichum hardly looks like an orchid at all; looking much more like a fern or a cactus!

These are sort of ordinary, but I liked the colors!

Verne was partial to these.

As well as these!

These hanging chains of orchid flowers were pretty and had a wonderful fragrance! This was a tiny plant compared to the giant below that filled an entire corner of the building:

The flowers are not yet open. Notice the pine tree next to it for scale.

This is one I noticed in Singapore that I wasn’t able to identify, but here it was with a label!

It is a Pigeon Berry. Note the orange berries and purplish-pink flowers.