Portrait of Sylvie with an Elizabethan Collar

..had to go to the vet today, to the 24-hour emergency ward due to an infected lesion on my sweet cat's forehead. She was so very good to the doctor who stuck her with needles and I won't even mention what the nurse did to her behind. Suffice it to say that Sylvie-cat was very demure, considering. Now I just have to figure out how to get her to take icky tasting antibiotics twice a day. And tell her how beautiful she looks in her new, strange necklace.
Being at the Animal Hospital tends to renew my belief in the goodness of humans. There was a haughty looking tabby whose whole family had accompanied her- mom, dad, two kids. They stayed by her side the whole time, focused intently upon her.
...and just as I was leaving a middle aged fellow came up behind me carrying the sweetest looking itty-bitty thing, a white kitten about the size of my forearm. It took me a moment to notice that the laundry hamper she was being carried in was spotted in blood, and that her beautiful fur was desecrated by some sort of mange. The man said she was a stray and that he didn't know what had happened to her. A nurse pulled him aside and asked quietly if he was willing to take the kitten on as a "financial responsibility", otherwise they would put the feline to sleep. I anxiously overheard, knowing that if he said no the balance in my savings account would be taking a plunge and Sylvie would have to put up with another kitten in the house. Luckily, he quickly said yes and I left with one recovering cat and a full, full heart.