[image credit Gary]
The bride and I took our 19-year old kitty, Molly, on her last ride on Monday. She had a large tumor on her side that had finally gotten big enough to begin to take over all her body resources (food, water) so that she was becoming mere bones + tumor, and was rapidly dehydrating.
But even on our laps as we waited at the vet's office, and on the table, she purred and seemed not to be afraid. She was a good kitty and will be missed. We buried Molly beside her brother Sammy, who made it to to age 18 (see, we believe in people names for our cats--it makes them last a long time).
After getting home from the vet, we tackled clearing the driveway from the 6" of snow that had arrived earlier in the day. While operating the snowblower, the discharge chute clogged, and I waited like I always do for the auger and second-stage thrower to stop spinning before reaching in to clear the blockage. Such a slushy mixture does not respond to digging at it with a stick, you have to manually grab it.
Perhaps I was distracted by the cat sadness, or was just plain careless. In any case, the second-stage thrower was still moving. Bottom line: I severed the last joint of my right ring finger. Hello, Emergency Room!
It'll heal up, but I'm realistic enough to know that full recovery will be measured in months rather than days or weeks. Remains to be seen how this may impact my running, but I feel optimistic that aside from the immediate time off, there (hopefully) will be no long-term impacts.
Mandatory disclaimer: Don't try this at home. Instead, when you let go of the auger control, ACTUALLY LOOK AT THE MOVING PARTS TO VERIFY THEY HAVE STOPPED MOVING BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO CLEAR THE CHUTE!
Typing is tough so blogging may be a bit subdued for awhile.
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