Our Grizzly and other things that happened today

Our wedding anniversary — which I wrote about yesterday — was an interesting day.

I was left speechless by the bouquet; My Mother's Bloomers, with a bouquet called An English Garden, outdid themselves:

Dan also gave me a selection of coffee mugs, to see if one of them will suit me. I got in the habit of enjoying my coffee in one of the Christmas mugs and I've been using it ever since. Maybe there's an ancient belief that bad luck will befall the household if the Christmas mugs are used until well after Easter. Dan apparently wants to help me break my Christmas-mug habit so I'll try my best. The first one I tried was quite a tall designer mug from William Morris. It was nice. We'll see.

This, meanwhile, is Grizzly.

Grizzly has been feeling fine, eating, playing, having adventures etc. but has recently been having a problem with weight loss and hair loss. He's 14.

We put off taking him to his vet because it's such a nightmare to get him there. I had considered trying to get the vet to do a phone consultation. I thought about remortgaging the house to have a vet pay a house call but, in the end, Dan just phoned and made a straightforward appointment. We decided the day had come and today was the day.

I sat with my back to him and practically covered my ears while Dan and William imprisoned him in the carrier but, I'm happy to report, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been or as it was last time. I could tell as soon as he was in the carrier because his voice changes and he makes a true sound of distress. We loaded the carrier into the car and off we went and the distress calls never stopped. The vet is only a few blocks away, thank goodness.

Grizzly got a lot of attention as we walked across the parking lot, into the lobby, up to the second floor. There was tremendous reverberation in there and Grizzly must have impressed himself.

To make a long story short, he's been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and he'll start medication tomorrow morning. It's a liquid medication which led me to ask, why can't kitty liquid medication taste like tuna juice?

He behaved well at the vet and his doctor was very nice to him. She assured us that hyperthyroidism is not uncommon in older cats and she's hopeful that the treatment will be effective.

He's back to his old self by now and has probably already forgotten that he went to the vet!

After we got Grizzly home and settled in, we went out for dinner.

Ristorante a Mano has very good food and it's fun too. It's right at the waterfront and the patios were open back and front but it was breezy and not hot so we opted to sit inside. We had a table for two right beside one of the windows you can see in the picture.

I had some freshly baked flatbread with a dip made from roasted garlic, red pepper and eggplant. It was delicious. Then I had:

Pollo alla Parmigiana

Crostini crumb-crusted chicken scaloppine topped with tomato, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella

(not exactly as illustrated)

The ristorante is well-known for its homemade gelato and sorbet and I had the most amazing refreshing tart lemon sorbet. The perfect dessert.

(photo borrowed from the Internet)

And then we came home to the flowers. Here are some flower details: