Well, Ben’s off to the vet for his tooth extractions.

I’m fretting much more than I should. It’s not so much the teeth–he’ll be fine, he’s a tough cat, he’ll gum those pesky ninjas to death if he has to!–it’s just vague neurotic worries that he’ll be the approximately one in a thousand that dies on the table.

Probably I’m just gloomy from an unexpectedly rough morning–car doors were frozen, and I had to scrape ice for the first time since leaving Minnesota. The chief annoyance wasn’t the scraping–I’ve done so much of that in my life that it no longer even registers!–it was that I hadn’t seen it coming, even though I knew we had ice everywhere, and after ten years in the Great White North I really shoulda known better.

On the bright side, there’s a really spectacular purple finch on the feeder–the first purple finch I think I’ve ever had at a feeder, generally it’s all house finches, and you squint at the pictures in the bird book and sort of wonder if they’re house or purple. Then you see one of the purple ones and there’s no question. He looks like his feathers got washed in the same load as a red sweater.

There was also something that looked a great deal like a pine warbler earlier, but I’d like a better look at him.

At 3pm I can call the vet and check up on Ben’s status. Think good thoughts!