Charlie is one of the best cats in the whole world. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who has met him for any length of time. When we found him I was living in Denver at the time and we went to the local shelter to find a cat. He was the loudest cat in the whole place. We took him back into the visiting area and he decided that we were his. That was back in June of 1998 and he was about 2-3 years old. 10 years later I am still very much his staff and he never ceases to amaze me. People are always amazed at how I can talk to him and he listens, he follows instructions (when the outcome benefits him) and is always happy to talk back and carry on the conversation. He is, without a doubt, the best cat in the world.
Don’t worry, all of that is in the present tense, Charlie is still here and doing quite well. That’s the point of the post really. You may recall a few years back when Charlie had a few issues and needed to be rushed to the vet. Well, we took him in for a visit to the new vet since we have moved to check on a few things and just give him a once over. First of all, every Vet Tech in the area came out to see him and comment on how they have never seen another cat that had his coloring and that his personality was just the best. Charlie knows this all to well and will strut his stuff along the counter. The overall exam was good. We were concerned because every now and then he will have some issues passing food and this will cause him throw up a few times. This is usually like once a month. The vet said that it’s normal with the food that he is on and that we can try to introduce some more fiber to his diet.
She took a blood sample (Charlie was very displeased with this process) and said that she was astonished at the levels for his Kidneys. Back in the June 27th 2006 post I mentioned that there are two levels that directly relate to the kidney functions. At that time those levels were extremely high. Well apparently as of now his levels are just 1 point above Medium levels. The vet said that she had never seen a cat come back from such a traumatic event in the way Charlie has. She advised that whatever we were doing we should keep it up. We did introduce some pumpkin mixed into his wet food to give him a little more fiber and help with digestion and we also had them check his urine (currently awaiting results).
Overall Charlie is in great health. After his check on Saturday we took him to Pets Mart and he got to crawl around on the Carpet Trees there, lay across my shoulder while we walked around the store, and be adored by everyone there. He took a walk on the leash around Best Buy and marked his territory there, then came home to curl up by the fire. It was a long day for him and he took the rest. Of course this meant he was wide awake when it came time for US to go to bed. But hey, that’s normal…..for Charlie.
So this last Friday I decided that we needed a family night out. We had been cooped up inside for far too long due to weather or projects or just general laziness. I found an interesting little place just on the other side of Dulles called 
It was now time for some Laser Tag. Our first game was a free for all with about 8 total people. Now here is where I see a definite gap in age and tactics. When I was young and played Lazer Tag (yes, they had it back then, you just had much bigger guns and vests.) you would run and weave and hide. The goal of the game was to NOT GET HIT. I think some of these kids need to try out paint ball FIRST and then come back to Laser Tag. Most of them were just wandering through the maze and shooting at random, not trying to hide or anything. Me? I was in corners, covering my back, and keeping a sharp eye out. If I was tagged, I would use the 5 seconds of down time to run quickly to a new spot. Kids today. Second game. This time it was teams. Sadly it was the same tactics. They would wander around and not care, I would run from place to place, defend my position, call out to team mates, etc. 
Yeah well, it’s winter time (or at least it still feels like it) and not a lot happens. The real story here is that I was pretty sick for a while. All Respiratory stuff so I was wiped out from just climbing stairs. I am just starting to feel better so things may pick back up. It weird, I had a ton of stuff I was working on and then I got sick and bam….nothing. So now I get to play catch up. There is some work to do on my Batman costume, I want to build new gauntlets for my Nightwing, pick back up with drumming…. The list goes on. 
I also picked up Bully: The Scholarship Edition. This game is hilarious! The hoopla about it is overblown by people who have never played the game. On that note, I hate hate hate these people that get on TV and go to the press saying how these games are ruining our children and setting a bad example, yet they haven’t bothered to actually try the game or see what it is about. Bully is a great example of that. They say it teaches kids to be bullies and pick on younger kids. It’s also been called a “Columbine Simulator”. Yet, in the game, if you try and pick on a younger kid, you get pounced by the prefects, there are no guns, and the over all goal is to STOP bullies and let all of the students get along. Not to mention that, along the way, there are classes you have to attend and they actually TEACH real subjects. Things like English, Math, Geography, Biology, etc. Maybe that’s what happened is that some 50 year old Lawyer tried to play the game and got frustrated when he couldn’t find Botswana on the map!
