Don't Drink It!

Trust me... it's NOT good. We opened the bottle of sparkling shiraz tonight, to drink with our dinner of delicious Orville Redenbacher popped properly on the stovetop.

Mom poured while I supervised the stove. There was a rather pink froth in the glasses, which wasn't terribly appealing. We each took a drink, and said "Hmm, that's not very good." It occurred to us that we didn't chill the bottle at all -- the recommendation was that it should be just cooler than room temperature, basically. Being the high-end wine connoisseurs that we are, we opened the freezer and grabbed a couple of ice cubes (one for each glass)! It was slightly less bad on ice, but the general assessment was a strong thumbs down. It was extremely dry and vinegary. All but four swallows (two each) went down the drain.

Update on George -- and a Winter Warning

George-the-cat is basically fine -- his hunger strike seems to be driven by anxiety. He's still not eating as much as normal, but he's eating some and he's definitely "himself."

That said, my aunt's cat Amos -- who is even bigger than George, and is indoor-outdoor -- ALSO quit eating. My aunt took him to the vet, where they did the same lab tests, but with a more conclusive (and unfortunate) result. Amos has pancreatitis, and he's not doing terribly well. Her vet has seen several cases of it in cats recently, and says it is caused by the cat licking shoes or lapping up snow melt from shoes or boots or shovels or whatever has come in contact with road salt and ice melt products.

I encourage you to be aware of this if you have cats yourself.