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Diving Back In

Tuesday
1/4/2011

Early Christmas morning, we flew out to New Mexico to resume a holiday-week tradition we launched ten years ago – margaritas and southwestern food in Santa Fe and hiking or snowshoeing in the nearby Sangre de Christo and Jemez mountains.

The first few days were warm and sunny in Santa Fe, with blue skies and dry snow in the Pecos Wilderness.

Having explored most of the higher elevation trails, we hiked the less-traveled route up Glorieta Canyon with local friends on Monday.

We flew home on New Year's Day, then drove across the river Sunday morning to see Oggi, Gigi, and Piper at the Maryland home of an HT fosterer who'd generously offered to care for them while we were away. All three kittens looked good, with dry eyes and clean noses. We'd been a little worried about Piper, since she'd been feverish and lost weight the week before Christmas, and her ringworm symptoms hadn't improved yet.

The HT fosterer said that Piper didn't eat much during the first two days, but that her appetite and energy level rebounded after that. We were relieved to see that she'd gained weight – because that meant she could go home!

While we were away, Piper was chosen by a family that's also adopting an HT kitten named Zoe. Zoe was due to arrive at the Maryland foster home later on New Year's Day for a few days of socializing with Piper before they went home together. Woohoo – one 50K furball down, two to go!

We brought Oggi and Gigi back to 50K and installed them in the villa, amid much face-nuzzling and purring. They acted as if they'd never left. That evening, they romped around the back room while we drank wine and watched football.

When we let them out again yesterday morning, we were surprised to see that both kittens had relapsed into their weepy-eye-drippy-nose syndrome. Rut-roh. For the first time it occurred to us that something in the villa might be irritating their eyes and noses. Maybe the floor mats? When we installed them in November, the mats had off-gassed noticeably for at least a week, but the smell had dissipated long ago, at least to our noses.

The Divers still had cloudy left corneas when we retrieved them from Maryland, so that souvenir from their past is probably unrelated to the villa. But if there's an environmental trigger to their weepy-drippies, we need to find out ASAP, since clearing up that problem should significantly improve their chances of finding a home.

I moved them upstairs to the bunkhouse and playground this morning, and we'll see if their symptoms diminish.

filed by: TS

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