I haven't written in sometime but wanted to let everyone know that Smokey & Missy are doing fine. We had the bout with ECE at the end of July which lasted over 5 weeks. We kept them on duck soup(thank you all for sending me so many recipes), lots of fluids and much tender love. Smokey is back to his old self chasing the cats, which makes MOM so very happy, for a while I didn't think he would be with us. He is even trying to beat up the new BIG boys we inherited from a nice person in OR. Missy had her 2nd adrenal gland surgery in July and then came down with ECE 5 days later. Boy, was that a mess. She is fine but unfortunately she developed a hernia from her last surgery, so we had it fixed this past Monday. She is kept quiet in a cage by herself and won't be out until Sunday to walk around. She is my delicate one, so I won't take any more chance with her. I am still feeding her duck soup twice a day and Smokey just once. I want to make sure they put all of their weight back on they lost while they were sick. Now below is a story Flagstone wants to tell: A few weeks ago Mom and Dad decided to take the boat out for the weekend, so Mom thought we(Joey, Smokey, Missy and myself) should go too. She can't go anywhere without us you know. They put in a cate cat carrier, don't they know we aren't cats! When all was secure and tied up for the night, Mom lets us all out to play (do you know how many places there are on a boat to explorer..whee what fun). The boat is pretty big, but not as big as Mom would like. Mom had opened all of the hatches and side window so it would be cool in the cabin for us and then went upstairs to help Dad tie up the little boat. She did shut the cabin door so we couldn't get out, darn it. Well, she thought we couldn't get out. Dad was along side tying up the lil boat and he heard a splash. There are lots of otters and beavers out where we stay so he didn't think much of it until he saw the critter swimming next to the boat. He said, there is a beaver swimming over here, but they don't usually come this close to us, so it must be an otter. He looked again, which I guess was fortunate for me, since it was dark and only cabin lights were lighting the water and he started yelling, its one of Linda's critters. I thought he might have let me play a little while longer, but no, he jumped into the little boat and scooped me up. When he picked me up, I guess I had a surprised look on my cute little face, so he immediately pushed me back through the hole I had just come out of (where the side screen use to be) to Mom...Boy oh Boy was she mad at me. Mom and Dad's friends tied up next to us, said they could hear her for 5 minutes bauling me out while she was using the hair dryer on me. I don't think I really like that noisy thing, but it does make me warm. Joey wanted to know what was the matter and why I was getting all of the attention. I just told him what I did and told him not to do, otherwise, he would probably get a 10 minute lecture. Needless to say, she closed all of the windows until we went to bed. She can't stay mad very long, since I am sooooo cute, she was feeding me treats within a couple of minutes. Now, Dad is going to put bars across the screens, so they can stay open but I can't get out. I don't know what all of the fuss was about, I just went swimming for a little while. Mom told me she was going to look for life preservers to put on us while we are on the boat. Boy, won't we look cute. :) Oh, got to go, treats are out and I don't want to share...dooks to all. I guess you never can be tooooooo careful with the little ones. Thanks for letting us tell the little story and everyone stay happy, & dooks to all little fuzzbutts. Linda and the 7 CA lawbreakers (Flagstone, Missy, Smokey, Joey, Rascal, Hardaway and Tami) [Posted in FML issue 2077]