This is the third concert season in a row that my editor has sent me down to review this unpretentious little orchestra, so I gave it an unpretentious little review. My spirits lightened when we got as far in Falla's El amor brujo as the "Ritual Fire Dance," which at least sounded familiar, and then they dampened again afterwards.
It did occur to me, elsewhere in the piece when the orchestra gives the sound of a clock striking midnight, that this was the second ballet score I'd heard with that effect. The first being Prokofiev's Cinderella, duh.
The only matter of real note I decided it was better not to critique. In the opening piece for strings, the playing was seriously not up to snuff, and I thought, oh dear this orchestra has devolved. But it hadn't: it was the high-school musicians they'd invited to play along with them in that one piece. Last time they did that, they'd made a big production out of it, having the high-schoolers play alone first, and even doing it in their school auditorium, so that time I was warned.
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Sunday, March 2, 2025
a heroic concert
Christopher Costanza, a cellist whom I just reviewed in a different concert, and pianist Stephen Prutsman, with whom he's frequently collaborated, often with others, gave a concert tonight at Stanford of a distinctly challenging nature.
They played Beethoven's sonatas for cello and piano. All five of them. They're big, hefty works. With intermission, it took 2 1/2 hours. It was in the music department's small recital hall, and like most of the concerts there, it was free. The hall was packed.
Interesting performances, too. Costanza was inquisitive and querulous. Prutsman was bold and daring and stomped over everything.
I tried an experiment at this concert. I downloaded all the scores from the IMSLP onto my ipad, to see if it was feasible to follow along. And I sat in the far back corner, so that nobody sitting behind me would be distracted. This wouldn't work with orchestral pieces, because the ipad screen at 8 inches is too small to display them clearly, but chamber music works.
And it did. My only problem was one place where I wasn't sure whether they were taking the repeat or not, and I lost my place until the end of the movement.
This is good because in a couple weeks I'm reviewing Beethoven's Op. 131 string quartet, and I really need a score for that one. Now I know I can download it, and avoid all the hassles attendant on getting a score from the library.
Preceded by a quick early dinner at home, because I'd been out in the late afternoon at another concert, an amateur strings group called Harmonia California, who played suites by three fairly obscure early 20C British composers: Frank Bridge and Granville Bantock, whom I already knew, and Christopher Wilson, whom I didn't. Bridge's, like most of his work, was mildly modernist; Bantock's was intensely Scottish; and Wilson's was kind of incipiently neoclassical. The orchestra stumbled a certain amount, but got through the pieces basically intact.
They played Beethoven's sonatas for cello and piano. All five of them. They're big, hefty works. With intermission, it took 2 1/2 hours. It was in the music department's small recital hall, and like most of the concerts there, it was free. The hall was packed.
Interesting performances, too. Costanza was inquisitive and querulous. Prutsman was bold and daring and stomped over everything.
I tried an experiment at this concert. I downloaded all the scores from the IMSLP onto my ipad, to see if it was feasible to follow along. And I sat in the far back corner, so that nobody sitting behind me would be distracted. This wouldn't work with orchestral pieces, because the ipad screen at 8 inches is too small to display them clearly, but chamber music works.
And it did. My only problem was one place where I wasn't sure whether they were taking the repeat or not, and I lost my place until the end of the movement.
This is good because in a couple weeks I'm reviewing Beethoven's Op. 131 string quartet, and I really need a score for that one. Now I know I can download it, and avoid all the hassles attendant on getting a score from the library.
Preceded by a quick early dinner at home, because I'd been out in the late afternoon at another concert, an amateur strings group called Harmonia California, who played suites by three fairly obscure early 20C British composers: Frank Bridge and Granville Bantock, whom I already knew, and Christopher Wilson, whom I didn't. Bridge's, like most of his work, was mildly modernist; Bantock's was intensely Scottish; and Wilson's was kind of incipiently neoclassical. The orchestra stumbled a certain amount, but got through the pieces basically intact.
Friday, February 28, 2025
concert review: Stanford Philharmonia
I skipped out on the SF Symphony, which was playing pieces by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff that I like but are not among my favorites, and went here instead because they were playing two of my most cherished works of the early 20C: Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1 and Sibelius's Symphony No. 3.
The Bloch was stunningly good. There were a few wobbles in the strings here and elsewhere, but generally the playing was of professional quality. It was crisp, bold, and sharply etched. This is the perfect approach to Bloch's jagged writing, but the same approach sat rather oddly on the atmospheric Sibelius symphony. Frequently, background oscillations in the strings somewhere would be more prominent than the theme. However, the climaxes were gigantically exciting, so there's that. I was pretty satisfied with the Sibelius for adventure, though it was a rather emotionless rendition. Prof. Paul Phillips is the music director and conductor.
A third work on the program I'd known nothing about but it raised my curiosity. It was the Concerto Grosso for Guitar Quartet and Orchestra by Anthony Burgess (1987). Yes, the author of A Clockwork Orange was also a composer, mostly for the drawer - it was a good way to change gears between novels, he said - but occasional performance. This work had only been played once before, ever.
Unfortunately, either as a guitar concerto or a concerto grosso, it didn't quite work. The acoustic guitar is a very quiet instrument, and it's difficult to keep the orchestra from drowning it out. Burgess could have used some tips from Joaquin Rodrigo as to how to do it right. As it was, the guitars - even four of them, played by the Mela Guitar Quartet - could not be heard when the orchestra was also playing. The orchestration had a tendency to blare, which is not something you want to hear in a guitar concerto.
He called it a concerto grosso because there were 4 soloists, about the number for a good concertino group, but he didn't treat them as such. Because they couldn't be heard with the orchestra, instead of blending and counterpointing as in a good concerto grosso, it was alternation between soloists and orchestra, as in a 19C concerto. What's more, he treated the soloists as a single unit, a big 24-string guitar, instead of separating them.
The orchestral writing, besides being blatty, was tonal conservative modernism with no particular outstanding qualities, rather dry and academic to my ear, though some of that could have been the performance.
The Bloch was stunningly good. There were a few wobbles in the strings here and elsewhere, but generally the playing was of professional quality. It was crisp, bold, and sharply etched. This is the perfect approach to Bloch's jagged writing, but the same approach sat rather oddly on the atmospheric Sibelius symphony. Frequently, background oscillations in the strings somewhere would be more prominent than the theme. However, the climaxes were gigantically exciting, so there's that. I was pretty satisfied with the Sibelius for adventure, though it was a rather emotionless rendition. Prof. Paul Phillips is the music director and conductor.
A third work on the program I'd known nothing about but it raised my curiosity. It was the Concerto Grosso for Guitar Quartet and Orchestra by Anthony Burgess (1987). Yes, the author of A Clockwork Orange was also a composer, mostly for the drawer - it was a good way to change gears between novels, he said - but occasional performance. This work had only been played once before, ever.
Unfortunately, either as a guitar concerto or a concerto grosso, it didn't quite work. The acoustic guitar is a very quiet instrument, and it's difficult to keep the orchestra from drowning it out. Burgess could have used some tips from Joaquin Rodrigo as to how to do it right. As it was, the guitars - even four of them, played by the Mela Guitar Quartet - could not be heard when the orchestra was also playing. The orchestration had a tendency to blare, which is not something you want to hear in a guitar concerto.
He called it a concerto grosso because there were 4 soloists, about the number for a good concertino group, but he didn't treat them as such. Because they couldn't be heard with the orchestra, instead of blending and counterpointing as in a good concerto grosso, it was alternation between soloists and orchestra, as in a 19C concerto. What's more, he treated the soloists as a single unit, a big 24-string guitar, instead of separating them.
The orchestral writing, besides being blatty, was tonal conservative modernism with no particular outstanding qualities, rather dry and academic to my ear, though some of that could have been the performance.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
in quest of trackball
When I first started using a graphic computer interface - about 30 years ago; I was a late adopter - I quickly realized that the interface tool I wanted was not a mouse, and certainly not a touchpad, but a trackball.
A trackball is basically a mouse upside down, with the ball that senses movement exposed at the top. Because the device as a whole does not move, it requires less desktop space than a mouse; and because the ball is moved with the user's fingers, the irritation of the desktop surface not providing enough friction to move the mouse's ball does not arise.
I got myself one of this model:
Or two, actually. I took one to work and plugged it into my computer there, and took it with me whenever I changed jobs, rather than use the mouse that was already there.
I've been through five or six of them over the years - the click buttons eventually wear out - but always the same model.
Until now. I went to order one online and found the price had increased to over five times as much as other models of wired trackballs. (I insist on wired auxiliaries on my computer, because they can't be mislaid.) The same manufacturer seemed to have changed its default model to this:
So I got one. What I hadn't taken into account is that it works differently. Where the old version has the ball between the buttons, so you move the ball with your right forefinger and hit the button with your thumb, the new model is the other way around. The ball is to the left of both buttons, and you move the ball with your right thumb.
Maybe I'd get used to this eventually, but I found it incredibly awkward. I had the deuce of a trouble placing the cursor even within a large box, let alone a small one.
I found an inexpensive trackball from a different manufacturer that doesn't look at all like my old one, but it has the ball in the middle. It looks like this:
So far it works fine. I hope it's sturdy and the buttons don't wear out too fast. It has one other potential problem. The ball doesn't click into place in the housing; it just sits there. That means if a cat knocks the device off the desk - a not unknown event - the ball will come out and roll off into an obscure corner and be hard to find. Well, I'll deal with it.
A trackball is basically a mouse upside down, with the ball that senses movement exposed at the top. Because the device as a whole does not move, it requires less desktop space than a mouse; and because the ball is moved with the user's fingers, the irritation of the desktop surface not providing enough friction to move the mouse's ball does not arise.
I got myself one of this model:
Or two, actually. I took one to work and plugged it into my computer there, and took it with me whenever I changed jobs, rather than use the mouse that was already there.
I've been through five or six of them over the years - the click buttons eventually wear out - but always the same model.
Until now. I went to order one online and found the price had increased to over five times as much as other models of wired trackballs. (I insist on wired auxiliaries on my computer, because they can't be mislaid.) The same manufacturer seemed to have changed its default model to this:
So I got one. What I hadn't taken into account is that it works differently. Where the old version has the ball between the buttons, so you move the ball with your right forefinger and hit the button with your thumb, the new model is the other way around. The ball is to the left of both buttons, and you move the ball with your right thumb.
Maybe I'd get used to this eventually, but I found it incredibly awkward. I had the deuce of a trouble placing the cursor even within a large box, let alone a small one.
I found an inexpensive trackball from a different manufacturer that doesn't look at all like my old one, but it has the ball in the middle. It looks like this:
So far it works fine. I hope it's sturdy and the buttons don't wear out too fast. It has one other potential problem. The ball doesn't click into place in the housing; it just sits there. That means if a cat knocks the device off the desk - a not unknown event - the ball will come out and roll off into an obscure corner and be hard to find. Well, I'll deal with it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Michelle Trachtenberg
Oh my lordy, Michelle Trachtenberg died. She was only 39. Apparently some sort of medical issue. One site said it was complications from a liver transplant. That's a hell of an operation to have, especially when you're only 39.
She was an actress, well beloved - and I said beloved - by me from Buffy the Vampire Slayer long ago when she was quite young. Many viewers disliked her character, Dawn Summers, for being a whiny teenager. Well, she was a whiny teenager, but unlike another show's infamous teenager with the initials W.C., she was enjoyable and fun to watch. At least I thought so. "Real Me," the episode that effectively introduced her, is one of my favorites, and not just for Harmony and her minions.
As for Trachtenberg, like just about all the rest of the cast, she was superb in her part, really embodying the character. And, in that scene with the henchmen in "Once More with Feeling," she showed herself quite the dancer.
She was an actress, well beloved - and I said beloved - by me from Buffy the Vampire Slayer long ago when she was quite young. Many viewers disliked her character, Dawn Summers, for being a whiny teenager. Well, she was a whiny teenager, but unlike another show's infamous teenager with the initials W.C., she was enjoyable and fun to watch. At least I thought so. "Real Me," the episode that effectively introduced her, is one of my favorites, and not just for Harmony and her minions.
As for Trachtenberg, like just about all the rest of the cast, she was superb in her part, really embodying the character. And, in that scene with the henchmen in "Once More with Feeling," she showed herself quite the dancer.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
concert review: Dalby Costanza Yakushev Piano Trio
At the artist q&a after this concert, I asked how these members of the disbanded St. Lawrence String Quartet partnered up with this pianist, who was not one who had collaborated with the Quartet while it was alive. The answer sufficiently clarified the nature of the group that I used it to lead off my review.
My editors tend not to approve of discursive leads, but they passed this one. They also passed my saying that the principal work "took a while to hit its groove" and that it finally "clicked." Not very formal language, but it seemed the best way to say succinctly what I meant.
It was an OK concert with a lot of miscellaneous items, and I was pleased to review it, the more so as we hadn't covered anything else yet from this presenter this season.
My editors tend not to approve of discursive leads, but they passed this one. They also passed my saying that the principal work "took a while to hit its groove" and that it finally "clicked." Not very formal language, but it seemed the best way to say succinctly what I meant.
It was an OK concert with a lot of miscellaneous items, and I was pleased to review it, the more so as we hadn't covered anything else yet from this presenter this season.
Monday, February 24, 2025
filibuster review
Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy (Liveright, 2021)
I grabbed this book almost at random off the library shelf, but it turned out to be exactly what I wanted: a history of the Senate filibuster, filling in lots of gaps from what I previously knew of Senate history. I already knew that the filibuster was a bug in the Senate's rule of unlimited debate, being an exploitation of that rule to stop debate, but I hadn't known that, before the further exploitation of the rule in the 1980s, almost the only successful filibusters - that actually stopped bills instead of just delaying them - were applied to civil rights bills. Even racist Southern senators, who would sanctimoniously declare that unlimited debate was the Senate's hallowed tradition - it is, but holding the floor to stop debate isn't - were perfectly happy to vote for cloture, the overriding of a filibuster, when the topic was something else. Like the 3/5ths clause, the filibuster is tainted from its origins.
Jentleson tells clearly the complex story of the revisions of Senate rules that inadvertently led to the situation we have today, where filibusters need not hold the floor but only be signalled by intent and are applied to every bill, so that every one needs a 60%+ majority to pass. It's also clear that the "nuclear option," to require only a 50%+ vote to pass, is not an explosion but a reversion to normal Senate rules. What isn't clear is why, having already applied the "nuclear option" to nominations for lower judges, Harry Reid couldn't change the rule further to apply it to Merrick Garland's nomination.
Though Jentleson earned his knowledge as an aide to Reid, the most interesting part of the book is the discussion of recent Republican obstruction from their point of view, explaining why they do it. McConnell's refusal to allow any Democratic bills or nominations to pass was a desperate attempt to propitiate the radicals in his caucus, who'd depose him as leader if he didn't. And Chuck Grassley? A Republican senator described in Obama's memoirs as having previously supported everything in the Obamacare bill, but who told Obama he wouldn't vote for it even if they gave him everything he wanted, but wouldn't say why? It turns out that it's because McConnell would threaten to deprive him of the Judiciary committee chairmanship, next time the Republicans got the majority, if he broke ranks. But of course he couldn't say that: it'd sound too venal and self-serving.
There's a few small factual quibbles. John Quincy Adams didn't make a deal with Henry Clay to throw him the presidency in 1825 in return for making Clay Secretary of State. That's what Andrew Jackson charged, but Adams was simply too naive to realize his integrity would be questioned. Also, at times I think Jentleson relies too heavily on Robert Caro for the historical material on Lyndon Johnson, but not always.
I grabbed this book almost at random off the library shelf, but it turned out to be exactly what I wanted: a history of the Senate filibuster, filling in lots of gaps from what I previously knew of Senate history. I already knew that the filibuster was a bug in the Senate's rule of unlimited debate, being an exploitation of that rule to stop debate, but I hadn't known that, before the further exploitation of the rule in the 1980s, almost the only successful filibusters - that actually stopped bills instead of just delaying them - were applied to civil rights bills. Even racist Southern senators, who would sanctimoniously declare that unlimited debate was the Senate's hallowed tradition - it is, but holding the floor to stop debate isn't - were perfectly happy to vote for cloture, the overriding of a filibuster, when the topic was something else. Like the 3/5ths clause, the filibuster is tainted from its origins.
Jentleson tells clearly the complex story of the revisions of Senate rules that inadvertently led to the situation we have today, where filibusters need not hold the floor but only be signalled by intent and are applied to every bill, so that every one needs a 60%+ majority to pass. It's also clear that the "nuclear option," to require only a 50%+ vote to pass, is not an explosion but a reversion to normal Senate rules. What isn't clear is why, having already applied the "nuclear option" to nominations for lower judges, Harry Reid couldn't change the rule further to apply it to Merrick Garland's nomination.
Though Jentleson earned his knowledge as an aide to Reid, the most interesting part of the book is the discussion of recent Republican obstruction from their point of view, explaining why they do it. McConnell's refusal to allow any Democratic bills or nominations to pass was a desperate attempt to propitiate the radicals in his caucus, who'd depose him as leader if he didn't. And Chuck Grassley? A Republican senator described in Obama's memoirs as having previously supported everything in the Obamacare bill, but who told Obama he wouldn't vote for it even if they gave him everything he wanted, but wouldn't say why? It turns out that it's because McConnell would threaten to deprive him of the Judiciary committee chairmanship, next time the Republicans got the majority, if he broke ranks. But of course he couldn't say that: it'd sound too venal and self-serving.
There's a few small factual quibbles. John Quincy Adams didn't make a deal with Henry Clay to throw him the presidency in 1825 in return for making Clay Secretary of State. That's what Andrew Jackson charged, but Adams was simply too naive to realize his integrity would be questioned. Also, at times I think Jentleson relies too heavily on Robert Caro for the historical material on Lyndon Johnson, but not always.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
filmed theater review
National Theatre Live, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
This is one of those films of a live performance of a British theater production, shown on a screen in a stage theater as if it were an in-person live performance, got it?
It was a pretty good performance, but one thing was clear above all else: that the Musk-Trump administration had nothing to do with sponsoring it, because they would have abominated it.
For one thing, the production had gay overtones (which added nothing except to make Algy falling for Cecily seem incongruous), and drag/mardi-gras framing (prelude and curtain calls), which added nothing whatever.
More significantly, three of the main characters - Algy and his relatives, Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen - were played by Black actors. (The rest were white.) Not only would their presence infuriate the bigots who resent a minority person taking any job a white person could do, but the casting meant that both of the main romantic relationships in the play were interracial. Oh no, they could go on to have mongrel children (like Barack Obama). Sounds fine by me.
The big scene between Gwendolen and Cecily, where they pass from being new acquaintances to friends to bitter rivals to sisters in adversity, was the acting showpiece of the performance, with Ronke Adékoluéjó as Gwendolen and Eliza Scanlen as Cecily.
Next National Theatre Live production, in April, is Dr. Strangelove. That's right, a film of a stage adaptation of a film. With Steve Coogan in the Peter Sellers roles (plus Major Kong, which Sellers was also originally scheduled to play), so ... maybe.
This is one of those films of a live performance of a British theater production, shown on a screen in a stage theater as if it were an in-person live performance, got it?
It was a pretty good performance, but one thing was clear above all else: that the Musk-Trump administration had nothing to do with sponsoring it, because they would have abominated it.
For one thing, the production had gay overtones (which added nothing except to make Algy falling for Cecily seem incongruous), and drag/mardi-gras framing (prelude and curtain calls), which added nothing whatever.
More significantly, three of the main characters - Algy and his relatives, Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen - were played by Black actors. (The rest were white.) Not only would their presence infuriate the bigots who resent a minority person taking any job a white person could do, but the casting meant that both of the main romantic relationships in the play were interracial. Oh no, they could go on to have mongrel children (like Barack Obama). Sounds fine by me.
The big scene between Gwendolen and Cecily, where they pass from being new acquaintances to friends to bitter rivals to sisters in adversity, was the acting showpiece of the performance, with Ronke Adékoluéjó as Gwendolen and Eliza Scanlen as Cecily.
Next National Theatre Live production, in April, is Dr. Strangelove. That's right, a film of a stage adaptation of a film. With Steve Coogan in the Peter Sellers roles (plus Major Kong, which Sellers was also originally scheduled to play), so ... maybe.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
concert review: Redwood Symphony
With some misgivings, I decided to review Redwood Symphony's Mahler Second last weekend; it's just been published.
Redwood does Mahler very well, but though the quality of the performance was good, this was one of their less enticing interpretations. The dramatic first movement, which should thunder from mighty heights in the manner of Bruckner, was instead ominous and brooding. The problem with that is, when the same mood reappears in the finale, there's nothing left for it to do. It got extremely tedious, and I was reminded again that what Mahler needed was a good editor. I would have just thrown out the entire finale before the point where the chorus enters: that, which normally I could do without, was really good.
This was at the San Mateo PAC, which is the auditorium of the city's main high school. High schools are not famed for having large parking lots (normally they play at a junior college, and those do have huge parking lots), and with a large orchestra and larger chorus all wanting to park there too, it was far more jammed than when I've been there before. I wound up out on the street on the other side of the large campus.
Both a symphony board member and one of the instrumentalists caught me before the concert and thanked me for reviewing it: Redwood doesn't get covered too often. I trust they'll be happy with the result. As for me, I'm not used to being accosted this way.
Redwood does Mahler very well, but though the quality of the performance was good, this was one of their less enticing interpretations. The dramatic first movement, which should thunder from mighty heights in the manner of Bruckner, was instead ominous and brooding. The problem with that is, when the same mood reappears in the finale, there's nothing left for it to do. It got extremely tedious, and I was reminded again that what Mahler needed was a good editor. I would have just thrown out the entire finale before the point where the chorus enters: that, which normally I could do without, was really good.
This was at the San Mateo PAC, which is the auditorium of the city's main high school. High schools are not famed for having large parking lots (normally they play at a junior college, and those do have huge parking lots), and with a large orchestra and larger chorus all wanting to park there too, it was far more jammed than when I've been there before. I wound up out on the street on the other side of the large campus.
Both a symphony board member and one of the instrumentalists caught me before the concert and thanked me for reviewing it: Redwood doesn't get covered too often. I trust they'll be happy with the result. As for me, I'm not used to being accosted this way.
Friday, February 21, 2025
cats in agony
I'm used to taking lots of medicines. The cats aren't.
Tybalt went in to the vet for a teeth cleaning yesterday. He trotted in as usual in the morning to the bathroom where we keep the cat food, thinking he was going to be fed, but he was mistaken. (No food before a cleaning, because it requires anesthesia.) I'm used to the look of dismay and resignation he gives when I shut the bathroom door and then open up the shower stall in which I'd hidden the cat carrier the night before, but the yowls of agony he gave continuously from then on until I dropped him off were heartrending.
Then he came home with a tooth extracted and three medicines we have to squirt in orally twice a day for two weeks: a painkiller, an antibiotic, and a dental rinse. B. holds him and squeezes his mouth open, and I handle the syringes.
Tybalt has been a loving cat. Often he rests over on B's side of the bed, but whenever I lie down for a nap, if I'm lying on my right side so that I'm facing B's side, Tybalt will get up, saunter over, and snuggle down in my arms for a long petting session.
But I don't think that will happen any more, at least for a while. There weren't even any cats meowing for food when I got up this morning, over an hour after their default feeding time (B. was still asleep), and that's unprecedented. The medicine is upsetting Tybalt too much, and as for Maia, anything out of the ordinary freaks her out and she's gone, hiding somewhere.
It pains us to be upsetting our cats so, but what can we do? Besides give up on the medicine, which we probably will do long before the vet's instruction.
Tybalt went in to the vet for a teeth cleaning yesterday. He trotted in as usual in the morning to the bathroom where we keep the cat food, thinking he was going to be fed, but he was mistaken. (No food before a cleaning, because it requires anesthesia.) I'm used to the look of dismay and resignation he gives when I shut the bathroom door and then open up the shower stall in which I'd hidden the cat carrier the night before, but the yowls of agony he gave continuously from then on until I dropped him off were heartrending.
Then he came home with a tooth extracted and three medicines we have to squirt in orally twice a day for two weeks: a painkiller, an antibiotic, and a dental rinse. B. holds him and squeezes his mouth open, and I handle the syringes.
Tybalt has been a loving cat. Often he rests over on B's side of the bed, but whenever I lie down for a nap, if I'm lying on my right side so that I'm facing B's side, Tybalt will get up, saunter over, and snuggle down in my arms for a long petting session.
But I don't think that will happen any more, at least for a while. There weren't even any cats meowing for food when I got up this morning, over an hour after their default feeding time (B. was still asleep), and that's unprecedented. The medicine is upsetting Tybalt too much, and as for Maia, anything out of the ordinary freaks her out and she's gone, hiding somewhere.
It pains us to be upsetting our cats so, but what can we do? Besides give up on the medicine, which we probably will do long before the vet's instruction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)