Vacation 2.0

The last time I posted, I reveled in our upcoming mini breaks for the week. I should have knocked on wood. That's because on Friday, two days before we were supposed to leave for Suncadia, our cat Zeek came in from a brief jaunt outside limping badly.

A note on Zeek for those who have not met him. KLC found him as a kitten curled up on her scooter while she was living in Taiwan about 10 years ago. She fell in love with him, nursed him back to health, and flew him back to the US after her year there. He even has a passport. Zeek, in short, is a survivor -- and basically like one of the kids.

We took him to the vet that Friday afternoon and they told us he managed to completely tear what is the equivalent of ACLs in humans. He would need (ridiculously expensive) surgery ASAP -- meaning Monday. So, this meant our trip to Suncadia was out.

Zeek had successful surgery on Monday and returned home on Tuesday after a tormented night at the vet's. (Every time we talked to the vet's office while he was there after the surgery, the staff would describe him as being fine but "crabby" or "grouchy." Clearly, he was not happy about the accommodations.) Once home, he quickly tore off his bandage that held his morphine patch that should have stayed on for 5 days, whined about being in his crate (did I mention we're not supposed to let him jump for 8 weeks?), and otherwise did everything he wasn't supposed to do post-op. And, Zeek, being Zeek, is totally fine.

The good news is that we were able to find someone to take Zeek in so that we were still able to get to the Oregon Coast. We drove down to Portland on Wednesday, picked up KLC's mom, and headed to the beach house on Thursday. KLC has some great pictures of that salvaged trip on her blog, so I won't duplicate the effort of describing the trip too much here. I will say, however, that it was a great break and I only wish we were there for a full week.

And Suncadia? They let us rebook so we'll be heading there for that night a bit later this month. Vacation 2.0 turned out to be just as good as the original we planned -- just slightly modified with a little bit of stress thrown in.