Thursday, September 28, 2006

New Country Ills

While Chennai has been good mentally (we have our kittens and this weekend's girls' shopping trip was informative and moderately fruitful), physically it's truly taking a toll.

Over our latest weekend Jonathon showed symptoms of Dengue. Dengue is a mosquito borne disease (what isn't mosquito born around here, beside rabies?) that results in a high fevers, tummy discomfort, vomiting, and eventually swollen joints with a red rash. After lab tests and a check by Dr. John at the Consulate we received confirmation that he has Dengue accompanied by a throat infection. He spent Friday-Monday miserable, Tuesday and Wednesday recuperating and is finally back in school. Which ever mosquito got him did it several weeks ago but the signs take a while to show. His platelet count is a little low, so taking it easy is a priority even at school. No wonder the poor kid has been out of sorts. He's been carrying Dengue while getting immunizations and dealing with stress of the move. I don't blame him at all for falling asleep in school.
The kittens are cute and frisky as most kittens are and it only took a day to get them past the hissing and swiping stage. Some of that was to us, most of it was towards each other. While Rebecca and I were out buying wooden elephants and silk bed linens, the rest of the family went to another consulate house where a loose kitten was spotted. Into a box it went, but I was clear that we needed two cats, not one, not three. Trouble was there weren't any other kittens to be found. That didn't dissuade the various gardeners on the lot from running around and bagging another random kitten, this one smaller and totally unrelated. Which explains why they spent the first days miserable. We've kept them locked in our enclosed patio and since then they have not only made peace but become friends (cats can become friends?).
Samosa is a long-legged, long-tailed, short-haired tabby calico mix of cat genes. We figure it's about 8 weeks old. Dhosa is a long-haired, pure white kitten with blue eyes, around 6 weeks old. She talks a lot, mewing to hear herself mew I think. Since they are older than Bopis and Pomelo were when we got them, we skipped the kitty milkshake via feeding syringe stage. And they are perfectly box trained. Yup, cats rule.
Our unaccompanied air baggage (UAB) arrived this week, three big boxes filled with items to make the house a bit more like home. Pictures, some kitchen items, Legos, bedding, all the rest of our summer clothes, and of course the necessities like the Xbox 360 and iMac. If it's not obvious to everyone yet, we also have internet access at home. A feat unique to this post it would seem. Even in Togo (ah, here it starts...) getting internet set up wasn't this much hassle. Now that we have it though, we've put in an Amazon order for odds and ends and next on the list will be the Consumables order. If we want a chance of getting it by Christmas it needs to be done now. We even have satellite TV (where's our AFN with our "Military Heritage" commercials?? wah!). Remember when I said once we had our stuff we wouldn't want to leave? I can feel the roots growing already.
The TV channel Discover: Travel and Living does seem to mock us though. This must be New Zealand month as every show we've caught has had to do with discovering Auckland, the wine growers of the South Island, the Maori Hanggi or something else from Kiwi country. We're still trying to figure out if we get one R&R or two, because if we do get two New Zealand is high on our list.
This coming weekend we have no plans. The vet is coming by on Friday to do an initial check-up and deworming on the cats, Saturday we'll probably head back to Spencers Plaza to pick up a scratching post and collars for the cats and a new backpack for Jonathon. His never reappeared though the lunch box and notebook from inside the bag did. It's going to be a quiet long weekend at home (Monday is a holiday for Mahatma Gandhi's birthday), playing tennis and swimming, battling on the Xbox and letting the kitties roam the main floor.

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