CoCo Calico

Well, the feline hits just keep on comin’. Our female calico kitty, Taz, who is two years younger than Otis’ 18 years, had also stopped eating with her usual gusto, and was losing weight at an alarming rate. We took her in to her vet here in Oakley, and they ran a battery of tests. You probably know where this is heading ….

Yep, they discovered a growth between her small and large intestines. Her veterinary records were transferred to Otis’ kitty oncologist in Walnut Creek, and after an examination and consultation, it was determined that the best course of action for Taz was surgery to remove the growth, which we scheduled for last Tuesday. The surgery seemed to be a success, but her vet didn’t like her red cell counts, so a blood transfusion was called for. So far, so good. She was released on Wednesday, but at home, she displayed no interest in food; I brought her back in on Thursday, when more testing revealed some fluid in her belly. Those lab results yielded nothing drastic, and as of this posting, poor little Tazo is very slowly (too slowly for Kath and me) showing some signs of returning to her old behavior and habits. She’s still not eating very much, she’s skin and bones, but when she jumps up on the bed in the middle of the night to nestle between me and the pillow, it gives us a little hope.

BTW, in other kitty news, Otis’ new cancer regimen seems to be off to a great start. Her oncologist is thrilled with the reduced cell count brought on by the treatment begun a few weeks ago.

No wonder that a feline February like this one is enough to drive Kathy and me to drink wine. Last weekend we attended the “Best of Contra Costa” tasting in neighboring downtown Brentwood; we posted last time about this fun event, wherein five CoCo wineries poured some of their assorted award-winners.

One of the participants was Hannah Nicole Vineyards, a Brentwood operation that is a true pioneer in CoCo wine tourism, with its 4,000-square-foot tasting room, barrel room and event facility smack dab in the middle of acres of estate vines planted to Rhone and Bordeaux varieties. After this week’s Taz travails, Kathy and I thought we should treat ourselves to a visit to work our way down the Reserve tasting card, one feature of which was the Hannah Nicole 2007 Petit Verdot Reserve fashioned from estate fruit.

Reps were pouring this wine at last weekend’s event downtown, and it was nice to revisit this varietal fave a week later in Hannah Nicole’s richly appointed winery tasting room, unique for CoCo County. Their ’07 PV was big and tannic, with smoky notes and traces of bacon. After finishing our tasting with this delicious selection, we purchased a couple of selections by the glass, settled into the big, comfy leather chairs and, ignoring the rainy gray skies outside the oversize picture windows, turned our thoughts from vet bills to Viognier.