...who is still anxiously awaiting the opportunity to come home to Houston
soon.  She asked me to forward this note to rpca and ask for some purrs for
poor Ezra.

Hi Lori.

We're still up here in the desert, but Michael's been getting a lot of hits
on jobs in the Houston area.  Shouldn't be long now.  Can't wait to see you
and Ben again, and get back into chatting with all of my dear friends in
RPCA.

I'm including a very funny (but also a bit sad) email I received from my
sister Karen this morning.

POOR EZRA!!

Maybe you can show it to our friends in the group for a couple of hugs for
Ezra's full and speedy recovery?

Thanks darlin'.

Love,

-bonbon

From My Sister, Karen:

Hi Bonnie,

Did I tell you Ezra had a sex change operation earlier this month? I thought
he was gonna be a chick with a dick, but as it turns out he's a shim with a
quim. Oh well, he wasn't using his wiener anyway, and they're so dang dinky
I don't think he's really gonna miss it. Hell, he may not even notice it's
gone.
Yep, the ol' crystals in the urine thing, back to haunt us again... 2nd time
back in December, then again at the beginning of March; so it was off with
the ol' pecker - nip, tuck, and voila' - he's a she!!! Oh, yeah, there was
also the pesky inconvenience of the $1,412.22 price tag, a week-long stay at
the vet clinic (about a 90-mile round-trip), and the aftermath of having to
bring him to work with me every night to make sure he's not scooting his a.s 
on the carpet in a do-it-yourself stitch-removal attempt (I caught him doing
that, to my horror, on two separate occasions).

I guess I should also mention Ezra's long-term emotional scarring caused by
the embarrassment of having to wear a plastic cone over his head for two
weeks. As if that accessory wasn't bad enough by itself, I was forced to
push his woes to the next level by adding a highly attractive embellishment
to the entire edge of his cone  (a custom-channeled strip of foam rubber
held in place with hanks of duct tape) in order to keep its sharp edge from
abrading his soft pink freshly-shorn underparts during his repeated sessions
of wishful grooming. So instead of merely being a cone-head he was
transformed into a four-legged satellite dish.

Both of his front forearms were shaved all around for insertion of IVs, so
with all his extra toes it looks like he's wearing oven mitts, which is
actually quite a fetching look this time of year.

He's also got a shaved patch on the back of his neck and one in the middle
of his right side where two different pain patches were adhered (leaving
behind their tacky residue, which has now aged nearly to perfection and has
become slightly stiff. Then there's the Hairless Zone, which leaves him
looking like he's wearing ass-less chaps in some sick "kitty porn" flick.

Poor little guy. Despite everything he's remained amazingly upbeat, and has
behaved in a completely stellar manner at work. He camps out beside me on my
desk on top of my fleece couch potato outfit and sleeps for hours on end or
just watches me quietly. He has to be in the crate when we're driving
though.

So when you see him next you'll have to check out how he's become more in
touch with his feminine side!