I took our older cat, Sutu (it means tiger in Vietnamese), to the vet yesterday. Twenty miles down Highway 61 to Summerville. It's okay. I like my vet. And the leaves are turning and falling and parts of 61 are still green tunnels with sunlight beaming through the gaps like lasers.

It would be a pleasant ride if not for the constant stream of big rig dump trucks and flatbeds carrying loads of freshly slaughtered trees away. Making way for the vanilla slums to be built over land that until now was disturbed only the ghosts of long ago Indians and a few modern day deer hunters.

In other words, I try to enjoy my drives through there. Every time might well be the last time.

And it is enjoyable (unless I get behind an out-of-state license plate, a car full 'o tourists heading up to Middleton or Magnolia Gardens). It's a scary road sometimes. The massive oaks sit literally inches off the asphalt and although the posted speed limit on its winding two lanes is 55, most familiar with it drive much faster.

But taking the cat is torture of another sort. Twenty miles of a pained, fade away, woe is me meow.

Good news though. Kidney fuction tests were normal. In the high end of normal, but normal. Bad news, he has lost a bit more weight. One more month on the special diet food and if no improvement or change, we'll retest the thyroid functions, which were normal last time.

Strange thing, the vet tech, Petra, who is awesome, showed me my chart there. I am client number 12. My old cat, Miss Kitty, was their first feline patient. Kind of cool.