First, a story I've been meaning to relate for a few days.

On Saturday, Liz and I attended a fund-raiser for the Washington Square Park Dog Run at a Greenwich Village bar. There were several bands playing, hoops on TV, and drinks aplenty. So we settled in for a few hours of drinking and more drinking. The first band was a quasi-Irish group, appropriate for the bar's Irish theme. The next band took some time to set up, and their stage setup included a piece of cloth across the front of the stage, extending from waist height to the ground. The band came out and started with a blues tune, and I noticed that the guitarist sounded quite good. I still hadn't really looked at the band. After the first song, they announced that there was a special guest appearing for one night only, from the Catskills and the "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" show, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Yes, the four-legged comedian was indeed performing for us live. At this point, as Triumph started his act, I noticed that the guitarist was Jimmy Vivino from the Max Weinberg 7, and the drummer was Jimmy Wormworth, the substitute drummer when Max Weinberg is off with the E Street Band. The other members of the band were probably also from the MW 7, but I didn't recognize them. Anyway, Triumph told some extremely raunchy jokes, made fun of dogs, the dog run, news figures, and sang several ribald songs from "Late Night," including "Underage Bichon." At one point, he sodomized Ernie from "Sesame Street." All this to the delight of the audience, including two young children in the front row, who were apparently the drummer's kids. At the end of the show, the band thanked Triumph, and then Robert Smigel, the puppeteer behind Triumph and the genius behind the "Clutch Cargo" segments on "Late Night" and the cartoons on "Saturday Night Live." It was one heck of a show, and absolutely worth the price of a donation and a few drinks.

In other news, Magenta, one of our cats, has been at the vet's for a few days suffering from what has turned out to be a bout of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). He had a senior cat checkup on Saturday morning, when the vet took some blood for tests. After that, he was OK until we gave him some new wet food. From then on, he was vomiting and listless. We took him back to the vet on Tuesday after they said they wanted to monitor his blood glucose for diabetes. At first, we and the vet suspected he was diabetic, since he's ten years old and overweight, but luckily for all he's just fat. He's feeling better now, and the vet says we can pick him up tomorrow night. Just in time for us to leave town for the weekend. Liz and I were really worried for a few days, but now we're feeling better that he won't need insulin shots. He's an extremely friendly cat at home, but at the vet he becomes nasty and growls and bites. I'm sure he's giving them a hard time. I can't imagine having to inject him every day; I'd end up with more insulin than him.