avoideth him!

i was sitting at the computer sunday morning, checking my email and catching up on my rss feeds when i started to read the story about Travis' new kitten, Maggie. the poor little thing is only 11 weeks old and already she's had to deal with a lot. which includes an infection which has caused one of her eyes to not develop properly, which turns out to be an incurable case of cat herpes. she's an adorable little pure-bred Abyssinnian, bus she was deemed unsuitable for show and given away to the lovely Smith family.

unfortunately, they weren't informed of two things before they brought Maggie home. first, was the cat herpes. second, was the case of ringworm she had and consequently shared with everyone in their house.

upon reading that, and Travis' description of what ringworm looks like, i got up from my chair, picked up my camera, took a photo and emailed it to him with this message:

an hour or so later, my phone rang. when i answered, it was Travis. a very apologetic Travis, too.

two weeks ago, i was over playing Magic with Travis and a few other friends. i was so happy to get to play with a kitten again, i was crazy for the little orange ball of fluff. i picked her up and nuzzled her a lot. she climbed all over me and i loved every second of her tiny, needle-sharp claws digging into my shoulder as she perched there.

sometime around the middle of last week, a small patch of skin on my neck started to get red and flaky. i thought maybe it was a pimple gone bad. then another spot started appearing beside it. i thought maybe i'd eaten something which didn't like me. Sunday morning, there was another one. that's when i read about the ringworm.

now, Travis is an extremely nice man. i like him a lot, and have done so since we first met. he's funny and smart and generous. i just didn't think he'd one day share with me his fungal infection.

during his phone call, he apologized. a lot. but, eventually we got to the point of laughter and talked about how in medieval times people didn't have anti-fungal creams to treat things such as this. instead they slathered themselves with mustard poultices which didn't really do anything except stink to high heaven. i hypothesized it was like a warning system:

Lady: oh, that Travis, he doth smell most offensively of mustard.
Knight: verily, that is a vile odor. he must have a pox.
Lady: aye. thou must avoideth him completely!

so, yeah. me'n'Travis (and Susie and Aimee and Maggie) are now fungus buddies. i've never felt so close to anyone before. thanks, Travis!