TGJB:

The compliment about the writing means quite a bit to me, and prose in my
case may certainly be a substitute for Prozac. As always, I appreciate your
good natured and usually laissez faire hosting of this educational and
entertaining forum.

As for my wife, I think she knew what she was in for early on. I was
watching a TV race in the living room and as the horses approached the eighth
pole, I grabbed my cat, put him on the table in front of me, and began to scrub
his withers with my hands; as the field approached the wire, I grabbed a pencil
and started smacking the cat on his hindquarters.

My wife was laughing hysterically. The cat had been through it all before.
And for those of you thinking of calling the ASPCA, my cat died a couple of
years ago at the age of 20. We replaced him with a young cat, but I haven't
been able to get him to the races yet.