Our new kitten Ruby is a bit of a wild one. She's kind of a biter, and certainly hyper. I'd like to not de-claw her (I regretted de-clawing Iris and Opal), but she puts those claws out a lot. Anyway, it was kind of a freak accident, but she scratched Alex's eye pretty good last Tuesday. Alex was sitting on the couch when she jumped up on it, then he moved and startled her so she jumped and bolted, and her back leg caught him right in the eye. He was complaining about how much it hurt the rest of the day, but we both just kind of told him to suck it up. Then the next morning it was so red and painful Beth kept him home from school and took him to the doctor, who reported he had a scratched cornea. Yep, we felt pretty small about that. So he had a big patch to wear, and stayed home from school and out of the bright light the rest of the week. Saturday was the Veterans Half Marathon in Columbia City, my second time running it, and I came in better than last year, at 2:04:40. Beth and the kids came to watch me finish and get my medal, featuring the Navy this year (I think, maybe it was Coast Guard). Then I just had time to run home to shower before we hit the road for Chicago, second time in just a few weeks, since Laura was going to be there. She had a convention or something, presenting a poster and all. We headed out and picked her up downtown when she was done (we had to wait for a while, so we headed down Michigan Avenue a bit and got lunch at M Burger), then left her the van so she could go pick up her friend Jen while we went up the Willis Tower. Or so we thought: there was a long (like 3 hours) wait to get up to the top, so we cancelled that plan and had Laura come back and pick us back up again after she'd picked up Jen. Then we headed for the suburbs to visit with her friend Monica. Monica has become guardian of a special needs elementary school aged boy, who is a real sweetheart. I'm not sure what his story is exactly, but anyway he stays with Monica most of the time. He got along with Alex and Missy pretty well too. We visited with them through dinner, then took our leave and drove back home. Laura is staying with Monica for a couple days.And today, we went to the farm to pick up chickens!