We at Entropy House would like to express our deepest gratitude to our local veterinarians and their staff at Brentwood Veterinary Center, and to the doctors, staff and students of the NC State University Teaching Hospital in Raleigh, for their superb medical care for our beloved Arry and for their kindness and patience and compassion. Between you all, you gave us nearly a week to say good-bye, a gift well worth Arry's weight in purest gold (which amount in cash would likely be enough to fund several vet hospitals - he was a candidate for the Guinness Book of World Records, size-wise.) We owe equally deep gratitude to two other Good Samaritans. Firstly, to Gail of Cat Faeries, who went beyond the call of duty to rush the best, freshest catnip toys to us just in time to provide Arry's last day and night with a very precious comfort. She also sent a little extra catnip as a special kindness, which, at least so far as we can figure out, they don't normally sell loose. Cat Faeries' catnip is the most potent we've ever found, and even in his most difficult hours, when nothing we could offer him could tempt him to eat or drink (and continuing force-feeding would have been cruel to no good purpose), he would occasionally rouse to nibble at the catnip leaves or to pat his toys. (We have no ties, financial or otherwise, to Cat Faeries, by the way - just deep gratitude.) Secondly, to a dear relative who, all unknowing of the illness that would strike Arry on the day of her return to California from her annual visit here, bought our cats a tabletop water fountain - a true and inspired serendipity. We situated it right next to his sickbed, and he loved it as it sparkled and trickled and murmured comfort and gentle distraction through the long dim hours of his last days. But the best gift of all was this: our local vets were willing to make the house call that gave Arry a passing unmarred by fear of a car ride and a doctor's office. And they provided the narcotic pain killers that kept him high as a kite to spend his last hour and a half purring madly in Penwiper's lap, his big soft kitten ears relaxed and happy, and no doubt he dreamt, like Bombur, of the laden tables of Elven - or Heavenly - feasts. I suspect that he is now eagerly eating St. Peter out of house, home and the Pearly Gates. Save some for the rest of us, Arry-love.