Moving on

Well, shoot. So it’s a beautiful day in Houston, and a nice chill is in the air. Cases have slowed down for the morning – I think I have time to run over to Diedrich Coffee! This makes me happy.

I really love this part of Houston. If you want great food, it’s everywhere. Art-house cinema: Landmark River Oaks and the Angelica. Breakfast: Empire Cafe and the Daily Grind. Under the radar live music: Proletariat and Walters. CD’s: Sound Exchange. Books: Bookstop. I could go on and on and on…

So it’s a sad day because it looks like one of my favorite coffee locations is shutting down. Now, Diedrich Coffee is a chain with locations outside of Houston – I’ve been to one in Denver – so by my demented logic, it should be avoided. But the one on Westheimer never felt like one. To me it always felt like a neighborhood coffee shop – the kind that is so hard to come by these days. Walking thru their doors brings a smile to my face and can make the worst day seem just fine. Now maybe it’s the way that they carried me thru when my Gaggia was in the shop for a month a few years ago, or how I studied for my national boards and many other vet school exams there, but I just love that building. I even had this crazy idea that if I were to acquire this clinic, I’d relocate it to the other side of their complex to take advantage of a more flexible floor plan and to be able to walk over for great coffee whenever needed. Heck, we could even have a running tab at Diedrich, and send clients there for a complimentary drink while they wait on us to finish up.

Well, it isn't happening.

So maybe a miracle will happen – I know that I am not the only one with an attachment to that business – but my best advice would be to get there sometime soon to attain closure. And if you’ve never been, you better hurry up – that place is a gem.

A little history for you...

I never tire of relating the legacy of our clinic on West Alabama - its one of a pioneering spirit. That's how I see it, considering that when it opened in 1973, it was the first cat only veterinary facility in Texas, and the second to open in the United States. It was founded by Dr. Billy Pennings, and there's a good story behind it. There is a nice article on the clinic to the right of our front desk - hopefully one day we'll get around to putting it on our web-page.

One could use a lot of different words to describe Dr. Pennings, but brave is the one that sticks out in my mind the most...

Why "brave" you ask? Well, this last weekend I bravely attended my 10 year high school reunion, and a large part of the event involved wide eyed response from my classmates when I told them that I only worked on cats. Only one person really got it (thanks Velissa!) - the rest acted like I told them that I just came back from another planet. I also got much of the same reaction from many of my vet school classmates prior to my graduation. Now, if you are reading this, then most likely you are a client, prospective client looking for a cat only facility, or a close friend, and to you a cat only facility seems like a pretty nice deal. BUT, as my class reunion reminded me, there are still plenty of people who hold you suspect for seeing cats in such light.

When Dr. Pennings opened the Cat Veterinary Clinic, there were far fewer like-minded individuals, and to me, it had to take a lot of courage to follow thru with her vision. But follow thru she did, and her actions played a part in the advancement of feline medicine. At this time, there are at least 6 cat only vet clinics in Houston alone. How things have changed!

Things to remember...

One of my favorite memories at the clinic:

A client has brought her daughter along for her cat's annual exam. The cat is really well behaved, and the daughter is both polite and inquisitive, so after auscultating the chest, I offer my stethoscope to her so she can hear what the heart sounds like. Her eyes light up in excitement, and I remember one of the reasons why I love veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, I have passed the earpieces to her in a way that she ends up putting on the instrument backward. This makes it much harder to hear a heartbeat, and her facial expression tells me that she cannot hear much. To remedy this, I ask that she "turn it around", and instead of flipping the stethoscope so the earpieces face down her ear canal, she physically turns her body 360 degrees, trying her best to keep the instrument on while she struggles to hear her cats heart.