It's a great day for a rabies shot.

Last night there was chaos on the homefront. Picture it. Morocco. 2006...

Denise was washing clothes in our new machine. The tub we use to drain the machine was full of water right in the way of the front door when Hassan arrived home with his bicycle. I was trying to help Denise quickly move the tub of water so he could enter. Poops-the-crazy-Siamese-cat came over to help us. Little did we know that ouside that door, waiting with Hassan, was the sweet fuzzy kitty that has taken our front garden as residence. Poops knew. Oh yes he did. And he wanted to kill that cat. And with no sudden movements on our part, Poops decided he could no longer live in this world, with that other cat on the outside of that door, without attacking SOMETHING. So, he jumped on Denise's bare left leg. He landed on her ankle/foot. She kicked a few times, but the cat was still attached, attacking madly. Denise reached down and pulled cat off foot, screamed wildly at him, and flung him away from her... away from the only exit door... toward ME! Poops bounced off of my right knee and landed about 2 feet away. He sat still for a moment, shook it off, and then lept across the distance onto my right calf. I was wearing long pants, though not thick ones. He got his teeth through and into my flesh, no problem, but I didn't get as many scratches.

When the screaming and throwing of shoes at the cat ceased, Hassan came in to see what the sam hell was going on behind that door. When Poops finally emerged from under Denise's bed, I asked Hassan politely to throw the cat off the balcony, which he did.

We're only the 2nd story.

So, here's the damage from last night. First, the bites on my calf. I have a couple of scratches, but it's all spread out because the stupid cat was wrapped around my leg.

And now Denise. This is only one side of her afflicted foot. The other side is worse, but I can't get the picture to post. Some bites. Lots of scratches. Thank goodness I bought hydrogen peroxide a few days ago.

I think both of us are a little worse off than even the pictures show.

So, today we were urged by everyone we know to go to the pharmacy and see what we could get. Maybe talk to a doctor even. We went, and they said we needed to see a doctor for a vaccination. Through the language barrier, we kept understanding that we needed a tetanus shot. Well, our boss took us to the clinic. And it turns out we needed RABIES vaccinations. There are a lot of street animals here and rabies is a problem. So even though Poops WAS an indoor cat, they err on the side of caution. Today we got two injections. Some immunoglobulin or some such, and the first of three rabies shots over the next month. At least they don't give rabies shots with big needles directly into your abdomen anymore.