Lack of Progress Indicator

Zen Templates is still under active development, I just haven't been able to work on it much lately due to life interruptions - primarily, two weeks ago, we went out of town for my birthday, and when we got back, our ferret had become spontaneously 90% paralyzed in the hind half of his body. This was all at once terrifying, saddening, frustrating, and heartbreaking. This put a great many things on hold, and catching up with those things took priority over working on side projects. But, the ferret is back in fighting form now, and work will resume soon.

If you aren't familiar with ferrets, they are energetic, playful, crazy, impulsive, fearless creatures. Even as a kit, our little guy would take flying leaps at me, arms akimbo, ready to take me on. I'm six and a half feet tall and near two hundred pounds. He was about eight inches long, and about two pounds. He either didn't know or didn't care, because he was ready to party.

Seeing this little ball of fur and excitement - or, as my friend calls them, meat slinky - be crippled, but remain his energetic, fearless/clueless self, was absolutely heartbreaking. He still wanted to play, so he would race around as best he could with his front legs - dragging his back legs behind him like dead weight. He would try to climb the bars of his cage, arms-only with a facility that would make a capoerista stare slack-jawed, but he couldn't keep it up for long without his back legs. It was just too much effort.

The worst, the most heartbreaking sight of all, though, was the weasel war dance. If you've never seen or heard of the weasel war dance, look it up on YouTube. There are tons of videos. Really, go, I'll wait.

Charming, isn't it? Now, imagine you've seen this creature do this dance a hundred times, full of grit and energy and fearlessness. Now, imagine watching this same creature, attempting to do this same dance, only for reasons unknown to him, half of his body won't cooperate. He desperately tries to hop and scurry and fling himself around, but it just doesn't work. Instead, he hobbles, crawls, and falters, and in short order, is too exhausted to try, collapsing on himself, panting.

Needless to say, it was awful; for him, and for us. But, thankfully, with the help of the excellent people at the Ark Animal Hospital, modern medicine in the form of Prednisone, and some old fashioned TLC, he's back in fighting form.

As soon as I get caught up, I will be too.