Thanks, all y’all, for your well-wishes for Miz Poo. I picked her up yesterday morning after I dropped the kittens off at the other vet to be spayed and neutered. She was doped up to the gills, but seemed glad to see me. The vet said that it would probably be best to keep her crated until her drain comes out next Monday, but there’s just no way I could see trying to keep a portly Poo in a little crate. I set up a litter box and some blankets and a bowl of food and water in the upstairs bathroom and put her in there. She hated it.
She was wearing a cone collar when I picked her up because like I mentioned, she has a drain in place and without something to stop her, she’ll try to pull it out, and to lick at her stitches. I went up and sat with her for an hour at a time several times yesterday, and each time she would slowly climb into my lap and sit there while I petted her. Eventually she’d purr.
My poor Poo.
When Fred got home, he called the vet’s office to see if there was a particular reason they’d put a cone collar on her instead of a collar like the one they’d put on Sugarbutt back when he was having issues with his foot and had to be restrained from licking. They told him they’d tried one on her, but she was still able to reach her back end. He hung up and told me we should give it a try anyway.
We put the collar on her and she didn’t like it, but in my opinion it was better than the cone collar – at least with the no-cone collar, there’s nothing right there in her face. Fred sat with her on the couch for a while, and then I sat with her on my lap while we were watching TV. She couldn’t get in a comfortable position with the no-cone collar on, though, so we switched her back to the cone, and she mostly snoozed the entire time we watched TV. By the end of the evening she was moving around better than she had been, so that’s a good thing, right? I put her in the guest bedroom, and she flopped down in a cat bed and went to sleep, and didn’t make a noise all night long.
She’s on pain medication for the next few days, so I’m hoping that that will keep her doped up enough that all she’ll want to do is sleep, at least until some good healing gets underway.
Every night at bedtime, after Fred and I spent time with the kittens, we go into my bedroom and lay in there in the dark, talking and petting Kara and whichever cat comes along.
(Usually Mister Boogers tromps across the bed and then digs frantically at the covers until Fred holds them up. Then Mister Boogers climbs under the covers, curls up next to Fred’s legs, and then if Fred dares to move even the slightest bit, Mister Boogers bitches at him for having THE UTTER NERVE.)
After half an hour or so of cuddling, talking, and hanging out, Fred kisses me goodnight and goes to his room.
Now, very important point here: Fred’s door doesn’t close right, so to prevent the cats from getting into his room during the day, there’s a hook on the outside of the door. To prevent the cats from getting inside his room at night (he’s a light sleeper and often unable to get back to sleep once he’s been woken up) there’s a hook on the inside of the door.
So Saturday night, Fred toddled off to bed. I wasn’t tired, though, so I decided to stay up and read. Half an hour later, I was deep into my book when I heard Fred cry out frantically from his room. I can’t swear one hundred percent to it, but it sounded very much like he said “Help!”, and like I said, he sounded frantic.
I jumped out of bed immediately and went to the door to his room. I was mostly hoping that he was just dreaming, but as you can imagine I was pretty freaked out.
“Hey,” I said in a low voice, knocking lightly on his door. “Hey.” Usually this is more than enough to wake him up. He didn’t respond. I knocked slightly harder and when there was no response, I grabbed the door handle and pulled on it.
At this point, I was completely certain that, in the midst of a fatal heart attack he’d summoned the strength to cry out “Help!” and then died. After pulling on the door handle as hard as I could, I resumed knocking on the door, only this time instead of knocking I was pounding and instead of quietly saying “Hey,” I was bellowing “HEY!” I don’t know how long this went on, maybe ten seconds and I was just on the verge of going downstairs to find something to break the door down with, when I finally heard a disoriented “Huh?” from Fred.
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” I bellowed. “ARE YOU OKAY?”
Sounding slightly annoyed, Fred said “What?”
“OPEN THE DOOR!” I yelled.
Finally, he stumbled to the door, opened it, and blinked at me. I felt his forehead (I don’t know, it seemed like the thing to do) and made sure he wasn’t in the midst of a heart attack, told him briefly what happened, and let him go back to bed.
I listened at his door a few times, making sure I could hear him breathing, before I went to sleep.
That night, I had an anxiety dream. My anxiety dreams have taken a turn these past few years. It used to be that in my anxiety dreams, I’d dream that Fred had died. I didn’t have them often, maybe a few times a year, but I always woke up crying. Since we bought this house, my anxiety dreams have taken the form wherein we decided on the spur of the moment to sell this house and – when the dreams take place – we’re living in a soulless McMansion on a postage-stamp piece of land. We are always completely miserable, can’t understand what got into our heads, and are scheming to sell the McMansion and buy this house back.
I’d like to stop with the anxiety dreams, thank you.
The next morning I gave Fred hell (“Sleep WELL, did you?”) and made him reposition the hook on his door so that NEXT TIME he calls out in his sleep, I can open the damn door and get to him instead of just standing there like an idiot, pounding on the door, and bellowing to wake him up.
With the weather turning so much cooler lately (it’s supposed to go down below freezing tonight), the wasps have started looking for a warm place to hang out. They think my house would do quite nicely.
Yesterday, 17 wasps came into the house. They mostly come into the dining room and computer room – I think they’re coming down the chimney – and I’ve gotten to the point where instead of getting out the Dyson hand held vacuum, it’s become easier for me to just grab a piece of paper towel (I have a folded square of paper towel on a corner of my desk for just this purpose), snatch the wasp up, open the door, and toss the wasp out. The wasps usually take flight and fly directly away from the house, though I’ve wondered if the same three wasps are coming into the house over and over again.
I should paint tiny numbers on their legs so I can track them.
So when I grabbed wasp number 17 yesterday, I assumed all would go as usual, I’d open the door, toss the wasp, and it’d fly off as fast as its wings could carry it.
Not so much. Instead, wasp number 17 flew away from me for a very short distance, got confused, flew back at me and tried to land ON MY FACE.
I think the dance I immediately performed would be best described as a jig. I flailed around, arms flying everywhere, screaming some wordless sound of horror.
Luckily no one else was around.
The wasp rethought its flight plan and eventually turned around and headed back out toward freedom, and apparently sent out word to his wasp brethren that our house is not so much the place to be.
I don’t expect that’s the last wasp I’ll see in the house, but it certainly would be nice to NOT have another 17-wasp day, please.
The kittens could not have been any easier to put in the carriers for their trip to the vet yesterday. In fact, I walked in to find that Delmar was already sitting in one of the carriers. He came running over to me when I walked in, and I picked him up and put him back in the carrier and closed the top (our carriers are the kind that open at one end and on top), grabbed Lem and put him in the carrier, then put the two girls in the other carrier. They all looked confused and worried, and they were obviously scared during the car trip, but they behaved themselves very well when they were being weighed. Quite the difference from their first trip to the vet!
I picked them up last night, and they were dopey and groggy and I thought for sure they’d never forgive me, but an hour after I got them home I went upstairs and Delmar and Lem were all over me, rubbing against me, purring, telling me how awesome I am. Marion and Claudette stayed on the cat tree and let me know that they didn’t think I was awesome at ALL. That’s okay; they’ll forgive me soon enough. And if not, I can always buy their love with a plate of chicken baby food!
I completely forgot that this kitty condo – located in a corner of the guest bedroom – was there until I happened to glance over one day and saw Newt all settled in.
Previously
2007: I have no idea on earth how we’d ever tell if a chicken was insane, since they seem to lean toward The Crazy even when they’re (we assume) perfectly normal.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: In case you were wondering, we are officially Crazy Cat People.
2003: I always look like a fucking lunatic when I take my own picture.
2002: (Is it just me who always thinks of Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally saying “I would be pleased to partake of your pecan piiiiiiiiiiiiie” when I hear, say, or read the word “partake”?)
2001: (For the record, her verdict was that the real-life prostitutes were “creepy”.)
2000: No entry.
1999: And going blind would just suck.