Edgy Mama

I just had to do an extra, unexpected load of laundry when I discovered cat barf all over my bathrobe. Houdini has a huge crush on my fluffy, white, chenille robe. He spends about two hours a day kneading and humping it. Because we replaced all the interior doors in our house over a year ago, but never got around to putting hooks on the door, and because we have zero closet space, my bathrobe spends most of its life thrown over the end of my bed. And being humped by a small marmalade cat. So I have no clue why he decided to vomit on his love. Was it accidental? Did he go to the bathrobe for comfort when he started feeling nauseated? Why did my cat throw up all over my bathrobe?

Last night’s late night drama was the election upset. If you’re not in Ashvegas, you probably don’t give a damn about city council elections, so you can skip this paragraph. If you’re here, and you didn’t vote yesterday, you’re irresponsible and I’m officially upset with you. Voter turnout was low and the progressives lost a seat to a Repub with no political experience. For more incisive analysis and real numbers, y’all can visit the AC-T, Scrutiny Hooligans or Ashvegas.

The past several nights have seen a remarkable variety of late night drama (LND) at the pnav: including the fire department, the police, midnight cat visits, and prodigious cat vomit.

Four nights ago, I was reading in my jammies, snuggling with Biscy the Dorkie Poo, when bright lights flashed through my bedroom window. I lifted the blind and saw Fire Truck #7 at my doorstep and three fire fighters moving quickly up the front walk. I called to E-spouse, who was in his office working. We both threw on some clothes and ran downstairs as the fire fighters pounded on the door.

Turned out that a 911 call had come from our house–from, specifically, E’s work phone. The fire fighter told us that cordless phones often erroneously call 911 when they are off the charger and their battery’s dying. I couldn’t get from him why this happens. Is the phone calling for help? Asking to be restored to the charger, please? Or do cordless phones call 911 after a certain amount of time in case their owners have died and are being eaten by their Dorkie Poo?

Anyway, E had made an international call and must’ve dialed 911 instead of O11 by accident. Then, when his call didn’t go through, he tried again, so the 911 dispatcher couldn’t get through to ask if he’d meant to call for assistance.

The fire fighters were understanding and left. Then, 10 minutes later, a policeman showed up. He hadn’t received the “it’s okay” call from the fire department or the dispatcher or whomever calls the other responders off. He’d already circled the house and asked E-spouse for identification and for details as to who was upstairs. I was back in bed and decided not to get up and get re-dressed again. I considered yelling “Help!” but I realized the police might not find that funny.

Anyway, E clearly did not seem suspicious, and when the policeman saw Biscy, he warned E that he’d left the back gate open. Good to know.

The next night some neighbor’s cat got in through the cat door, which is locked so Houdini, the fractured feline, can’t escape. First Rocky freaked out and started doing that deep in his throat howling thing that sounds like a baby crying. That freaked Biscy out, who ran around the house like a mad dog, barking and howling, until he cornered this sweet little black cat. The cat clearly belonged to someone, although it was collarless. When I opened the front door, the cat haughtily slinked out, ignoring the territorial little dog howling at his heels.

Seeing the cat leave the pnav was not enough for the Bisc because he could still smell the damn cat. Bisc then proceeded to sniff around and bark spasmodically for another hour. At 1 a.m. Finally, I wrestled the puppy to sleep by holding him on my stomach in the bed and scruffing him every time he started to bark. After 1/2 an hour of fighting me, he finally settled down and went to sleep. There are, definitely, some advantages to having a small dog. I don’t imagine I could have wrestled a Lab to sleep.

The next night (yes, it continues), Rocky the sumo cat overate and vomited all over the dining room rug. Which my girl didn’t notice when she stepped in the sick, in her slippers, and tracked it all over the house. My boy did notice it when he stepped in it barefoot. Anyway, I spent about an hour cleaning up cat vomit. It’s amazing how much a 20-pound cat can spew.

So tonight I’m looking for quiet. No more late night drama would be great. Have you had any LND lately?

Biscuit coming off anesthesia

Actually, the pup was only pitiful for about 8 hours after his surgery (yep, it was the one guys don’t want to talk about).

I’m supposed to keep him “quiet” for 7-10 days. Right. Once the anesthesia wore off, it was back to frisky Biscy. When I refused to play with him, he commenced to humping his bed enthusiastically. I guess it takes a while for the testosterone to work its way out of his system.

Houdini, the pelvic-fractured feline, is getting a bit better every day. He just started moving around a bit, albeit gingerly, looking rather like a 95-year-old man maneuvering on an uneven surface. He spends most of his time on his bed, either in the crate or in the sun on the screened-in porch. He’s happiest when snuggling. Luckily, the kids help me love on him.

I tell you though, the litter box is about to do me in. It’s a very small litter box, small enough to fit inside the crate with the cat, the cat’s bed and food and water (see below). Therefore, when he uses it, Houdini either paws a good of bit of litter out of the box or just turns the whole box on its side. Yuck.

Remarkably, Biscuit seems to understand that his friend is injured, and when I let Houd drunkenly wander around the living room, Bisc just gives him a hello lick and watches him for a few minutes. He seems perplexed by the fact that the kitty doesn’t want to run, play or swat at him.

I brought Houdini home late today. He seems much better than he was yesterday, in that his breathing is less labored. The vet’s concern has been that he hasn’t eaten on his own, but once at home, I got him to eat some torn-up bits of cheese.

Houdini is happy to be home, but he’s not happy about the crate. He cried quite a bit at first, which upset the kids. Now he’s calmed down. He did manage, even, to drag himself into the tiny litter box, but then he spazzed out and got litter in his food and water bowls and all over the crate. The lady at the cat store told me to go with this certain type of litter because of its absorbency, but I might need some of the recycled newspaper pellets. They’re bigger and less likely to get kicked all over the place by a cat with a fractured pelvis. Plus it’s always fun to let your feline piss on yesterday’s news.

Thus, this week, I become Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy in a big way. Imagine a giant muskrat caring for a small cat. All I need is the full-sized white apron that Nurse Jane wore. Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy is a character from “Uncle Wiggily’s Storybook,” which was one of my favorites as a child. Uncle Wiggily is a rabbit gentleman who dresses quite nattily in a top hat and carries a cane. Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy is his sidekick and a muskrat. The twosome have adventures and teach life lessons to the animal children of the forest.

At one point, I tried reading some of the Uncle Wiggily stories to my kidlings, but they found them rather dull.

Anyway, I’m feeling rather dull in the head so I think it’s time for bed. Anyone have any ideas for my parenting column this week?

Not worse, but not much better. My kitty is still at the animal hospital. My girl and I went to see him this afternoon. He was clearly happy to see us and respond to our rubbing and love, but he’s looking pretty rough. He’s off oxygen but still breathing heavily. He’s not moving around much, and, in fact, had peed all over himself. He hasn’t eaten much. We just have to wait and see how he is tomorrow.

My dear, sweet marmalade kitty was hit by a car today. We think he’s going to be okay. He’s still at North Asheville Animal Hospital, which rocks, particularly in emergency situations. I hope he’ll be coming home tomorrow. The good news is that he only sustained some internal bruising and a fractured pelvis. The bad news is that the fracture will require me to keep him imprisioned in a large dog crate for six to eight weeks while the bones re-knit themselves.

We named the cat Houdini for the obvious reasons. Since he was a bitty kitty he has managed to escape confinement. I have no clue, other than drugs, how I’m going to keep him in a 2 x4 foot cage for so many weeks. I think if I put the cage on the screen porch and remove all the furniture so there’s nothing he can jump on if he escapes, it might work. I’m going to have to be one vigilant cat nurse. And then there’s training the kids.

Here’s how the accident happened, as far as I can reconstruct. We live in a quiet, low-traffic hood. Even so, Houdini is quite wary of cars (unlike the Bisc, who has no fear). But there’s a lot of construction going on around here, and the women who, luckily, saw Houdini get hit, said there were suddenly lots of trucks and cars coming up the street. They think Houdini got spooked by a truck and darted out after it passed, going into our yard, only to be hit by a car behind the truck. We hardly ever have two vehicles moving one after the other in this hood, much less three or four, so I imagine Houd was as surprised as anyone when there was a car behind that truck.

I don’t think the vehicles were moving very fast, which is good. Also, it’s wonderful that he was seen, not just by the sisters standing in their mom’s driveway, but by a neighbor who was driving one of the cars, and by the construction manager working on the house across the street from us. All of them knew the cat and knew he was ours. Also, luckily, E-spouse was home, and while one of the sisters stayed with Houdini, who was hiding under a bush next to our house, the other got E-spouse. Then her sister drove him and Houd to the nearby Animal Hospital. Within 15 minutes of the accident, my kitty had an i/v and a dose of pain killer. Gotta love the high-tech animal hospitals. I swear I talk to the vets there more than I do to my pediatricians.

In other news, my high school reunion was fun, although, as always, there were a number of faces I missed. It seems that there are people who go to reunions and people who don’t. Not that I don’t love seeing many of these folks every five years. I do.

I had not seen one friend, H, in probably 12 years, so she was the highlight of my night. She teaches middle school science in the Denver public schools and rocks kids’ worlds.

My biggest regret of the evening was that I didn’t eat much. I never do at parties, which is surprising, because my mouth is never closed. It’s just occupied with other activities. There was a Mexi food spread, and I do love Mexi. I even took a photo of the vat of fat, therwise known as cheese dip.

I’ll update y’all on the Houd tomorrow. In the mean time, send healing vibes to my sweet kitty.

My beloved laptop, my Solace, as I have named her, has been in the pasty-white hands of computer technicians for two days. Be healed, I begged. And she was. But only after the young techs ridded her of evil spyware, including one program that totally effed with my head by erasing the nearest hyperlink every time I typed the letter “l.” Have you ever tried to send an e-mail without typing the letter “l”? I have. And while the tenses were whacked (future tense is impossible without the lovely “l”), and I had to spend twice as much time as usual writing it, it worked. Only later did I realize I could have made a one minute phone call to convey the relevant information that it took me ten minutes to type without the letter “l.” But who uses the phone these days?

Anyway, the computer tech told me that spyware rode into my baby on one of those pop-up, click-on ads that are always flashing around the internets. Most likely, one of the kids clicked where it said “Click Here” and thus the spyware was transferred. Worm-like, it invaded my Solace’s innards, and thereafter, every time I surfed the internets, it invited its friends to hop in as well. Who knew that spyware has friends? My friend P tells me that porn sites are notorious for spreading spyware, so if I can’t blame the kids, I’ll blame the blogger who led me to the repulsive bestiality site last week. I know she warned me, but it’s like trying not to look at the pavement where someone’s just vomited when bloggers say: this site is really gross, but here it is, underlined and glowing blue, waiting for a small movement from your right forefinger. You don’t want to look, but you can’t not look. Oops, my finger just jerked.

So, now Solace is back, with five different spyware programs loaded on her desktop (one is not enought) and with added RAM, so she’s speedy again, despite the 2,000 or so jpegs clogging her system. I guess jpegs are kind of like cholesterol: they stick in the electric conduits and slow down information transfer. The more you put in, the more clogged the system becomes. So, in an effort to cut fat and red meat from Solace’s diet, I’m purging some photos. I don’t really need to keep multiple photos of every small business owner I’ve photographed over the past six or seven months, I guess. But what if one of them suddenly becomes famous or commits a crime and I have shots from the early days that I can sell for big bucks to The Star? Oh, the dilemna.

In other news, Rocky got a summer cut. Rubbing him now is like rubbing someone with a new crewcut. Just irresistible. He’s much cooler and less crabby. He’s also no longer leaving huge orange furballs all over the house. Which makes me less crabby. And yes, you now can see all his flabby Jabba the Hutt greatness.

Friends? See Houdini’s tail? That’s cat for “hello.” It’s a good sign.

What Rocky thinks of the Bisc. Bisc tried to get sumo cat to play ball with him tonight. The pup raced around the house, holding his tiny tennis ball in his mouth. He caught sight of the Rock as he rounded a corner and stopped. Sweet puppy dropped the ball, which rolled towards the large one. Rocky and Bisc both looked at it for a few seconds. Then the Bisc gave up, but with that optimistic puppy frisk, grabbed the ball, and recommenced racing around in puppy spaz circles while sumo watched disdainfully.

Maybe next time you’ll get the ball, right Rocky? I’ll bet the Bisc will give you another chance.

• My camera lenses are at the camera repair shop. It seems that both have broken parts, one from droppage, the other from god knows what. I guess I need to be gentler with the high-tech equipment I’m lugging around.

• Biscuit is loving life with the Jones family, except for the puppy crate. He’ll eventually calm down after being put in it, but only after 10, 20, sometimes 30 minutes of crying. Everyone told me that he’d get used to it, even like it, after three or four nights. It’s been six.

• Rocky had to go to the vet with us yesterday for the puppy’s first round of shots. Looks like he got his fat self stuck somewhere and ripped a hole in his back trying to get unstuck. He’s also gained two pounds. Sumo cat weighed in at over 22 lbs. I got the “you don’t want to deal with a diabetic cat” lecture while the vet handed me kitty Oxycontin and antibiotics. Then he looked at me, my five-year-old wrapped around one leg, a bleeding obese cat in my arms, a puppy nipping at my ankles, and my eight-year-old going emo because “her baby” had to have a shot. The vet said, “Well, you do have your hands full, so just do what you can with Rocky.”