silly squooshable

I am posting by cell again cos son-friend just woke me up to tell me
that he caught one of the kittens. Yay. Now g'night.

Silly cat.

Tonight I caught Mr Cat again; when I went up to the trap, he said, "I
steal your food! Ha, ha! Now let me go.  Game is over, baby."  He is
SO much like Squooshable!  Ok; now I *have* to get some sleep...

Cat 100, Ancodia 0

Well, I am supposed to meet Chrissy sometime this evening.  So I am waiting to hear when she is coming to a halfway point between where she is now, and where I am.  

Today as I was leaving Eviljob (having set no trap because I don’t have one), guess who met me at my car?  Mehitabel.  No, I am not kidding; of *course* the one day I do not have a trap would be the day I see her.  I had not seen her in several days, but she looks fine.  Since I haven’t fed her in forever and she was clearly asking for food, I gave her some food and water.  I swear, the moment I catch Mehitabel and get her spayed, I am retiring from cat-catching.  My tiny brain is no match for their superior intellect.

Hankie ‘Codias

My mouth has *such* a history of getting me into trouble; it is why I try to stay silent.  And one of these days my hankie code jokes are going to end up with my being pummelled or arrested, or something.

I did not get to do a damn bit of shopping today; I was held up at Eviljob and finally had to leave when Mom kept pestering me to meet her.  We bought her laptop in record time (for Mummers, that is:  over two hours plus lunch), and by then I simply *had* to drive back home and take a nap, because I only slept for about an hour last night (I just could not fall asleep), and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.  

So I came home—how I made it I do not know; I was *literally* falling asleep at the wheel—and fell asleep on my couch without even taking my shoes off.  I set the alarm on my phone to have enough time to spruce up before meeting The Horde, but I lapsed into a total coma (the kind where you wake up and you are freezing cold almost regardless of the temperature ‘cos your body temp dropped, or something) and slept through about forty-five minutes extra.  

So I had no time to shower or dress or anything; somehow something made it through to my brain and I awoke, jumped up, fed the cats, and bolted.

And then came right back home ten minutes later ‘cos I had forgotten presents.  Idiot.

I did not exchange presents with Son-Friend over the weekend ‘cos I was angry at him and really not up to seeing him.  But even though I could not meet up with Chrissy today to get a second trap, I gave Son-Friend the one I have, and *I* will use the second one from Chrissy.  And I grabbed his presents, G-F’s presents, He&She’s presents, and all of that.  

So I get to Ye Olde Tavern of Triv and sit.  And wait.  And wait some more.  After I had been there about twenty minutes, I phoned Son-Friend.  He is usually never late, and He&She are never EVER late.  

I dunno…maybe the nekkid people they usually deal with don’t like to wait, or something.  I can understand that; likely you get colder faster when you’re nekkid and waiting, and probably want things to get moving so you can put your robe and penguin slippers back on ASAP.

Son-Friend answers with a “Where in the hell *are* you?”  Crap.  On the drive over there, I *had* been going through a little debate as to whether or not we were meeting there, but I had been listening to something and had not wanted to turn it down to make a call.  Pfft.  We are still playing trivia, but we are playing *live* trivia across town, hosted by a couple who The Horde Plus Ancodia all played as a team under up until about a year and a half ago-ish.  If that was mentioned to me, I fricking forgot, or half-heard it, whichever.  Phoo.

Okay, so I floored it.  This is (I found out tonight, ‘cos She has kept in touch with a lot of our old group, including the hosts, where I haven’t) held regularly on a night that conflicts with *my* favourite bar game (Tuesdays), which is why I’d not known about it, or ever gone.  Way Back When, this couple (let’s call them Fred and Ginger) used to host it for money on Saturday nights.  When they disbanded that, I just changed my schedule and mostly forgot about it.  I like and am more accustomed to my regular bar trivia, anyway; I just wish I had time to play it more often.  

He does mostly the hosting, and she does mostly the score-keeping.  He runs a pretty good game, although he is a little bit of a peckerhead about certain points that I think are a bit more nebulous than he does, but hey…it’s not like I am volunteering to host, and rules have to be made somewhere.  Plus I love teasing Fred; he is very easy to fluster, and that is just damn fun.  

The place I am racing to is a restaurant that really wants with all its heart to be a tavern-cum-steakhouse.  But it isn’t; it is just a restaurant and to my taste, the food could be better and the seats more comfortable, but whatever.  Nearby there is a performing arts school-type-thing (No, Coco!  Don’t go with the bad man!), and I am truthfully figuring that if some of those people are there then our team is fairly screwed, ‘cos they generally seem to be heavy on the pop-culture savvy stuff, and Fred typically throws enough of that in that our team can potentially bite it.  I think the dork does it on purpose.  

Okay, okay…I know he does it to keep attention and appeal to those who do watch 200 times the television that I do, but…grr.    And of course, the place looks to have quite a few of the nearby school’s students.  Sigh.  We should have gone to play bar triv.  I just hope they don’t break out into “Hot Lunch”.  My nerves cannot take it.  

By the time I arrived, technically I was ten minutes late but that was ok because Fred and Ginger had not shown yet, so we ordered and traded prezzies.  Son-Friend actually gave me several very thoughtful things, the most thoughtful being a replacement brake light for my trunk; a few months ago, I FUBAR’d mine by trying to put Armour All and then Rain-X on it to keep some scratches I saw from getting worse.  I did not know at the time, but that makes it get all dried out and cracky and look like shit, and it has really been bugging the hell out of me for the past few months.  So Son-Friend gave a new one to me, and also bought yellow wax, or whatever it is you put on them to preserve them like I was trying to do with the Armour All and Rain-X.

Oh, as if I was born knowing these things.

And I also was given an *adorable* hematite necklace with a penguin.  :-)  And some other things.  Since our table was smallish, I, being a resourceful and non-image-conscious tech-type was cramming the wrapping paper into the back pocket of my jeans (unless it was too big) to have somewhere to put it.  Then Fred came over up to hand us our answer sheets, and in his little annoyingly annoying way pointed at my butt and asked, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”  

Now I believe he was leading up to making a joke about me having a cheat sheet or something; that is his style, but like I said—I love to one-up and fluster.  Well, at least certain types.  Probably it was all the deviate influences I had at the table, but I didn’t even mull it over for a second; “It means that I’m down for some presents,” I said, leering, “think you would like to get on top of that for me?”

And I tell you, the look on his face—even though I hadn’t expected him to get it—was priceless.  And I thought some of the people at our table were going to wet themselves, or something.  

Although She had to explain it to Son-Friend.  And he still didn’t get it.  She cracked me up when she finally dismissed him with the instructions to promise to not put anything in his back pocket so that he didn’t give the wrong impression.

Sigh.  There is just no helping some people.  

So, basking in the “ok, you got me; I cannot think of anything to come back at you with” look I was getting, I asked another question that was meant out of honest curiosity in a changing-the-subject sense, and I guess embarrassed him, or made him think I was coming on to him, or something.  We have a few people who are pretty famous for getting drunk and being, errr…noticed, but one of them is NOT me.  If anything, most people probably think I am the stand-offish one in the group.  So I then felt bad.  I know…I suck.  

And so the game began.  It actually was fun, even though I was responsible (at least somewhat) for us not winning.  If I had insisted on my Riddick Bowe answer, we would have been first.  Pfft.  But I actually do not know a damn thing about boxing, and was simply guessing.  Not that anyone else I was playing with knows anything about boxing, either, but I deferred to their answer (Myke Tyson) all the same, because when I am guessing, I am honest about the fact that I am guessing.  I also try to differentiate between educated guesses, and flat-out scientific wild-assed guesses.  My Riddick Bowe answer was somewhere in-between the two, so I did not insinuate that I knew for certain and no one liked it, so we went with Tyson.  Pfft.  This is why we suck as a team, and always shall.  

Well, that and because He&She moved.  

And because Coco, Bruno, and Leroy won’t come play at our table.  Bitches.

:-)  

It’s TV’s fault why I am this way…

Today I wanted to go catch a sale or twenty, but failed.  There is always something else to do.  I was waiting at home, doing housework drudgery-stuff whilst waiting for Chrissy to phone me back, and then I gave up and *then* she phones.  Typical.

Butsoanyway.

So today was the first day in a long time that I have actually had nothing to do.  In a way.  In reality, I have more clogging my drain than I can think about without starting to twitch, but today I could have had almost all day off everything and no one would have noticed.  I should have gone and gotten drunk, or huffed some laundry detergent when I had the chance.  

:-)  

Tomorrow I will set my trap, get another trap from Chrissy and give it to Son-Friend.  He has apartment-guests right now, and let me know that he really resents this intrusion on his schedule.  His “guests” are this man and lady for whom he used to work; they are basically nice people for the most part, as long as you watch them.  I usually do that Al Pacino “I’m watching you” manoeuvre whenever I need to leave the room.  And exit backwards.  They used to live here and manage a company, but then they quit and moved to go be freaky in the Ozarks or something like that, and they’ve come back to visit friends (with whom I am numbered, peculiarly enough, and we are meeting tomorrow night over trivia).  They have been together for like, twenty years, or thereabouts; they would be married but they’re ultra-modern (if you are stuck in 1978) “swingers”.  Lordy.  

In all truth, despite my liberal attitudes towards a vast number of things, I really thought that term had been retired for its own sake, but apparently not.  I do not think Son-Friend is doing anything freaky with them, but I also do not care enough to ask.  Why?  Ummm…because some things are better left un-thought-about.  No, rilly.  Trust me.  

He&She (I’m just going to refer to them collectively in a singular way, ‘cos I am obnoxious like that) are I think in their fifties and seem to be to be generally nice people…just weird.  And I will hang around if it is just the She part of He&She, but I prefer to drift over to the other side of the Petri dish if the He of He&She is there.  He kind if gives me the creeps, frankly.  The woolly eeky spider creeps.  It isn’t pretty.  I think he has cooties, maybe.  

Well, maybe.  

So I told Son-Friend to suck it up and set the trap I am going to be giving him, else I’d sneak over there and put alum in the bath and ruin EVERYONE’S New Year’s Eve celebration.  

I am such a bitch like that.  :-D

In truth, I am kidding…He&She are going to a sort-of local swingers’ club for NYE and Son-Friend told me that they’d invited him, but he declined ‘cos he did not want to go (all joking aside, I know for a fact he has no interest in that sort of thing) but told them that he has to watch G-F of S-F’s daughter’s baby (the illegitimate one from the biker).  And the She of He&She hates children.  S-F knows this, but the truth is that he *does* have to watch Damien (I’m just going to name that little bundle of joy Damien Thorne right now and get it over with.  Let the chorus of Rectus Dominus begin, baby), ‘cos Damien’s mother has to go out and party like it’s 1999.

Or whatever.  

So what was I saying?  Let me scroll up and check…

Oh, yeah.  What I am doing tomorrow.  Well, I am doing Eviljob, trap shit, and then shopping!  YAY!  Shopping!  Woo-hoo!  

Okay, I am better now.  

‘cos then, after shopping, I have to go help Mummers buy a laptop (this is such a long story that I wouldn’t know where to start on it right now), and then I have to check the Eviljob trap and then go play trivia with Son-Friend and The Swingers (now if that isn’t a damn fine band name, I just don’t know what is).  And, with my luck, probably Girl-Friend of Son-Friend to boot.  And Damien.  Okay, okay—I know Damien will not be there, but my point is…

And I have a project that I have to complete by the beginning of next semester.  I need to work that in this week somehow.  I think perhaps I can get four volunteers tomorrow.  

:-D  I am resourceful like that.

So I am cutting out and going to bed early, I think.  Tomorrow is going to be busy.

It is old, but does this stick in your head, or what?  Roll over and click everything.

It Ain't Bad To Get Mad

Oh, lord; take a picture.  ‘Codia said “ain’t”.  :-D  But it is a justifiable “ain’t”—an artistically-licensed “ain’t”.

I am better today, and I am not pissed off at Son-Friend, because he is a dingbat.  I have *known* that he is a dingbat.  And it looks like the kittens are hanging around and sneaking back to his patio to eat the tuna.  I told him to keep putting it out there so that they will not wander too far, and I will get the good trap back from Chrissy and get it to him (I have the one that I don’t like much, and that one is making an appearance out at Eviljob to hopefully someday catch Mehitabel).  Chrissy was too busy today, and that is not her fault; it *is* freaking Christmas Day.  Or was, rather.

So I apologise for my venting-ness.  I was just…errr…venting.  

I am done venting now.

My Christmas Day went well overall.  I did get some very kind and thoughtful things, and have to make sure to write thank-you emails.  Meg is going to get a thank-you kick in the pants, however.  Despite my insistence the other night that I did *not* want to go get a massage with her, she went and gave me a gift certificate for one anyway, and so now I am supposed to come with her and a friend of hers.  

Ummm…I think I might be sick that day.  Augh.

The other things I received (I am cheese ball enough to actually wait until Christmas Day to open them…and then go out for Chinese—whilst listening to Public Radio Chanukah programs—in honour of Jewmas) were nice.  Mom, of course, supplied the bizarre presents as usual.  :-)  And the Chinese was great.

‘Pants phoned early in the morning to rouse me so that, as she put it, I can get moving and pack eight days’ worth into twenty-four short hours; she and I have had a few running jokes ever since we met and compared biographies (though her other half is some Protestant something-or-other, and mine is not); we both saw the same comedian years ago poking fun at people who could not pronounce Chanukah, which is where our “Happy Harmonica!” wishes come from (spoken as if the person to whom you are speaking is stupid or deaf), and in at least many facets of this, we have had a lot of similar experiences.  Well, not counting the time I was *actually* called stupid (in a syllogistic way), but…  

lol…maybe I will tell that one tomorrow night.  :-)  Another one of our jokes (that I re-borrowed from years ago with another halfer friend and told ‘Pants about) is that we are the Neo-Sabras—American half-n’-halfs who are not really religious at all, ‘cos the old Sabras just weren’t trendy enough, or perhaps hired a bad advertising firm.  :-)  ‘Pants also told me about this, which I’d not thought to look for; perhaps my whole Holiday Season thing really *will* someday take off!

And yes; growing up, my father would have slapped my face off if he were to have heard me being disrespectful for a laugh, so I do not do it in public where it might be misunderstood (just privately and here), and I *have* successfully weaned ‘Pants off making possibly unappreciated jokes in public, at least when she is with me (one of my few successful ‘Pants-trainings).  

Butsoanyway—‘Pants phones to tell me to drag my ass out of bed and open my present from her, which is seven different types of flavoured coffee, and a cute mug; I asked in mock amazement if she were actually jewing me out of my eighth bag of coffee (another joke; don’t get upset!), and she told me to look *in* the mug (gift certificate to Coffee Cool-O-Rama).  Very cute.  :-)  

That was after I inadvertently made her think (I hate it when I do that); she started off the conversation with “HOW’S YOUR KNICKIE GOING OVER THERE?”

(Yes, she still yells quite a bit, but I will overlook that if she will be nice to other people and calmer…which so far she has been.  And for what it is worth, she’s getting “Knickie” from Khanike, yet one more way to spell it that has a little more clout, not that many care.)

Butsoanyway.

I told her my Knickie was going wonderfully, and my Rizzo wasn’t faring too terribly, either.  Well, that’s what you get when you wake me up screaming—the first connection my tiny brain can make.  

Long pause.

I decided to help her out; I told her that I had no idea how Sandy or Danny were doing, however.  

Long pause.

Then, just as I was about to throw in the towel, ‘Pants literally *roars*, “HAHAHA!  I GET IT!  RIZZO!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

So I held the phone away from my ear.  

Hey…I can meet someone halfway.  :-)  

Now let’s sing the RamaHanuKwanzMas song and eat our cashew chicken like good little pagans…

Ancodia Fails Again

I had started my previous post as a draft, then before I went to complete it all hell broke loose. If you are having a nice holiday, skip this post for later. Really. Trust me. And Merry Christmas.


Butsoanyway.


So I get all of this stuff done and Son-Friend, the cowardly piece of shit that he is, sends a text message to me telling me good night, Merry Christmas, and by the way he lost two of the kittens today; sorry about that.

I go to phone him back, hoping that this is some kind of stupid joke of his. After his jackass girlfriend puts me on white-trash hold (setting the phone down on the table, so that I can listen to their television) for five minutes, he picks up and tells me that no, it is *not* a joke, and he is really sorry, but it was an accident. He was taking them out to bathe them, and two ran away and escaped off his patio.

Well, no fucking shit, say I. Wild cats are like that. Did you try to catch them? No, but he will leave the large cage they were in open with tuna in there and hope they come back.

Stupid-ass motherfucker.

I really wanted to just give up at that point. On everything. I wanted to ask him how in the hell, after all of the time, money, and effort I have put into catching those fucking kittens, could he just decide to do something as marvellously stupid as take them all out at once to bathe? Why do I even *bother* to care, when no one else in the world can even engage their brain for half a minute? Why? Why is most of my time taken up fixing everyone else’s mistakes and covering everyone else’s ass? Why in the hell am I the only person on earth who feels morally responsible enough that if I had just lost someone’s foundling kittens, I would feel that a shoulder-shrug and an “oh, well” just somehow wasn’t enough?

What I said instead was that I had frankly had my fill of talking with him this evening, and that I was hanging up now.

Merry fucking Christmas to you, too.

I thought about going up there to look for them, but I do not think that there is much of a point in the dark. His apartments are in the woods, so by now (seeing as it happened this afternoon, and he was too spineless to tell me until now) they could be *anywhere*. I think the best bet is to put tuna out, hope that they come back, and get a trap from Chrissy as fast as possible and then convince Son-Friend that this actually *IS* all his fault (he has a pretty external locus of control, which really pisses me off sometimes), and that he is MORALLY OBLIGATED to tend the trap daily. I do not see anything else I can do. There is almost no point in even being angry anymore. Or, really, I am so angry that I am not angry anymore. That is a much better description.

I hope that the one black tuxedo that was left is the girl. She was a gentle little cat.

I guess that I will either be able to get them back, or I will not. If I cannot get them back, they will either survive, or they will not. Whichever, I know not to trust Son-Friend again. Ever, with *anything*, which should not be such a news flash to me; that man has oatmeal for brains.

And he offered to save me money by watching Squooshable whilst I was in DC, and was “hurt” when I decided to board Squoosh at Dr Vet’s, because he said he felt as if I do not trust him. Hah! I *KNEW* I made the right choice. His ass is definitely on my list of Clueless Morons To Never Trust from this day forward, a list which seems to be growing all the time. And I am getting the last kitten from him as soon as I can, before he decides to dry her quickly after her bath by sticking her in the microwave, or something.

Stupid motherfucker.

Yes, I *am* angry. I am REALLY angry. There are not words adequate to convey how very angry I really am. And there is no point in being angry at him, I guess; he is not the most clear-headed thinker in the universe, and that fact is nothing new; I mean, he is unable to work and is on Disability for a *reason*, and that reason is that he has neurological “issues”. And is a stupid motherfucker. And that is the reason that I have felt so sorry for him for so long and gone out of my way to try to help him. So I am wrong to be angry at him for not thinking, because he just simply cannot. I am angry at myself for handing the kittens over to him because it was convenient.

I am sorry, guys; I made a bad call. Please head back to the tuna. Please.

I am going to go feel sorry for them and myself now. ‘later, and Merry Christmas.

O holy Christ, the stores they are a-closing…

Wowwy. It is actually Christmas Eve finally.

I finished my shopping at the last possible second; I had to get up early this morning because of what happened yesterday—Chrissy’s vet was having a lot of holiday boarders in as well as their usual “my cat ate all the tinsel” holiday traffic, and phoned because they needed me to pick up Mr Cat (who was cleared to leave) and…Nice Cat.

Yep, Nice Cat.

Apparently Chrissy has left Nice Cat at the vet’s for all this time because she is so full right now, or forgot, or both. Grr. That is all that I am going to say on the matter. Grr.

This sort of decides what I am going to do for me; I am going to put Mr Cat back where he came from, get Nice Cat tested for FeLV and FIV and assuming he is negative, take nice Cat home, at least for the time being, because Nice Cat is tame, and Mr Cat is not. So I try to phone Chrissy about twenty-seven times, but keep getting her voice mail. I give up, ask the vet to test Nice Cat, and go get Mr Cat, who is really hate-filled by this point in time; I give him a nice meal, and drive the long way back to Eviljob so that he has time to eat it. Then I give him his freedom (which he accepts, happily). The vet says that they will phone me with Nice Cat’s results, so I go to meet Son-Friend and we run shopping errands for a bit, one of which involves stopping at a pet store, where I buy more food for the kittens Son-Friend is holding (since Chrissy could not immediately take them before). Son-Friend asks me if I think it would be a good idea to bathe the kittens. Stupid idiot that I am, I do not say no, I only suggest that he use bath wipes or something, not a full-out bath.

Butsoanyway.

So I get home, and Chrissy phones…*finally*. She said to take Nice Cat to another rescue person who will be at the PetsMart near me today, with whom she has a working relationship, but she asks me to get him there early, before this other rescue lady gets swamped (potentially) with people giving up their pets. Then the vet’s office phones and says Nice Cat has tested negative, so I go get him, borrow a carrier from them because I wasn’t thinking and forgot to bring one, and set Nice Cat up in my master bathroom with food, water, and litter box.

Then I get up this morning to be there the moment PetsMart opens, just in case. If anyone is going to be left out, it is usually me—so I plan ahead. I drop Nice Cat off, give RescueWoman all of his paper work, and donate $100 worth of stuff, most of it for Nice Cat; a large cat carrier, litter, a few litter pans, and a few food/water bowls. Not all of it was for Nice Cat, but I needed to give her *something*, and I already had to buy a carrier ‘cos the one I had Nice Cat in, I had to return to the vet since it was a loaner.

Then I said a very long good bye to Nice Cat, and he liked that. :-) I wished him Merry Christmas and good luck. I think he will be just fine.

Then ‘Pants phoned to say that she was in town. Fuck a duck. She *had* already told me that she was coming back over break. I told her that meeting was fairly out of the question, which she was happy to hear, ‘cos she wanted to spend time with her brother who lives here. Wonderful. So I ask her if we could meet for five minutes to exchange presents in a couple of hours, and she said that was awesome, since she’d just awakened.

It’s the gloating that I just cannot handle. ;-)

That transcends awesome as far as I am concerned, ‘cos I’d not yet bought her present; I thought I had another week, at least. So I run over to yet another mall, and grab a Borghese set for her, and some other last-second things (especially since I had forgotten to get a “personal” gift for my Sister-in-Law, which just proves how horrid it must be to be related to me. So I got all of that, raced (by then I was running late) back to meet ‘Pants, traded presents and wished her a Happy Ex-Miss and Merry Harmonica or whatever, and then drove across town (again!) to meet Meg at a *different* mall so that I could give my opinion on some other things that are going to be gifts from the two of us (I tried to get her to tell me over the phone, but I gave up). Once that was done, we had lunch out there, and I came home to wrap all of this crap and take it wherever it needed to be taken, for the most part. Whee.

Then, after I get back home and the plan is to vegetate and maybe fall asleep on my couch and drool, Meg comes back over because somehow I have been drafted into wrapping half of the “us” stuff, and she wants to watch Christmas Poker on my new TV as we wrap.

Yay. Christmas Poker.

I am ending part one here, since I just get downright nasty in part two.

Merry Christmas.

It’s tricky to park around, to park around the mall at Christmas is tricky. How is it D? It’s tricky…

:-)

Cutting straight to the chase, Mr Cat is still at the vet’s.  He is doing just fine, but the vet wants to keep an eye on him, and he is on antibiotics to make sure he hasn’t given himself an infection from trying to fix the vet’s suturing handiwork.  

Just like Squoosh—hypercritical, and certain you are doing it wrong.  :-)  Probably he is even claiming to have read a book about it.  

And I still do not have a cat trap.  Day the Seconde.  Pfft.

So I went shopping.  Parking was *horrible*!  Oh, the humanity!

Nurse Betty received my shipped present today.  Whew.  And I have virtually all of my minor presents taken care of and mostly dispensed.  Whew.  Now I just have the larger ones left, sort of.  It would be boring to list them out.  But I am truly stuck on what to get Son-Friend as a “meaningful” present.  I have a few smaller ones for him, but not the main one.  I know that he wants a satellite radio system installed in his car, but out of practicality, I will not do that; he can go get that his damn self, or make g-f do it.  I have to draw the line *somewhere*, and I do at $300 + worth of gravy-type silliness that I don’t even have myself.  If it were something *needed*, I would do it, but I try to back away from the $100-or-more-end of the spectrum when gifting friends, even if they are Son-Friends.  It just sets a bad precedent, ‘cos he couldn’t (and shouldn’t) reciprocate in kind.  Although, okay, by the time I add up everything I get for some people, it is probably over that.  I avoid dissonance on that by just not adding.  :-D

Butsoanyway.

So I have to get a main present for him and for my mother.  I think that is it.  I think.  And I do not know what I will do about either of them.   I will figure it out tomorrow, I guess.  

I am so, so, SO very bad at giving presents, because I never, ever feel as if I have gotten something good, or appropriate, or…whatever.  I tend towards over-gifting, and primarily because I feel that most of the time, I under-gift.  On the other hand, I *hate* being a recipient.  A lot.  It makes me feel weird.  I feel inordinately indebted, and as if what I got for them was not enough even more so.  If everything in gift-giving could be run my way, I would get only cards, or something simple, and get to open it first, so that things did not go the other way—where they open mine first, and then focus on me with their present.  I just hate doing it that way.  I think that it comes out of my own insecurity.  Well, really I *know* it does.  

And Nurse Betty just IM’d me; she loved her present.  Oh, thank god.  I have not opened mine from her yet, but I am sure that it is fantastic; she is good about things like that.  As stupid as it sounds in retrospect, as soon as I had bought it and sent it off, I had second thoughts about how I could have done better by her, and that sort of thing.  LOL…she said that she had blowback from a GI insertion of Lortab, and if I drive over right now I can lick her hand before she hops in the shower. ;-)  I told her that I wasn’t fit to drive after my nightly vodka-and-Versed, but I thanked her for her philanthropic gesture.  :-D

And we’re kidding, by the way.  

Sigh…I have to plan better next year, or something.  

Mr Cat update

So I phoned the vet to see if Mr Cat was ready, and they said he was.

Shit.

So I went over at 10:45 pm, to collect him and dump him out in the parking lot.  

Ok, not really.  

I went over to see if I could get *any* tame behaviour out of him.  *Anything*.  If I could, I was going to take him home and figure out what to do later.  

I just love that word.

I even brought Mr Cat the Pet Gold brand of sardine, lobster, and whatever else (green label, tiny can) that Squooshable loves SO MUCH from PetCo.  If you have a cat, check it out—it has huge hunks of fish and lobster, looks and smells disgusting, and cats love it.  Especially Squooshable; it really thrills him, and I can’t give it to him all of the time because it isn’t kitten food, and he needs the extra nutrition for a little bit longer.  

Butsoanyway.

The plan was to feed SquooshDaddy food that Squoosh loves, see if he would soften up towards me even a tiny bit, and if not, take him to the parking lot where he will be happier.  Per Chrissy.  And it has gotten fairly cold tonight, so I did not want to let him out.

When I got there, poor Mr Cat was being terrorised by a yipping Chihuahua boarded next to him; every time this dog yipped, Mr Cat would jump.  And there was blood on the bottom of the kennel.  Not a lot, but enough that I told the vet that the prospect of putting him off in a parking lot—especially if he’s sick or hurt—didn’t appeal to me; I’m just not made of the stuff it takes to do that sort of thing.  Chrissy’s vet hadn’t noticed the blood (Mr Cat had been sitting right over it), said to leave him there tonight and they will move him away from the Chihuahua, and tomorrow find out what’s causing him to bleed.  So we gave him a little dry food and water (I left the Science Diet kitten food and Pet Gold Squoosh chow for tomorrow) in case he has to go under anaesthesia again, and they covered his cage with a sheet and put a towel under him ‘cos Dr Vet said that would calm him down.  I personally think just being away from the Chihuahua will calm him down, but ok.  

So I headed back home, and stopped to get a cocoa.  The 7-11 on the way home has both Ghirardelli cocoa and Hershey’s hot chocolate, and I needed one.  I decided on cocoa ‘cos I have been going heavy on the hot chocolate lately.  :-)  

Well, for medicinal purposes.  

So they were out of cocoa—the spigot was spitting out chalky water—so I dumped that out and went back to hot chocolate.  As I paid, I mentioned to the 7-11 guy that they were out of cocoa, so that he could replace it, or whatever.  He looked at me as if I were from Mars, and pointed out that I *had* hot chocolate.  Right, I said; but the cocoa is out.  There’s two, he pointed out, referring to the spigot for cocoa and the spigot for hot chocolate; just use the other one.  

Ok…we’re not communicating.  

I edumacated him on the difference between cocoa and hot chocolate, and the person working with him did not get it, either.  I think they thought I was making it up.  Good lord.  I *am* on another planet.  

And I forgot to mention the brief flash of home-ness I felt at the boys in the parking lot.  :-)  They were cute, though before I moved here, I would have thought they were idiots.  Funny how things change.  They were straight out of Trailer Park Boys—about twenty-two-ish, with an F150.  One of them had on a snow camo coat, and the other one wore a flannel shirt over a t-shirt and baseball cap; they were standing out in the parking lot by their truck drinking beer and scratching off lottery tickets.  Snow camo let out a WHOOP! as I came out, and when I looked over to see who had shot whom in a 7-11 parking lot hunting accident, he shouted out, “I JUST WON TWO DOLLARS!”  “So?” Flannel shirt asked.  “THAT MEANS I GOT MY MONEY BACK!” Snow camo yelled, deliriously happy.

Ok, so it made me homesick.  It doesn’t take much these days.

Oh…they had no guns, though.  

Maybe that was for the best.

I suck, and that's sad.

I spent the morning at a (mostly) deserted Eviljob, and then went shopping.  I bought a big cocoa body stuffs kit for Nurse Betty, and shipped it to her ‘cos I will get around to driving it over to her like, never.  I still have a freeze-dried bag of coffee for her from Hawaii that I forgot to give her long enough that I need to either (1) find out how long it is will be good, or (2) buy another one online and donate this to my garden, or whatever one does with stale coffee.  At least the three thousand knick-knacks I have for her won’t go stale.  Perhaps I should ship those to her, as well…

God, I suck.

But I have (most) everything.  I think.  And I am out of cat traps, at least for the time being, until I can get Nice Cat’s trap back from Chrissy.  

And if Ethereal 71.4 plays Christmas Shoes one more god damned time, I will not be responsible for what I do.  They are playing it every half-hour, on the half-hour.  More frequently if anyone actually *requests* it.

May anyone who calls in to any radio station *anywhere* and requests Christmas Shoes rot in hell for all eternity.

Mr Squoosh is fine, and Mr Cat is not neutered yet.  

And I have to think of something to send to my niece and nephews.  Okay, so I am the suckiest aunt ever.  We all know this.  I can overnight it still for probably around $50, like I did last year.  Fricking USPS/UPS bloodsuckers.  Yes, I know that I have waited until the last possible second.  I delay ‘cos I just am not good about getting presents; anything I get never seems good enough.  Argh.  So I will probably be going back out in a little bit, unless I can talk Meg into doing a co-present, and get her to pick it up.  

"Bah, Humbug!"; no, that's too strong...

I am not very good at this catch-neuter-release thing. I am honest about my weak points, and this is one big one.

Pre-trivia, I had Not Crap. So I left it up and decided to come back after and check. Eviljob was deserted anyway, ‘cos everyone was at the party.

Trivia was fun, though they ask dumb ‘pick one’ questions before the game that serve no purpose whatsoever, and I had to choose where I would rather be—Hogwarts, or Gotham City (amongst others). Geez…make it tough, why don’t you? Snape, Batman; Snape, Batman…hmmm.

Don’t rush me; I am thinking. :-)

When I went to the trap après-triv, I had a cat! For half a second, I thought it was Mehitabel, but as I pulled the cage out of the bushes I realised it was too big to be Mehitabel. This was a big, thick, jet black cat…that had a face just like my Squoosh! I think this has to be SquooshDaddy, or SquooshOlderBruvver, or something. And he was big and thick, just like I can tell my Squoosh will be one day…provided he quits eating Mr Clean Magic Erasers, that is. And Possible SquooshDaddy also has a tiny patch of white on his décolletage, or whatever you call that on cats. Not the throat, but the upper chest just below. And Squoosh looks much different from this current crop of brothers and sisters, so Mehitabel must be keeping company with someone other than SquooshDaddy. Whomever she is seeing these days is much more angularly shaped, whereas my Squoosh and this cat have very round and thick faces and bodies.

Butsoanyway.

So I collected him, and when I picked the cage up, he tried to make a dash for freedom (into the back end of the cage), and did a *very* Squoosh-like thing; he tried to take his precious tuna can with him! It was 99% empty, but he threw himself on it, and tried to push it to the end of the cage where he was planning to escape. I am pretty certain that he meant to do it, ‘cos when I had to set the cage back down to move my purse and stuff off the passenger seat, he did it again—this time trying to escape (and take the tuna can) on the other side. And once I had him in my car, he got into meatloaf position (after throwing himself at the end a few more times) sitting right on top of his tuna can!

Ok, so I started crying. Squoosh protects his things like that. If it is a cloth mouse or something, when he is taking a break from playing with it, he will sit on it. If it is something like his round chirpy ball, he will try to sit on it and end up with it right in front of him. I tried to talk to Mr Cat, but he did not feel talkative. So I turned on some Christmas carols (not too loud), and we drove to the vet’s, where I put him in for a neutering and rabies shot.

I will not even go into how I started crying when they took him back; the people in the waiting room probably think I am insane, ‘cos I know they heard me say it was a stray, and it was *clearly* in a cat trap. I was filling out paperwork on him, and had placed him behind me. When I looked up from the paperwork, Mr Cat was gone. I had wanted to say good bye to him. So I paid and left.

This vet has a *long* driveway that empties out onto the main road leading into a subdivision; he is planning to expand, and has a HUGE piece of property surrounding a house (or what was originally a house) that was built before this subdivision. So at the end of his driveway, I am facing one of the subdivision’s first houses; if I go right, I go into the subdivision and if I turn left, I catch a road towards the highway. So I come to the end of the driveway, and stop for a minute to look at the elaborate display this house has set up—they have a chorus of plastic lighted angels surrounding a plastic lighted crèche, Frosty, Santa, candy canes…just everything. And it is a little corny-looking, but they have the lights rise and fall, highlighting different scenes. And I stopped for a minute, because the station I was listening to (more about that later) was playing The Carol of the Bells, my favourite Christmas carol of all time. I simply have to go out and look at Christmas lights this year. I am deprived.

And I could not help but think about poor Mr Cat as I sat there. I am glad that he liked the tuna. And I feel horrible over having tricked him; that bothers me almost above everything else. But I am glad that he will not have to spend the next two days in the cold, ‘cos the vet was too full tonight to do his surgery, so they will do him tomorrow night. So he will be warm, safe, and fed tonight. And I *know* that there are nice cats all over, and I *know* that I cannot keep every cat, and I know all of that. But it makes me sad. I do not want to put Mr Cat back out there. I would bet money that he is related to Squooshable, and the thought of my Squoosh out there breaks my heart.

And Chrissy took Nice Cat. He went to a foster home, where they will try to get him friendly enough to be a pet, and then Chrissy will take him to PetsMart(s) to be adopted. I think Nice Cat *was* a pet once. He is too friendly. After several months of staying away from me (but showing me his tum to prove he was a Nice Cat), he finally came to let me pet him…that is just not like a feral cat.

So I will be a suck-ass person and see if Chrissy has any room at all for Mr Cat. I should not ask. I really shouldn’t. She is taking the kittens and Mehitabel already, and she took Nice Cat, and I am at the point where she is probably wishing that she had never heard of me. :-\ But Squoosh is so smart, and therefore probably Mr Cat is as well, and so maybe he would calm down. If he had a lot of food…Squoosh loves food, too. I mean like, a LOT. He starts purring as soon as he sees that I am going to feed him; feed Squoosh, and you have won his heart. Maybe Mr Cat would be that way, too.

Butsoanyway.

There is a radio station that has been playing Christmas carols all day, every day since…hell—back in July, for all I know. I never listen to it except at Christmas. They are normally a “lite rock” (god, how painful to type!) station, and the main reason I never listen to it is because their normal music fairly blows, and the whole format is like cable’s Lifetime Channel. There is this god-awful hostess whom I refuse to believe is nationally syndicated, so I will call her Miss Lonelyhearts, for purposes of obfuscation.

I seem to be unable to avoid Miss Lonelyhearts whenever I am forced to listen; for example, the pancake place near me seems to be *always* tuned to this station, and whenever I go, I somehow luck into hitting the Miss Lonelyhearts Show. It plays at the place I used to go when I needed an oil change, more stores in the area than I can think about without having my skin start crawling again…you name it. If the place is too cheap to pipe in Muzak, they are probably tuned to Miss Lonelyhearts’ station, Ethereal 71.4 FM.

Okay, so I made the station up.

Holy crap. I have just actually bothered to research something, and…she *IS* nationally syndicated. God help us all. It’s Delilah, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. No need to obfuscate. She was not where I used to live (and still isn’t, to look at her station list), so I swear to god, I thought she was local for all this time. How can she have a listenership to support this? Oh, good lord…

And her photo so totally looks like she is about to bite a child, duddnit? Or chomp down on some of those cute little teddy bears. And she has freakishly-white teeth, probably from bleaching all the blood off, methinks. Eek. I’m skarred. Put the tooth-tray *down*, Delilah; find a twelve-step program for Crest White Strips addiction. And stop dyeing your hair that colour. And…and…and GET NORMAL, DAMN IT!

Butsoanyway. I might have a look at her recipes later.

I cannot stand the show because of the…well, the everything. It would be nice if I could narrow it down to just a problem with the host, callers, or playlist…but I can’t. It is the gestalt of the whole damn thing to which I object. And gag.

It would be cool to have those little teddies become animated and see them pummelling and ripping Delilah apart.

But I digress.

*This* is why I hate Delilah:

Delilah: And our next caller is Gladys! Hi, Gladys!
Gladys: Hello, Delilah!
Delilah: And what can I do for you this evening?
Gladys: Well Delilah, I tell you, this has been a hard year for my family, and I was wondering if you could play a song for me that would make everything better.
Delilah: Oh, no! I am so sorry to hear that! What has happened?
Gladys: Well, first off, at the beginning of the year, my Deke got laid off work, and we lost the house, Delilah. They even repossessed my terrier, Buttsniff, Delilah. Deke bought her for me last Christmas on a payment plan, and then he defaulted in February.
Delilah: Gladys, I am so sorry to hear that! I’m going to pick a special…
Gladys: Oh, that ain’t the end of it, Delilah; we’re only up to February. There’s more. Then Deke started drinking again…
Delilah: Oh, no!
Gladys: Oh, yes, Delilah! Deke started drinking, and at the time we was livin’ out of a cardboard box behind Safeway. And I would tell him that I was unhappy because I didn’t have a radio to listen to your show with, and I didn’t have a terrier, and the kids never wrote…
Delilah: What happened to the kids, Gladys? Where were they?
Gladys: Deke sold ‘em at a rest stop for a bottle of Thunderbird, Delilah.
Delilah: Oh, Gladys, that must have been so hard for you! I tell you what; I’m going to play…
Gladys: Delilah, we’re only up to March.
Delilah: Oh. Well, go ahead—what happened then?
Gladys: Well, so I started complaining, and then Deke started beating me again like he used to.
Delilah: Oh, Gladys! How awful! And what did you do?
Gladys: Well, at first I tried to ignore it, Delilah. But then he started hitting me in the head with the bottle of Thunderbird, and let me tell you—those things pack a wallop! So after I got out of the hospital…
Delilah: The hospital? From his beating?
Gladys: Yep.
Delilah: What did you do then?
Gladys: Well, I suggested to him that we try to find the children and reconcile in time for the holidays.
Delilah: The holidays? I thought this was in March.
Gladys: Well, by the time I got out, Delilah, it was September. I was in a coma.
Delilah: Boy…I hate it when that happens. Gladys, you sure have been through it…
Gladys: Oh, there’s more, Delilah.
Delilah: More?
Gladys: Oh, yeah. So I get out of the hospital and track down Deke. By then, he had gotten a job as a door mat at a strip club…
Delilah: A door man?
Gladys: No, Delilah—a door *mat*. The Boob O’Rama already had a bouncer, and Deke’s just a scrawny little thing, anyways. So he was working at the Boob O’Rama, and he had shacked up with a fifteen year old stripper who had lied about her age…
Delilah: Gladys! I hope you gave him what for and left him!
Gladys: Well, sort of. I says to him, ‘Deke, she has to sleep on the couch’. I mean, I am the wife; I should get the bed, right Delilah?
Delilah: Well, certainly!
Gladys: But I couldn’t have the bed, because Tiffani—that’s the fifteen year-old—has a back problem from all the years she worked in kiddie porn, but Deke said that he wanted to work on our marriage, and that he would help me get the kids back.
Delilah: Oh, how wonderful!
Gladys: So we robbed a 7-11…
Delilah: You did what?!? Why?!?
Gladys: We robbed a 7-11 to get money to buy assault rifles to go raid the white slavery den where our kids were being forced to work, Delilah. And Tiffani was real helpful, too. She drove the getaway car, both times!
Delilah: Well, bless her heart!
Gladys: Truly, Delilah! Tiffani has truly been a blessing to my family! Deke and I…we couldn’t have done it without her!
Delilah: It’s heart-warming to hear of someone giving so selflessly to help a family in need.
Gladys: Oh, there’s more, Delilah.
Delilah: Wow! More?
Gladys: Oh, yeah. Well, when we raided the warehouse where our children were being held, I accidentally shot a pimp named Tito…and our esteemed Mayor.
Delilah: Oh, no! Gladys! That must have been so traumatic for you!
Gladys: Oh, Delilah, you have no idea. It brought me back to ‘Nam. I started having flashbacks real bad!
Delilah: ‘Nam?
Gladys: Yes, Delilah…’Nam.
Delilah: You were a soldier in ‘Nam?
Gladys: No, Delilah; my parents shipped me over to ‘Nam as a sex worker when I was twelve. But I saw a lot.
Delilah: I bet! You know, war is a horrible, horrible thing…
Gladys: Oh, tell me about it, Delilah! And I thought it was bad *before* I was captured by the Viet Cong!
Delilah: You were captured by the Viet Cong?!?
Gladys: I was, but back to last year, Delilah. So we got our kids back, and I was up on capital murder charges, and Deke was still beating me. But then the District Attorney let me plea-bargain down to jaywalking, which we had done to sneak up on the warehouse…
Delilah: What a kind man!
Gladys: I’m tellin’ ya; I couldn’t have made it through the year without the kindness of strangers, Delilah.
Delilah: Kindness is always so important, isn’t it? I hope that we all, in the coming year…
Gladys: Delilah, there’s more.
Delilah: Oh! I’m sorry! Go ahead.
Gladys: So I got out of jail with community service, but then Deke was diagnosed with leprosy.
Delilah: Leprosy?
Gladys: Yes, Delilah—leprosy. Apparently this is an occupational hazard when people put their feet all over you.
Delilah: Well, I learn something new every day!
Gladys: And so Deke lost his job when his legs fell off, and we had to move back into the cardboard box, but we moved it behind the Ronald McDonald House so that Deke could be near the hospital. And Tiffani helps me tend the kids and cook, and now, with Deke’s arms having fallen off, this past week has been wonderful, Delilah! I haven’t been beaten once!
Delilah: Oh, Gladys! I am so happy for you!
Gladys: And Tiffani’s been working despite her bad back, and she even got a job for my oldest, Jennifer. So with *two* incomes now, I could afford to buy a radio to start listening to your show again!
Delilah: Gladys, it makes me so happy to have faithful listeners like you!
Gladys: Well, thank you, Delilah! But I should be thanking *you*! Your show is the bright spot in my day! And because I focussed on a goal—getting a radio again so I could listen to your show—I feel so empowered now! And it is all because of *you*, Delilah!
Delilah: Oh, Gladys…thank you so much! Thank you for sharing your heart and being an inspiration to us all!
Gladys: Anytime, Delilah! So now, could you play a song for me?
Delilah: Gladys, I would love to! What would you like to hear?
Gladys: Could you play Christmas Shoes, by Bob Carlisle? It just makes me so damn happy, Delilah.
Delilah: Gladys, for you I will play it twice! Have a beautiful night!
Gladys: Thank you, Delilah!
Delilah: And say ‘hi’ to Tiffani for me!
Gladys: I sure will Delilah! She’s sitting right here on a crate!

----------------------



And that is why I hate Delilah. If you think I am exaggerating…

Okay, well I *am* exaggerating. But not by much.

It has to be the most depressing show EVER. *EV-ER*. Its only redeeming feature is that it can be made fun of. Easily. And I have been putting up with it for a few weeks now, *just* to listen to Christmas carols that I mostly already have on cd. I do not know what is wrong with my mind.

Maybe I just like laughing.

Don’t we know archaic barrel

No, we don’t.  I am skipping out on the party tonight.  :-)

I would rather stay home and keep an eye on Squoosh to see if he barfs up a Mr Clean Magic Eraser until I have to leave and play trivia anyway.  Squoosh reminds me of that penguin in Madagascar; the one who barfed up the stick of TNT (I think that was in the Christmas special on the DVD).  I think he believes the Squooshtum is a purse, or something.  :-)

Oh, yeah…and I have to work on Thingy.  Pfft.

I caught nothing last night; some Felonious Fourpaws managed to get in and out of my trap without springing it.  I know someone was in there because they ate all of the tuna.  Grr.  I reset it when I went into Eviljob today; it was still empty when I came out, so I went and had lunch with a friend, and then went back by to check.  The trap door was half-open, and the tuna half-eaten, so I reset it.  Plus grr.  I have to check it and collect it tonight before I go play trivia, and if there is someone in it, I stand a good chance of being late (and stinky, and scratch-covered) for trivia.  Double-plus grr.

Bwaah!

It is actually funny and cute.  Well, in a way.  Kind of the same way Squoosh’s constant attempts to poison himself are.  >:-\  

Grr.

Three steps to a Perfect Holiday Season

Hmmm…where to start?

The trap is out, and I will go check it in a few hours; this time, I have sprinkled some catnip around it as well as put stinky tuna in there as a lure.  Damn it, Mehitabel…go in there!  I know you want it, and you know you want it; let’s quit playing games, shall we?

This morning as I went to clean, I found that *someone* had chewed two corners off my new Mr Clean sponge-thing.  I think it was Squooshable.  Though I do not know when he did it, the little wiener.  

Bwaah!

And Dr Detroit seems to be a little sedate.  So I am also watching him to see if he has another respiratory infection, or something.  Dr Vet said that, as he is ageing he may well start having them more often.  Otherwise, he is in excellent health for the most part.  

Butsoanyway…

I guess tomorrow, after I get off Eviljob, I will sit my happy ass down and write the final two paragraphs of my Thingy.  It is overdue, but was mainly delayed when Mummers decided to have a heart attack, then I had everything else come due, and could not finish.  

Until now.  At this point, having it unfinished is bordering upon just plain indolence.  

So:  (1) Catch Mehitabel; (2) finish Thingy; (3) shop more.  

I have it all planned out.  :-)  

All I Want For Christmas Is You

Dang it.

Mr Handsome Cat decided after he came out from under anaesthesia that he had tolerated just about all the shit he could for one day and bit *another* tech (I do not know if I mentioned that before, and I am too lazy to bring up my own blog and check.  Now how sad it that?  But he did; he bit a tech when I dropped him off, ‘cos I did not know to leave the cage.), and tried to bite Chrissy when she went to pick him up.  So Chrissy decided that Mr Handsome Cat may not be reachable, and I have to say that if I do not agree, at least I understand.  It takes a lot of time to undo damage.  So Chrissy phoned me and said that she was going to take Mr Handsome Cat back to Eviljob and let him out.

Well, at least I didn’t have to do it.

Chrissy said that he will be happier out there, and she is probably right; at least he will not be siring any more kitties.  One down, about twenty to go.  

And my right finger is swollen from having been bitten.  :-)  Agnostic empiricist that I am, I have put on my St Panteleimon ring; I will let you know if it needs amputating.  ;-)

I set my trap again on what would have been my lunch break if we had not been having a party, then I went back upstairs and watched from the fifth floor as Momcat sat at the closed end and gazed longingly at the tuna.  “Damn it, Momcat,” I fussed, “try to find a way in!”

And then an orange cat walked right in and was trapped.  

Damn it.

Ok, fine.  Fine.  A little later I went out, and saw that it was Nice Cat.  A very, very pissed off Nice Cat.  Who had snarfed up all of the tuna and was sitting in meatloaf-position, trying to figure a way out.  I swear, he should have been wearing glasses and scribbling diagrams on a piece of paper as hard as he was concentrating.  When he saw me, he asked me to please get him out of this; I put a plastic bag and towel over the top in case it rained, and went back in to think of a way to politely sneak out early.

So I ended up just leaving about thirty minutes later, which was long enough for Nice Cat to take a stinky dump in the cage.  

Oh, *hell*.  

So I cleaned up as best I could, put plastic over my seat (I planned ahead this time!) and took Nice Cat over to Chrissy’s vet to have his balls cut off, castrating female that I am.  

On the drive over, it occurred to me that Nice Cat might die in surgery; I do not know *why* that had not occurred to me with Mr Handsome Cat, but…it did.  And then I got really sad, because I realised that Momcat could die, too.  I left Nice Cat in the trap (I learnt my lesson with Mr Handsome Cat) and handed him over.  I hope that he will be ok.  Maybe this will toughen me up for my own cats’ surgeries; I mean, *something* has to.

Butsoanyway.

The party was fine, and the person who received my present loved it, like I thought he would.  :-)  This one was for a smaller group of us, and so we spent the time playing with our presents and making dirty jokes.  One lady in our group received a Darth Vader mask and light sabre (a kind of long-running joke with her), and the guys promptly confiscated and started playing with them.  Sigh.  Boys.  

And I may go to our second party en masse.  I was asked if I was going, I said no (though I did not say why), and then started being given grief over it.  So I may have a mercy-date…or three.  :-) Whee.

During our party, we went around the room and talked about what we wanted for Christmas, and everyone would make jokes and comments about it.  I hate questions like that.  I do not want *anything* for Christmas, or Chanukah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever.  So I spent most of my time wandering clock-wise around the room, trying to evade being asked whilst I thought of something good.  Finally, I ran out of thinking time when Ms Vader started in with her bony finger-waggling and “Oh, Ancodia didn’t go!  Ancodia didn’t go!”  

Maybe I underestimated her powers of observation when I allowed myself to walk past her twice.  :-)  Note to Self:  In the future, slink *behind* her the second time around.  I still had not thought of anything, so I just said what was on my mind—I want the Momcat.  

One guy, whom I have known for years, tapped the two guys next to him, and said, “Okay—let’s go get the Momcat!”  :-)  I laughed and said that was not necessary, and the guys all swore that they would love to go chase a cat around a parking lot.  Sigh.  Boys.  Then one of the girls who has seen me trying to snag a feline piped up with a “Why *are* you stealing all of those cats?  How many do you have now?”  The way she said it made me laugh so hard that I could not answer, then another girl I have worked with a lot before jumped in and said, “Seventeen!”.  I had calmed down by then, and tried to explain that I do *not* have seventeen cats, I have three.  But the first girl interrupted me to ask what I do with all of the cats I have caught, and I decided to make a joke—I asked her if she thought that was *actual* turkey we had just eaten.  

Ok, so I am morbid.  :-)  

So then I had to explain that I am placing them and stuff.  But it was funny.  And I sneaked out without incident, so that was good, too.  

And all I want for Christmas is Mehitabel.  Yes, I decided today to name her Mehitabel.  

I hope Nice Cat and Mr Handsome Cat are okay.  And, well…everyone else in the world.  

In Other News, I helped ‘Pants finish an end-of-term paper that I guess she should have been able to do herself, but…I guess she is afraid.  I can relate.  At least she is done now.  A day late, but done.  I am a little burnt over authoring so much of it myself, but…who cares.  It was good experience.  And she *did* originate approximately three-quarters of it herself; that is probably a record.  I know—I am being mean.  But I also have to get something for her for Christmuskah (she is a half-and-half, also).  I do not have any idea what, but…I will think of something.  And I had better hurry; she is coming into town in a few days.  Ack.  

Ohhh…and I looked at the Dixie Square store!  I am going to have the same problem there that I have with the Engrish site—I don’t know where to start!  Though I am leaning towards the clock and the information booth t-shirt.  Decisions, decisions…

And Then There Was One

::singing::

In deep despair, on lonely nights, he knows just how you feel…

No, not jeebus…Smokey.  :-)  Removing 25,000 cds from my car has forced me to cycle in new ones; today it was ABC.  :-D  

No…s’true; I have no pride whatsoever.

I scurried around trying to find presents for everyone today; I got something (I think) for most everyone, and right now I am helping ‘Pants with an end-of-term paper via phone and IM because I have some previous exposure to the topic.

Oh…and ‘cos I am a sucker.  But we knew that.

Today marvellous things have happened; I set my trap this morning, and Momcat appeared interested.  I sat there for a bit, hoping she would go ahead and take the leap, but too many people kept coming up to me (one of the drawbacks of having been somewhere for so long), and that was making Momcat skittish, so I left.  I went shopping to pick up prezzies for everyone I could think of.  I even found a gorgeous diffuser for my stylist, and some pomegranate oil for it. Very cool.  

In the middle of my shopping—which was escapist shopping, ‘cos I was trying to not think about what I was going to have to do to Mr Handsome Cat when the vet called to say he was ready for pickup, I figured that I would phone Chrissy and at least *ask* her if she could take Mr Handsome Cat so that I knew in my heart that I had asked everyone and literally had no option other than to release him.  I know she is full-up, but…I owed it to Mr Handsome Cat and my heart to *ask*.  I managed to phone her cell just as she was struggling to get into her car because she had lost the keys.  

Chrissy has done an amazing amount for me, so I offered to help—to call my auto club, or something—she was strapped and stressed, so she accepted.  And, ironically enough, she was at a PetsMart not fifteen minutes away from me, so I went.  

Before I called the auto club, we got help from a very nice man who was able to reach in her slightly-opened window and get at the lock, something neither she nor I could manage.  Then I stayed to talk for a bit, and Meg phoned to ask if I wanted to have lunch with her.  I tried to invite Chrissy, but the other rescue person in PetSmart today (Faith, who only does dogs, just as Chrissy does only cats) had already ordered Italian for Chrissy.  But Chrissy saw how upset I was over doing the neuter-and-release thing for Mr Handsome Cat, and SHE SAID SHE WOULD PICK HIM UP FROM THE VET, PUT HIM WITH A FOSTER HOME TO TAME HIM, AND PLACE HIM!  Yes!  You read me correctly!  Mr Handsome Cat will find a home!  No more parking lots or scrounging for food for him! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

I swear—I could have cried.  Or done a happy dance.  

I did hug her about a million times.  :-)  Well, it was for Mr Handsome Cat.  I already paid for Mr Handsome Cat last night, so Chrissy picked him up this evening.  As it turns out, I pay a little more at this vet than Chrissy; I paid $39 for a neutering and rabies vaccine, and Chrissy pays $25 for both, but she has been doing this for ten years, and so he discounts it down to bare bones for her as a professional courtesy, or whatever.  She said that for me to get that rate, she would have to be present with me, since he does it only for people who are actually in business as cat rescuers.  His $39 rate is a courtesy rate for any Good Samaritan off the street who brings in strays.  But I do not care--$39 is fine with me; her vet deserves *some* kind of profit.

So I bought a tin of catnip (for the traps) at Chrissy’s suggestion and left with Meg.  I would have gone back to check the trap, but I was across town and felt as if I were trying to make a watched pot boil, so I did not.  

Meg had to buy a present for a friend from her old program who is also now a co-worker.  This lady is unbelievable; she managed to acquire a terminal degree in a highly work-intensive field, secure permanent employment, *and* still participate in an academic sense (with her old advisor) as well as participate at her place of employment, all whilst stoned as fuck.  It is really an amazing thing to behold, and I do not know how she manages it.  I would love to live my life stoned as fuck.  But were I to, I would end up dropping out and going off to Australia, or maybe Goa to live and spend the rest of my days pondering why on earth Ollie Wisdom thinks he looks better in neon than fake eyelashes.

Butsoanyway.

So Meg is stuck as to what to get ol’ Stoned as Fuck, because she is not in need of anything, really.  I suggested we try a smoke shop.  Meg vetoed that, so I dragged her to another mall where I took her to a novelty store.  I found a statue of Jesus that was called “ask jesus”, or something, and promised to be able to advise on what Jesus would do.  In its bottom was a Magic 8-Ball type display.  

Giggle.

Seeing as how SaF is both from Israel and possessing of a wicked, perverse, and kitschy sense of humour, I told Meg that I thought that would go over *really* well.  Meg was not sure, but I told her to get it; I would bet my life that SaF will *LOVE* it—it is totally her type of joke, and I would bet Squooshable that she will have it on her coffee table and force all of her guests to “ask Jesus”.  Mark my words.

So then Meg and I walked the length of the damn mall twice picking up knick-knacks.  I have to make a list or something to make sure that I am getting everyone, since every time I turn around I think of someone else, and it is always the small ones that I forget—the token type of presents for people who are either giving you something, or to whom you *should* give something because of everything they have done for you.  That sort of thing.  

Finally, I needed a break.  I made Meg go with me to a salon in the mall to get a pedicure.  Yes, I am a junkie.  But really, if I want to do something nice for me, I can either do it myself, or go get a pedicure.  :-)  It is because I am weird.  Meg would have been more enthused about a massage (which she suggested), but I am just weird about being touched anymore; I cannot relax and enjoy it—not that I would ever explain that to her.  First off, I am touch-deprived and so I am way too invested in the interaction.  Not necessarily in a sexual way, but definitely in an emotional way.  Second, I feel as if I should be doing something.  Third, I do not like having people I do not know behind me where I can’t see them.  They may be horribly bored or something, or about to go all Sweeny Todd on my ass.  One never knows about things like that.  But more than anything else I feel lazy, or as if I should be doing something.  Perhaps if I ever find a place that does not stick strangers behind you, and will let clients reciprocate for fifteen minutes after five minutes have passed.  Possibly then.  :-)  It took me long enough to work up to pedicures, and even longer to work up to enjoying them.  

So I’m mental…what of it?  

Plus, my feet hurt from walking in shoes ill-suited for what I had done today as well as my back from carrying everything instead of walking out to my car and putting it up, and the salon has massage chairs *and* hot water.  So, I argued, my way is Best.  :-)

Meg gave in, and it was actually *wonderful*.  Especially since they had to separate us since they were packed.  :-)  On my way to the station, I grabbed a copy of a magazine off the waiting area’s table just because it was a new name (Instinct) with which I was unfamiliar, and after I was seated I realised that it was a gay men’s magazine, but it ended up being fucking hilarious!  I may even subscribe—their review of Carson Kressley’s book alone would be worth the price of subscription, and it was only a paragraph.  :-)  I had not read any of the front-page blurbs or anything, and by the time I was baking under the light, I was so enrapt that I did not notice Meg walking up, staring at me.  The first words out of her mouth were, “’Codia, why in the hell are you reading a gay men’s magazine?”  How in the hell did she know?  Whatever.  I flipped a few pages back to the review of Carson’s book, and showed her.  Hee.

So then we parted ways, ‘cos she wanted to get home, and I needed to check the trap.  I drove (quickly, because I was much alter than I had wanted to be) back to Eviljob and…

Ready?

I CAUGHT THE LAST KITTEN!!!!  

Yes—Mr Grey Tuxedo was in my trap!  Yesterday Son-Friend had said that his Dr Vet said not to incur emergency vet charges (S-F told him I thought one of them was breathing a little fast) unless the kitten was actually panting—which it wasn’t.  S-F’s Dr Vet said that as long as the kitten was responsive and not obviously distressed, dehydrated, or breathing open-mouthed, to wait.  Now, Chrissy’s 24-hr vet does not charge emergency fees (they do all of their surgeries at night), but S-F’s Dr Vet is already giving me a break on the bill for the kittens.  And Grey Tux seemed to be okay.  Freaked out, but not panting or appearing to be in pain or sniffly-nosed, or anything.  So I took it up to Son-Friend, so that it could be with its brother and sister, and Son-Friend will take it to his Dr Vet tomorrow morning.  He said that the Tuxes recognised each other immediately, and Grey Tux drank a huge amount of water, ate, and went immediately to sleep in a pile with its siblings.  :-)  

Yay.  I cannot say it enough.  

So I will hopefully get Momcat tomorrow (and I will take her to Chrissy’s vet to be spayed right away…for all I know, that little hooker is already pregnant again).  :-)  And Momcat will go immediately to Chrissy to be put in a foster home for taming (hopefully).  I told Chrissy that if taming her doesn’t work, I will collect her and put her back out in the parking lot.  Not the best life in the world, but…at least it is better than what she has now, what with having to have litter after litter and watch all of her babies struggle.  But I hope the taming works.  

And then I finally came home to help ‘Pants.  

Sometimes I get very nice emails (thankfully none yet that are not-so-nice!), and tonight I opened my email and had a very nice one from the Director of the Dixie Square documentary.  :-)  And they have a calendar!  I am *so* there…

After I get some sleep, that is.  I am *exhausted*.

G’night.

Life is like a parking lot full of cat traps…

You never know what you are going to get.  

Ok, so it rained.  And once stupid me realised it was not just a mild drizzle that would pass, I went out to check the cat trap and maybe take it in for the night, since I do not want anyone hurt or soaking wet and cold overnight.  

Well, guess what I caught.

If you guessed a handsome gentleman whom I have never seen before who absolutely must have at least some Russian Blue in him, you guessed correctly.  I grew up with two Russian Blues (I would tell you their names, but I frequently use them for passwords ‘cos the odds of anyone guessing them are nil; I made both of the names up myself, and I was like, five.  So I am not stepping around their names ‘cos I didn’t love them), and I just adore them—they are magnificent friends.  Someone once—without knowing I had once had two—gave me a coffee mug with one on it, saying that the description on the mug sounded exactly like me.  :-)  I will take that as being nice.  

This was a dignified man who had pooped in the cat trap.  Pheew.  I am going to have to pay to have my car cleaned out, shampooed, and stuff.  I think that none dropped out, but…it is the principle of the thing.  

So we drove with the windows down, and Mr Handsome Cat was mostly still, probably because he was freezing his ass off.  I had the heat on, but I had to keep the windows down because otherwise, I would have fricking died.  

I took him to the 24-hr vet that Chrissy The Cat Rescue Lady had taken me to (and introduced me, so I could get her discount), and they only charged me $31 to neuter, and $5 for a rabies shot.  So he is there now. I do not know what else to do when I get him back tomorrow but put him back.  I cannot keep him, and I do not have anywhere for him to be put.  Chrissy or Judes cannot take him—they are full up, and I will not take him to Animal Services; they would just kill him if no one adopted him…and I cannot adopt him.  So I feel as if I am letting him down somehow, but I do not know what else to do.  

When we took him out of the trap, he went nuts and bit the tech…I felt horrible about that, but she said that she has been vaccinated against rabies.  I think I should get vaccinated, too.  Especially if I keep doing this sort of thing.  

I want to do something really nice for him before I put him back, though.  I want to give him some very good food that he will really like.  Maybe that will be nice enough.  I know that it really *isn’t* nice enough, but…I do not know what else to do.  I will get a big can of Science Diet’s kitten food for the extra protein and let him have that.  I do not know what else to do.  I hope he will be okay.  I will for sure wait until he is completely out of the anaesthesia before I put him back.

I feel so badly for him.  Tonight may be the first night he has not had to be out in the weather…I hope he is not scared.  I hope he gets a good night’s sleep.  I wish that I could do more.  I am really doing the best that I can.  I think.  If there is something else, I cannot think of what it is.  He is definitely wild, and I feel in my heart that it is true that if someone is let alone long enough, it may not be possible to reach them.  Or what someone would have to do to reach them is more than I am able to do, at least.  There is a critical period for getting through to someone, for the most part.  I mean, I have a break of sorts now…but once my break is over, I am back to having to constantly go and do.  Plus I have my own babies who need me.  I just wish that I could do more, because no one else will.  That is what is so sad.  And I wish I knew if cats like that felt unloved, or lonely.  I guess that they do not know about other cats like my three, who are spoilt something awful.  So I guess that they just accept it; when it is cold and wet, or hot and dry…they just accept it.  That has to be what happens.  I suppose they may wish for food or water when they need it and do not have it because they have the experience of having had it.  And similarly for wanting to be dry when they are wet.  But having not had a soft bed or someone to pet them, they probably cannot miss it.  That sort of ability—to construct idealised alternate experiences or states that parallel an existing reality without prior exposure and to then long for that experience—is something only the sort of wiring humans have can accomplish.  I hope.  Because I certainly wouldn’t wish it upon any other creature.  It is often a deficit, impediment, and source of misery; not an endowment.  

I am sorry, Mr Handsome Cat.  I will do my best to see that you are as okay as I can.  And I will think about you.  

So I am happy, but…kind of not at the same time.  It is because I am helping, but…kind of not at the same time.  

Sporkgirl:  Saving the world, one feline at a time.  

Look deeply into my eyes...you are getting sleepy...you want to walk into a cat trap...

Well, I caught nothing today.  :-\  When I first set the trap out, Momcat ran over, I assume because she thought that I was setting out food.  She must be starving by now.  She sniffed the bowl of food, but would not go to the front of the trap.  So I left, ran a few errands, and came back about five hours later.  Wouldn’t you know that the sneaky little stinker had tripped the trap door?  So I reset it, called for Mama, and went back to my car.  Momcat came up to where I had been, again looking for food.  This makes me so sad, because it just shows that she has faith that I will feed her.  I feel like a dirty scumbag asshat betrayer.  I really do.

Butsoanyway.  

I have one Eviljob office party coming up.  We actually have three.  *Why* we have to have three is beyond me, but we have three.  For this one I am supposed to bring a gift for a gift exchange.  For the next one I am supposed to bring a date, SO, or bestest buddy; that one I may skip out on.  For the one after that I have to bring another gift, but at least it is the more informal one, and we do gift-stealing, or Dirty Santa, which is always fun.  This first one is a Secret Santa kind of thing, so I had to take a name.  The person I got is a nice guy, so as part of my errands today, I bought a T-shirt for him at the mall.  The one I had sought initially said, “He who laughs last thinks slowest”, but they did not have that in his size, so I had to settle on what is probably more suited to his personality:  “Yet, despite the look on my face, you keep talking”.  :-D  It is a little over our given limit, but feh—it called me.  

Then I wandered through Cosmetics.  I want to play with makeup like nobody’s business right now.  One part of me wants to dump the contents of my cosmetics cases on the bed and do hair and nail and face stuff until my brain implodes.  And watch TV.  A lot of TV.  The other part of me is just too damn tired, and would hate to clean up that mess.  I miss the days when I would do things like that.  It actually has been almost a year.  Geez; I had better get back into the habit, or I will never plough through all of my more recent acquisitions.  :-)

And it is cold-ish and rainy again.  It is nice, actually.  And I will enjoy it a whole lot more after I get Momcat and Grey Tuxedo.  C’mon…hurry up, guys…

And Then There Were Two

So I left Eviljob at about one-ish, and set my trap.  In my dreams, I was going to return in a bit and find both the grey tuxedo and Momcat in there.  I figured that was all that was left, since I had not seen the second black tuxedo kitten in about a week or more.  

So I left, made a bunch of copies that I have been putting off for weeks, and was trying to figure out what else I needed to do when Mom phones; she needed to be driven back up to the dealership to pick up that POS krautmobile she calls a car, because she is fighting with them again; she wanted them to do something additional to the damn thing (but, knowing Mommy, she did not bother to tell them this), so with the exception of putting on a new fuel pump or whatever, they did exactly nothing.  I tried to tell her it is because they are German and are inclined to do only exactly what they are told, but she said that I am being racist.  

Hmmph.  Yeah.  Right.  

Okay…maybe.

Butsoanyway.

So I drove All The Way The Hell Over There, picked her up, and took her to There.  As I pulled in, she told me that she wanted me to wait to make sure her car was ready.  What, I asked—they haven’t called you, or you did not call them to ask if your car was ready?  No.  She had not.  She called this morning and got angry with them and so just wanted to go over there and wait and be grumpy.  And she figures that she has given them enough time.

Sigh.

So no, it was not ready, and so I finally convinced her to leave with me.  I took her to lunch, and then to renew her licence, and then I asked her if we could drive all the hell the way back across town to check my trap.  She agreed, as long as I stopped to get some hot tea for her.  So I did.  A great big one, in the hopes that it would keep her busy.  

When I drove down the parking aisle where I had put my trap (my ingenious nature had cleverly hidden it in a bush, disguised as a cat trap), I saw that I *had* caught Someone!  For half a second, I thought it was the Momcat, and then I realised that it was the second black tuxedo cat that I had thought was missing!  And the grey tuxedo kitten and Momcat were sitting nearby, watching.  Which was sad.  

Momcat followed me all the way to my car.  She would not get close to me, but she followed.  That was sad, too.  So I left with mom and the cat in the car, taking it up to Son-Friend’s to be with its sibling.  Son-Friend’s Dr Vet asked Son-Friend to check the first cat over the phone (look at its gums and everything), and said the cat sounded ok to wait one more day, because he was booked solid today.  So the two of them will go tomorrow.  

Butsoanyway.

As I am driving back up there, the cat is howling its little heart out, and Mom is just calmly drinking her tea, like nothing is happening.  Sigh.  Finally, she turned to me and said that I should name the cat ‘Tenor’.  Why ‘Tenor’, I asked.  Because he sings about ten or twelve notes off, she answered.

Mummers, the sit-down-and-drink-tea comedienne.  

I had agreed to meet Son-Friend at the PetsMart by his apartment so that I could buy food and stuff for the kitties; I arrived there early, and so I decided to try to hold the kitten and calm it down (I had to take it out of the trap to transfer it to Son-Friend’s carrier, anyway).  As soon as I opened the trap and reached in, it went psychoapeshit, probably because Momcat had been sitting with it for so long, telling it that it was about to be flayed alive, or something.  It bit me twice, once on each hand, and I could not grab it.  It dashed towards the front seat (I had kept the doors and windows closed, thank goodness), then realised that humans were up there, and ran for the back, then realised I was reaching in the back, and it ran to the front again, and then back to the back—all in this big circle as I tried to catch it, kind of like those toy cars that do loop-the-loops on a track.  It was running mostly sideways, on glass—the glass of the rear dash, driver’s side, front dash, passenger side, back to the back dash…and repeat.  Again and again.  And again.  And again.  Sort of like The Matrix, re-enacted in thirty seconds, by kitties.  And as all of this was going on, Mom sat facing forward in the passenger seat, occasionally stirring to take a swig from her Styrofoam cup.

“Mom!” I yelled to her as the cat zipped past her on the passenger-side window ledge for the fifth time, “Could you help me here?  Please?”  
Mom looked at me as if I had asked her to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem.  
“What do you want me to do,” she asked as Cat and I swirled around the cabin.
“Catch it!  Stop it!  Scruff it!  Help!”
“No.”
“MOM!!!”
“I am holding my tea in my left hand, and I cannot be stuck on my right arm!  No!”

Grr.  With her lumpectomy/lymphectomy, Mom is not supposed to have blood drawn or blood pressure taken on her right…nothing about a minor, teensy cat scratch…NOTHING.  Or two.  Or three.  Probably bites would be out…  

Oh, screw it.

I tried to anticipate where the cat was going to run next, and after a few unsuccessful tries, finally got it right.  I got it scruffed, and held it gently-but-close, and he calmed right down.  Sort-of.

Finally Son-Friend got there, I transferred Mr Cat to his carrier, and went in to buy food and try as best I could to wash out my hands and make them bleed.  Ouchy.

And so, to abruptly truncate an already unbearably long story, now I am here.  And I bought cocoa on the way home.  With marshmallows.  Lots and lots of marshmallows.  

:-D

And then I got to have a really nice conversation with someone normal, which is always welcome, and when one adds to that the fact that I also got to go shopping with Nurse Betty on Monday (and picked up more Woody Sandalwood at the Body Shop!), and…well…I am happy.  Now, I just *know* that means that something absoutively horrid is lurking around the corner for me, but for now I am happy.  

So NYAH, you absoutively horrid thing, wherever you are.  

:-)

One down, two to go, another trap, and more stinky chow

Yay!

The sneaky little kitties have been avoiding my traps all weekend, but I have finally starved one out.  

Yes, that is correct, I have not fed them.  And that has made me very sad.

So I have been putting wet cat food in a bowl in the trap, and I guess Momcat had told her squooshables not to go near it.  Well, one caved.  And I swung by Eviljob on the way home from waiting with Mummers for a tow (long story; let it suffice to say that I never cease to be amazed at how often such an allegedly ‘quality’ car bites it.  Even though this time I actually do think she got bad gas), and…::drum roll::…I had caught a black tuxedo squooshable!!  

Yay!

What broke my heart was that Momcat was sitting right by the trap until I came up, keeping her extremely distressed baby company.  I really almost cried.  But I collected the cage, tried to not think about the mess Little One was making all over my upholstery (which I try to keep in good condition), and headed off to Dr Vet’s, then Mom called.  They couldn’t get to her car today, and so she wanted me to drive for thirty minutes in rush-hour traffic to pick her up, because her driver’s licence was expired, and she was busy getting into a fight with the rental place at the dealership over how they should rent a car to her even with an expired licence and so she missed the courtesy shuttle and would have to wait at least an hour, but she didn’t want to wait because she was pissed.

Oh, hell.

So the little black-tuxedoed squooshable was howling because it thought I was taking it off to Certain Death and I wanted to listen to NPR so at a long light I reached into the trap and got it out.  It half-hissed at me once, but didn’t do anything else, and as soon as I scruffed it, it went limp and calmed down.  He (or she—it kept its tail tightly wound around its little business, and I did not feel like prying) then let me hold him for the rest of the drive, and was really a very agreeable little baby.  :-)  She may be mean, but Momcat sure does make nice kittens.  And I did not get to listen to NPR really, ‘cos I was talking to the little squooshable and telling it that I was not going to kill it, no matter what its Mom may have said.  It stayed perfectly still mostly, even though I could only hold it with my left hand ‘cos I had to steer and shift with my right.  It even fell asleep on me for a few minutes.  I think we have had a busy day today.  

So as I was driving, trying to make it there before they closed, it occurred to me that since Son-Friend lives about twenty minutes away, I could ask him to meet me and take this kitten, ‘cos he owes me, plus he did so well with Isabella and Mistar, my Squooshable’s brother and sister.  So I called him.

He not only met me and took the cat, he volunteered to take Mummers home—so I was thrilled.  And that gave me a chance to clean all of the wet cat food off my seat and floor from where the little squooshable had tried to hide in the bowl I had put in the cage.  

It really did—it tried to hide in the bowl.  Poor baby!  It tried as hard as it could to squoosh itself into a little ball and cram itself into the bowl which it had knocked on its side so that the food could pour all over my seat and floor…sigh.  So when I pulled it out to hold it, it was all covered in wet cat food.  But I do not mind.  And my car cleaned up mostly ok; once I am done with Momcat & Co., I will go get it shampooed and stuff.  

But I am happy!  And then I picked up Chinese (they are really nice to me at this place around the corner from me—they gave me a calendar, and a free fortune cookie that had either a really nice, or totally mean fortune, depending upon how one took it), then came home, peeled off my wet-with-cat-food clothes, showered, and watched Cold Case Files.  

Yay!

And Son-Friend said that the squooshable is doing fine; as soon as he got it home and into its cage, it went to the bathroom, drank and ate a lot, and then passed out.  And Son-Friend will take it to his vet in the morning to get FeLV & AIDS tests, and Revolution for fleas.  

I am *SOOOO* happy!!!

Oh…and…my fortune said, “You make people realise that there exist other beauties in the world”.  I am going to take that the nice way for the time being.  And it also says that fruit is shui-guo in Chinese.  If it turns out they intended that in a mean way, I will go kick some red-typewriter-writing-on wise old Chinese butt.  

:-D

And I really would love some hot chocolate.  Or cold eggnog.  Or soy milk.  

Sigh.

G’night.