Sunday, June 21, 2009

Did I Tell You the One About...

how I almost killed my cat? See, I have this cat, who is more of a decorative than functional pet. She really likes me alone, and I am pretty much the only one in the world who really likes her. She is lovely to look at, but even I have to admit that she can be a bit devoid in the charm department. So here's the thing. I bought a bag of food for the cat. It was not the same kind of food I usually get her. Not off by miles, not like she was eating Iams and I bought Meow Mix or something, just that she was eating Science Diet Indoor Senior Hairball Control and I bought Science Diet Indoor Senior Sensitive Skin Care or something. I mean MINIMAL difference we are talking here. In my defense, this was back when the babies were up pretty much every two hours all night, so things were, to say the least, a bit hazy here and there. Anyway, I bought the wrong food. But whatever. I usually feed the cat on my way to bed at night. But it was great since obviously, because he knew I was not firing on all 8 cylinders, Dearest was feeding the cat and letting me off the hook. I KNEW he was feeding the cat because there was always food in her bowl! So after he had clearly been feeding the cat for about a week I was all, "Honey, I wanted to thank you so much for feeding the cat! I really appreciate it!" And he looked at me like I had three heads and was all "Why in the hell would I ever feed that awful animal? I hate that cat." So then I was like, "Um, does this mean that you haven't been scooping her box either?" because I had just figured that since he was feeding the cat he must have been scooping the box too, right? And I don't think he even responded to the question about the box because he's pretty much willing to forgo ever having a son because me being pregnant would mean another 9 months of him having to deal in cat shit. Anyway. So I realized that the cat had neither been eating nor crapping for like 6 days. My immediate deduction was that she certainly was dieing of cat anorexia or probably some kind of tumor that made her go off her food that will require thousands of dollars of medical interventions. Dearest must have had the same thought, because he was all, "I am not spending one more penny on health care for that damn cat, the best I can offer you is seventy bucks to have her put down." (Like it was my fault that it cost $400 to have her teeth cleaned.) We both looked at the cat, who happened to be laying on the kitchen floor (how long had she been laying there, I wondered in a panic? Had we been stepping over her rotting carcass for 5 days and had not even noticed?), and Dearest reached down and picked her up. You have to understand that prior to this incident, it was never a simple case of Dearest scooping up said cat off the floor- it generally would have involved chasing and cursing and flailing and probably bloodshed. But this time, the cat was just kind of limp, and she did not flail, and she didn't even hiss when he put her down. "This cat is fucked," was Dearest's official thought on the matter. Then I thought about the subtle difference in the food I bought a week ago. "You don't think..." I mused, "that the cat would starve herself instead of eating that different food, do you?" "Probably she would," he said, "and if we wouldn't have noticed for a few more days, I would have been through with that idiot cat forever." So I offered her a treat, and she ate it like... well... like a cat who had not eaten for a week and who was really damn hungry. I gave her some turkey and cheese from the fridge. Ate it. More treats, ate those. She immediately started to perk up. That dumb cat would sooner DIE than eat the wrong food. Wonderful. Anyway, I bought the right food the next day, threw the remainder of the $20 bag of Science Diet Indoor Senior Sensitive Skin Care in the trash (seemed a shame, when there are LEGITIMATELY starving cats in this world) and all's well that ends well. For everyone except Dearest, who would have only considered the cat's demise to be a happy ending. The end.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Facebook Ate My Blog

Or at least it's trying to. I admit it- I'm a little sucked in to Facebook. It has been a super easy and slick way to stay in touch with friends and family, and I really enjoy it. It is, however, a bit like the fast food of the internet... a quick fix certainly fills you up, but it is far from a gourmet meal you can savor. The other day I read my friend Genny's blog, which talked about her regrets over having not blogged or otherwise journalled certain life events and it made me think. Dammit, I am not gonna let that happen to me. What I am experiencing now is too heightened, too terrifying and exhilarating and precious to let it fade into memory's abyss. I must get back on the blogging horse, even if it means I do that instead of sleeping. (What's the difference between 4 hours of sleep and 4 hours 15 minutes, really?)

The only problem is, I feel a certain obligation for my blogs to be somewhat interesting, or compelling, or at a bare minimum amusing, and I'm just not sure I have that right now. Blogs are meant to be read, right? Otherwise it is just kind of an online diary, and that's not what I want. My life is so chaotic and disjointed right now, and I am terrified that people in the real world are going to catch on to that by reading my blog. If there is one thing this control freak fears, it's other people sensing her loss of control. So that's part of what has kept me from writing too.

Thankfully, things are starting to come together. I am getting comfortable, in a strange way, living with these 2 little hand grenades, and I am no longer just waiting for one of them to explode at every moment.

So if anyone is still out there, bear with me. There may be a few posts that sound like I wrote them a month ago (I did!) and there may be a few that sound like they are written through a sleep deprived haze (they are!) but hopefully I will get back on track, because Facebook is not satisfying my need for a fix anymore.


Ow! Mom, she's hitting me!


Saturday Morning with the family