Happy Returns

Um. Okay, then. Emmett's back.

He was waiting outside when I came back from church today. The story of how I came to be at this particular church and how it seems to relate to Emmett's return is the longer and more bewildering story--at least from my point of view.

It'll take a bit for me to wrap my own head around it.

Just be prepared, cause I might have to get religious on your ass.

In the meantime, just know that Emmett is back, a bit skinner than we last saw him, hungry and seemingly unharmed. No idea where he's been, but we're thankful to have him home.

More story to come later in the week.

See you in another five months, I guess

Heh...

...only kidding.

Still no Emmett Kitty to be found. The wife is pretty broken up about it, because she thinks he's been carried off by one of the hawks we've seen flying around. (Which would probably serve him right for all the mice he's killed around here.) I've tried to be encouraging and explain that when I was a kid I once had a cat who disappeared for months at a time, but she points out that Emmett has never EVER missed a meal, let alone been gone for days.

At around 5:30, this morning, I awoke with an idea of how to find Emmett. Sure, I'd already thought of the possibility of sticking fliers in all the mailboxes in the neighborhood and was prepared to do that despite it being illegal to tamper with the mail. However, it occurred to me that word of mouth would probably do more good and I knew exactly whose mouth to start spreading that word. I would call Mrs. Foreman (formerly known as Mrs. Nosy), the lady from up the hill who I've long suspected of being the foreman of the neighborhood gossip mill. She's the very lady who once stopped to not help me at all as I was rescuing a strange cat from a very tall tree two years ago. This was a cat, I might add, that looked almost exactly like my cat Avie, only male, and which I've never seen again since I rescued it, leading me to suspect it was the Avie from a parallel universe temporarily allowed into our plane of existence to test my mettle. His name was Avron, perhaps.

Oh, and while we're on the topic of my rescuing cats:

Dear Karma,

What, I don't get any credit for that cat rescue? What the hell, man? I risked my very life to get that cat's lazy ass out of a wickedly tall tree growing on the edge of a steep and rocky incline and now I get to lose TWO cats in the space of a year? Might I suggest, sir and/or madam, you gnaw on a stout loin.

--juice

But I digress...

As it happens, Mrs. Foreman lives literally up the hill from my house, though her driveway is around the other side and takes you an extra half mile drive to get to. But I figured if anyone might have seen Emmett Mrs. Foreman would have a good chance at it being so close by. And if she hadn't seen him herself, she would be the ideal person to spread the word to others who might have.

So I got out of bed, made some coffee, then sat down to the computer. I'm Facebook friends with Mrs. Foreman in another life, which is probably how she keeps tabs on us all. So I sent her a note explaining our missing kitty and included a picture of him in case she saw him.

Before 10 a.m., Mrs. Foreman had responded. Yes, they had seen Emmett. She and Mr. Foreman had seen Emmett in the area of the home of the Otto family, who live not quite half way up the same hill leading to Mrs. Foreman's house. Fantastic news, right? But she didn't say when she'd seen him. Could have been today. Could have been a week ago before he was missing. So, mere seconds after receiving her reply, I wrote her back to thank her for writing, tell her I was on my way up to the Ottos', and to clarify when she thought she'd seen Emmett.

No reply.

Minutes turned to nearly half an hour before I gave up waiting. In the meantime, though, I looked up the Ottos' number and gave them a call. They were out, so I left a message explaining Mrs. Foreman's sighting and asking them to call if they saw my cat around. That done, I checked FB one last time and then climbed in the car.

I parked near the Ottos' house and got out to walk around. They indeed seemed to be gone, so I just walked around calling Emmett's name. No reply. I searched around in the bushes for any car-struck kitty bodies, but none of them were to be found either, thankfully. Then, to try and do something productive, I drove down the road to the neighborhood just below ours and back up through their streets in the direction of the Ottos' hoping to spot the cat. None to be seen living or dead.

I went home.

A couple hours later, I decided to walk the dogs back up the hill past the Ottos' to see if we had any better luck. And as I was peering down into the Ottos' expansive back yard for any signs of Emmett, who should pull up but Mrs. Foreman.

"Did you get my message?" she called.

"Yeah. When did you last see him?"

"Oh, it was my husband who saw him."

"Do you know if it was since Thursday?"

"No. Not sure. But he saw him. Said he was running through the yard there," she said pointing toward the Ottos' unfenced pasture of a back yard. "Just go on down there," Mrs. Foreman said, pointing again. "They're out of town. It won't matter." I looked hesitantly down the yard. "It won't matter, they're out of town," she said again. Why is it my conversations with Mrs. Foreman always include me feeling odd about her attitude toward our mutual neighbors. She didn't say, they won't mind if you walk into their yard, she said, "it won't matter, they're out of town." I was like saying: "it's okay as long as they're not here to catch you. Don't worry, I'll keep your secret."

Mrs. Foreman drove on. After a minute's thought, I went down into the Ottos' back yard. Me and the dogs stuck close to the trees--not that we were afraid of being seen, but because that's where a cat might likely hide. We only made it half way down the yard, calling Emmett's name, when the Ottos' neighbor from across the road started their car. I climbed back up the hill and went over to ask if they'd seen Emmett. Before I'd even described the cat, the guy said, "Kind of white cat, with gray?"

Yep, he'd seen Emmett too. Lots of times. Evidently Emmett is or was a regular and was often lurking around their back yard or passing by the house on his way further up the hill.

I texted the wife with all of the events of the day and she said, "Well, maybe he'll come wandering back, then."

Maybe he will.

Another kitty MIA

No sooner do I introduce the "new" kitties on the blog than one of them vanishes. Emmett Kitty has been missing for over 24 hours. I know, I know, that's a mere fraction of the time some cats disappear and then return, especially male cats. When I was a kid, we had a cat named Bay who would disappear for three months at a stretch and then turn up out of the blue. However, Emmett is fixed and has never done this before, so we have to chalk it up as either a first time walkabout or bad news.

At first we thought it had been a couple of days since we'd seen the cat, as the wife said she didn't remember seeing him at all yesterday. However, I remembered that I did see him yesterday morning, just before breakfast, when I saw Emmett sharpening all four sets of claws on one of our chairs at the same time. Normally any non-sharpening post sharpening pisses us off, but I remember thinking that I'd have to tell the wife about the four pawed claw because Emmett was certainly taking the art of clawing the ever-loving-shit out of the furniture to a new level.

We were then out for most of the day. When we returned, D.J. Kitty was around, but Emmett didn't turn up for dinner.

Making matters worse is that we were hit by some pretty nasty storms last night, the kind no cat would want to be out in. The wife got up in the night and must have let D.J. out while letting the dogs out to potty, because he was mewing to get in at 6 a.m. I could have sworn I heard two different cat voices then, because I even commented to the wife, "Oh, don't you hear the choir of kitties mewing to get in?" But we left them out there, mostly because we recently found a clothes basket full of clean laundry that had been pissed upon. If there really were two, only one turned up for breakfast.

So we're not sure what his status is or if he's even been away for a full 24 hours. I may very well be prematurely calling him missing. But he feels missing.

If you're of a praying mind, please say one for my missing kitty. (And one for Avie, too.)

If you're not of a praying mind... well, pray anyway. God hears the prayers of unbelievers, too.

Thanks.

Blood, Foot and Tears

My visit with Dr. Ralph on Friday went fairly well, all things considered. My cholesterol was down to normal human levels, blood pressure was great and liver was doing just fine. I'm not sure why he brought up the liver, unless liver damage is one of Crestor's side effects. (Yeah, I just checked that and turns out Crestor's well known for its liver damaging capabilities. Mine seems to be unharmed, though, so good news there.)

I was pretty sure Dr. Ralph was likely going to hassle me about my weight, particularly since he's brought it up in all of our previous visits and has seen no evidence of any loss. In my defense, I have actually lost weight between our visits, thanks to the Slow Carb Diet and a brief dalliance with the Mediterranean Diet, where you're supposed to eat exactly like Mediterranean's eat, cause they apparently don't have any fat people over there. I lost weight with Slow Carb, albeit not as swiftly as its chief proponent Tim Ferriss indicates in his book Four Hour Body. My Mediterranean diet was not as successful, however, because I wound up eating pretty much anything I wanted on the grounds that I felt most Mediterraneans would really like Reese Cup Ice Cream if only they'd try a bite.

Unfortunately, our trip to Florida resulted in a binge week that sort of kept going after we got back, earning me a enough return pounds that I was only down a little bit from where I was at my last visit to Dr. Ralph. Secondly, Dr. Ralph's scale is a damned dirty liar, because it said I weighed a full 10 pounds heavier than my own scale at home did this very morning, post-dump. Thirdly, and most damning to my case, is the fact that one week ago I threw my back out buttoning my pants. Yep. Stepped into some pants, went to button them and threw out my back through the sheer power of my fatness.

Actually, the pants in question were not even a tight fit, there was no straining involved and thus it came as something of a shock when I subluxed a rib in the process of buttoning them. I then spent a day unable to turn my head properly or lift even lightweight objects without pain. I followed the wife's advice of stretching on an exercise ball, took some Alieve and felt a little better the next day. Felt so good, in fact, that I did even more stretching and then found myself nearly unable to get out of bed on day 3. I got half out, realized I couldn't go any further and that returning to a prone position was gonna hurt pretty bad too. So I just sat there on the edge of the bed, propped on my good arm until I finally could relax enough to sink back to the bed.

This sort of thing happened to me a couple of years ago--about this time of year, in fact--and lasted about a week before I could get the rib back into place. Despite my wife's manipulation techniques, it remained out of place through this morning.

Dr. Ralph tried a few manipulative techniques for getting the rib back into place, but wasn't quite successful.

Meanwhile, on the foot front... it turns out that the edema the radiologists saw in my MRI wasn't even located in the part of my foot that hurts, but was in the ankle, instead. The part of my foot that hurts still shows Jack Shit as far as any causative elements. Dr. Ralph explained that an MRI is capable of seeing arthritis, but wasn't showing anything that might cause pain in my foot. He wasn't sure if a podiatrist would be able to do much, either, since the one test they could order to show them what was wrong had already turned up nothing. Dr. Ralph said he was open to any suggestions.

I asked about acupuncture, as my massage therapist sister had suggested it. He said give it a whirl.

In the meantime, he recommended not using it so strenuously in exercise, such as when walking or running. Then we had a good laugh, cause the only time I run is when being chased. I explained that I probably would have been walking on it far more strenuously, since power walking is my exercise of choice. However, when I go walking it's with dogs and there's not much way to get good exercise with them stopping to sniff or poop every four feet. I assured him I wasn't putting huge strain on it. But, of course, he also suggested losing weight would certainly do my foot no harm and would put less strain on it.

Now I guess I'm off to the gym, sans dogs.

My EFFing Foot: The Saga Continues?

Well crap on a monkey, whack him in the head, bake him, mix him with cream cheese and curry powder, spread him on a cracker, then crap on the cracker, too.

Dr. Ralph called today with the results of the MRI of my foot.

Want to know what they found?

A steaming pile of NOTHIN', that's what!

As far as anyone can see, there are no stress fractures, no neuromas, no horrible foot cancers, no alien implants, no nothin'. They do say there MIGHT be a slight edema in the tissue, but nothing that seems like it would cause the sort of pain I'm having in my foot. I was quietly livid, as well as a bit sick to my stomach. A) I'm pissed that after nearly four months I still don't know why my foot hurts nor does it seem likely that I'm gonna find out any time soon; and B) I dropped nearly $800 as a copay on that EFFing MRI, and had to jump through five weeks of physical therapy hoops just to have the chance to do it! And I still don't know how much the physical therapy is going to cost! AAARRRRGHH!!

"Well, that's how it goes sometimes," my wife told me.

"It's how it... ? But... Five weeks of... Eight Hundred... Mother f..."

Grrrrrr.

I've now had the afternoon to calm down about it, but I'm still smoldering somewhat. I'd best be careful, though, otherwise when I go in for my checkup with Dr. Ralph in the morning, my blood pressure will be up and put me back on meds for it.

To be continued, I guess.

New Cast Introductions (and Goodbyes) Part 3

D.J. Kitty, ostensibly the runt, has turned out to be the more intelligent of the two kittens. He’s definitely the more demanding one when it comes to his food supply and is given to meowing loudly from just out of reach at 4 a.m. when he decides it’s time for breakfast. He is also known for clawing the shit out of you if you don’t prepare his morning bowl of canned food as quickly as he desires. (This has led to many a morning when he only receives dry food and is lucky it isn’t thrown at him.) When not clawing us, his other favorite tactic is to locate the most fragile and/or valuable thing one of us (*cough*cough*cough*THEWIFE*COUGH*) has unwisely left on the table where we feed them, say a cell phone or stethoscope, and knocking it off to the hard floor below. We’ve therefore had to adjust our habits of where we put things upon coming home. When D.J.’s not being an absolute bitch, though, he’s a very loving cat. And he adores Moose, to the point that we sometimes catch them napping together.

Emmett, on the other hand, is the Matthew McConaughey of cats, meaning he looks very pretty and very stoned most of the time. He’s not terribly intelligent, but probably only has a dusting of the “re re,” so he’s not a total lost cause in the brains department. He’s much more prone to just quietly taking life as it comes. And while he's definitely interested in food—in fact, we had to switch to weight control cat food cause he was becoming quite the fatty for a while there— he's not so interested that he’d cause anyone physical harm to get hold of some, or even meow. In fact, I can't recall the last time I heard him meow.

It took us a while to bond with the cats, probably because they drove us nuts most of the time. With the brief exception of Milo Soulpatch, we've only had female cats and the ones we've had weren't known for just tearing the hell out of our house like these two ass clowns. Though they've settled down a bit now, there were a couple months there when they just flew through the house knocking shit over at all hours of the day and night. There was some mutual training that had to be done in this. They trained us to notice that whenever they were tearing through the house, knocking shit over or clawing at the flatscreen, it was there way of getting our attention because they WANTED to go out. And we had to train them that when they knock a bedside lamp onto our head in the middle of the night, we are apt to try and strangle them, or at least hurl a pillow at them. (And by "we" I mean me, as the wife never seems to be on the receiving end of their antics.) D.J. now limits his sleep interruptions to meowing in the night in the hope of being let out or being fed. (The little shit does not suffer for lack of food, by the way, he’s just a complete bitch.)

We recently returned from another family trip to Florida. We rented the same house from last year and met up with most of the same crew of the wife’s family from last year as well as a niece and nephew who weren’t able to come before. This year, we included my sister and my parents, since the house was plenty big enough for all of us. We took our dogs with us on the journey, but left the cats behind at the “kitty spa,” which is what we call vet-boarding. A great time was had by all.

We returned on a Sunday, so we knew we would have to wait until the following morning before we could pick the kitties up from the vet. It was kind of sobering to return home knowing the new cats were safe and sound at the “spa” and that we would still have Avie in our lives now if we’d only decided to board her last year.

As the wife and I settled into bed on the night of our return, we were startled by the sound of a cat meowing from outside. It sounded as though it was very near our bedroom window. Both of us had the exact same thought at the same time and rushed to the back door, silently hoping that our cat had chosen an ironic or at least very synchronous time to return. What a tremendous story that would be that Avie returned to us nearly a year to the day from her disappearance. We both called her name repeatedly, but she didn’t appear and we never saw the cat that made the sound. Probably just one of the neighborhood cats.

We still wonder about Avie and her whereabouts. And whenever we’re in Ruby's neighborhood, we always keep our eyes peeled just in case we see her. We like to think that she was adopted by a nice old lady and that at any given moment Avie is napping peacefully on her lap. It breaks our heart whenever we see any sort of stray cat, for fear that Avie is among their number now.

Today I stopped by the animal shelter to have a look around, for old times sake. No Avie to be found. Not even a cat that looked remotely like her. The shelter has long since taken down her wanted poster, though to their credit they left it up for many months longer than any of the other posters, probably due to my near daily presence.

I guess maybe it's time we officially said goodbye to her and stopped hoping for her return. I doubt either of us could manage to do it, though.

MRInterlude

After six weeks of physical therapy during which my foot stopped hurting not one little bit (though, in its defense, it hasn't gotten one little bit worse either), the previous theory that I was suffering from a neuroma has been moved into the "unlikely" column. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast talking to Jacko the physical therapist, but he was the first to suggest that a neuroma might not be the problem when my foot saw no improvement after 4 weeks. So last week Jacko and Dr. Ralph had another talk with my insurance company and asked them to reconsider their refusal on the proposed MRI of my foot to find out what the hell is really wrong with it. ("OY! He needs it!") Yesterday I learned that insurance has now said the equivalent of "Fine! Whatever!"

My MRI was scheduled for this morning. They hoped to have the results ready for my previously scheduled cholesterol appointment with Dr. Ralph tomorrow. In fact, I needed to be sure to go get blood work done for that, so they'd have my current cholesterol results, too.

"Are you scared?" the wife asked this morning.

"No," I said. And it wasn't the first time she'd asked me if I was nervous or scared. I wasn't even really sure why she had asked it, since to my way of thinking I was just going in to stick my foot in a big noisy machine for a while. It wasn't like radiation was even involved, or that I was going to have 19 feet of colonoscope shoved up my ass; it was just magnetic resonance waves. The worst thing I'd have to worry about was pissing off the techs if I accidentally moved my foot during the scan. But I also knew that she was asking as a person who had been inside an MRI machine as a patient, a few years ago. I know for a fact I was very nervous then and all I had to do was pace outside the door, listening as the enormous, farty-sounding MRI machine tried to change her polarity.

"Is there anything I should wear, or not wear?" I asked her, meaning should I leave all metal at home, or wear pants without a metal button? She said it didn't matter, since they would probably make me wear one of those assless hospital gowns. Great, I was more nervous about that prospect than the test itself.

I arrived at the hospital and checked in. On the way back to the MRI machine, the technician asked if I needed to use the bathroom in advance of the test. She said it might take a half hour. Despite my two cups of coffee, I didn't need to and just motored on. The technician and I sat down first in the MRI room where she asked a bunch of health questions to make sure I didn't have any metal within my person or other health conditions adverse to being magnetically resonated. Nope and nope. She also seemed prepared that I might be nervous, but didn't mention any assless gowns. In fact, she gave me a box to put all my pocket contents and belt into, but otherwise I was free to stay in my clothes. Sweet.

That done, they had me lie on the MRI machine's bench, clamped a foot-shaped box over my actual foot, gave me a bulb to squeeze should I decide to panic about anything, gave me some ear plugs for the noise, then raised the bench and slid it into the machine until I was in up to the knees.

I lay on the bench, my arms crossed on my chest, as there wasn't really room to keep them anywhere else, and thought deeply about keeping my foot as still as possible. Oh, but what if the noise of the machine startled me at first and I flinched? Would that ruin anything? I decided I wouldn't.

The machine was very noisy, but this one seemed much less so than the one that had scanned my wife's noggin. Didn't even feel like I needed the ear plugs so much, especially since it was only very noisy about three out of every ten minutes and just sort of hummy the rest of the time. On a couple of occasions, it made sounds that felt like a techno beat, even layering another beat on top of the first one. I started trying to make up melodies in my head to match it.

I tried closing my eyes for a while, but the room was nice and warm and the vibration of the machine was sort of soothing. I was a little concerned I might go into a light sleep and do one of those all body flinches I sometimes do when nodding off. So I kept my eyes open and stared at the ceiling and at the front of the MRI machine above me. While the housing of the machine itself was made of a cream-colored metal or plastic, the front of the machine had a translucent aqua plastic facing that looked like it would have a nice texture. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but that would surely jostle my foot. Just above the machine's digital display, in big metallic letters, was the name of its manufacturer: SIEMENS. "Huh huh, huh huhhuh," Beavis laughed in my mind on reading this, just like he does every time I see one of their ads on TV. (C'mon, SIEMENS, I know it's the name of your founder, Werner von Siemens, or some such, but really? Couldn't come up with a name for the company that didn't send every 12 to 40 year old, juvenile-minded male into silent giggles every time we see it written? All right, so you've been around for 160 years and have more than earned the right to call yourselves whatever the hell you want. At the very least you could stop sounding so proud of the name while repeating it 50 times in every one of your TV spots. Just sayin'.)

While lying on the table, I remembered I needed to go have my blood drawn for my cholesterol check. Since I was near Dr. Ralph's office, I figured I could just roll in there and let their phlebotomist have a vial.

At what I guessed was the midway point of my time in the MRI machine, I noticed that I really had to pee. Why hadn't I gone before? This made the rest of my time in the machine seem to take longer. Around what felt like the 28 minute mark, the technicians came on to ask if I was doing okay and to let me know I only had one more scanning session and we'd be done. Within a few minutes they came in and rolled me on out of the MRI, gave me my crap back and after putting on my shoes I was done.

Only as I was on the way to the car to head over for the blood draw did I remember that I'd eaten a massive bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, which would sully any blood results. With my appointment on the morrow, I would not have any time to get blood work done. So I called Dr. Ralph's office and rescheduled for Friday. Don't know if that means I'll have to wait until then to hear about my foot, but maybe that will give Dr. Ralph time to come up with a game plan for fixing it after he hears the results.

From what I was told, they're supposed to have the results for me by tomorrow, when I was scheduled.

New Cast Introductions (and Goodbyes) Part 2

We next called our vet, who told us that the kittens would possibly be all right provided we keep them confined in a room such as a bathroom, one with tile or linoleum floors that are frequently bleached. At their young age, they had some degree of mother's immunity still but would need the full compliment of vaccinations to be fully protected. So we rushed home and stuffed them back into their bathroom prison.

After some discussion, we decided to keep the kittens with us. After all, if Ruby was going to keep them in her bathroom for several weeks, they may as well be in ours. And we could at least take them out a few times a day for exercise and exploration outside, not to mention immediately get them their next set of shots.

We took Emma and D.J. to the vet that afternoon, where we were informed that Emma was actually a boy. Yep, big ol unmistakable set of cat junk on that guy. Also, the kittens weren’t siblings at all. In fact, “Emma” was at least a couple of weeks older than D.J., a fact that was mistakenly reported otherwise on the official forms from the animal shelter—you know, the same forms that said he was a girl. The vet also stressed that they could not guarantee any vaccinations given to the cats by the animal shelter, because much of the shelter's vaccine stock was donated or expired from the get go. They were also mainly staffed with volunteers and kids from juvie, so who knew what sort of accuracy their records had in the first place? (And if "Emma's" stated sex was any example, not much.) Still, the vet said that our plan to keep the cats sequestered in the can was probably the best given the circumstances. Pan leukopenia took two weeks to set in after exposure, so we would just have to be alert to changes in two weeks time and play it by ear from there.

We decided to rename Emma "Emmett," after one of my favorite characters from the film Silverado, played by Scott Glen. We also toyed with the idea of renaming D.J. "Jake," after Emmett's brother Jake, played by Kevin Costner.

On the way home, we phoned Ruby to let her know about the gender switch for Emma. We told her of our plan to rename him Emmett. We immediately called Ruby to let her know of our renaming scheme. We'd no sooner told her about Emmett's new name when she cheerfully piped up, “Oh, Emmett, like from Twilight?”

"Uh, no," we said. Ruby, you see, is a Stephanie Meyer fan. As card-carrying non-fans ourselves, we weren't even aware there was an Emmett in Twilight, but we didn't much like the association. We then told her about D.J.'s proposed new name.

“Oh, Jake like from Twilight?” Ruby said.

“No! Not Jake like from Twilight!” we screamed.

Instantly we knew that renaming D.J. to Jake was a bad idea, because everyone below the age of 30 would forever assume we meant to name the cats after Twilight characters and we just couldn’t handle that. He would have to stay D.J.--damn sparkling vampires.

Keeping the cats in the bathroom soon proved problematic. D.J. was a master escape artist, who would wait by the crack of the door whenever we approached and would be out in a flash. We took to just putting a hand at the bottom of the door to catch him each time. Emmett, on the other hand, was pretty mellow, though he wasn’t above fighting with D.J. when they got too stir crazy. We took them out twice a day, but they were getting bigger and more active by the minute, it seemed, and wanted out of the bathroom in a bad way. And to show this, they took to destroying as much of the bathroom as they could get their kitty claws into, including clawing down the shower curtain, shredding the toilet paper and generally spreading as much litter to the four winds as possible, when they weren’t busy stinking up the joint with impressively powerful kitten poops. At least they were pooping, though. The lack of pooping and peeing and appetite was a sure fire sign of medical trouble, but we saw none of that from them. They were feisty and hungry at all times and pissed and shit enough for six cats.

We made it to nearly the mid-way point of their immunization cycle before turning them loose. By then, three weeks had passed with no problems. We decided to take our chances and hope the vaccinations they’d already had would be enough. After all, Milo Soulpatch had come into our care from the brink of starvation and had other ailments beyond the pan leukopenia. We don’t even know that he acquired it in our care, just that he came down with it two weeks after he arrived. These kitties did fine, though. Soon they had made frenemies with the dogs—content to sweetly nuzzle them and even sleep spooned up against them when not actively being chased.

New Cast Introductions (and Goodbyes) Part 1

One of the most tragic aspects of the disappearance of our cat Avie, just over one year ago, is that so much effort was put into getting her into our house in the first place. From her original rescue from the negligent assholes who had her, to the weeks she spent in the care of my mother-in-law in North Carolina as she underwent the necessary vaccinations in order to even set foot in our potentially panleukopenia-infected house, a lot of calories were burned getting her here. For nearly two years she was part of our family and we loved her dearly despite, and sometimes because of, her occasional quirks.

When we went to Florida last year, we left her in the care of some friends across town, Ruby and Turk. This was Avie's first time to be cat-sat, and I'd intended to buy her a collar with a name tag. After all, our friends had three boys and there was no guaranteeing that any of them would be as diligent in policing open doors at their house as we might be. Unfortunately, I forgot to, remembering my intention only after we'd dropped Avie off. Ruby said she'd put her cat's collar on Avie, just so there was some contact info to be had should she escape, but she forgot to as well. Phone text reports of Avie's status sounded good. But when Ruby came home on the Friday night of our vacation, she found her back door wide open and no cat to be seen.

We spent a fruitless month searching for her, and another two months after that of almost daily visits to the local animal shelter to check if she'd been turned in. Despite seeing plenty of nice looking cats there, we decided it was probably best to just stick with dogs for a while and not try and find a replacement kitty. It had been so much work to get Avie into the house in the first place, and we couldn't bring a stray in without weeks of vaccinations first. We'd been warned that the panleukopenia spores can live in the house for years and we couldn't risk having another kitten die as horribly as the kitten before Avie, Milo Soulpatch had.

A couple of months passed and during them Ruby and Turk's marriage fell apart. This had nothing to do with Avie, but was something we'd been sensing might be on the horizon for a while, but had hoped would not. Not long after they separated, Ruby announced that she'd picked up a couple of kittens from the pound--a brother and sister. I don't know if the kittens were intended to be a distraction for her kids from the problems around them, or what, but it seemed maybe not the wisest idea from my perspective. Then, a couple weeks later, Ruby announced that the kittens were not working out. It seemed that despite their litter box training, the kittens had sniffed out a place in an inaccessible corner, way behind her sofa, where a previous neighborhood cat had once taken a crap. And it was in this spot that the kittens insisted on crapping exclusively. Nothing could persuade them to stop, including relocating their litter box atop it. Ruby asked if we would like to take them off her hands, at least for a little while, until they matured enough to cut it out, if not longer. I did not want them and said so to the wife, but I also knew Ruby was under enough stress as it was and I thought it would be better to take them rather than have the kittens returned to the pound. However, I insisted that we couldn't take them until their vaccinations were complete. Ruby said they had and within a couple of days brought them over to the house.

The bigger of the two was a female with almost lilac point Siamese coloration but with no real Siamese features. Her name was Emma. The smaller male was a gray tabby named Deja Vu, because he looked a lot like a cat they'd had before. We liked the name Emma for a cat, but decided that Deja Vu would be shortened to D.J. Kitty. We played with them a bit, let the kids say goodbye to them and then we put them in the hall bathroom overnight, because introducing them to the dogs would be a gradual process.

The following morning, we put the dogs outside and let the kittens have the run of the place. We then went to breakfast. It was over a plate of Egg Beaters and turkey sausage that some math issues that had been tickling in the back of my mind floated to the front.

"How long has Ruby had the cats?" I asked the wife.

"Two weeks. Maybe three."

My heart sank. I realized the kittens could not have had their full set of three vaccinations against panleukopenia. They'd probably had one set at the pound, but it takes 21 days between each set. They might have had two, but I didn't think it was very likely. A quick call to Ruby revealed the truth. We practically screamed at her over the phone in the middle of Bob Evans. "Ruby! We can't take these cats! They have to have ALL of their shots before we can have them." Ruby swore she thought they'd had the full amount, but hadn't done the math herself. She felt horrible and said we could drop them off at her place again and she'd just keep them in her bathroom for the remaining time. This didn't really help our anxiety, though, as we'd left them with full run of our house, including all the rooms Milo Soulpatch had been in before he died.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

I'll have a Bloody Mary with a twist of skunk

I thought when I stopped working in a library the amount of stank attacks in my life would decrease. And they have. But when one hits you out of the blue it can still be shocking and send you into Bear Piss Man flashbacks.

This past weekend, I was enjoying some Saturday evening TV with the glow of a beer still about me when our dogs began barking oddly at the back door. Through the glass of the door, I could see one of our cats, D.J. Kitty, sitting on the deck railing.

(By the way, I've rudely failed to introduce D.J. Kitty, as well as his buddy Emmett Kitty--the non-human babies I recently referred to us having--despite the fact that they've been in our lives since last summer. It's a Tale from the Lost Months I've been meaning to get to.)

Then the dogs paused in their barking to sniff at the bottom of the door. Immediately, they began whining loudly to get out. I had no clue what was going on, but I got up and opened the door and they nearly turned an ankle trying to get off the back deck and run into the night. Only after they were gone did I take a good breath and picked up the strong odor of skunk.

"Ohhhh shit," I said. I could just imagine those dogs, who love to chase after little critters like squirrels and cats, running headlong into a skunk and finding themselves with a face full of spray. It would be horrible and I would have to spend the rest of the knight scrubbing them. Moose is smaller, but his fur is very thick. And Sadie, while thinner of fur has more of it, and fluffy.

The dogs had already run around the corner of the house and were presumably in the driveway. Frantically I began shouting for them to come back while also clapping my hands as loudly as I could. The clapping part is their signal that Pa Means Business and Shits Are Gonna Break Bad if They Don't Head Back This Very Second. True to their training, they listened and came running back.

"Get in the house!"

Moose ran right in, but Sadie paused at the edge of the yard.

"GET IN THE HOUSE!!!" I shouted. She whined and cast a glance toward the back corner our home's exterior, as though weighing how much trouble she would be willing to incur by running that way to check for skunks.

"GET! IN! THE! EFFING! HOUSE!!!!!" I screamed. Only I didn't scream "Effing." My neighbors must adore me. Reluctantly, Sadie went in the house and I slammed the door after us, crisis averted.

Standing at my firmly shut back door, it was astounding to me how strong the skunk funk already was inside the house. The door had been open for less than 30 seconds, but it smelled an awful lot like skunk. It was so strong, in fact, that I wondered just how close to the house the skunk had been for it to smell so powerful. I could at least count my blessings, though, that the skunk hadn't managed to spray one of the dogs or the...

...cats.

oh shit.

I looked over at D.J. Kitty, who was munching food from his bowl atop a table in the kitchen. With fear and trepidation did I move over to the table. Double that and you'll have my feelings about the prospect of leaning over to carefully sniff the cat.

I recently recorded a podcast about the time I was working at my old job in the "liberry" and had to check in a book soaked in horse urine. Upon first sniffing that book, I realized to my horror that what I'd thought was merely mud was actually the bladder-based waste-product of a living creature. This is much the same gut reaction that hit me as I sniffed the cat. He didn't smell exactly like skunk spray, but the cat was definitely covered in some sort of powerful, revolting, animal by-product concentrate. Again, it not exactly skunky, but in the ballpark. I couldn't think of what else it could be and the skunk in the area was too much of a coincidence for it not to be skunk funk. My best guess was that the skunk odor we're all familiar with is actually a combination of skunk-funk-concentrate and air.

D.J. hopped down from the table and our dogs took an immediate interest in sniffing him. I knew my nose wasn't off. He was doused in something awful.

Somehow I had the presence of mind to go and shut the bedroom door. It would be hellish to have to sleep in a room that smelled of skunk and I knew my wife, with her acute sense of smell, would not be able to handle it. I then stripped off my shirt and went to catch the cat, who I hauled to the hall bathroom tub.

An episode of Mythbusters backed up the home remedy of a bath in tomato juice to cut skunk spray, but I didn't have any at hand. So, instead, I soaked the cat in vet-shampoo and scrubbed him for ten minutes. After rinsing him off, I found he was definitely still stinky, but maybe a bit less so. He was also wet and cranky.

I texted the wife to warn her about the skunk. When she came home, she immediately wrinkled her nose upon walking into the house. I don't think she was very happy about it, but it wasn't as if I had let the cat in KNOWING he was coated in skunk spray, so she couldn't really complain.

"He smells a little better now," I offered.

The wife suggested we put the cat back outside regardless. He was way too rank to stay in the already stinky house.

"I know it's probably a long shot," she began, "but did you happen to close the bedroom door?"

"Yes, I did," I said, proud of my forethought. She was equally delighted.

The bedroom had indeed remained blissfully free of skunk smell and we kept it closed off and the dogs locked inside of it throughout the night. Eventually, the dogs had to make stinky of their own and whined to go out at 5 in the morning. Upon entering the hallway with them, I was hit with the still potent smell of skunk. Waking up on my return to bed, the wife suggested we turn off the heat and open some windows in the rest of the house. Sure, it was a bit chilly outside, but we'd be pretty snug in the closed off bedroom. And by morning, the house nearly smelled normal. The cat, however, did not.

From the store, I purchased two of the biggest cans of tomato juice they had and took them home, prepared to give D.J. a proper tomato bath. One of the many troubles with giving a cat a tomato juice bath is that despite it being the standard suggestion for skunk spray remedy, no one ever tells you exactly how to accomplish it. Do I fill the bathtub with tomato juice? Do I pour it on his head? Do I need a wire bristle brush? Does he have to soak in it for half an hour? Should I heat it first? I didn't know. I decided to go with a soak/pour combo to cover bases and I decided to do this in the kitchen sink. I'm not sure why I thought it would be easier than the bathtub, but it was a mistake all around.

Before seizing the cat, I mixed two different kinds of shampoo with half a giant can of tomato juice and stirred it up. (Mythbusters also said soap was good.) Then I put the stopper in the sink drain, put the cat in the sink, rinsed him with the sink's spray hose and then held him with one hand while pouring the mixture over his back and head with the other. I began massaging it over him, trying to get the cat good and coated, but the soap mixed in was making him slippery. Thinking that he wasn't coated enough, I then tried to pour the rest of the can of tomato juice over him, but I couldn't get a good grip on the sides of the can with only one hand and had to awkwardly pull the can over by gripping its top edge, before tipping it over using my forearm and chest, and then pouring it onto the cat.

D.J. Kitty was not having a good time of it, but he didn't squall too much and didn't claw me. (Clawing me is what he saves for when I'm actively trying to feed him in the morning.) What he did do, though, was one of those patented Kitty-Full-Body-Shakes, sending blobs of soapy tomato goo flying in all directions. Quickly I realized my error of doing this in the kitchen. I also realized that the puny spray pressure of our sink hose would not be enough to cut the tomato mixture in any sort of ideal time period. Those thoughts, combined with the fact that D.J. suddenly decided he'd had enough and had begun clawing at the edges of the sink to escape, which became a two-hand job to prevent, made me certain that we needed to finish this bath in the bathtub. I didn't have a spare hand to grab for a towel, so I just pulled D.J. to my chest, , his claws away from my body, and ran with him to the hall bathroom, blobs of tomato falling to the carpet in a trail behind us.

The bathroom rinsing seemed far less traumatic for him, if no less messy. By the time we were done, it looked like a cat had exploded in there, from the cat-slung smears of tomato-soaked cat hair sticking to the sides of the tub. And while the tomato juice bath had cut the stench quite a bit, it had not taken it all, particularly around his face. I could have done another soak on him, but it wasn't so bad that he really needed it. Let him keep a stank head for a few days. Might teach him a valuable lesson about which animals he's supposed to be hassling.

As for finally introducing the kitties themselves, I guess it's about time to do that...