43 posts tagged “nekkid kitteh”

I love cats.  You know I love cats.  I like having them around and petting them.  I couldn't live happily without cats.  When Hubbicula said, "We can't have cats, I'm allergic," I said, "Oh yeah?  Are you allergic to these cats?!"

That said, I had my first experience being in a house with a lot of cats.  My good friend Dana is a soft-hearted person, who recently took in some rescue cats.  There was just no one else to do it and without her and her boyfriend Dave, the cats would have been homeless.  This act of kindness has left her with 13 cats.  I think it's been a real adventure for her, and it certainly was for me.

The first night I stayed at her house, I'd gotten in late, so I only glimpsed a few of the cats here and there.  In the middle of the night, though, I got up to go to the bathroom.  When I stepped out of the guest room, this swarm of cats swirled around my ankles hopefully.  They thought it was breakfast time.  I thought, "Whoa.  This is like something out of a scary movie."

I backed carefully toward my room saying, "I'm sorry.  I don't have any food. Please don't eat me, kitties."  They didn't.

Here's the weird thing: it doesn't take very long at all to get used to having 13 cats around.  In fact, it's kind of nice.  There is always a kitty who wants to be petted or wants to sit on your lap or wants play.  After three days surrounded by cats, it was kind of strange to go back to Lisa's house, where there are only 3 cats (one of whom is mostly invisible.)  Then I got home and just stared and stared at my cats.  They seemed so tiny and HAIRLESS!!!!

Crazy Cat Ladies of the world, I understand you a little better now.

Well, she's home from the vet and seems to be feeling pretty good.  She's already making me a little crazy by refusing to rest and trying to jump up on things she shouldn't.

The vet said, "Well, since she's hairless we buried the stitches for aesthetic reasons."

And shhh...don't tell Flanny or Hubbicula, but here's what Sippy and I did while they were both out of the house.

The vet tech just called to say that Flanny's surgery went fine.  She's out of anesthesia and looking around at things.  I said, "Is she crying?"

"Oh, no, she hasn't made a peep since you dropped her off." 

Typical.  She talks my leg off at home, but at the vet mum's the word.

"Is she looking at you with contempt?" I said.

"Uh...she does look a little annoyed."

So, that's a good sign that she's already back to despising all of humanity.

In half an hour Flanny goes into surgery to have a kidney stone removed.  I'm trying to be all calm and pragmatic, but I feel twitchy.  Plus, she's mad at me because I won't give her breakfast.  She keeps giving me this look of contempt, like "stupid biped, can't you see I require sustenance?" *glare*

And I'm worried, because this is the first time ever that Sippy and Flanny will be separated for more than an hour or so.  Flanny will be gone all day and night and part of tomorrow.

I'm just looking forward to having her home on Saturday, lying in her favorite window in the sun to recuperate.

And I just found Sippy's costume.  Thanks, Arbed!

I've almost made it to Friday Lunch.  Whew.

It's snowing kinda crazy right now and oh yeah, it's fricking cold.  It's only snowing outside, but it's cold outside and inside.  Yay.

Poor kittehs.  I'm a bad mother for making the naked ladies go to the doctor in the middle of January.  I tried to bundle them up, but they were having nothing to do with it.  Wouldn't let me put their sweaters on, wouldn't stay under the blankets I put in their carriers.  Coming home from the vet, though, no arguments about getting under the blankets.  Guess they didn't believe me that it was so cold out there.  They've never been out in that kind of cold before.

I miss my old vet in Tampa.  She luuuuuved the girls.  She once came in on her day off, because she found out that the receptionist scheduled the girls' appointment for then.  Seriously.  That's how much she loved to see them.  She always gushed over them, but more importantly, she was meticulous.  The files I brought from Tampa are full of the most detailed notes about their exams.  She always made careful note of where she gave injections in case there were adverse reactions later, she'd know what shot and when was it given in that site. 

The new vet...well, the new vets aren't that great.  It bothers me that I wasn't even given a chance to see the same vet I saw last year.  So, we saw someone completely different.  She was nice enough, but not terribly thorough or terribly interested.  I don't require gushing, but I do think I shouldn't be the one to remind the vet to check the girls' teeth.  Good grief, they're almost 8.  They need their teeth checked.  It annoyed me too that when there was a question of when they'd last had this or that done, she flipped halfheartedly through their files and said, "I don't see anything in here about it."

"But I brought all their files from Tampa," I said.

"Oh, I don't know where those would be," the vet said.

Grrrrr.  These are my kids.  I brought their old medical files, so the new vet would have those records and she doesn't know where those would be?  I hate it when I get the feeling that someone went into veterinary science because they didn't want the responsibility that would come with being a medical doctor.  My old vet was so good, I would have trusted her to be my doctor.  *sniff*  We miss you, Dr. Christine.

I liked the veterinarian's assistant, though.  She said, "Oh, I've never actually touched a Sphynx before."

It was so cute, because all through the exams, while she was holding the girls still, she was sort of checking them out.  She kept touching Sippy's little furry toes and sneaking a feel on Flanny's rat tail.  All with this little gleem of excitement, so I know she's going to go home and tell somebody all about it.  Maybe she'll grow up to be a good vet. 

What better place for a hairless cat than curled up in front of a heating vent?  And you can see how spoiled she is--she even has a little flannel blankie under my desk to rest on.  Sometimes, though, she gets feisty and attacks my feet in a half-hearted way.

And not a word about those flannel jammies.  My mom gave them to Hubbicula and I stole them from him.

I don't know what it is about Flanny's cold ratty little tail, but I could do this for hours.  Or more accurately, until Flanny gets pissed off and bites me.  Which usually takes about seven minutes.

As this never-ending election cycle grinds on, we've heard a great deal about this state or that state's likely influence on the outcome.  We've heard about how Sarah Palin governs the biggest state in America and how Joe Biden has only three electoral college votes to rally in Delaware*.  Last night, as Hubbicula and I were engaged in yet another profound political discussion, we began to wonder...

Is Flanny as big as Connecticut?
Yes.

In fact, she's bigger than Connecticut.
She's also bigger than Massachusetts.
She is, however, just as big as New Hampshire.  (Which, as Hubbicula pointed out, looks like half of a marijuana brownie, cut in half by two potheads.  With Vermont being the other half.  Mmmm...brownies.)
Thank you for joining me for this political discussion.  I hope it has helped you get closer to making your decision about whom to support in this presidential election.

Okay, my people, I'm headed off for my glorious week-long vacation in...lovely Wichita.  Although I have other obligations, my goal is to turn this into a writing vacation.  Or, failing, that, a lying around doing nothing vacation.