Suzy Says

In contrast to the snow back East, we’ve been experiencing a string of sunny days and starry nights. It may well have been like this all month. Rob borrowed my thermometer for some project, so I can’t tell you exact temperatures, but it’s been somewhere in the 60s during the day. Warm enough to have the doors open after the chill of night/early morning (basically indistinguishable at this time of year) has worn off, anyway.

Nights are chilly, always the case when they are starry – and you should see all the stars around here! Everything in life is apparently a trade-off. It’s about 50 degrees in the house when I get up in the morning, so it’s somewhere in the 40s outside.

The kitties are much easier to get in at night now. Even Audrey usually shows up by 9:30. The boys are sleeping with me more – Clyde on my head, Roscoe curled up against my chest.

We’ve been lucky to have such a beautiful fall, especially after such a great summer. Yesterday, I went to hang out my bathing suit and towel on the balcony after swimming class, and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of my bare feet on the sun-warmed wood. I thought, “I’d better enjoy every sunny day we get this time of the year.” The winter rains will start soon enough.

Beauty Sleep(s)

Really, is there anything cozier-looking than a sleeping cat?

Even if they are responsible for The Plague.

Last month, I noticed that Audrey was scratching a lot. I also noticed that my legs, never my best feature, looked as if I were experiencing a third round of chicken pox*, itchiness and all.

I spent about a million dollars on Advantage – hey, it made a change from spending money on the car – and applied it to the cats. Their reactions to the cure were the same as their reactions to the cause. Audrey: scratching and furious. Roscoe and Clyde: whatever, dude.

Then I took the bed apart, washed everything that could be washed, and hung it out in the clean sunshine to try while I sprayed the bed, featherbed, and carpets with some stuff that is supposed to kill fleas and keep them that way for 140 days.

Toxicity all around!

Problem solved, I thought. But, as usual, I was wrong. Besides being death-defying, these fleas seemed to be some kind of mutants, equipped with Super Itch**. Even after I scratched the bites until they bled, they still itched. They still itched when scabbed over. I had bruises from the scratching. Audrey was super scabby under her soft fur. The boys: nothing.

One evening, I actually saw a flea on the bed. I crushed it, and ordered more disAdvantage on line. Exactly a month after the first application, I gooed everyone again, hoping for the best. So far, so good. Let’s hope that the fleas are gone for the rest of the year. Pretty soon I’ll need to spend my flea allowance on propane.

*I got it when I was nine and again when I was 15. I got out of mid-terms the second time. Woohoo!

**One of life’s enduring mysteries is why anything that drinks our blood leaves an itch behind. They’d be welcome to the blood if they were itchless. Definitely a design flaw.

Well, today did not go exactly as planned.

I left the house at the dark and starry hour of 6:30. By the time I got to the store, the sky was brightening, and even at that hour, the ocean was blue. The ocean was also feeling particularly frisky and beautiful today, and it was so hard not to stop and just watch it for a while, especially at Van Damme beach, which may well be my favorite view around here.

As I pulled into the parking lot at the pool, I suddenly couldn’t steer. The steering wheel was locked, and an ominous red battery sign was lit up on the dashboard. Uh oh.

Fortunately for me, I meet Megan on Wednesday mornings for aquafit, and she was already there waiting for me. I was so glad to see her! She managed to maneuver Miss Scarlett into a parked position across two spots. Then we noticed a strange smell, and smoke curling from the left side of the hood. Never a good sign.

Closer inspection showed that the belt had come off its moorings, and had melted slightly in its unmoored state. I grabbed the towel I keep in the back seat to mop the morning fog from the windows – this time, to extinguish the smoldering belt goo on the hood roof.

Megan called Jonathan and woke him up, and then called Rob and woke him up. We decided that the best thing was for me to go home with Megan, and Rob would take Megan’s car back in to town to fix my car. On our way home, Megan and I bought a replacement belt.

When we got there, Rob was drinking coffee and waking up. Undoubtedly he was once again considering the “for worse” part of his wedding vows twenty years ago and remembering several in law jokes that now had an alarming ring of truth.

Megan went to bed, Rob went to fix my car, and I went home to get some work done. Clyde decided to welcome me home by climbing up inside the painting again, this time bringing it down on my unsuspecting head. Surprisingly, no-one was damaged, though Clyde broke the wire holding the painting in place and now it’s leaning against the stairs. He wisely disappeared for several hours after that.

Rob just called and said that he replaced the belt and whatever went wrong was the simplest thing it could be under the circumstances. When Megan goes to work tonight, she’ll drop me off to get Miss Scarlett. Hopefully, we will get home in one piece.

Audrey’s busy being Audrey these days. Staying out all night and wandering back in when I get up at 6:30. Or not.

When she’s in, she’s either demanding canned food or insisting on sitting on my lap and licking me until she’s bored and leaves, or goes to sleep, whatever comes first.

I think her weight is just about right, though on the occasions when I pick her up (to her eternal annoyance), she still feels light as a feather. I think I’ve created a kind of monster by trying to feed her up over the summer. Now she expects the disgusting canned food twice a day, and makes a big fuss about getting it.

Audrey surveying her realm

Oddly, the boys don’t try to eat it, though they do inspect the dish after Audrey has finished and stalked off. They seem to think that there are different rules for Audrey (staying out later; sitting on the table) than for them (not) and they don’t seem to mind at all.

Clyde’s chin is healing up. Megan inspected it yesterday and said it looked pretty good, as such things go. I have to admit that I’m a little concerned it will get re-infected and require another trip to the vet, but hopefully it won’t. Apparently it will take a while to heal. It was likely caused by a cat bite, and I wonder if it was from playing with Roscoe or from fighting with a neighbor.

Matched set

Being the bad cat parent I am, I failed to keep Clyde in yesterday. It was sunny and warm and he was raring to go. It’s hard to keep one cat in while letting the other two out. And Clyde seemed to feel fine, even though his chin was pretty gross to look at. I will spare you the visual on that one.

Also being a bad cat parent, I failed to put the warm compresses on him. I admitted this lapse to Megan, who said he should be fine anyway. When I confessed to guilt about this (how can I compress him when I’m at the jobette all day?), she said, “You’re not a bad mother. Just a working one.”

Clyde slept on my pillow/head last night and the night before. He still does his patented smother snuggle, but he has expanded his repertoire to sleeping beside my head on the pillow and taking up almost all the room. When Roscoe sleeps with me, he prefers to cuddle up to my chest. He always seems more dignified and grown-up than his little brother.

So there you have it. So far, so good. I’ll keep my eye on Clyde and hopefully a return trip to Dr. Karen will not be necessary. Between fixing my cat and fixing my car, I’ve been doing my bit to improve the local economy lately.

The patient

On Saturday night, I was watching “The Hoodlum” (with Lawrence Tierney, on a brief hiatus from jail, and his real-life brother, Edward) with Clyde cuddled up to me. Clyde’s cuddling style is to stare at me, then jump on my lap, climb up my body, and collapse with his head on my shoulder, giving a big sigh before starting to purr.

Both he and Roscoe like to be rubbed under their chin. But this time, something was wrong. There was a huge bump. I felt the other side of his chin. Bump-free. Uh oh. However, it didn’t seem to hurt him and he was acting normally.

In the morning, Megan investigated and said it was an abscess. By then, Clyde had scratched at it and it was wet and much ickier-looking. Being the excellent sister she is, she also called Dr. Karen on the dot of 9:00 on Monday morning, when I was arriving at the jobette. She not only got him an appointment at 11:00, but also caught him and took him there.

I am proud to say that by all accounts, my brave little Clyde did not complain or fuss while having his chin shaved and getting an antibiotic shot. Dr. Karen was impressed with his courage and cuteness. Apparently both were remarked on often. My little guy weighs 8.7 pounds!

I am supposed to keep him in today as well as yesterday. When I came home yesterday, Clyde was sleeping on the bathmat and Audrey was sleeping nearby on a (white) towel she had pulled off the holder just for this purpose. Roscoe, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

The house was like an oven, since all the doors were closed except the sliding glass ones in the living room. Rob installed a found screen in that one last summer, so that was open. I had to put the fan on in the sleeping loft, which becomes unbearable if it’s over 60 degrees outside and the balcony door isn’t open. Naturally this is the warmest part of the year, and it was the warmest day we’ve had in a while.

Clyde was pretty sleepy all evening. Today he seems like his old self and I’m not sure if I can make him stay in all day on such a lovely, sunny day. Stay tuned!

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of trying to come up with a title for each post? Sometimes it’s harder than writing the post itself. Or balancing a checkbook. Or opening a jar if there’s no boy handy. I always leave it until last. Why can’t I just use the date? Maybe I will, and strike a blow for freedom.

We’re stuck with the twice yearly madness of the time change, but this I can do. Take that, powers that be!

Sometimes three times isn’t the charm. For example, seeing your cats with the third bird they have caught in one day. The last of the series was still peeping horribly as they ran off into the woods with it. I know my stepmother always said in her rich, plummy voice that “Nature is red in tooth and claw”, but I practically cried. I hate it when they kill birds. Mice? Fine. Feel free to rid the house of vermin. But birds? Those hollow-boned beauties who give us nothing but pleasure, in plumage and voice? No way.

Old habits can be hard to break, especially when you’re emerging from kittenhood to catness, the way Clyde is. You may remember that when I removed the litter box from the house, he expressed his displeasure by peeing on the bed. I thought I shouldn’t confuse him by bringing the box back in, so I let it go, being careful to bring him in after 9:30 at night. I figured he’d be OK until 6:00 or so.

But for the past couple of days, he’s mewed at the door and clawed at it Audrey-style, so I’ve let him (and Audrey) out at 3:30 or 4:00 am, which I do not enjoy, and hoped for the best.

Nothing has happened yet, but I figure it’s crazy to let something happen to Clyde because I don’t feel like cleaning out the box every day. Better safe than sorry. So I reinstated it this evening, and Clyde wasted no time reuniting with his old friend. He even sat by it afterwards, basking in the glow of once again having an indoor bathroom. I can’t say as I blame him.

Taking a break from troublemaking

Q: It’s 5 am. Do you know where your cats are?
A: Not really.

Clyde woke me up early this morning by clawing at the bedspread. It wasn’t so much the clawing that was the problem, as it was his trying (unsuccessfully) to cover up his pee, which was merrily sinking into (and stinking up) the quilt.

I opened the balcony door, put him outside, and put on the balcony light. The rest of the outdoor lights were already on, since Audrey had demanded to go outside about an hour before.

I dragged the quilt* and its cover off the bed and headed to the laundry room. On the way, I opened the sliding glass doors, since Clyde hasn’t figured out how to get back on the balcony once he gets to the ground. This is a trick only Audrey seems to know. At least so far.

I poured detergent, stain remover, and Nature’s Miracle into the washer and hoped for the best. Then I stumbled into the kitchen and made coffee, though it was hardly necessary at this point, after the pee horror and the worry about the boys being out in the pre-dawn darkness.

And then there’s the tragic loss of beauty sleep.

About a week ago, I decided to try again to wean Clyde off the litter box. Roscoe figured out months ago that the world is his bathroom, if not his oyster, but Clyde couldn’t seem to get the concept. I put the box out on the porch, then moved it closer to the woods each day. I even put dirt and pine needles in it, hint, hint.

Finally I emptied it out, bleached it, and leaned it against the shed so Clyde would know it was no longer available. Yesterday, I saw Roscoe dig a little hole to pee in. Clyde watched him, then helped his brother to cover it up. Then they ran off together to play in the woods. I figured Clyde finally got it, but apparently not.

Should I reinstate the indoor bathroom? Or hope that this is just a fluke? Maybe there’s some kind of remedial summer camp I can send Clyde to.

*Since it’s summer, I have switched out the feather duvet for a thinner quilt. Thankfully. I have learned the hard way that it’s hard to get cat pee out of feathers.

Well, Miss Audrey doesn’t seem to have put on much, if any, weight. I’ve been feeding her fancy wet food on the sly, and also setting aside chicken to give her. Maybe she just gets thinner in the summer, like my brother’s Wonderdog Jed used to. Maybe she’s just one of those enviable creatures who can eat whatever she wants and yet stay slim and fabulous, like the Gilmore Girls.

I recently learned that in addition to the extra food at home, Audrey wanders over to Mark’s place, strolls in through the cat flap, and helps herself to his cats’ food. He described her as “the little stripy one”. Here you see her taking a break from all that eating:

You can see her slimosity a little better in this picture.

While Audrey’s been busy eating, Roscoe has turned into The Intrepid Explorer. Whenever I go to Megan’s, he accompanies me there and back, like a body guard. Megan says that her cats like the boys, which makes me feel all proud of their adorableness.

Jungle Roscoe

Last night looked like a nearly full moon, and Roscoe didn’t come in until 4:30 in the morning. I think it’s going to get harder and harder to get him in at night. I just leave the outside lights on and hope for the best.

All three of them spend a lot more time outside now that the rain has finally stopped. When the boys come home, their shiny black coats are covered with dust and pollen. When you pet them, they look like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon, with puffs of dirt flying up.

Clyde is still his cuddly, treat-lovin’, mama’s boy self. He’s generally the only one who comes when I try to call them in at night, galloping in from the woods and meowing pathetically for treats. Roscoe and Audrey magnificently ignore the bribery of treats.

Garden Clyde

Clyde still meows for food when there is still food in the dishes. He’s like those guys who channel-surf. They don’t care what’s on, they want to know what else is on. Clyde doesn’t care about the food in his dish, only the food that isn’t (yet).

He also still specializes in the smother snuggle, which is a little harder to take now that he’s a full-grown cat instead of a fuzzy little kitten. He gets kind of heavy draped across my head. But I still manage to fall asleep, listening to him purr with his fur up my nose.

Birthday Girl

No less an authority than the Duchess of Windsor said that a woman can’t be too rich or too thin (or, apparently, have too much jewelry – her remarkable collection was auctioned off for a record-setting $54 million in 1987), but perhaps a cat can be.

Though Audrey has always been as slim as her namesake, the lovely Miss Hepburn, lately she’s been looking, despite what the Duchess said, a little too thin. I wondered if it was just having more exercise since the weather’s nicer, or perhaps if she had worms from eating mice and other outdoor delicacies. I bought some très expensive de-worming pills and served one crushed up with some chicken.

But Audrey’s bird-like eating habits (besides actual birds) meant that she only ate some of it. That, or she was on to me. She ate a bit more later, but I ended up tossing the remainder. Megan said next time she’d administer the pill herself. So I wasn’t sure if Audrey had actually eaten the whole dose.

I also started giving her canned food a couple of times a day, but of course she would only eat a spoonful at a time, and sometimes not even that. Oddly, the boys didn’t try to horn in on it while she was eating, though they’d eat the leftovers, if any. Come to think of it, they never sleep on her throne and she doesn’t sleep on their bed, either.

Eventually, I decided it was time for Dr. Karen to give her a once-over. She wasn’t horrified by Audrey’s thinness, though she did say that she is a tiny thing. She administered a rabies shot and FVRCP, and decided to keep her for a few hours to see if she’d poop. Needless to say, this was the first time that she didn’t express her opinion on driving in the usual way.

At first, everyone at the vet’s said how cute she was and what a little doll, but that was before they trapped her in a cage. Audrey growled and swiped at anyone, human, canine, or feline, who passed by. She also stubbornly refused to poop, so I reluctantly left her overnight. By the next afternoon, nothing had happened, so Dr. Karen administered a worming pill and I picked up an indignant, howling Miss Audrey.

She howled all the way home, and just as we reached Hooterville, she finally pooped in her carrier. A call to Dr. Karen revealed that samples are only good for 12 hours after they’re produced, not much help when the vet’s office closed in fifteen minutes.

I released Audrey in the garden, thinking she’d take off into the woods and not be seen again for hours. Instead, she went straight into the house, where the boys sniffed her thoroughly, ate a little, and then went upstairs to bed. She was pretty sleepy for a couple of days, but then she was back to her usual self. She still seems a little on the svelte side to me, though.

Today Miss Audrey is four years old. We’ll all celebrate with canned food (kitties) and cocktails (the help) later on today. I’m already wearing “For Audrey” polish on my toes for the occasion.

Sleeping shop cat in the Castro

While we were away, Jonathan was on pet patrol. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than he thought.

Early one morning, he woke up freezing, only to discover that his door was wide open. Star was sleeping peacefully, but Schatzi had apparently pushed the door open and escaped.

It’s hard to find a deaf dog in the pre-dawn country darkness. He eventually found her shivering in her own backyard. She happily hopped into his car, and he added a long training leash to the backseat before taking her back to his place. Schatzi spent the rest of the day on the long, long leash if she was outside, or not, if she was inside.

That evening, she asked to go out and pee. As soon as she was out, she made a break for it. Jonathan clapped to get her to come back while scrambling into his shoes to chase her. By then, she had a good lead, and by the time he got in the car to go after her, she vanished.

He spent all night looking for her to no avail. Finally, he called Megan in hysterics early in the morning to tell her that Schatzi was lost. It takes a lot to make him cry, but we all know how Megan adores her dogs. It must have been one of the worst nights of his life.

Megan told Jonathan not to worry, and he kept looking for Schatzi. Eventually, he found her sleeping in her garden as if nothing had happened. He shut her in the house anyway, since we were coming back that day. Checking on her later, he found her in the garden again. He was sure that the doors were closed, but checked them again, just in case.

They were.

This time he just left her outside, since we were due home in a couple of hours.

Guess how she got out?

She went upstairs, climbed up on a chest and through the window which is open for Harriet and Ramona, Megan and Rob’s cats. Then, like the cats, she jumped to the ground from the porch roof outside the window. With her fragile old bones. There’s a good idea.

She did make it, though she needed extra pain meds that night. Nothing like an old dog who can learn new tricks, is there? Maybe we should re-name her Houdini!

Audrey decided to show Roscoe how it’s done. She sashayed out around 9:00 last night, and didn’t show up again until 5:00 this morning. It was a full night’s work for Miss Audrey. And being so dedicated, she was out the door again before 7:00.

You can imagine that Audrey’s absence led to a restless night for her neurotic maid, partly from worry and partly because I find it hard to sleep with all the outside lights on, even with the help of sleep mask.

I was just dropping off to sleep when Luna started barking her head off and wouldn’t stop. I gave up on the whole sleep thing and went downstairs. As I passed my front door, I saw a bearded older man emerging from the woods near where Rose’s daughter Catrin and her boyfriend Zach live. So maybe there was a reason for Luna’s barking. When it gets to be a more decent hour, I’ll call them and see if they know who he is. I watched him walk down the driveway toward the road, so hopefully nothing is really amiss.

A slightly worrying morning when you live in a house with no locks.

And in the worrying department, Rob is once again slated for surgery on his neck. They are going to take out the old titanium piece and put in a new one from vertebrae C3-C6. Apparently these are not good vertebras to be messing with. Also, the surgical coordinator loftily told Megan on Tuesday that no surgery was being scheduled until September. Megan said that was too late, and suggested that the surgeon review Rob’s x-rays. The coordinator said they would and they’d call back in a week or ten days.

They called the next day with the operation date, two weeks away, and said it was “critical”. This was unnervingly like the time Rob went to the city to consult with the surgeon and was instantly admitted, the surgeon coming in to operate on Rob on Superbowl Sunday.

It looks like I will be able to take that week off – June 27 – and go with them to the city to help in any way I can. So much for the party I was planning for their 20th anniversary on July 1.

Update: Turns out the mystery man was Zach’s Dad. And Rob’s surgery has been moved to 10:00 am on Friday, June 24.

Roscoe and Clyde turned one year old yesterday! Can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday that I brought them home from the shelter.

They were so tiny:

Either they’ve gotten bigger, or their bed has gotten smaller:

I’m glad that they still cuddle up with each other and play together.

To celebrate the momentous occasion, everyone got fancy canned food. The rottens, to borrow my friend Amber’s affectionate name for her children, decided to dine al fresco. It was a lovely evening.

So lovely, in fact, that Roscoe refused to come in. So the rest of us had to go bed without him, leaving all the outside lights on and hoping for the best. He turned up just before 2:00 am, ready for a snack and a nap.

They grow up so fast!

Audrey woke me up at 4:00 this morning, demanding to go out in the pouring rain. She is the only one who greets a rainy morning with any kind of enthusiasm in my house. I held out for an hour, and then let her out into the cold wetness, deciding that I might as well admit that I’m up.

I have my regulation two sweaters on as well as the heater. Hard to believe it’s June. Last night on the news, they showed interviews with tourists in San Francisco who were horrified by the unseasonable (and unreasonable) weather. One guy pointed out with asperity that the guide book said the rain ended in late March or early April, “and now we are June.” Good point. An exasperated guy in a rain slicker, clutching his small son by the hand, exclaimed, “I hate it!” in a heavy accent. His kid burst into tears.

I couldn’t agree more.

Yesterday, Rob picked me up early and we made our way to Charlottesville for the car part. It occurred to me that we’re lucky we can get the part in Charlottesville, instead of having to spend 5 hours driving to Santa Rosa and back. Also the car parts store opens early and the people are nice.

Rob told them what we wanted, and, as almost always happens in this situation, they immediately started asking questions which were hard to answer. “Is the single-edged doobywhatsit? Or the dual cam whateveritis?” Rob and I exchanged looks. Finally, Rob looked at the part pictures and picked out what he thought was the right one. Then he dropped me off at work and went home to work on my car.

Four hundred newsletters later, he was back to pick me up and tell me that while it was the right part, he wasn’t done working on the car. Jonathan gets home about noon today, so maybe they can work on it together, rain willing. Sitting here in the rainy dark drinking black coffee and thinking dark thoughts, I hope that he put a tarp over the whole mess.

Megan should be here in about an hour, and I can drive her strange car to work in the pouring rain in about another hour. I don’t like driving at the best of times (and the best of times definitely do not include driving), and I really don’t like it in the rain or dark. Wish me (and the boys) luck. If all goes well, I should be driving my own car tomorrow. Hard to believe that’s the best case scenario.

Audrey peeking out from the side of the house

I think all the kitties were happy to see me, though I also think they are equally happy when I’m gone and they can scamper in and out of the house, playing and napping at will. Come to think of it, I’d like that.

When I adopted the boys, the shelter workers told me that they were very happy and affectionate kittens. I thought they were just saying that, but it has turned out to be true. They took turns sitting on my lap that evening and both slept with me (Audrey, of course, slept regally on her throne). And I’m glad that they all get along, whether I’m away or not. Audrey still isn’t their biggest fan, but there’s hardly any growling or swiping these days.

Here are the boys eating dinner after I got home:

I could see that Rob had been at work during my absence. He found these cupboards somewhere and installed them:

No easy task with the curved wall and heater, etc. to deal with.

After he put the cupboards up, he decided that it was too dark to see into the cupboards, which he also decided was unacceptable. The cowboy lamp, though fabulous, does not shed a lot of light.

He got a fixture at the thrift store for $2.50 and wired it into the same switch as the cowboy lamp. Let there be light:

Outside, I discovered that a little rose which I thought was dead was in bloom:

All in all, a nice welcome home.

Clyde style

Roscoe style

Audrey style

Roscoe and Audrey on the lookout

It was a chilly 48 degrees in the house when I got up this morning. A cautious peek at the thermometer revealed a mere 36 degrees outside – as far as I could tell, with food-crazed kittens milling around my slippered feet. Oddly, Clyde makes just as much fuss about getting fed when there is still kibble in their bowls (which there usually is) as when the bowls are empty. Go figure.

Roscoe is more the strong, silent type. He also has a beefier, more manly build than Clyde, who is still the smallest and slimmest despite his food mania. I am sorry to say that as they approach the 11 months old mark, I still have trouble telling them apart.

They also don’t seem to mind getting wet, which I always thought cats hated. Audrey is clever about avoiding the worst of the rainfall, even when it’s storming, but the boys come in soaked to the skin, with their fur all in points. I towel them off and then they sit by the heater, having a bath. Apparently licking your fur dries it off more quickly.

Roscoe is also more adventurous than Clyde. At least, he’s harder to get in at night. He usually goes out after dinner and stays out until at least 9:00. And he’s stubborn. If he doesn’t want to come in, forget it. You can’t even lure him in with treats. All that happens is Clyde appears, going nuts, and there’s no sign of Roscoe until he’s good and ready. Once he’s in, though, he likes to sleep with me.

Yesterday, I came home from work and noticed a black tail peeking out from under the couch. I called “Kitty?”, and there was a sort of flattened struggle, but no sound, which suggested it was Roscoe. Also Clyde is probably too small to get stuck under the couch. I lifted it (carefully, with my legs, to avoid a Calamity Suzy incident), and Roscoe slithered out. Other than being embarrassingly dusty, he was fine, and ran off to play. I wonder how long he was under there?

As I write, the air in my little hippie hovel is delicately scented with eau de skunk. So glamorous!

I woke up around 2:00 to the distinctive smell. I knew all the cats were in for the night, but wondered if an intruder had made his stripy, stinky way into my humble abode without any of us noticing. This seemed unlikely, but I got up and checked the house anyway. The smell was there, but Mr. Le Pew was not.

I went back to bed, and the Audrometer went off around 4:30. I didn’t want to let Audrey out into the darkness, in case the skunk was still there, so I meanly made her wait until 1) it was light out*; and b) I had checked the perimeter.

The good news is that the outside smelled like rain and fresh air, and the area appeared to be skunk-free. The bad news is that it’s too cold and wet to air out the house. So Roscoe and I are sitting by the heater in the stinkiness and hoping for sun, while Audrey and Clyde are playing in the woods somewhere. By the way, Clyde’s paw is much better.

Mine is not.

You may remember that I managed to fall off a log as my own special way of celebrating the new year. Well, that hand has never been the same. The middle finger and ring finger can’t straighten out, and they are oddly swollen and arthritis-y looking, which is painful for the aesthetically inclined. Also it makes it impossible to wear some of my favorite rings on my right hand. And amazingly, it still kind of hurts when I press on those fingers.

Megan thought at the time that I broke something in there, but I don’t have health insurance and can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to have my fingers x-rayed and what have you. So I’ve just been living with it.

My left hand now temporarily matches my right hand. I made Jacques Pépin’s mustard-crusted chicken** the other night. When I took the skillet out of my little oven I used my very cute red potholders, and set it on top of the stove. Just a few minutes later, I grabbed the skillet handle with my left hand to move it, apparently having forgotten that it had just spent an hour in a 400 degree oven.

I let go pretty fast, let me tell you. I ran cold water over my hand for a while before calling Megan, who arrived with burn bandages and painkillers. The burn bandages look like a second skin and contain lidocaine or some other kind of surface pain deadener. She also lent me one of her ice packs from her knee surgery last summer, so I was all set for a bad night’s sleep.

Nothing like having EMS living on the premises. Practically a necessity when you’re Calamity Suzy.

*Stupid, stupid daylight savings time.
**A quick search of my archives reveals that I have never shared this recipe with you. Will remedy this shocking omission in the near future.

Clyde and Audrey take a nap

Cats find the funniest places to nap. This is behind my bed in the sleeping loft. As you can see, part of the curved wall is made of corrugated plastic, which makes it warm for napping kitties, but makes rain noisier and is, as you can see, almost impossible to clean. Sometimes it’s so obvious that this house was built by and for a boy.

Clyde has been limping for the past couple of days. I’ve tried to keep him in more often, but it seems really mean to keep a 10 month old kitten in the house on a beautiful spring day, especially when his brother frolics around in plain sight through the sliding glass door.

Megan checked out both his front legs and paws – it seems to be the left front that’s the problem – and couldn’t detect any signs of breakage or injury. He didn’t cry out or anything, so we think he may have fallen out of a tree and landed awkwardly, or something like that. I’m keeping an eye on him, and he seems to be slowly improving.

Also slowly improving is A! She is now in a regular hospital ward, sharing her space with a 38 year old methadone addict with cirrhosis of the liver and a kid in jail and an ancient lady whose only means of communication is howling like a banshee. I imagine A has to keep reminding herself that this is better than Intensive Care, where she spent so many weeks.

I have been calling her once a week now, in addition to my regular silly emails which C prints out and brings her. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to hear her voice. She still has no feeling in her hands and feet, and is learning to walk again with the help of physiotherapists and a walker. She is hoping to be moved to a rehab facility soon. Apparently, it’s like applying to college, with your first, second, and third choices, hoping that the one you really want will accept you. The one she wants is near Sylvia Plath’s final home, though we shouldn’t take that as an omen.

A says she is covered in scars from the tracheotomy, dialysis and so on, and that she bruises very easily now. It seems that spending three months in the hospital is not a beauty treatment. Also, she has lost huge amounts of time. She doesn’t remember anything at all from C calling the ambulance on January 7 to waking up in the hospital around the middle of March. Nothing. Medical comas will do that to you.

She’s in remarkably good spirits, though, and determined to get back to work this summer, maybe working from home starting in June, half a year after her ordeal began. I can still hardly believe it, and she feels the same way. I am so thankful she is alive and has no brain damage. I need to save up my pennies and get over there and hug her!

The kitties let me sleep in until nearly 8:00 this morning! That’s right, Audrey didn’t demand to be let outside at 4 am, Clyde didn’t climb on my head, and Roscoe didn’t bite my nose. I woke from dreams of envelopes* to find that it was raining, though the sky was blue. Audrey was sitting regally on her throne (also known as the rocking chair my great-grandfather made for my great-grandmother, cushioned with her favorite throw blanket), Roscoe was cuddled up next to me, and Clyde was sitting by the heater.

The heater was on, even though I set it for 52 degrees before going to bed. The mystery was solved when I went to feed the ravening hordes. The laundry room/pantry/cat dining room door was slightly open, letting in the 40 degree air. Though this explained the chill in the air, it made it more mysterious that the cats, especially Audrey, were still inside.

The ways of cats are inscrutable, my friends.

Clyde’s painting assault days seem to be over. I came home from work one day and had barely put my Hello Kitty bag down on the table and greeted the cats when Rob came by. I’m sorry to say that he actually had to point out to me that he had (a) re-hung the giant painting, which had been leaning sadly against the stairs – mere inches from where I was standing – and (2) removed the shelf under it, which Clyde had been using as a launching pad to get inside and on top of the painting.

This is why I would make a terrible crime witness.

I miss the shelf, and displaying my RobCo collection on it, but it’s been effective in Clyde deterrence. The first couple of days, he tried to jump on it and was clearly surprised to find it was no longer there. You could practically see him thinking, “I know there was something here before. Where the hell did it go?” as he fell backwards onto the couch. Now he seems to have given up on it entirely and is looking for trouble elsewhere. Compromise: a noun meaning no-one is happy with the solution to a problem.

*I’ve been stuffing, sealing, and stamping envelopes at the jobette for the past two days. I may take Joy up on her offer to give me helpful hints.