Run. Dog. Cat. Cat. Me.

Back in the saddle again (again)

Ok, I’m back.  Today I’m going to blog about being back in the saddle again.

But first I have to tell you both something.  I feel kinda bad about it, but I didn’t know.  You know how it is, you try to be the best mom you can be but sometimes you just miss the signs.  The poor little things are trying desperately to tell you something but you miss the clues and just assume something that might not even be true.  So I have to tell you that maybe I misjudged little Chunker and maybe she isn’t turning into a Zombie Cat after all.

Probably I misjudged her because I was looking at her actions and not understanding the possible cause(s).  But she’s been kind of a bad girl lately and I just assumed it was her own fault.  Finally I decided I needed to look into things, and I googled it.  I figure, if google doesn’t know the answer, no one knows the answer and we’re all going to die.  Not that I’m a fatalist or anything.  I do think there are things we can do that are not just left to fate.

For instance, one thing you can do that is not just left to fate is load and unload the dishwasher.  If you think about it, the dishes are never going to load themselves so you can either believe it is predetermined that dishes will never get washed thus assuming dishes will always be dirty and in the sink (and the corollary, dishes that are clean in the dishwasher will never put themselves away and will always be clean and in the dishwasher) (which, if you think about it, thus turns the dishwasher into a cupboard) (which is very weird to think about.  If the dishwasher is thus a cupboard, then where is the dishwasher?).

I’m really confused.  Where was I?

Oh, yeah, loading the dishwasher.  One thing that surprised me recently is the discovery that my mother, the woman of ‘all things washable are washed immediately and put away immediately’ and…well, there is no and.  It’s gonna be done, now, by you (meaning, me).  I’ll tell you how bad it was:  I grew up in a home without a dishwasher.  Yes.  I know you are shocked, horrified and dismayed, but there it is.  I’m outed.   I had dishpan hands at the age of 8.  So anyway, my mom, who in my childhood had half the dishes in the kitchen sink before dinner was even over … now leaves her dishes in the sink for however long she feels like it.  MAYBE EVEN UNTIL LATER IN THE DAY.  I’ll repeat that.  MY MOM DOES NOT DO HER DISHES IMMEDIATELY DURING OR AFTER EATING.

You can imagine how my world crumbled.  The foundation upon which everything was laid:  dust.  Do you understand?  IF YOU DO NOT DO THE DISHES IMMEDIATELY YOU WILL NOT DIE.

This means that if I do not do the dishes – and I’m trying to comprehend this myself, so hang with me while I try to make it very clear to both of us – again I state, I will NOT DIE.

This means that I could possibly have been mistaken when I got a little testy about dirty cups left on the counter once (here) and maybe was a bit sharp in pointing out how dishwashers work (here).  This also must mean (I can’t believe I’m typing this, the only grace left is that none of my children read my blog so they will never know I admitted this) I. Could.

I don’t know.  I think I’m going to choke.  Deep Breath.  I. Could. Have. Been. Wrong.

However, it also still means that I’m the one left putting the dishes into and out of the dishwasher, only now I get to do it at my own home and at my mother’s, unless I don’t mind looking at them in the sink for most of the day.  Not for the first time I realize:  I am my mother.  I don’t want to look at the dishes in the sink.

My sweet little Chunker just jumped into my lap while I’m typing this.  She’s all warm and soft and purring, and she did not even try to bite me.  Not once.  And she slept with me last night and didn’t sleep on my head.  Close to it, but not on it.

Oh, that reminds me, I was going to tell you about Chunk.  Anyway, I googled the issues and realized we might have a problem.  I called the Vet who said to come on over which meant she got crammed into the Box of Terror, which then got put in the bigger Box of Terror which has wheels, and from there got taken into the Room of Terror, where the horrid man in the white lab coat said reassuringly, it’s OK little kitty while he crammed a thermometer up her – oh, never mind, Chunk doesn’t want me to talk about that part, sorry.  Anyway, the thermometer went where they are want to go.  Then she got two needles full of steroids and antibiotics shoved into her booty and then was crammed back into the Box of Terror where the process outlined above was repeated in reverse order.

When she got home she was very surprised and intrigued by the little spray can the horrid man in the white lab coat had given me, which, when sprayed lightly around the room made little happy pheromones float about.  The happy pheromones made Chunker feel all calm and zen and she began to regret her previous actions even though at the time she was just a very distraught little kitty who didn’t know where mom had gone for three weeks.  Not that Murph hadn’t tried to tell her – he did.  He was like, “Chunk, you dipshit, chill.  I’m chilling.  Look, I have the whole bed to myself.  Look, now I have the whole couch to myself.  Now I have mom’s chair all to myself.  We have food, we have water.  You even have your own potty.  I’m the one holding it all day long until dad gets home.  Get over it!” and meanwhile Chunker was apparently running wildly about the house saying “We’re gonna DIE we’re gonna STARVE we’re gonna be ALL ALONE and she’s NEVER COMING BACK and my tummy hurts and I think I need to whizz.  HERE.  In the den!  Now!!”

Apparently the whizzing in the den just made her more distraught which caused distraught pheromones to float about the house in greater and greater amounts the more distraught she became which then turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy of more distraughtness causing even more upset pheromones … and you can see where it all ended up.  In the Room of Terror with the bad man and the thermometer.

Fortunately this seems to have a happy ending because the two injections solved the UTI and the pheromones solved the upset.  If only they’d invented pheromones when I had four kids in puberty.

Wait.  Dammit.  I was going to blog about being back in the saddle again.  See how you two constantly distract me?  Now I can’t, I have to get ready to go run hills with the hubster, which is stupid to say ‘with’ him since I can only stay ‘with’ him for about 20 feet, but anyway, doesn’t that sound like a lot of fun.  Maybe I should sniff some of those pheromones.