Adventures in Doggie-Sitting

This started out as an email to Jacey... so, technically... it's a letter. :)

I am going to kill Roux! My parents left with another couple yesterday morning to go on an overnight trip to Fredericksburg that involves them stopping at every winery on the way there... and back. They even found a boutique hotel that's also a brewery to stay in last night. I gotta admit, I'm pretty impressed at their level of commitment.

The house phone rings at 5pm last night, and the conversation goes something like this:

Ring, ring.
Me: "Hello."
Goo: "Heeeeeeey, Lucy! Are you at home?"
Me: "Are you seri...."
Goo: "Oh! I called the home number! HAHAHahahahahhahahahah (and then it becomes muffled... then I hear her companions laughing hysterically with/at her.)"
Me: "Hello? Goo? Hell-loo? Goo!"
Dad: "hahah Hellllloooo! hahah Guess haha what haaa?"
Me, going out on a limb: "I don't know, does it have anything to do with alcohol?"
Car full of drunkies: "Hahahahha!"

So, they're probably all in jail. Anyway, Roux kept me up ALL night. Randomly barking at NOTHING. I finally moved out to the couch to try to sleep with her because I didn't want the bed stinking like doggie... and needless to say the couch just isn't big enough for a neurotic dog, an obese cat, and a cranky me. I think I got a grand total of 3 hours of sleep.

Also, the damn dog managed to escape the back yard TWICE yesterday. I've doggie-proofed the gates and fence so well that if the flea bag manages to escape again, I think she's earned the freedom.

Guide to Cats

Funny!

Dear Kitty,

I really want to love you. I really do. I mean, you're pretty frickin' adorable and it's evident that you love me, but it's just a little more complicated than love and looks.

You make my eyes itchy. Very itchy. Especially when you rub your face on mine. Or rub your head all over my hands while I'm trying to type. Also, you don't know the difference between good touch and claw touch. Here's a hint- one is nice and the other hurts.

Also, I'm starting to suspect that you're more interested in the laptop than you are with me.

xoxo,
c

Why I hate Ground Hog Day (And you should, too).

I have come to dread Ground Hog Day for many reasons:

1. Worst Fake Holiday Ever. This is including Arbor Day.

2. I hear "I Got You Babe" about 60 times.

3. Andie McDowell won't fall in love with me

Wait. That wasn't me... Ok, let me start over.

1. Worst Fake Holiday Ever. This is including United Nations Day.

2. My mother ("Goo") sends out her family newsletter with glowing "year in review" paragraphs and adorable pictures of our family.

3. Except me. She finds the worst picture taken of me in a year and posts it. (You can click on the pictures to see them in their full-sized glory, not that you'd want to...)

In 2004 she uses a picture of me wearing hideous lipstick, an oily forehead, crunchy hair, and red eye.

In 2005, Goo selects a picture taken of me celebrating my escape from an insane asylum.

I get two pictures in 2006! One with the fam while wearing a child's shirt and baseball hat and one out of focus profile shot in which the margarita I'm holding seems to be the subject of the shot.

Last year... ok... I can't really complain too much about last year after seeing the picture she chose for TDub. In fact, it's such a long shot, you may have not even realized I was in the picture.

This year, I decided enough was enough. I asked Goo several days in advance to let me have final approval of the picture she selected of me for her annual newsletter. I mean, come on! I am pretty damn hot and fairly photogenic, why is it that she can NEVER find a decent picture of me?!? An hour before she forwarded the link to everyone she's ever met, it was sent to me for approval. DENIED!

She had a picture of me with wet gelled hair, red eye, and what can only be described as unevenness in the chest area. Of course, I am at work without my laptop that holds literally hundreds of pictures taken in the past year. We must resort to the pictures I have uploaded onto facebook. Of course there are no decent pictures of me solo and I'm not sure how my friends/boyfriend-type-person would feel about me submitting a picture with them in it (I like to ask for approval before posting pictures of people) so we settle for a decent pic of me with one of my favorite guys. It's not the best picture of me, but at least Roux isn't in the shot. (Click here to view her page if you haven't already seen it.)

So, readers of Goo's Ground Hog Day newsletter, I apologize for once again depriving you of a decent picture that accurately portrays my hotness. But, really, what can you expect from someone that sends out a family holiday newsletter on a fake holiday? Next year I will have professional portraits taken.

Have you?

I have never met a dog or cat that doesn't understand "c'mon! innerout?!?"

Kitty ER

Yeah, so around 8pm last nite, I decide I want to cuddle with Lestat. She has three main hangouts: the chair in the front hall, a chair in my mom's room, or in the middle of the bed I sleep on. I track her down in my mom's room and carry her back to the couch to get ready for an all new episode of Degrassi (Shut up, I love that show). After about 10 minutes, she freaks out and scratches the shit out of my arm and chest trying to jump off the couch. Very unlike her, she usually will lay with you as long as you want her to. I don't think in five years she's ever scratched or fought to get away.

She goes into the dining room and starts meowing her head off, I immediately blame Roux and yell at her, but Roux comes in the room and Lestat is still screaming. Mom and I jump up and enter the room just in time to see her fall over and miserably attempt to stand up serveral times before mom carries her to her water bowl. She doesn't want any.

She's staggering and bobbing her head and can't stay on her feet for more than two uneasy steps. Goo goes to find the vet's emergency pgr number, while I try to talk sweetly to the cat to calm her down. I realize that she can't see me. Her eyes are darting back and forth. She tries to walk again, this time against the wall, but she's almost ramming herself into the wall and panting heavily. Then I smelled it. She shat herself. This is a very sick cat. Freaked me out.

The vet finally calls back and he's out of town, but thinks we need to take Stat to an Emergency Animal Clinic right away. So, Goo and I find Fred's old pet taxi and get ready to take her in.


Anyway...the pet ER is no fun. You can feel it before you even get inside, all the cars in the parking lot are crooked, taking up two spaces, lights left on, etc. Worse than the parking jobs I've seen at human ERs. Seriously. I started thinking how depressing it would be to work there. You're not going to give Fluffy her annual shots or Fido heartworm pills and send them cute little postcards when it's time to schedule a new appointment. You're only going to see Fluffy and Fido if they're dying.

It took about an hour and a half before anyone even came to examine poor Stattler (we did discover she weighs just over 16 and a half pounds) and they think she has Vestibular Disease. And a neurological condition called Ataxia which was causing her to fall, and Nystagmus which is casing her eyes to jitter.

She seems better today that last nite... she still can't walk or even really stand. But she's more responsive and the movement in her eyes has slowed down. She won't eat or drink, so I've been forcing water down her throat with a dropper and bribing her with tuna. Wasted a few pills that she vomitted right back up, but the try seems to want to stay down.
Poor kitty.