12:35 p.m. - 2007-03-31
cat fever
Today we had an appointment to take Ted and Henry to the vet. It is always an ordeal when we have to catch and obtain control of Ted for thing like his monthly nail clipping and a couple of times a year to go to the vet's office. It took us 45 minutes this morning to catch him. At one point, he was hissing, with his tail bushed out and his eyes wide like something from Pet Cemetary. He ran all around hiding under things until we finally closed all of the doors so he was contained to only the open areas of the house. At this point, he took his apparent only recourse. He shit all over the place. Under the futon, behind the couch and all over himself. We did finally get his crap covered self into the cat carrier. But then we had to transport him, smelling to high heaven down the road to the vet in the car. All the while Henry is hanging out in his cat carrier like he's going on vacation. We got to the vet and had to sit in the waiting room with large excitable dogs for nearly an hour. About 10 minutes into the wait Kevin leans over and informs me that I have cat shit on my forehead. Awesome.
The check up itself wasn't too eventful, but when we got home I decided there was no other option but to bathe Ted and his stinky, poop-caked rear end. Imagine a normally psychotic cat, already traumatized by being chased and imprisoned in a carrier, driven in a car, set down on the ground mere feet away from the biggest german Sheppard in the world, poked, prodded, given shots and having had your temperature taken annally. Imagine all of that and then your owner says "I think we'll take this opportunity to give you a bath." It was not good. I have never heard sounds like that come out of a cat. He worked himself up so bad that he was grunting, yowling, choking and hissing all at once. He held on to the edge of the utility sink with his front paws for dear life and tried to slash my wrists with his back feet as I splashed his behind with shower gel and warm water.
I realize this is not exactly an advertisement for all of the wonders and glories of cat ownership. We only have Ted because Henry gets depressed on his own and they love each other. And everyone knows Henry is the best cat ever. So, he's worth it. Oh, and we think Gooski is dying again. I know we've said that before but he hasn't moved from the little cat bed for over 12 hours and when he does walk, instead of going in a straight line, he walks sort of diagonally. Poor thing. I'll keep you posted.
