CAT-ASTROPHE

These are our cats. They hate me right now. Well, ok maybe they don't hate me, but every time I go into the spare bedroom where we keep the cat carriers, they are a little leery of me. In the last two weeks, they have been poked, prodded, jabbed, assaulted, humiliated and tortured. This is according to them. According to me, they all just had to go to get their shots and Iddle needed a teeth cleaning. I felt bad, because I had to take them one by one in to the vet, and I'm sure they were wondering as I carried each one away if they would ever see their buddy again. But it was a necessary evil to keep them healthy and happy and with us for a long time.

George, "the orange one", is adjusting to his home again after having a three week vacation with Grandma and Grandpa while I was out of town. He was so spoiled there with a porch, "wet" food, and not being chased around the house by the 19 lb. beast known as Mouse. Mouse is really just a gentle giant, but he can't resist a good chase. In his defense, if George wouldn't run, Mouse probably wouldn't chase him, but alas, George takes off and the chase ensues.

Iddle probably had the worst week of all of them. He not only had to go to the vet to get his shots, he had to go back 3 days later to get his teeth cleaned. They had to give him anesthesia, so when I went to pick him up, he was still VERY groggy. The vet told me to keep him in his carrier for another 3 hours or so, but when I got home I felt bad, so I closed the bathroom door and let him walk around. Well I guess walk around wouldn't be the correct term. It was more like stumble, fall over, bang head on door, lose footing and fall over again, try to crawl on belly, then roll over. Poor guy, he looked like a drunken sailor. I felt bad that I'd let him out, so I put him back in his carrier and came back an hour and a half later. He had peed himself and it was all over his back legs, underside, and tail. I got some soapy water and washed him off, but he was miserable still.

The next day, I started to worry about him because he was still so out of it and hadn't eaten in 2 days. Usually chipper and loving with his tail straight up, he moped around looking completely depressed with his tail dragging on the ground. I worried that he wouldn't come out of it, and that I'd killed Lori's cat. That would be a great start to a new marriage, wouldn't it?

Luckily, he started eating the next morning, and now I'm happy to say he's back to his normal self, as are the rest of the critter crew. Little do they know, the real torture is yet to begin, as we take a 14 hour road trip with all 4 cats to Virginia next week. I don't know who will be tortured more by it, them or us, but wish us luck. We'll all probably need it.