she's baaaaaack!

I didn't expect to say that, ever.

Four days of putting up flyers, calling shelters, checking Craigslist and generally telling myself that she was never coming back, and Knut came home.

I was sitting on the recliner, reading, and Spagett and Sid were out in the garage doing Spagett and Sid things, when I heard scraping at the door.  And then again.  And when I got up to see what it was, fully expecting it to be the fucking raccoon I've seen around here lately, there was Knut.

Whatever else she's done in the past four days, she got into a fight with something at some point: there are bite marks, scrapes and punctures, all over her neck and shoulders.  Her ear was bitten.  One of her claws got ripped out.  A fly had laid eggs around some of the wounds.  She was dirty and smelly and tired, but so glad to be home!  I picked her up and took her out to the garage, because Sid didn't hear me yelling for him.  The look on his face was priceless.  Shock and joy and disbelief.  It was Knut!

We got some food and water in her and carted her off to Banfield Pet Hospital.  She was cleaned up and shaved and checked head to toe.  She's beat up, but otherwise healthy, and hopefully there will be no complications with those bites.

I hadn't expected to see her again.  Honestly, I thought she had died, or someone had picked her up.  I didn't think she was going to come home.  That she did seems like nothing short of amazing.

when it rains, it pours

Truly.

Friday, first thing in the morning, I had my wisdom teeth out.  The bottom two were sideways, and all four were impacted.  The surgery went fine, all I remember was they were having a hard time finding a vein for the IV, they gave me nitrous, and once the IV was in everything went wonky.  Right before I passed out, I remember thinking I was never going to pass out, that I would just feel dizzy and sleepy forever. Next thing I know, I'm waking up with gauze in my mouth and being herded out the door.

That afternoon, I looked like Bethenny Frankel.  The next day, my face was unrecognizable from the cheekbones down.  I blew up.  The swelling was worse the next day, if such a thing could be possible.  I cried.  Spagett was scared of me.  It was horrible.  The Vicodin I'd been prescribed didn't seem to take a dent out of the pain I was in.  I can't say it enough: it was horrible.

While the swelling has gone down, my face is all bruised along my jaw, and I still can't open my mouth very far.  It isn't pain stopping me; I literally cannot open my mouth.  While I understand this is normal and will resolve in time, it fucking sucks trying to eat.

But.  That's not even the worst of it.

Yesterday Knut disappeared.  I spent all day today walking around with Spagett on my back, or biking with Spagett in his seat, putting up flyers with Sid and looking for that bitch cat.  And she is nowhere to be found.  We lost Knut.

Holy shit, we lost Knut.  We may never get her back.  I don't even want to talk about it anymore right now, just thinking about it, just typing the words, leaves me with this hollow, sick feeling.  Even though I know, I fucking know anything could have happened to her, I can't even bring myself to consider that she might be dead.  Eaten or otherwise killed by another animal.  It simply is not a thought I am willing to entertain.  Even though I know she is old, missing teeth, not as spry or able to defend herself, following that train of thought to it's conclusion is unfathomable.

I have to believe she'll come back.  That someone will find her, someone will pick her up and call me.  Or that I'll open the door one morning and there she'll be on the porch, having gotten tired of her adventures and found her way home.  This has to happen, because if it doesn't, the implications are more than I can take.

Knut's update

I forgot to mention it, because it was so anti-climactic.

Dr Proctor kept saying her stitches would start to come out over Thanksgiving weekend and that I'd either have to take them out myself or drive out to the clinic in Powellsville to have the vet there do it, because he was going to be out of town. I said I'd do it myself and spare Knut the forty minute drive. The conehead was given the heave-ho, and we agreed that I'd bring Knut back the Monday after Thanksgiving so that he could check her eye.

But the stitches never came out. They remained firmly in place until December 1st. So Dr Proctor took them out himself. And I could see right away that Knut's eye was healed: the big ugly scratch, the ulcerated divot, was gone. The official all-clear had to wait until contrast dye was put in and the site of the ulcer had been inspected under a magnifier. But in the end, the general opinion was that Knut is fine, and the surgery worked.

But Knut is still a pirate. I don't care what anyone else says.

confession

I'm getting a bit jealous of Knut.

Sid is constantly checking on her, making sure she's okay, and giving her attention. Normally, I'd think it was cute, but for some reason, it's just really, really, aggravating me. Perhaps my memory is skewed, but I don't recall him treating me like that, ever. Not even after MY EPIC FAIL. Matter of fact, if I recall correctly, in the weeks after the failage, he hardly said anything to me at all.

I don't know if this is my malfunction or his. But either way, it really pisses me off.

And then I start thinking, if I were pregnant, would he be so loving and attentive to me then? and would he hover over our baby like that? and it breaks my fucking heart. Lately, I've been feeling like I was over the worst of it, and that I had finally made some semblance of peace with all that bs. It didn't really hurt to look at babies, I didn't want to cry when I saw pregnant women. And it's shit like this that makes me realize that hey, you know, it's not that fucking simple. Bitch, you thought you were through the worst? Now you're jealous and resentful of your fucking CAT, and doesn't that just make you feel like a piece of shit all over again?

omg wtf knuty-q

Knut knows we feel bad about her pirate eye (and the conehead), so she's milking it for all it's worth. Usually, if she wants attention, she'll come to you...but that rarely happens. Lately, I can't sit down without having to guard my lap, because she'll come slinking over bonking her conehead on everything, and want to sit on me. Last night, she tried to act all pitiful and mooch Sid's ice cream. I find it hilarious yet maddening. This morning while finishing up my Yoga Burn dvd, lying down and doing the ending relaxation bits, she climbed right up on my stomach and started poking around. On my bladder. Which was very, very full.

Any other time, I wouldn't mind lavishing attention on Knut. But right now, I'm constantly weeing. I'm on the run up to that wonderful time of the month, and the bloat is going away, which means OMG, STAY NEAR THE POTTY ROOM. And my boobs are fucking sore as hell, and she wants to root around at my chest and sit on my bladder? Hell to the no, Knottyhead.

It's just the weirdest thing, having a siamese that constantly wants to cuddle. Dare I say, it's wearing on the nerves, too?

my cat is a pirate

Knut has always had a wonky right eye: when she was a kitten, she had some sort of infection that left it looking...kind of gross. Her cornea is scarred to high heaven, and her sight is very likely smeary and clouded on that side. But it never seemed to bother her, and it never bothered me. She is my one-eyed Knut: my furry, bad-tempered pirate baby.

Last week, as best I can tell, she scratched that eye somehow. Maybe she was fighting with one of our other cats, maybe she just did the kitty equivalent of poking herself in the eye. I don't know. But she had a scratch on her eye, and it didn't seem to bother her. One of my guinea pigs had had the same thing happen once, and there was nothing we could do about it except make sure it didn't get worse. Well, the guinea pig's eye healed. Knuty's did not.

I took her to the vet yesterday (shout out to the awesome staff at Ahoskie Animal Clinic!), thinking that I would be getting some eyedrops for her or something. Well, it turns out that Knut's scratch ulcerated, and she has lost at least half of the layers of her cornea in that spot. The pressure inside her eye could cause the remaining layers to rupture. Which, even to the layman, sounds every bit as bad as it really is.

The vet said that her best chance of keeping that eye would be to use her third eyelid as a sort of eyepatch: pull it up, stitch it there, and give the cornea some time to try and heal. There's a good chance that this will work, and she'll be fine. But if for some reason it doesn't, she will have to have that eye removed.

Ho-ly shit.

I was dead calm as the vet was telling me all this: composed as I said goodbye to Knut and they took her back to prep for surgery. It was only when I got to the lobby to fill out the consent forms that it really hit me, and then I started to cry. Knut has never spent a night away from Sammy, never spent a night away from people who loved her. And now she's going to be doped up, stitched up, and wake up surrounded by strangers? It broke my heart.

Sid has been kind of a mess. He's never had to deal with something like this: hell, neither have I, but if you've had as many pets as I've had (and buried as many as I have), you learn to just roll with the punches when it comes to the furrybutts. An injury is not.so.bad. It definitely could have been a lot worse.

Right now I'm trying to find the funny in this situation, and the only thing I can come up with is that now my Knut really is a pirate: an awesome hardcore pirate, because her eyepatch is made with her own living flesh. Doesn't get much more hardcore than that, does it?

catching up

Sid came home on the 11th.

I wish it had actually been as simple as saying it makes it seem. The week leading up to that was filled with bitchwork, and the day before homecoming was insane. Insane. The cats picked up on that and vomited all over hell's half-acre as soon as I finished cleaning.

The morning of, we were expecting rain. When I woke up at 6, it was drizzling, and everything was wet. So instead of my white dress, I wore my black one. With that long black thing on, and my hair curled (THAT was interesting), I thought I bore more than a passing resemblance to Mrs Lovett from Sweeney Todd. Indeed, that night, Sid mentioned unprompted that I'd looked just like her. Minus the whole dark eye-makeup thing; that look has not been my thing for years now.

Cory came with, as it's not every day a friend of yours goes on deployment, and on the way to the base, we got stuck in traffic. A real gridlock. A car had broken down in the downtown tunnel, blocking all lanes of traffic. The cars were backed up for miles. And we sat with the car shut off for nearly half an hour, with me freaking out the whole time. I was convinced the Nassau would come in and the sailors disembark before we could get there.

I was wrong. By the time we got on base and found a place to park, the Nassau was pulling in. We were not as late as I'd imagined. For the next forty minutes, I stood in the baking sun...waiting. Did I mention I didn't wear sunscreen? Pasty-white starky, standing in the direct sunlight for a prolonged period of time? You know where this is going. I got good and fried.

Apparently new parents get to come off the boat first, and normally it wouldn't have bothered me, but for some reason, that day it really stuck in my craw. What a meager way of making amends for forcing these men away from the births of their children. "Oh, hey, we'll let you schmoes of the boat first, so you can finally see your new sons and daughters, and fuck the rest of the childless assholes." Yeah, that day it was really like a punch in the gut. Kick me while I'm down, why don't you.

It didn't matter, though, because Sid was right on the tails of those guys. As the crowd started to cheer, I turned to Cory and said, "we should get closer to them, Sid's expecting us to be over at the tent," and on the way over, I saw a bald guy, who could have been Sid from the back, but I wasn't sure, and I gave him a good look and noticed the blue platinum wedding band. It was Sid! Totally serendipitous, how that happened. We found each other right away in that big crowd.

Anyway, he's home. And while I'm happy to have him back, don't get me wrong, I wish that he'd stop spending so much time with his computer or his video games and do something with me. Anything. I helped him wax his car yesterday, just so I could spend time with him. Last night I broke down and told him how I felt, because it was obvious that he was not going to stop with the ignoring me unless I made him. And I didn't want to make him. But it's been almost a week. And I missed him. And I think that after five months apart, he can deign to put the controller down, shut off the computer, and spend some time with his wife.

Oh, and remember all that shit I wrote that I didn't want Sid to see? Stalking-ass motherfucker found and read this blog. Yes, that's right, Siddy, I called you a stalking-ass motherfucker. I only found this out because he teased me about my Brad Pitt dream.

AWKWARD.

good times for all

I've been freaking out recently about the recession: how bad will it be? Does this have the potential to become as bad as the Great Depression? And I keep telling myself, you know, even if it is every bit as bad as some people are saying it's going to be, we have friends who'd be more than willing to pool all our resources together and find a way through this. Worst comes to worst, Curt stays in the military, and a few of our friends come along for the ride, and we grow a garden to stretch food. It would suck, and it would be less than ideal, but I don't think we'd be living in tents.

And then, in the middle of all this deep thinking, Sammy walked in from the porch (I left the door open because it's nice outside) and startled me right back to reality with her moaning, shrieking meowing. As soon as I'd got up to see if she was all right, she threw up grass. Everywhere. It's no wonder her stomach hurt, as much green as that cat puked up! So then Knut decided she was going to belly up to the trough and then hurl up a hairball. That cat had stuffed herself like a damn turkey, and here it is all over the rug with a big old hairball winking out of the middle of it.

Good times are being had by all.

a new year, a new blog

The roof is leaking again in the attic. And we had called the landlady about it before Christmas, and she didn't get back with us until just yesterday. And that was only because we decided that we weren't going to pay the rent until she at least acknowledged this shitty roof. Well, the lack of checkage certainly got her attention, and she's coming over on Wednesday. We paid the rent, too, finally.

Anyone who knows me knows that this isn't the first time we've had problems with the roof leaking. At one point, it was so bad in the bathroom that if you had to use the toilet during a rainstorm, you had to hold a bucket over your head to keep the dirty water from splashing all over you. And if you've ever tried to hold a bucket over your head with one hand and wipe your ass with the other, you know it's a really awkward situation to be in. That whole section of roof had to be replaced, along with the ceiling (water damage had made it spongy). I'm hoping that something similar doesn't end up happening again.

Yesterday, while raking the asston of leaves out of the backyard, we saw a cat that looked suspiciously like our siamese. Turns out it was Knut. That bitch has learned how to open doors. I have trouble with doors sometimes, and I have opposable thumbs, so how this cat managed it, I'll never know. Crafty bitch. She should have been a monkey.