Little Plastic Castle

My day started with bloody pee, and that’s all you need to know to give you an understanding of my day. Whose bloody pee, you ask? Not mine, and not Adonymous (TwoBusy wins the Name That Husband contest!) No no. The cat. As if cat piss all over the house wasn’t enough, it had to be bloody cat piss, and man, it’s just… it just wasn’t a great day, but I don’t see how it could have been after that kickoff. I shuffled through the day under an intense air of irritation, and by 7 p.m., was feeling pretty guilty about it, but that didn’t stop me from whipping out the buttered toast fingers and uh, the white zinfandel, which was in the fridge and leftover from Thanksgiving. Shut up, I know it’s not real wine, but at least it was from a bottle, is what I’m saying, although the cork was totally…plastic, maybe? I don’t know. Some sort of fiber not of this earth.

Taking my cat to the vet is not for the weak. There is growling, screaming, wailing and I firmly believe that if cats could talk, mine would be screaming, “I am going to rip
your head off and shit down your neck!” A few years ago, he nailed me right between the eyes with a claw while I was trying to stuff him back into his carrier, and he drew blood – quite a bit of blood, if memory serves, because did you know that heads, for some reason, bleed more? I was expecting a gash of Frankensteinian proportions, but instead was greeted with barely a nick, which didn’t bode well for the retelling of the story. Ranting and raving about the “gallons” of blood that were pouring from your head tends to lose all credibility when all you have to show for it is a paper cut between the eyes.

Long story uh, longer, Snapcat has a ripper of a urinary tract infection – an infection caused entirely by me, as I changed his food to one that has a Ph that doesn’t agree with his delicate little manparts. I might add that I made this culinary change because it was a slightly cheaper brand than the ridiculously expensive gourmet canned food we’d been serving. Given that the cheaper food actually ended up costing us $300 in vet bills, when all was said and done, I’d say that I was a right idiot for even attempting to do such a thing. Why $300, you ask, when the solution was simply a round of Clavamox, which is $35? Because the vicious little darling actually won’t let anyone near him in the vet’s office, and he needs to be anesthetized in order for anyone to properly examine him. Knocking him out, by the way, requires the assistance of two vet techs wearing leather bibs and sporting heavy-duty falconer’s gloves, and last year, he bit two of them, injuring one of them badly enough that she missed work for two weeks. Compare and contrast this reaction with SunDawg, who would gladly let you chop her paws off one by one, panting happily all the way, provided you rub her head and tell her she’s pretty.

When not being growled at or peed on, I have been remarkably focused, which while good for my productivity in office-like situations, as well as matters of the home, it has been intensely boring. I think to some degree this reaction has been somewhat of a coping mechanism, because, well, a lot of shit has gone wrong in our house lately. Nothing life-threatening or too catastrophic, but enough that my brain isn’t really all that interested in working overtime, as it can only lead to an annoyed place. Tonight, for example, I went to the gym, and while it was frustrating because it involved gym-like things like sweating and listening to about 11 teenage boys lift weights and sing rap lyrics to each other, what was really frustrating was that I was unable to think about anything interesting. I wasn’t distracted by anything, I wasn’t daydreaming about anything, and I wasn’t thinking of anything remotely amusing. My mind was simply filled with bland thoughts such as, “I am listening to Carbon Leaf.” “I am on the elliptical trainer.” There wasn’t even an “Ooh! I’m at level 5!” or “Ow, this hurts!” It was simply, “I am at the gym listening to music. I am moving my legs.” I felt like some kind of weird automaton, completely void of anything pretty or interesting and if that’s how productive people live, I would just like to say that I have no desire to be productive. Give me scattered! Give me distracted! Ooh ooh – donuts! I did, however, drive to the eye doctor to pick up my glasses, grab dinner, then entirely forget why I was there, and then get really excited when Adonymous reminded me, because ooh! New glasses AND dinner! Exciting! …which meant that I was at least starting to resemble my usual goldfish self, so there’s hope yet.

Aaand, our TiVo just died, and given that the part for my disemboweled laptop hasn’t even shipped, my irritation is growing by the minute, no matter how much white zin I hoist into my gullet. Which means: enough. As Adonymous put it, it’s just time for me to stop sighing heavily, throw in the towel and start another day. It is going to be Friday, after all.

Have a great weekend.

*Ani DiFranco

9 comments December 7th, 2006