Sobek

Meet Sobek. He thinks he's human. He likes refrigerator ice machines. He likes peanut butter sandwiches, popcorn, dairy products, windows, birds, bugs, running water, watching TV closer than your mother would let you, tormenting the other cats (they're girls), howling in loneliness when no one will play with him, marauding, pillaging, ransacking, and wreaking havoc in general. And Stoker. Whatever Stoker likes, Sobek likes.
He plays pretty hard. He needs at least twenty hours of sleep a day. Stalking birds is rough. It takes a lot of concentration. So after a long thirty minutes of hunting, he needs an even longer nap. He likes to sleep on the couch, in the closet, under the bed, on the pink blanket, in the dresser drawer, and in a variety of bags.
Sobek is half cougar. As such, he enjoys high places. Any perch will do: the narrow "ledge" of the top of a door, a door frame "ledge," the top of a speaker, the fridge, anywhere he can put his feet is fair game. Here he is on a perch we bought for him. Don't be fooled by his harmless appearance as he sleeps. Come too close and he WILL draw blood. Look at those ferocious paws!
Mmmm. Toasted tail de chat.
Not represented photographically is Sobek's dark side: bulemia. We're thinking about signing him up for a support group for bulemic cats. Tonight he gorged on tuna fish and cat food and then didn't even hide the fact that he was simply vomiting it! I guess it's gotten pretty bad and this is a cry for help.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that it's no wonder he has a delicate stomach, look at all the crap I let him eat (popcorn, peanut butter, dairy products). I don't LET him eat that stuff. He's got super powers. He bats his eyelashes at me and he gets whatever he wants*.




*That's a joke, of course. I figured out long ago that Sobek can't monitor his own diet. That's why he has a schedule. But occasionally he'll panic, think he'll never have another chance to eat, and gorge, and then throw up immediately. Or maybe he REALLY does have bulemia.

Moving Made Harder

My advice to you is, when you buy a house, don't wait a month to move in. Unless you have to. Unless, in your excitement the day after closing, you tear up all the carpet and linoleum to refinish the hardwood floors, and you rip down all the ugly paneling in the "den" and frame a wall to put up new, modern drywall (as opposed to plaster, I guess), and moving in would mean not finishing the floors. Because you really ought to finish those damn floors before you move in.

I guess waiting a month is rough, because instead of the house being a home, the house is a project that you carry with you to and from work and your real home. It wears one out, I think. But we didn't know that until we'd done it. No one offered any advice, really, and if they had we probably would have told them hush up, we know what we're doing.

Also, if you're not living in the house, it's real easy for a dripping bathroom faucet to turn into a gushing fountain that could potentially flood the entire basement. What? Oh, yeah, yeah, that happened to us. But see, we thought the dripping faucet wasn't anything. We thought the puddle of water in the basement was from the toilet. Later that night, we figured out it was the sink (turned off the faucet, everything dried out).

The next day, when we stopped by to put up drywall, the toilet had flooded and the basement was a mess again. It was the tank, see, it never stopped filling. We turned off the valve to the toilet, but the next day it had flooded again (ghostly? The valve WAS turned off). Three days in a row. It's like a sign from God or something. He deals in threes, you see.

If we'd been living there, those enormous water problems wouldn't have ballooned like they did. We would have caught them at the trickle stage, right?

So, we moved in all the way on Wednesday. Or rather, we moved everything out of the apartment and into the house. We were up until 3 am on Wednesday night doing all that, you know, vacuuming the apartment before we left so they didn't think we were quite so piggish when they came to clean it up for the next tenant.

Something that took longer than we'd expected was moving the cats. They were very frightened. We only had one cat kennel, so we held the other two in our laps. Well, Bastet rode in my arms, Sobek rode on Stoker's shoulder. He really loved riding in the car. Sobek did, that is. (Stoker likes riding in cars, too.)

Bastet is pretty good at riding in the car with me because she's so well traveled. She's been from Mesa, AZ to Salt Lake, and from Mesa to Nashville. She's also ridden on a plane with us. She's a jet-setter, that cat. A hippo jet-setter (I don't know, something about her screams hippo. She's a hulking creature. Beautiful and hulking). Polly (short for Neopolitan, like the ice cream) rode in the kennel -- she's still quite skittish.

The cats hissed a lot in the house, at first. The previous owners had cats who left behind lots of terrible smells. So I think the cats were waiting to be jumped by enormous tom cats or something. That or I'm right about the devil room and there ARE ghosts in the house. Cats can see ghosts, don't you know?

Anyway, it took us longer than we thought to calm the cats down, and even when we left they weren't calm. When we returned from buying new cat litter, Sobek was burrowed between some pillows on the couch. He was like a kid hiding from thunder (I used to hide from thunder under the velvet throw pillows on my mom's couch, so that's how I can make that comparison). When Sobek saw Stoker, he ran into his arms. It was like a Kleenex commercial or a Cat Fancy sponsored music video for "Reunited." It really tugged at the heart strings.

The cats are doing better, the odd thing is that suddenly they're all sleeping on our bed with us and so I can't move at night, lest I kick a cat off the bed. Bastet has successfully rubbed against every possible object, to claim them, as the supreme cat in the household. I think she worked herself into such a frenzy from marauding about the house, shooting out her scent, that now she has a cat cold. Her little eye was a bit oozy last night, poor thing. I told her to rest today. Get some sleep. Recuperate.

Anyway, moving was the most horrible thing I've had to endure for a long time. I thought the glue-scraping was rough, and it was. I thought the sanding was a burden, and it was (especially the devil room. I NEVER thought we'd get through all that black tar. And it WAS tar. I've had it confirmed by several sources). I thought filling the nail holes with stainable filler was rough, and it was. But moving stands as the number one shitty thing a person has to do in their lifetime.

It could have been worse, I could have been 8 months pregnant with a two year old, two cats and a dog, and it could have been from DC to Miami, or Southern California to Miami, or Miami to Denver. Take your pick. Luckily it was from one side of the circle that is Nashville-Davidson, to the other side.


P.S. The floors look excellent, and who can complain about new appliances? Especially a side-by-side fridge when all you've had your entire adult life has been the top-freezer monstrosities apartment complexes offer. The beasts!

The Allergy Racket

Did I ever mention that I finally got tested for allergies? After 28 years of year-round suffering, the results weren't surprising or anything. They told me I'm allergic to nearly everything they tested for. The P.A. who spoke to me afterwards seemed to think she was telling me something new, like, "You're very allergic to everything." Laughable.

The reason I finally submitted to being tested was because I finally had insurance, and also because my ears have been popping all the time for over a year now. I think I've written about this before. Anyway, it's incredibly annoying and sometimes painful. Eustachian tube dysfunction, is what it's called. I asked the P.A. about it, "Would the allergy shots stop my ears from hurting," I asked. Then she pointed to an illustrated chart on the wall depicting the inner ear and Eustachian tube, "This is a Eustachian tube. They're a narrow opening between the inner ear and the throat."

By then I felt like slapping her. I don't have a lot of patience for stupidity, but that's the only thing I'm not patient with. Everything else, rush hour traffic, beggars/scam artists, celebrity gossip, I'm patient with (that's funny because it's not true!). Just because I'm not a P.A. or an M.D., doesn't mean I'm stupid. Right then I could have talked circles around her about Eustachian tubes and semicircular canals and the stapes and the malleus and the incus, because I HAVE STUDIED IT OUT.

I don't know, maybe there are some people who don't try to figure out what's going on with their body before they go to the doctor. As for me, I spend a lot of time typing search words like "fatigue+bruising" and "insomnia+heightened body temperature" into Google. If you type some of those search strings into Google, be prepared to confront search results such as AIDS or MS or any other incurable, deadly disease, including Leukemia. I suggest more specific terms and remember, remain calm.

But since I do a lot of researching like that, I rarely feel the need to go to the doctor to confirm anything. I think doctors are a racket. Especially prescription drugs. Never mind that I'm finally on an inhaler that has pretty much put an end to my constant allergies (except for the ear problem), what bothers me is that I HAVE to go to a doctor to get a prescription for a drug that I'm never going to NOT need. That's why it's a racket.

And I feel that this particular area is a racket: the allergy business. So I get tested and the P.A. introduces me to the Eustachian tubes, after all my years of wondering (of course) if the throat is connected to the ear. Then she tells me, "I wanted to meet with you, in particular, because you are SO allergic to EVERYTHING we tested you for. You had the highest possible response to everything: mold, dust mites, grasses." And then she tells me she wants me to start on the allergy shots right away, which should be no problem because they're fully covered by my insurance.

We fight for minute over my cats, because I am honest when she asks if I have cats and yes, they sleep in my bedroom if they want to. There's no settling the argument, because I'm not going to lie and say, "Yes, I'll get an air filter and stop letting my cats into the bedroom."

She clearly doesn't understand that the cats might as well be little humans in my esteem, and locking them out of a certain room would be tantamount to locking a child in a closet. Sure, the cat looks like a cat, but in my heart the cat's basically human. I think they call this anthropomorphism and I think it can go the other way too. My cats clearly don't delineate between me being a human and them being cats. We're the same. We're a clan.

Someday I'll learn to lie when it's appropriate. For now they call me Honest Abe. I have buckled and am doing the allergy shots. That simpering P.A. told me I won't start to see results for about four weeks. This week I asked the nurse when I'll see results. She said, "Hmm, you know, six months, maybe a year."

Do you smell a racket? The office is set up on certain days just for shots. Not knowing what the norm is for responses to the allergens—as far as I know, it's normal to get an 11 from Bermuda/bahia grass— the doctors could tell everyone that they score the highest possible rating for each allergen and they need to start the shots right away, and it should be no problem because it's fully covered by insurance.

The only reassurance I have is that I know my body. I AM allergic as hell to EVERYTHING.

Imaginary Conversations with Bastet

We’re going to Utah on Saturday to visit family. I’m excited about that. I’m a homebody, for those of you who don’t know that about me.

The strange thing is that I’m a homebody for this home here, now, the one I’ve made with Stoker and our two cats. I’m nervous about leaving it behind. Nervous about leaving the cats. We’ve arranged to have a trustworthy friend (Kevin) take care of them, but I’m the kind of person who projects my thoughts into their beautiful little minds. Perhaps, I think, they’ll worry. They’ll wonder when I’ll come home. They’ll be waiting for me, to see me, to have me open the door and come inside and feed them a tiny bit of tuna fish as their evening dinner. And I won’t open the door for many days. Will they worry? Do cats worry? I know, I know. I’m ridiculous. But that’s me.

I wish I could call them up and talk to them. Tell them that I’ll be home soon and have them understand that I haven’t left for forever.

Bastet: Hello?
Me: Basty?
Bastet: Yes, this is Bastet. Who is this?
Me: It’s your mom. It’s me.
Bastet: Ah yes. Where the hell are you?
Me: I’m in Utah visiting my mom. How are you doing?
Bastet: I’m starving. Where’s my treat?
Me: Kevin is supposed to be stopping by to check on you and give you your treat. He hasn’t been there yet?
Bastet: Kevin? Who the hell is Kevin? I haven’t seen anyone all day. I’m hungry and Sobek [the kitten we adopted] is bugging the hell out of me.
Me: I just wanted you to know I miss you and that I’ll be home before you know it.
Bastet: All I know is I miss my treat. Man, I’m starving.

Bastet has an attitude. I’m sure that if she could talk she’d say things like ‘hell’ and ‘damn.’ Perhaps a well-timed f-bomb when Sobek startles her. No, I’m kidding. Bastet is very regal and classy. She’d never stoop to cursing. But I do.

I’m not quite sure why I made her so unfeeling about our relationship. I suppose because it wouldn’t be funny to read about a cat telling her owner that she misses her. It’s much more humorous to have the relationship seem one-sided. But I know she loves me and will miss me. I like to think, anyway.

As this weekend approaches, I feel myself becoming more anxious, nervous and stressed. And I don’t want to go. At least, a part of me doesn’t want to. Like I said, I don’t want to leave the cats. I worry about the most impossible things happening. Like that Kevin won’t be able to come by and feed them because he gets in a car accident or something and so the cats starve. My mind goes so far as to supply images of them trying to scratch their way through the pantry door to get to their food. Or, the apartment burns down and no one is around to care enough to rescue them. Or there’s a tornado. Or an earthquake. Or some kind of enormous gas crisis and the airline can’t buy gas to fuel the plane and so we’re stuck in Utah.

It’s ridiculous. I know. Where do I get these ideas? Don’t ask me. A friend told me, recently, that these are things I can’t change so don’t worry about them.

But she’s wrong. I can change them, right? I can simply refuse to travel ever again.

Stupid, real stupid.

A Live Update from Nashville, TN

Recently in the news, Stoker and I got a new kitten. We adopted him for $100 from the Nashville Cat Rescue, via Petsmart. Supposedly this boy, who was named Ken for reasons beyond me, had been treated for fleas. Stupidly I took this at face value.

When I got him home and secured away from our ‘resident cat’ Bastet, I noticed fleas in his incredibly blond fur (which hereafter will be referred to as ‘buff’, should I have occasion to mention it again). I’m not sure if it’s one hundred percent accurate to say, but I’ll say it anyway, in Utah we didn’t have problems with fleas in our cats and nearly all of our cats had been strays. Maybe I just never saw the fleas, I don’t know.

But that’s one of the big problems I have with the south or mid-south, whatever you want to call it. The humidity makes it prime for millions of bugs to flourish. I’m not kidding. Some of the scariest bugs I’ve ever seen and I’m what you might call a bug-lover. At one time, during college, I considered becoming an entomologist. That was back when I was naïve about bugs. The bugs in Utah are generally small and non-threatening. That was before I’d encountered a cockroach. Damn the cockroaches! They scare the hell out of me.

Anyway. Sobek*, as we named him later—choosing to stick with the grandiose Egyptian pet-naming tradition (though, I must say, after being at my job, plagued by Egyptian history day in and day out, I’m weary of Egyptian anything)—had fleas. Obviously I freaked out. I hurried to the nearby Petco and bought some stupid flea shampoo. It didn’t work because Ken (as he was known then) went ballistic when I tried to give him a bath. You have to keep it on them for about 5 minutes. That wasn't going to happen. And being a novice at animal grooming, I avoided washing his face and ears, the spot you should wash first because the damn fleas hide inside the ears as soon as they’re threatened. Apparently. I tried a stupid flea comb (also purchased at Petco) and that didn’t work on his short hair and bony body. But I had a grand old time picking a few fleas off him with my fingers and drowning them. A tip: you should use soapy water for that. In plain water the fleas just swim around looking for a way out. They’re survivors, you know.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about the fleas. Succumbing to buyers’ remorse, which is horrible because the kitten was sweet and needed a home and Bastet needed a friend. I itched everywhere, thinking in my sleepy, delusional state that I had fleas and the bed was full of fleas. I was worried that our apartment was going to quickly become a breeding ground for fleas. The next day after work, I went to the vet and got some Frontline. Two doses: one for Bastet, one for Sobek (as he was now called). Two doses were $30. I also bought some flea spray for the apartment. That was about $20.

Did I mention that the kitty bed and kitty food for Sobek was about $18?. And the flea shampoo and book Kittens for Dummies was about $28. You should be keeping a total.

So I sprayed the entire apartment with the flea spray. The Frontline began working immediately, paralyzing the little bastards. By my count he had about 15 fleas, but some of them might have fallen off into the carpet. I’m not sure. I also washed the bathroom towels, the comforter and bed sheets and any blanket he laid upon. Stoker thought I was going nuts, I’m sure. But I wasn’t. I’m the wife, the protector of hearth and home, or at least hearth and apartment (we have a fireplace). I was simply being radically practical.

At some point in the few days we had him, Sobek hurt his paw. He began limping. It turned out to be an abscess. Stoker fretted. He couldn’t sleep. He adores Sobek, you see. Which I find adorable. On Saturday, Stoker and Sobek went to the vet. They sedated him, lanced the wound in his paw, drained it, flushed it and sent Sobek home with antiobiotics. This cost $118.

Have you kept track? I haven’t. Until now. My rough estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of $330.

But he’s worth it. At first it was hard to think so, because I hadn’t bonded with him. But we’re good friends now. And he and Bastet, while getting off to a rocky start, are learning how to play together. She’s not so lonely anymore. We got Sobek so her days weren’t spent in so much solitude. Now they chase each other down the hall and it makes me happy.

In other news I’m looking for a better job. A job with higher pay and benefits. Stoker is doing exceptionally well at his job as a staff engineer. I’m really proud of him. The other day I met a woman who is either a pathological liar, or she leads a completely unbelievable life. She claimed that the first three season of Alias were based on her life. True? Or delusional? It’s hard to say, isn’t it.

*No, he does not resemble a crocodile.