This past weekend was a blur coupled with me out on the edge of sanity. 50% of it caused by my impending move. The other 50% caused by my cat.
Friday night I headed to my mom’s house right after work, with Mac in tow and an audiobook in the CD player. We had some pizza, watched some Alias on DVD, and watched my cat be paranoid and very angry. Ever since my mom got her cat, Scurry, whom MacGyver never lived with, whenever I bring her to my mom’s place she’s just pissy the whole time. She’s either asleep on my bed, running from room to room in this extra-crouched position, looking all around like she’s about to be jumped, or hissing at me. We assume its the smell of another cat that irritates her so, but unfortunately, I can’t seem to convince her to just let it go.
Saturday morning, I hunted in the basement to find the empty boxes of certain items I needed to have to pack, as well as took inventory of my Christmas decorations and wrapping supplies. I then loaded these things up and went to Knoxville to take Mac to get her shots. She was unamused as normal. Saw a friend from high school who was in with her dog who’s on his last legs. Always so sad. Which leads me to one of the factors that led me to my Sunday night freakout: in discussing Mac’s health, I mentioned her previous diagnosis of the beginning of kidney failure and our upcoming move. To which the vet replied that I need to be careful because a move will be stressful to a cat of her age and that can put more stress on her system and cause problems. Great. So that thought started rattling around in my head. And I think Mac is going to die everyday anyway, so this didn’t help.
After the vet we zipped back to Coralville. I could tell poor Mac needed to go to the bathroom and I did my best to get her home in time, but of course, one block from my apt. she just couldn’t hold it any longer. Poor kitty. I felt so bad. Have I mentioned that I’m probably way too emotionally invested in my cat? We got home and I got her cleaned up. I had to then get myself clean and jumped in the shower because I found out that my cousin Emily was in town for a writing conference and she had time to meet me for lunch. We caught up at Chilis over the molten lava cake. mmmmmmMMMMmmmm. I left her to be picked up by some other people and headed to Doogie’s to watch the Iowa/Wisconsin game (hey, did you know it was Barry Alverez’s last game? I nearly missed that fact during the three hours of coverage.). Thankfully we won, the little smokies were tasty, and Jack reported in from Madison that neither he, nor Frosty, nor Jenniffer were killed by the Wisconsin student section. Which is a good thing.
I finally got back to my apartment for more than 45 minutes at around 7pm on Saturday night. So I had about an hour before the horrid people who live below me proceeded to turn on their stereo at ridiculous levels for hours on end. I’ve complained to them many times. I’ve called my landlord in the past and he said he talked to them, but it didn’t matter this night. I kept going downstairs and banging on their door and they’d yell at me and turn it down for five minutes and then turn it back up louder. How stupid and rude is that? Like I was going to be happy if they turned it down for five minutes and then not notice that they turned it back up? I screamed at them for hours. I couldn’t even wear earplugs to bed because the bass made my bed vibrate. These people are lothesome. Not to mention that someone in the building is stealing my laundry soap. It is moments like this that motivate me to move.
I finally got to sleep sometime after midnight with a combination of my fan on, my alarm clock playing loud thunderstorm sounds, and my earplugs in.
[Thank goodness I saved this as a draft before I went to lunch, since I came back to find my machine rebooted and sitting at the login prompt. Thanks, tech support for just fiddling with my system when I'm not here.]
[One of the perks of working in a website dept. is the ability to have an hour conversation with your boss about emerging trends in the web and consumer habits and talk about the iTunes Music Store and have it count as work.]
And now back to my regularly scheduled mental breakdown…
Sunday I awoke early but fairly rested. Spent a couple of hours watching some taped tv from the previous week while hanging out with Mac on the couch. The vet always says that the vaccination shots they give pets can make them lethargic for 24-48 hours afterwards. Now Mac sleeps pretty much all the time, but she seemed extra sleepy on Sunday. Which led to me waking her up every couple of hours to make sure she was still alive. Which she really loves. I spent most of the daylight hours doing some website work and attempting to start organizing my apartment for the impending move. As the sun began to set, I headed over to the southside to first check out J&S’s new place (nice, empty), then go over to my new address and meet with Rachel to sign the lease and get my keys (and garage door opener!). Rachel was on the phone when I got there, so I wandered up to my new space to take pictures and measurements. What I started to realize at that time that gelled more fully in my mind when I got home was that my new bathroom is a lot smaller than my current one. There is a bit more counter space, but the floor space is vastly decreased. So after signing the lease until August 2006 and figuring out where we want the piano to go, I headed home.
I was home about an hour and then I freaked out. I realized that there wasn’t going to be room for Mac’s litter box in the new bathroom without it being right in the middle and me having to move it every morning when I showered. Which, may be what I have to do. Because the only other option I can see would be for to keep it in my bedroom and, well, ew. I don’t want it on the carpet because the new place has this light cream carpet (who puts that color in a house? its just an accident waiting to happen). So then I just spiraled down into this “OMG, I can’t move, it will kill my cat” place for a few hours. I called my mom and kept freaking out. There for awhile I thought that maybe I should just back out and not move in with Rachel and find some place that has larger bathrooms. Which, I know, sounds so ridiculous. But I need to move before I end up in a fight with my neighbors downstairs.
I’m still not sure how I’m going to deal with Mac. I may have to build something to have to have a wooden frame and have an edge and have a linolium bottom for her litter box to sit in in my bedroom, but that’s just so distasteful. I did think if I could rehang the bathroom door so it opened out instead of in that I’d have enough space for the litterbox in the bathroom, but somehow I’m thinking that’s not possible…
Hopefully, the move in with Rachel will actually be fine and Mac will deal and all that. But I can’t shake the feeling that she’s going to die three days after we move and I will have killed my cat just to live in a nicer place.
Who knew signing a nine month lease could be so stressful?
Posted in Cats, General Thoughts, Iowa Hawkeyes, Living Spaces |
November 14th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
My sister has two cats who are around 14 years old. she has had them since one was two, the other a kitten. For a decade they were the main family she had because she lived in Illinois and we don’t. So, I completely get how obsessed and wrapped up in your cat. She’s family, that’s clear and that’s important.
When my sister had to move in with me (a few years ago), I had a cat which was a kitten and her two cats were stressed out at first about it. It’s tough on the cats, especially older ones. So, a lot of what has been going on could very well be because of the stress of meeting a new cat while being a little older.
That’s just my thought.
November 15th, 2005 at 7:21 am
Have you see these litter box cover thingies?
http://www.jbpet.com/Shopping/product.asp?catalog_name=JBWholesale&product_id=725-0101&category_name=CatLitterBoxes
When do we get to see pics of the new place?
November 16th, 2005 at 11:04 am
I know what you mean about cream colored carpet being a STUPID choice. That’s what the previous owners of our house put in throughout it. It has so many stains and spills on it. It’s all eventually coming out and we’ll use the hardwood floors underneath. Until then, we just don’t worry about cleaning up spills because they won’t ever go all the way away.