Wendy DeCora.com

Disclaimer: this post is rather gross (but probably amusing), read at your own risk.

I wake up this morning around 8:30am after a lovely night of sleep that included fragments of a dream where Jerry and I were singing the Star-Spangled Banner with BoyzIIMen. I get out of bed and smell the lingering bits of fresh pine from my Christmas tree. Then I walk outside my bedroom and smell something else. Something definitely not fresh. Then I see it. On the floor all over my hallway and living room. Cat poop. But not a small amount of it. No, this was apparently my cat had diarreah and freaked out and ran around attempting to get it off herself by any means necessary. So. Gross.

Bleary-eyed and even before I got to brush my teeth, I’m armed with rubber gloves, paper towels, washcloths, sponges, and various cleaners. Ew. Ew. Ew. I get the carpet dealt with as much as it can be and then look to check on Mac. She did this once before several months back, but I was right there when it happened so I was able to wipe off the “excess” fairly easily with only a minor bit of fur pulling. Unfortunately, I don’t know how many hours ago this had taken place. She was sleeping in the office which she has taken up residence in of late. I got close and oh the smell. Poor thing. She has such long fur and her backside and tail were rather in a state of nasty. I got out the gloves and some wet washcloths and attempted to wipe things off, but she wasn’t having it and it was more than I could handle. So I called my vet and asked what I should do and they said to just bring her in.

So off we went to the vet, her all a mess, and me in my pajamas, fleece socks, sandals, and a sweatshirt. I had at least brushed my teeth. The vet saw took one look at her and was like “oh, that’s going to take a bit to clean.” The clinic had other patients and said they’d be able to give her a good scrub in about an hour, that I could just leave her there and then come back. Since I was already out and about, went to the other vet clinic I go to that has all the prescription food she should be eating, and since she was out of cat food anyway, I thought I better get her back on something that I know won’t wreck her system. From there I went to Paul’s, our local “we sell everything” store and got some Nature’s Miracle pet stain cleaner to try and get out the smell. Then I headed back to the vet’s to see the state of my cat.

I walk in the door to hear the melodious sounds of her “I’m going to kill you all” song coming from the back of the clinic. The vet tech comes out to greet me wearing rubber gloves. She had scrubbed Mac down and wanted to shave off a bit of her back fur, but she needed my help to hold her down. I know this is what she does for a living, but she was a trooper. Apparently (and here’s the really gross part), while she was scrubbing her, Mac pooped more, in her hand. EW! A lot more apparently. It was the consistency of clay and greenish-grey. So disgusting! The vet looked at it and didn’t think it was symptomatic of anything more than some digestive upset. But to watch her, etc. I went to the back room to help hold her for the shaving. She scratched my hand right off, so the lady gave me a pair of raptor gloves (the ones you wear when you want to hold a large, taloned bird on your arm) and I squished her into submission while the vet tech did what she could so shave the haunches of my wet, pissed off cat. Its definitely not a glamor cut. Poor baby cat. She looks so odd.

I brought her home and she was hungry. I’ve since spent the last hour or so scrubbing carpets, washing linens, taking out trash, and bleaching clean her litter box. Awesome good times. I’ve shut the doors to my office and bedroom until she’s properly dry so she’s not on the beds. Right now she’s sitting next to me on the couch looking forlorn and slightly confused. Sorry Mac.

Good grief, its noon and I’m still in my pajamas, I’m starving, and I’m kind of exhausted. Pets!

My blog posting is starting to wane. I’ve got this giant post written in my head, it even has a clever title of Cats, Cars, and Crowe, but I just can’t seem to get it out tonight.

Instead, I suggest you listen to the new John Mayer song, ‘Say‘, because its awesome.

Or look at my sleeping cat (who isn’t dying anymore than normal):

And for one last time this season: Go Hawks! Please? Just one more game to win and then we can go to a bowl game we don’t really deserve that probably won’t even be aired on a channel most of us can watch.

On Sunday, I’ll move on to basketball season. And wrestling. I did get a ticket for the Iowa v. OSU basketball game in Columbus in January when I’m there for training. Probably the only game I’ll get to see this year. Stupid cable companies and tv channels. *grumble*

Mac has been extra odd the last week or so. She’s started out licking a brick from Kinnick that I use as a door stop. Which, weird. So I covered up the brick with a towel and she licked the towel. Then I moved the brick away and she licked the carpet where it had been. I vacuumed the spot. She kept licking. I put a plastic container down on the spot that was larger than the original brick. She then licked the carpet around the container. I put a cookie sheet on the floor to cover more space, her licking radius continued to move outward. Now she licks the floor in the living room.

She’s also changed her sleeping habits and doesn’t seem to sleep with me anymore at night. She’s slept on the pillow next to my head for the last three or four years. I keep trying to go find her in the night. She’s usually on the floor somewhere or in my office on the spare bed. She also isn’t sitting in her window perch anymore. So I’m getting worried that this is really the beginning of the end for her. Tonight she is listless and didn’t even go to her food dish when I got home. Something she always does. Which is extra odd since for the last week she’d seemed constantly hungry.

One eye seems watery, so maybe she just has a cold and feels off? I’m fighting the urge to take her to the emergency vet clinic. If I don’t have to spend another $100 on the emergency room, that would be best. She’s already scheduled to go to the vet on Wednesday next week for her vaccinations so I’m trying to hold off until then, but what if there is something really wrong with her and I should’ve taken her the day she started licking the brick??? I’d never forgive myself if she dies because I was being cheap.

I don’t know what to do. :(

Mac-approved.
My new shoes from the fun shopping day yesterday that I will write about tomorrow.
Really. I promise.

Check out this amusing cartoon posted at Pam’s site.

It made me laugh. Especially after last night when my cat’s sleeping habits are all out of whack and she’s waking me up too early and sleeping on the wrong side of the bed.

Today my cat, MacGyver, turns 19. Officially making her the oldest cat I’ve ever had. Good job, Mac!

Truthfully, the last month has been a bit trying for Mac health-wise. She’s been to the emergency vet twice, most recently on Sunday night. She has several issues right now; high blood pressure, kidney failure, and messed up potassium levels. She’s definitely not herself at the moment and I feel so bad for her. She hates the pills I have to give her and is rather annoyed with the prescription food she is supposed to eat. I try to be realistic about it as she’s 19. Which one can calculate as anywhere between 82-101 in “human years.” So health problems shouldn’t be that unexpected. She’s had the kidney issues for several years. But the emotional part of me is the insane protective cat owner who has to make sure she’s alive every morning when I wake up and every night as soon as I get home from work. I have to find her and see she’s breathing. Thing is, I’ve done this as long as she’s lived with me here in Iowa City for the past seven years, even when she was in perfect health. I’ve always been paranoid that she’s going to die. Which, yes she will, and it will probably be sooner than later.

But for today I’m going to remember fun times: picking out of a box of baby kitties myself; a tiny kitten that had a normal tail before it fluffed up; her shoe fetish period; the time she broke a basement window; her dislike of any other animals; the time she bit Diane for yelling too much at the TV during a football game; how I had to get a bigger bed so she could have her side to herself; how she likes when I blow air in her nose until she sneezes (she’s odd); her fascination with my beta fish; and the time she was abducted by aliens.

I hope she’s got several more birthdays yet to come.

I sucked it up and went to yoga at my gym last night. Describing how I felt today to a co-worker, who also teaches yoga, elicited a chuckle and the comment, “it hurts just to be.” She is so right. How I wish I could “not be” today.

I am beyond sore. It hurts to stand, it hurts to sit, and walking is pure torture. My quads, hamstrings, and hips make me feel like I’m 90. The yoga instructor was hard-core. A woman who has her own yoga studio beyond just teaching at Core. She teaches hot yoga at her studio and apparently likes it warm all the time, so no fans on last night. I’ve never sweat so much in my life where I wasn’t outside and wearing wool. The kind of sweat where you look like you’ve taken a shower and its running down your face and dripping everywhere. I wish I had grabbed a towel before I went in to the yoga room, but I’ve never sweat like that so I didn’t. Lesson learned. It was the hardest practice I’ve ever done. I did feel like I accomplished something when I was done, but man it was torture during. And is was again about twenty minutes after I was done. No amount of hot showers, ice packs, or ibuprofen has helped. I’m taking tonight off from the gym. My body obviously needs a break.

Had a tasty lunch today at Takanami downtown with the Steeles. It was my second visit, but the first time I’d actually eaten anything there. I still owed Jerry birthday sushi from a few months back, so I was making good on the gift. My workJeff suggested the bento box and he was so right. I had the seared salmon filet with caramelized onions, roasted cauliflower, and a raspberry teriyaki glaze. Well worth $9. The only problem I had with lunch was the fact that I was Spilly McDumbass who got soy sauce all over my good white button-down shirt. I eat sushi with soy sauce all the time, I don’t know what my problem was. I’ll blame my tired triceps. I knew it would take way too long to go all the way back to my apartment to change before going back to work, so I ran into Iowa Book and grabbed a white v-neck Iowa shirt off the sale rack for $10. Its not like I can have too many Iowa shirts.

This evening I got to spend some quality time with Lindsey while Diane & Andy played softball. D was filling out the girls side of the co-ed roster. Lindsey is crazy with the walking now and don’t try to hold her hand, she’s having none of that! Along with the walking, we contemplated how far we could put the sippy cup away from her on the picnic table and have her still be able to get to it. It was a fun game. After the actual softball game, I joined the group at the Vine for some cheap wings. I was trying to stay up and go see the midnight showing of The Bourne Ultimatum, but as I sit here at 10pm, I’m fading fast and I think I’m just going to have to go see it this weekend. I didn’t get a chance to rewatch Supremacy tonight like I had planned, so I’ll see a matinée this weekend.

I have to take MacGyver to the vet in the morning for some follow-up tests to a health scare she had two weekends ago. I am, as always, convinced she’s dying. She’ll be 19 on August 29th, so its not completely nuts of me to worry a lot about her.

On that note, I’m going to take my sore body to watch a little ‘Daily Show’ and go to bed.

This chatty goldfinch comes and perches on the deck and chirps for ten minutes:
[bird not blurry in real life]

and Mac’s reaction to this is:

Coming for your mid-season replacement delight from FOX.

Nevermind. Fox already cancelled that.

I was nearly ready to just cancel this whole thrice-attempted post, but I decided to give it the “pictures are worth…” treatment since I’d already cropped, resized, and uploaded.

Way back over Thanksgiving weekend, I left Coralville on Wednesday night and headed to Bussey for Thanksgiving with the family and to leave MacGyver for the week. Tasty. Friday was spent working on the current home project. Saturday, my mom and I went to a wedding and then drove to St. Louis to see Bonerama. Also: video clip. Sunday, I drove my mom back to Bussey, then headed back to my apartment in Coralville. I got back around 5pm Sunday night. Did I mention that the piano movers were coming at 10am on Monday morning followed by the regular furniture mover dudes at 1pm? Did I also mention that at that point on Sunday I hadn’t done much packing yet?

When Mac left on Wednesday, the place was still semi-together:

Since the time between my “I think I should move before I kill my neighbors” realization and the “hey, I’ve found a place to live and I can move in now” point was rather short, I did not have time to do the thorough sort and purge process that I had planned on doing. It was more of a purge for some bigger items. Including the stereo that I got from my grandparents in 8th grade. It had stopped working at all without kicking awhile back and had just been used as computer speakers for years.

RIP childhood stereo:

There was packing and moving.

I hadn’t moved my TV since I got it in the fall of 2000. The dent in the carpet was at least half an inch. ew.

Packing and cleaning was a blur of two days. Many thanks to Sara (with the assist from Jerry) for being a kitchen disassembly and cleaning machine. Though I’m still not sure the logic of my piggy bank ending up in the container with all my kitchen stuff. Adrienne was a labor rock star who showed up with at least four people in tow to help load and unload stuff into my new place. I didn’t even know half of them. They have cookies coming to them. And last, but not least, my mom came up on Tuesday and helped me clean out my old place all day. In the end, I know I left some nails in the walls. There had to have been a at least a hundred through out my apartment.

I will admit, it was with a mixture of relief and sadness that I left my keys behind and locked the door for the last time on 960B Boston Way. I almost cried when I called my landlord to tell him I was officially moved out.

Tuesday night, I collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion, surrounded by boxes, to watch The Amazing Race. When I stood up to try to go to bed, I could barely walk I was so sore from all the trips up and down the various flights of stairs over the previous two days.

So of course it made perfect sense that the next day, Jewels would come over and we’d go stand at a Keith Urban concert for a couple of hours (her birthday present from me). Thank goodness for Rock Star energy drink. Cheers!

Jewels and Wend

The concert was really fun. Keith did not disappoint. He is one amazing guitar player and just gives off the vibe that he’s having the absolute time of his life whenever he’s on stage. Signs seem to be a thing for Keith concerts, at one point during the show, he stops and reads out the ones that he likes or catch his eye. A funny one that that he read and was shown on the big screen: Play your 1 courd song!. He has a hidden track on one of his albums that is “One Chord Song” which is just what it says. A song based on one chord. But so funny because he pointed out the misspelling. Heh. The one that I thought was hysterical was one he, not surprisingly, didn’t read: Nicole is TOO TALL. HA! Earlier in the evening, I saw a woman walking around with a sign that said 5 concerts in 6 months! All I could think, knowing how many times he had played in the midwest and that his concert tickets were usually way less than $50/show was: amature. *wink*

We had decent floor seats and I got a couple of decent photos that allowed for cropping:

I also took a little bit of video and the audio turned out not too bad considering the conditions (everyone singing along) and that its just my little digital camera.

I wasn’t going to do much Christmas decorating, if any, this year since I am still getting settled and don’t have the room for my whole live tree needs. But I gave in and got a little artificial one at Wally World. I didn’t have my decorations, so I improvised.

Finally, my mom brought MacGyver back after her week and a half vacation to Bussey.

I think she’ll allow us to stay:

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?