You know, the next time the cats are hiding because they know they're going to the vet, all I have to do is spread a large piece of paper out on the dining room table and wait. They'll show up within a minute.

I'm trying to figure out how to scale up a sewing pattern, and I have so much help it's just disgusting.

8:00 PM Eastern: Desperate Housecats
Q*Bert needs UP! Q*Bert needs OUT! Q*Bert needs ATTENTION!

10:00 PM Eastern: The Q*Bèrt Report
Q*Bèrt decries the system that leaves housecats with fewer rights than humans.

---

Speaking of Colbert/Colbèrt, did anyone else see the What Happened to Colbert's Face? headline on CNN? It looks like got his glasses smashed back into his face somehow.

I woke up sometime last night to a crack of thunder and the movement of a cat jumping off the bed and leaving the room. I know it couldn't have been Chyna--I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she's been on a bed with either of us there--and despite the apparent fear of thunder I can't picture Q*Bert being on the bed with me when her beloved Daddy was in another room. So I guess it must have been Rocket. I did get some funny pictures of Q trying to hide during the last thunderstorm--I need to upload them to the laptop.

Q!

Q*Bert doesn't like thunder. There's a small patch of storm over us right now, and it's thundering a little. Q is agitating around the house, periodically ending up in here and trying on various hidey-holes for size. I tried picking her up but she wasn't interested.

Oh come on, what fun is a fanfic community that forbids PWP (an acronym I had to look up) and slash in the name of "good taste?" Of course the comm hasn't seen an update in two years so it's all academic anyway, but still. Some people take all the fun out of everything.

We went to PetSmart yesterday, which was really not a good idea because it's kitten season. There were three groups of kittens there. One cage had two grey tabbies who were hand-raised and therefore really imprinted on humans. They didn't like it when we paid attention to other kittens.

And below them was a cage with three kittens: a light grey tabby, a medium-haired black, and a shorthaired black kitten named Petey. Petey was like Rocket as a baby: every time we tried to pet the kittens in the cage above, he climbed up the cage front and cried. "Hey! Pay attention to me!" I hope he gets himself a home soon, because if I come in again and he's still there we could have trouble.

I didn't take a Zyrtec yesterday because I ran out the day before. Apparently Zyrtec does make a difference in my allergies. Blah.

The thunderstorm that woke me up at 3 AM last night was like a 3" salute compared to the firecracker that was yesterday morning's storm. (Another firecracker in progress at the moment... we're under a flash flood warning, a tornado watch, and a special weather statement about strong storms.) Charles says Q*Bert does NOT like loud thunderstorms! I assumed she would therefore follow him to bed, but she's still curled up in the lee of some stacks of dialysate.

She also has one squinty eye. It was all runny when I got home last night; we decided to give her through today to let it clear up before we start getting the vet involved. It looks cleaner and less goopy now, but she's keeping it more closed, poor little squinty girl. According to the internet, the most common cause of conjunctivitis in cats is herpes. Okay.

The thunder seems to have passed and Q is now sleeping.

I need to make Charles' belated birthday cake today! I also want to roast a chicken and make hot chicken sandwiches for dinner. And because our bag of cod loins from Sam's thawed thoroughly while we were in Meijer, I have three pounds of cod to use up quickly. Half of that will go into a fish lasagna (no, I swear, it's made with white sauce, it's good) for dinner tomorrow and probably the remainder will be split into thinner pieces to fry or grill. Because of course we just had fish for dinner on Friday.

I also need to get outside to clear enough of the garden to plant all those tomatoes I bought last weekend. This will be made more difficult by the fact that the outdoors is now inimical to me again. Benadryl coma, here I come.

I currently have fourteen pounds of white furry fury in my lap making it difficult to do my exchange.

I turned the furnace on when I got up this morning because the house is pretty chilly. I assume it's due to that chill that I have fourteen pounds of wiggly cat crowded into my lap. Unfortunately, due to the fact that with this new system I have to disconnect my catheter from the bag set before capping it off, I'm going to have to make him get down in a few a seconds. Poor neglected Rocket, no one ever pays any attention to him ever.

KITTY TONGUE!

I woke up to kitty paws at some ungodly hour this morning. I didn't look to see whose paws they were--based on the weight I think they were Rocket's--but just pushed them off me because OW.

Remember when Heath Ledger died? God forbid you said anything irreverent about it. I didn't hear anyone getting bent out of shape over the "cold dead hands" jokes when Heston died, though (or maybe I just move in the wrong circles for)--I call discrimination!

Also, why is it in the 80's when it's still April?

If you only ever watch one episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, it must be this one! "They're hitting the ground like bags of wet cement!"

This video makes me laugh every time. Cats are dignified creatures, but kittens are hyperactive little idiots. I love the way they skitter across the floor and smack into the box. "KILL!" Having one Q*Bert was enough... I can't imagine having a whole litter.

Brandeis sent me a card about the Class of '98 reunion. I'm confused.

Asiatic lion cub

It starts out cute, and then HE PURRS AND KNEADS LIKE A DOMESTIC CAT and it's just fatally cute. Awwwwwww. (And where's momma lion?)

Kittens left behind dumpster at church

You have to look harder for the video link, and it currently doesn't seem to be working. Sure, the text story has a picture, but the video has footage of the (not newborn) kittens.

That's how we got Miss Chyna--some son of a bitch left a bunch of young kittens in a box on a church doorstep in February in Cleveland. Some nice parishioner took them in. I'm generally not for the eye-for-an-eye school of punishment, but when it comes to animal abuse or child abuse, it starts sounding really, really good.

I love how cats' ears migrate to the top of the head when the cat is eating. I haven't figured out why that happens yet.

I almost never have things that would be classified as "nightmares," but I had a pretty unpleasant dream last night. Charles and I were moving out of the place we were living in, which was sort of a combination of a house and an old movie theatre and something else. It was big and huge and dark and old-fashioned. Anyway, some guy with a big white dog, maybe a German shepherd, came over and his dog got ahold of Rocket and just mauled him. I was screaming at it but couldn't reach it to get Rocket away from it. There was a cut and Rocket was all bandaged and splinted up and stuff, but the owner of the dog refused to accept any responsibility or contribute to the vet bills or anything.

Then it morphed and we were in some sort of dream-LA visiting berek and his family.

Need to finish up the last of the packing and tidy the house just enough so Lisa doesn't think we're total slobs.

Lisa's son has a medium-sized generically hound-coloured vaguely Lab-shaped dog named Conan. Conan got very excited that we came to visit last night. It's been a while since we got to play with a dog. We keep contemplating getting a rescued greyhound; last night we wondered if an Italian greyhound might be better suited to us than a full-sized one.

Currently snowing big floofy flakes.

Q*Bert's newest nickname is The Angel Twerplington.

Q*Bert is eating parts of Charles' donut. I guess old habits die hard.

I made tuna casserole today, in the Mirro-Matic electric casserole; if I insisted I needed one, I should use it once a while.

Charles still feels icky, with the addition of dizziness. I told him if this goes on much longer he should call Community again.

Here comes Rocket for some donut.

I spent most of the day filing paperwork; I got two boxes down to about half a box. If only there were one more day in the weekend, I could get it done. Tomorrow I drive to Avon for an employee meeting; this is the city Charles works in, on the opposite side of Indy from Anderson. Most likely I'll stop at Food King for some take-out on the way home.

We watched the first half of "Dan Aykroyd Unplugged: UFOs" last night... what a load of tripe. We also learned recently that Donna Dixon (the blonde on Bosom Buddies married Dan Aykroyd. I think Charles is in denial.

WHY IS Q*BERT STALKING MY KNEEPAD??

We're both on antibiotics now, me for this cornyebacterium infection (it's one of those bacteria that everyone has but no one has a problem with... except people like me) and Charles for his sinus infection. Wheee.

I was flipping through my Big Binder O' Medical Records to find my blood bank records last night. I was admitted to St. Vincent with a blood pressure of 179/119 and a pulse of 120. No wonder the woman who took my vitals looked so concerned. Also, no wonder I'd had a constant headache for a couple of months.

I saw an orange cat a few days ago; Charles found him hanging around our house yesterday. Kitty was friendly, and looks healthy, and didn't eat the Science Diet we put out for him. Wayne (co-worker) and I were waiting for Charles to get in the car so I could drop Wayne off at home and then go to Meijer, and Charles picked the orange kitty up to show him to us. Kitty settled in and purred. Wayne and I looked at each other and said, "That cat's no stray."

He was waiting on the front porch when we got home at 9:30.

He's hanging around outside now--Rocket saw him through a window, went batshit, and laid some smack down on Q*Bert's ass (she has an... interesting scream, but at least they don't have front claws). I barged into the room and shouted at them; both of them had tails poofed waaaaaay out. Rocket gets REALLY pissy when he sees a strange cat in his "territory."

Either he's someone's indoor/outdoor cat who's just being social and has found some suckers, or someone abandoned him, which is sad because he's such a sweetie. The fact that he's obviously not hungry leads me to think he's just out gallivanting, and will go home when he's good and ready. He is completely unfixed, however, and has no collar or ID. Kay lent us her carrier in case we want to take him to the shelter. I don't want to take him too soon, if he does have a home, but I'm not sure which is worse--wandering the streets, where he could get hit, or going to the shelter, where he could get put down.

Let's Make a Date

In other news, I found a nice pair of shoes to go with the qi pao. This will be the first dinner my feet aren't killing me at because I'm wearing heels.

Also, last night we were cleaning Rocket's ears (he has another case of earcrud)--which goes over so well with him--and he clawed a hole in my Brandeis sweatshirt. :(

And Charles got video footage of Q*Bert "helping" me cross-stitch.