Where shall I begin? At the beginning, I suppose. So, last Wednesday, mid-afternoon, I open my front door and call for my cat, Howler, who's been missing for over a week now :(. But instead of Howler bolting through my door, a stray, orange tabby does. I nearly panicked.
Crap. There's a stray cat in my house.
I should note, this kind of stuff only happens to me.
I walk through the front porch and back into the house where I see said orange tabby playing with both of my kids in the floor. The kids and cat are laying on the floor, on their backs, side by side. The cat rolled to one side and gently batted at Zoey's nose, then rolled to the other side and gently batted at Donovan's nose. It was as if the perfectly, playful kitty ran right into a house it had determined it belonged in. I put an ad on craigslist for a found cat and planned to let her stay until I heard something. When I sat on the couch next to the three of them, she got up and rubbed against me like she knew I had made that decision.
By late evening, my cat, Bubbles, smelled the guest kitty, tracked her to the living room where she was resting under my recliner. This is when things went not so well. Bubbles did not like having another female come into our house, or maybe just that it was another cat at all. They growled (or whatever cats do) and hissed at each other, mostly Bubbles. Once Bubbles walked away, I picked up the tabby and held her in my lap. She was perfectly content until Bubbles came back. Then Bubbles scared the pee out of her- literally. On me. The cat peed all over my leg and ran into the corner. Stupid Bubbles couldn't just be nice.
I decided to put the tabby on the back porch where the food and litter box are. However, this also leads to the basement where I thought she may find some nice hiding places to be relieved of Bubbles and access food and bathroom. Big mistake. The first night she was in our little workroom down there where Dave and I used to paint ceramics. I put food and water in there and told myself once she finished what was in those bowls, she had to suck it up and come upstairs or DIE. Just kidding, lol. If she wouldn't ever come upstairs and Bubbles wouldn't ever adjust, and no owner claimed her, she'd have to go to animal control. She ate and drank those bowls empty, but after that first night, I could never find her when I went down there to check on her. And I was looking everywhere. I determined she had to be in the rafters where I couldn't see her.
Sure enough, late Sunday night, into Monday morning, about 3 a.m., I decided to look again and check the rafters. I couldn't see parts of the rafters because of some particle boards put up as make-shift ceiling. Then Bubbles came down stairs and I decided to follow her around. Then she stopped, looked up, and did her growl thing. I followed her gaze and there was the tabby in the rafters on top of particle board.
Well crap.
"Dave!"
I had Dave bang on the boards to scare her out, and I grabbed her when she jumped. We put her straight into a crate so I could take her to animal control. Sounds simple, right? On the contrary, my friend.
When she first jumped from the rafter, and I grabbed her, she panicked and tried to climb the wall like some kind of spidercat. She flipped out a little, but I pinned her on top of the washer and Dave grabbed the crate. As soon as we went to put her int he crate she FLIPPED and messed me ALL up. I pinned her again (whispering in my head, "Pinned ya 'gin," like Nala in the Lion King).
"Okay. We need a plan," I declared.
"You hold her there and I'll put the crate over her head. Her only free range of motion will be into the crate," Dave said.
"I don't think that will work, but what's it gonna hurt?"
"Well, you're bleeding all over the place, so let's do this," he pointed out.
He positioned the crate, and I eased her in. Not perfectly smoothly, but better than the first time.
Mission complete.
Brought her upstairs and went to wash my hands, nicely covered in blood. I noticed I'm scratched every where, but pretty gouged in my right thumb. Couple band-aids later and a layer of medical tape, we go to bed. I wake up a fewer hours later to get Van off to school and get ready for an animal control trip and the library. But what's this? My thumb is ridiculously swollen. And the pain is unreal for what seemed like such a tiny scratch. Turns out it got infected pretty quick. I'm on 2- 150mg antibiotics 4 times a day PLUS an 875mg antibiotic 2 times a day. Yeah. After my followup with my doc today, he wants another 5 days of the 875mg stuff.
To top off this joyous annoyance, I've had a nasty cold since Monday night. When it rains, it pours. It pours snot. Because my nose has been running like a faucet. A runny, snotty faucet. Sexy, right?
Well then... I think I may need to practice making long stories short.
