Sleep not great, woke up a bit cranky and off kilter. In the process of dressing for my Zoom call with Etty for the workout, I hit an emotional wall.

Jeff was still in bed and I needed socks anyway so I grabbed socks and climbed into the bed and pressed my head against his side. Startled, he said "what's wrong?"
I said something like, "I'm having some feelings and I don't want to put them into words, I'm just going to stay here a minute till things get better."

And he didn't say anything else, and he let me, and when I felt better I crawled back out of bed for my workout.

Last night I had a moment of feeling very nourished and seen by friends. We're having a regular Zoom call about life purpose and figuring our shit out. I can't remember exactly what the brainweasels started telling me but Gem (a new friend who's joining our pandemic pod after months of solo-podding) she noticed my face or my posture, and the way she asked what's up, however she phrased it, made it somehow easier to describe how the brainweasels hit me with a kibosh suddenly and I was in a spiral.

Then she shared that she too has been having brainweasel spirals and offered if I wanted, she'd be willing to listen and let me talk it out.

And I believe her. That I could ping her and we could talk.

It's already easy to be sad or despairing RN. Spiraling is easy. Believing it's okay to ask someone if I can talk to them about it, that's hard. Always has been.

Change is good. Breaking old ruts and old expectations is good. New friends and old who ask authentic questions and feel safe to talk to and share feelings, is good.

I think I'm going to ask Jeff to stop asking "what's wrong?" Instead I'm going to ask him to ask, "what's up?" One word may make a lot of difference and not feel like he's making assumptions of crisis or fix-it, because I mostly just need someone to listen. And let me talk. I don't get to do that much lately, and it helps me process when I can do that.

Okay brain empty for now! 😂😂😂

She pissed. All over and around the containment pad, it overflowed the edges.

After I washed the floor yesterday.

I did have a moment of despair, I confess.

And I'm getting better at Feelings, because I let myself feel that as long as I needed, and then I went and got a piece of cheese (protein adjusts both my blood sugar and my mood).

Then after a couple of minutes, my mood settled and I went to do Stage One of cleaning the space again, and diagnose one of the suboptimal parts of the staging that let the pee overflow.

Now I know what I have to do to make this better. Ughhhhhhh. Do not want to.
Idonwanna. But this is what a responsible pet mom does, and I am her mom as well as a homeowner.

Because I said I would.

In late March I took my kitty to PetSmart/Banfield for a nail trim.
It was early in the mask-wearing part of this pandemic, and I'd made one mask, which I wore.

(I've still only made one mask, because executive dysfunction is A Thing that gets worse under stress)

Three months later, (today) I returned to Banfield for another claw trim for my old lady calico. She's one of very few reasons for errands I'm willing to run in this environment.

Gotta hand it to them, PetSmart Banfield has got tons of signs everywhere (both upright and pasted on the floor), reminding folks to keep 6 feet distance, a sanitation station inside and outside, and a new policy for pet grooming that includes curbside drop-off for your pet. Everyone in the store had masks and was keeping their distance. I felt very safe during my appointment.

I spent the 10 or 12 minutes it took them to clip her claws, watching the fish tanks along one wall with Bettas and tetras and such, remembering my first boyfriend who had a little tank, how peaceful it was watching them swim in the dark.

The vet tech came and found me, my new phone's contactless payment worked perfectly, and we were back out again around 20 minutes after we went in.

I've just set a Google calendar reminder to make an appointment in less than three months, so hopefully my little old lady cat won't have to be limping before I realize she needs the service.

Hard for me to believe that I haven't posted anything here about Otter yet.

My, our, beloved Big Kitty, Mister Man, My Tail, has gone Home. I'll be making more posts because I want to keep what I wrote on Facebook somewhere indexable/taggable, and that's here.

Today I'm about ready to head into therapy, and I have more social stuff scheduled for the rest of the weekend the weekend, would usually helps. All right more soon.

I'm going to outlive this cat. I know it, I knew it, but now it's actually becoming obvious, his health is failing.

I haven't done the no no no tantrum often in my life, certainly it did no good for me to do so as a child...

Have you ever wanted to tackle the Reaper and drag it away from someone you love? Tangle it up in Its own robes, confuse and confound it?

How am I supposed to do this. How do I let, or help him, go across the rainbow bridge?

Otter is diabetic. he's responding real well to the insulin 2/day, and restricted feeding (also 2/day)
tomorrow I'm doing a 12 hour glucose curve, taking blood sugar tests every 2 hours.

she's been peeing/pooping *less* in forbidden, nondesignated spaces, vet said that sometimes when kitty 1/2 is ill, and their pee/poop smells different, kitty 2/2 will go do bathroom things elsewhere because no animal likes the smells of sickness.

also we added a third litterbox and I binned the mats under the boxes which were retaining muddy corn based litter and flies were breeding in it. *squick*

so that's improving at the moment. she did poop on the bathroom floor again today but it's the first day in three days she;s done that, so ... *shrug?*

cautiously optimistic.

Prompt: Black Cat (for Rosalyn, the cat that was almost mine too)

fingers down your spine, ruffling your fur
softly blinking down at you
i love you i love you i love you with every blink

you blink back
you offer belly
my eyes fill with tears
this is a new trust
a new vulnerability

in a life that had precious little trust
and even less vulnerability to spare
that moment
long elegant legs outstretched
rusty red tipped black plush fur
warm along my leg on a cold day

i plunged my hand into your fur, but gently
i relished the moment, my heart hurting
but blinked back down at you

i love you i love you i love you

Suddenly, KITTENS. Kittens everywhere. Steve couldn’t understand how every single one of the Avengers, every single member of security and support staff, were suddenly talking about, sharing photos of, and even bringing the actual animals in to work at the Tower.
His own kitten was pathetic and adorable, and was of course discovered in a moment of maximum pathos: crusty eyes, covered with fleas (that jumped dark against the star on his chest after Steve picked him up), sneezing, and mewing pitiably as he cringed beneath a pile of garbage in that old dark Brooklyn alley after Steve came home from the mission in Pennsylvania.

The kittens were all adorable, but Steve can’t be the only one to have noticed that during the last week every kitten he’s petted, stroked, played string with, admired, has a small bump in the very center of their skull. In the exact same spot. In the center of their skull.

Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times (and two dozen times) is, well… is time to call Bruce and ask him to examine Liberty from bottom to top, making sure he’s pure kitten with no unnatural, um, additives. Was that weird? Did that make his kitten sound like he was a food product? ugh, that’s awful. He needs to be sure to never ever say this out loud.

Bruce examines Libby thoroughly. (“You know I’m not that kind of doctor, Steve…” he said with a tiny smile, accepting the kitten, paws frantic, high squeaking heading for the upper range of human hearing, tiny sharp claws at full extension.)

“Libby seems fine, Steve. As far as a near microscopic examination can tell, he’s an ordinary Felis Cattus with a curious small protrusion of his skull. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that all the kittens come from a family where this is a harmless genetic mutation.”

“What bothers me, Bruce, is that the kittens here at the Tower came here from all over the five boroughs… Delia in R & D drives in from Hoboken, said she found her kitten going through the backyard trash bins. Sam found his kitten when he was visiting his mom in Queens. I found Libby in Brooklyn. They can’t all be from the same family! Now statistically speaking, how likely is that?”

Neither man, thinking hard during this discussion, has noticed that the tiny kitten Steve thinks of as “his,” is quietly tucked up in “loaf of bread” position on the end of the laboratory table, freakishly huge radar dish kitten ears perked, and large, now clear, blue eyes lazily watching them both.

Bruce frowns and pulls off his glasses, reaching for a handkerchief in his shirt pocket. “Unlikely at best.” He glances over at the unnaturally well-behaved kitten curled up tidily at the end of his table. “What about it, Liberty? Care to share your secrets with us?”

The response is a lazy blink from a seemingly contented kitten, whose head falls forward slightly as his eyes seem to close.

“I don’t think we’re going to hear anything from the source here. We may want to hire a veterinarian with enough security clearance to examine all the kittens in the Tower, just to make sure nothing untoward is happening.” (The kitten’s eyes slit open briefly, then close again)

“Let’s do that,” says Steve. “I mean, we want to make sure they’re healthy anyway, best case scenario. If we get a vet who’s a research veterinarian, can’t we ask them to look for anything out of the ordinary?”

“Sure,” says Bruce, lifting his eyes and his chin toward the ceiling. “JARVIS, can you please start hunting us up a veterinarian within those stated parameters?”

“Certainly, Doctor Banner. I can even initiate contact with likely candidates and narrow the field for you by start of business tomorrow morning.” The smooth, British accented voice of the resident artificial intelligence was inherently soothing, and the next piece of the puzzle was in good hands. Steve relaxed.

Libby yawned widely, showing needle sharp teeth, and stretched his front paws out to show off his tiny needle sharp claws as well. From his sphinx like pose, he regarded Steve’s massive chest like it was a tree to climb, and then took up the challenge. Leaping from his seated position, he latched on to Steve’s tee shirt and mountain-climbed to the top of his shoulder. Once there, he commenced head-butting and purring at Steve’s ear and jaw until Steve laughed and put his hand up to catch the tiny cat whose claws were skidding over the top of his bulky shoulder muscle. “Lib, you’re adorable, but I’m never letting Stark name a pet of mine ever again. Thanks Bruce!”

Steve turned to head for the elevator, hand still protectively cupped around the small cat whose front paw rested atop his ear, and who rode the supersoldier’s shoulder with grace, like a mahout aboard a particularly humongous elephant.

***

Later that night, Steve slept, quietly, without his former tossing and turning. Libby ran around, clattered over the tops of tables and bureaus, chased small cat-toys through the living room until he wound up far far beneath the entertainment center.

Far enough under the entertainment center that he knew JARVIS couldn’t see him.

He lay flat against the carpet and broadcast a short message: “Sample subjects were NOT randomly selected. All subjects work in the same scientific environment. Abort information gathering efforts. Abort.”

Libby lay his head down on the carpet. Wondered hopefully if his superiors would allow him to stay with the man-mountain, especially if all the other data-collectors were recalled to other duties. Sighed. Rolled suddenly out from under the entertainment center with a catnip mouse in his paws, throwing it into the air and almost-catching it, chasing his prey again, towards the bedroom where the man-mountain Steve was sleeping.

Steve slept better when Libby was curled up, purring, in the crook of his head and shoulder.
Libby had the data to prove it.

(the kitten invasion fleet has arrived)
(sequel to be titled, i for one welcome our feline overlords)

Today my Big Kitty (his name is Otter) invited me to come Play With The Animated String in his usual fashion, as is usual, I heard him coming in his distinctive way:

"Mwoo? Mwew! Mwoo! Mwoo? Mwew!" (drop string just barely out of reach) "Mrrroo! Yow! Meow!"

*bent over laughing*

This kills me every time. You can hear him coming and know exactly what he's up to because he MEOWS THROUGH THE STRING IN HIS TEETH.



We played for about five minutes. Boy I am glad I cleared that spot at the top of the stairs by the bookshelves; it is shaping up to be *excellent* cat-play space, just outside our bedroom. I piled all his strings there when I was cleaning, and he's finding it very convenient so that when he's ready to play, he can just PLAY.

And then he got an urgent cat-telegram and ran downstairs to gaze eagerly into the garden for his response.

...I have no idea, I just work here.

My cats keep taking turns coming and sitting upon or lying upon the poster I am trying to create.

I turn away to check my notes, fact check, or add to my spreadsheet, and a new furry body has interposed itself. First it was Tribble (now she's here investigating my blog post) SEVERAL times, and at the moment the ginormous personage of Otter is completely eclipsing my working copy. (the joke about the cat who sits around the house, REALLY sits AROUND the house? not completely wrong with Otter.)

So. A brief break before the eviction notice is served. I hope this time of me-vacating the space will negate the interest the space has for him just now; have YOU ever tried to dissuade even an amiable 22 pound cat from sitting on a flat surface that you value and are trying, carefully, to apply art and calligraphy to?

Yeah, me neither.

Wish me luck.

=-/