Christmas with My Special Needs Cat

New Year's Countdown coming soon, but wanted to pop in quickly to explain the absence.

It's mostly because of work being what it is, although I'm really trying to not go in at 7 and leave at 5. I'm really, really trying. But then nothing gets done. La. But it's also because my cat, Cat, who has this weird dilated-eye thing going on, which I thought was just a weird dilated-eye thing, and she's drinking a lot of water, which may be because she's big and black and when you're that furry and dark and sit in front of the heater vent all day you're going to get dehydrated, but then I call the animal hospital and the vet freaks me out with "Well, I'd be worried if it was my kitty" -- and, if you know me, then you know I'm a sucker for that line. I'm the schmo that buys junk at Buffalo Exchange because the nose-pierced sales girl says "Oh, I'd totally get that if it was me" even though it's a size too small and yellow. But I digress. Tell me you'd do anything if you were me and I'll usually end up doing it, like worrying in a panic about the cat.

So I take in kitty-kitty, which she hates and causes much noxious emissions as she's forced into the cage and then the car and then the vet, and they draw blood and she conveniently pees on the table so they get a urine sample, and they do tests and call me and it's not Cat AIDS and it's not diabetes and it's not leukemia -- so what the f..k is it, man?

She's going back in for behavioral tests today because they think it may be a brain tumor. Dude. First of all, I don't know what they hope to accomplish on these tests because she's going to be freaked out by the cage/car/vet for the second time in a week and is not going to willingly participate in any thing, but I can't imagine what they have set up for a test. Does she have to touch her nose with her paw and recite the alphabet backwards? Not that she can't, I'm just sayin' ...

But if it does turn out to be a tumor ... well, so she'll have special needs, I guess, and we'll truck her around in a wagon with a crash helmet if we have to. As long as she's happy.

The good news is she purred this morning for the first time in days, so I think she's getting better -- if that can be said about a brain tumor ... if it is a brain tumor. And, honestly, not to be cheap, but having just shelled out $1200 on the car and my entire Oregon tax kicker check (+ $10) on her first visit, I'm running out of funds for kitty behavioral tests. That and apparently my student loan is roughly $300 short of what I need for fees this term. Mother. Scrubber. That's what I get for being an official major at the J-school, yo.

"Gubmint do take a bite, don't she?"