Last weekend we went back to visit Feral Cat City. But where once there was a thriving community, there was now just the desolate remains of their culture.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Feral Cat City…

Ok, I’ll tell you the Shadowlands troubles. Aside from the crazy long days at work, on Wednesday we had 4 inches of rain come down in a couple of hours. It flooded one of the window wells at school and the basement carpet got wet. That was dealt with (it involved bailing with a bucket), but I was beat before the school day actually began.

Later, I had a meeting at church that night but forgot my folder of notes. After the long meeting, I came home to look for the notebook and found it on one of the guest beds, and noticed a horrible stench. Someone had peed on the bed. So, after this very long day in a series of long days – now I had to rip all the bedding off and go to Wal-Mart to get stench remover. Unfortunately, we hastily moved all the stuff off the bed and didn’t do a thorough check of everything.

I went to work the next day with the folder so I could make some phone calls, and found out that there was old dried pee on the folder and papers. So, ruined notebook and ruined bag. As it turns out, she had been peeing all over that bed and the other one. (I thought it smelled weird in here, but again – I’ve been beat when I get home, and didn’t bother to investigate. I chalked it up to ‘old house smell’.)

Which brings us to the looming doom of the rest of the week. We had the cats put to sleep on Saturday. Dr. Wallman was very kind and understanding, and I am so grateful. Pfennig went quick and quietly, like a balloon letting out its air all at once, but Cricket was awful to the bitter end. She scratched Dr. Wallman and bit Lloyd through the muzzle. She needed a sedative to get the final injection, and that made her barfy and woozy.

It was sad, and I’m still sad, but honestly, since I’ve been mourning their imminent deaths since Cricket had that terrible diarrhea, it’s a bit of a relief to finally be at an end. We’ve ripped up a lot of carpet and thrown out a lot of ruined things.

I loved them very much, though, and will miss them terribly.

Which brings me to how I deal with grief. You guys are awesome, but if you’re local, please don’t call or come to commiserate. I absolutely hate to cry, so I need a heap of alone time, please. Please don’t be offended, it’s just the way it is.

By the way, I just want to say that Lloyd is an awesome husband. In all this awfulness, he has been nothing short of stellar. Perfect score, Lloyd. Perfect score.

The cats have been eating canned cat food for a while now, and I’m down to buying the cheapest stuff they make. I buy the pâté version because if I get the stuff that looks more like meat in gravy, Skinny (a.k.a. Pfennig) just licks off the gravy and goes back to her freezer.

So, I buy the giant cans of Special Kitty. The beef kind is stinky and I’m trying not to buy the tuna kind because apparently we’re killing them off. Instead, I bought the kind that they make by scraping out all the different flavors from the machinery at the cat food factory.
“Super Supper Dinner – because we’re not really sure what’s in it!”

Um….. beef and tuna.

Stupid cat.

Stupid cat who?

Stupid cat who can’t open the new cat door.

Seriously, those senile cats are driving me nuts.

Here I slaved over making that travesty of a cat door look less like a beer-induced bad idea, but they couldn’t figure out how to use it. Cricket kept trying to open it with her paw (instead of her head), but then her toes got pinched. Pfennig got all panicked because she had to use the litter box, but the door was ‘closed’. My physically pushing their heads through just freaked them out, so yes – I had to demonstrate with my own head.

I think I’ve sunk to a new low.

I think I must have a brain tumor or something, because lately everything smells funny to me. (Maybe I should switch deodorant?) The cats (Pfennig) were really starting to smell funny, though, so I told Lloyd we needed to give the cats (Pfenning) baths. Ok, so even though Pfenning is the only one who needs the dunking, I give Cricket one too – just to be fair. Surprisingly, she’s the more docile one. Just one mad ‘meow’, then she just takes it. Pfennig has a stroke in the sink. Nobody can take a picture of that – we need four arms to restrain her.