You know how it is. You swear cats aren’t big animals, no problem, but when it comes to how big they can stretch themselves out over the bed… Ginny’s the worst. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, half off the bed, because of her. And she’s tiny, usually. But come nighttime, she needs her space! And I haven’t gotten it into her head that what she thinks is “her space” is actually mine.

Oh, right, she’s a cat. It’s all her space. Anyway.

It’s been, as usual, a hectic week. One of these days, I’m going to start cooking again, I swear. Until then, I’m pretty much living on whole wheat bread and/or bagels with Earth Balance and sugar on top. A lot of sugar. But as that’s all I’m eating, at least I’m not consuming too many calories. Not too healthy, mind you, but at least I’ve got one thing down.

Anyway, things were going okay. But that can’t happen in my life. Especially not when I’m trying to move halfway across the country! So, I took Avocado to his vet on Thursday to get his sutures removed. They looked at his tail and said it looked nice and started removing them. They had removed about six, had a few left, when they realized that one part hadn’t completely healed. So they stopped, obviously, gave me more antibiotics for him, and told me to come back in a week (or, if I had made it to Chicago by then, go to another vet in a week).

Then I went back to the house and started packing up the car, because I had a lot of stuff to move out over the next 24 hours or so. The cats were going to my mom’s that night and I would make one last trip in the morning for the rest of my stuff. That was the plan.

Well, I got a really late start leaving the house, because it takes forever to load a car correctly when you’re trying to fit as much stuff as possible into pretty much the world’s smallest sedan. So you have to take time to strategize. We left at 9, got a couple miles down the road (to the infamous Shutesbury Athletic Club), and realized that I forgot Avocado’s antibiotics in the fridge. So I turned around, got them, and got back on the road.

And mind you, driving down the MassPike, I was driving considerably slower than I normally do (read: going somewhat close to the speed limit!) because I was still driving with my spare on. Avocado and Ginny were very well behaved, as they are at night (during the day Ginny has to go in her carrier because she wants to run back and forth to every window to look out; Avocado just curls up and sleeps no matter what). So, even though we left at 9 (about three hours late), I didn’t get into my mom’s until 11:30.

And then… I get in the house and see immediately that Avocado’s tail, the end, was missing! I mean, the skin was missing. The bloody bone was just sticking out. So I woke my mom and she found the phone number for the emergency animal clinic, and I drove the 45 minutes there (sometimes I hate living next to nothing). I was there until 2 in the morning, just waiting for everything to go through. They were very nice, and everyone loved his name, and the vet tech was impressed with his friendliness despite his situation (she was trying to check his lungs and couldn’t hear anything except his extremely loud purring!).

So he had to have surgery, which I didn’t stay for, as they said it would be hours before he was released. So I went home and somehow fell asleep (out of pure exhaustion) with Ginny (who unfortunately had just been dumped in my room when I discovered Avocado’s tail, but I called my brother and had him take care of her while I was driving to the clinic). The hospital called at 9 and I went to pick him up.

Avocado’s missing a good portion of his tail now, but is otherwise healthy (so far) and happy. I was a bit worried yesterday because he was acting strange for him: scared when anyone picked him up (he clawed his way out of my arms, he never does that), hiding under my bed, not wanting to play. Last night when I got back from moving my stuff out (which was another ordeal, I didn’t get home until almost 3am!), he wanted to make it up to me by climbing all over me and purring up a storm (I just wanted to sleep…). Today he’s been very playful (by himself, and with me and Ginny), when he’s not sleeping because of the pain medicine (he has one dose left, at 4am). The only thing is that he has no inclination to get upstairs, where he usually tries to sneak (now Ginny does, and half the time manages to get by the baby gate AND shoe-holding-door-closed [doorknob’s broken]). Upstairs is off-limits and usually not being able to go somewhere annoys him. Now, even when I bring him upstairs (when I know Jewel’s in another room), he immediately wants to go back downstairs. I think it’s because he knows that place, it’s familiar and safe to him.

And, he also has no desire to go outside anymore. When I had to bring him outside to get him to the car, he pretty much freaked out (well, as much as a very laid-back cat like Avocado freaks out. But it was very unlike him).

Note that, some day I hope to update this with humorous stories about my cats. But right now I’m spending most of my time worrying about Avocado. When I’m not worrying about him, I’m worrying about how I’m going to pay back my mom for the humooongous vet bills for his surgeries. Oh yeah, and there’s that whole moving thing.

As for Ginny, she’s enjoying the dog-free household. She hates when I spend time upstairs, though, because she loves human company (they both do, really, but she more than Avocado. Possibly because she’s still adapting to being in a home, and because she’s still more kitten-ish than he). That’s when she repeatedly bangs against the basement door trying to get upstairs.

New pictures are up on flickr. I need to move Ginny and go to bed…

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