Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Alphabet Soup and Infertile Cats


I had a three-day weekend because of Columbus Day. Saturday, as promised, we bombed the house to rid ourselves of fleas. We took 5 of the 6 animals to the local car wash where they have a room to wash pets, well dogs but it didn’t specifically say no cats, so we took them too. I say 5 of the 6 animals because we were missing a cat. The night before the living room was stuffy and I asked Primero to open the front door, forgetting the screen door was bent from when I fell out of it last year and so the cat escaped. We knew one cat had gotten out because after midnight, she showed back up meowing to be let back inside. We didn’t know the other cat was missing until we started packing them all up for the trip to get washed. Primero was worried she was hiding somewhere we couldn’t find her and would succumb to the bug bomb. I knew she was outside and, because we never got around to getting her fixed, I knew she was getting into trouble.

 

So, we left and drove the short distance to the car wash. We parked near the pet washing station and took the dogs and the kids into the soggy room first. There was a metal table in the middle of the room with a latch to hold the dog fast by their collar. Canela would not walk up the ramp so I had to pick her up, which she did not appreciate. We had already decided the order we would wash the animals so we set to work, washing Canela first, then Prancer the smaller dog. The kids splashed gleefully in the sudsy puddles and thought it was great fun. Next, we brought the cats into the room and began with the biggest cat, Brisa. She has the longest fur, which thankfully had been clipped short in the spring making it easier to wash. We then moved onto the kittens, even though they had recently been bathed at home. After all the animals were washed in the flea and tick soap, followed by an oatmeal wash, we loaded them back into the car and took a short side trip to Wal-Mart before heading back home.

 

Primero expected to see his cat dead inside when we reentered, but she was nowhere to be found. We spent the rest of the day cleaning the house until it was time for me to get ready for the concert. My cousin wanted to go see Rascal Flatts when they came to town, so we went together just her and I. She told me at the concert this was her first concert ever and I’m glad we got to go together. The concert was good and we had a nice time, even if I was pretty exhausted.

 

Later that night I heard cats fighting and then a single cat meowing. Primero was sleeping on the couch since he worried his room was not fully aired out from the bug bomb. I walked into the dark living room, listening for the cat. The meowing had gotten louder. I opened the front door and Primero’s cat, Harmony, came bounding inside. Shaking Primero’s shoulders I announced his cat had returned and he replied by asking if I had sprayed her with the flea spray. I told him he could do it in the morning and went back to bed.

 

I’m fairly certain this cat is now pregnant. I have been meaning to get her fixed, but she’s an inside cat and the timing never seemed to work out for us to take her. I had found a few less-expensive places and even called them to understand the process, but just never pulled the trigger. And now we will be stuck with kittens because I wouldn’t be so lucky as to have an infertile cat. There had been an orange and white male cat hanging around our house for ages. I would find him sleeping on the chairs we have on the front porch. I would hear him calling to Harmony when she was in heat. The chances of her not being pregnant are as slim as mine are to get pregnant. We still have one of Esperanza’s kittens to re-home and one we are supposedly keeping for Cousin, but I suspect we are keeping because Primero loves him. How did we become the crazy cat people?

 

Monday I decided to check off one item on my bucket list. It was simple and sort of strange, but I found I really liked it. The task was to take and post a picture of something representing every letter of the alphabet. Some things were very simple, B for Ball, C for Cat and I had to decide which P to use, Pumpkin, Polka dots (on Chica Marie’s backpack), Perfume, or Pillows (with a cat sleeping on top of them) – I went with Perfume since it was the most unique picture. Other letters, like Q and X were, as expected, harder. For Q I took a picture of the sign for Question in ASL and for X, thankfully my parents bought Love Bug a xylophone for Christmas last year, although I’m sure they didn’t have this in mind for it. Z was also tripping me up until I thought of zipper. It was a lot of fun, even if Primero did make fun of me, and I posted all the pictures to my Instagram account. I made some rules for myself to follow such as not using the same thing twice for two letters (such as using Primero for my letter A since his real name begins with an A and also B for boy or something like that), I had to take the pictures in order (this was really more to keep myself organized, but it also helped the pictures to capture more of the process of my day, which was neat), and I couldn’t use stock pictures or pictures of things I did not encounter during this day. I think it would be fun to do it again in a different place, like at the beach or zoo.  

 

Here is my list:

A – for Primero and Esperanza (who happened to be visiting at the time) – this obviously makes more sense if you knew their non-blog names, which both begin with A

B – for Ball, which also happened to be Blue

C – for Cat

D – for Drive thru (picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy)

E – for Eye (my own)

F – for Fish (it was Frozen and also what we had for dinner)

G – for Green (a picture of my aloe plant)

H – for Horse (a stuffed animal)

I – for Ice (this was my least favorite picture)

J – for Jump

K – for Kitchen

L – for Lock (on the front door)

M – for Make-up

N – for Naughty (Love Bug in time out for hitting his sister)

O – for Outlet cover (we have about a billion)

P – for Perfume

Q – for Question (the sign for Question in ASL)

R – for Red (a picture of the our laundry basket)

S – for Stop Sign (Primero went to visit a friend and I snapped a few pics of various stop signs then made a collage)

T – for Tub (when I gave the kids a bath)

U – for Up-stairs (this was also a tricky one)

V – for Videos

W – for Water (my Hint water, which is amazing!)

X – for Xylophone

Y – for Yogurt

Z – for Zipper

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