Trying to be zen.

Sorry I've been MIA, and an especially big apology to my regular volunteers as they probably have no clue what is up.

I am attempting to be zen, as I have just received yet another phone call from another well-meaning person who has had a stray cat show up outdoors cat and wants to know "what to do" As I stand in the kitchen screaming "Feed the F%#$ing cat!!!!" at the answering machine (even though the person on the other end, who certainly can't hear me screaming, is a very close friend to whom I wish no ire) I realized I really really need to take the time to get myself in emotional order.

This emotional breakdown was heightened when I tried to get on Blogger and it began a subversive game to get me to switch to New Blogger. I do not have TIME to deal with New Blogger right now, OK, Blogger? I love you dearly. I appreciate this FREE FREE FREE wonderful opportunity you give me to blog. But in the list of things I need to do, tweaking the crap out of my blog after New Blogger has it in its clutches is not one of them. I do not have time to tweak this week.

So please, stop tricking me into the password area of New Blogger, and when I forget my password instead of sending me to the password change area, you send me back to the New Blogger Log In page over and over (and then tell me I need to read some sort of FAQ on resetting my cookies in order to log into Old Blogger), just DEAL, OK? If you want me on New Blogger, be honest and say "You must switch to New Blogger by XX date." Geesh.

And then my hairdrier (dryer?) died. So now I am sitting here with a soaking wet head, knowing better than to go outside in these temps before it at least dries a little. Damn it, I have things to do!

I am so glad it snowed. The snowless brown winter was literally, driving me to a constant state of anxiety. When the snow came down, it was as if Normality had won a small victory. I could do without the one-digit temperatures, but bless the snow. Bless the snow.

Poor Nick, our indoor/outdoor cat who is getting up in years, has finally declared defeat in the face of winter. Gone are the winters when he would spend the entire day outside, no matter how nasty the weather. He was gone all day, then would come home and crash. Nicky has two modes: Seriously On, and Seriously Off. Play Mode and Sound Asleep. There is no in-between.

However, at age nine, he has decided that this is just too much damned cold. I think all that warm weather through January convinced him that we had finally done as he has constantly requested, and banned winter entirely. When it returned with a bang, I faced the very new experience of a Nick who refused to go outside when the door opened. In fact, I now have to physically place him outdoors, upon which he runs to the snow, empties his bladder, and runs back in, just like a house poodle. Nick has never used a cat box.

But, what wonders! I came in the kitchen and saw a small miracle. Fat Nick was stuck in the cat door to the cat box room. He obviously was so cowed by winter he had deigned to use the indoor facilities. I had to push him through. Now he is using the upstairs cat boxes (which don't have a cat door to negotiate). Huh!

He is still squirting on the kitchen garbage cans, but as long as he limits himself to an impermiable surface, we can suffer with that. I don't want to scream at him too badly for using vinyl surfaces, lest he decide the carpeted closets are a better, more subversive, option.

But worse, now we have to deal with the "Seriously On" Nick IN THE HOUSE. The "Seriously On" Nick needs to play constantly, and frankly, he's psychotic. Here he is, killing the curtain that keeps the warm air downstairs:


You should hear him spit while he plays. It's hilarious.

This has upped the cat-pecking-order considerably. It's bad enough that we have Billie and Jack in the house instead of the cat facility. Now with Nick inside instead of outside, there are two many fricking cats in here. Our cats are far too polite to fight, however they aren't so polite that they will abstain from poking, picking on, and staring evilly at one another when one of them gets in a snit.

So, I was not planning on attending the Spencer Business Fair in March, but I think now I will, and I'll bring Billie along on her halter and lead to see if she can charm her way into someone's heart.

(Hey, Donna, will Totalily be there?)

OK, I feel much better after posting. Please, limit your comments to sharing your own emotional insanity rather than expressing sympathy about mine. Misery loves company, and if anyone attempts to sooth me, you can be certain that I will be screaming at the computer screen when I read a soothing, sympathetic comment, just as I was screaming at the answering machine a half hour ago.

I am SO not into being polite today! :)

Off to go shovel out the Fast Food Ferals (if Mark hasn't already done it) and buy cat litter.