Nobody Puts Baby Cat In A Corner…

Ack! I really meant to start writing here again on a regular basis. But in early February I came down with a horrible cold that put me completely out of commission for a week. Thankfully that happened just as I was going on vacation. But even for a week or two afterward I felt like complete crap. There had been this sickness going around for a while and it seemed like everybody coming into the store was there to pick up antibiotics. It’s no surprise that I came up sick one night just ringing out customers in the pharmacy. But it’s totally discouraging to wake up one day and realize you don’t spring back from the common cold like you did when you were twenty. It made me feel like a total wuss.

Beyond that, there isn’t much new to tell about things here. My work hours are still cut short. The minute I started making forty hours a week by picking up days in the pharmacy, my boss in the front of the store cut me back to just sixteen hours a week to make his budget. So I’m now averaging around thirty-two hours a week. In this economy, I guess that’s the best I can hope for. Should my company ever decide to lay people off, I’m sure I’ll be one of the first ones to go from my store since I’m at the top of the pay scale. So I’ve given up on worrying about all of it. It’s one day at a time there. I go in, do what I can with what little staff I have, and then I go home. The days of worrying about store politics are over. It’s a bit like trying to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. I’m just trying to keep the place pretty before it sinks is all.

With that said, now may not have been the greatest time to trudge off to the local Humane Society shelter and pick ourselves up a new cat, but that’s exactly what Lynn and I did this past weekend. She had wanted to wait until around May or so to see if the economy was going to settle, but I couldn’t stop myself from thumbing through the photos on the website to see if there were any likely candidates (slightly older, declawed). Tigger’s passing last August had left a terrible void in my heart and, to me, it almost seemed worth it to endure a little more financial hardship if it gave me a chance to try and erase that horrible sense of failure I felt after putting him down. Then, all of a sudden, this tiny three year-old female cat appeared on the website and I just knew she was the one. Even Lynn agreed. So on Saturday we went down to the shelter armed with a printout of “Baby Cat” and talked to the kind people there. We found out Baby Cat had been brought in to the shelter back in December and adopted almost immediately. But then she was brought back a week before we walked in. Which seems strange to us because, next to Tigger, she’s the sweetest cat I’ve ever owned. She was classified as “shy” in the shelter but, with the exception of her first few hours here, is actually quite outgoing and affectionate. Almost too affectionate. She rubs and nudges up against you so hard you think it’s an attack at first. And the only thing you can do to stop it is not to touch her in any way. Once she relaxes and settles down, she’ll lay right by your side for as long as your going to be there. Once you’re up, she follows you to wherever you’re going. And within a couple of days, she’s picked right up on the routines we used to keep with Tigger. Apart from tearing out some threads from the carpet up in the loft and dropping them onto the couch below and that one time she went to bite an extension cord, she’s been perfect. There are no litter box issues. No trouble with the new high quality pet food. it’s almost like she came in, sensed what kind of pet we needed, and became that pet. She’s perfect.

Well, almost. On Sunday I noticed a small lump above one of her nipples. We had the initial vet appointment (paid for by the Humane Society) already scheduled for Monday, so I got online and did some initial research. Knowing she had been spayed before she came in, I thought cancer was unlikely. Which left us with either a cyst or mammary gland infection as the likely culprit. But at the vet’s today, we discovered she was still lactating slightly, which meant the spaying was more recent. So the risk of cancer was higher. Still, the doctor suggested we go with a two week round of antibiotics first and see where that takes us. Hopefully it will disappear on its own. If not, the growth and the nipple will have to be removed. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that, though. She also needs a tooth cleaning in the near future and that alone will cost us $250.00. Financially, we can afford it since I juggled a good chunk of my old 401k around back in January. We’re on good footing right at the moment, but who knows what’s around the corner. I feel bad about that. Then again, we can’t keep living in fear. Having Baby Cat in the house has made me feel happier just in the few days she’s been here. I love having a pet to focus on again when things go rough. When Tigger was around, it was the same thing. No matter how bad things got, there wasn’t anything a good purr couldn’t fix. With her adoption fees, the new pet supplies, and the cost of the antibiotics, we’re already in for $200.00 in just three days. But it just seems worth it to have a little slice of happiness again. I just hope it lasts. Because, right now, she’s fast asleep in the chair next to me, looking totally relaxed and at peace in her new environment. I’d hate to lose her one way or the other. I can take a lot of things, but another failure at this point would break my heart. So I’m hoping it’s nothing major.

Anyway, I’m off to go watch some Battlestar Galactica. Baby Cat will either stay down here with me or retreat to her little pet bed we’ve made for her in the corner of our closet. That’s her safe place and she loves to just chill out in there. After all, nobody puts Baby Cat in a corner…except Baby Cat. That’s just the way it is.

Hope all of you have been doing well. I plan on catching up with everybody in the next few days or so. Until then, take care. 🙂

Baby Cat photo taken by the Humane Society Of Indianapolis.