year in review: august 2007

august
feline phobia

(warning: this is long)

august 1st
4.45pm-left work and called craig.
5.00-arrived @ gibsons and loaded up sweetie's accoutrement. chatted for a bit and placed her on my lap in the soft carrier. she swatted at s and got her claws stuck when he tried to pet her.
5.15-unloaded, turned on ac, set up food, water, litterbox and let sweetie roam and get a feel for the apartment. petted her and she threw herself down in the middle of the living room panting, so we turned on two more fans & left for hyvee.
5.40-s left me at home and went over to a friends. when i walked into the kitchen, sweetie dashed in and clawed my bare ankle, causing me to jump and bash my leg into the stove. she paced the litterbox, so i gave her some privacy, but she continued to growl as i tried to put my groceries in the fridge. she then chased me in to the living room. i was wearing a dress, so my legs were fair game. i sat unmoving for 20 minutes, while she eyed me from around the side of the couch, growling.
6.20pm-i cautiously walked across the living room to my bedroom and closed the door. sweetie followed growling outside the door while i put on jeans. she was still there, so i lay down with a book for a few minutes.
6.35-i have to pee, so i sneak from my bedroom to the bathroom. sweetie is still growling from the living room. she moves outside the bathroom and swipes her paw under the door a couple times, trying to get at me. i call s & tell him what's going on and he says he'll be over soon.
7.00- i walk quietly into the kitchen because i'm starving and left my hyvee chinese on the counter when sweetie chased me into the living room. she glares at me and stays in the living room. i can hear her growling on the other side of the wall and intermittently lapping water.
7.15pm-s comes striding in, bundled in his army pants, boots laced up and carrying gauntlet gloves. he has me sit on the kitchen counter and his idea is getting her in the carrier so i can get my stuff to take to his place. he walks into the living room and sweetie goes for his legs, hissing and shrieking. he pushes her off and tries to grab her with the gloves. she's not having it and craps on the carpet in the corner. he tries two more times to get a hold of her without hurting her.
7.55-s calls his friend & former neighbor who has two cats and her sister is a vet. they talk for a while & she offers to call her sister.
8.05pm-deb calls back and her sister has asked why the cat hasn't been put down yet. she also says she needs to be rehabilitated and we should go to pet central because tamara rehabs feral cats. she also says that if we can get her in the carrier, we can leave her overnight and come back the next day because if she's in an enclosed space she'll hold her bladder. i want to let her out once i'm out of the apartment, so she has a chance to calm down and hopefully get more comfortable.
8.20-while s is in the other room trying to get sweetie in her carrier (& at this point at least under a laundry basket), i call you, a, to see what your expert opinion is.
8.45pm-s is exhausted, sweaty and starving. he's made i don't know how many forays into the living room and has yet to be successful. he is pissed, but i'm practically in tears at the thought of calling the gibsons after having sweetie for less than 4 hours. he calls, talks to kristal, who calls him back after talking with craig and asks for directions to the apartment.
9.00-k arrives, armed with laundry baskets to bring sweetie home. she sits on the couch and coaxes sweetie into coming over to her. she purs normally, but then goes back to hissing and spitting.
9.45-after 45 minutes of vigorous labor, they manage to get her under a laundry basket and slide a board under it. i run to s' new place for duct tape and they load everything into the suv. we tell her about tamara and she says they're familiar with pet central and will see if rehab is an option.
10.10pm-i smoke a cigarette and we go for drinks and food for s at the vine.

august 2nd 2007-after calling the vet and talking with the cat rescue woman, the consensus is that sweetie's drastic attitude change may be the result of a brain tumor and c & k make the difficult decision to euthanize her. c sent me an e-mail letting me know. i was really upset, but probably not nearly as much as they were. (and i still have a scar from where she scratched my ankle.)

later in the month i got a touch of food poisoning from one of the mexican places, which set off a downward spiral that put me in the hospital in september. yay! but before all that we had c & m over for a yummy thai dinner & plenty of good wine.