Category: #mommyrant
Litter box investigator
I spent my vacation making sure Taco recovered both from his extraction and the drugs necessary to stop him from clawing out his mouth stitches. My husband and I both did this sick. In our entire 15 years of relationship, we’ve never been sick at the same time but we managed it this time – with a recovering Taco to boot.
Taco’s fine. Mostly. We anxiously watched him go in and out of the litter box without peeing – panicking about crystals and blockage and god forbid starting the peeing on the couch thing again (Taco has Idiopathic Urinary Cystitis which you can read alllll about). But ultimately he’s peeing normally again, he healed just fine and he’s off antibiotics, which is good, because now he has diarrhea. In fact, he’s had it all week. We’ve tried pet store probiotics but his poop is still not log-shaped.
My poor baby. The vet had us start some pill yesterday which amazingly we got down his gullet TWICE! Without losing fingers! And a vet-approved antibiotic. Also pumpkin. As of this morning it hadn’t all worked yet but I have high hopes for the next BM.
When did this become my life? Tracking litter boxes?
Side note, Taco’s bottom tooth gets stuck on his upper lip sometimes now which unfortunately caused a sore. The vet says he’ll get a callus – but aside from removing the bottom tooth (hell no) there’s no cure for the dumdum face he makes when it gets stuck. Can I still love him? We’ll see.
Why are my cats pussies? (pardon the pun)
I can understand that cats identify with smell, which SUPPOSEDLY accounts for why they smoosh their heads into our faces, legs, arms, etc. (although I maintain that MY kitties do it simply because they love me, even though that completely goes against my undying trust in science).
This does not account for why the mere opening of the front door to greet a human that they do not encounter on a regular basis sends my boys into panicked blurs of fur, not to be seen again until several hours after the offending “alien” has left.
Judging from my own experiences at fellow cat-owners’ homes, I’m not alone. I’m also not UN-alone, because some people have cats do not run like their tails are on fire when I walk in. This is not to say that I am necessarily ACCEPTED by these cats; my friend’s cat, whom I have known since kittenhood, will meow at me like I’m killing him and swat at me (but also still allow me to pet as he wishes).
In my mind, aside from smell, I feel like we all look the same to cats. They don’t have great eyesight and they have pea brains. We should all be equal until they’re close enough to sniff.
Furthermore, no stranger has ever done anything to my cats for them to have emotional damage from (well, Moosh maybe, but oddly enough, he’s the more friendly of the two). Since all humans have EVER done to them is feed them and love them, WHY DO THEY ACT LIKE ANYONE NEW IS GOING TO KILL THEM?
Even-further-more, why am I even remotely attempting to understand my cats? These are the same assholes that will sleep in the exact same place every day and then one day, randomly decide to to change it up and sleep in a place that is so impossible for me to find that I may or may not be convinced that they got out somehow and spend an hour panicking and retracing my steps.
Denim beds are all the rage, didn’t you know?
It’s really just like arguing with a stupid person. I should stop.
Cats and cars. A comparison.
You may not think that cats and cars have ANYTHING to do with each other whatsoever, save for being one letter different. You’d be wrong. See, they’re both money pits.
You know the old adage, “when it rains, it pours” – I’ve found this to be true about both.
Let’s start with cats.
Why are you in the shower? What’s wrong with you?
Most of the time, my boys are healthy and thriving. However, I know that we’re always one sneeze/puke/bloody poop away from a vet visit. Something that is absolutely essential is to have a vet you can trust and ask a bazillion questions to and get informative answers without even a hint of an eyeroll. Someone you truly believe has your babies’ best interests at heart. I have one. This being said, while I do believe veterinarians should be paid handsomely for the work they do, my wallet says otherwise. The bills add up and up, even if you have an excellent vet who is honest about whether certain procedures are necessary. If you’re a worrier like me, you tend to fall on the cautious side and get the tests that are maybe 55% necessary, “just in case.” Then you walk out with a giant bill, and presumably, a healthy cat. Or, like me, you could go in for a simple checkup and walk out with the knowledge that one cat’s pupil is markedly larger than the other, possibly indicating a problem (this requires more tests, of course, and if I really wanted to get serious, a visit to the CAT EYE DOCTOR). It’s never just one thing. And lets not forget the constant maintenance of cat food, which seems to be getting more and more expensive.
Now onto cars.
That’s my hunk o’ metal golddigger right there as seen through jungle foliage. If you’d like to know what my bumper magnets are, one is a sad kitty face that says “Republicans Hate Kittens” (and they never seem to get the joke) and “There’s no excuse for animal abuse” – because there isn’t. I don’t know why I blurred out the license plate. It’s what they do on TV. But now that I think about it, thousands of people a day see my license plate when I’m driving, so it’s not exactly a secret.
Unless you have a brand spankin’ new car with a fancy warranty (in which case you’d also have a large car payment and the headache of the immediate depreciation driving off the lot), you have car problems. Having a trusted mechanic in your arsenal is equally as essential as having a trusted vet (I have one of these, too, and I went through a LOT of mechanics before finding Sam, who’s my godsend). Especially if you have a Volvo, which is like having a cat with special needs (okay, that’s a BIT of a stretch, but work with me here). Yesterday I went in for a new headlamp assembly (used, actually – new was a bazillion dollars) because a rock or a BB gun put a nice lil hole in the one I had. And a new hood latch, because the boyfriend broke it opening the hood to look at the headlight assembly when the hole was noticed. While I was there, I discussed having him fix a very slow oil leak that I’d been able to put off because of the very slowness of it. I’d recently noticed more oil where I park my car so I figured it was time. As he pulled my car out, there was a puddle of oil. NOT SO SLOW ANYMORE. So we bumped up that appointment. When I left, I noticed my dashboard light indicating a light out was still on. Brake light, this time. Oh, and my tires are bare. AND it’s almost time for timing belt replacement. And like the constant supply of cat food that’s needed, the car requires a constant influx of gas.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that I basically work to support my cats and my car. Neither of them appreciate it.
Eating habits.
Funny how we all have our own thing when it comes to food. I personally have a love/hate relationship with it, as it makes me fat. The funny thing is, I’m a SUPER picky eater and vegan, so in theory, it shouldn’t. But it does. For 9 weeks straight I’ve been hitting the gym regularly and not drinking beer during the week and watched the scale crawl up 1 pound at a time, and it’s maddening. I wish that I could just view food as fuel and not, you know, want it. The boyfriend has the metabolism of a…um…something that has a fast metabolism. He eats whatever he wants and remains super skinny. I hate that. I was almost thankful for a stomach bug earlier this week that made me very unhungry for a few days.
But enough about me, this is about the cats. Moosh is looking pretty hefty these days. I know he’s not as active as Taco, which is fine, but he’s also the one who gets pushed out of his own food because Captain Stuffmyface already finished his and wants to hijack his brother’s. Which, in turn, leaves me with a very whiny kitty half an hour later when Moosh discovers that he has not, in fact, had enough to eat. So then I have to feed him again, and try to keep Taco away. Taco, despite eating two helpings, gained exactly one ounce in the year between vet visits. Go figure.
It’s empty because you let your brother eat all the food, dodo.
I wonder where picky eating comes from. I know I drove my parents crazy as a kid, because I was the only person on the face of the planet who didn’t like pizza, I refused to eat onions, and although I eventually came around to both of those, I still dislike mushrooms. It’s a texture thing. Moosh has been picky from the start. He doesn’t particularly care for wet food, and I went through a ton of brands of dry until he finally decided he liked one. Then Taco had to go on the crap prescription food, and fortunately, Moosh was ok with that, because it seemed like the organic food I was feeding both of them made Taco puke. Seriously, he is a beast of a puker. I have to give him Pepcid. So Moosh likes the crap food most. And he won’t even eat real turkey. Taco, on the other hand, will even eat TOFUrkey. So where does this all start? Is it in our genes or is it learned?
This is why we can’t have anything nice.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love Pinterest. I also love HGTV. I don’t own my own house and I have very little to no sense when it comes to decorating, but I like to pretend I do by looking at pretty pictures and imagining I could do that.
Then I had an epiphany.
I can’t.
Because I have cats.
Pure effin’ evil.
As I sat there looking at the 834579348st picture of a well-decorated room with vases holding large feather-like things perched precariously atop a tall, thin “table,” I realized that THESE PEOPLE DON’T HAVE FUCKING CATS.
I can’t even buy a LAMP without thinking “Ok. Will the cats knock this over?” I mean, I found this fabulous one where the lampshade was hanging sequins but after I got over my initial “OOOOHHHHHHH WANT THAT” I immediately thought “Nope. Cat toys.”
THEY RUIN EVERYTHING.
So much to knock over here! AND IT’S ON WHEELS! Movable destruction.
All of my design choices are based on THEM. I have no plants in my house. I have herbs on my front porch so they don’t eat them, but some other animal does and then I forget to water them because they’re outside and I’m not constantly reminded.
If the boyfriend thoughtfully buys me flowers for any sort of occasion, I have to either take them to work with me or proudly display them in my bathroom.
Yup. These are in my bathroom. Right next to my toothbrush.
NOTHING is off limits to them. NOTHING.
We interrupt Caturday for an important anti-CISPA announcement.
This blog is supposed to be about fun. Fun and cats. But this is important.
The interwebz are fun. It’s been quite the journey for me to come from playing Oregon Trail on an Apple II to being able to carry around a 5lb. machine with the ability to share my words with the world, connect with people, learn about new things, have a virtually endless supply of information, etc. I remember when we first got AOL and suffered through the dial-up modem sounds. I had a pager when I was a teenager, as by that time they were “cool” and not just for drug dealers. I got a cell phone when I was 18. I remember when texting started. Now I can do anything on my cell phone that I can do on my computer. I watched this all transform and evolve. And this is all in the matter of my relatively short lifetime.
I mean, I have millions of cat lolz at my fingertips! But hilarious cats aren’t all the internet is about. 
Despite the fact that we all (well, not all of us) willingly put out TONS of personal information for all to see, through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc., things that are private deserve to be kept private.
I introduce you to CISPA:
H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence sharing and Protection Act of 2011, along with a handful of other bills currently circulating congress, all seek to give the government the power to force ISPs and other information aggregator companies to share ALL of your personal information, internet usage, and other data with ANY government agency or PRIVATE ENTITY [read: corporation] who requests it. The only requirement is that it be done in the name of “Cybersecurity,” which is never well-defined.
The important part of this bill is that it’s entirely vague. It gives the government power to pretty much to whatever they want. Keep in mind, too, that this bill is written by a group of (mostly) older people with less understanding of technology. I’m not saying that everyone over the age of 50 is a moron when it comes to keeping up. But how many IT guys are senators? These are career politicians.
Fear shouldn’t paralyze us so much that we allow our freedoms to be raped. I read 1984 when I was younger. I think I was probably too young to really understand the implications of it, but I do now. I am, for the most part, a law abiding citizen (I say most part because I think I break a few driving). I don’t have anything to hide. But that doesn’t mean that my email and my search history should be readily tapped into with a vague semblance of cause. That sounds DANGEROUSLY close to “thoughtcrime” to me.
Hold onto your freedoms. We’ve earned them.
My biological clock knows my furry kids are enough.
We’re gettin’ serious today.
The older I get, the more I get confused as to why my biological clock isn’t yearning to procreate. After all, the boyfriend and I are in a stable relationship (stability is relative after 10 years). We’re far from rich but people raise children on far less; my mother did without taking any help (except child support, that’s a given). We’re not married, not because either of us are afraid of commitment (I think 10 years kinda proves that) but a) because neither of us are religious, therefore there’s no “living in sin” or any of that business, b) it’s cheaper to break up than get divorced and besides, it’s pretty clear that neither of us are going anywhere (right, honey?) and c) I adore being the center of attention so in light of A and B, the most fun part of getting married would be to have a wedding for ME, with a fancy dress and all sorts of selfish things, all of which are expensive, and I refuse to go into debt in order to do something that’s completely unnecessary.
But I don’t seem to want children. My best friend has a beautiful (not so little anymore, she’s almost taller than her mom now) girl, she was young and it was unexpected but from the moment she gave birth, she became this amazing mom whose world revolved around her baby. I’ve known her forever, so when I went to visit her and her newborn in the hospital for the first time, I saw the transformation. While I was awed that she made that little baby, I felt nothing more than aunty pride and love for my friend and her new addition. I don’t see babies and start cooing. In fact, I don’t even know how to treat babies, and for that matter, children. Do you talk to them like adults? Do you baby talk? Do you ignore them when they’re running underfoot? Do you pay attention to every single word they say? (If you’ve been around kids, you’ll know about that age when they never stop talking and asking questions regardless of anyone paying attention to them).
But cats. I see cats and I want to take them home with me. Cats I connect with.
A face only a kitty mommy could love.
I constantly wonder if I’m making a mistake. If one day I’m going to regret not having children. I’m 31 now. I expected that when I got older, more WANT would kick in. It’s not. Frankly, the idea of pregnancy alone scares the shit out of me. Nine months without a beer, even on a really bad day. Morning sickness. People touching my belly without asking. Swollen feet. And BIRTH. Gah.
And when THAT unpleasantness is over, you’re suddenly responsible for a LIFE. And it’s not just the responsibility of keeping them alive, although that’s rather important. You have to decide how to raise them. Worry about how the decisions you make will form them. I’m incredibly happy with the way I turned out, and I thank my parents for that, but I also know there’s a large genetic component there, one that I can’t control. What if my kids are nerdy and unpopular? I wasn’t the most popular kid in school, and I had my fair share of bullying, which I think most people do, but it made me stronger and I learned how to stand up for myself. I learned how to find friends that were like me and not worry about being popular. What if my kid doesn’t flourish?
I read an article this week written by a woman who regretted having children. She was incredibly open about it and although at some points I felt she was a little too callous and seemed to have a bit of a superiority complex, it made me feel better. Having a child doesn’t come with a 30-day trial. If after 9 months, I find that my “mommy instinct” doesn’t kick in, what then? It seems to me like an awfully big gamble.
Cats I can do. Cats fit with my own selfishness. They’re there when I need them (and often when I don’t) but can take care of themselves, and can do so as soon as they’re weaned. They don’t have to wait for me to take them outside to poop. They’ll go when they please.
People don’t understand this. They tell me I should want kids. That cats aren’t a substitute. Well you know what? Fuck you. Humans aren’t all they’ve cracked up to be. And there’s plenty of us out there. Too many, in fact. Kids are cute. I like them. But I also like giving them back. I love my “me” time. Cats don’t take much effort. Some food, some love, some play, and I can go about my day. I feel rewarded.
Sometimes I wish I wanted kids so I wouldn’t have to wonder about my future regret. But I can’t justify “giving it a go” only to find our that I was right in my own self-realization all along. It’s a life we’re talking about. Who wants to grow up feeling unwanted?
WTF, instagram?
I recently discovered that my number of followers on instagram is pitiful. I have 84. I think a lot of them are fake accounts, too, although I’m not sure what their purposes are. I guess in hopes that I’ll follow back and they can give me a virus or something? Who knows. It’s not like I TRY really hard to get instagram followers. I do go a LITTLE hashtag crazy, but I see way more over-the-top ones. My friend, who is a crazy dog lady like I’m a crazy cat lady, told me last night she has 100 followers. Are there more dog people? Are my cats not cute enough for the cat people? This news is distressing.
In case you think I’ve lost my marbles, I’m not DEEPLY upset about this. It’s not keeping me up at night.
But…JUST LOOK AT HOW CUTE MY CHILDREN ARE!!!!
If you feel bad enough for me that you’d like to follow me (hint hint) it’s @meowhearthis.
Such an angel. Not.
I’m his favorite bed.
Here’s looking at you, kid.
Moosh n’ boots!
Hello, cutie pie!
The easter bunny is frightening.
My instagram feed today (and yesterday, for that matter) is overrun with pictures of cats wearing bunny ears (you must drug your cats to pull this off, really…I can’t believe anyone has a cat that mild-mannered to allow such a thing without a ruckus) and people’s children with various easter bunnies.
I’ve seen posts about how creepy easter bunny costumes are, but they usually reference pics from days of old. I think the kids were tougher then. But these pics posted today…the easter bunnies are just as creeptastic.
And WHY is the easter bunny wearing a vest? NO ONE wears vests, let alone a furry, long-eared animal.
I saw a Party City commercial with a guy in a bunny suit running around (I suppose it could have been a girl, whatever) and I was like “Why aren’t the children running away in terror?” I certainly would have been.
Furthermore, and I know this is not a new thought either, WHY exactly does the easter bunny bring eggs? Bunnies are mammals. They don’t lay eggs. Did the easter bunny eat a chicken? They also don’t have opposable thumbs, which I imagine would make it really hard to carry a basket. And where did he get a basket? And why does he give away chocolate representations of himself to be eaten?
Even FURTHERmore, as a non-religious person I am rather amused and baffled by the complete lack of correlation between Jesus’s resurrection and an animal that doesn’t lay eggs giving out eggs in celebration of said resurrection. I suppose the same could be said about Christmas, but at least that’s supposed to be Jesus’s birthday, and presents are to be expected on birthdays.
If I could only get one of these questions answered, though, I’m going back to “how the HELL did these cat parents get their cats to wear bunny ears and sit still long enough to take a picture?” That’s the million dollar question.
I can barely get them sitting still long enough to get A picture, let alone one with degrading props.
Lil Bub Makes My Day.
I don’t know if you crazy kids are into the instagram these days, but I sure am. I keep my “celebrity” following to a minimum, as I really would prefer to see pictures of my own friends (I make exceptions for Justin Timberlake and 2Chainz) but I do follow a few “famous” cat accounts.
You may or may not be familiar with these kitties. There’s @adventuresofbarry, he’s just cute. 
Grumpy Cat (she’s trademarked so I’ll just link to her webpage here)
@samhaseyebrows (so adorably questioning!) 
and my newest favorite, Lil Bub. 
Lil Bub makes me squeal with glee. SO FREAKING CUTE. And it was just announced yesterday that Bub is the focus of a new documentary that’s just been accepted to the Tribeca Film Festival. I really don’t care what it’s about, as long as there’s Bub in there, I’m happy. I was excited to learn that Lil Bub has quite fashionable gear for sale at reasonable prices as well, so I bought a tank top and a calendar. This made my day. PLUS…part of the proceeds go to charitable animal stuff and the rest goes to (QUITE SMARTLY) Bub’s food fund. The humans for these cats sure know how to grab on to their 15 minutes of fame. Shit, I’ve been reaching for mine for almost a year now doing this blog expecting to get discovered.
Unfortunately, as adorably unique as my kitties are, and no matter how much I know I could EASILY pick my boys out of a lineup of seemingly identical ones, they do not have funny fur colors that make them look like they have eyebrows or an eternally sticking out tongue. No, mine are just full of personality, the kind of bratty personality that kind of shows up in pictures and refuses to move an inch for video. I don’t even bother trying to catch these little imps in action anymore, they have a sixth sense for knowing when the camera’s rolling and stop doing anything remotely interesting immediately. DAMMIT, CATS. DO SOMETHING TO EARN YOUR KEEP.
MEOW hear this! 