How to bathe a cat.

I washed the cat last night.  No, that's not a euphemism.  We gave the cat a bath because he has fleas and fucking Frontline is a lying bullshit meany-head that doesn't work.  I don't think the bath has completely solved our problems, but it's a good start, and I didn't even get gouged or clawed.  No blood!  YAY!  Not bad, considering it was the first time Q has ever been subjected to such horrors.

We took a "he has big claws and is going to cut the fuck out of us" approach at first, which is probably always a good idea when bathing a cat that hasn't had the first knuckle of each toe surgically removed.  It went something like this:  Fill the bathtub with water.  Add one large beach towel and wet thoroughly.  Remove towel from water, and quickly drape over unsuspecting cat.  Rub well to soak all fur, on top and under the animal.  Remove towel from cat, allow cat to dart to door and paw under it frantically in search of an escape route.  Apply generous squirt of flea shampoo directly to cat's back.  Lather.  Ignore wails and yowls.  Don't think about the fact that you're standing in a quarter inch of water in the middle of your bathroom floor.  (*If you don't have tile floors, you might want to re-vamp these directions.)  Once cat is fully lathered from head to tail, stand back and watch him try to get the hell out of the bathroom.  Don't let him groom himself; licking flea shampoo can't be a good idea.  After 5 minutes, pick up cat and, with your hand firmly around the base of his head and facing his claws away from your body, immerse cat into bathtub full of water.  HOLD YOUR GRIP!!!  It's a good idea to have the water deep enough to fully submerge the cat, but if you don't have that going on, you can sorta use your forearm to hold his back down while splashing water and rubbing out the shampoo.  It helps to have a second person standing by with a cup or bowl or something to scoop and pour water - your hands are mostly busy making sure those claws don't get an opportunity to fuck you up.  Remove cat from water and wrap immediately in large towel.

Q was traumatized.  He hates being held upside down, on his back, like a baby, but I held him that way in that towel for a good five minutes, kissing his kitty neck and telling him he was a good boy.  His eyes were wide and he was looking at me with an expression that said, "What. the fuck. was that?"  And then I put him on the floor and unwrapped the towel, and beheld his little rat-like appearance - he was every meme picture of a wet cat that's ever been posted on the internet, right there in my living room.  And then he darted down the stairs to groom and sulk in private.  I found him an hour later on the club chair in the basement, licking his used-to-be-balls, one leg in the air over his head, back fur still wet and wild, tail still rat-like.  He purred when I scratched behind his ears, though, so at least he doesn't hate me.

Altruistic gestures.

Jimi sent me an email this afternoon:  "Want me to have an epsom salt bath waiting for you at 8 o'clock?" 

Tonight was my first full boot camp class.  He's so sweet, right?

I went to class.  I worked out really really hard.  I walked through the door at ten till 8.

He was up and at 'em right away - "What can I get you?  Want me to start a bath?  Are you hungry?"  I was a little overwhelmed with the attention.  I walked around a little bit, trying to get used to this strange feeling in my muscles - I'm not used to that post-workout jelly feeling.  It's pretty new to me.  I kinda like it. 

"Yeah, okay, I want a bath."  I started the water, he went after the epsom salts.  I got my book and a beer (ha!) and climbed in.  He sat on the toilet and rubbed my back down with a homemade tonic of his - witch hazel, tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil.  He told me to lay back, to relax.

And then he reached over my head, and from the shower caddy he withdrew my razor, and laid it on the side of the tub. 

"You know, just in case you were feeling up to it, now's a good opportunity..."

Someone just lost all their banked blowjob points.

Here, let's try this...

On a lark, I bought a $29 Groupon for a month of unlimited Boot Camp classes.  Orientation was yesterday - we did less than a minute each of reverse lunges, pushups, ab twists, pull-ups, squats, planks...and there was something else, but I've blocked it out apparently.  I was jelly at the end.  How I'm going to make it through 45 minutes of this - or how I'll walk the next day - is beyond me.  My shoulders, my ass, my knees - oh ouch!  That means good things are happening, though, and that's the entire point.

pretend this is my first post of 2012

GAH!

i just don't have any words, i guess.  got nothing to say.  not a thing.

i get locked up.  i have all these thoughts inside my head, but when it comes to putting them here, in words, i get stuck.  i can't say anything, and everything i try to say comes out all wrong and dumb and so i delete it or just flip back to facebook and pretend i didn't have anything i wanted to blog about anyhow.

which i don't, or i'd do it.  i think.

i'm four days late and not pregnant.  there's no way i can possibly convey how thoroughly this is fucking with my head.  i thought i might have been, for a second.  thought maybe our timing was right.  maybe i'd be huge this summer.  i had a dream, you see - there was a little fat baby boy in my living room under my love tree and in front of my fireplace at christmastime, and i was confused, because, of course, there's no baby.  but then i turned (still dreaming), and i was facing myself in the mirror, and i had a realization:  i'm pregnant, it's a boy, and his name is braden.  it seemed crazy when i woke up (i'd never name my boy braden, unless i had turned out to be knocked up, in which case it would've seemed dangerous to name him something else), but it also gave me a niggling hope in the back of my mind.  false hope, turns out, which is typical, but this four days late thing is mean and i hate it and i just want to get the fucking thing over with already.

and today my boss fired the dude who replaced the last guy who left - remember a few months ago when i was all "yay!  opportunity!"?  well, it's turned into a lot of extra work that's resulted in me feeling, again, like i suck at my job because i don't have enough time in a day to get it all done.  i had these awesome plans to take us on an awesome vacation when i get my bonus this year, but i didn't accomplish any of my goals for the year, well maybe one, so the bonus i was counting on is right out the window and so's that awesome vacation.  and what's the point anyhow, because when i'm on vacation, i still have to check emails and take phone calls and go into the office to do billing, so what's the fucking point?  may as well just go to work.  and now he's fired the guy who was taking up at least a little of the slack over there and joked "ready to do some more work?"  ha ha.  hi-fucking-larious.  i'm terrified i'm going to end up laughing my way to the poor house when i quit or the nut hatch because i stay - actually, i've got insurance that covers mental breakdowns - and if it was work-induced, that'd be a worker's comp thing, right?  hmm...

i shouldn't joke about mental illness, but i was feeling pretty good until i started writing all this shit that's been bothering me, and now i'm crying again.  i think i've got the winter blues bad.  i don't even have a real reason to be sad - boo hoo, poor me, i have this job with lots of responsibility and a steady income that i can spend however i wish because i don't have any kids that have to be diapered and put into daycare.

i am crazy, aren't i?  fuck.

may as well throw it all out there - part of my dive into the sads was in part due to the fact that there was no proposal this past holiday season.  i had that hope in the back of my head too, like the baby thing, whispering at me from the dark hidden corners of my mind where i force shit like that to go and live.  i asked for a will for christmas, one that protects my interest in our home if he dies.  i told him it was the only thing i wanted.  when i learned it wasn't going to be under the tree, i allowed my dumbass to think, for a moment, that maybe he had something better planned?  nope.  he just didn't get around to getting a will made.  fuck.  he's not the type to disappoint me, but i was disappointed, and hurt, and very deeply sad.

this is getting borderline too personal, and for me to recognize that probably means i should stop writing about it.

so yeah.  that's where my head has lived for the past week or so.  while i was sick.  at home.  on "vacation", with no computer.

mostly.  that's mostly where my head has lived.  there's been good, too.  like, i've taken finn for a walk every day this year, except monday because it was bitterly windy and cold and i just couldn't bring myself to do it.  i haven't smoked since monday, either, which is awesome and GO ME!  and i got on the scale the this morning and i'm down to 169 - that's the lowest number i've seen on a scale in, oh, i don't know, like 8 years?  GO ME!  i'm encouraged and feel like losing another 25 lbs maybe isn't impossible...i lost that much in 2011, i could do it again in 2012, right?  and i know he loves me; he shows me every single day, in a hundred little and huge ways.  and we spent new year's eve with angie at the chinese restaurant featuring a mix of mad men and jersey shore clientele and then shot off six bottle rockets in the front yard at midnight, and we spent new year's day with my momma at the flea market.  and my house is pretty clean.  and we did get the computer back.  and i've got like 6 bottles of wine from trader joe's, and i can drink it all if i want because i ain't preggo.  (but i won't, because i really do see a correlation between teh booze and teh fat.  i lose more weight when i don't drink an extra 600 calories each night.  duh.)

life is good.  it is.  it gets hard sometimes, and then i get sad, and then i come here to bitch and cry and whine and moan, and then i remember how good it is, even when it's hard.

happy new year, people who are awesome.

O Hi

On day 2 of my vacation, the computer got a virus.  It has been out of commission for days.  No facebook, no blogs, no Sims 3.  Most of the laundry is finished, I've vacuumed every floor in my house (twice), and my sink is empty of dishes.  Unfortunately, that's about all that got accomplished, because I too also got the sickies.  Then Jimi got sick.  And I've been fighting the post-Christmas winter blahs.

Ugh.

We'll chat soon, okay?