I got custody of Pammy and Puss Puss as part of my divorce settlement. Well, for the first year, anyway. Pammy is my daughter’s miniature Pomeranian, essentially a Q-tip with teeth. Puss Puss adopted our family several years ago, and it is Elise’s intention to take the two of them with her when she gets a place of her own in Columbus, where she’s going to school. For the first year, she’s in the dorm, where the University likes to keep the freshmen so that they can keep an eye on them.
I have my hands full with Casey, the mixed terrier-Greyhound bundle that I adopted when I saw that my marriage was going irretrievably South. With my daughter out most nights with her high school theater commitments, I needed to have one living organism in my home that was glad to see me when I got home. So Casey, along with her brother Spike, was rescued from the Dawson county animal shelter. I got Casey, and my son keeps Spike.
Believe me, there are days when I wish that I was animal free! It is difficult, as a suddenly-bachelor, to adjust one’s schedule for timely enough walks and frolic time with a single animal. The three of them are making me crazy! Is it July yet?
Pammy loves socks. And with Elise out of the apartment, it’s my socks that now have more holes in them than are required for one foot each. AS a bachelor, I’m not entirely prompt with doing my laundry, so socks routinely sit on the bed waiting to be either hampered or rolled up and put away. As I sit in the living room, working on my computer, or watching television, she’ll bring in one sock. Then another. Before long, there are two to three and a half pairs of black socks adorning my living room.
She also loves noses. And I mean LOVES noses. We have nicknamed her the casa nostril and Nostrildamus. It’s cute initially, but fairly disgusting in short order. And she barks …
I love dogs. I’ve always had one. But frankly, pomeranians, poodles, and other tiny slightly-evolved rat dogs leave me cold. Just too yappy. Indeed, Pammy has proven to be quite anti-social to my new neighbors, and that’s an issue. And she’ll get Casey started.
Then there’s Puss Puss. The first week he owned us, he let us know, in no uncertain terms, that he had a urinary tract infection. It took a few nights in isolation and a four-digit vet bill to figure this out. And the day after our check cleared, our vet had a pretty new neon sign in front of his practice, oddly enough WITHOUT a picture of our cat on it. But I digress.
Now that he’s moved in with me, he’s added the word “diabetic” to his pedigree, and that condition is clear to anyone who moves anywhere within a one foot radius of the sofa in my living room. He’s stabilized now, thanks to a special, medicated diet, but I can’t tell you how much money in chemicals I have poured, literally on the couch to try and cloak the stench. I’ve tried vinegar, enzyme breakers, club soda … any combination that I can find on the internet. I’m bound and determined to save this sofa, because frankly, I don’t want to have to pay to dispose of it and replace it. Not to mention lugging another one up two flights to my apartment.
I’ve come to the basic conclusion that, if we really want to get serious about the war on terror, we need to stop making bombs out of explosives and gunpowder. We need to build them out of cat pee. After all, blown-apart buildings can be repaired, and the terrorism can continue. But bomb an area with CAT pee, with which we Americans have an ENDLESS supply, and entire civilizations will need to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. Not enough vinegar and club soda in the world, I’m telling you!
I feel guilty about the amount of time that Casey and Pammy spend cooped up in their communal crate. I work a full time job, get home for an hour for lunch each day, and have a handful of support group meetings and a weekly deejaying gig that leaves them confined for much of the day, and sometimes the evenings. The guilt overwhelmed me this past Sunday, so since they appeared to each have taken care of business after their morning walk, I left them loose, figuring that I’d only be gone for just over an hour at church, and then I’d be back. I returned to a pair of matching presents on my kitchen floor. To me, this was an indication that, if they were going to be left alone, they’d just as soon be confined. I guess there was nothing good on Animal Planet that particular Sunday morning. So they’re still confined for a good portion of the day. Now, though, I don’t really feel all that guilty about it.
So I’m ready for July. My daughter will take the cat and her dog and the supply of pee stain remover, vinegar, club soda, and diabetic food with her down to Columbus, and I’ll be left with Casey. No more tangled leashes as I attempt to walk the dogs together, and Casey decides to play “Maypole dance.” No more teeny tiny piles to find and remove before they find a neighbor’s shoe. No more barking each time my neighbor returns from a late night out. My socks will be perforated ONLY by normal wear and tear. My kitchen will smell like a kitchen again, and not like a litter box.
In the mornings, I won’t be awakened by a tongue up my nostril. There will be no rubbing on the back of my legs as I stand at the bathroom sink to brush my teeth in the morning. No gladsome meow as I walk in the door each evening after a long day’s work. No sympathetic paw on my wrist and low purring as I struggle to sleep during a bout of lonely insomnia...
Gee.
Is it October already?
