pork chop patrol

and why i’m jealous of eric

So yesterday after saying how great Lillith was doing, she went right under the couch and hid there for a good portion of the afternoon.  Eric came home for lunch, and she came out to see him and let him pet her.  He left, she went under the couch.

The vet called to check on her and told me that I should try giving her tuna water.  The only thing I can get her to do right now is drink every once in a while and eat a couple of bites.  We talked about whether to bring her in again for a check up.  The stress of going to the vet could kill her, so I’ll probably just keep giving verbal reports.

I bought Lillith’s tuna and tried to get her to eat it.  She looked at the plate, stood up, sniffed it and licked her lips a few times.  She dipped her head like she was going to eat, and then she started scraping the carpet around it like she was trying to bury it for later.  She walked away, but she looked like she wanted to eat it.

I decided to play hardball.  I cooked her weakness– chicken wings.

The smell of warm chicken was quickly filling up the house.  Eric sat down in the living room and she walked in and jumped into his lap!  Unfortunately, her back legs are now really weak and she has a hard time jumping onto things.  We have to help her up or she just looks like the “Hang In There” cat.  She sat in his lap until he left for rehearsal.  I sat on the couch and had some chicken and she ate a couple of bites.  She had another syringe of water.

Then a huge storm hit and I was getting all antsy because I’m a bit freaked out by lightning.  The cable went out.  I finished my book.  I just sat there and talked to the cats.  I got Lillith to drink a syringe of tuna water.  She just won’t take solid food on her own, though. She sat in the living room all night, in her favorite chair.

Eric came home and I picked her up and held her for a second.  She was a little squirmy.

“Just put her on the floor and see where she goes,” Eric said.

I did.  She made a beeline over to him.  He lifted her up and put her in his lap where she stayed until we went to bed.

This morning I tried to feed her before I left for work– I go straight from work to rehearsal today and I won’t be home until after eleven tonight.   I put some turkey in front of her.  She stood up, sniffed it, licked it, licked some more and then walked away.  She saw the syringe of water in my hand and quickly went under the bed.  I can’t get her out from under the bed because a long time ago her and Taylor created a hole in the fabric of the box spring and now they sit in the bed when they are under it.  There’s no way to get her out.

The good news is Eric will be home for lunch and will be there this evening, and it’s pretty clear she only wants to show off she’s feeling better if Eric is around.  Now I just have to figure out how to get her to actually eat.  It looks like she wants to, but then she just doesn’t want to do much chewing.

Thanks guys, for all of your suggestions.  I’ll get Eric to pick up some Pedialyte this afternoon.  Hopefully she’ll get some strength back.  She’s not really dehydrated– she keeps drinking the syringes on her own, and she uses the bathroom regularly and without pain, so her kidneys appear to still be working. There’s no blood.  She just doesn’t want to eat more than a couple of bites, and the muscles in her back legs are really weak.  I’ve got to get her on a physical therapy program  (Any ideas, Kevin?  Can she borrow your knee thing?).  Taylor even pounced her last night and she jumped out of the way.

Baby steps.  Last night she looked good.  This morning she was mopey.  It seems to be related to how close Eric is to her in the house.  She still has a runny nose and runny eyes, but the fluid is all clear and watery, which is good.  Before it was kind of brown.  Once she gets her strength back she should be okay.  It’s all so depressing, though.  I miss her personality.  Yesterday I walked by her and she looked at me like she usually does and went to do her impulsive hello meow.  It came out without a sound, but it was nice to see her try and say something.  I’m worried that her throat is sore, and that’s why she doesn’t want too much solid food and is keeping really quiet.  How do you fix a sore kitty throat?

If she could just take my hand in her paw and say, “Listen.  I’m feeling pretty crappy here.  I like the syringe about every four hours or so, but for the most part just leave me alone.  I want Eric to pet me at all times, and you keep doing that worrying thing you’re doing, but Taylor is over there juggling catnip balls to get your attention.  I mean, he ate a grasshopper ten minutes ago and acted like he was Rocky Balboa.  Just keep your attention to him and I’ll get what I need from Eric, okay?  Thanks for your concern.  I really am going to be okay.”

That’s all I need.  It’s the silence that’s killing me.

Okay, enough Florence Nightingkitty.  I start Polaroid Stories rehearsal tonight, so I’ll have a better idea on what my hair is going to look like.  I talked to the director yesterday when we volunteered at a homeless shelter.  We served dinner for about an hour.  She was joking that I wanted to change the character from Skinhead Girl to Dreadhead Girl.  I said I’d settle for Pinhead Girl, referring to pulling my hair into tiny knots.  I think that they are going to help me out so that I look like your average good girl for the HBO audition the following week.

Eric and I are going to be in shows at the same time, so I don’t know if I’m going to get to see his show and he may not be able to see mine.  That’s a bummer.  Plus he probably won’t be able to run my show for the HBO audition like he did last month.  I’ll have to find a techie.  I liked having Eric in the booth.

I saw Eric’s commercial yesterday.  It’s on during all talk shows.  He’s in a commercial for WIC, and it’s running all over Texas.  If you see a commercial that begins, “So you’re about to have a baby.  You’re going to learn a lot.”  When she gets to the part about furniture, Eric is the guy on the left trying to build a crib with a pregnant woman, holding up a side of the crib looking like Samuel L. Jackson in every action film:  “Now what the?  Who?  Why is it?  Can someone tell me why..?  What in God’s name am I…?”

I swear, every time Samuel L. Jackson is in a film they give him lines that start with exasperated questions.  “Can someone PLEASE tell me why is it that every time I get my black ass under water some crazy sharks or spheres are trying to kill my ass?  Could someone explain that to me?  Why in God’s name do I even GO under water?  What the hell is happening, people?”

Oh, and here you go, Jim.  I forgot to link him yesterday.

If Lillith doesn’t get her appetite back soon I may have to resort to her most horrible weakness:  pork chops.  Lillith can sniff out a pork chop like you wouldn’t believe.  Two years ago I used to think that Taylor was the trouble maker.  I’d find him in the morning asleep next to the overturned trash can.  There’d be food all over him and he’d look up at me with these glazed eyes and have this look in his French Canadian way– “Mon Dieu!  What happened to me last night?  What is going on?”

Taylor always got the stern talking-tos.  Then once I saw it was Lillith on the counter, pushing pork chop bones off the side to the anxious Taylor on the floor.  She must have waited until he fell asleep from the gorging and then she’d push the evidence over to his comatose body.

Very clever.

One morning I woke up for work and found that the pork chop bones were gone from the styrofoam container they were in on the counter.  I checked all over the house and couldn’t find them.  The cats were whistling, just minding their business.  For some reason my swim suit was on the floor.  I picked it up, and there wrapped in the middle of it were the pork chop bones.  Both cats feigned surprise.

I got to work and sat down.  I grabbed my bag to get a pencil.  I undid the velcro flap.  There inside my bag was a half-eaten pork chop.  They had packed me a lunch to apologize for the damage to the carpeting.  How can you get mad at that?  Now, as I walked across the room to throw away a half eaten pork chop at nine in the morning I did get some strange looks from my new co-workers, but what are you going to do?

Pork chops.  That’s the way to go.

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