i’ll let eric finish that up for you.

Because I had to write yesterday’s entry three times, I forgot this link to Jette’s account of last week.

So, we have a funnel cat.

We took Cal to the vet and they took one look at his Upper Respiratory Infection and his pinkeye and they slapped a funnel around his head. It’s the saddest and funniest thing ever. The cat tries to walk backwards. He slams his head into things. Because he’s missing a tail his balance is already off, so he keeps slamming his head into things and then falling over. It got to be too damn sad last night after he got so depressed about hitting his head that he just stopped moving. So, we took off the funnel and just watched him to make sure he didn’t rub his pinkeye.

Let me tell you for a second how strong of a cat Taylor is. For some reason he didn’t catch some of the most contagious diseases known to the feline community. Feline Leukemia? He spat at it. Feline herpes? Not even one flare-up. Upper Respiratory Infection? He’s been through two cats with them without so much as a sniffle. Pinkeye? He just laughs. Taylor. Big. Furry. He may look chubby, but it’s just his good constitution.

No fights yesterday, just a bunch of staring. They’d play and watch each other play and pretend they were going to swat at each other, but that’s pretty much it. Whenever there’s a scuffle I’d pet Taylor’s head and Eric would start cooing over Cal. I think Taylor is catching on that he’s not the main feline in Eric’s life. I think he’s cool with that, as Lillith was Eric’s favorite as well.

New cats are expensive.

Today sort of got away from me. Here it is almost six and I’m feeling like a big Squishy slacker. I didn’t slack, I’ve been working all day. In fact, this page has been open on my machine since 8:30 this morning. I’m just now getting around to finishing it.

The good news is I took so long that now I have some content. I got this e-mail from my friend Omar:

Pamie,

I was telling an office mate of mine that I ran into you last night. They’re also a Squishy reader and they wanted to know what you were like in person. This is what I wrote her (I don’t believe in writing stuff behind people’s backs):

Dinner was good. We ate at Hoover’s, which is fan-fuckin-tastic. I had a great chicken-fried-chicken (that sound incorrect, I know, but it was tasty).

Rebecca and I ran into Pamie and Eric. I was like ‘should we go up to them? what if I sound stupid? It’ll be on Squishy tomorrow!” We went up to them and I now see why she can have all that great dialogue on a lot of those entries: they talk REALLY fast. They started talking about their new cat, and it was rapid fire dialogue. I couldn’t even hear all the jokes because they were so fast and funny. Pamie is telling me about the chip they implanted in her cat and meanwhile, there’s like a joke subtext going on:

[scripty]
PAMIE
(pulling out money to pay the bill)
So, they didn’t implant it all the way correctly, so it was bulging out.

PAMIE
(TO ERIC)
What are you gonna do?
(gesturing to the check)

ERIC
(TO ME)
Now the cat is wearing one of those halo things. So the cat won’t pick at it.

ME
(TRYING TO KEEP UP)
Oh, like a lampshade?

ERIC
(TO PAMIE)
I’m gonna run outside and leave you with the check.

ERIC
(TO OMAR)
Yeah, it’s the saddest thing in the world. It’s so terrible.

INSIDE REBECCA’S HEAD
I just want to go home.
[/scripty]

cheers,
omar

I told Omar that most couples that have been together for a while get that way. I never noticed that we talk quickly, but I guess we sort of do. What Omar didn’t realize is that when we talk to someone who reads my page we very often abbreviate ourselves because we don’t want to duplicate a conversation for someone. Eric hates it when that happens. He’ll go to tell a story and someone will interrupt with a “I know, I read the page.” It’s like I get to tell everyone everything first. Since Omar had asked about the implant Eric knew that Omar knew the back story, so we probably sped things up so we wouldn’t bore him.

That and after a chicken-fried-chicken everything seems much faster because your body is slowing down.

Well, I guess what Omar feared was true, it ended up on Squishy. But just to ease his fears, I rarely write about people unless I figure they know it would probably go in (road trips, visits, long drunken debacles)…

I do find it interesting how couples talk after having been together for some time. I noticed it the other night when we were telling a friend a story and we talked like we were being interviewed for When Harry Met Sally. He’d start a sentence and I’d interrupt with a this-was-before-such-and-such, or I’d finish the story as he went to get something to drink. We talk that way all of the time. I guess I hadn’t noticed it before.

And now I’m going to go home and sit with my new sick cat and my old strong one.