It’s Said That If You Blog About Your Cat

Then you lose readership.

I, however, am fairly confident that my readership expects the occasional cat story — if not the occasional cat recipe.

If I were going to eat my cat, I would braise her with red wine and juniper berries. However, I decided to *wash* her this week rather than eat her: she’s been in a funk since the move and isn’t really grooming herself.

Given a choice, she might have preferred to stay home in a nice fragrant braise administered by me, rather than leaving the house in the rain and riding in the scary scary car, then being subject to a wet and soapy bath by a groomer who is not on the approved list of people who are allowed to touch her. That person also dried her, and stuffed her back into her carrier, whereupon she had to ride home in the car again. It’s like outward bound without the aspect of having to turn your underwear inside out one day, and then outside in the next day, every single day for a month.

The Groomer’s Story

It wasn’t that much better for the groomer. I doubt that it ever is: my cousin had a job washing cats once, but it was too hard, so he quit and became a neurologist.

The groomer we had this week got scratched in the vicinity of the eye, I was informed, when I picked George up from the vet. Just in case you think by my vague sentence construction that it was a different cat who scratched the groomer in the eye, it wasn’t. It was our protagonist.

Quick Aside

Yes. My cat’s name is George, and my son’s name is Henry. I have an apparent affinity for kings; at least I am consistent. The cat is also a female. My son is male. Next paragraph:

How About Me and Henry?

It was also very stressful for me: carrying a mewling and sloping 20 lb carrier in the pouring rain with a spritely 1 year old in my other arms. I mean, arm. In my teeth, I held the umbrella.

To make the whole thing interesting, Henry bellows and shrieks when he is not in charge of the keys, and he will dive downwards to try to wrestle them away from me when I am carrying him. This abrupt change in the center of gravity keeps everyone on their toes. Off of their toes!

Henry had a blast, though, all around. He was delighted to leave the house, delighted to go in the car, delighted to visit the vet for the first time because not only are there real live animals traveling hither and yon, even the scale has carved wooden animals on it. He hugged the scale. There are also magazines full of nothing but pictures of dogs, both the editorial and the advertising sections. Wow, is the vet awesome.

Do We Groom Henry?

While we waited for George to be bathed, I had a mind to get Henry groomed, too. His father has started to voice frequent concern about the length of Henry’s hair, and has started to make claims such as “it would take so much less time to wash his hair if it were shorter.”

It’s pretty short, but maybe Matthew has a mind to engage in competitive speed-washing tournaments for the fall season. Every second counts!

Had it not been pouring, Henry and I would have walked over to the haircuts-for-children place, since I was feeling in a somewhat conciliatory mood. However it was indeed raining cats and dogs, so we had to go to the diner across the street from the vet and order Belgian waffles and sausages, instead.

Finally, the grooming was complete, the little family was repacked in the car, the car was parked, and we arrived home safely. As she always is after an adventure, the cat was delirious with pride. She rolled around and purred, pornstarlike, on the kitchen tiles. She was in such a good mood for a moment that she even let Henry pet her.

I noticed while petting her that there was a suspicious chunk of something embedded into her tail fur — ironically, a chunk that hadn’t been there when we left the house. So, I pulled it out as much as possible with my hands, then sniffed it. Why, we will never know, but I confirmed my fecal suspicions.

Denouement

I got a paper towel. I couldn’t lock her up because I couldn’t leave the toddler unattended with her. I couldn’t get her to sit still because she doesn’t like having her tail pulled, and she was getting nervous again, and Henry was suddenly in hot pursuit. He just really wants to hug her so badly, and he’s gentle, even, but then he gets so excited when he is hugging her gently that he screams at her. I believe he believes that is screaming with her, not at her; still she is very scared.

Finally I got her laying down and was trying to extricate the poop clump and not paying much attention to Henry who had run into the bathroom and gotten a large box of assorted tampons: the sort without an applicator. When I noticed him, he was very gingerly offering kitty the smallest tampon in the box, as a snack. She refused, so he moved up a size.

He is so loving and accommodating to her.

I love them both so much.