kitty time out

so the big move is today. and i'm at work. granted, it's not like i would've been a huge help anyway since i can't really lift too much without everyone looking at me like i've grown a second head. talk about overprotective! it's all good though.

in preparation for today, we've been taking stuff over to my folks' house including the fish & the cats.

when we moved into this apartment last year, it was the first time that the cats had "moved". (other than when i brought them home from my friends house, they'd pretty much never been outside the house except for vet/groomer visits.) bob does NOT like being in the cat carrier. he cries and it's so pitiful that it breaks my heart every time. i don't remember gabby being as pitiful last time as she was last night.

see, i KNOW that they hate the cat carriers. i KNOW that they'll most likely cry the WHOLE time that they're in them. i had FORGOTTEN, however, about what they did the last time we moved.

in short, they put themselves in kitty time out. the apartment has a bathroom with two doors. one into the hall and the other into the extra bedroom. so that was the natural place to release the cats when we moved in, as they wouldn't be in the way or try to run out the open door. what i didn't count on was that BOTH of them would immediately put themselves face first into the nearest corner they could find. it was at once heartbreakingly pathetic and funny at the same time. after a few days they got used to the new place and things were fine.

last night though? OMG! we got bob into the carrier no problem (which was a surprise in itself.) and made plans to corral gabby. here's where i need to give a little backstory. when gabby was maybe 1 or 2 she was severely traumatized. like any cat, she was curious about a plastic bag from target that was sitting on the floor. so she stuck her head through the handle to peek inside the bag. well, the bag was empty and she heard a noise or something and tried to back quickly out of the bag. bad idea. it got stuck around her neck, which would have been ok, but since she was spooked she took off and the bag looked more like a cape. the noise scared her even more and she ran into the garage and hid for hours. finally my dad was able to coax her out (she was originally his cat) and remove the bag but ever since then she's been a little weird. hides all the time, etc. except with me. she always wants to be with me.

so, when we moved, it was a great surprise to find that over time, she became less "freaky". she still doesn't like strangers too much, but she started coming to vrock the last few months, eating treats and even climbing up onto his lap for attention. then we had to move her last night and i have to wonder how far back she'll regress.

after trapping her in the bedroom last night so we could get her into the carrier, we took them over to the parents house. we let them both out upstairs and stood back. presumably she rocketed out of her carrier and straight down the stairs towards my old room. i'd left the door not quite closed and she darted in. and found the furthest corner of the room she could and put herself in time out. i talked to my mom this morning to see if she'd come upstairs at ALL last night and found out she hadn't. not a huge surprise. bob, on the other hand, cried for a bit after letting him out and then was fine. he's much more a people cat than she is.

i hope that she recovers soon. it'll get worse before it gets better though. vrock & the movers will be there in a few hours unloading the "non storage" items and she really won't have anywhere to run to then. poor baby.

think she'll forgive us?

is it friday yet?

is it? i so need it to be.

i need it for various reasons:

1. vrock will be getting a call today from the contract gig people to let him know when to come to work
2. if it's friday, i get to sleep in the next day
3. if it's friday, i get paid
4. did i mention the one about getting to sleep in the next day?

i don't know what it is this week (maybe vrock's post op mishap that caused him to miss his start date at the contract gig, maybe listening to bob "big game hunter" cry and cry yesterday as i took him to the groomer) but this week has totally sapped me of energy.

all i want to do is go home, put on my sweats and curl up on the couch and totally veg out. and if i'm really lucky, vrock will go over to his brother's place on saturday and i can do that without feeling like i should be using my time for good. or, at least, you know. getting some shit done around the house.

(not that i WANT my husband to go away, because i don't. i just don't want to feel guilty for not doing anything!)

big game hunter

this is bob. he is the absolute sweetest cat i think i've ever owned. he's big (15 pounds) but he's not fat at all and he always wants to play. he can be needy (especially if his "person" vrock isn't home) but over all he's a great cat. as a rule we do not let him or his sister gabby outside.

once we moved to the apartment, vrock started leaving the back door open to the patio when he was outside to see if bob would come outside. he now goes outside only if one of us is on the patio. (we have quite a few dogs in our apartment complex, so i am adamant about not letting the cat out if we're not out there to keep an eye on him.)since he's sort of gotten used to going outside he'll now sit at the back door and really look out. he doesn't really try to go out often.

well, last night my sweet boy wanted to go outside. BADLY. i was in on the computer and since vrock had been sent home from work because he was sick, he was sitting in the living room watching the football game. he called me over to look at our cat. he was pacing back and forth and trying to get outside. (the glass sliding door was open but the screen was closed.) it was obvious he wanted to get outside. and at first we couldn't figure out why. then we saw it: a little white mouse was on the patio. and bob could see it. and he wanted to get to it. i don't think he wanted to kill it. the cat has ALWAYS been an indoor cat and as such does not have ANY experience with anything other than bugs & spiders. i think he was just interested in it because it was moving and it didn't seem to care AT ALL that this big furry 15 pound cat wanted to get at it.

and THAT was the funniest part about the whole thing. here bob is running back and forth between our bedroom and the back door (our window sills in the bedrooms are very low to the ground to where bob can sit on them and look at the patio) so he could "track" the mouse's movement. vrock was just about in hysterics and kept asking me if he should let bob out. um, negative ghost writer.

that's all i need. for my "big game hunter" of a cat to take off after this mouse once it does start running. no thanks!

now i ask you, does this look like a "big game hunter" to you? me neither.