Guilt, Thy Name Is Cat Lady.

I’ve been busy lately getting started with the college job, getting new piano students started, raising the four new kittens. I had to replace a fridge because it was at least 10 years old, and the repair was more than half the cost of a new one. No sense putting that much into an appliance that is nearing the end of its’ life span anyway. I finished the pool deck and have tried to get in the water at least a few times a week. I’ve also tried to tame the jungle/yard out back so that I will KNOW if there are pumas hiding out in my trees. Other little crises of day-to-day life have needed attention, as they do for all of us.

I’ve been busy, is all I’m sayin’, and I may sorta, maybe, just a little, be forgiven for letting a huge hole form on one of my kids’ back end. AHEM.

A couple of years ago a full-grown tom cat came to my kitchen for dinner. And breakfast. And the women. He wasn’t terrible rude or anything, but he liked to mark things, and that little act cost him his “boyz.” He was tame enough to catch, but since I had a house full of cats at the time, I didn’t encourage him to hang out after he was well.

One night he came in scalped. Half the skin on his head was gone, and yes, I was a bad, selfish person and thought, “Dangit. I am NOT spending money on a stray.” Heh. Moron, you say? Famous last words, you say? Yes. Yes, you would be right. He felt bad enough to let me touch him, so I slathered his head with neosporin whenever I walked by, and miraculously, he healed. There is just a teeny white spot next to his ear where the fur never came back, and it is barely noticeable. Since I was NICE to him and didn’t try to cut off any more parts he wanted to keep, he decided he was home. Three of my other cats ran away out of fear of him, others called him Daddy, and some still back slowly away when they meet him in the hallways.

Today, he is getting me back for the scalping. Last Friday I noticed that what had been a small draining wound had turned into two bigger draining wounds. He was in pain. When the vet shaved the spot, he had a half-dollar-sized hole on his back where an abscess had formed and ruptured. It was awful. Nearly a week later, it is healing, but it is still an open wound, so he can’t go outside and let the flies find it. (You’re welcome!) He has to be crated. Tomorrow, my 14-lb muscle-bound outdoor kitty will come home to a 3′x4′ crate. I feel horrible. The vet assured me it happens all the time, but I can’t help but feel as if I neglected him. I did, really. I should have taken him in when the first hole opened up. I don’t know why I didn’t – maybe I just thought it would heal by itself, with his history. Cat bites don’t do that, though, and I knew that, too.

The saving grace of the whole situation, including my holy appointed role as Caretaker of the Pusses Masses, is that I still hate sweaters. The doc assured me that if I started coming in with a new cat every day and kleenex stuffed up my sweater sleeves, they would intervene, cuz I would clearly have crossed a line.

Clearly.