Get drunk and name your child

"Fish. Pony. He gets all the easy ones!"

These days, it seems like celebrity parents blindfold themselves, reach into a hat full of Fisher-Price flashcards and choose a random object/color/number with which to name their children.

Here are a few of my faves:
- Apple (Gwenyth Paltrow)
- Seven (Erykah Badu)
- Camera (Arthur Ashe, tennis player)
- Suri (Joey Potter Katie Holmes)
- Egypt (Alicia Keys)
- Sage Moonblood (Sylvester Stallone)
- Hud (John Cougar Mellencamp)
- Spec Wildhorse (John Cougar Mellencamp)
- Dweezil (Frank Zappa)
- ... And now Blue Ivy?

Whatever happened to naming your child something noble and meaningful? After your Grandmother or your husband's third cousin by marriage?

Come to mommy, Johnny Castle!

This reminds me of when my sister and I adopted Linus, got drunk and came up with a list of names for him. Brace yourself, the list gets more hilarious as the drinks start flowing:

- Gargamel
- AC Slater
- Michael Scott
- Azrael
- Ray (LITTLE ray) (from an episode of Sister, Sister)
- Mr. Belding (YES.)
- Luigi
- Toad
- *Linus
- Larabee
- Birdy dird
- Carlton
- Uncle Phil
- Jeffrey
- GI Joe
- Jaffar
- Tater tot (were we hungry?)
- Buzz (lightyear?)
- Pluto (it will ALWAYS be a planet to me.)
- Burger
- Hambone (probably the most appropriate, in retrospect)
- Hermes
- Morpheus
- Othello
- johnny castle (really?)
- Fred
- Emilio Estevez (yes. this would have been a good move.)
- Mittenz
- Mr. Higgins
- Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins (clearly, time to put the pen down.)

In retrospect, "Hambone" or "burger" would probably have been the most appropriate names, but you have to accept the things you cannot change. Maybe when I have children, I'll play with a "Spin and Say" and name it after a farm animal.

Playing God

This is supposed to be a funny blog, but yesterday was basically the hardest day of my life, so bear with me as I pour my heart out to you in the best way i know how. This basically reads as a Sarah McLachlan commercial gone wrong, so I understand if you can't read it. I could barely write it myself.

I woke up this morning with my eyes welded shut, swollen and raw from the horrific things id seen the day before. It started off as a normal work day, i worked from home and around 11am i got up to get myself some cereal. I walked by the patio door (or doorwall, for my comrades from michigan) and noticed a stray grey kitty curled up in one of our patio chairs. We'd been meaning to take those downstairs for weeks and i silently cursed myself for not having been proactive before the snow hit.

He was moving a bit slow, and, bleeding heart that i am, i put out a plate of last night's marlin steak for him. He ate the entire plate, and that's when i noticed his eye was damaged and swollen shut. He had patches of fur missing and more scratches above his other eye.

I felt something inside me break and I realized that I had to do something. I couldn't just let him sit outside in the snow and cold to heal on his own. I feared he would run away and I wouldn't see him again. I rushed inside, got an old towel, wrapped him up in it and carried him to the garage. I put a little food and water for him. He immediately ran to a corner,  though I had set him up a bed, and I couldn't coax him out for anything.

K came downstairs with me, and we decided that we should make some phone calls. I contacted our local vet and asked what she thought I should do. She suggested calling shelters and seeing if we could get him in there, or to bring him in for a visit to have him checked out--at which point he would essentially be our cat, and we would take on responsibility for him.

We have 3 cats already, one has one eye and we're lucky the other two get along at all. K and I knew we couldn't take on a 4th, (truthfully, we barely get ours in for their shots on time, which I'm not proud to admit.) I started posting on facebook to see if anyone would take him, and calling shelters. Most of the shelters I called were full or had at least a 3 week waiting period before we could get him even submitted for approval to get in there. I didn't realize shelters were so full or had to be so choosing until now. And I will tell you, I'd hate to be the person at those shelters who has to make the decision on who to allow and who to turn away.

We called the vet back and made an appointment for later that afternoon. I at least wanted to get him checked out, then I figured we could keep him in the garage for a few days while we located a shelter that would take him. (We didn't know if he was sick, and we couldn't risk bringing him into the house to infect our other 3 kitties.)

We herded him into a cat carrier and managed to get him into the vet's office. I was shaking with nerves, I had barely eaten all day, and my stomach was in knots. I had no idea what was in store for us.

The doctor came in, a beautiful girl who couldn't have been more than 24 years old. She had kind, compassionate eyes, and she treated us with respect and handled the kitty with care. She pulled him out of the crate, and I doubled over in tears the moment I saw his face. It was worse than I had originally thought, we hadn't been able to get a good look at his face in the dark of the garage.

*Fair warning, this is graphic.*

His eye was punctured, and hanging out of its socket. His other eye was infected as well, though not as bad. He had patches of fur missing, and scars along the top of his head where it appeared he had gotten into a fight. My heart broke into a million pieces and I realized suddenly that we faced a more somber truth than we had thought. She softly examined his body and told us that they would have to remove his left eye. The vet's office offered to dip into it's stray fund and cover a large portion of the cost of the surgery for us, $400 of $500. The money wasn't an issue, I would gladly have paid the full $500 for him. But it was then that I realized that we would have a hard time getting him into a shelter like this, and I relived the life of our cat Gwennie, who ironically has the same eye missing and was stuck in a shelter for 4 years before K and his ex lovingly adopted her.

My chest tightened with the decision I was forced to make. Unable to control my emotions, even in front of the vet, I sobbed uncontrollably and said over and over "I don't want to do it. I can't make the choice." She left the room for K and I to consider our options. I considered having him have the surgery and taking him home until we could find another home for him, but I couldn't have him recover in the garage--he would need to be in a warm bed, with lots of blankets and constant care until he could get better. I couldn't imagine taking him home for the night and letting him suffer with this horrendous injury for that much longer while I attempted to call shelters to get him a home. On top of that, the doctor was going to perform the surgery the next morning and after that it would have to wait a week or more. I couldn't let him suffer for that much longer. The doctor suspected a respiratory illness and the possibility of feline leukemia. We wouldn't know until we had him tested, and we couldn't risk the lives of our 3 until we knew for sure. Ours would most likely harass him, and I couldn't stand to see that during the recovery process.

I never in my life thought I would be able to make the decision that I did yesterday, but with a strength I didn't know I had, I played God. With shaky hands and tears staining the paper, I signed the release to euthanize him. She offered to take him back where they would do it privately, but I insisted that I wanted to stay with him. After all, though we had been in each other's lives for less than a full day, I was the only person he was familiar with. The vet came in with the vet tech, both with compassionate eyes and soft hands, and K and I stroked and talked to the kitty the entire way through, holding hands behind K's back. I told him I was sorry he had to go through this and that I loved him. And I do love him, I will never forget his presence in my life, or the piece of me that his existence and death changed. I gave up a part of my innocence that day, but I couldn't help but hope that I prevented a slow death alone outside in the cold.

There comes a moment, when a living creature's fate is placed in your hands, and you are given the choice to let them live or die. Something snaps inside of you, and you are forever changed. You suddenly want someone, anyone to tell you what to do. What the right decision is, to absolve you of the burden to have to make the decision. But ultimately it is your choice, and with little time or knowledge, you have to make one of the hardest choices you'll ever have to make. You have to give voice to a creature that cannot talk, and follow your heart the best way you can. The only way you can, out of pure love and compassion. It changes you.

They injected him, and his body went limp, it looked like he was sleeping. And where I had felt mad panic and pain a few moments before, I suddenly felt peace. No more suffering for the little guy, he wouldn't have to endure the cold, fear and pain any longer.

It has hit me in waves over the last day and a half--heaving, uncontrollable sobs that only K holding onto me can stop. My face is unrecognizable, eyes puffy and swollen and my heart is broken into a million pieces. I don't pray often, but right now I'm praying I made the right decision.

Gift Bags and Werewolf Urine

Gwennie, in a less werewolf-like state.

Well kiddies, it has been a wonderful but chaotic week in the mitten state. We returned home yesterday, exhausted, mugged the kittehs and went to bed early after a brief rendezvous with Mulder and Scully (seriously, we're on season 7--are they EVER going to do it?)

I awoke around 1am to the sound of one of the cats rustling some paper, or a bag, or some other extremely loud shit. I reached over and pushed Gwennie off of the nightstand. Take your feline antics elsewhere, momma needs her beauty rest.

She jumped back up, and I pushed her off again. After a third noisy leap onto the nightstand and more annoying rustling, I reached over to punt her like Baxter.

I didn't have my glasses on, but I quickly realized she had gotten herself stuck in the handle of a paper gift bag and was trapped like a goose in a plastic pop holder.

I leaped out of bed, and tried to pull the bag over her head. No dice. She was WEDGED. I called for K to come assist me, grabbed some scissors and prepared to cut her free.

Now the thing about Gwennie is that she won't let you pick her up. Ever. She is a pirate with one eye (K rescued her from the shelter) and freaks the fuck out if you lift her off of the ground.

K picked her up like a dirty baby, I put my glasses on and grabbed the scissors. Suddenly, shit got very Twilight and Gwennie transformed into a werewolf. She started snarling, hissing, and BITING as K held her tightly. Tears poured down my face as I tried to secure the scissors under the bag handle.

A flurry of hissing, biting and crying ensued as tufts of fur flew all over the room. She also peed on the bed for good measure, JUST before I was able to cut her free. I stood shaking for a minute, then we both started laughing. We high fived at our awesome parenting and teamwork skills and thanked our lucky stars that this didn't happen while we were gone in the mitten state. Now excuse me while I go on a gift bag cutting rampage around the house and snip all the handles.

PS: She's totally fine this morning and urine free. I, however, am another story.

Bow Chicka Wow Wowww

Ahh, mating season. My cats are humping each other, the weather is warmer, and people are coming out of hibernation to sniff each other's butts in hopes of finding that special snuggle partner.

What is it about the snow melting that makes you want to run around the block in your birthday suit? It's like you've been holed in at home all winter, and you finally poke your head out of the cave to see that the 17 feet of snow is melting and there's actually grass under it.

I don't know what it is, but it sure affects us all. I don't even think I realize it until I get a little taste of that warmness and suddenly the mirage of daisy dukes and BBQs doesn't seem so far away.

Don't get me wrong, I really do love winter. But it just goes on a LITTLE too long out here in NY. Once March hits, I'm ready to stow the sweaters and bear my midriff like a teeny bopper. (Stop freaking out--I'm totally kidding. I save the leopard halter top for summer.) I feel my mood lift with the season change, and suddenly I realize I've been walking around in a daze for the past four months.

We're not quite there yet, Spring, but I'm anxiously awaiting your arrival. This hot and cold bipolar bullshit is for the birds.

My Cat Voice

My social skills have been severely eroded by working from home full time. In the past 2 years, I went from getting up every day and putting my work clothes on to being lucky if I change from stretchy pants to pajama pants at the end of the day.

Now don't get me wrong, there are lots of awesome things about it too. There's no commute. I don't have to drive in any kind of bad weather. I don't have to do my hair if I don't want to, which is awesome since it takes forEVER to dry this mop. (See post: Why I had a pixie cut in high school) It's also awesome because it allows me to feed my latest addiction: Gilmore Girls. I can watch it all day long if I want. And Maury. We'll save that closet addiction for a later post.

But I'll tell you what... it's pretty strange not having human contact all day. There's no water cooler antics, no guy from accounting bringing in doughnuts on Friday, nobody to chat with about the weekend's events. There's no cute work clothes, no birthday parties in the kitchen, no separation between work and home. My coworkers are cats. And frankly, I think I'm starting to forget how to talk to people.

See, I've got different voices.

1.) My Professional Voice. Used for speaking with coworkers (which I currently have none of), clients, and my boss. This includes using full sentences and proper grammar, no swear words or acronyms. Sarcasm is kept at a minimum to avoid confusion and/or judgment from my peers.
2.) My Friend Voice. Used for speaking with friends. Swear words, acronyms, heavy sarcasm...sometimes a friendly punch in the gut or a high five. Anything goes.
3.) My Cat Voice. Now this voice is secret, and used to and for the cats exclusively. Only the problem is, this voice has currently started leaking into instances in which only other voices are appropriate. I did my best to hide my cat voice from K for the first year or so of our relationship, saving my "WHO'S MOMMY'S BEEG BOY?" for Linus, only when we were alone. But now we all live together. And slowly, I have found my cat voice creeping in when K is around. I try not to scare him too much, but really it's inevitable, since this is the voice I use all day long when nobody else is here.

The cat voice creeps in sometimes when I'm on the phone with my boss, too. How do you sign off on the phone? I think I've forgotten how, since the last few times we've spoken, right before I hang up the phone, I go: "buh bye."

Buh bye? Reeeeal professional.

So I'm thinking I need some extra human contact STAT. Maybe going back to the gym will help. I can be that annoying girl on the treadmill, trying to chat up the lady next to me in my cat voice: "HAI STRANGER. WHOOOO'S MOMMY'S BEEG GIRL?"

The Poop Eye

For the past several weeks, I've been waking up feeling like I slept face down in a sand box. My eyes have been red, itchy, watery, and they burn even when I get in the shower. I've been consistently punishing the culprit--Gwen, our tiny feline matriarch who has made her nest atop my squishy down pillow.

We made a new rule for the big bed: no kitties on the pillows. They can sleep anywhere in the range from chest to feet, but nowhere north of there. And I've been pretty diligent in enforcing the new regulations. Each night, I awake at least twice, and though I hate to do it--I have to move Gwen in the middle of her furry slumber. She squaks, I apologize... it's a regular round table of nightly arguing.

Gradually, the pillow nesting wore down a bit, and though K's eyes have cleared up, mine continued to burn. I got so used to it that I stopped noticing. When I went to the mitten for Christmas, I stopped into my eye doctor to get a new prescription for my contacts. And that's when I found out... that I had the poop eye. Okay, it's not really poop eye, just a "cold" really, but that's what K is calling it.

It wasn't just allergies to the kitties; in fact, I may have been punishing Gwen for no reason, though I'm sure her sleeping on or near my face didn't help the situation. My doctor asked how long I've been dealing with it. I told him for quite some time, and that it was because my cat slept on my pillow a lot. He shook his head, telling me that it was quite something else, and prescribed two sets of eyedrops for my condition. Two sets? That sounds pretty serious.

So for the entire week I spent in the mitten, I had to pull out the old goggles. I was on a strict no contact lens diet. This means all Christmas photos were in my glasses, every time I saw old friends, I had to do it in my glasses, and I won't even mention trying to drive at night with these damn things.

Now, I'm back home and Gwen seems to have forgotten the rules. I had to relocate her twice last night, and my eyes are starting to burn again. I'm starting to think that she's sleeping with her butt right on my eyeballs. I'm going to give it a few days of reminding her of the rules, and (STILL) wearing these glasses... then we'll see how the poop eye develops.

Water Cooler Wednesday

I work from home full-time, so the most interaction I have with living beings on any given day is with my cats. Go ahead and judge, it's okay. Now, you might think that working from home is the best gig in the world. And I'll be honest with you, it does have its positive sides: (i.e: not having to commute, not having to drive in bad weather, being able to do some laundry on my lunch break, and being able to watch both the 11am and 5pm episodes of Gilmore Girls every day), but I do miss humans.

I like to think of the cats as my coworkers, and today we gathered around the water cooler (yes, they do have one) for the most fascinating event that has happened all week: ice cubes in the water dish. Now, as I briefly mentioned before, we actually have 4 cats in the house as of late since my sister and her boyfriend are staying with us. So that has spiced things up quite a bit with more cat fights, biting, some inappropriate mounting, and strange noises that I'm not sure I've ever heard come out of a cat before.

Never have I seen such a gathering as I did this morning around that water cooler. As the water filled the dish with water and surrounded the ice cubes, the cats sat around it and stared like it was a nest full of birds. One by one, the cubes started to crack and each time it was like fireworks went off. The cats scattered around the room, taking shelter under chairs and any other surrounding furniture. When the dish was finally full and the cubes floated noiselessly atop the water, it was the Amazing Race for who could get water first. You would think we never give them something to drink.

Sometimes I think back to my days in a real office and remember when the topics discussed at the water cooler were mainly Gucci shoes and Fashion Week, and I wonder which I like the most. The thing is, working from home does have its advantages, but I really miss the social interaction that the office environment provides. Mainly, not having to use my Mom voice every time someone climbs on the counter. I miss hearing about people's weekends, happy hours, and even the cigarette breaks outside the back door, though I wouldn't even take those now since I've quit. But I think if I did work in an office again, I would miss the crazy kitty antics all day. Though I might re-learn not to baby talk every person I come in contact with.