Wet Kitty

Poor poor Star Baby. She had a bad bad night last night. But I think it's worse than that. I think she's had a bad two days. I will explain, but as I'm always squeamish about these types of posts, I am going to use other words so that if you are squeamish, you can imagine that it's something else.

Saturday night we discovered a Horrible Object on the bedroom floor. Someone has been Thinking outside the Box, I thought and freaked out. But Greg, who got a closer look at the Horrible Object said that he didn't believe so. Since it had litter bits clinging to it, it must have been dropped there, not Thought there. Still gross! But better than someone deliberately using our room for a Thinking Box.

Sunday is a busy day for us, so we did not notice Star acting unusually, and this Monday I was back to the pain specialist for my back, which is doing great, whew! But I got a shot in my knee, which pretty much put me out of commission for the rest of the day, so again, I didn't notice anything unusual. But after the fact, I now remember that Star had been staying very low to the ground, not playing, not overly affectionate, kind of keeping to herself.

If you know Star, you know that this, in itself, isn't a huge clue that there's anything wrong. She has her anti-social moments, her times when she cares nothing at all for me. Especially on the weekends when her daddy, her favorite person in the world, is home. (Monday is part of our weekend as it's Greg's day off, he works Saturday.)

Monday night was Star's turn to sleep upstairs with the humans. But she got all freaky and hidey when it was time to go up. She does not like being picked up or carried, so we thought fine, if she doesn't want a turn, she can stay downstairs. But Greg wouldn't leave it at that and after a while, he went back down after her.

She was easier to get because she wasn't expecting it and was trying to snooze on the couch. It was when he was carrying her up that he noticed the smell. He brought her to me, apparently so I could share the aroma with him.. If I hadn't already been laying down with an ice pack on my knee, I would have fallen over.

Somehow, I said, I don't think that furball you felt on her back leg is a furball.. I think she has ..a Clingon. Considering the stench and  how it was completely encompassed in her fur, we figured it must be the other half of the Horrible Object from Saturday night. One thing was clear, that sucker had to get off of there right now!

I considered cutting it out, but thought I'd try getting it with some wet paper towels first. If that smell was bad just holding her... Well, lets just say that loud dry heaves are not conducive to keeping a cat calm while you're trying to work on her... This baby was going to have to have a bath!

So we already had a mad cat, a scared cat, now we were going to have a wet, mad, scared cat! It was just as awful as you can imagine. She screamed, I gaged, she clawed, I bled, she clawed again, Greg bled. Note to self, trim nails before baths... I made the mistake of thinking she'd be comforted when it was all over by holding her to my chest as I dried her. I bled more.

We finally got her to the bedroom on dry towel and she calmed down. No more water or grabby humans, just soft rubbing with another towel followed by tons of lick lick licking. Why does it make sense that licking, which makes fur wet, is how they dry themselves?

I'm happy to say that she was a very happy kitty after all of this. She was purry and cuddly and attention seeking. I checked her skin on the back of her leg, no sign that the extended stay of the Horrible Object caused any rash or damage, thank goodness.

I know I've mentioned Star's curly tummy fur before. But when she gets wet, all of her fur gets curly! Or wavy, same principle. I think it's just adorable, but I know she would prefer not to get all wet just to look that way.. But that didn't stop us from taking pictures!

I'm not happy, but I feel better.

That doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you right away either.

Here's a close up of her curly tail furs, isn't it adorable? If scraggly and spiked with wet..

Good luck getting a clear shot of my tail, it's tip is still twitching with annoyance!