Alecto's Ophelia

On being catless

Catless is just weird, weird, weird. I’ve had a cat since I was four years old. There may have been a month or two after I left home before I got another but I’ve always had at least one. My daughter, all her life.

 

Now. No cats, no cats nowhere. We haven’t even removed the litter box yet even though it’s perfectly clean because before she went there was nothing going in and nothing coming out.

 

We don’t even know where she is. That’s the hard part. No smell, no sign, chance she slipped outside but hard to say. We know we have to tear the house up sooner rather than later but there’s been so much going on we’re in avoidance.

 

We talked about getting another but now is not the time. Daughter just wants to know it will happen before she goes to college. She has one more year of high school, I suspect we’ll have another rescue kitty by then.

 

Just not now. Now we are catless. Lets see how that feels for a bit.

On Patience and the things we can learn from ourselves and animals

My mother says, 'wait for it... wait for it...' You know she's speaking in the context of training horses but she applies it directly to me as well and I'm grateful for that (who doesn't want to be trained with the patience and love with which horses should be worked with?).

Reminds me of my dog. The big one, not the little one. The little one waits for nothing and throws himself about in a terrible froth that only he enjoys. My big dog has been patient since he was just a few weeks old (according to his human mom). He waits, watches and then pounces sometimes. Or he waits, watches, thinks about it and maybe walks away, or lays down to forget about it or maybe wait some more. My favorite is feeding time. He knows he's hungry. He doesn't know exactly when he will eat but he knows he will (big guy has complete faith in me, it's a beautiful thing). When I pick up his water bowl first and then put it back he sits patiently and waits because even if he is thirsty at the moment, that's not the cheese he's looking for. When I pick up his food bowl he looks at me, still sitting, and that is all. When I leave the room to go to the feed bin his eyes don't even follow me. He sits waiting. When I come back with food in the bowl and run the water until it is warm (warm water in the food tends to prevent bloat and we don't want that) he sits very still and watches. And when I put the bowl down in it's place he does not rush the bowl or push me aside (although he sure could!). He waits until I step away and then he goes right to it. With dignity.

When Simon was just a baby (not that he's not still a baby, he's just past 4 months now) we kept him on a six foot leash at all times unless he was in the kitchen with us (gated) or in his pen or a crate. We allowed him no opportunity for trouble and an awful lot of imprinting time. And he only fought the leash once, by the way, and that was the first time outside. He did not want to go and so I waited until he was sure he wouldn't be forced and by his choice he came to me and then came with me.

In the morning when it was the in between time from the early morning outing with husband and then the final release from the crate by me I insisted that he not pull at the leash and that he wait for me at every step. I guided him outside and to where I wanted him to potty and then walked around with him until he said he was done (he says he's done by playing with little dog). When we went back into the house and little dog galloped up the stairs I stopped, waited and then we went up those stairs one calm step at a time. We stopped on the landing and then went up the next set up steps in the same manner.

Recently Simon is off the leash for the most part, even outside (although as soon as he hits adolescence we'll be going right back to the leash and the next stage of his training). And the beautiful thing about Simon is that he waits for me when I release him from the crate regardless of the little dog's leaping about. And when I open the door to outside he walks patiently by my side to the potty choice that is still my decision. And when we come in the door he waits for me at the stairs and the landing and we go side by side.

When he needs to go out he sits at the top of the stairs and waits. Sometimes it's hard to tell if he's just laying there or really needs to go out. If we fail to understand him he goes down to the landing by the front door and waits there. If we fail to come right away he starts to dribble a bit but never just lets it go.

Harmony and Balance through mutual understanding, love and gentleness. And of course, paying attention.

These days I am practicing patience in ways that nearly tear my guts apart sometimes. And I wonder, are his guts periodically torn apart when he waits for me? I must try to remember this. And regardless of how I feel I can choose how I react and like Simon, I can stop, wait, think about it and then maybe just lay down and let it go. Or watch some more. Or try something else. But never, never, never cause harm in the need. Just a dribble here and there and if need be find another way.

But you know what else I think? I think that if I was a less than loving momma or less observant, or less caring or even cruel that he would not be the dog he is today. And if I am not a loving person and observant and caring with myself and others then I too will fail to be the person I want to be.

Happy New Year to all and what I want you to know is that You (We) are the miracle.

A Love Story - part 4

I'm going to start this with a statement about this blog which is about to turn 2 years old in a couple of days. This space started out as a way for me to journal the things in my life. You know, day to day events that were noteworthy to me. This rapidly turned into a life blog (which it probably was in the first place) and the entries became raw, painful, sometimes joyous but mostly incredibly emotionally honest. And then some rather extreme events occurred (OK, a lot of extreme events occurred but toward the end of 2007 they got REALLY hairy) and the focused turned away from the rawness of how I experience my life to a more prosaic detailing of what I was doing. There is a big difference between discussing the 'being' and documenting the 'doing'.

Well, we just came full circle and we're back to what most people call TMI and I'm not even going to apologize for that, this is my blog and it's for me. So here I am.

And yes, love's got everything to do with it.

I have another blog, some of you know where it is and you are welcome to go there otherwise I'm not going to advertise it because it is a journal, sometimes moment by moment of what I'm experiencing right this second and I've got to write it down somewhere just to keep myself focused and aware.

So the love story today is about emotional exhaustion. I am completely exhausted. I don't eat much, I don't sleep much and I drive my body to the brink in order to feed on those endorphins whenever possible. I swill coffee at an alarming rate and smoke like a chimney (hey, don't judge it, nicotine is a very powerful drug and I have no intention of keeping it) and at night I drink wine in front of my computer writing in my journal and praying for contact. And I do get contact and lately it's been very nice and I am grateful for whatever he can give me. A simple 'I love you' or 'I love you too' is enough to reduce me to tears and they aren't the bad kind.

I also want to talk about the tube and the cheese because of a comment MC left and my response to that comment. Unfortunately somebody took this metaphor and wrote a book called Who Moved My Cheese and the metaphor became trite and useless (and if you found it useful, I apologize but the version of the exercise (and it's an exercise, not a book) is a very powerful experience.

Rats are smarter than people:

The Rat
Imagine there are five tubes and at the end of tube five is a piece of cheese. The rat knows where the cheese is and every day he goes and gets it until one day the cheese isn't there. The rats sniffs around to see if he's missing something and then heads right back out of the tube. He goes into tube 4 and then 3 and then 2 and then 1 and there is the cheese. He eats it and he's happy. Each day the cheese moves and each day the rat goes and finds it wasting no time wondering why is fucking cheese keeps moving.

The Man (apologies to men, this could equally be a woman but that's not how the story was told to me)
Imagine there are five tubes and at the end of tube five is the mans significant other, committed partner, what have you. Each day on the way to tube five, the man has a look down tubes 1 through 4 just to have a look at the view and see if there's anything better down there. This causes conflict in the relationship and trust becomes a problem.

The Woman (could be a man too but in my case, it's me)
Imagine there are five tubes and at the end of tube five is a man. Each day on the way to tube five the woman rushes right to the tube and throws her arms around the man, or pisses him off, or asks too much or refuses to be responsible or just doesn't keep up with who and what he is or needs. One day the man walks out of the tube. The woman says, no! you can't do this, this is not what we do in a committed relationship! We stay and we work it out. But no, he says, I must go and he goes saying that he will return in a few short days. The woman waits, the days pass and he does not return. There is very little communication. What she knows comes from a third party. Initially the woman fights it tooth and nail. She cries all day, cannot leave the house, picks up smoking again but what she does do, which is unprecedented for her, is call a friend. After that she calls another friend and then another letting them all into her vulnerability and telling her story from as responsible a place as possible (no victim, it's his fault shit). And then she turns outward and focuses on the man. First up. He is not in tube 5. Letting go of that is so hard she bangs her head (metaphorically) against her own delusions until she realizes he's another tube. He hasn't said he doesn't love her, he hasn't said he won't come home, he's only said he can't come home just yet.

The rat goes tube to tube until he finds the cheese. The woman stews in it feeling abandoned and lost until she realizes he's just in another tube. Now, she can go get him, she can go find him, she can join him in the cube or they can go to a new tube together. What cannot, or should not do, is go back to tube five. That didn't work so well.

And that is the story of the rat, the cheese, the tubes and the people.

And I'm so damn tired I have lost the ability to resist. Can we have a Hallelujah chorus please.

A Love Story - Part 3

Love's got everything to do with it.

I recently made a statement (borrowed shamelessly from Grey's Anatomy) that I lived every day these days at an 8. And that was the truth. What I am discovering is that there are 8s and then there are 8s. The second does not negate the first, it's just of an entire other flavor.

To clarify, my original 8 centered around overwhelm, fear and a probable need to have my freaking meds adjusted as well as some unresolved issues and my stubborn refusal to let anything go until I'd reconciled it to something I could understand and live with. What that really boiled down to was my base line belief that I would be hurt no matter what. I recall telling my husband that the 8 didn't necessarily have a lot to do with him directly, it just was what it was. That's hard to hear if you think you're supposed to do something about it and the truth is nobody can do that nor should they be expected to.

Another flavor of pain at an 8 is the physical kind. Turns out I'm really good at dealing with that. I can sink right into myself and either be with it or ride the waves. I am not a screamer when it comes to physical pain. Unfortunately I tend to seriously under report and that's nearly gotten me dead once or twice.

The third flavor of pain is is the pain of grief. As it turns out, for me at least, this is not a suicidal fear or pain at all. It's purely functional, as in how do I get up, work out (because I think those endorphins are the one thing that kicks me off with a fighting chance), shower, shave (because that's normalcy, right?), dress, apply make up, put in my contacts if I think I can keep the tears to a minimum and my glasses if I believe I cannot.

There are moments when I believe I simply cannot bear it one second longer and will do something rash. Not rash as in hurt myself, that need seems to be gone right out the window (maybe it's self preservation or a final surrender, I'm betting it's surrender and THAT is a very reassuring thought). But rash in terms of causing undo pain or harm to others. Of believing I cannot be functional when in fact I know that is not true. Not for me, it isn't my way.

An event is just that. An event. We make of it what we will. We can choose to be mired or we can choose to let it wash over us leaving us engulphed in the truth of it all. This is not a drowning by any means. It's an acceptance. The more I fight it the worse it gets and the harder it is to move through it.

I think of child birth. I've had three children with large gaps in between (five and nine years). With each labor I learned to let go and wash through the waves sometimes chewing the sheets and sometimes just panting. Sometimes there were tears but never any outright crying and certainly no screaming. At the point of transition when the body called mine becomes something else entirely and I have no control there is only one thing to do - push through it. That's a scary thing because the ring of fire we all hear about is exactly that and the only way through is through.

I think of love that way these days. And by love I don't mean the romantic flowers and puppy dog love. I mean the enduring commitment that has us move mountains. I think that in the letting go of the me creates the space for something infinitely greater and quite honestly, precious beyond belief.

So here is an event. I have it. I am in it and the only way to be is just 'is'.

Try that sometime. I am.

A Love Story - Part 2

And yes, loves got everything to do with it.

Commitment is Binary.

kind of like being pregnant, you either are committed or you are not.There are no conditions attached to commitment. And while we're on the subject there is no such thing as 110% committed. That's just not feasible; 100% is the whole thing and anything else is imaginary hyperbole generally designed to disguise a lack of commitment. Rah rah and all that.

Love is not enough you say? Then maybe we need to have a look at what love means. And I'm not talking the romantic kind either although most relationships certainly start out that way. I'm talking about the kind of love that will do the hard things, move the mountains and live through what might appear to be unendurable pain. Love that sees the bottomness in all of us and is the very foundation for the word commitment.

And I'll tell you something scary too; it doesn't necessarily take two to tango. One voice can be enough. Not the easiest approach but possible in a world where we bandy about the word impossible or inconceivable all too freely and we wind up in a consumer top loaded society that chews through people as fast as it chews up what credit can buy.

I walked away from two marriages before I finally got hit upside the head with what commitment really means and well, what love is and what it is not. We live in a me oriented world where if I'm not happy then I have to do something about it or you have to do something about it and it's just not OK. We walk away from our families tearing our children and communities (not to mention properties and anything else with inherent value) asunder. We lose our support structures when we turn our backs and walk away because it's just too hard or I'm not getting what I want or I don't want to give up who me is.

My mother, in her infinite love for me, asked if I really wanted this because she didn't want to see me give up who I am for the sake of a relationship that may not be giving me what I believe I must have. I'm pretty sure by the time I was done speaking she had a good idea where I was headed and it wasn't out of the marriage by any means.

I used to wonder how the hell people stayed married. In some cases maybe it's pure compatibility and there's just magic or no expectation of magic. In some cases maybe it's because there's no viable alternative. And as one dear friend said to me of her marriage of at least 35 years, 'it's inertia, my dear, it gets you through the tough spots.'

Which brings us back to the culture of me. Where in God's name do any of us get off buying that happily ever after tale? Buggers to the authors of the Victorian fairy tales - they just don't cut the mustard no matter how sweat and desirable they may seem.

And life just keeps right on lifing. If it was easy and painless it would be boring as sin and we'd all put our heads in the proverbial oven out of sheer despair.

 

 

And these pretty rings we love to put on our fingers have come to represent something far less than the original hand fasting they eventually replaced (in the Victorian era I might add).

 

I am not giving up who I am. I am making some major modifications because who I am being just isn't working for this relationship and I'm here to tell you that the relationship comes first.

Because I say so and that's a pretty strong statement coming from me.

Oh yeah, and one other thing, we don't always know how we're going to get from point A to point Z but that doesn't mean we can't or won't.

 

 

A Love Story - part 1

And yes, love's got everything to do with it.

Once upon a time a hard assed warrior of the female persuasion put on the facsimile of a dress, slung her broad sword over her shoulder, disguised her beaver skin medicine bag as some sort of purse like thing and went looking for love. Love, it turned out, was everywhere. However, there is a shortage of love appropriate for a hard assed warrior no matter what those boys might tell ya. It’s the truth.

 

To make a very long and mostly painful story short, the hard ass warrior chewed her way through one control freak prince and one emotionally underdeveloped frog who ended up so aghast at the entire thing he found himself just as well away from it all (hopped back in the pond and bloody well stayed there too). Not that there wasn’t pain, mind you, there were buckets of it all around.

And then one day this hard assed warrior happened to be doing battle along side a warrior of the male persuasion and realized she loved him. Hard. You know the way you do when it’s more than just the breath knocked from your middle; there’s some central core that says YES well beyond the confines of lust. She sat on this for quite awhile, just kind of having it. In the mean time they were close; they fought side by side and had a great deal of mutual respect. The belief of trust was implicit and belief is everything, isn’t it?

 

Eventually she walked right up to the warrior and she told him, in plain sight of anyone caring to listen and said “I am completely smitten with you and I just want you to know that.” He didn’t run screaming. Good sign, she thought, but it didn’t occur to her to do a damn thing about it other than having made the statement.

 

Battles waged, losses occurred both personal and otherwise and the two found themselves in a distant country, out of context but surrounded by the familiar all the same. She declared her love again and this time he returned a similar statement. It was a difficult four days of push me pull me maybe I will oh I can’t oh I can oh I love you want you need you but cannot find my way past all this fear and commitment and the hard assed warrior female never backed down from a fight a day in her life. You see, things need a resolution or she’ll just about lose her mind.

 

She had to settle with no resolution but you see she loved the guy and decided to ride out the storm for better or worse. It was a rough ride. She decided he was worth it. And you know, he is.

 

The long and short of it was the ride got rough and stayed that way for close to two years for one reason or another. And with the possible exception of a few unmentionable moments they crawled inside each other and took root.

 

And here is where we come to the happily ever after part. You know, where all things are conquered and they ride off into the sunset and we never hear jack shit about it again, right? Heh.

 

The truth is (and I just KNOW a good number of you can back me up on this) the commitment to a life partner is exactly that. A commitment. It’s not negotiable. Lots of things are negotiable, but not that. It’s that whole for better or for worse thing that gives us what it takes to pass over those often deadly holes. And as for the female of this story, that was a tough pill to swallow because she gives no quarter, takes no prisoners and puts up with just about nuthin.

 

And because of that she broke the back of the marriage and sits in the wreckage holding her own bleeding heart in her hands. Just kind of looking at it like it might up and say something useful.

 

And it turns out the heart had plenty to say. It said give yourself back to the winds and the water of what is for alway and accept that this is where your marriage is today and that you can bring it back to some other place, if you can bend and wait and not have to fight every battle to the bitter end.

 

And from that place, broad sword slung for other things and medicine bag no longer disguised she moves forward into the light of day.

 

And lastly she might not have Jeffrey but she sure does have Ann. And Momma too.

 

Walking on glass, toe heel, toe, heel all the way across the plains

 

This Christmas my dad showed up with two plastic storage bins from my Aunt Ann with whom I had a conversation some years ago about some family china that I didn't feel I had any right to as the only girl once removed and that surely one of her boys would have gotten married and taken it with him.

Apparently not. Anyway, I think this because my paternal grandmother once compelled me to return an heirloom Christmas ornament to my father because 'our things pass down through the family name' and it didn't much impress her that I'd kept the family name. And that doesn't make a bucket of sense because my Aunt sure didn't keep the family name but I never could keep this stuff straight.

Now the truth of the matter is that I don't think my aunt got her hands on this stuff until her mother was past ninety but I could be wrong about that too (I find myself wrong about many things these days). It is also possible that Grandma Bess finally relented given the circumstances. In any event, here it is.

My mother once had possession of he soup tureen which is a grand affair with a slot for a very ornate ladle which I returned to my father some twenty odd years ago at somebody's request. He's said I can have that as well.

The thing about the china is it's absolutely not my style in the least. It's fussy, ornate, very old and quite breakable. It cannot go anywhere near a dishwasher, microwave or child under the age of 41. And yet here it is in my household, used immediately to serve Christmas dinner and I am smitten and awed. I wanted it the way I want all things old and family because I'm wired that way. I like to hold the ghosts of my ancestors in my hands and feel what's left they might have to say to me. I just wasn't prepared to instantly love them in a whole other way the moment they came out of their wrappings and into my hands.

They belonged to my Great, Great Grandmother Beyer who came with her husband from Germany penniless sometime before the turn of the century, I believe. My Great Great Grandfather Beyer was a barber with a space at the Waldorf Astoria and my Great Great Grandmother Beyer was a dressmaker. They had one child who was my Grandmother Bess's mother and her name was Lilly and that's about all I've got to say at this writing other than I'm stunned the china made it past Lilly and into Bess's hands in the first place.

So Great Great Grandfather Beyer the Barber had some wealthy clients with some tasty little insider tips and the Beyers lives changed just a bit. And if you think about the probable timing, that would have been a miracle in and of itself. This china would have been purchased after the fact and given the markings on the bottom - Theodore Haviland Limoges France in red with no underscore - these pieces are circa 1903 - 1925. Just before the market crashed.

And here it sits today on my dining room table. A thing to be cherished not for it's inherent value (although apparently I can still buy and sell it and I lean toward the buy, not the sell for heaven's sake) but for the fact of it's continuity. A piece of beauty and grace that is meaningful only in talisman of it's being.

Like I said, I am in awe of it's very presence in my home.

Now all I have to do is manage not to break it which brings us to the segue.

Covered vegetable dish sits on a massive glass table reflecting the dish itself and the contents of the room. Something broke this weekend or broke a year or two years ago or who the hell knows but it broke and I found out for sure last night and I don't know quite how bad but there's a reflection of it in the table. Cletus slept with me last night and I had the good fortune to have a friend, a real honest to god friend to call at six in the morning and say I need you, please come now. OK, I was better than that. I sent the text at 6 and the Facebook message at a more reasonable hour of 9ish and she came right over, adjusted my meds a bit, gave me half a pack of cigs (don't worry, this is absolutely medicinal and no more addictive than the Klonopin I seem to require at the moment and its working which is the good news).

I'm debating sleeping with the dogs tonight. I don't know if that will help or make it worse. I guess I'm just going to deal with it one small moment at a time.

Solstice.

 

I just finished a twelve hour tour of duty in my kitchen which came on top of eight hours yesterday. This is Solstice weekend which means every cookie, tomato sauce, jelly, curd, chocolate and loaf of bread, cooked, baked, canned and packaged for the Solstice occurred in the last 36 hours. I did sleep, I watched a movie too. It was I am Legend and it was good (and I LOVE Omega Man, so there).

In the mean time a Christmas tree was acquired and lights and pretty things were hung and the stockings were located and the menorah and the candles and the latkes, sour cream and apple sauce from the last of the wrapped September apples. The Solstice and Hanukkah coincide this year, which is very, very cool.

Last year we lost Sparky on or about the Solstice and it about blew me apart tonight. I wonder how the hell his family keeps breathing sometimes because half the time I feel like I got the wind knocked right out of me and I really just want to know how long it takes to get over someone?

I make things at Solstice. You can call it whatever holiday you want, it's Solstice timewise. I don't like to buy things unless it's something I know you need and can't buy yourself otherwise I'm going to make something and if you receive something I made it's because I give a rat's ass about you.

That's lost on most people these days. A cookie's a cookie, right?

About ten years ago I made my first batch of 1,000 cookies (or whatever), packaged them up and delivered them in person. They were received or not received as a matter of course until I got to Sparky and you know, Sparky got that half assed batch you give somebody you sort of give a shit about but maybe don't know so well. So anyway, Sparky comes all the way over from building one to building two and tells me this story about making stuff for people and how much it matters and all that and how this stupid box of cookies just about blew him away.

And that story he told just about blew me away. Most of the time, really, seriously MOST of the time, we have no real idea that we matter. Not a freaking clue.

I haven't missed a Solstice since.

I love you, Sparky and it hurts a lot still. I guess the way it's meant to hurt.

On cats and kittens and other small things

I have had a cat since I was four years old. Always, at least one cat. My first cat was a calico called Duchess and from Duchess I learned where babies come from first hand (in general mammal terms) and how much small things matter and how easy it is to give it all away.

Once when my mother was showing a litter of puppies to a prospective buyer I burst into the house yelling "Mommy! Mommy! Duchess is making babies in the front yard!"

And she was. I don't know what happened to the buyer but my mother was mortified.

Later in the summer when those kittens were old enough to be played with but maybe not quite so old as to leave their mother entirely I put them in my little red wagon and managed to give one of them away. I think what really happened was a neighbor walked by our yard and asked for a kitten and I said yes. When I told my mother she suggested I might find homes for all of them.

I took my little red wagon around the neighborhood and knocked on doors until every last one of those kittens had homes. The enormity of what I'd done didn't land until I went home with the empty red wagon and proudly told my mother what I'd done.

She cried. I did too.

Waiting

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room with a cat carrier to my right, door right up against my right thigh because it's the only thing keeping my cat from completely losing her shit. Yep, here we go about a cat again.

This cat turned four in October and belonged to my husband's brother Frank who died horribly and alone in his bathroom at home just two years and ten months ago. The last time anybody talked to Frank was Valentine's Day, 2006 and if you want to read about it go here because it's a pretty powerful post and everybody's names are used so please tread with care (I won't edit this post for any reason). Anyway, Nomans found Frank on March 4 and it was as awful as you might expect. It took some time to sort everything out but the net result was a disaster of an apartment full of hazmat that needed to be emptied, the kind of hazmat that happens with a particular flavor of mental illness, and two cats needing homes. Two cats that spent at least two weeks locked up with a body. I'll leave you to work that out on your own.

Shortly after the funeral (and as Jews we should have done this immediately but for what should be obvious reasons, could not) my husband had to go to Switzerland for a week and I, suddenly jobless at that point, chose to stay home. Staying home was the wrong thing to do but half way through the week I put my girls in the car and drove nearly three hours South to bring home what amounted to two feral cats, not much past kitten hood.

One cat made it and one cat did not. By 'did not' I mean he failed to assimilate into the household in any way and had to be removed. His litter mate, named Wicious (because she's 'wicious and fawocious') eventually settled in and did just fine.

A few weeks ago, just as we were becoming painfully aware that we really were in the end game with Chuck, Homer the Dog started behaving badly. He pooped in our bathroom, peed on the couch, peed on our bed and it just went on and on. We assumed Homer (we were right about the bathroom) because it was nearly odorless and Simon can't get up on the furniture by himself to save his life (he just eats it instead). We forgave Homer because he's had a lot to deal with (like a sixty pound baby) and crated him to avoid further issue for the time being. And then there was another odorless puddle on the bed and another after that. You see, she tried the foot of the bed and that didn't work. Then she tried my side and I still didn't pay attention. And then she tried Noman's side when she was accidentally locked in our room and then we knew our last kitty was pretty sick.

And then we noticed that she was always hungry but stopped eating after a mouthful or two and walked away crying. And then we could pick her up and hold her like a baby and she didn't purr and she didn't struggle, she just laid there all snugged up and motionless.

I didn't waste time. I called the vet today, gave symptoms and was told to come in. So the appointment is at 3 and I didn't want to risk not being able to locate or catch her (not like she's moving very fast but she is wicious and fawocious and wiley too. And I'm sitting on this couch with the carrier right against my leg and she's gone to sleep. If I get up and moves she cries like the world might end.

I don't know how this is going to turn out but it can't be good. I only know we love this cat and I will gladly pay the price of fear and pain and possible loneliness to have the right to love and be loved back by this cat. (and the dogs are in the kitchen eating the table legs and I'll probably get over it).