Nobody Likes Cats

Another week comes to an end. We've had a bit of ups and downs this week, where the largest down has been Ada - one of our two cats - deciding to not come home. She took off early Tuesday morning when I let her out, which was odd because she's typically the one who's home in the mornings. Our other cat - Galileo - likes to get out early to hunt mice. Ada likes to sleep. Is this indicative of our society in general? Hrm.

Anyway, this morning was different. This time, she was pushing at the cat door even before I got down there. We have the kind that you can lock to different settings: "only out," "both in and out," "only in," and "locked." So at 7pm each night, we set it too "only in" and wait for the cats to come home if they aren't already. Tuesday morning, I set it to "in and out" and off she went. She didn't come home that night, which we didn't react much to since she's often out late. Of course, it was a bit weird that she took off so early and stayed out for so long, but we didn't think too much about it when we went to bed.

But then she wasn't home when we got up in the morning, which we did frown upon. It's happened before (twice) that she's been gone for more than a day, so we shrugged it off - but with a bit more worry, this time - and went to work. Came home, no Ada. Galileo sleeping in the couch. Odd.

Wednesday night passed and no girl cat. Now we started to worry for real, but I decided she probably just had one of her horny weeks. "She'll be home when she's hungrier than horny" I told Lori. She didn't necessarily buy it, because she's a natural worrier, but at least she nodded.

Thursday came and went, and still no sign of Ada. Now we started to worry even more. A few things were still in favor of her being OK and just out hoping to get laid, namely

1. that she was desperate to get out on Tuesday morning (suggesting that something was up, potentially her hormones) and
2. that no one had called and said that they had found a dead cat. She has a tattoo with an ID number in her left ear.

Admittedly, reason #2 isn't conclusive in any way since there's no guarantee that she would have been reported or brought in if she had been in, say, a car accident. But it at least increases the chance of her being okay a little bit since some non-zero percent of the time that she would have been in an accident, the person behind the wheel would have had the decency to take her to the vet.

Once you start thinking about accidents, the mind starts racing about everything else that could have gone wrong. There's house construction going on a little ways away from here. What if she had snuck into one of the houses when the door was open and the builders locked up and didn't notice that there was a cat in there? And so on.

[Visions of a cute, tiny starving cat. If that cat is just being horny, though, I'll be SOO pissed off.]

So Friday morning, still no sign of Ada. The last time she took off like this, she was gone for four days before coming home and binged on dry food (you'd be amazed how wildly such a small cat can feast on a meal). It hadn't been four days yet, but our optimism were dropping fast. Friday night, Lori went to bed early but I was up for a little while longer. I decided that I wanted to do something, so I told Lori I'd go for a bike ride around the neighborhood and see if I could find her. Admittedly a long shot, but I was awake and had nothing better to do. And a long shot is better than no shot.

I was out for maybe five minutes before I see a cat in front of me on the bike path. I slow down and get closer. It moved sort of like Ada, and was the right size, but alas, not her. I slumped a bit and continued my route, which I figured would take me about 15 minutes total. As I was closing the loop, I see another cat on a parking lot. I almost missed it, actually, but I saw movement in the corner of my eye. I get off my bike and move carefully towards the new cat. It was dark, and difficult to see, but as I got closer it was very clearly Ada.

And she was apparently happy to see me, because she perked up when she saw me and then sort of skipped over to me. So I took her home, woke Lori up, and...

[Well, let me make something clear. Ada has been spayed. That doesn't mean only that she's unable to get pregnant, it also means that she shouldn't have any ovaries left and therefore that she shouldn't get the wild hormones that drives her to run around the neighborhood for days on end looking for willing male cats.]

... and after sighing happily and being grateful that our beloved cat was okay, we decided that before that damn cat gets let out again, she's getting the REST of her ovaries and uterus removed! GODDAMMIT! So now she doesn't get let out which means that we're keeping our bedroom door closed out of fear that she'll retaliate this grave unjustice of not being let out by peeing in our bed. It's happened before.

So, to sum up:

Down: Ada running off.
Up: Ada coming home.

Down: Playing 9 tables of $100NL tables while drunk. Dropping four buy-ins.
Up: Playing 9 tables of $100NL tables the next day while sober and winning back the same amount I lost.

Down: Fear of Tommy Angelo accidentally happening upon this blog and seeing that I play the certifiably worst of my C-game (drunk and tired) for hours on end only a few days after praising his book.
Up: If he actually happens to read my blog, that'd be pretty cool. If he leaves me a comment and lets me know about it, I promise I won't play drunk for five hours again.

Down: Failing to attend a bachelor party for a good friend because of a misunderstanding and double booking.
Up: Hanging out with other friends and learning that they're expecting a baby! Big congratulations to L and S!

That about sums it up.