We went out of town for a couple of days, and when we came back, Miss Calico Meow Cat Baby Kitty was gone. Our neighbor across the street – a girl I want to hate for being so much cuter than myself and for having a cool job and a decorated, always-neat home and a super fashion-model sounding name but who I can’t hate at all because she’s so damn nice and cool – was coming over to feed her and play with her while we were gone.

Well, on Saturday night the kitten decided to try and follow the fashion model, and escaped through a hole in our fence out into the world. The chick didn’t realize that the kitten escaped; she was too busy running home to do a photoshoot, or to arrange for the Pottery Barn people to come take pictures of her house for their new catalog, or to socialize with other adults, or whatever it is that cool people do on Saturday nights.

We came home late Sunday evening and started looking for the cat. Nicolaus went to bed on the condition that we would DEFINITELY find his kitty the next day. I told him that she had probably gone to a cat party.

“But it’s not her birthday yet!”

“I know sweetie, but it’s probably another cat’s birthday so she went to that other cat’s party.”

“And do they have balloons?”

Yes, of course they have balloons. What, do you think I’m making this shit up here kid? Would I LIE about a cat party?? Why would I do that? It makes no sense. Now go to sleep.

Incidentally, I’m only a little embarrassed to confess that we actually have been planning a birthday party for the kitten, because Nicolaus decided that her birthday is coming up pretty soon and that we need to have a pink-themed party for her with pink balloons and a pink cake because her nose is pink so she will presheeate that. Hey, it’s a hundred degrees outside and I’m pregnant and I have almost no friends. What the hell else better do I have to do than to plan a birthday party for a kitten? We bought strawberry cake and pink frosting, and Nicolaus even made her a pink birthday card with cat stamps all over it. We’re just waiting for a day when my uncle’s girlfriend can bring her pink-wearing daughter over for the celebration.

Anyway by Monday morning there was no sign of her, and we were really getting worried. Why would someone run away so close to their birthday? We called the fashion model and the animal shelter, and Nicolaus and I started searching the neighborhood. We went door to door, and finally found someone who had heard something about the cat. He said that a lady who lives on this side of the street found our kitten Saturday night and was asking around about who it might belong to. He didn’t know where the lady lived, so I wrote a bunch of notes saying hey, if you’re the one who found our kitten please please call us, our little boy is very anxious to have her back. Nicolaus and I put the notes on all the doors on this side of the street, hoping that someone would call.

Late Monday night the woman called and left a message. The tone was really crappy and condescending, and the woman basically said well we knocked on your door but you didn’t answer, so we gave the kitten away. I’ll try to see if we can get her back for you. It’s hard to describe the tone of this message. It was as though she was certain that we didn’t answer the door because we were in here slaughtering kittens, and this one somehow managed to escape.

I called her back early Tuesday morning and left her a nice message thanking her for her help… but then on Tuesday night (are you flowcharting this out?) she called back and left another message saying well, sorry but the person I gave it to on Sunday gave it to someone ELSE and now it’d be too awkward to call them and ask for the kitten back. So, sorry, you can’t have your cat back, but if we need to help you find another cat to replace her we will.

Oh my God. No. No! You freak! Within twelve hours our cat changed hands three times, and now it’s too awkward? Like explaining to your neighbor’s two year old that you stole his kitten and gave it away isn’t awkward?

Very socially bizarre.

Now before you go all judgemental and only-heartless-monsters-keep-their-pets-outdoors-anyway on me, let me say that:
* This was essentially a feral cat that my mother in law rescued. She had never stepped foot indoors before coming to us, and seemed really happy outside. (The cat, wiseass. Though my mother in law being feral would explain a few things…)
* We live in a semi-rural suburb where the law allows pet cats to roam free so long as they are vaccinated
* This woman has three cats of her own who all wander the street with no collars on or anything
* We basically live in an 850 square foot area and there is nowhere to put a litter box that won’t make the entire house reek
* The smell of cat shit makes me barf
* Pregnant people aren’t supposed to handle cat litter at all
* The alternative was to take her to the shelter
* I’m pregnant
* And really more of a dog person
* So shove it.

We went down and talked to her in person because I wanted her to SEE the little boy who was crying every night because his kitty was gone – the little boy who had totally figured out that the cat party story was a load of crap – and we explained to her, very nicely, that no, we really need this specific cat back because our son knows the difference and also because WTF? You find a cat late Saturday night and give it away Sunday morning and it’s too bad? That’s our cat you nutbag!

Anyway, more petty suburbanite drama ensued and by Wednesday night we decided that if she seriously refused to get our damned pink-nosed kitten back, we were going to report her to the police for theft and become those crazy motherfuckers in the neighborhood who will press charges over little to nothing.

Thankfully it did not come to that. The woman’s son called yesterday morning, and he – unlike his grumpy Animal Rescue 911 mother – was really, really nice. He told me the full story of how he found the cat… she had crawled up into his truck! He thought someone had dumped her on their lawn figuring they would be able to keep her, and he doesn’t want his mother to become that kooky cat lady so he gave the cat to his girlfriend’s mom who gave the cat to some farm couple. He seemed to think it was weird that his mother wouldn’t at least call the people to see if they were willing to give her back to us.

Less than two hours later, Miss Calico was delivered to our door. The people she had ended up with didn’t even want her afterall; as it turned out they were just being nice and were very relieved when they heard that her home had been found. So I was able to wake Nicolaus up that morning by putting her on his bed. I wish I had a picture of the look on his face when he woke up and saw her. It was better than Christmas.

We made the son a nice little card and put $20 in there as a thank you. I was going to write “Dear Joel, Thank you so much for your kindness and caring and for helping us get Miss Calico back. We really appreciate all the trouble you went to. PS – Your mother is a crazy whore.” But I ran out of room, which Kevin thinks is for the best.

So now that we have her back, the drama is much more domestic. I’ve decided to try and make her into an indoor cat since she has no apparent fear of cars. My plan is to teach her how to use the dog door so she can go to the bathroom out in the backyard like Mouse does. Well, not exactly like Mouse does since he has to run all over the yard like an idiot for fifteen minutes before finding THE spot to poop in, but like Mouse does in the sense that he knows we’ll kill him if THE spot is inside the house.

Today was her first full day indoors, and I have to admit I’m impressed. Other than constantly terrorizing Mouse – who let’s face it, is an easy target – and grabbing our ankles in that annoying kitten way, oh and one incident involving my laptop keyboard, she did great. I’ve never trained a kitten or cat before so I keep applying dog logic as well as dog standards of success. The process is making me realize that dogs are all very sincerely retarded compared to cats. She only had one potty accident in 24 hours, and it seemed to bother her a lot that she couldn’t cover her poop with the kitchen linoleum. Do you have any IDEA how many accidents a puppy would have had in that amount of time? Well over four hundred thousand. She had one, and that’s having never been scolded or praised for anything to do with shitting before.

Tonight I went to the store and bought some cat litter and some disposable cheap baking pans to use as litter boxes overnight. That way instead of changing the litter, I’ll just throw the whole thing away in the morning. As soon as I put it down she ran over to it and started scratching around. For thirty seconds I basked in my own obvious natural cat-training gift. I taught her how to use a litter box just by thinking it!

But instead of going to the bathroom she was all Woooooo!!! This is AWESOME! A toy, a toy! She spent the next half hour playing with cat litter like it was the coolest thing ever, making a bunch of racket and causing me to rethink the whole cats are smart idea.

There you have it, our big adventure for the week. My life is full of chills and thrills! Next up! The story of how we got our new minivan!

We took a trip to Caddo lake. Which isn’t so much of a lake as it is a swamp, but the pictures on those Texas travel magazines have always intrigued Kevin, so my friend Nina and I decided that after ten years of hearing our respective boys say “We should really go there someday” maybe we might have to actually plan a trip if it was ever going to happen. This is why all the books recommend including at least one woman in every marriage… it’s nothing to do with sinfulness or procreation or going to hell or whatever. It’s a matter of getting things done. If you have all guys in a relationship, they’ll never take cool trips anywhere because that would involve calling a bunch of strangers with names like Lady and True Red on the phone and asking about prices and comparing advantages and disadvantages of various cottages to rent and making a little spreadsheet so you can come to a good decision.

The spreadsheet was Nina’s idea… I’m not making fun, but just to be clear it wouldn’t have ever occured to me to use a spreadsheet, not because I’m any less of a freak than she is but because I’m really more of a flowchart person. But in this instance really a spreadsheet worked much better. A flowchart would have been a little cumbersome.

So off we went, taking two seperate cars because even though we all love to bitch about gas prices the truth is that it isn’t all that bad and really the price of doritos is a lot more outrageous than the price of gas. Do you have any idea how cheap corn is? Paying 99 cents for a few ounces of baked cornmeal is just plain embarrassing.

We decided to divide ourselves up for optimal badmouthing: Husbands drove the Corolla together, Wives took the minivan with the two toddlers. That way the guys could spend their drive talking about how much they hate message boards, because Nina and I are both addicted to message boards and WOW do the guys think it’s a really stupid and annoying addiction. Meanwhile Nina and I could ride together alone and talk about how annoying message boards are and how much we hate them and how stupid and annoying people on message boards are, without the hassle of having to defend them to our husbands who so totally do not get it.

During the drive, I discovered something really neat. Normally whenever Nicolaus is in the car, he is talking. Nonstop. If he and I are alone, he talks to me and asks me questions. If Kevin and I are both with him, he makes it very difficult for the adults to converse because he must talk to us and ask us questions continuously. But! If there is another child in the car, Nicolaus talks to that child. He talked to Nina’s baby the entire way, imparting wisdom about pretzels and what’s inside of pretzels and other such important things. Meanwhile Nina’s baby listened attentively and babbled responses, which thrilled Nicolaus. A captive audience! Strapped to a seat beside him! For HOURS. I’ve mentioned that I love hearing Nicolaus talk and I adore having conversations with him. But wow it’s going to be fucking awesome when this new baby is born and can start taking some of the conversational pressure off of the people in the front seat.

Oh. My. God. Nicolaus has been talking loudly for a SOLID two hours. I mean continuously. Every second. About his plastic apaloosa horse.

I wish so much I had a cassette recorder handy so you could hear this… here’s a sample sentence. I’m going to type as fast as I can, whatever he says for a minute. Try reading it outloud in a strange, singsong toddler voice… Here goes!

This apaloosa horse is helping me clean up and this apaloosa horse is carrying a flashlight and the apaloosa horse wants to have some milk and he likes milk and he is going to sleep with me, so I told you he’s going to sleep with me in my bed, and he wants to look at the baby with this flashlight and apaloosa horses are wery good at cleaning UP and some apaloosa horses like to clean up and some apaloosa horses don’t and my favorite thing is to go out on the boat, at Caddo Lake we went back to the hotel and then we got back in the canoe and that was my favorite thing to do and on that canoe I took my hat off and then I put my hat back on and I told you and told you I was putting my hat back on to keep the sun out of my eyes and I went “Woohoo! A CANOE!” that’s what I said when we got that canoe, “Woohoo! A canoe!” And we need to go back to that hotel and next time the apaloosa horse can come with us and he’s black and bwown like Dale the horse and my apaloosa horse likes Dale because he doesn’t he doesn’t hurt that apaloosa horse because Dale makes him, my apaloosa horse, HAPPY. And I’m sitting down next to you with my apaloosa horse and we are hugging you and you can look at my apaloosa horse and I TOLD YOU AND TOLD YOU you can look at my apaloosa horse, but then you have to look at him for a second but then you have to give him back bucus I let you share my apaloosa horse and I thought you like horses. And daddy lets me use his flashlight sometimes. That’s what I ask him, I ask him Daddy can I use your blue flashlight? And sometimes he says yes and sometimes he says no and that’s what he says, and sometimes at easter I pop eggs open to see what’s inside and my apaloosa horse will like that. And the apaloosa horse really wants the baby to come out of your tummy. And I thought the baby in your tummy my brothersister likes apaloosa horses and my boy baby brothersister liked goats and little cats and I think that’s why that baby likes apaloosa horses and he will want to hold him. Does my baby sister like goats? I think he does. And I think he likes that fragile little horse and he will LOVE my apaloosa horse. And you have a horse up there on your shelf! And we are like the same we both have horses!

Okay, my fingers are tired. I’m putting him to bed. There is an off switch… if I start reading “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” by Beverly Cleary he falls into a silent trance. Although last night I had to stop and clarify that this is a book about a mouse riding a tiny motorcycle. NOT a book about a giant mouse riding a regular sized motorcycle. Very crucial to the storyline.

A couple of hours after seeing Daddy’s electric shaver in the bathroom cabinet.

“Mama, did you cut all the hair off your face?”

“No, ladies don’t have to do that. Hair only grows on men’s faces. Ladies don’t have hair on their faces because it doesn’t grow there for them, so they don’t have to cut it. Isn’t that weird?”

“Yeah.”

Okay, so it was a little lie. But I didn’t cut all the hair off my face. I waxed it.

A few more from the swamp. Sorry for missing so many days the last couple of weeks. I have a doctor’s note I swear.

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