Nefreet is doing better. She doesn't seem to be in pain, at least. I'm giving her liquid anti-biotics. She managed to spit out my first attempt, but I got it into her on the second try.

As usual, I let Nefreet outside first thing this morning, and a short time later she came back in. This time, she came in yowling with pain, walking oddly, stopping to lick madly at her nether regions and yowl some more. Last time she exhibited this behavior was when she somehow managed to get a foxtail (a spear-like seed) up her vagina.

Barely awake and without the benefit of breakfast, I alerted the vet's office, put Nefreet in the carrier (she yowled in pain), and made the 25 minute drive to my vet's. This isn't a cruise in the park either. It's driving on a mountain highway with a high mortality rate and dangerous mountain pass that requires careful attention. Then I have to drive through town and all the way to the far northern outskirts to get to my vet.

Yes, there is a closer vet. There's one five minutes away from me. However, this was the vet to whom I took Nefreet to be spayed and she came back totally psychotic and has never been normal since. That was ten years ago and I have never gone back to that vet. I never will, unless it's such an emergency that my cat wouldn't make it for another 25 minutes.

Anyway, dropped off Nefreet. I had to exert superhuman will power not to bring home two completely gorgeous and adorable kittens that were up for adoption. Twin boys with marbled tabby markings but in such subtle tones of gray you could barely make them out. They'd been named Click and Clack (after the brothers who do The Car Show on NPR). They were bounding and bouncing and affectionate and climbing the cage like little monkeys. Only my solemn vow to Randy kept me in check.

I went back into town for errands in the afternoon and picked Nefreet up around 5. It wasn't a foreign object; she has a severe bladder infection. She now also has a very bad rep. She growled, hissed, spit, and fought with everybody that tried to handle her. As one tech joked, "She's a tortie. It's in her genes." They've labelled her "fractious" on her chart. I suggested they just put "psychotic".

Granted, she was clearly in pain, so she had a small excuse. But it was so bad, she even mauled my catsitter who happens to work at the vet's. My catsitter has been taking care of Nefreet for ten years. When I came in, she showed me the bleeding scratches and puncture wounds on her hands and arm. That was from putting Nefreet back into the carrier to come home. "You just wait until next time I babysit you," she warned Psycho-Kitty.

Lucky me, I only have to give Nefreet anti-biotics for the next week or so. That will be fun. She didn't utter a peep on the way home, but she has been wandering around the house yowling about the pain. I hope the drugs give her some relief soon.

One of my blasted moggies killed a bird. I found the remains outside the office. It has blue feathers, so it was either a bluebird or a young bluejay.

Tribble was sleeping to the left of my keyboard, the spot that Owl likes to occupy. Owl occupies a lot of spot, so there wasn't room for two cats. Undaunted, Owl more or less sat on Tribble's head. Poor Tribble came up for air looking confused with a big dark Siamese tail wrapped around his neck. He gave up the spot.

Tribble is not always the victim, however. This morning, I was 10 seconds too late in rushing onto the deck where I saw Tribble about to pounce on Nefreet. He pounced, they screeched and rolled around and knocked things over. I tried to break it up. Tribble chased Nefreet under the car. I ran for the hose and turned it on, ready to douse them, but Tribble got wise and took off.++

The above two symbols were contributed by Puck, who is determined to sleep on the edge of the keyboard. I keep moving his head, he keeps putting it back. sigh.... ++++++-------------

Owl came up with an inventive way to avoid taking his pill last night. He threw up. The last thing I felt like doing was shoving a pill down his throat right after he's thrown up, so he got out of it. Sneaky cat.

Unicom caught another gopher, the good boy. Randy was worrying because Uni slept all day, not budging from one spot. But come late afternoon, the mighty Gopher Slayer went forth and slew.

I picked up the Rubbermaid container of dry cat food in the kitchen last night and found a lovely, tiny lizard curled up under it. I haven't seen one like this before -- a pale back with no markings and a very dark underside. The little guy must have been in shock because he easily let me grab him. He tickled my hand as I carried him outside and set him loose in a spider-plant in a planter on the patio. Wow, quite a batch of "p's" there. He was still there this afternoon, looking active and happy. All he has to do is avoid Nefreet's lizard-lust or not be crushed when Puck decides to nap on the planter (one of his favored spots).

Moggy tongue-twister: Puck purring in potted plant on patio.

The Goth Princess aka Diva looked quite fetching this morning with her entire face and muzzle veiled with gauzy spiderwebs. Why she likes to stick her face into places full of spiderwebs is beyond me.

For some reason, the other cats love to play with Owl's tail. This happens when he's lying on my desk. I'll grant that he has a large and powerful tail, but it holds special fascination for Puck, Tosca, even Tribble, who go after it like a rampant snake.

The long-suffering Owl generally endures this first with aggrieved patience, then small aggrieved noises. The aggrieved noises are rather pathetic and are therefore completely ignored. His noises become more aggrieved BUT HE DOESN'T MOVE. That's the hysterical part. Only once or twice has he finally gotten so totally fed up that he's deigned to move rather than simply lie there and complain about it.

Diva decided she wasn't going to come in after lunch with the rest of the moggies. She was hiding out under my old Subaru where I can't reach her. I called her. I tried the food lure. No dice.

I went outside several minutes later to look for her again. I found her around the side of the house and went wading gingerly in sandaled feet through piles of leaves the moggies had clearly used as an outdoor cat box. Diva cunningly stayed out of reach, darting here and there and finally taking refuge under the car again.

I resorted to desperate measures. I used the Biride Toy. You know the one -- feathers attached to a long plastic string attached to a rod. Wave, wave, catch the birdie! My cats love it.

My Birdie Toy was denuded long ago, so I replaced the fake-o feathers with some real bird feathers and they get to chase bluejay and woodpecker feathers. I flicked the Birdie around under the car. Diva chased it and caught it a couple of times, but she was hip to my ploy. She didn't come out from under the car. I kept at it. Finally, she was so overtaken by her biride lust that she followed it out and pounced upon it. I quickly grabbed her. She squealed, but it was all over.

I took her inside and let her catch the birdie a few more times as a reward.

Having resolved that, I settled down to do a couple of hours' work before heading into town. Tribble decided he had to go outside. He began to insist loudly upon this. Tribble has one of the most annoying cat whines you will ever hear. Annoying and pathetic all at once. He whined and whined and whined NON-STOP FOR HOURS. I thought I would go totally mad. I consider grabbing him by his dear little throat and throttling him. Chinese Water Torture can't begin to touch the Tribble Whining Torture.

Querida's eye is getting better, but this morning she refused to come out for her treats. Since that's my best shot at getting her various pills into her, this is not good news. She's in deep avoidance of the Eye Ointment Torture, meaning deep avoidance of me. I finally left the pills-in-treats under her nose in her hiding place, hoping she'd take them once I was well away from her. When I checked later, the treats were gone. I waited an hour or so before I captured her for the Torture in the hope she'll stop associating the treats with the Torture.

Be sure to check out the Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics. There are a couple of new contenders you will enjoy.

I was giving Querida her pills and treats last night when I realized that her right eye was badly inflamed. She seems to be prone to eye inflammations these days. Fortunately, I have eye ointment around for her. Let me tell you how much Querida loves having ointment put in her eyes. About as much as she likes a red-hot poker up her backside. Her eye is much better today, though far from well, so I'll have to keep forcing gunk into her eyes no matter how much she hates it.

Puck found a way to get inside the deer fencing we have around the grapevines and small cherry tree. He was so happy in there. He had a whole private playpen to himself. King of the Playpen! He rolled in the dirt. He rubbed against the grapevines. Happy puss. Blue found his way in and the Tabby Mafia hung around together.

Tribble jumped into my lap, as he often does, but this time when he moved away I looked down to see that the entire front of my shirt was thickly coated with a combination of cobwebs, cat hair and unidentifiable detritus. He has achieved a new record in Coating the Human with Catstuff.

Unicom caught a gopher today, and in broad daylight. He's been slowed down a lot by his arthritis, been sleeping a lot, and this is the first gopher he's caught in months. It's good to know the old Gopher Slayer still has a few kills left in him. After Uni finished chowing down what he wanted, Nefreet moved in and cleaned up the rest. Except for the snout. They always leave the snout and those big rodent teeth. I don't blame them.

While I was walking toward the side of the house, I happened to spot an odd pile of leaves with something in it. The something turned out to be a small rat. While a dead rat is generally a good thing, we have bait out for the rats and don't want the cats getting them. 99% of the time, my cats don't catch rats, for whatever reason. The one who caught or found this one only ate the brain (ewyuck) which wouldn't be enough to do harm to the cat given the weak nature of the poison we use. I got my garden gloves and deposited the stiff carcass in the dumpster just to be safe. I get all the good jobs.

Owl is such a sweet boy. I had one of those moments where I'm suddenly so tired, I'm nodding off in front of the computer. So I leaned over to where Owl was lying next to my keyboard and used is broad, soft back for a pillow. He didn't twitch a hair, he simply purred and purred until I'd gotten past the tiredness.

Now that's what I call a catnap.

I stepped outside and found a badly mauled, baby gopher snake on my office doormat. I feel terrible when the cats harm a beneficial snake like this, but I don't know what to do about it short of not letting the Horde go outside at all. I gently picked up the poor snake and left it in a quiet, isolated place so it could at least die in peace.

Puck was about to get into a spat with Tosca yesterday, so I swivelled my chair around to move him. He flailed out instinctively as I grabbed him, leaving me with two shallow, but very long scratches down my neck.

Now Tosca and Diva are going at it hammer and tongs. Those two girls play rough. They growl and hiss and curse and bat one another around. Is that any way for a mother and daughter to behave, I ask you?

I came up to the office door to leave for lunch and found Theseus' rear end hanging from the cat door, with his front end to the outside world.

"What'cha doing, puss?"

He made small, piteous meows which told me, "I'm not doing anything. I'm *stuck*!"

Like Pooh after eating too much honey, my Sherman Tank of a cat was stuck halfway through the cat door. Usually he can get through, but I suspect he didn't work up the right momentum.

I put my hands under his butt and with a bit of heaving and wiggling, he made it through. I suppose I should have been hysterical by that point, but it was so utterly pathetic, I couldn't even bring myself to laugh.

We noticed that Uni was a bit more nervous about going outside lately. Two nights ago, Randy found him facing off with another orange cat. We've seen this guy a couple of times and are pretty sure he comes up from our first neighbor's house, a goodly distance down the hill.

But last night, Randy saw a fluffy tuxedo cat that was upsetting Uni. We have NO idea where that cat may have come from. I've certainly never spotted a fluffy tuxedo cat in this area before. I hope he has a home around here because we're not adding any more cats to the Horde. NO MORE CATS.