The cat lady

I am responsible for the love and care of four cats over the Christmas holidays. Four.

I don't understand it, really. I'm not a cat person. I guess I do in some ways - people are desperate for cat-watchers, I am a lonely single person who happens to be willing to go out of her way to help people. And I do love animals, although cats are not my first choice.

The main cat is my cat, Dakota. I say "main" in the loosest sense of the word. She lives in my apartment and is feeling seriously deprived right now, as my roommate has been away quite frequently for work. He gives her all the love. He feeds her each morning. I feed her when I notice he hasn't been around to feed her.

So basically, she is following me like a lost puppy looking for ANYONE to love her. I also gave her a piece of chicken so she is currently queen of my fan club, but I'm thinking that was somewhat of a mistake as I feel like I've suddenly become the stereotype of the single girl that has a cat always around her. Really, it's the chicken. I'm not that nice.

The other three cats may seriously lose their minds in the next week. Two are at one friend's house, the third is at my cousin's. The pair are used to getting fed, three times a day.

Fortunately, I am not expected to feed them three times a day - but I can't imagine it going over well. No attention and only getting fed one time? If I were a cat, I would be seriously mad at my owner. Of course, I'm a bit of a storyteller, so as I'm being given the extremely elaborate instructions for how to take care of the cat (which by the way, is perfectly fine - if I agree to do something, I will most certainly do it well!), I'm sharing all these stories which pretty much portray me as the worst pet-sitter ever.

"Oh, did you not hear about the time I managed to lock my keys in my car? No, no, it wasn't my fault, I swear!"

I stopped myself at sharing the story about the time I was dog-sitting and managed to lose the dog. IN MY DEFENCE, they don't have the dog leash-trained and he loves to wander off to meet people, and within 5 minutes of him wandering away someone had brought him indoors and called the humane society. Seriously, five minutes. I knew exactly where he would go, so I went there, and called him and called him - but they were indoors, with him, so no one heard me. I searched for two hours until the people who took him noticed my car (which had driven by them at LEAST 25 times) and told me they called the humane society. But, I digress.

I also stopped myself from saying, "You know, this would be a whole lot easier if we just put all the cats in one room and I fed them all together in one place". From what I heard, cat lovers don't take kindly to that kind of talk.

I actually worked at a kennel once (it was a short-lived stint), and I will never forget this one time a lady dropped off her cat and insisted we not say the "B-word" around it ever. We are sitting there thinking, "what B-word?" and that there is no way she means the one we are thinking about, so she pulls us aside and whispers so quietly that we can barely hear her, "breakfast".

It took everything we had not to break out laughing, but she eventually left on her vacation and there we were, with the apathetic cat, thinking only one thing.

"................ breakfast.........."

Nothing.

"....... BREAKFAST!"

Still nothing.

Hate to break it to you lady, but the cat only responds to your voice, and even then, probably more so to the tone than the actual word, if not the movements that go with it. I envision her going "Breakfast time!" in the morning as she walks towards the kitchen. What else is the cat going to think?

So now that I am officially hated by all cat lovers, I will finish up by saying that I promise the cats will all be the picture of happiness and health a week from now, and that I really wish we could have dogs in our apartment building. Big dogs, not those small, cat-like ones.

My Pet Vaccuum Cleaner

My dad got me a Roomba for Christmas.

For those of you who have never heard of Roomba, it is essentially a short, circular vaccuum cleaner made by iRobot that uses advanced technology to find its way around a room, cleaning the carpet (or other flooring) along its way.

After doing a bit of research, I find it amazing how this machine is starting to pick up. People are naming these machines. They treat them as pets, even. Some people argue that they have personalities. A co-worker of my father's mentioned that one day his wife was in the shower when she heard their Roomba knocking at the door - it then deposited a condom it had found in her son's room in front of her. I can't imagine that conversation.

I don't find it hard to believe, though. The first time I encountered one of these, I spent quite a long time watching it. They are mesmerizing. They almost appear to be thinking. I would argue that ours is feisty, even. It's determined to climb over the flat part of this Ikea chair. It typically gets about halfway (after a minute or so of struggling), and then gets stuck, and eventually lets out a warning beep which sounds interestingly enough like a small child that's just spilled something and says, "Uh, oh." It also likes to chase our cat. I think this is partially because the cat likes to stand in its way but the first time we ran it through the cycle the cat seemed to spend a good 20 minutes running away from it. She eventually figured out that it can't climb things and settled for a chair.

Aside from the odd problem with our Ikea chair, our Roomba is basically the most amazing piece of electronics to have ever entered our apartment. We turn it on and spend half the cycle watching it. We laugh at it because it will hit something hard, back away, and then apprehensively approach it a second time. It gets under the couch and chairs, and between all the pieces of our dining room set. After it's done in the living room, it swings by the kitchen, getting every corner. I'm particularly looking forward to trying it out in my bedroom; I'm mildly terrified of spiders and so cleaning underneath the bed is something I've never been a fan of. Now I can send our little pet robot to scare all the spiders away and suck up the dust bunnies! (right now, people can barely walk through my room, let alone robots, so certainly the area has to be somewhat clear to vaccuum with Roomba - no different than if you wanted to use a regular vaccuum, really).

I've heard a few complaints that the suction isn't as good as a regular vaccuum but, while this is true, unless you have some major vaccuuming to do (read: you spilled more than what can reasonable fit into a Roomba), I don't think it will be an issue. We are messy, we have a cat that likes to rub herself all over everything. And our floor looks better than ever. Mostly because vaccuuming has become a pleasure, instead of a chore. And I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Snacks before necessities

Sometimes I forget that I am inherently different from most regular people.

I went to the grocery store the other day, because I had an intense desire for chocolate milk. I decide to pick up chips and dip for my roommate, who was to arrive home after having worked almost constantly for several days straight. I decide to pick up laundry detergent in spite of having a fairly full container at home, figuring I am going to run out eventually.

At the cash, I make small talk with the cashier.

"Let me guess, you came in to pick up laundry detergent, and then you got the munchies?"

I think, if only I were that normal. But I decide it's not worth attempting to explain the intricacies of my personality.

"Yep, you got me. I have to say though, I really did want chocolate milk."

Don't come over for chicken dinner

I am slightly accident-prone.

It's actually somewhat of a byproduct of being absent-minded. I don't always focus on the task at hand, and it will frequently result in disaster. Friends can attest to this. Hell, random people around the city can attest to this. I once tripped over a huge recycle bin while waving to someone, and fell on top of it as I emptied its contents, in front of a good thirty people, most of whom could not conceal their laughter. But, I digress.

I am also not much of a cook. I can cook what I like, and I do it well, but I am certainly not what you would call a cook. I can cook, I am not a cook.

I once was responsible for watching a close friend of mine while his parents were away on vacation - he was sick, there were concerns that he might need to be taken to the hospital, and we decided it would be best for me to stick around just in case. With a pounding head and exhaustion (among other things), he was basically out of commission - this was not going to be quality time. Just time.

I decide to get a cooked chicken from the grocery store, as I am starving. He is well enough to suggest (read: insist) that I purchase an uncooked chicken from the store and cook it on one of those stand up chicken-cookers (the chef's terminology just oozes out of me, doesn't it). I will call it a chicken-stand. I think this is a bad idea. He reminds me that it is much healthier. I relent.

I pre-heat the oven while I go quickly to the store to pick up a chicken. I put the chicken on the stand. I open the oven, and realize that with both racks inside, the chicken will not fit. I remove one rack, and place it on the stovetop. I pick up the chicken for a second time, lean forward to place it inside and.... SEARING PAIN!

I let go of the chicken and tear my forehead off of the metal rack onto which my skin has just melted itself. I scream in pain. I swear. Every word I can think of. I can hear my friend, who has gotten accustomed to complete silence, start asking what's going on.

Now picture this. All he knows is that I have been attempting to cook a chicken, and he walks in the kitchen to find me doing all I can not to scream in pain, with the skin ripped off of my forehead in a perfectly straight line about 2 and a half inches long and maybe a half inch wide.

I tell him nothing. I am angry at him, because I know what is coming. He starts to laugh. I am furious. Here I am, starving and sitting around in the dark for him, and I have managed to injure myself in the most ridiculous possible way, and he is laughing at me. Really, I don't blame him now. In the days that followed, I observed some of the most reserved people I know laughing like they have never laughed before. My dad's girlfriend, who is outgoing but typically attempts to be nice to me, laughed with no restraint for about 10 minutes straight. A group of regular customers at work the following morning laughed until they cried - only one of them was able to get out a full sentence - "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" The mayor's wife, whenever she sees me, reminds me that she will never forget me - I was the one with the huge burn on my forehead from cooking chicken.

Still, I was pretty angry right then. I'm a touchy person when I'm hungry. And if I had just gotten the pre-cooked chicken, I wouldn't be in this situation. But I didn't. And it hurt. Badly. I keep ice on it for the rest of the night. I am not able to put concealer on it before work in the morning, as it is so deep, I would just be rubbing it into the wound. My skin is completely seared. I suffered humiliation for approximately 3-5 weeks. I put polysporin and vitamin E on it about 10 times a day until it was completely healed. The only scar that remains is the one on my dignity.