Caterwauling

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After consuming nothing but a frozen dinner and vending-machine cookies yesterday somewhere around 3 p.m., am feeling very full from a nice dinner at Los Tios and nummy ice cream at Dairy Godmother with mah homegirls this evening, after a full day of PodCamping.

Actually, it’s not just mah belleh that’s full, but also my heart as well. Thanks, ladies, for everything. *mwah!*

I usually keep my outings to myself, but this one bears repeating. We were talking about how, if we won the lottery, we’d join the ranks of the unemployed faster than you can say, “We’re going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too.”

While Tiff outlined her brilliant plan for tormenting people, Steph suggested she’d simply crap on her desk if she got the winning lottery ticket. I guess I went somewhere really bad in my own head after that comment, as I volunteered about myself, “Somebody spray some Febreze — I think Goddess just quit!”

I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard since, well, my friend at work and I discussed, well, our usual roster of things we discuss. It was just nice to do it on an 86-degree, sunny day on the patio of a Mexican restaurant with margaritas, sangria and queso for a change.

It’s been an emotional day. I finally reached the end of my rope and instead of hanging myself with it, I tied it around myself and anchored myself in a safe spot.

Something that’s hard for me is saying when or crying uncle. But in these days of my plate, well, runneth-ing over and the contents spilling like a chocolate fondue fountain, I am but a lowly suicidal strawberry — OK, marshmallow — floating under the surface that everybody forgot to grab with the “search and rescue” spoon.

In the space of a half-hour, I had a piece of pound cake tossed on top of me and I had someone come spear me and force me up for air.

Weird food references aside, I took a short walk (it was 76 degrees today!) and came up with a search-and-rescue plan. And presented it. And it was well-received.

Today was a day of meetings — about work, of course, but also about preservation. Of relationships, sanity and strength. The day started with polite death threats (no, not from THAT wacknut) and ended with the feeling of missing the anvil that Wile E. Coyote hurled off a cliff at me.

In some ways, I got nothing done today. Nothing that can be quantified, anyway. But a little dead part of my spirit found a pulse again. Don’t get me wrong — it’s faint and there are no guarantees. But with a little more nurturing, I think I’m going to live after all.

*whew*

If the squeaky wheel gets the grease, why are the rest of us forced to bend over and take it dry?

I was thinking of taking someone to lunch who, aah, is assimilation-challenged. But then I thought, fuck it — why not reward the others who actually were not put on this earth to make me question their mental and physical acuity?

Editor’s note: Wow, I’ve never had occasion to quote a Prince song before. And certainly not that one!

I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I hate being a pet owner, mostly because of the regular poop grenades that get lobbed around my carpeted areas. But really, I do love my girls, particularly my 12-year-old Calico, Maddie, who’s been my best friend since I was 22.

I took the cats to the vet on Saturday for shots and the vet asked if I’d be game for a geriatric workup on Miss Molly (one of my 40 other names for her). I said sure — what’s another $100 when you’ve already got me on my knees, bent over and accepting a half-shaft already?

What I didn’t expect was the call on Monday to tell me all the medicines I’d now be ordering and the conditions we’d be treating. And then the visit yesterday for chest X-rays and blah blah blah surgery this radioactive iodine that hey come back in three weeks for a follow-up mmkay two thousand dollars *eekeekeek*.

*headslam*

So I write all of this as a setup to yesterday’s visit. I dropped Maddie off at the vet and when they took her from me, she started crying. This isn’t a vocal cat. She purrs a lot but Kadie’s the whiny one. So when Maddie is protesting, well, it breaks my little heart.

I mentioned to one of my friends yesterday that, “If I were handing over a human …” and oh God, I am SUCH a girl. *swallowing past throat lump* However will I take a kid to daycare?

Anyway, I left work at a reasonable hour to go pick up my frightened little kitty. And in the waiting room was this bellowing pig of a woman who was, well, bellowing. Incidentally, we’d gone to see the circus on Sunday and it was called — ha ha — “Bellobration.” Bellow-licious!

So this woman was just SCREAMING. And why? Because she was in the wrong. Because she brought in a cat and had LIED about it having its shots. Because they can’t treat/board animals that are not up-to-date on their vaccinations.

She had brought in a cat because his fur was all matted … as she was screaming, “It’s matted around his PENIS and he PEES through his FUR.”

Oh gawd. I was so sick just listening to her holler — I was hoping the kennel where they housed my sweet, loving, quiet, ‘fraidy cat was soundproof, as I was ready to climb the curtains myself.

To make matters worse, she had a little boy, probably about 2, who was tearing up the waiting room. I mean, taking plastic brochure holders and throwing them up in the air, creating a majestic airborne display of advertisements for pet insurance. He was screaming because his mom was screaming, so she was screaming at HIM to stop screaming. (Oh, my aching head.)

My vet, to his credit, never raised his voice, although he looked absolutely exhausted. He took me into the next room to look at Maddie’s X-rays while the loudmouth complained about having to pay $25 a night to have her cat boarded and that she has a husband in bed with a herniated disc and she gets off work at 3:30 and doesn’t want to have to pay for two days blah blah blah *stabstabstab*.

There are signs in the lobby to please restrain pets at all times. I volunteered to the vet to write “and small children” on the sign. He joked that, well, the sign DOES say to keep small animals in cages.

I like him already!

I think Maddie’s going to be fine. I mean, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us but I feel like I’m in good hands. I also think the vet enjoyed me, because I asked questions and hung around and talked stocks with him — anything I can do to ensure Maddie gets good treatment, well, count me in.

But, and I say this all the time — after hearing that this bellowing mess of a woman has a husband at home in bed, well, I gotta say it. How did SHE get a man?!?!

So, I’ve been reading my “One Month to Live” book. (Sounds remarkably like an old soap I used to love to watch.)

And they said something rather profoundly obvious in that, we all keep shoving our dreams in a box/freezer/back burner/metaphor of choice, and every time we go back to see if they’re still there? They are. They haven’t moved, grown, nurtured, left us or, alas, fulfilled themselves. Go figure.

I say all of this because last week, I talked about running into someone who is better for/with someone else. And yesterday, I have another story about the opposite situation: I ran into someone — or, at least, a doppelganger of someone — and I just wanted to die on the spot because that one wasn’t so easy to give up on.

We were having dinner at Coastal Flats yesterday and, seated at the next table, was someone I swore I know very well. I mean, I was actually offended that he didn’t say hello, which no doubt means that someone in the back of my head clearly has a twin.

I spent dinner staring at him. He was with a girl and honest to God, that’s the perfect diet — I couldn’t eat, breathe, think or even make conversation with my dinner companion. (Sorry, honey, I’m staring at the guy over your shoulder. Cheers!)

And he kept staring back, and I was all sorts of fucked up inside. Was it who I thought it was, or was he wondering who this crazy woman is who has gone all Mennonite on his ass? (I’m told they like to stare.)

I swear, I spent a half-hour convincing myself it wasn’t the person who I put in that proverbial box, on that proverbial shelf, in the back of that proverbial freezer. That he’d never wear a hat during dinner. That he has better taste in bling. That he would never order a bottle of Zinfandel for the table. Oh yeah, I didn’t miss a thing.

OK, the short story is that I thought I put the feelers out there. I felt the feelers be avoided/stomped on/ripped out of their sockets. And I said OK, fine. I get it. Doesn’t take a brick wall falling on me to get the hint. What-evah.

But like I said earlier, sometimes you look in that box and it’s like, whoa, what’s that still doing in there? Didn’t I get busy with my life and move along and put this behind me? Why’s it still there and what do I have to do to get rid of it?

Oh yeah, that’s right. I keep leaving it in there. I guess it’s my spiritual hope chest after all.

Humph.

I was absolutely rattled. I mean, I went from running into someone last week and being happy for him, and then this week I see someone else (or, at least, someone with whom they were clearly separated at birth) and I just wanted to stab my temple with a salad fork at the thought of someone else being in “my” place.

If I had one month to live, what would I do?

Probably the same thing, just walk away … but not without looking over my shoulder and wondering why this dream, no matter how much I refuse to entertain it (and I oftentimes succeed), can’t seem to go away. …