i was going to start this entry with "seriously, i am like the worst blogger ever," but then i realized that that's how i started my last entry. i think that pretty much proves my point. but at least this time it's only like 2 months between this entry & my last, so i mean, that has to count for something, right?
so what have i been up to? frankly the same old, same old. school is out for most people, but not me! i have at least 9, maybe 10 credits left before i get my diploma & get my ass handed to me in the real world. i'm pretty pumped. did i say pretty pumped? i meant scared as hell. but i'm sure we'll cover that when i have more to talk about. i haven't really done much except look for apartments for the big move here in 3 months. but it's kind of hard when the apartments you're interested in are 7 hours away. i also would kind of like an internship before i move, but who knows at this point. anyway, here's what this entry will be about: how i became a cat lady.
kids, this is trudy.
this picture was taken in march when i brought her home. she was about 5 months old at the time. so here's the backstory of how trudy & i came to be.
people are social creatures that mostly don't like to be alone. there are two kinds of people in this world: those who always need a significant other, and those who always need a pet. clearly, i am in the latter. my sophomore year of college (and the first year i wasn't living on campus), my roommate got a dog. now, while i normally love dogs, this one was a piece of shit. it was the whiniest bitch (literally) ever but freaked out if you touched her. my roommate never disciplined her so she got away with everything. like if i had food on the table & she got into it, i would get in trouble for leaving food for her to get, not her for jumping on the table & eating half of the pizza i just ordered (which she did). i hated that dog with a passion. the funny thing is, a lot of my friends thought i was overreacting. one of them actually lives in a house now with my old roommate & her fuck crazy dog. after about 2 days together, she called to apologize for not believing how lame this dog was.
so fast forward to junior year. i was in an apartment in a complex that allowed dogs. i was pumped because my parents said i could bring my dog from home to stay in akron.
here's said dog, sadie.
i got sadie for my 13th birthday, so i was super pumped when i realized she was coming to akron. then, 2 days after i signed my lease, my apartment complex switched to a no dog policy. (side note: my current neighbors got a puppy around the same time i got trudy, so who the hell knows what's going on anymore).
so here i am, with nothing more then a betta to love. fast forward a few months to november. around this time, my roommate also talks about how she wants a pet. she despises cats, but since it's all we can have, she's decided she'll settle for one. cue my friend, who just happens to have a cat she's no longer allowed to have. i guess her brother got it when her mom was on an extended vacay to jordan? i'm still not quite sure what happened, but i know her mom wanted them to get rid of it. i was unsure, but my roommate wanted it after seeing 1 picture. so, at 12:30 on a tuesday night, we went to my friends house to pick up the cat. the poor bastard was named puma, & since that name was retarded enough for us to make fun of him, i changed it to dangle, in honor of lt. jim dangle on reno 911. it was a bit of an adjustment for him because he was used to a huge house & was now in a little apartment.
he had some identity issues from the move.
what my friend failed to mention about dangle was how completely insane this cat is. as my mother so eloquently puts it, he "is full of piss & vinegar." i don't think i can completely describe the chaos this cat ensues. he would run from wall to wall of the apartment for hours at a time. he would decide not only that 4 am was the best time to play, but that he was only interested in pawing at my face. he hated being held for more then 3.6 seconds. basically, he's a bastard. but he's my bastard. my roommate that wanted him so bad ended up not being a fan, having admitted on many occasions that she like to throw him against the wall or kick him across the room. for the obvious reasons he hung around me. when it was time to move out, as much as i liked him, there was no way in hell i could take him to an even smaller apartment. as fate would have it, absolutely no animal shelter in summit county was taking cats. so i did the same thing with him as i did with a lot of the stuff i couldn't take to my new apartment: sent him to my parents.
so now, at my parents, they have my dog and my cat. they get along for the most part, give or take a few times when dangle starts picking on sadie & she chases him around before eventually kicking his ass (my heart will always belong to sadie so i'm always on her side). my dad kept threatening to give dangle away cause he didn't like him, but after about a month, my mom said he would pet & play with dangle when he thought no one was around.
now it's july 08 & i have no pet. i ended up getting a hamster on an impulse buy, only realizing halfway home that i hate all rodents. i think the chick at petsmart must have known cause she picked the worst hamster ever. all he does is bite. i've never actually held him cause he's bitten me every time i've tried to. so here i am, all alone with no pet. october rolls around & i'm not doing well. classes are rough & my grandfather is quickly losing his battle with cancer. on october 2nd, i got a call from my dad saying i should get home as soon as possible because my grandpa took a turn for the worse. i ended up leaving in the middle of class & getting home as fast as possible. after i go in to see my grandpa for a bit, i headed back to my car to bring my stuff in. as i'm opening the trunk, i heard something. i walked over to the bush i have parked by to see that one of the stray cats that call my parents' garage home had had 6 kittens. they were so tiny and so cute, so i instantly knew i would someday be bringing one back to akron with me. i informed my mom, who instantly becomes a sort of florence nightingale (or whatever a vet equivalent would be) to the kittens. obviously it was awhile before we knew the sex of the kittens or anything, but when i was back home in december for the holidays, i picked out one i liked & named her trudy for my other favorite character from reno 911.
so knowing i would take trudy with me sooner or later, my mom started spoiling her. she would bring her into the house to get accustomed to it & what not. i told my mom that i'd be bringing trudy back with me on spring break, so i wanted her to be taken to the vet & get checked up before i did so. my sister did a few days later only to come back with some sad news: trudy had feline leukemia. the vet flat out told me sister that they should just put her down cause there was nothing they could do. my sister asked if they could give trudy dewormer & the basic shots a kitten needs, they said no because trudy had to be put down. when my sister declined, the vet argued with her. my sister basically told the vet to fuck off before leaving the room. none of us believed the findings because trudy didn't seem sick & she didn't have any of the symptoms. some of the other strays around my parents' did, but not her. i ended up bringing her back with me anyway. i took her to the vet a few weeks ago for a check up since the last vet did nothing but try to put her down. my vet told me that trudy does in fact have leukemia, but she will be okay as long as i keep her from other cats. he gave her all her shots & dewormer & everything. he also told me to tell my mom to never take any of our pets to that vet ever again (apparently that vet wasn't our regular vet, so that won't be a problem).
so here we are. a few months ago, trudy was supposedly a goner. as i type this, she's asleep on my lap. she's fine. maybe i'm a little biased, but she's quite possibly the greatest cat ever. she plays fetch religiously. like she'll bring me her ball, i'll throw it, & she'll bring it back. this can go on for at least an hour, and has. her favorite place to hang out is in my tub. she lays there while i get ready in the morning. she love, love, loves yogurt. she will climb on me & try to eat it out of my bowl. she loves to climb into the plastic packages that hold 24 bottles of water. she loves knocking the letter magnets off my fridge. when she knocks them all off, she meows until i put them back up so she can knock them all off again. if you need more proof then that, come meet her. all of my friends that have love her.
so why did i decide to keep her even after she was given a death sentence? my grandpa died the day after trudy was born. as lame as it sounds, it's almost like she was meant to be here to help me when i needed it. as one thing left my life, another thing entered. part of it's also the "she will die" & proving that asshole vet wrong. trudy is the only kitten from that litter that survived (only 2 of them made it march, her & her brother "jonesy." he died last week), so i think that means something too. she's a fighter. i'm sure this all sounds really dumb to most people, but it doesn't matter. she's coming with me when i move in august, so again, she'll be the thing that keeps me sane.
this is why i'm a cat lady. i take pictures of her, tell stories about her to friends, etc. i'm like 1 fabric paint sweatshirt & foam visor away from being my own worst nightmare. who knows? maybe i'll set a trend for chique cat ladies. we shall see... i hope you enjoyed this post. feel free to comment & let me know. until next time...
watching: see "listening to" cause it pretty much explains everything.
reading: like most americans, nothing. but i swear, i have a valid reason. i just ended my 2nd to last semester of college a few days ago & was doing nothing but intense school work for the last month or so. i honestly have been working on little children for like 6 months now. i know in my last post i said i wanted to finish it by april. clearly, that didn't happen. so now i'm gonna be realistic & say i wanna finish it by the time i move in august. that can probably happen. probably.
listening to: paul simon - you can call me al
first of all, if you don't like this song, there's a good chance your a nazi sympathizer, or at the very least a pedophile. how someone can't like this song is completely beyond me. and if the song wasn't great enough on it's own, can we talk about how it has like the 2nd greatest video of all time?! (the honor of greatest video of all time goes to a-ha's "take on me". any video that features pencil drawn comic book characters running from scandinavian motorcycle punks while still managing to sing in a falsetto deserves that honor. even the parodies are hilarious [pss: watch that whole video - there's a surprise at the end]. plus, it was in family guy, so double trouble.) anyway, back to what i was originally talking about: the "you can call me al" video. okay, so chevy chase is infamous for being a douche, it's no secret. but how can you not love the 6'4" buffoon as he steals the thunder from 5'2" paul simon? simon looks downright bored the whole video while chase eats it up. plus the dancing. oh, the dancing. it's great. but yeah. great song, great video. read 'em & weep.
