It Was Bound To Happen Sometime...

I've been pretty lucky with the allergies this season.  I think it might be related to the rain.  We've had a lot of it and I believe that it has smooshed down all the pollen.  Normally, I have a bout of the sneezies in the Fall and another in the Spring.  I can almost mark the calendar in advance.

Not so this year, though.  Spring and summer have been gloriously sneeze-free this season!  At least until the last week or so...

I've been a bit on the snuffly side for a while and today the pollen rallied in spectacular fashion.  I awoke aching, sneezing and chilled.  The planned trip into school to do those last few things what need doin' was put off in order that I might be achy, sneezy and chilly at home.

It would have been a great day to cuddle up on the couch and knit, frankly.  Nothing I'm working on is in the OMG This Is So Hard stage.  I could easily perform the knitting magic whilst all NyQuilled up.

But I didn't.  And to those of you who wish to question just how cleaning the bathroom and putting up shelves is any different than going into school and doing the same sort of things, I have all kinds of answers. 

 For example, it is not a forty minute drive to my bathroom.  (I think we can all see how that would be inconvenient, right?)  I can putter around cleaning and shelving the bathroom with lots of rest breaks and no commute.

You can clean and shelve the bathroom while under the influence of cold medications.  You cannot drive forty minutes and make nice with your colleagues while in that condition.

Besides, the only way I could face cleaning the bathroom was with the assistance of narcotic cold remedies.  It's been a while.  I consider the whole allergy thing to be nothing short of Fate's Timely Intervention Before The Summer Vacation Ends.

In addition to the shelving of the bathroom, I continued with another project that's been going on around here for a couple of days.  It's a little something I like to call:  Project Low Karb Kitty.

As I was attempting to pull the Absurdly Gi-normous Kitty off the valences the other day, it became apparent that he is perhaps just a bit more gi-normous than he was back in June.  In fact, he is maybe well on his way to chubby.  

The vet (aka The Cat Whisperer) made a point of telling me to watch his weight carefully.  Marmalades tend to be hearty eaters and end up rather round.  The percentage of the red-heads who develop diabetes is pretty high.  She strongly recommended a carb-free diet.  But he would have none of it.  I went with a low cal dry food and thought myself quite the fine example of motherhood.

Until the cat got fat.  So we've been trying to introduce the meatier types of foods before school starts.  It's been slow going.  The AGK has not shown much enthusiasm, but we've made progress.  Today went very well.  

However, I have to say that his approach to the new food has been interesting, to say the least.  In fact, in all my years of kitty parenthood, I have never once seen a cat consume canned food in this manner.  Dry food, yes.  But the wet stuff?  Never.

He dips.

Then nibbles

Piece by piece, morsel by morsel.  Twenty minutes of this.  Each individual bite was thoroughly consumed and the paw meticulously washed before returning to the bowl.  Sometimes he used the right paw.  Sometimes the left.  Twenty minutes.  I was mesmerized.  Pleased as all get-out to see that he was accepting the change in diet, but mesmerized.  The Big, Fluffy Kitty and I sat there staring like it was the most amazing thing we'd ever witnessed.  Well....she was actually waiting her turn at the bowl and getting more perturbed by the moment.  But I was utterly entranced by this.

Of course that could have been the cold medicine.  Yet I still think I would have been mesmerized even without that...

SA