Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Y is for Yeats

Yeats is my favorite poet:

Yeats is also the name of my new kitten:





 
I got Yeats the cat yesterday, at a shelter. He is loving and loveable and frisky and funny.
 
The cat I already have, Rhiannon, is all of those things. She's also nurturing, as in she carries her toys about and gives them baths and talks to them. How great would it be for her to have an ACTUAL playmate?
 
She does NOT think it's great.
 
She's acting a bit like a teenager. Not only is it not great, but it's STUPID! The kitten is STUPID. And I'm STUPID for thinking it was a great idea and she hates us both and wishes very bad things in our general directions!
 
It sounds funny, but it isn't. It's miserable. Rhiannon is hissing and yowling at both the kitten and me. (She did deign to sleep on my bed, but it's just because it was there and I happened to be in it. There was no cuddling, or purring, or acknowledgment of my presence.) I've had her since she was a kitten and frankly, the "I hate you! I hate you!" attitude was a more than a little upsetting.
 
Especially since, in contrast, Yeats was so zen about the whole thing. "Hey! A new house! Can I sit on your lap? Aren't I CUTE with all the purring? I've known you five seconds and I LOVE you!" He was like a cartoon -- a happy smiling fuzzy cartoon. He also was interested in Rhiannon -- he wants to sleep cuddled up to things that smell like her (but which are not her, as the growling and hissing frightens him a tad).
 
I brought him home around 1:00 PM. By 5? I was EXHAUSTED.
 
I did notice Yeats using the litter box a lot, but I wasn't super concerned. And his incision site looked funky, but my friend at the shelter said he was okay and that he would take care of it on his own.
 
When I got up this morning, he was peeing blood. And it was in the sink. It was on the floor. It was on my couch. He was just laying there with a "I could really use a little help here" face.  So at 5 AM, we were off to the emergency vet.
 
Long story short: he has an infection. They put a cone on him. He Houdini'd out of it and I can't get him back INTO it. I DID get his antibiotic into him, so that's something. Rhiannon is hiding in the closet and won't come out.
 
And I am still exhausted.
 
I'm not sad I brought him home. He needed a home, and I have a home, and he's already Houdini'd his way right into it. Eventually, Rhiannon, aka Bean, aka Beansie Boombaliciousness will come around. We'll all be good. 
 
My mother reminded me that when I got Rhiannon, she was sick, too. Sicker than Yeats, actually. Sick like "might not make it; try not to get too attached to her" sick. But she's fine (well, grouchy) now. She needed me then, and she got me then.Yeats needs me, so he's got me now. 
 
I don't know why I thought it would be easy. Is anything that's worthwhile ever easy?
 
I suppose it isn't.

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