Small rant.

You know how, when you have a lousy night because of a: sick kid/barking dog/crack house raid next door, and then you go to work in the morning, and at some point throw it out as a conversational topic? And after a few minutes, you get that out of your system and move on? Well. I don't work anymore. And I had a lousy night last night. So I'm going to grumble here.

If you sleep like a log, never have insomnia, you might want to move on to the next blog now, you know?

Are they gone? Good. Weirdos.

Last night I had a lousy night. I woke up at 2 am, after going to sleep around 11 pm, and right away I have a headache. What works best for me (as long as it isn't migraine) is Excedrin, which works well because it has caffeine, which I don't really need at two am. But I get up (brrrr) and take some, hoping. This wakes me up a little more.

So I start reviewing stuff in my mind, you know, laying there, fussing over some problem from the day, and I find myself mentally composing a: letter to the editor/blog entry/ransom note, knowing full well that: a) I won't remember all these carefully polished sentences and b) I won't even remember the topic of them. I have wasted hundreds of hours mentally composing brilliant scathing retorts for that time when she said.... when at the time I sat there dumbfounded and I *should* have said... Knowing that the next time the same thing happens I won't have a snappy comeback then either....

And then there was the cat. Because I was obviously awake, she comes over to get a little ear rubbing time, which is fine. Then she settles down next to my pillow and proceeds to take a bath. Lick, lick, lick. I look over at her, and there she is, licking her butt (we call it the "Pablo Casal playing the Cello" pose), hind leg raised high, lick lick... Blech! I give her a little poke and she stops. I start to relax, relax, drifting,,,and she starts up again, lick lick, very moistly, you know?

I can't just throw her out of the room, because if she's with them, the upstairs cats will begin relay races on the hardwood floors just over my bedroom, they sound like ponies on parade up there (remember that Carl Sandburg poem, where he writes about fog moving in on little cat feet? Obviously HE never had cats). I don't know why, but I know from bitter experience that they will make enough noise to keep *everyone* awake all night.

I know she won't quit if she isn't distracted, so I get my little tube of dried Cosmic Catnip and sprinkle a little down by the foot of the bed. WHOO. That gets her attention. Now she's rubbing her face in it, rolling in it, snuffling it up and sneezing, etc. and soon she's...well...mellow. Now I really start to feel sleepy, close, close....

And then I hear her on the floor, biting and riiiipppping at the carpet. Apparently we have tracked in some delightful bit of stinky-ness. This will never do, she has been known to tear a whole patch of carpet into loose threads doing this, so I get up and try to cover that bit of floor with a box, or a throw rug, or whatever I can find. It has to be large enough to cover a fair bit of the floor, because I'm not sure of the precise spot that is so enthralling. Disgusted with me, she retreats to the easy chair.

By now I am wide awake. Every 20 minutes or so I steal a peek at the clock, to see how long I've got until the alarm... maybe I should go ahead and shower now... just give up.... and finally feel so drowsy and warm and the cat is quiet, and and and the alarm goes off.

Sigh. Turns out, when I check her this morning, the cat has, in fact, a nasty raw spot on her bum, infected/ inflammed or maybe abscessed, and so I take her to the vet, who diagnoses an infected anal gland, poor thing....

BUT!! He will keep her overnight so he can treat it after sedating her and THEREFORE

No cat in here tonight!

Hope all of you sleep well too!