A seething mass of turgid drama.

Miss Beatrice woke me up around 12:30 AM with a series of extended "help me" yowls. She didn't have a hairball; I think she just wanted attention. Of course I had to get up and check.

Eventually I got back to sleep, but didn't sleep well the rest of the morning. Dragging today.
ETA: the lounge coffee was decaf, which I found out after I made a cup. That's cruel.

Ten internet points for correctly placing the reference.

Miss Bea came to bed with the wife, and spent about four hours laying by my hip - until shortly before I had to get up. I am quite pleased that she (Beatrice) graced me with her presence. However, she insists that I lay on my back. Every time I tried to roll to a side (for example, to spoon the wife) Beatrice would march up to my shoulder and scratch at the blanket, until I woke up enough to re-assume the proper position so she could too.

Cats, man.

Yesterday was five years since we got the cats. It's always a bit of a twinge on Gotcha Day to see the kitten pics of Hilde.

Miss Bea has recovered from her several days of convalescence - we limited ourselves to checking her hydration level. She is also grudgingly eating her current food mixture; her preferred rabbit hasn't been available at the pet store. We did get a couple cans of gooshy food which Bea yummed right up, but we don't want to give her too much of that as she might go on strike. And the gooshy food is not something we can leave for self-feeding if we're gone for a weekend.

Our friend Trish came by yesterday. We walked down for an impromptu tapas dinner and had lots of chattage. When we got back, she needed to use the bathroom before driving home. Miss Bea came to the landing... and froze with the Other Person there. However, Trish is a long-time cat lady and knew to slowly and softly approach.

Miss Bea used her adorable mini-growl a couple times and didn't let Trish touch her, but didn't completely run away either. That makes Trish the third person not living here to actually see Bea in the flesh. (The other two being the upstairs neighbors, who have visited enough that Bea will take treats from them... but only if we are present.)

My divisible-by-five birthday was fine. Not a production but most of the time my introvert self doesn't want one.
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I went to a classmate's house. He showed me a mother cat and her kittens (all generic black and white shorthairs). I cautiously approached and pet the mom. Then I pet several of the kittens. One in particular jumped onto my left shoulder and settled in. I pet and scritched for purrs, but had to tell the classmate, the mom cat, and the kitten that we already had a cat and I couldn't take any of them home.

This wasn't sad at all in the dream - it just was.

I was not woken up by Beatrice scratching at the blanket to make me roll over. She didn't open the bathroom door during my shower, either.

That's because Miss Bea locked herself in the front room by pushing the door closed. Silly girl. I don't think she left any unwanted presents - she was only in there for 4-5 hours max. But she was relieved when I opened the door; Bea immediately ran out and starting yowling her displeasure. Again, silly girl. If you'd yowled while the door was closed one of us might have heard you and set you free earlier.

I'd call it a teachable moment, but history suggests she won't learn anything. If she does it again we'll have to block the door.

We took Miss Beatrice in for her annual checkup yesterday. This time, we got cat Valium to give her beforehand - her previous visit, the vet couldn't take her pulse because her heart was beating way too quickly in fear.

As always, making her swallow pills was the hardest part. It did seem to help somewhat; she still yowled, but much less; and while she was shaking in fear when in the examination room, she wasn't quite as worked up. We'll take it. Weight steady around 11 lb and everything looked good.

A couple hours after we got home, she tried to jump up to one of our chairs but missed the landing and bounced off, so the drugs were clearly still affecting her.

I didn't sleep that well. On the upside, this meant that when Miss Bea decided to lay on my crotch*, I didn't move in my sleep - so she stayed there for at least an hour, letting out a few snore-sighs.
Not an ideal situation for a cat lap, but I take what I can get.

*Understandable. It's warm and the fullish bladder probably feels squishy like a waterbed.

Operation Feline Desperation was a mixed success. While the wife was gone, Miss Bea did in fact snuggle on my lap a couple days in a row - but bookended that with a couple days ignoring me on either side. Yesterday, with the wife (thankfully) home, Bea immediately returned to ecstatically snoozing on her.

Cats, man.