In my post from yesterday on ChafingIsReal.com I alluded to the fact that I would explain to my readers why it was that I missed writing a blog post this past Friday. Over on that blog, for those of you who don’t know, I am documenting my progress in a challenge to run 2,015 miles in the year 2015. In case you are wondering, it is going pretty well. So far this year I have run 64.64 miles which means that I have another 1,950.36 miles to go before I can call this journey a success. It is a little bit daunting, to say the least. This all means that, if I were to run every single day for the rest of the year (which I will not do because I don’t want to hurt myself and also that sounds miserable) I would have to get in roughly 5.6 miles daily. So, yea, that’s some work. If any of you readers (a) live in New York City and (b) are runners please let me know. I wouldn’t mind a touch of company every now and again.
Moving on. The other part of the challenge, which is an aspect that I designed for myself in order to improve my writing, is to post a blog post on that other site every single day. Obviously, I have failed. But that’s okay! I am not throwing in the towel! Sometimes life gets in the way and keeps us from doing the things we set out to do and we can either be mad at ourselves about it or just shrug our shoulders and realize that we are not in control of everything and sometimes cats, and a movie and a night that both turn out to be a lot longer than you anticipated, just happen. So, without further ado,* the story.
This coming Wednesday at 6:50am (uuuggghhh) I will be departing for New Orleans for my annual visit. I have friends down there so I like to get down there and hang with them for a week, give or take. In anticipation of this, I decided that it would be smart to bring my two kitties, Clark and Grete, over to my parents house so I didn’t have to cobble together people to feed them and give them scratches for the 9 days I will be out of town. My parents were not incredibly pleased about this turn of events but they love me so they agreed. (Thanks Mom and Dad! You’re the best!!) I happened to be watching my friend Katie’s car while she was in Costa Rica this past week (so jealous) and so I figured it would be easy to put the kitties in their little houses and drive them out to my parent’s place in New Jersey. So, while my friend Ben looked on, I packed my kitties into their little houses which caused some not so serious injuries to my shoulders. I should have cut Clark’s nails shorter. Live and learn. We then loaded the kitties, kitty accoutrement, and laundry into the car and I made the relatively short, but incredibly stressful, trek to my parents’ place. It’s actually not usually that stressful but have you ever driven for 40 minutes, including some time on the BQE (the lanes are so tiny!) with two yowling cats in the back seat? I do not recommend it. They make the craziest noises. Ben said they sounded like dolphins. I don’t know about all that but what I do know is that I spent the entire car ride cooing at them and oscillating between incredible guilt for having taken them from the only home they have ever known and crammed them into little carriers and fear that I was going to get rear-ended and my kitties were going to fly through the front windshield. Poor, poor kitties. Anyway, we got there safe and sound. Physically speaking, anyway.
So I called my mom and she came out and helped me carry the two little beans (that’s what I call them) into the house and down to the basement so we could show them where the litter box was. Clark quickly emerged from his box and hid underneath a shelving unit and Grete remained in her box, where she apparently felt safe, for the next 4 hours. Just in there. Sitting, staring, occasionally crying. It was heart breaking. Eventually she came out and hid herself, face against the exposed brick wall, behind some paintings that were leaning there. I am still unclear as to why that seemed like a good place to hide but there you have it. After dinner I decided that maybe the proper course of action would be to carry each of them upstairs into the less scary part of the house where my parents and I were hanging out so they could begin the adjustment period. Big mistake. Huge. They were shaking. Grete spent the first hour of upstairs time wedged between my left arm and the arm of the sofa, with her head behind a cushion. Clark spent his time hiding behind Grete. You guys, they are the wussiest kitties ever to have kittied. It’s really something. After some time Clark got spooked and went into the living room and hid between the back of the sofa and the wall. He remained there for something like 12 hours. I brought Grete up to my bedroom, thinking, again erroneously, that maybe being with me would make her feel more comfortable. She slept on the bed for a little bit but eventually ended up jumping down and hiding underneath it. Where she remained for the next 48 hours until my mother, bless her, went upstairs and pulled her out and brought her down to the basement were the litter box was. Oh, yea, I forgot to mention that in an act of both bravery and seething anger Grete took a shit on the bed.
Cats are such assholes.
As a person who considers herself a better-than-average cat mom, and who was really trying to do what was best for her little kitties, I spent almost the entire 24 hours I was at my parents house worrying about the kitties, talking about the kitties, trying to find the kitties and laughing at the kitties. I feel sort of bad about that last part but I can’t help it. Poor, pathetic little fuzzballs.
So as of the update my mom gave me last night at approximately 10:30pm, things had not changed much. My mom did manage to get Grete to come out from under the bed by sitting on the floor and reading. Eventually Grete, who is very much in need of attention pretty much whenever she is awake and not eating, came out purring and let my mom scratch her head. My mom then brought her downstairs where Grete is currently hiding. Clark, although he has still been taking refuge under the sofa in the living room, has used the litter box. I think both of them have eaten some snacks. Grete loves snacks.
Anyway so that is the Tail of Two Kitties (teehee) and also a long, drawn-out explanation as to why I did not run on Friday and also did not write on my blog. I simply couldn’t run. I had to meander around the house trying to figure out where the kitties were hiding and also at one point I had to drag Clark out from underneath the oven where he decided to wedge himself. That is not a good place to be a kitty. Also when I got back into the city I saw Boyhood with my friend Revaz at IFC. It was good. You should all see it. But maybe wait till it comes out on DVD (or streaming or whatever the kids are doing these days) because it’s almost 3 hours long. And that’s a long time.
If anything of note happens with the kitties I will be sure to let you all know. Feel free to send messages of love and concern. Also, read my other blog. It’s not that great but the posts are short and sometimes have something to do with running but usually have more to do with my imagination. Okay thanks.
* “Without further ado” is a phrase that I have said and never written and so I went on the internet and learned some things! Apparently people oftentimes write “without further adieu” instead of without further “ado,” even though if you were to translate the former it would mean without further goodbye? And that doesn’t make sense although it does look awful pretty. There is something to be said about the aesthetics of a bunch of vowels in a row. The word “ado” actually means hubbub or fuss, which I am sure all of you well-vocabularied people already knew but I thought I would throw it in here anyway. And also this one last thing because I didn’t know this and I think it is really cool. When people confuse words like “adieu” and “ado” it is known as an eggcorn! That’s what it means to confuse two words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. Eggcorn! Who knew! I will now try and work the word “eggcorn” into casual conversation on the regular so be on the lookout.
franklyrebekah 
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