My brain has become so full of information lately that it no longer stores things neatly in files to be found later. The clerk inside my head who processes information is so busy that she hasn't gone home to eat or sleep in weeks. I picture her as Madam Trelawney in the Harry Potter movies.
Instead of the neatly filed drawers in alphabetical order, there is now just a huge in-bin with papers cascading to the floor. Sad really.
What's sadder is that I have full confidence that this system will magically work when I need it too. For example: Yesterday, at one of my jobs, I had the pleasure of learning a new task. I enjoyed this new task very much. However, it taxed Madam Trelawney to no end. Not only did my new task involve math, which both I and Madam Trelawney hate more than screaming babies, but it also involved me having to try to remember where an entire warehouse of ingredients was stored.
I bet you think I'm kidding. I assure you I am not. It was like playing an all day game of Memory, which I also hate. I would ask a co-worker "Where is the Energy Boost?" and they would explain in full detail where in the warehouse to find it. Then I would say "Ok, well, where is the epsom salt?" And they would explain that also. While they were explaining that, Madam Trelawney would throw down the information containing the whereabouts of the Engergy Boost and begin to furiously scribble down directions to the epsom salt. By the time we got to the warehouse, she had forgotton where she put that also. I would forgive her and look for a mysterious third ingredient in hopes that I would just happen upon the missing first two in my search.
Some of the ingredients I searched for had no label and some had a label named something different than what was written down. (Me: Where is the biotin? Co-Worker: Oh, that's in the bin labeled "magnesium sulphate." Of course it is.) I felt like I was trapped in the Legend of Zelda, where you search for stupid Zelda all day long but no one ever really finds her. In the end, you die jumping over something pointy and have to start all over at the beginning. I did level up and gain an extra life after I successfully remembered where the red rumensin pellets where.
All of this was a challenge, and yet, at Thanksgiving, when my sister was bemoaning the fact that she couldn't find the envelope containing her employment papers for her new job, I clearly recalled that she told me the week before that it was in her van. This is info I did not need to retain, but somehow, I did. Well done Madam Trelawney.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Drama-Cat: Gladys Goes To the Vet
Today was that magical day that happens once a year. No, not Christmas. It was Take Gladys To The Vet Day. Every year we start warning her and taunting her about it weeks ahead of time.
"Gladys! You get to go see Dr. Charlie soon!" we say in our sing-song voice.
Gladys usually blinks her disdain and ignores us. As if ignoring us will make it not happen. Cats are like that.
On the big day, or sometimes the night before if I'm really on my A-game, I drag the cat carrier up from the basement and wipe the cobwebs and coal dust off of it. Then it sits on the kitchen floor. Gladys senses that it is there and avoids it. She is still in denial that this IS going to happen.
When it's time to depart, I go looking for Gladys. This is her red flag that something big is going down because we usually just leave the house without searching for her first. I sometimes try to bait her into entering the kitchen on her own but it just feels wrong since I know that she is going to see the cat carrier and run the other way. So this year I picked her up and immediately wished I had gotten her back claws removed also.
Cats have a way of growing seven more arms and legs when you are trying to stuff them into a cat carrier. She pretty much spreads all of her limbs out, her back claws grow an extra three inches and you begin to re-evaluate the physics of jamming such a large cat into such a small hole.
Perhaps it can't be done, I say to myself. Then I remember that just last week she wiggled under the dresser in the quilting room which only has about a 6 inch clearance. I jokingly asked her if I was going to have to employ the jaws of life to get her fat body out from underneath it when she deftly swooped back out at me in a failed ambush attempt.
This year my husband was on hand to witness the circus that is Vet Day. He thinks I make it up how dramatic she is about the whole affair. Now he has seen the light. He picked up Gladys and tried getting her in the cat carrier. With the two of us working together, we managed to get her pushed in. We examined each other's wounds and tried to find that one finger of his that she sliced off. Yowling and crying poured forth from the carrier. And continued for the whole 20 minute car ride to the vet.
At first she tried the distressed yowl. I turned the car radio on. Then she started peppering the yowls with growls. I turned the radio up louder. She added hissing to the repertoire. I started to sing along with the radio. That was when she gave up and switched tactics to the Poor Pitiful Me meow. If you've ever watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation you may remember the part where Aunt Brittany accidently wraps the cat up in a box. The box is making terrible noises and thrashing about wildly. That's what Gladys does inside her cat carrier between the house & the car, the car & the vet's.
At Dr. Charlie's, we went into the exam room. (Lights please.) We waited a moment or two. (Camera....Gladys Goes to the Vet Take One....Action!) The nurse came in and opened her carrier and instead of springing out like a crazy baboon, she walked out calm, collected and graceful. Like a movie star on the red carpet. There was no sign of the poofy tail or the big yellow saucer eyes. She walked that counter like she owned it.
Dr. Charlie came in and said hello to her. She curtsied. He checked her ears with q-tips to make sure they were clean. She sat perfectly still, as if we spend every day sticking q-tips in her ears. He pulled her lips back to check her teeth. She smiled and batted her eyes. When it was time for her shot, she acted bored. Needles, shmeedles.
And then for the grand finale (I love this part and I swear some year I will take a video camera) Dr. Charlie opens up the cat carrier door and says "Would you like to go home now Gladys?" And the cat who butchered and maimed us just a half hour before for even SUGGESTING such a thing, put her tail in the air in a delicate curve, and walked into her cat carrier as if she were the queen. (Cut! That's a wrap, folks.)
"Gladys! You get to go see Dr. Charlie soon!" we say in our sing-song voice.
Gladys usually blinks her disdain and ignores us. As if ignoring us will make it not happen. Cats are like that.
Here is the usual silliness we are forced to put up with.
On the big day, or sometimes the night before if I'm really on my A-game, I drag the cat carrier up from the basement and wipe the cobwebs and coal dust off of it. Then it sits on the kitchen floor. Gladys senses that it is there and avoids it. She is still in denial that this IS going to happen.
When it's time to depart, I go looking for Gladys. This is her red flag that something big is going down because we usually just leave the house without searching for her first. I sometimes try to bait her into entering the kitchen on her own but it just feels wrong since I know that she is going to see the cat carrier and run the other way. So this year I picked her up and immediately wished I had gotten her back claws removed also.
Cats have a way of growing seven more arms and legs when you are trying to stuff them into a cat carrier. She pretty much spreads all of her limbs out, her back claws grow an extra three inches and you begin to re-evaluate the physics of jamming such a large cat into such a small hole.
Perhaps it can't be done, I say to myself. Then I remember that just last week she wiggled under the dresser in the quilting room which only has about a 6 inch clearance. I jokingly asked her if I was going to have to employ the jaws of life to get her fat body out from underneath it when she deftly swooped back out at me in a failed ambush attempt.
This year my husband was on hand to witness the circus that is Vet Day. He thinks I make it up how dramatic she is about the whole affair. Now he has seen the light. He picked up Gladys and tried getting her in the cat carrier. With the two of us working together, we managed to get her pushed in. We examined each other's wounds and tried to find that one finger of his that she sliced off. Yowling and crying poured forth from the carrier. And continued for the whole 20 minute car ride to the vet.
At first she tried the distressed yowl. I turned the car radio on. Then she started peppering the yowls with growls. I turned the radio up louder. She added hissing to the repertoire. I started to sing along with the radio. That was when she gave up and switched tactics to the Poor Pitiful Me meow. If you've ever watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation you may remember the part where Aunt Brittany accidently wraps the cat up in a box. The box is making terrible noises and thrashing about wildly. That's what Gladys does inside her cat carrier between the house & the car, the car & the vet's.
At Dr. Charlie's, we went into the exam room. (Lights please.) We waited a moment or two. (Camera....Gladys Goes to the Vet Take One....Action!) The nurse came in and opened her carrier and instead of springing out like a crazy baboon, she walked out calm, collected and graceful. Like a movie star on the red carpet. There was no sign of the poofy tail or the big yellow saucer eyes. She walked that counter like she owned it.
Dr. Charlie came in and said hello to her. She curtsied. He checked her ears with q-tips to make sure they were clean. She sat perfectly still, as if we spend every day sticking q-tips in her ears. He pulled her lips back to check her teeth. She smiled and batted her eyes. When it was time for her shot, she acted bored. Needles, shmeedles.
And then for the grand finale (I love this part and I swear some year I will take a video camera) Dr. Charlie opens up the cat carrier door and says "Would you like to go home now Gladys?" And the cat who butchered and maimed us just a half hour before for even SUGGESTING such a thing, put her tail in the air in a delicate curve, and walked into her cat carrier as if she were the queen. (Cut! That's a wrap, folks.)
The queen setting majestically on her Victorian couch.
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