I love that the title of this post is a curse, not a blessing. Because trust me, it is so true. Not that I am happy when my life is boring, but it is a little less overwhelming. 🙂
Lately I have been flitting between a state of frenetic energy and complete and utter exhaustion. I kind of groove on the frenetic energy part of the show. I love having mojo and being able to have a feeling of accomplishment when I fall into bed exhausted at the end of a busy day. What I hate are the days of exhaustion that follow. I know it would be better to pace myself. I just don’t do moderation well. I never have.
Life always feels more overwhelming to me when I am tired. My coping points go in the red and I have an overwhelming desire to crawl under my bed and hide. But I can’t. Mostly because my freaky-deaky, neurotic cat Nom Nom usually beats me under there. Actually, that is not the only thing I can blame Nom Nom for. He is also stressing me out with his complete and utter fear of all humans.
David and I are very fussy about taking care of our feline beasties. We always take our cats to the vet for their annual checkups and when there is a sign of illness or injury. We have seen 3 cats through lymphoma, including dispensing medication through subcutaneous injections, multiple pills and feeding 3 cats 3 different diets simultaneously. I would say that we are skilled at taking care of neurotic cats who have negative associations with humans in general, and us in particular.  But Nom Nom has taught us about a new level of feline neurosis. I mean, this is a cat who still runs in terror when we open the shades in the morning. After 4 years. And in all of that time, we have never tried to capture or pet or interact with any way when we open our living room shades. Which we do daily.
We have been very patient with Nom Nom for the past 4 years. Even after all this time, we only pet Nom Nom on his own terms (by which I mean, only when he approaches us and by moving extremely slowly). We have done everything we can to prove to Nom Nom that we have no intention of eating him (which is how he got his name in the first place) or doing anything to hurt him.
But recently we discovered that he was leaving a blood trail throughout the house because he had a mysteriously swollen back paw. So, we used up all of our earned trust by capturing him not once, but twice to take him to the vet. The first vet shrugged her shoulders and tried to put a cone of shame on him. We vetoed that move very strongly. When he was still bleeding a few days later we took him to our regular vet. She thinks he has pillow foot, which is best treated with a daily dose of oral medication. We kind of laughed at her, but we decided to try doing it anyway.
Despite getting the meds chicken flavored and mixing it with chicken baby food, Nom Nom has staunchly refused to take his medication. His two siblings have both offered, numerous times, to take his medicine for him. They think both the medication alone and mixed with baby food smell mouth-wateringly delicious. But not Nom Nom. Even when I put the food in his dafe, happy place and left him along for a while. I returned to find him huddled in the corner and the food (both with and without medication mixed in) completely untouched.
David keeps trying to reassure me that we have done everything we can. I don’t really believe him. I keep thinking that if we only spent enough time thinking of a creative solution, we would find a way to medicate Nom Nom. So now I spend my spare time thinking of ways to torture my neurotic cat. No wonder I am exhausted.