(Not) Sleeping With The Enemy

Hey all.

It's 5:30 in the morning.  Do you want to guess why I'm up?  I'll give you a hint: it's not because of any children.  Mr. C took off for camping yesterday morning with the oldest 3.  Roo, who stayed with me, is still sleeping soundly in her bed.  The house is peaceful and quiet, which may make you wonder- why am I not curled up under blankets and sleeping soundly myself?

I'll tell you why.

Because the cat has decided that 4:30 or 5 a.m is when it wants it's first of three meals of the day.  And I have decided that this is it.  I am going to write the post that I have held back on for so long.  I am going to devote an entire post to why I detest this cat.
*disclaimer- if you are an animal lover and are prepared to tell me why I need to be more compassionate and tolerant of this animal, then you should be warned that I haven't had my coffee yet, I'm up extra early for no reason and extra cranky because of it.  You don't want to mess with that, do you? 


A little back story before we start:  The cat was 14 years old when we brought it over here from 9's mom's house.  We didn't know at the time that she has a tendency towards puking.  Actually, we didn't know a lot of things.  We assumed we were getting a normal cat.

This is not a normal cat.  This is El Diablo Estupido.

(That is what I secretly call her).

Here is a list of my grievances towards El Diablo Estupido:

Per the vet, we have to divide her daily meal up into 3 increments if we want her to puke less.  This has confused El Diablo because she now thinks that anytime I am in the kitchen, she will be receiving a meal.  This means that she spends most of her day circling my kitchen island like a shark.  To count, this household has lost 2 plates, 1 drinking glass, 1 pie pan, and 1 cat dish because El Diablo has gotten underfoot and tripped me in her constant greediness for food. This is not to mention the number of times that nothing has broken but I have tripped and sent food flying all over the tile.

Which reminds me, the tile.  Over half of my house is covered in tile, yet, anytime El Diablo pukes, she makes sure to do it on the carpet.

She went on a starvation strike when we tried to switch her to dry food.  She refused to eat it, and then I caught her up on my pantry shelf like a feral raccoon.  She had torn through the plastic on a brand new loaf of bread and had devoured it.  So we switched back to wet food.

That brings me back to the feeding her 3 times a day thing:  you know what I want the first thing I smell to be in the morning?  Coffee.  You know what I'm accosted with instead?  Friskies Whitefish Ocean Dinner.  It smells up an entire side of the house.

And then there's my laundry room.  My laundry room has been taken over by the litter box and her food and water dishes.  To get to my washing machine nowadays, I have to perform acrobatic stunts of epic proportions while stepping in the sand that she kicks out of her littler box.

Finally, there's the persistent meowing at 5 a.m. No matter how many pillows I've thrown at her, how many threats I make to sell her to a ghetto restaurant, she will not shut up with the pre dawn meowing.  We resorted to closing her in the laundry room every night so that we could sleep.  One night we did this when my best friend was over.  My best friend is a cat person.  The cat started crying and my friend, (who never offers me any pity when I'm bitching about the cat) had the nerve to say "That is breaking my heart."  And I wanted to say "Really? REALLY?  That's breaking your heart?  That?  What about your friend who you've known since you were six who, between babies, pregnancies, and kitty cats, hasn't gotten a good night's sleep in almost 8 years now?  WHY DOESN'T THAT BREAK YOUR  HEART? WHY DOES THE DAMN CAT GET ALL YOUR PITY?  Huh?  HUH?"

But instead I just threw her a look and said, "Trust me.  At 5 a.m. that's the safest place for her to be."

Another, more gentle friend suggested that perhaps the cat came to our household to teach me about loving difficult things.  I wanted to hug her and tell her that she was sweet for that I thinking that I was going to look for lesson about love in this scenario.  She didn't know me very well at the time.

As an afterthought, I just realized that I've gone through the terrible 2's with 2 children and am in the midst of them with another.  I know all about loving difficult things.  El Diablo and I are not on that path.   

On the up side, the stupid cat did motivate me to get up and write a post on the blog that I've been neglecting lately.  How are you all doing?  I've missed my blog and will try to do better this summer.  I already took pics for a cooking post that'll be coming up.  Me and Mr. C did an at home date night and made Pasta Carbonara.  It was actually better than anything I've ever tasted at a restaurant and easy to make.  I'll get that up soon to share with you.  For now, I guess I owe one to the cat for getting me up and writing.

Score 1 for the enemy.

You all have a good day.