I got the date wrong on the previous entry, as it turns out tomorrow is Thursday, not Tuesday. So you still have plenty of time to pre-order The Departed. In my defense, it’s easy to lose track of dates in the chaos that happens when school is out for winter break and there are three kids in the house, to say nothing of the cat.

About the cat. He was scheduled for surgery between Christmas and New Year because it was a good time to do dental extractions that had to be done. This meant that from 9:00 the prior night his food dish had to be taken away and when he returned from the vet he was supposed to only have a small amount of canned food.

Cat is an emotional eater, being a Found Cat, with an attachment to his food dish that goes beyond devotion and a dread of that horseman of the apocalypse, Famine, that threatens whenever he can see the bottom of his food dish. Fear of Famine can be alleviated by shaking the kibble to cover the bottom at times, but at others only another layer of kibble is enough to insulate him from the threat of starvation. (We refer to the howling that goes along with this daily drama as his Apocalypse Meow.)

So when the cat came home from the vet, post-anesthetic and sutured and traumatized by a. the surgery itself b. his separation from his food dish c. spending the day in a cage instead of sprawled on his favorite sleeping spot, the continued threat of Famine was more than he could cope with. He got the allowed canned food. Then, before bed, since he was still howling for more and hadn’t thrown up, another small amount. His food dish of kibble remained on the counter so he wouldn’t overeat or tear his sutures with unsoftened food.

In the middle of the night, there was a loud crashing noise that sent me rushing downstairs, ready to hit any lurking serial killer with the frying pan my mother sent me for Christmas which weighs a thousand pounds and could stop a rhino amped up on meth (see reading Shiloh Walker below, serial killers could be anywhere) only to discover that the cat, desperate to be reunited with his food dish, had jumped up onto the kitchen counter and knocked it to the floor where it belonged. Only it was still in a ziplock and thus cat-proofed.

I gave up, gave the cat a little more canned food, and poured water into his kibble per the vet’s instructions so it would soften enough to not hurt his mouth. Then stuck it inside the microwave so he couldn’t knock it down again before it softened enough to be safe to eat.

All of which is why I can’t keep track of dates. But I’ve got my frying pan to protect me from things that go bump in the night, and lifting the thing down from the top of the refrigerator, which is the only place it fits, to the stove, and back up, is my entire New Year’s fitness plan. If I survive until New Year’s, what with the three kids in the house. To say nothing of the cat.