rowyn | November 28-30: Canadian Visitor, Snow, and a Sick Cat

On Thursday, I got a message from Eliyahu that they wanted to move their planned arrival from "December 20th or so" to "tomorrow" and would that be okay?

Sure, sounds great.

I'd told them previously that I was working on this ridiculous "250k words in 44 days" challenge and therefore would be even less social than usual until it wrapped up on December 10th. But I'm happy to have them around.

When I got up and let Lyric inside yesterday, she made a hacking noise with her mouth wide open. Not like a retching motion, but more like she was trying to get something out of her throat or mouth. Before I left to get Eliyahu from the airport, I put down her lunch. She wanted to go outside with me instead of eating, though -- pretty typical of her; she doesn't like eating unless someone is there to watch her while she does.

Eliyahu's flight arrived early, so they had almost enough time to get to baggage claim before I arrived. I circled the area a few times until we could coordinate a pick-up spot.

They're from Canada, so as we drove out of the airport, they looked around and said, "Oh, you don't have snow yet."

"Yeah, we hardly ever get snow in November here. Sometimes we don't even get snow until January."

When we got home, Lyric still didn't eat lunch, despite people around to watch her -- very unusual for her. I offered her dry food and she had a little, but not much. She ate the two kitty treats Eliyahu put out for her, but clearly not normal. She vomited afterwards -- not a big surprise, cats do that. And she sneezed, exactly once. I decided I'd call the vet on Saturday and bring her in if she wasn't doing better in the morning.

Despite not eating, Lyric is very happy to have her Backup Human around again and has devoted significant time to snuggling them. It's cold outside, so while she still wants to go out, she doesn't want to stay out for long.

I went to bed on time and had some trouble falling asleep (*shakes fist*) but got to sleep around 12:30AM, so not too bad. I woke up a few times during the night. At 7AM, I noticed through a window a dusting of snow on the ground and thought "heh, Eliyahu brought some with them." I played with my phone for a bit before going back to sleep, and then got up at 10AM.

At which point it was snowing in earnest and there were two inches on the ground.

And Lyric still couldn't eat. She was interested in food and led me to her food bowl as usual, but she only nosed at the food and maybe licked it a little. I put kitty treats on the floor before her and she nosed them but didn't eat. I put one in my palm to offer her, and she took it in her mouth for a moment before dropping it again.

I called the vet to make sure they were open and could see her. They offered an appointment at 11.

So I went to wake Eliyahu. "I need to take the cat to the vet. Also, look what you did." I gestured with a flourish to the window. "Look at it."

Eliyahu peered blearily at me. "Huh?" And then followed my motion. "...I didn't know it would follow me!"

I asked them if they'd shovel the driveway for me, which they were happy to do. <3 I ate breakfast and got dressed. Lyric went outside with me and I was like "fine, she's not going far in this weather." I put the (empty) cat carrier and my purse in the car and cleared it off while Eliyahu finished shoveling the driveway before the car so I could get it out.

My usual tactic for getting Lyric into the cat carrier is "lure her with kitty treats" but this was obviously not going to work when she's not eating. Once I was ready to go, I retrieved Lyric. She had been watching us from beside the garage but hurried to the front door as soon as I moved, on the assumption I would let her in. She meowed in protest when I picked her up and took her to the car instead. I stuffed her into the cat carrier but couldn't get it zipped closed before she escaped into the car. I gave up and closed the car door instead. Cat is in car, I can get her to the vet, the carrier bit can wait.

I drove to the vet (it's only 2-3 miles away) with Lyric on my lap and meowing anxiously. The drive had a moment of excitement when my car kept spinning wheels on the unplowed slope of the street leading to the main road. I kept stopping, putting the car in reverse, backing up to where I could still get traction, and trying again. On the third try, with me singing encouragement to my car, she made it up the slope. After that, it was just a matter of going slowly; the major roads were bad but drivable.

At the vet, Lyric got out when I opened the door and hid under the car. It was a few minutes after 11 now. I spent a minute trying to coax Lyric to me, then got the (empty) cat carrier and my purse from the car to bring them into the vet's office. "Hi! I'm here for an 11AM appointment. My cat is also here but she is still outside. We are experiencing Technical Difficulties."

The receptionist laughed. "You're fine."

I put the carrier and purse on the counter and went outside to coax Lyric some more. She ventured a few inches out from under the car while I was a few feet away, but retreated if I moved. At length, I started the car.

Lyric knows that Cars With Running Engines Are Not Safe. I didn't move it, just got back out with it still in park. She had moved to hiding under the trunk. I coaxed her some more. She relented and emerged, mewing in protest at Snow and Car and Vet and life in general, one assumes. I carried her into the vet, got her into the cat carrier, and successfully zipped it shut with her inside this time. "Now I have to go turn the car off," I told the receptionist. "Be right back." Thankfully, there were no other customers -- no surprise, given the weather. Between the holiday and the weather, I was grateful they were open at all.

Lyric was in a bad mood for the vet and the vet tech, too, but she didn't succeed at clawing anyone: just a lot of hissing and angry swatting. After the vet tech weighed her (she's up to 15 lbs) and went to get the vet, Lyric hopped onto the floor and retreated into the cat carrier. She may have figured out that the only way to escape the vet is via the cat carrier.

The vet checked her teeth for obvious decay and listened to her innards for signs of a blockage. "There's nothing obivously wrong with her. It might be that she's got some sinus drainage from allergies that's going into her throat and upsetting her stomach, which would explain the sneeze and the hacking attempts." He gave her a shot to settle her stomach and said to keep an eye on her and bring her back on Monday or Tuesday if she wasn't better.

At home, she didn't eat for the next few hours either, though she made more of a try at it, opening her jaws and getting tiny bits of food in her mouth when at her food bowl. Around 4PM, I gave her a lickable cat treat and she at half of that. Which, on the one hand: yay food! And on the other: she has never walked away from a half-finished lickable cat treat before. I put the rest in the fridge. She went outside for a bit, then came back in and hung out with us in the den. She looked around for her dry food -- I keep the dry food in the den now because Lyric wants someone to watch her eat and I'd rather do that while I'm sitting at my computer. So I opened the box for her and she actually ate a significant amount! Not up to a normal amount yet, but still, a good sign.

And then she came back 30 minutes later to eat more dry cat food. Progress!

I have not done much writing in the last two days. Mostly distracted by guest and sick cat. I did a bunch of dictation yesterday just so I wouldn't fall too far behind on the 250k quest. I'm gonna work some more on The Secret Dragon outline, see if I can get the rest of the pieces in place so I could actually write it.

Lyric keeps wanting to go back outside to play in the snow and hide in the garage. Eliyahu and I keep letting her out and then calling her back in again. And she'll come back in after a bit but she almost immediately wants to go back out. Neither of us really wants her hanging around outside when she's sick. While she clearly considers the snow to be the only effective medicine or something. I don't know. Cats.

I cleaned the kitchen on Wednesday before I made lasagna, but I did not clean up after making lasagna or at any time since. So the kitchen has just been littered with dishes from Giant Cooking Project plus additional daily dishes accumulating. Eliyahu just took pity on me and went to do the dishes without even saying anything. Eventually I noticed I was hearing a lot of clinking-dishes noises and went in to see. By which time they were mostly done. Aww. <3

November 28-30: Canadian Visitor, Snow, and a Sick Cat

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