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I keep the bad stuff off the blog, for the most part. That is, until things reach a breaking point. (Have you noticed that? Though there’s bigger bad stuff that will never reach the blog because a person needs some privacy after all.)<\/p>\n
The latest breaking point? Today we threw out our couch. It was a year and a half old and I liked it very very much. A month ago we threw out the loveseat where Billy proposed to me. Two months before that, we threw out an upholstered chair that I adored. <\/p>\n
The common denominator = Oscar Madison, evil peeing kitty from hell.<\/p>\n
It started when we came home from the hospital with Thumper. Or rather, it started in the four days that we were in the hospital, and the smell greeted us upon our return. Oscar doesn’t like change. He doesn’t like chaos, and above all, he apparently doesn’t like strangers in the house. Four days of labor at home brought chaos, stress, and “strangers” in the form of the doula and my mother, who wasn’t a stranger to the cat but had the temerity to be sleeping in the house, which apparently hadn’t been authorized by the cat. Then we all went to the hospital and now he was alone with two dogs, with Billy only coming home to sleep and a dog walker coming in to walk the dogs and pet the cat three times a day.<\/p>\n
Not surprising that we came home to a pee-soaked couch. (And yes, we’re sure it was the cat. There’s no mistaking the smell of cat pee vs the much less offensive dog pee.) We washed the slipcovers. We soaked the cushions in enzyme spray. We covered the couch with scat mats. We hoped he would settle down. He sort of settled down in that he switched from the couch where we sat to the upholstered chair where my mother would sit when visiting once a week.<\/p>\n
Out went the chair.<\/p>\n
And then things calmed down when we started letting him go outside in the backyard. And then Sadie moved out and he REALLY calmed down and we had a nice little family vibe going for a while there.<\/p>\n
But then we started showing the house, to sell it. And so there were strangers coming through ALL THE TIME. We tried to keep him outside during the open houses, but he’d always sneak back in. Exit the loveseat.<\/p>\n
And it took a while to sell the house, so there were a lot of showings, so in spite of the scat mats, now exit the couch. <\/p>\n
(Nature’s Miracle only does so much. Things get to a point where there’s just no saving the thing. We put the couch out on the street yesterday afternoon, and a little while later through the open window I overheard a couple walking past and wondering why such a nice couch was being thrown out. Talking about how they could get it home. And then the guy sputtered, “Whoa!!! It stinks like cat pee!”)<\/p>\n
We love the cat, but damnit, I kind of feel like it’s my right to have a couch. Clearly the cat doesn’t like change…well…hella big change coming up with a cross-country move. That’s temporary, but we’re moving away from all our friends and family, so that means we’re going to have a lot of visitors. So we can’t have a couch in Portland because everytime we have an overnight guest we’ll have to throw out a piece of furniture?<\/p>\n
I don’t know what to do with the cat. Honestly, he loves to be outside, he’s a mighty hunter…I’d love to find a farm that would take him. I can’t keep going the way things have been going…just can’t.<\/p>\n
And no, it’s not a kidney or uti issue. He got a clean bill of health in the midst of all of this. The vet, normally fantastic, just handed us the business card of an animal psychologist. Yeah, I’m sure THAT’S covered by our family insurance plan.<\/p>\n
Sigh.<\/p>\n