If there is any sound more hair-raising than the screech of a cat in distress, I hope like hell I never hear it.

Around seven yesterday evening, the Prince was playing with the X-Box in the living room and I was out in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on a batch of vegetable chili when suddenly we heard coming from our bedroom the unmistakable sounds of a cat fight. Only these were not the ordinary playful or grumpy scuffling sounds so frequently heard in a multi-cat household�these were the unearthly shrieks of a terrified cat in serious trouble, punctuated by the vigorous rattling of the mini-blind and a loud �bumping into the wall� sound. It sounded like someone being killed! The cats NEVER fight amongst themselves like that, and so my first confused thought was that maybe some-crazy-how some other animal had gotten in our bedroom window... possibly a raccoon?... and that one of the cats was now fighting for its very life.

So the Prince and I rushed into our room to find that Little Cat had somehow gotten a rear paw tangled in the string that binds the blind-slats together, had either jumped or fallen from the windowsill, and was dangling halfway down the wall upside down, shrieking and hissing and thrashing about in an absolute panic. She was so terrified that she had both shit herself and spewed piss everywhere... all over herself, the wall, and the Prince�s laundry on the floor below. And after all of twenty seconds of captivity was seriously attempting to gnaw off the offending paw to get herself free.

But wait! Did I not say �the unmistakable sounds of a cat fight?� Indeed I did, for so it was. Big Fat Retarded Idiot-Cat, freaked out by all of Little Cat�s carrying on, had taken it upon himself to KICK HER ASS while she hung upside down from the blind, hissing and squalling and spewing piss; and added his own angry yowls and hisses to the cacophony, while attempting to bite her and tear her to shreds with his non-existant claws.

The first stage of the attempted rescue was me trying chase off the Big Fat Retard, who didn�t want to go and kept circling around me and running back over to where the action was, presumably to start some more shit with his helpless sibling; while the Prince tried in vain to get a hold of the unfortunate victim who was having none of it and attempted to gnaw his hand off every time it came within an inch of her person. After our third circle around the room I managed to get Big Stupid out and the door shut, and then finally thought to hand the Prince a towel with which to subdue the thrashing Little Cat so I could untangle her foot.

The moment she was free she streaked off into the closet, and stood there huffing and glaring out at us, back arched, eyes enormous, every hair standing completely on end. I couldn�t even get close enough to her to check out her paw, although it appeared to be ok, looking at it from a distance for the thirty seconds before she leapt behind the closet door and refused to come out.

I left her there to calm herself down and went off to clean up the poop while running back and forth to stir the chili... run to bedroom, clean some mess, wash hands, stir chili, run back to bedroom, etc, etc etc; while the Prince went out and had a cigarette to calm his nerves and then came back inside and used pet-stain carpet cleaner to clean the pee off the walls. Meanwhile, both of the other cats were running into the bedroom to sniff around at the pee, and being run right back out again, and then running over to the washer to sniff around at the pee-soaked laundry I was piling there, and being run off from that, heading back to the bedroom, etc etc etc.

We got the mess all cleaned up, and I ran up to PetSmart to purchase some kitty bath wipes, because I really didn�t want a piss-soaked cat running around but also didn�t wish to traumatize her further by sticking her in the bathtub. She didn�t particularly care for the rubdown either, but the upside is, her fur is super-soft and sweet-smelling today, so it must have done the trick.

She seems fine today, except for a newfound fear and loathing of the windowsill. Every time she walks through the bedroom she stands and glares across the room at it, flipping her tail about angrily. Bad windowsill... BAD! Looks like we are going to have to take down that blind and put up some curtains or a blanket or something. Because that is one scene I do not care to repeat, thank you very much.

In other news, yesterday was a pretty damn good day other than that. First off, I finally got my grades for the quarter and... STRAIGHT A�s, BABY! Yeah, I say that all cocky-like, as if I knew it was a sure thing all along. But in reality, I fully expected a B in drawing and wouldn�t have been surprised to get one in at least one of my other classes as well. I mean, I did get good grades on most of my stuff but not GREAT grades, if you know what I mean. And I wasn�t at all sure I did well on the final exams. So, my grades were a nice surprise. It does this former dummie�s heart good to see my name on the honor roll, dammit.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to check out an art gallery near here, and had a really nice time walking around looking at all the cool/beautiful/disturbing artwork. One artist, Nancy Rosen, has a style that particularly fascinated me--very colorful yet deeply mysterious, intricately detailed and richly textured portraits of people called �Lies Within.� Each picture had unexpected elements... faces, symbolic items, curious patterns... added into the background so that you could just look and look and keep discovering new layers of mystery and meaning. Very very cool. She is giving a talk on Sunday and I hope I remember to go. I would love to hear about how she works.

After that, all inspired to improve my pitiful little artistic skills, I stopped at Borders and found a really excellent book on working with pastels that was actually fairly inexpensive. I wound up purchasing it, but not until after I�d spent a couple of hours leafing through a book by artist LeRoy Neiman... someone I�d never heard of but who is apparently pretty well known and has done lots of sketches and paintings of celebrities, sports figures, city streets and pubs including many here in Chicago, and, my favorite, nudes. His stuff ranges from very sketchy pen and ink drawings to colorful paintings in a variety of media such as oil, pastel and watercolor. I�d love to be able to do the kind of stuff he does, so I fell in love with this big book full of his beautiful pictures; but alas, this one was not so inexpensive at $75 so I had to content myself with reading it in-store while I drank a caramel mocha and ate some of the best damn chili I�d ever tasted. It was so good, I was in the process of trying to recreate it at home for dinner when the cat incident ensued. My homemade chili, unfortunately, was nowhere near as good as what I�d had earlier... but I think it was only because in the process of trying to adjust the acidity I�d made it both a little too sweet and a little too sour. It was still pretty good though, and next time I�ll remember to go a little easier on the baking soda and not so free with the sugar and vinegar, either. Duh. Having made sweet-and-sour dishes in the past, I should KNOW that vinegar does not cancel out sugar.

Today has been all about... nothing, really. I ran to Dick Blick early this morning and picked up some pastels and the appropriate drawing paper... only to find out later that pastels are a wee bit toxic and need a bit of careful handling if one does not wish to poison oneself and family. I hardly ever wish that, so before I can begin experimenting I need to purchase fingertip gloves, a dust mask, and an easel with a tray to catch the pastel dust so it doesn�t get all over everything. I suspect these are going to wind up being more trouble than they are worth. But dammit, I like the idea of pastels because it�s a form of painting while drawing, or maybe drawing a painting. And I�d love to move in the direction of painting, but I REALLY don�t have the money or know-how to get started in oils or acrylics, and I�m just really not crazy about watercolor. So we�ll see how it goes, I guess.

So just a little bit ago I woke up from a luxurious two-hour nap, came out here and started typing out yesterday�s mishap for ya�ll�s horror and amusement, and now I�m almost finished and uh... I don�t know what comes next. Probably read a little of the pastel book before it�s time to go get the Prince from work. (Update on his work situation: He is still working in the home office and they are trying to find work for him. The pickings are kind of slim and many have very unattractive commutes; but there is one contract that he has been called upon to write up the proposal for, and if they get that he�ll likely be working in the home office for a few months. I�d love that, because it has been really nice for both of us having him working five minutes away. He doesn�t miss the gawdaful commute, and I love having the car at my disposal.)

After that, hopefully a nice QUIET Friday evening at home. I don�t even have to make supper as there is a buttload of veggie chili leftover from last night. I love it when that happens.

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Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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