covered in dust

It feels like we are the center of a huge storm of white dust, everything is covered and if you sit still for very long you will be too.

It’s coming in the back from our yard project and it is coming in the front from the renovation next door. The pounding from next door is endless, I am paying for causing this annoyance to my neighbors when we remodeled.

I should tell you about Tailless, one of the neighborhood feral cats. We have seen him on the wall since before we moved in. He had a bloody stump instead of a tail and a year ago we didn’t think he would make it. He seemed to get better though, put on some weight anyway and was still alive.

Over a week ago, 10 days to be exact, we came home from dinner out with friends and after a few minutes, Mimi said ‘we have a problem here’. Tailless was on the kitchen counter hunkered down behind the faucet. WTF?? The dogs were locked upstairs, our cats were locked in the sala and we couldn’t figure out how he got in. Some sleuthing and it became obvious that he had come in the dog door from the roof upstairs, spotted or was spotted by our dogs in the bedroom and leaped or was chased over the side of the light well. It’s about a 20′ drop to the hall pond below and we could see that he had landed on a potted plant next to the water.

Then we had a long series of hilarious chases up and down the hallway, with appropriate contradicting directions from each of us. At one point, Mimi tried to grab him with a towel and he bit her on the finger. He got a break then as she ran and dunked her finger in chlorine and water, mostly chlorine. We re-grouped and started in again. Tailless was pretty tired, he’d had a bad night, and we eventually got him cornered and with the open door of the cat carrier as the only out, we got him.

Don't even THINK about putting a finger in here

Of course, it was Saturday night. These things never happen on a weekday. We covered the carrier and had a discussion about the bite on Mimi’s finger. We called our friend Country, the nurse, to break the tie on whether to go to the hospital or not. I won. She told Mimi to get there right away, get a shot of antibiotic and more to take later.

I’m forever amazed at the efficiency down here. We walked in around 1am on a Saturday night with a low level emergency, no one was going to die immediately. Still, we saw a doctor within 5 minutes and he cleaned it, gave us a script, we bought it at the hospital pharmacy and the nurse gave Mimi the shot. We were home in under a half hour. So, I called Country back and got a bunch of BS about how we should have already left for the ER. Heh! She was dumbstruck when I told her we’d been and come back already. It would have been a minimum 6 hour trip in the US.

Tailless remained in the hall until the next day. When we called Nelson he was going out to dinner and for some reason he wasn’t thrilled about picking up a feral cat before dinner. He came by after dinner though and hauled Tailless off to the clinic. He also told us that he would keep him for 10 days and if he died in that time then Mimi should get a rabies shot. We really, really prayed for old Tailless to make it.

He seems to be fine and today we are picking him up. He got a rabies vaccine, a worming shot and he lost a couple dangly bits in back. He also got his tail cleaned up. Nelson was amazed he was alive because he said there was raw bone sticking out and that could have given him a fatal infection. He removed that part and closed the skin over the wound. He’s all healed but he is never going to be a pet. He’s wild, ferocious and tries to attack anyone who opens the cage.

We released him on the roof, he knows the area and hopefully he won’t be tempted to come in the dog door again.

I'm outta here