So, today (or The Day Which Shall Live on in Infamy, as Husbandrinka calls it, because you know, that’s catchier than “Saturday”) is the day that we all are going to the shelter to adopt a kitten. Â By “we all” I mean Husbandrinka, the kids, my parents and I, not everyone who reads this blog. Â Boundaries, people.
The preparations have not going well.
Last weekend the kids and I went back to PETCO to get “the basic necessities” which, according to me, were a litter box, a food bowl and a litter scooper and according to the kids were a scratching post, a $250 “kitty home” that if the economy gets much worse I could move into and a collar that spelled out  ‘N heat! in rhinestones. After an animated discussion that had a PETCO employee with her Lee Press-on Nail finger on the security button, we agreed to “revisit” the issue of their necessities at home with daddy as the “tie breaker”. Seriously, sometimes these kids are such suckers.
Husbandrinka still hasn’t embraced our expanding family.  He’s been sighing deeply all week and making comments like, “Our peaceful lives will be over soon.”  Peaceful lives? Ok, I was less than a mile from Ground Zero on September 11th and I ride the NYC subways every day, while he’s at a Zen retreat, apparently.  Then my daughter starts with the whole “we have to interview veterinarians”crap. I don’t know if people do this where you live, but in NYC parents interview pediatricians before their kids are hatched. I’m not kidding. So you’re all pregnant, and you’re sitting there talking to the pediatrician about your hypothetical issues with the child to see if you “mesh”.  If I were a pediatrician, I’d hire professional actors to do those sessions in my place, because I don’t understand  how a normal person be expected to put up with that crap.
So my daughter has the idea that we should interview veterinarians in the same way. On the one hand, I love the idea, because, hey, free time-killing activity with the kids! But on the other hand, I’m not certifiably insane, so I pull the plug on that. Â
“We’re going to get a vet upstate,” I tell her, referring to the area where my parents have a dacha. Â Because it’s cheaper there than in NYC.
“WHAT?” she nearly faints, “We need someone close by in case the cat has a health emergency.”
Can you guess who was close by when she said “cat has a health emergency”?
Husbandrinka has been very cranky about it.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that he was planning on putting the cat on his back and doing the twelve stations of the cat, I mean, cross, with it.
So here we are.
By Saturday night, we should be cat parents.
There will be a lot of work to be done–litter box training, petting and fussing.
But Husbandrinka and the kids are going to be in charge of that. Â Because I’m going out with some
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