Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell cat pee

Last week, I walked into my bedroom closet and got knocked over by the smell of cat urine. One of our four felines had felt the need to empty his or her bladder all over my shoes, which were neatly lined up under some shelves on the floor of my closet. I swore. Then I shook my head. I checked out the damage. Three pairs of leather shoes straight into the garbage. My Converse went into the wash. Damn. It's not like I have a lot of shoes as it is.

Then I went in for surgery. When I returned there was another cat accident in X-man's bathtub. And then, eyeing MacTroll's office I got a feeling that if it was happening up here -- it most certainly was happening in his office. He checked, and sure enough -- yuck. But we'd been a bit preoccupied the last five days with hospital stuff and surgery and some overall harmless, yet unpleasant, bickering.

We took the two prime candidates in: Maya, the big fuzzy, who has chronic cystitis and Clawdio, the invisible cat, who has had a urinary tract infection every winter for the past two.

They both got urine analysis drawn and Maya came up the winner, so she went back into her carrier looking smug while Clawdio got an examination. Turns out he's lost a half pound since December and has also acquired a heart murmur. His blood pressure test was inconclusive. The systolic was in normal range, but the diastolic wasn't. We also did a thyroid panel because weight loss and heart murmur can also mean hyperthyroid. Clawdio is currently the oldest animal in the house at age 12 1/2. My mind flips back to last January when Looseyfur started to go downhill. In the pit of my stomach, I'm hoping that the bloodwork will show something we can control. At the very least, he's on meds to cure his urinary tract infection, so hopefully when we take him back in two weeks and get his urine tested again and get another blood pressure reading, they'll both be normal.

For the time being, doors to every interior room are being closed all day. And we'll hope the meds clear up his infection quickly. Clawdio is the cat on the left... Luke is the cat on his back.  Clawdio is entirely my cat. He doesn't care much for human males of any size or age or dogs of any kind. He puts up with them, but he'd really rather just have me in a quiet apartment, in a sun beam with a warm laptop all to himself. Mmm, that sounds good. Really good. Maybe it's nap time.