Cat butt spectacular!

so no pictures, but only because I haven't figured out yet how to get them off my new camera and onto my computer. My camera did come with a CD full of proprietary software and a cord to connect it to the PC and even a manual, but I don't know what the hell I did with the manual, so I need to either download another or figure it out the hard way. Neither of those things will happen today since it's already 2 pm and me and the house are still dirty. I'm dirty from not showering this morning and then going to yoga class, the house is dirty from the usual flakes of litter everywhere and Simone's ass.

Yes, Simone's ass is dirtying the house. This is where things are going to get gross, so click away now if you're feeling delicate. We took Simone to the vet yesterday because she's been wheezing and because she had a skin condition (which has since cleared but she's still all scabby) and because she needed to have her anal glands expressed. She's been scooting across the carpet and Dr. Internet, assisted by Nurse Google, informed me that hard stools are necessary in order for cats to keep their anal sacs in good shape. (yeah, go ahead and click on that link, I'm sure you're dying to know more. I do love About.com, though.)

So Simone has been bogarting Pip's kitten food - which is what she was apparently allergic to, since during the kitten food time period she had this horrible dandruff, like big snowflakes of it, which was fucking gross. And since kitten food is so rich and fatty it gave them all diarrhea, which meant the litter boxes were even more dank and digusting than usual. It's not like we entertain often, but seriously, I would not have wanted someone to come over to the house during that time. So we just started giving them all Inty's low ingredient hypo-allergenic food (I figured Pip would survive) and lo and behold, Simone's skin condition cleared itself up. (Mostly. She's still a little scabby, but clearly healing.) And everyone stopped having diarrhea except who Simone (who showed some improvement but not enough.)

But Simone started scooting across the floor and her butt did not smell good and it felt like my house was covered in a thin film of cat butt slime, so I made a vet appointment. The internets all tell you how to express the anal glands yourself, but I'm telling you, it's worth the fifty bucks the vet will charge you. That stuff smells so bad, it's like a durian factory up in here. I'm burning so much incense, round the clock, that smoke billows out the doors when you come in from outside.

Anyway, so at the vet's they put a hilarious red hood thingie over Simone's face - I need to start bringing a camera to the vet, you all would have loved it - and squirted sacfuls of squid ink out of her - which is sticky and she runs away when I start up with the paper towels on her bunghole, which I guess I understand, and oh yeah, the reason she's wheezing is because she weights 15 pounds. When we got her, she weighed 13. She's gained like 15% since she got here, and she arrived tubby! She can't breathe, essentially, because her own fatness is crushing her lungs.

So now in addition to being called Simone Bear and Momma Bear, she's Diet Bear. We started her on the new regime this morning (actually they are all going to have to have their food regulated) and she is already following us around, meowing whenever we get near the kitchen and eying me mournfully with her big round eyes that look like googly eyes. Heh. I am evil for taking pleasure in this, even if it is for her own good.

And now, time to clean my disgusting house. You would never know that a cleaner came on Wednesday, it looks like two tornadoes had a fight.