Crazy Cat Lady talks to her cat

The other night, I got a text from Heidi. I opened it to see a picture of Phoebe sitting on Heidi's bed. In front of her was a huge pile of puke sitting smack dab in the middle of Heidi's new Wittenberg blanket. Heidi's text said: Can I throw her out the window? and I answered: Yes, of course. Because it was a GIANT pile of barf. I'd post the picture, but it's really gross. I made Joe look at it and he was all, "why would you show that to me?" and I was like, "why WOULDN'T I show that to you?" Anyway, the best part of the picture is Phoebe sitting behind the puke all, " . . . did I do that?"

So now Phoebe is banned from Heidi's room and GUESS WHAT? She is not a fan of that decision, but it doesn't matter because she licks her own butt and you know what? We make a point never to listen to someone who licks her own butt.

The biggest problem is that Phoebe hates it when doors are closed. She's very particular about it. And by particular, of course I mean ANNOYING AS HELL. If my bedroom door is closed and she's outside, she'll scratch and scratch and meow and meow until I'm finally like OK FINE and I open the door, let her in, and close the door again. Five minutes later (if that), she is scratching on the door again to be let back out of my room. WHAT THE HELL, CAT? She also does this to us when we have our bathroom doors closed. I don't know why she wants into the bathroom when I'm in there. If I let her in with me and close the door, she acts like I'm locking her in there because I'm going to drown her in the bathtub or something. Which I would NEVER do. It sounds too messy.

This morning, I was getting ready and I heard Phoebe in the hallway scratching and meowing and just generally being annoying. I opened my door, thinking she was scratching to get in, and saw she was instead scratching at Heidi's door. Then I had this conversation with her:

Me: Phoebe!
Phoebe: Meow!
Me: Phoebe . . . come here.
Phoebe: I want to go in there.
Me: You can't. The door is closed.
Phoebe: What's a door? I want in there. Meow.
Me: Come in here. I will pet you.
Phoebe: Why won't The Other One let me in there?
Me: Because you puked on her stuff.
Phoebe: You guys don't like that?
Me: No. No, we don't.
Phoebe: It was a gift.
Me: It sucked. Come in here. I will pet you.
Phoebe: Meow!

And then I let her into my room, closed the door, and tried not to throw her out the window when she immediately started scratching to get out again.

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

Yesterday, when I got home from work, I saw that the apartment complex people had put a notice on our door. "Oh, no," I thought. "I hope they haven't seen my pet penguin." Just kidding. I don't have a pet penguin, although, I'm pretty sure that since they don't allow dogs, I wouldn't be allowed to keep one in the makeshift ice cooler habitat I'd make out of the storage unit. Anyway.

The notice was to tell us that a coyote had been spotted in the vicinity. A COYOTE. And not the friendly kind that tries to blow you up with dynamite. But a real coyote that will eat your cats and your babies and MAYBE NOT EVEN IN THAT ORDER. Do coyotes eat babies? Or is that just dingoes? Anyway.

Unfortunately, the notice didn't tell you what to do in case you ran into this wily coyote (see what I did there?) during your early morning run or, let's be honest, sleepy walk to your car. I thought back on all of my wild animal knowledge and all I could think of was Dwight's advice about bear attacks, which I didn't think would be very helpful. I thought maybe you beat sticks at it, but then I remembered that that was from The Parent Trap and I think that was to ward off mountain lions, not coyotes. OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS. AWESOME. My favorite part is the laughing. Anyway.

Heidi actually SAW the coyote with her very own eyes and she said the coyote just looked at her like she was a delicious, delicious baby that it wanted to eat with a side of cranberry sauce. I might have embellished a bit. I told her to stay far away from it if she saw it again, because what if it was friends with the baby raccoons?

A woman shouldn’t have to be hit by a car to learn that she may have rabies.

When I got home from Cleveland on Sunday, our downstairs neighbors (Dan the Man and his daughter) were out on their porch, which is right next to our front door. I noticed something odd as I came up the walkway and that something odd was two baby raccoons. On their porch. Like . . . in a cage.

Me: Um. Are those raccoons?
Daughter: Yep!
Me: Why?
Dan the Man: Well, the mom died so we decided to raise them until we can release them.
Me: Oh. Cool.

Then we had a nice long conversation about how long it takes to raise raccoons and how smart they are and how you can domesticate them and then I got rabies and died.

Oh, wait, that didn't happen. Anyway, I emailed Heidi at work on Monday and was all, "did you know our neighbors are keeping raccoons on the porch?" and she was all, "WHAT?!" and I said, "yes, raccoons . . . on the porch . . . and they are smelly." And then Heidi sacked up and called the apartment complex. Naturally, since I was at my office and Heidi was at her office, I could not hear the conversation, but I was told it went something like this:

Heidi: Hi, I was walking by an apartment and they have raccoons on their porch.
Office Lady: Say that again?
Heidi: They have raccoons on their porch.
Office Lady: On purpose?
Heidi: Yes. In a cage.
Office Lady: Why?
Heidi: I don't know.
Office Lady: Who does that?
Heidi: Our neighbors.
Office Lady: Which apartment are you in?
Heidi: 5699*
Office Lady: Is this Heidi or Jennie?
Heidi: Heidi.
Office Lady: You guys have the weirdest stuff happen to you**.

Then she told Heidi that they'd be gone within a day. And today they are gone. I wish I knew what happened to them. I feel bad because I didn't want them killed or anything, but if anyone in the apartment complex is going to accidentally get infected with rabies, it's gonna be me or Heidi. I mean, we had to take precautions.

*note: not our actual apartment number

**see: broken garbage disposal; upside-down oven knob; broken toilet; broken front door lock