...and the weekend

At Crown Tourney this weekend, Kerridwen acqitted herself with honour on and off the field, and fought well. Also, she didn't win.

*whew*

So Tim isn't king, and we can all breathe easy. It would have been far too exciting. That said, we all had a pretty good time, though Ray and I ran out not long after the tourney and we wound up leaving earlier than expected. Missed a brilliant feast, too, by all reports, but we were done.

Sunday morning I got up and let Shanti out. I was terrified about it; I've never, ever been the kind of person who let my cats outside, but it was about the last thing I could think of to let her stay. She trotted happily off, and I watched her go, not knowing if I'd even see her again. Then, I went to get a loaf of bread started.

An hour or so later I was sitting at the computer and heard her meowing outside the bedroom window. I went to the balcony and called her, and she came running to me. I held her tight and buried my face in her belly, and she didn't even kick me for it, she purred and purred. I put her back in the bedroom and gave her a bunch of treats, and stayed in there with her for a while, just paying attention to her. She wanted to go back out, so I let her.

While she was out I got thinking. I've been letting Chocolate stay in the bedroom, day and night, because his presence keeps Shanti from peeing on my bed. If she won't come up onto the bed, will she come out from under the bed at all? So I pulled the bed out a little. Sure enough...the back corner under the bed is full of poop (and black cat fur, but that was expected) and dark stains. I pulled the bed out further. Blood.

As far as I can tell she's not hurt, but someone's been beating the hell out of someone and it's a lot worse than I'd thought it was. Samson's nose is scratched up but doesn't look that horrible. I don't know. It's going to be awful getting it out of the carpet, but I'm more interested in not letting it happen again.

I cleaned up the poop and vacuumed that part of the floor. Apparently the fur was a little thick because it seems to have let the magic smoke out of my vacuum cleaner. I let it cool and I hope it still works. I sprayed cleaner-stuff on the carpet, too, but there wasn't a lot of it and I'm just going to let it marinate there until I get more.

I puttered around for a while, waiting for Shanti to come back and the dough to rise. Cleaned up a little, took some things out to the trash, cleared detritus out of the car. Eventually Shanti wandered back and spent some time laying under the tree outside my balcony; by then I was involved in pulling the seat off my bicycle in hopes of getting a new one that doesn't hurt my bits so much. She lounged around and I petted her every time I walked past. I called her from the balcony a few times, but she showed no inclination to come inside, so I left her until I was ready to go.

I thought about just letting her stay outside while I was out, but I felt uncomfortable with it -- I'm still getting used to the idea of letting her out when I'm home! -- and I also wanted to see if getting what she wanted would improve her disposition towards my pillow. I'd scooped the litterboxes while she was out, so that was good. I carried her inside, petted her a lot, gave her more treats, and headed out.

Tim and Ray had made breakfast -- bacon, home fries (homemade, of course!) and eggs. Add half a perfectly-ripe cantaloupe and it was a lovely meal. The plan was to drive down to Black & Read (a local gaming/used books/used music emporium), then ce to attempt to trade in books for cash and/or credit, and then go to Sam's Club for staples.

I only got five dollars in credit for my books and I still have most of them, alas. They've gone through three used book stores and soon they're going to the Salvation Army. I promptly spent my five dollar credit and more, picking up a couple of D&D first edition books in decent condition and new-to-me copies of a couple of novels I'd left behind with Lewis.

Tim, in the meantime, spent his time there buying gifts for Ray and I, to thank us for our help with Crown Tourney. He got Ray a copy of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which I am totally going to borrow when Ray's done with it; he bought me a book on edible foods of the Rocky Mountains, and a blank book with lovely handmade paper and an image of a dancing Indian woman on the front. I declared that the woman was Inara, from Firefly; I have no idea what I'm going to write in it yet.

On to Sam's Club, thence to purchase far too much, because, well, 'bulk' and 'cheap'. Though as we discovered later when Tim went out to Safeway to pick up a few things for dinner, not so much with the cheap, as most of it would have been less expensive at Safeway. Alas.

Dinner was an experiment: fish. Tilapia fillets, to be precise, in a lemon-butter-caper sauce that was absolutely delectable; fresh green beans with a trickle of the same sauce; and rice cooked in chicken broth with minced onions and a little bit of tarragon. It worked, and it worked well. We'll be doing fish again.

Eventually, spare pillow clean and dried, laundry loaded up, I went home. To discover that despite all my efforts, Shanti had peed on my pillow again. Mind you, she had also peed in the litterbox. I fear she's formed a habit and I haven't the faintest idea how to change it.

I'm going to call my vet over lunch today and see if she has any suggestions. I'm also going to call the Humane Society and see what they think. I'm about out, myself. I just have no idea, none, whatsoever.

She was glad to see me home and purred and rubbed against my legs. She's not even mad at me; she's just peeing on my pillow.

Tonight is stuffed peppers for dinner; I'll be making something to eat for lunch the rest of the week, too, and possibly making little pasties to eat for breakfast as well. And deciding what I'm going to do about my cat, because I just don't know.