that I'm very annoyed with myself and that my cat is a combination of Woody Allen, Rain man, and Arielle from the Little Mermaid

I'm annoyed with myself because today I'm being forced to eat cat vomit again.

Every morning I pack my lunch box with my mixing jar and my meals for the day, but today I also had to remember the bag I've loaded up with the foods I don't like (oatmeal, maryland crab soup, and mango soft serve) so that I can trade them in when I go to my weigh-in later. Well, I got so caught up in remembering the gross stuff that I forgot my lunch box. I was about half way to work when I realized it, so I had 2 choices. Be extra late to work or suck it up and just eat 4 really gross things. I went with the latter and as I write this I am letting my oatmeal get cold because I don't want to eat it. Boo.

Anyways, as I mentioned I have a weigh in today. I'm really hoping my focus this past week will pay off....I think it will. I actually think I look a bit smaller around my hips and my face and neck. I probably won't buy any new food this week because after all the times I cheated I have enough food to get me through a week...maybe more.

I also had an appointment with my endocrinologist yesterday and good news, my levels are NORMAL! Well, my T3 and T4. There's still the TSH to normalize but this is still good. The T3 and T4 were really high which is the hyperthyroidism. In normal thyroids the TSH kicks in to tell the T3 and T4 to do their jobs, but when the T3 and T4 are working overtime the TSH does nothing.... that's my easy explanation. Because my levels looked good she was going to lower the dosage on my meds, but since I want to get my tonsils out I'm going to stay at my current dosage until after surgery (can't have surgery unless your levels are stable). I get strep throat probably 3 times a year, but last year I had it about 5 and 3 of those times were TERRIBLE. My throat was coated in white corpuscles and I could hardly swallow and I had high fevers which I normally haven't had with strep. Each time is getting worse. I should have taken care of this a long time ago, like maybe in 6th grade when my doctor said "if you get strep one more time we are going to remove your tonsils." Well, guess what I did. I stopped telling when I had it because I didn't want surgery. Moral of the story, you should probably tell your doctor when you're sick and in December I will probably be finally going under the knife.

Update: Been about 20 minutes. Oatmeal is completely cold and I'm not even half way done.

So on Tuesday I told you all a little story about my cat and how he came to live with me. The reason I wanted to give you that background story was so you could fully understand why I think he is the way that he is and the events that occurred on Monday night.

The first night Harper was at home we were watching him play, and I noticed he just didn't seem to play like a normal kitten and I called him "dumb dumb." Allie thought I was being mean, but turns out I was right. My cat is DUMB. He doesn't really know how to play with most toys and he tends to just sit and watch when the other cat is playing.

The day after Harper was home I got test results that he had parasites, so I had to go back and pick up meds to give to him twice a day, in addition to the antibiotics I was giving him for his missing balls. It was a CHORE. I had to hold down this poor little kitten and shoot meds into his mouth. He was finally home and he's still forced to take meds constantly (remember he was on meds for a LONG time in the shelter).

Basically, I think all of these meds at such a young age damaged my poor little baby's head and it took him a long time for him to let us pick him up without flailing his arms like he was about to have a tube stuck down his throat. He has warmed up though. He lets you pick him up, but you can't really hold him for longer than 30 seconds before he starts to push away, but he is the best cuddler you will ever meet and he'll follow you and want to be near you every moment of every day to the point where you can't move without tripping over him and you just want to tell him to STOP BEING CUTE. NOW IT'S JUST ANNOYING. He cries outside of my door at night if he can't push it open, and if I don't sleep at home he cries outside of my roommate's door. And as the title says he's like Arielle and just wants to be where the people are.

He's also a little like Rain man. You think he's really dumb, but he just might be a silent genius. As I mentioned before, he doesn't really know how to play with/like many toys. His favorite things are cotton balls and it used to be this ball on a spring that he could bat at and it would pop back up... kind of like those Bop 'em dolls. But on Monday night he decided he wanted the purple sock toy that Sharma was playing with, so he attacked her, she ran away, and he took over wrestling the sock thing (it's just a purple stuffed sleeve with catnip in it). But while he was wrestling with the purple sock, the most profound thing happened....he multi-tasked! He was laying near this ball on a track thing and he took a break from the sock (still holding it between his back legs) to hit the ball on the track. While the ball went around the track he would go back to wrestling the purple sock, and each time the ball came back around the track he would pause with the sock, hit the ball to keep it going, then go back to the sock. It was amazing! Not only did he steal a toy from Sharma (which he rarely does because he's a baby and just watches her play despite the fact that he's twice her size), but he also went on to monopolize the other toys. That's my boy!! Good Kitty!

After he got bored with his toys he came and layed on my lap. Triny had recently bought Sharma a new collar and I wanted to see what Harper would look like in her old bright orange one. So I took his collar off, switched the tag to the new collar and tried to put it back on him. He was NOT having it. Allison was over and she tried to help me catch him, but everytime we approached him... he knew. He does this obnoxious thing where he leaps from chair to chair pushed under the kitchen table so we can't reach him... and the little bastard is FAST. So even when we pull the chairs out, he's gone. It eventually turn into a game of "catch-the-cat" but it's pretty much impossible even with the fact that he runs into walls. He recovers quick.

Once Allison went home it was time for round 2. Triny came home and we chased him around again. An hour later and he still knew we were trying to put a collar back on him.

I forget how it finally happened, but we got the collar on him and then the s*** hit the fan. He went berserk. He was chewing the tag on the collar, sprinting around the house, banging into things, leaping over the couch, rolling around furiously on the floor. Kitty was pissed.

I grabbed him while he was having one of his chewing the tag fits and held him tight and sat on the couch. He wiggled his way out of my arms and wormed his way behind me really tight, and sat there for about 20 minutes not moving at all while I pet him. I think the poor thing had a panic attack. But SURPRISE, he wasn't done. I figured he was fine, so I got up for a minute, came back and he was in the middle of our L-shaped couch going furious with the collar. He looked pretty crazy and stupid and kind of cute so this time me and Triny just watched with confusion as he struggled then stuck his head in the couch. I don't mean just put his head between a couple of pillows. Have you seen that video where the kid gets so pissed that his mom shut off his world of warcraft that he throws a temper tantrum and does weird stuff like rip his clothes off a tries to stick a remote up his butt? (yes, I know it's fake). It was kind of like that. We could just sit there and wonder "what the f*** is he doing." He rammed his head between two sections of the back of the couch and just stayed there. Headless kitty. While we laughed until tears came out.

About a minute later he did emerge and I consoled him. Pet him a lot which seemed to calm him down and he finally fell asleep again. About an hour later I took him up to bed. He seemed like he was going to be fine for the rest of the night, but nope. He leapt around my bed and buried himself in my pillows. There must be something about a kitty panic attack that make him want to go into a tight space and just be sad. He slept in that spot for the night, and the next morning he seemed to be fine, and he generally was. He made it through the whole day with his collar on. Around 11:30 he crept into my room NAKED. I went downstairs and got his collar which he had slipped right off his head. The safety easy release clasp wasn't even open. So since he goes furious on the tag I took the tag off and put the collar back on him. Voila! Panic attack avoided.

Now my task is to find a collar I can get embroidered with his name and my number on it, because clearly he just hates tags, which is strange because you'd think he had never had a collar with a tag on in his life! Stupid cat. Neurotic cat. Separation anxiety cat. My cat.

Kitty buried in my pillows
See him? Look for his little white paw next to the striped pillow

Wish me luck on my weigh-in tonight!
Jen