NO SKATING NO ESCAPE

No skating here, but a good escape.

The salient lyrics must have been "I wish I had a river/that could skate away on" even though is it "coming on to Christmas" and that, too, has been on my mind. But it is all of a piece really.

The desire to escape this morning is due to the prospect of a flea blitzkrieg. Emmylou was MIA yesterday for about five hours. I wasn't too worried about her having gotten out, being was relatively sure she was hanging out in the basement. It's cold enough so that no one is prone to flinging open doors. And Emmy is feeling so punk that she hasn't been underfoot as usual. But given that she hasn't been feeling well due to her flea situation, I was more worried that she was curling up someplace to ... well, die is overstating it, but hunkering down and toughing it out.

Those three trees.

When the worry bees are buzzing that loudly, focussing on anything else and/or moving forward with anything is even more difficult. Trudging through mental mud while being stung? Oh, and that trudging takes place, of course, on the thin edge of the darkness, so it is easy enough to lose your balance.

After her matitudinal nap, where she sleeps really deeply and will not even respond to the shaking of the treats bag, she started mewing in that "what's going on and where is everybody way" and I was able to locate her. (Neither one of my cats has much in the way of miauing prowess.) After more indecisive agonizing, I realized I should just take her to the vet up here instead of shlepping her to our much appreciated vet (Animal Kind) in Park Slope.

Penny the puppy.

All right so, I took her to a very nice and thorough vet office (Mill Plain) in Danbury, Connecticut. Huzzah! Easy to get an appointment midweek! No trouble parking! A miniature Schnauzer puppy in the reception room! Tattooed veterinary assistant. The vibe was just good all around.

Emmy is allergic to fleas and the diatomaceous earth didn't help her skin either. The doctor gave her a shot and prescribed steroids and antibiotics, so I won't be taking any sojourns out of Brewster for awhile. Who would want to miss a single episode of the fun that is known as Cat Wrassling with Medications??!

And now, after my second cup of coffee, on to spraying the perimeter of every room in the (not small) house, vacuuming everywhere everyday for a week or so, and masses of laundry! At least where the animals roam.

The good news? Emmylou is already orders of magnitude improved, perkier and friendlier! Her visible relief works like a beekeeper on the anxiety hive.

I am so Zen.