Pilcrow

I'm occasionally accused of spoiling my cat, and I find that infuriating.

It is true that I'm indulgent about letting her run about where she pleases. Given the configuration of my kitchen and hallway, it's easy for her to ascend the shelves in the hallway, jump across to the top of the refrigerator, and then up to the top of the kitchen cabinets, and she can't do any harm there, so why bother chasing her down? Likewise, she's allowed free access to the raised countertop overlooking the rest of the kitchen counters, and I don't always get up immediately to shoo her off of the main counters. 

I also have always been willing to play rough with her, letting her wrestle with my hand and nip it. She's actually generally very good about that. She clearly understands how to bite playfully, not breaking the skin, and she's usually moderate with her paws; if she starts to get too rough, I can just stop moving and warn her "easy! easy!", and she'll let up. I'll admit too that I probably did not do a good enough job of establishing boundaries for that kind of play, and that may have contributed to her defensive aggressiveness towards visitors who want to pet her. So there's one point where I may have spoiled her somewhat. 

However, there are several other areas where I've always been consistent about limiting or forbidding her behavior, and yet that hasn't made any difference to her. Some of that is because I never knew a way to deter her that wouldn't also teach her that she could gain my attention with that behavior. For example, she's not allowed to play with or attack my potted tree, and deterrence has included clapping, spraying her with water, and stepping over to shoo her away. Likewise, she's not allowed to play with the assortment of power cords and computer cables hanging down from the back of the desk. In both cases, what she learned was that if she wants my attention—because I'm talking on the phone, or because she wants to play (or maybe just wants my chair) and I'm busy staring at my computer—then all she has to do is go play with the tree or the cables, and eventually I'll have to get up to chase her off. This is when I get very angry about people accusing me of spoiling my cat. I've always been consistent about deterring her from this behavior, because I don't want her damaging my tree or my cables (and hurting herself in the process), but all she learned was that it'd get my attention. What was I supposed to do?

Lately she's been developing some new bad behaviors, and again I don't know what I'm supposed to do to prevent them. One is that she realized it's easy to pull the power cord out of my laptop (it's designed with a magnetic connector precisely to keep the MacBook from being accidentally pulled to the floor by the cord and broken). Normally she can't get at it because I keep the laptop in a low shelf space at night, but because of my leg injury, I've been leaving the power cord plugged into an outlet by the couch and so leaving the laptop out on the lap desk by the couch. So she's been going after the power cord as a toy, which I certainly do not want her doing, and sometimes she's been waiting until I'm not around, like taking my shower in the morning. Apparently in this case the best I could do would be to put the laptop power cord away in a drawer, but it would be nice if I could instill in her the general principle of "don't play with electronics cords and cables".

Another thing she's been doing is chewing on papers. I used to give her paper grocery bags to play in, which she enjoyed, but I stopped doing that when she stopped spending time playing in them and just went straight to tearing them up with her teeth. She mostly leaves my papers alone, but recently she's batted some off the counter onto the floor and then chewed on them. Again, a couple times she's done that while I was busy on the phone or doing something else, so it may have been a deliberate attention-seeking move. But early this week I was busy with insurance paperwork and had a bunch of things spread out on my computer table, then had to step into another room for a minute. When I came back, I found that she'd pulled one of the sheets to the floor and started chewing on it while I was gone, which is not so much attention-seeking as just apparently bored and playful. (Fortunately, that particular sheet was to be shredded anyhow.)

With both of these bad behaviors, I can mitigate the problem by not leaving things out where she can get to them. But I can't always have every piece of paper secured out of her reach, and I have open shelves with books and papers on them, what if she decides to start pulling things down from the shelves? Better if I could teach her not to do that, but I don't know how. And the other frustrating thing about this sort of thing is that I'm not home all the time; she's quite capable of deciding to indulge in bad behavior while I'm gone. (That's one reason why I never bothered too much about keeping her off the kitchen counters; I knew she'd just be up there while I was gone, so it wasn't worth the trouble.) 

I think part of the problem is that she's bored with her toys, but keeping her entertained has always been another problem. She tends to prefer toys that she can "kill" and eat, but of course those aren't things that she really ought to be eating, and she tends to ignore more-durable toys once she determines that she can't tear them apart and eat them. She does have a few favorite durable ones that she'll play with occasionally, but it seems pretty clear that she could use some new distractions. And with my leg in the brace, it's harder for me to play games of chase with her. One thing I was investigating just before the accident was refurbishing her scratching post: the main one I have is carpet-covered, but she's torn it up enough with regular use that there are now strands of carpet hanging off it, and she's taken to tearing at the carpet with her teeth and trying to eat the strands, which is bad for her. I have to make some time for that project soon.

A friend of mine wrote recently about needing to regularly spend some time alone in order to stay balanced, or else she gets irritable. She was even initially concerned that adopting a dog would leave her feeling like she never had any time alone; fortunately she adapted to the dog's presence, but still needs time away from other people.

I'm more at the opposite end of the spectrum. I've been living alone since moving out to Seattle eight years ago, and even before that, when I was living with roommates or still at my parents', I usually felt like I spent a lot of time by myself—if not too much, certainly more than I wanted to. When i first got my cat, I was worried that I might use her as a substitute for finding more human company. Instead, I think she helps keep me sane by giving me some kind of company, while still leaving me with a longing to spend more time with other people.

I try to go out to coffee shops regularly to do my work, or just browse the Internet, just to combat the feeling of being cooped up by myself all the time. Generally that helps, especially since I'm a regular at a few spots and get some recognition from and conversation with the baristas, but sometimes it just accentuates my feelings of loneliness. I might have a brief encounter with a casual friend, which is nice and good, but then feel morose when they go off on their business and I'm left still wanting to spend more time hanging out. 

As I mentioned back in July, I've been going out dancing somewhat regularly the past several months in part as an opportunity to meet new people and make new friends, and at the least to be out among other people instead of sitting around at home by myself. Yesterday I was at Bauhaus Coffee for several hours to do some work, and while there I fell into that morose feeling of loneliness. Tonight at Chop Suey is TRUST, a regular monthly dance event featuring KEXP DJ Kid Hops and Sun Tzu Sound as the resident DJs, with Decibel Festival sponsoring/hosting this month's event. I decided that I should probably go, because it'd be better to be there than sitting around at home by myself yet again. (Also, I haven't been out dancing since July.) While out for dinner earlier with the Dowlers, I mentioned this plan, and Farida asked me whether I'm extroverted. I answered that I'm not, I just like to go dancing; if I were extroverted, I'd also be talking to others often and making new friends more easily. Still, just being there helps me not feel so lonely, or at least ignore it for a while, and as I said back in July, I am at least meeting some people and perhaps slowly making some more friends. So with that, I'm heading out to go dance.

I’ve always liked cats. When I was little—and indeed even still today—I loved tigers in particular. It’s possible that that love of tigers is derived in part from the fact that my dad’s family nickname at the restaurant was “Tiger,” for his sometimes fierce temper. To this day I have cousins who call him “Uncle Tiger,” although I don’t remember hearing that nickname at family gatherings when I was growing up. In any case, I thought tigers were awesome and I liked all cats in general. I would pretend I had a pet tiger, or could transform into one; conveniently, my best friend Andy liked wolves, so we each had our own imaginary animal and didn’t have to argue over who got to have the tiger.

We didn’t have any pets when I was growing up, though. I’m sure my siblings and I asked once or twice about it but my parents always just said no. Perhaps it’s not surprising then that all of us as adults eventually got pets at some point: my older sister got a couple birds, my younger sister and her partner got two cats, and my younger brother had a cat for a while but had to leave it with friends when he moved apartments and later figured out he was allergic to cats anyhow.

Once I moved to Seattle, I started thinking about getting a cat of my own, but I was reluctant to seek one out. I worried about being able to care for one, and I worried that getting a cat would just be a way for me to avoid seeking out human companionship. I also faced some strong enthusiasm from some friends, which I found a bit off-putting; I would get a cat when I was ready, and not because everyone else thought it was a great idea that I should do right away. So, a couple years went by, during which I considered getting a kitten from a family friend who was fostering some, but I never followed up on that.

And then in late 2004, I was feeling squeezed financially, and decided that I would not go back to my parents’ home for Christmas that year, my first (and so far only) time missing that gathering. I was pretty sad about it, but it seemed like the right thing to do. As it happened, about a week before Christmas, neighbors of my friends Tony and Farida discovered a stray flame-tipped Siamese kitten. After spending several hours checking around the neighborhood, they’d been unable to find anyone claiming the cat, nor had any missing-cat signs been posted, so they determined the cat needed a home. Farida invited me over for dinner as a pretext to bring me to meet the cat, who was adorable and not too shy of me. The cat needed a home, I wanted a cat, so I agreed to come back in a few days, Christmas Eve, and take it home. Despite being anxious all that day, when I saw the cat again I felt very happy with my decision, and the cat also seemed quite content to join me, walking right into the carrier and calmly checking out my apartment when we got home.

When I brought the cat to the vet, I learned it was female, about 17 months old, not microchipped already and not in their notices of lost cats, and so it was safe to claim her as my own. What I didn’t learn until a couple weeks later was that she had not yet been neutered, which was demonstrated by her suddenly spending her nights running around the apartment caterwauling. So we had a bit of a rough period settling in, but once she was fixed we got along well. Being a geek, I decided to name her in Tolkien’s Elvish language, and came up with the name “Nimloriel”, meaning “golden-white maiden”, in reference to her color (white with orange highlights), but that felt a bit heavy and I shortened it to just “Nimiel” (“white maiden”).

My anxieties proved unfounded, of course. Cats are generally easy to care for, and though she can be a nuisance at times and seems easily bored by her toys, she’s still little trouble and lots of fun. And as happy as I am to have her companionship, I’m certainly still looking for female companionship of the human kind.

I did not use the available time last night to make a post in my journal, so now I have to squeeze out a quick note while I eat dinner before I head out to a party at a friend's house.

Dad had another short hospital stay a few weeks ago, while they determined that the pain he'd been having in his knee was caused by an infection in the bone. He's now on an antibiotics treatment as an outpatient, and hopefully it'll all be cleared up in a few weeks.

I had another several-day bout of bodyaches and whatnot that led to me visiting the doctor yet again, and yet again determining that it was stress and anxiety. We did an EKG just in case and the doctor said it was the best EKG result he'd ever seen. So I really have to learn to chill out. This time I agreed to try out a prescription for a "rescue" medicine (lorazepam, if you know about these things) to take when I'm undergoing the aches and anxiety in order to help me calm down. We'll see if that helps. I tried one that night before going to bed, as the symptoms hadn't fully gone away yet, and I did feel more relaxed and the aches were gone the next day.

Meanwhile, this afternoon Nimiel started her repetitive litterbox visit behavior that she's suffered from before. Her box was due to be cleaned this weekend so I made sure to do that, and I'm hoping that maybe she'll chill out too and not need a vet visit and medication.

In more positive stuff, work's been good so far this summer. I finally am for real clearing out my credit card debt, it'll be paid off next month. I'm hoping maybe I'll be able to do the next step of the dental work in the fall, maybe November. Also next month, my sister Andrea and her girlfriend Jen are coming to visit, and in September my brother Jeremy's coming for his first visit.

Finally, in concert news I've decided to go to Bumbershoot this year. Saturday, Beehive and Mono In VCF are playing; Sunday, Sons and Daughters are back; and Monday, Battles are back. Those are all good enough reasons to attend. Kinski is also playing at Bumbershoot Saturday night, but Freezepop are going to be in town for PAX on Friday and will be playing a club show on Saturday, so I'll go see them instead.

And I'm done dinner and it's time to head out to the party.

p.s. I tried out swing dancing last week with my friend Dawn. Getting the timing right for the super-basic step is surprisingly tricky. I intend to sign up for a short class that Dawn's also taking, starting next week, although I think I have a conflict that will make me miss at least one class.

Yesterday I happened to learn that The Fading Collection are playing a show tonight at Nectar, so I thought great, I'll go see that for my March show. But I've had a sneezy, runny nose the past several days, apparently some kind of springtime allergy, and today it's just rendered me all but helpless. It's so stupid, it's just a runny nose, but it won't stop running and tickling and sneezing and dripping all over my shirt and making my eyes water and feel itchy and grarrh rarrrh arrrgh make it stop!

And Dawn just called to see if I wanted to play a board game, which I'd love to, but I just don't feel competent to do much of anything - I certainly don't want to spend time with her (or anyone) when I'll just be constantly blowing or mopping my nose. I don't even feel competent to drive to the store to get some allergy medicine - I can't drive when I can't go more than a minute without dealing with my nose.

It's not so bad or serious of course, like my dad who's now in rehab to build up strength so he can get out of a chair or bed on his own again, or someone living without her thyroid as a completely non-random example, but it is maddening. Apparently it's also hard work, as I'm feeling really hungry even though it hasn't been exceptionally long since I ate lunch.

I called Tony earlier to see if he could bring me some allergy medicine, hopefully he'll be able to do that - and also get tissues, before this box runs out.

Meanwhile, Nimiel's had a reoccurrence of whatever was bothering her last spring, making her go to her litterbox repeatedly. I noticed the signs of this (unusual amount of litter scattered on the floor) last Friday evening, and sure enough on Saturday observed the repetitious behavior. So I brought her to the vet Monday and they gave her the same medication as last time; once she's done with the medicine in a couple weeks, they'll test her for signs of a urinary tract infection. Hopefully this time we'll avoid the other incidents of her throwing up and whatnot.

I note that, curiously, her first bout with this problem happened to coincide with my anxiety problems last year, and this reoccurrence has happened very soon after my recent bout of anxiety. I see no reason to think there's an actual connection, but it is peculiar.

Okay, I must make some soup for dinner. And you must admire this recent photo of Nimiel:

As I mentioned back in March, when I started freelancing I bought myself a MacBook Pro. All Mac laptops come with a built-in iSight webcam now, so for the first time in years I had an easy way to take photos of myself - a definite boon for updating my profile on the various personals sites. This is one of the first photos I took:

This is how I see myself, so I didn't notice anything odd about it. A short time later, one of my friends realized the camera was taking mirror image photos. I have no idea why it's like that by default. So I reversed the above photo:

This is how everyone else sees me. Although I've often thought that I look goofy in photos, I've never hated having my photo taken, and I've never thought much about why people might feel that way about themselves. It's only now that I realize a big part of that feeling must be because we're usually most familiar with our appearance in the mirror, so that looks right and the "reversed" image that others see looks wrong. To my eyes, my face looks more crooked and asymmetrical in the true image than in the mirror image.

While I'm posting photos of myself, I thought I'd include before-and-after shots I took when I got a haircut at the end of May, about 3.5 months after my previous one. I also took these using my MacBook.

These two photos link to my Flickr photostream, which I recently started. I've added a link to the photostream in my sidebar as well. I'll finish for now with one more photo taken on my MacBook, a portrait of Nimiel and myself that so far is my most popular photo on Flickr.

Another update on Nimiel. On Sunday she started the abnormal litterbox behavior again, so I called the vet on Monday. When they'd seen her, they'd taken samples and sent them to a lab for analysis, but I never heard back about the results. I found out that they had called and left a message... at some phone number that has nothing to do with me. In any case, apparently the lab results did not show any conclusive signs of bacteria that'd cause a urinary tract infection. So the vet now believes that Nimiel is simply suffering from an irritation that makes her think she needs to use the litterbox when she actually doesn't. The vet provided another medication to help alleviate that feeling and recommended switching to a prescription-formula dry cat food. So far, Nimiel's still going to her box more frequently than normal, but not as much as she had been doing. The vet indicated that it could take a couple weeks for her to return to normal behavior.

Meanwhile, last week's bellyache lasted through Thursday and tapered off on Friday. Once again I didn't go see the doctor about it, it just seemed too vague. Andrea suggested in the comments that I could have developed a lactose or gluten intolerance, but I figure that because I have both on a daily basis, if that were the problem then I'd have continual discomfort, not a sudden problem one Wednesday and then again a week later. It seems most likely to have been a combination of physical stress and anxiety. This week I did actually have a twinge yesterday afternoon, but it never grew into constant pain.

On another topic, last Saturday I went to the Seattle Art Museum, which was celebrating its completed remodel and expansion by being free and open for 35 hours, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. I'd only ever been to their film theater, for StockStock, so I spent almost four hours strolling through and looking at all the exhibits. I had a funny moment where I saw a landscape and said "that's New Hampshire of course," and sure enough it turned out to be a painting of Cornish, which I've only ever been to once or maybe twice. It made me a little homesick for a moment. The museum's pretty cool; I'd like to go back some time with someone else, I ended up feeling lonely wandering by myself while couples and groups swirled around me.

Tuesday morning I noticed that Nimiel was repeatedly going to her litterbox, which was odd behavior. When I was briefly home in the evening, it was clear from all the litter on the floor that she'd continued to visit a lot during the day, but she seemed happy and energetic enough, chasing around a fly that had got into the place. But still later that night when I was home for good, I saw that she was indeed still visiting the box a lot and then cleaning herself, but she didn't seem to actually be doing much while in the box. So the next morning I called the vet, who said it did sound like she might have a urinary tract infection. This morning I dropped her off at the vet's to be checked (they were booked full yesterday), and sure enough she's got an infection. She's been sent home with medicine, which I do not anticipate being easy to get into her, and hopefully she'll be better soon. I've read that cats will associate the pain with the litter box and start trying to go elsewhere, but I haven't seen any sign of Nimiel doing that yet, and I'm hoping that means I caught the problem soon enough.

---

Meanwhile, yesterday I did some fruitless errand-running, not finding the stuff I needed at the stores I went to, and I had to give up and get home before I could get to Sears for vacuum bags (which I'll need to vacuum up all the litter that's been tracked everywhere), because I had a business call at 4. That took an hour, and then I still had a character to prepare for gaming that night. I hadn't got it done earlier as I'd been asked, and I was already feeling bad about that; now I had little time to do it, and it became clear I didn't have enough time for the thought I was going to need to put into it.

While I was working on it anyhow, there was a pain in my belly that I thought was just hunger as I hadn't eaten since late morning. So I reheated and started eating leftover Chinese pie. But the pain got stronger, like my belly had twisted in knots, and stabbed up to my sternum too. After eating most of my dinner, I finally gave up on that and on trying to get the character done, called Tony to say I wouldn't make it to game night, and then lay down on the couch hoping I'd feel better. A couple hours later, the pain had subsided, and I was left wondering what was going on.

I've been known in the past to stress out and have some kind of physical reaction, but never such sharp belly pains, and I didn't think the situation warranted that kind of stress or reaction. On the other hand, giving up on the game plans and resting did make the pain subside. But later that night while I was in bed waiting to fall asleep, I had a brief jab of pain, and again today while waiting for a haircut I had another sharp twinge. Also, my belly's felt unsettled and tight throughout the day today. So I'm still not sure whether there's actually something wrong inside, or whether it is just a result of me stressing out. It wouldn't be the first time that I've had mysterious body pains that can only be attributed to stress.

I also took two long walks recently. Sunday I took a three-hour one, up to and around Green Lake, then back through Woodland Park and skirting the Zoo to Fremont Ave, then home - about 8 miles. Monday I walked home from the library downtown - about 3.5 miles, taking about an hour - with my laptop in my pack on my back, which I'm not accustomed to. So there's some likelihood that's also contributed to the problem, although I don't see why my stomach muscles would spasm out two days later, with no prior soreness.

Anyhow, although my belly continues to feel slightly wrong, eating hasn't made a difference and I'm not suffering any other obvious problems. I'm going to hope that it just goes away by tomorrow evening. Otherwise I probably should see a doctor, but I'd rather make an appointment with my regular one than have to go to the ER over the weekend.

Well, the towel I stuck underneath the sink to absorb the leaking water finally became oversaturated - because I foolishly thought it was air-drying, which of course it wasn't, not enough, and I wasn't wringing it out - so I had to look into the leak. The pedestal turned out to be not too difficult to move, and in fact it is not actually supporting the sink, although I'm nervous about leaning on the sink or letting my cat on it. The leak turned out to be not in the u-bend drain pipe after all; instead, it's the ball-and-socket joint where the lever controlling the drain plug goes in to the drain pipe. I think I should be able to remove it and replace it with a new one, but I'm really unsure about doing that.

In the meantime, I find myself tempted to not fix the leak at all, not from laziness or uncertainty, but from amusement. Whenever the water starts dripping, Nimiel comes running and starts pawing at the falling water. Then she'll stick her head under the pipe to look at the water collecting in the container below, and be startled when more drops fall on her head. It's highly entertaining, but the water's not particularly clean of course since it's the sink drain, and leaving the leak will just lead to more problems soon.

---

Last week, having had the surgeon's okay the week before that, I finally got around to trying my retainers again, and of course neither of them fit right. Yesterday I went to the orthodontist's and had them adjusted. The retainer is making my teeth hurt; it seems as though my teeth all moved in together toward the center of my mouth, because the feeling is of the teeth being pushed back outward. The retainer was trimmed back enough that it's not really pressing on or irritating the area of the surgery, except there's a little pressure on the front teeth. Even with the adjustments, the retainer still doesn't fit quite properly. However, my gums and tissues are still inflamed on the upper left side, and the orthodontist doesn't want to take a casting until the inflammation has gone away, otherwise the new retainer won't fit properly. She had me check in with the surgeon to make sure the inflammation was okay, so I did that this morning, and he said everything looks fine and it's just going to take a while for that swelling to finally clear up.

While I was visiting the surgeon, I also asked about the surgery bill I received, what was going on and what their expectations were about payment. To my relief, they said not to worry about it; with the insurance claim still being processed, they don't expect anything from me until that's resolved. So I've still got some time before I'll find out how much I still owe and work out a plan to pay it, which is okay.

---

I have plans to go to the Woodland Park Zoo with the Saccos and maybe the Dowlers on Sunday. I haven't been before, and neither have the Saccos, even though they've lived here several years longer than I have. Actually, I don't even remember the last time I went to any zoo - I remember that I did not go to the National Zoo in D.C. back when my family took a trip to Virginia in 1978, because I was sick that day, and I was very disappointed that I missed seeing the tigers. I can't remember whether I was on any zoo trips after that. So this should be quite interesting. Hopefully the weather reports are accurate and it'll be a sunny warm day, as it's been cloudy and cool for a while now. We need more summery weather! We don't have all that much time left before summer ends.

At my old apartment, the paper towel roll originally hung underneath one of the wall cabinets, over the counter, in the kitchen. Nimiel ignored the roll most of the time, but then one day I came home to find she'd torn all the towels off. After that, I discovered a magnetic towel holder that I could put onto the refrigerator door. That worked perfectly, as the top of the refrigerator was one of the only places inaccessible to her - she probably could have jumped there from the kitchen counter, but so far as I know, she never tried - and there wasn't any other way for her to get at the roll.

Here in the condo, however, the refrigerator is much more accessible. I put the holder on the hallway side of the refrigerator; there's a medium-high set of shelves across from it, but it didn't look like she'd be able to keep her balance on the shelves and reach it, or reach down from the top of the refrigerator. Once again, she ignored the roll for the past few months. Today though I came home to discover all the sheets from the half-full roll on the floor, where she'd clearly torn them down. Now, I've noticed that the roll has tended to undo a couple sheets simply from the slight breezes of me walking by, so I thought it was possible there'd been some dangling sheets and that was what caught her attention. Whether or not that's the case, it's clearly too late. I decided to try reorienting the roll vertically and putting a fresh one out; about an hour later while I was eating dinner, I heard some noise that made me get up to check, and sure enough, she'd jumped up a bit from the floor to grab at the roll. So that's clearly no good anymore, now I'm going to have to buy some kind of holder that I can screw into the inside of a cabinet door, or at least just keep the roll in a latched cabinet.

This makes me very angry and frustrated. The larger issue seems to be that she's looking for entertainment, but the only things that seem to really occupy her are things she can destroy or "kill". Her favorite toys, the only ones she'll consistently play with at length on her own, are small plastic fur-covered mice with rattles. After playing with one for a while, eventually she'll tear and eat the fur off the mouse; fortunately she doesn't seem to actually want to eat the plastic body, and also fortunately, even after "killing" and "eating" the mouse, she'll continue to enjoy playing with the plastic rattly body. The problem with these mice is that they're easily lost underneath the oven, the refrigerator, the washer, and a few cabinets and shelves. I bought her a double-sized one once, and it's still kicking around here; she really doesn't play with it, presumably because it's larger than she likes. Likewise, she won't play with the rattling twine-covered ball, and hardly plays with the small twine-covered rattling mouse I recently bought. She'll chase either if I toss them for her, and bats the mouse a little bit on occasion, but it really doesn't hold her attention.

I also tried buying her a furry catnip-laced toy on an elastic cord, that I could hang from a doorway. The first time I let her play with it, it was great, she spent a good hour or so with it while I was packing for my Christmas trip, and eventually went off to rest, if I remember right. The second time, she spent all of five minutes before she'd torn off and eaten the four fur strips dangling from the toy, which I believe is where the catnip was; since then when I've put it up, she's played a bit and gotten bored fast.

I can and do keep buying the small fur-covered mice that she obviously loves, but I can't afford to buy enough to avoid regular fishing trips under the appliances, and I don't really want her eating lots of that fur all the time. I could buy a few more of the twine-covered mice and just wait for her to give up and play with them, but I don't really believe it'll work that way. I really don't know what else to do to give her entertainment.

And of course the problem isn't simply what to give her for toys, the problem is that I'm worried she's just going to start literally tearing into other things, like the furniture. She's also been pretty constantly going after the tree; while I believe half the time it's just because she knows it gets my attention (and how I was supposed to avoid forming that relationship while keeping her from attacking and harming the tree is beyond me), I'm still somewhat amazed I haven't yet come home to discover half the branches torn off and leaves eaten. Then what about the various important papers I have waiting in my file trays for me to deal with? Do I need to put them into metal boxes now, before she gets bored enough to tear them all up? She's pawed at them before. Or the books on my shelves?

Yes yes, I'm ranting and probably blowing things out of proportion and I should just calm down, whatever. This is my journal, and I'm angry and frustrated and feeling very powerless. And before anyone says anything stupid like "don't ever have children," at least children develop intelligence and you can hope to reason with them, to teach them how to behave well. As far as I can tell, I can never teach her not to do things, I can only teach her to run when I yell, and I can only lock up all my stuff in containers she can't possibly open or claw and bite through.

Oh wait, maybe I'm not blowing things out of proportion after all: I almost forgot to mention how, back some time in early January, I came home from work to discover she'd been tearing at the metal mesh covering the rangetop ventilation fan, probably eating bits of the mesh as well. Now what the FUCK am I supposed to do about that?! I did catch her doing it a second time one night, just as I was getting to bed; I yelled at her, held her up to it and swatted her nose (as I understand, nose-swatting is how mother cats teach the kittens). I think she's left it alone, but I'm not sure, and again, did I even communicate anything as substantial as "don't mess with that when the human is around"? And it's the fucking rangetop ventilation fan cover - I can't put it somewhere she can't get to it, and how could I keep her from tearing at it when I'm not home?