to ensure no overlap
FAT KIDS SKINNY KIDS KIDS WHO CLIMB ON ROCKS
I was fretting and stressing and nearly weeping with anxiety (more on this in a minute), so I decided to not eat sad crackers at my desk but to instead lunch on life-affirming meat and fat. I took myself to Portillo’s for my newest heart-attack go-to, the Chicago hot dog and those lovely crinkled fries. I’m not vegetarian anymore, and sometimes I really want to underscore that fact. With a hot dog.
Some things I saw at Portillo’s:
- An adult man with 2 chili dogs, a beer, and three small cartons of milk. I stayed far away from him, just like I would stay far away from any unstable chemical situation.
- An older man who seemed to be leading a tour group on their Portillo’s trip, it was a big table near me and as they ate he was giving them all sorts of nonsensical and often frankly wrong Chicago-based “facts.” (The World’s Fair was not in 1926; you have your choice of 1893 or 1933 depending on whether you want the more famous Columbian Exposition or that Century of Progress thing; some cool organized crime shit happened in 1926 but no World’s Fairs.) My favorite was when he didactically said, “This beef is prepared ‘hot and sweet,’ which means they dipped it in Italian juice.” ITALIAN JUICE!
- One of the thinnest women I have ever seen methodically and somewhat grimly eating a whole lot of cheese fries and reading a New Yorker. I admit to entertaining some Dark Thoughts but then remembered that the majority of bulimics I have known (now THAT is a sad phrase) were a normal weight. Then I ordered myself to stop thinking about things like that, it is not good karma or a feminist act and no one knows another person’s Cheese Fry Reasons.
OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER ABOUT HOW NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S DREAMS
But I liked this one and want to record it: I dreamed I was reading a New York Times book review of a book of poems titled Stupid, I Awaken. Much of the review was about the ambiguity in the title. Did the speaker wake up stupid? Are they calling you stupid? Anyway, I think it’s a great title and I bequeath it to any poet who reads this.
EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER THREAT LEVEL: KITTEN BALLS
Last entry, we were hotly debating whether Murphy, whose shelter paperwork indicates that he was neutered as per standard procedure, still had balls. LT thought: yes, there are balls on Murphy cat. I thought: ridiculous, how can you forget to neuter a kitten, it says neutered right there on the intake form. The internet thought: mmmmm, maybe, but probably no, and sometimes the empty ballsack hangs around and fools everyone into thinking there are balls. (O ye olde wily ballsack!) Eventually we got tired of talking about this. Rocko was scheduled for his yearly Rocko exam at the cat doctor, so on impulse I packed Murphy up as well and brought him along. I figured I would just take the Embarrassment Hit and ask the vet ARE THERE BALLS ON THIS CAT?
Surprise! The answer was yes!
I wanted Murphy-kitten neutered YESTERDAY. The other two cats are also strictly indoor (and NEUTERED, as per ADOPTION PROTOCOL), so there’s no one Murphy can impregnate, but if he were to start spraying foul tomcat liquid around my home he would quickly become a lot less adorable. The way I saw it, the shelter owed me a neutering, so I gave them a call and left a message.
The woman who called me back was pretty shruggy about everything. Shit happens. Testicle-removal sometimes doesn’t happen. Whatever. She offered me a discount at the low-cost spay/neuter clinic they run. Which is:
- Very far away from my house. Someone’s going to have to eat a vacation day to drive there twice (dropoff and pickup).
- Doesn’t take appointments.* Online advice is to “get there early—like 6:30 am—so you can be the first to be called for intake.” Ugh.
- Has several unsettling stories posted online about pets who had awful complications after going there. This is a grain-of-salt situation, since trouble-free experiences usually don’t result in online reviews. But.
*Side note: I am glad this low-cost spay/neuter clinic exists, don’t get me wrong. But one thing that has always made me mad is that these sliding-scale/low-cost/social-service type places really, REALLY do not respect people’s time. Poor people not only have to be poor, but they also have to waste hours traveling on multiple city buses to clinics and food pantries, where they get to sit and wait for a number to be called. Shit that should take an hour or so, like getting your kid a vaccination or signing up for food stamps, takes all day. Or multiple days. And then conservatives wonder why poor people are not spending all day looking for work? MOTHERFUCKER THEY ARE SPENDING ALL DAY DOING EVERYTHING ELSE. It is extra little unfair icing on an already unfair cake.)
I decided to forgo this opportunity and just pay for the neutering to be done at my usual vet. Yes, I am a rotten princess aristocrat, please email me allllll about it.
We dropped Murphy off in the morning and went to work. Mid-day, I got a call from the ball surgeon. During the pre-op exam, they found that Murphy has a heart murmur. It could be nothing; it could be serious. (The very best kind of medical problem!) This means that anesthesia of any kind is more dangerous and this call is for me to be “informed of the risks.” She was also doing that doctor thing of not being reassuring at all. Here were the options:
1. Go to a cat cardiologist and get an extremely expensive cardiac ultrasound, come back another time for neutering.
2. Full ball-surgery speed ahead!
3. Do the neutering today, but add extra monitoring and special gold-plated anesthesia etc ($$$$$$).
I went with option 3, but didn’t feel great about it, especially when I had to give authorization for them to resuscitate Murphy on the table should something terrible happen.
Then I went to Portillo’s and ate a hot dog and cried a little.
This has a happy ending, Murphy pulled through just fine and is now kittenishly running around the house wondering why he has a shaved leg. (It’s from the IV, Murphy. The whaaaat? By the way, my balls feel weird! WHAT ARE YOU EATING CAN I HAVE SOME????) The vet still recommends we get the ultrasound to find out what’s up with his little cat heart, and…I’ll think about it. It seems like it might be the kind of thing that can only give you bad news. And we also might want to let my credit card cool off a little first.
By the way, we found out that besides the heart thing, Murphy also has a little bit of an itchy rash on his leg (they recommended a brand of hypoallergenic litter), and iffy gum tissue (they recommended brushing the cat’s teeth, oh joy!) I feel a special bond because I too have not-great gums, allergies, and a minor heart condition (that thing that makes me faint in inconvenient places all over town).
My god what a CAT BALL SAGA. How much do cat testicles weigh? Because I’m pretty sure Murphy’s have cost me more than an equivalent amount of cocaine. He came from the streets (of Cicero, according to the intake form, which is possibly is not to be believed) (since it also claims a neutering occurred), but now he’s my million-dollar baby.
Now I wish there were an appropriate Raging Bull quote I could apply to this entry, just to hit the trifecta of boxing-movie references.
—mimi smartypants ain’t no bum.