best laid plans

Wow. I haven't updated in a week. Kinda over a week, actually. Time flies when you're having fun preparing for surgery.

I was busier last week than I've been in a long time. I slept better than I have in months, dropping off around midnight and sleeping through the night. I gave in to a nap on Friday afternoon and insomnia returned that night. It's easy to say NO NAPS but hard to stick to it when I'm nodding off. NO NAPS.

My physical therapist has gotten me started on crutches and sent a pair home with me for practice. He wants me to be competent with them before surgery. This is what I've learned so far: I hate them. My hands and wrists hate them. My thumbs partially dislocate in protest. I have an appointment with a hand therapist about that. I have a mental image of someone counseling my thumbs to be strong.

We took the cat for her first visit with our vet last weekend. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't hostile. She let out a few mournful yowls as the doctor probed her belly, the loudest sounds we'd ever heard her make, but the vet didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, so I think it was just a general objection.

She weighed in at eight pounds and change. She couldn't have been over seven when we brought her home. We cut her food back to half a cup per day. She isn't happy with that either. We stupidly left a four-pound bag of food on the floor in the kitchen. She dragged it five feet from the wall and chewed her way in. I found it tipped over in a scatter of kibble. No shrinking violet, our cat.

We're feeding her in a Brake-Fast bowl to make her eat more slowly. She uses a paw to fish out the food. The bowl is so light that every tug pulls it closer to her. Then she backs up a step to compensate. We keep finding the bowl across the room. It makes us laugh. We're really not bad people.

She also moves her water bowl. It's a heavy PetMate recycling water fountain, and I don't know how she does it, or why. We put it in the open near the table. She pushes and pulls it under the table, often wedging it between the chair legs. I don't even have a guess for that one.

What else? The Sox lost tonight. They also lost another player to injury. I think they're up to ten players on the disabled list. Watching the roster filled with bench players every night is like watching a spring training game, only not as amusing. Stop getting hurt.

And NO NAPS. But bedtime soon.

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The first thing I did this morning was move my night table to retrieve the mouse. Her attachment to the mouse is adorable until you find yourself recovering it every five minutes. We're going to look for a pack of identical toy mice and see if she likes them too. Someday we'll move from here and find fifteen velveteen mice under the furniture.

Currently coveting: lime green Coach tote and gorgeous black Kate Spade (with adorable polka-dot lining, natch).

The cat has figured out that the treats live in the container on my night table. She has knocked over almost everything in her efforts to open the canister. I put them on a high shelf, but I know they aren't safe there. I'll put them in the pantry before I leave and hope she doesn't have the leverage to open it.

She is heavier than the lanky cat we brought home two weeks ago. She is more muscular by the day. She leaped from the windowsill to the bed yesterday, a considerable jump. She plays seriously, growling at her toys, caroming off the bed, dashing down the hall in a black blur of motion.

The hair they shaved is growing back. Her belly looks like gray flannel. I tried to touch it this morning and she grabbed my hand, but gently, no claws or teeth. I took my hand away and she lay there for a moment with her mouth open, looking like a tiny lion. She's too busy for my touch during the day. Late in the afternoon, she comes to me, blinking, and pushes her face into the cone of my relaxed hand until I rub her forehead with my thumb. She sinks down against me with closed eyes and flexes her toes.

1. Rebecca Bross does gymnastics like she's running a football. She also glowers even when she wins. I suppose when you make your kid walk home after bad practices all her life, that's the result.

2. The overhead strobe flashes at the Bell Centre in Montreal (for the photographers) light up the whole television screen. I tried to watch the game, but kept getting warnings from my head. I've had three migraines this week and probably shouldn't push my luck. Countdown to new headache doctor: T minus four days.

3. The cat has started running right across my head every morning as she circles the apartment. Her energy levels have tripled since she recovered from spay surgery. She eats like a horse, her dandruff has disappeared, her coat is beautiful. She likes to sleep in her cat carrier. We think we'll get her a bed with a roof, like the Pod Bed. Green or herringbone gray?

4. I started physical therapy again on Friday. It felt awesome to work out. The only problem is my right ankle, which has not stopped hurting since I came home. There's not much to be done about it, just ice and heat and pain meds.

5. Jon Lester threw a complete game the other night for the Red Sox. I need a Lester t-shirt.

6. New laptop this weekend if I can hold off a headache. My poor old machine is laboring.

7. To buy or not to buy? 20 minutes left. Last week, I managed to turn away from a gorgeous bag, but it wasn't the only one I covet. Update: outbid at the last second. Oh well.