Augh!

Blah! Snarfblahgarble!

Which is to say, I've been busy, and I'm sorry!

No, wait. I'm GLAD I've been busy.

See, Sony and I parted ways at the end of May. So I found myself with an excess of free time. I was looking for jobs like crazy, while at the same time trying to find a way to fill up the time. The answer came in the form of my externship.

The next couple weeks were full of extra days at the clinic, where I successfully performed my first blood draw and two injections. As well as submitting Shiko to tortures hertofore unknown.

Let me explain.

My cat is crazy. Psycho. Insane. Loony. Feral with a side-salad and extra helping of posessed. She's nuts. And she's hostile. She's also longhaired, and needs to have her coat shaved during the summer so a.) she doesn't expire in the SoCal heat and b.) she doesn't shed ALL OVER EVERYTHING I OWN. Which she usually does anyway, but in the summer it comes in clouds of fluff that velcro to every. Possible. Surface.

So last year I'd dosed her up on tranquilizers and sent her to a groomer. The happy pills came from a vet I'd seen in Santa Cruz who'd had to gas the cat to get a frigging blood sample. (Morphine based painkillers? No effect. Tranquilizers? Took a swipe at the vet. Anesthesia gas chamber. Ohhh yeahhh.) So I kept them in reserve to give to her for events such as this. Two doses and she was unable to properly stand. Shipped her off to the groomer, who said they'd bathe her, shave her, trim her nails, and "express her glands".

Shiko wanted NOTHING to do with this, even drugged out of her mind. The best they got was shaving her. And she bit through the leather handler's glove. THROUGH IT.

So I figured, hey, they got the job done last year, let's take her there again. Drugged her up, dropped her off, and went to the clinic for a full day's work.

I got a call around noon. She'd laid open the groomer. They couldn't shave her.

I mentioned this to my coworkers. T said, "Bring her here!" I warned him she was NOT a cat to mess with, and he replied confidently that they'd be able to handle it. So, I picked her up at the groomers, and took her home to trim her nails quick-like, to give them a better chance.

She was PISSED. And going to trim her nails wasn't a great move, it turns out. Saucy wench bit through my nail on my right ring finger and scratched a good chunk from my right leg as I pinned her to the floor. Got the nails trimmed, though, and took her to the vet's office. Put her in the kennel immediately. Did not attempt to remove her from the crate, just stuck her in the kennel, crate and all.

The vet, T, and D sized her up. She was livid. I was now the enemy. Vet suggested we anesthetize her. We all agreed. She got out an injection that normally reduces cats to "cat shaped carpets", as T put it. I took her out, T scruffed her and held her down, D threw a towel over her head and patted her head to distract her, and the vet came in from the rear to inject her.

In one single motion, the vet administered the shot, and jumped nimbly back (nimble especially for a 50-something lady) from the wide-sweeping arms of a furious cat who had lept off the table two feet, screeching and spitting. T, still holding her scruff and rear, in one smooth motion tossed her into an open kennel, quickly locking the door.

A half hour passes. They keep checking to see if she falls over. Stubbornly vengeful, she does no such thing.

Eventually, they tell me to try to bring her out. I reach in, pick her up, and try to ignore the angry rumbling growls. I set her on the counter. She collapses. Apparently she was only tough while she had a wall to hold her up.

We move her into the surgery room, and plant her growling muzzle into a gas mask, where we proceed to pump her full of anesthesia. I grab the clippers and begin buzzing away. Yep, my first grooming experience and it's my own bleemin' cat. We get her shaved, nice and lion-cut, although the job's a bit uneven because - well, I did it, and I'm not real good at it yet. We lay her gently in the kennel, and I keep an eye on her. Every now and again, I see her still lying there, and I gently pet her. She growls. "Oh, you're doing okay then," I reason. Seems logical at the time.

Eventually she comes to, right about closing time. I hold out the open crate, which she walks into, if incredibly wobbly. Upon her arrival home, she emerges from the crate, and proceeds to fall over onto the floor, as dignified as possible.

Whee!

In other news, I have a new awesome job, but that will have to be for another entry.