He's so hip he can't see over his own bum

Andy does not have the tolerance for recreational drugs that you would expect from a cat of his evident hipness.  He got totally wasted last night.  It was embarrassing.

I noticed a couple of days ago that he had a small mat of hair on his belly.  Unlike the Schnork, he is not a fan of the belly rubbing.  Especially when the rubbing involves scissors.  My options were taking him to the vet, trying to figure out some system of restraint that wouldn't injure everybody involved, or drugging him.  I went with the Xanax.

We used to give Trouble 1/3 of a tablet to zone him out for fluids under the skin.  I figured with Andy being both larger and more healthy than Trouble was, that 1/2 tablet would be all right.  And an hour after I gave it to him, he was pretty relaxed but not dopey.  I figured I had gotten it right.

However, an hour after THAT he was still overbalancing and then pretending that he meant to do that.  He had that "I know I'm drunk, but I'm going to pretend to be sober and hope the cop doesn't notice" look.  I ended up sleeping in the guest room so I could keep a sleepy eye on him during the night.  It took hours for him to sober up.

I guess in retrospect, you'd expect a grizzled veteran like Trouble to be able to hold his licker better than a middle aged lad like Andy.

Nazca is a giant unathletic dork

As of right now, I'm just under three weeks from leaving here for Maine.  Also a little less than twelve hours from my neurological appointment, where I hope they don't try to tell me not to go to Maine.  Because that is not going to fly well with me.

Saturday I'm going to have another go at the Billy Goat Trail.  Not that I tried it and failed last time.  My air conditioning failed.  And it poured.  And then I slept in and also got sick.  So, more of an attempt to actually leave the house this time.

Tomorrow after work I'll get all my gear ready so all I have to do is head out the door in the morning.  I need to load up the backpack some, and I guess wash some clothing.. what with the heat in the house for the last week, I've been holding off on doing anything that would make it warmer in here.

Also I will be hoping that this doesn't get infected:

Ow

Nazca tried to jump up on my lap this morning.  He is not the cleverest or most agile of kitties.  I have much smaller punctures in my thigh, where he realized he hadn't.. quite.. gotten all of himself up onto my lap.  Had I known he was incoming I would have helped, but I was quite surprised.  Instead, I shrieked as he slowly slid backwards off my lap, trying to use his hind legs on my calf to push himself back up.  Unfortunately for both of us, my skin doesn't have the holding power of, say, upholstery.

My day didn't really start well.  Wish me better luck for tomorrow.  I only have so much skin left.