So…here we are over on WordPress. Much thanks to Rey Hererra for helping with the migration!

Like any new home, there’s breaking-in period. After 300 million years on Blogger (I KNOW, shut up), figuring out the new interface takes a minute. And the domain registration is still migrating. We’re in transit.

Survived the yearly (since Covid) pilgrimage back to visit my parents. This year was complicated by Tinycat, who came with us. I do not generally advocate traveling with a cat, but the feline politics in this house are complicated. Murdercat was always a sensitive boy, but after two years, more or less, of us being around all the time he became very, very anxious when we leave. And when he’s anxious, he asserts his control by harassing Tinycat. When she was younger, that was chasing. Now that her hips are wobbly, she can’t run, and he’s about twice her weight. We’ve found her cornered in the hallway before. Often there is urine. And she eats, like, sporadically, but also constantly. Like a hobbit meal-plan with bird-like amounts. We’ve had to resort to baby food with crushed kibble, supplemented by wedges of wet food, to get calories into her. People can’t be expected to catsit that nonsense unless they’re actually in the house…

…which wouldn’t work because Murdercat. The pandemic also rendered him more of a shyboy than he was before–and he was always reticent with new people. Now he hides. And stays hidden. He used to come out for meals, but not now! And any food left unattended for a heartbeat has PT devouring it. This suggested that not only would he be a challenge for the cat-sitter, but that his anxiety would make Tinycat’s life extra awful.

And so it was decided that a small 15 year old cat in stage three kidney failure would be coming with us on a tw0-day car trip for a two-day stay and a two-day return car trip. I was…both reasonably sure she’d be fine and also afraid that she wouldn’t. She’s the most emotionally resilient cat. Fearless, really. But she’s also frail and picky about eating, and at less than 7 lbs (from her most robust weight ever at 8, before the stomatitis), she has no margins for skipping meals.

She did great, y’all. It took us a day to realize she wasn’t drinking water in the hotel because the travel bowl was new, and she would only drink out of it if it was in the bathtub–but once we got her to realize OH HEY THIS WEIRD NEW SILICON DISH IS MY BOWL NOW, it was fine. She probably ate more than she has at home because for once we could just leave food out for her.

I still don’t want to do that again, necessarily, and next year who knows how her health will be. But this year, she was a trooper.