Back to Normal, Household Things

I'm back to normal today. I was so glad that my stepmom, Gwen, came over yesterday. I needed all the help I could get.

So . . . some of you may remember an earlier post about our cat, Squeaky. (You can find it by going here: http://tinyurl.com/5mfg8x.) As it turns out, it's looking like Squeaky's wildest dreams are going to come true, and she's going to be an outside cat again (during the day). We just can't go on with the way things have been. She cries and moans and paces day in and day out. She's miserable, and she's making us miserable. TJ works from home, and he yells at her to shut up about a hundred times a day. I curse her uncanny knack of meowing loudly right when I've gotten E to sleep. Oh, I get PISSED. Everything she does irritates me. All of this makes for an unhealthy relationship between us and the Squeak, and it's not fair to anyone. At night when she wants to cuddle with us, we're so sick of her, we push her away. So out she goes. It's what she wants more than anything, and I've always known that her little soul belongs outside. If it means she dies sooner, I believe she would rather that than stay cooped up inside for the next sixteen years. And we would rather that too, although I'm petrified of her getting hit by a car.

I dug her old collar out this morning and opened the back door. She was crying (I can't use the word meowing here, because it was a droning, insistent cry) and I could not think straight. I have an order in for Frontline Plus and was planning to wait until it arrived, but I just can't.

The question is: Will she start waking us up in the middle of the night now, the way she used to? In addition to the fact that Mama don't play that anymore, we don't want her going out at night since there are coyotes around here (supposedly). I guess we'll see what happens . . .

In other household news, our electric bill was $313 last month. Gulp. That's the highest it's ever been. I've started keeping the upstairs at 75 (a bit higher than before) and the downstairs around 78. I'm curious to see if it makes much of a difference.