Zen was born in Alabama, so she loves the sun and warmth. I was worried about how she would transition to Scotland’s climate.

With the new couch in the window, she is doing just fine.

She also enjoys sprawling out on the part of the kitchen floor directly over the hot-water pipe. And when she sits by the radiator, she shoves her head up underneath it so far that we call it “cookin’ the brains.”

I know that pet owners have a tendency to anthropomorphize. Personally, I find it very difficult to think of Zen as “just a cat” when she gives me looks like this one. I give her a look like this right back, of course, with my heart all sqwudgy.

She will be fifteen this year.

To sum up the Zen situation: she seems to be feeling much better tonight. She has been suffering since Monday of lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, and she vomited twice this morning even though she hadn’t eaten much last night, so it was time to take her to the vet.

The trip to the vet was as exciting as ever. Zen is perfectly happy to go into her carrier and be lugged anywhere in the world. She is somewhat less happy to be outside of her carrier at the vet’s.

I never, ever want to hear Zen like that. Basically, it sounds like someone is skinning her alive. She screams and hisses and tries to claw anyone who gets near her. The vet tech had to wrap her in a towel and was wearing serious-looking protective gloves while she did it. Zen would calm down for a few seconds when she heard my voice, but when the vet tried to do anything at all to her, she wasn’t having it. At all. I was shocked that they were able to weigh her, take her temperature, draw blood, and give subcutaneous fluids. That team is impressive.

So the vet thinks that Zen may have been poisoned by chewing on the stem of a calla lily that I thought was out of her reach. I discovered the gnawed-on stem today. Calla lilies are toxic to cats and dogs, and so I am feeling suitably wretched for being an inattentive parent. We will know more on Friday when the lab results are in if her kidneys are failing. Calla lilies are not the most toxic lilies, so there is some hope, plus her symptoms do not seem to indicate kidney failure. Still, I am worried and torturing myself over my stupid mistake.

Since the vet’s, she has tried to eat a few times, but her usual food mystifies her; she grabs a kernel in her mouth and tries to gobble it (she usually does this instead of chewing) but parts of it fall back out of her mouth. I gave her some of the special wet food that the vet suggested and she cleaned her plate within minutes. She has not vomited since 07:30 today. Again, I am hopeful.

This was an exciting first day of unemployment.

Every night, Torgi the cat puts me to bed by chirping and nudging me until I stop doing whatever I am doing. Every morning, he head-butts me into consciousness because it is time for his breakfast.

Zen, in contrast, cannot be bothered. Her whims are her own, not to be shared with silly humans.

Right now Torgi is purring loudly while attempting to wedge himself in between me and my iPhone. He is winning.

No, this is not an entry about Buddhism. I am grateful for my not-so-small and not-so-normal cat, Zen. Zen turned 11 this year, which is hard for me to imagine, as it seemed like just yesterday I was adopting a tiny runt with gigantic headlight eyes.

Zen is having a difficult time with the recent move. She has never lived with another cat before, aside from her litter-mates way back when, and I believe her poor eyesight is adding to her insecurity because she cannot track Torgi’s movements very well.  Regardless, our little family persists, and I am hopeful that in a few more months we will all be adjusted to the new living arrangements.

Zen is round like a little football, and still very strange, and she is devoted to me. When I am sad or lost, she is unfailingly comforting. When I am stressed, I have dreams of Zen escaping from car windows or back doors, and I cannot find her.  These are obviously fabrications of my twitchy mind because when Zen escapes in waking life she just crouches down and sniffs until I grab her and drag her back inside.

On the hardwood floors, her little stomps resonate through the quiet house, and I am comforted just knowing she exists.

(This entry is part of one month of gratitude.)

I felt pretty confident that, bolstered by the chill-out of the three-day weekend, I could handle whatever came next. After all, the MSG and I had spent most of the weekend sequestered inside his house, making and eating marvelous food, chatting, seeing movies, snuggling, and playing “Star Wars: Galaxies” — on which I am now totally hooked, thanks to him. I have a female wookiee character who breakdances and is training to be a martial artist. How cool is that? I love that Jedi are so rare in the game. The MSG actually saw one wielding a light saber a few weeks ago and told me all about it and I just started bouncing in excitement. Wanna see!

And so, Monday evening, after a lovely meal of take-out from Eliza’s, the MSG and I sat outside and had a smoke. I explained to him that this week, being the first week of the semester, was going to be really rough for me, especially down one employee. I also explained that he shouldn’t take my lack of communication as anything more than me being too busy and/or exhausted to keep up with email, IMs, phone calls. He understood, commiserated, and gave me a huge, warm hug before I went home.

… I could not even imagine what was in store for me. This has truly been the week from hell. What hasn’t exploded at work shows signs of doing so at any moment. I’m supposed to find time to schedule interviews with potential employees while doing two 40+ hour a week jobs. And somehow manage new projects that always seem to come my way, no matter how many times I insist that I Have No More Time, In Fact, I Have Less Time; Please Do The Math.

On top of work foo, the hot water heater in the house I live in had to be replaced, as well as some integral part of the ventilation system. This wouldn’t be a big deal or affect me in any way except that the access to the crawlspace is through my unit. If that crawlspace door is opened, Zen immediately leaps into it, and she could be gone underneath the house for hours. (It’s happened before.) Also regarding Zen, she doesn’t let anyone else pick her up and put her places, like for example the bathroom, which is where I have to lock her when access to the crawlspace is needed. You might think, “O, she’d let someone if you just picked her up quickly and tossed her in the bathroom,” but my answer to that is: “only if you want to get your throat ripped out.” I have tried to explain this to my landlady but I don’t think she gets it. My cat really doesn’t like other people touching her unless it’s on her own terms. And while some people might view pets as mere accessories to their own shiny lives, I don’t. I’m not going to put my cat through unnecessary trauma by saying to a practical stranger, “Sure, go ahead, do whatever you want with her.” It is simply not going to happen. The few times I’ve left Zen in a kennel, I’ve thoroughly interviewed the proprietors first. (Yes, I’m THAT kind of cat lady.)

All this boils down to me having to be there to put Zen away when someone needs access to the crawlspace, so I rushed home from work last night to do just that, instead of doing the fifty other errands I had to accomplish, and the ventilation guy never showed due to some miscommunication with my landlady. That means I have to go home today at lunchtime and sit around and hope he comes, because I work all day Saturday and I’m not changing my Sunday plans for anyone. I deserve a weekend too, dammit.

Especially since I show serious signs of losing my mind at work. I’ve been harassing the frosh horribly. One frosh came in and asked to make copies. I said, “Hold on a moment,” then ran and grabbed a piece of white paper and a black pen and returned, looking expectantly at her while saying, “Okay, go.” She just stared at me in horror. I explained patiently, “Our copier is broken, but I have really nice printing.” Gingerly, she removed a 50-page document from her backpack. I lost it at that point, of course. She didn’t find it so amusing.

Something saved my week, though. Yesterday, the MSG emailed me to ask if I had anywhere he could drop a 31Mb archive that he thought I’d like. I was befuddled but directed him to my iDisk. When I finally got it downloaded and unzipped, I discovered 50 screenshots. Of the MSG’s “Star Wars: Galaxies” character. Dueling. A Jedi. With a light saber.

And if you are wondering what’s so swoonworthy about that gesture, I can’t help you out.

Happy Friday, everyone. May your metaphorical light saber leave sparkly trails of goodness as it slays your workweek.