Tuesday 16 February 2010

The letters I'd love to send

Gathered over the past few weeks.

Dear Disney,

"Girl" and "World" do not rhyme. Nor do "don't stop me" and "paparazzi". And "us" does not rhyme with "trust" either. I could go on, but I wish you wouldn't.

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Dear Bob,

I last saw you on Monday, 16th Feb, 2009. You said you'd be back later that week in order to finish the job you started in 2006. You never turned up. You have left me for another twelve months without finishing this project. You have now just left me a text message stating that you "are leaving the building game" and wish to present a final invoice, an invoice in which you plan to include work done back in 2006 and for which I paid at the time, and work which I am still waiting for you to complete.

Why?

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Dear Little Fish,

I don't care if all the other children are doing it, I don't care if the staff are doing, I don't care if it is easier and quicker. Lose the glottal stop. It's "Button" not "Bu' un", and "bottom", not "bo'um". And no, making me repeat it twenty times so you can hear it properly isn't "really funny". OK, well, probably, it is a little funny. But please, stoppit! (Apart from anything else, your speech isn't all that clear at the best of times. You need to enunciate the bits you can, or people won't understand you at all).

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On a related note, Dear Teacher and school staff,

I'm sorry Little Fish now thinks T is the first letter of Bottom and Button. "Tuh, tuh, tuh for bottom" is probably going to annoy you and I hope she's forgotten it by the start of term.

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Dear everyone else,

Sorry that I'm now going to be overenunciating every single word for a while in compensation.

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Dear Grolly,

Please, please, stop weeing on everything. Why won't you use the litter tray? For a while you refused the litter tray but peed handily just beside it. That's annoying, but I can live with it. Weeing on the dirty washing is also annoying, but does at least provide me with motivation to keep the laundry basket empty. But so far today that's been one sheepskin rug, one cardboard box, one hot water pipe, and the blanket Little Fish had put down for two minutes before wrapping her baby doll in it.

I don't want to try to get you rehomed; you're a beautiful lovely gorgeously friendly and sociable cat. And Gotcha would be devastated if you went; he already cries when you go out of his sight for more than a few minutes. So please, if you won't use the tray, at least find one relatively easy to clean spot and stick to it. Oh, and whilst we're at it, please use the tray.

Thank you, that will be all.
Tia

5 comments:

Swift said...

:(( Re: Bob...that's ridiculous!

R said...

Tia you're nowhere NEAR it being appropriate to consider rehoming Grolly. Quite apart from anything else she is a member of your family and short of endangering someone else's welfare is entitled to remain so.

First, vet. Rule out UTI etc.
Second, you need another litter tray. Or two or three in the short term. If one of the others is being territorial about it, they might be intentionally stopping her from using their litter tray. Or as she's a bit of a wuss if I recall correctly, she might be stopping herself because it smells too strongly of one of the boys.
Third you may just need a/some bigger tray/s - an ordinary moggy-sized one is too small for NFCs!

Brilliant page of things to try from the HSUS (American RSPCA equivalent?) here.

Please please don't give up or think that evicting her is your only option. There's so much that can be tried to help, and she's an important part of your family. Speaking of which for both their welfare if you truly did no longer feel able to be Grolly's mum, you would need to rehome Gotcha too. Just not fair otherwise.

I used to do palliative care fostering for Cats Protection and I promise that in a young healthy cat this is not an insurmountable problem, however unspeakable it feels to be dealing with frequent puddles of feline wee in addition to that which normally accompanies being a mother of small girls :) I know that I've probably come across a bit bossy and stroppy in this post and I'm terribly sorry and want to be very clear that I don't mean to be and still basically think you're brilliant. You and your girls and your kittens are leading the life I feel like I was born for... but local authorities don't seem too keen on having a very disabled foster mum.

Oh, and Bob can get stuffed. Grr.

Doorless said...

Maybe the cat could wee on Bob! I definately would not pay any more money to that man!
As for the cat I think that getting a number of pans and trying different kinds of litter might do the trick after rulling out a UTI.
Alicia's cat used to wee in the corner of the bathtub! We stopped that for good by buying first a different style cat pan and then different quick abosrbing odor killing litter.
Now whe only uwes the pan!

sarah bess said...

hilarious. I NEED your blog; I really do. My dose of daily levity. Keep being as cool as you are.

Tia said...

Ah don't worry, Becca; I'm not seriously considering rehoming her. It's just incredibly frustrating, especially when she gets into the medical supplies. We've just replaced all Mog's cardboard storage with plastic boxes; won't stop her from kicking the lid off and climbing inside if she's desperate, but should help at least prevent the sideways sogging.

We have one cat who goes outdoors (or uses the bathtub if desperate), one tray in The sitting room and one in the sunroom. The washing pile is halfway between the two; I could put another tray there but then where would the washing go? Part of the problem with the washing is that I think it already smells of urine quite often. I'm not sure what the attraction is to the bubble tube, but reasonably certain the electrics didn't like it. The play tent was clearly just evil and needed to be destroyed anyway. And the cushions? Well they were probably past their best. The beanbag was annoying; really not possible to wash those polystyrene beans. Behind the dryer is impossible to get to. And the hot water pipes in Mog's room are very annoying. Electricity cables are the worst though - for some reason these are really attractive and most of them have had a dose at some point.

Part of the problem is I think cleanliness; if Gotcha has used the tray then she will generally go just beside it or into Mog's room. She doesn't wee in my room, LF's or the kitchen. She's soaked the front door so often the frame is swelling up and I can barely close it! And she's absolutely desperate to be allowed outside. So our next step I think is to sort out our catflap - I want to fit the flap before they start using the cathole - and hopefully she'll decide weeing on the tulips is even more fun than weeing on the washing. Preferably before we have a crawling toddler placed...

Re: the fostering; if they won't have you, have you considered looking into mentoring at all? I know I value your insight when I'm struggling with the girls and I'm sure others would too - plus there are a lot of children with disabilities in various forms of care who would really appreciate being able to meet and talk to an adult who isn't just there to care for them. I know when I worked in a boarding school, the children never ever met disabled adults. The school staff were all able-bodied, and as pupils turned 19 they left school and were never seen again. And "work experience" consisted of nice trips to see fire engines or farms; fun, but again reinforcing the idea that all adults are not disabled. Hardly surprising a lot of the children believed their disabilities would just disappear on that magical birthday.

Thanks for the cat advice anyway - much appreciated. It is especially frustrating since all three cats happily share one tray at the cattery with no problems!

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