When we took Odessa to the vet last week, she was given a steroid shot and
some soft-textured food so a nasty throat inflammation could subside. To this
end, we were also given a liquid antibiotic to administer twice daily. The
good news is that Odessa slowly walks down the path to health; she puts up a
fight more than before the visit, and has been climbing the tower in the
bedroom (where she has been sequestered so she can have a quiet recovery, and
to keep the other kids from stealing the apparently highly palatable A/D can
food.) Needless to say, like all effective drugs, the antibiotic is
remarkably vile.

And true to Odessa-Doll’s sneaky, slippery nature, she has taken her revenge
on me. For the doll-like demeanor is only a front; this girl is a calculating
little tart.

I figure that tonsillitis is not cured overnight, and she did have a mucus-y
coughing bout last night. I sat on the bed with the filled dosing syringe,
waiting. When she quieted down I figured it would be a good and safe time to
dose her.

The hell it would.

Instead the squirt dislodged the nasty stuff so that Odessa made a good “ahem!
” and, in short, horked up a loogie that could fill the average gas tank,
right into my hair. The vet gets a fart in the face, but I get cat snot. Let
me give you and idea of what I was up against: it was well after midnight; I
had to be up early to get to the bank to make the house payment, and Louie
had to be out for his class; and my hair when is down—as it coincidentally
was last night—it hangs down well below my behind. And so at almost 1 AM I
was shampooing and taking a steam bath in my own steam. For the Odessa-Doll
was calmly grooming herself, as prim and prissy as a debutante. A deb with
clear breathing, thank God.

“Let this be a lesson,” Louie told me. “Next time, pin your hair up.” Thank
you, you supportive little…husband. I shall wait quietly for the next time
someone drops a hairball in one of his precious Bostonians. Would it be too
rude of me to softly hum “Who’s Sorry Now?”

Of course, a shampoo is nothing, even at the late hour. Odessa still has her
coughing but it’s only once or twice a day, not all day, and not dry and
sandpapery. She’s getting her energy back and I can feel a bit of weight
coming back. She’ll still bring up a bit of ick, but she’s got good lungs and
heart and she’s stubborn as a mule.

Thank God for stubborn cats and conditioning shampoo.

Blessed be,
Baha