sticker shock

Took two cats to the vet today for checkup and distemper shots.  Paid the bill.  Brought the cats home and ate four chocolate chip cookies before I could get control of myself.  Why is comfort food so bad for you?  Why is pet care so expensive?  (This I can answer.  They have to pay the salaries of all those vet techs and receptionists and vets, and they have to pay the electric bills, and the insurance.  The medicine and syringes don't come free, and someone has to mop the floors - have you seen the price of mops lately?) Anyhow, I have been trying for a six weeks to lose weight, and I am down four pounds.  Whoop!  But I can't count on losing weight the week I host a knitting tea.  And then, there was the week we went to the Brazilian carnivore restaurant, and I pretty much reverted to my ancestral raptor persona.  -- I dunno how it is, but my life is just filled with feast days.  Why don't we celebrate with a nice bunch of carrots or a big glass of water?  Why does a sweet and milky cup of tea comfort so much better than a strong acrid black brew? Why is fat and sugar more celebratory than lettuce?

Now the kitties are feeling half crappy and it's all my fault.  They don't love me anymore at all today, even after I spent all that money on them.  And Friday I take old Candy in for yet another expensive appointment when she will be weighed and palpated and have her temperature taken again (How Rude!) and It will cost close to $100 before we even make the appointment for her surgery.  At least she is being good about taking her pills and antibiotics.  DH holds her on his lap and rubs her ear, and while she's blessed out, I shove the pill down her throat, and follow it with the squirt of the antibiotic.  Then her rubs her ear for another minute, and she forgets that she hates us all.

But we love the kitties, and we are responsible pet owners, so we fork over the $$ and get them their shots, even if they resent us bitterly.  I think God must have similar feelings about taking care of us stubborn, selfish, short-sighted humans.

Spring is on the way.  There are snowdrops in the front yard, the daffodils in the back are up a good six inches, and the Canada Geese are pairing up.  The big homogenous flocks are separating into couples, and the males are hissing at one another and sparring all over.  Love is in the air!