Why I’m doing laundry at 5am

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After the bad news about Vizsla Mutt, 20 pound coon cat stuck to my lap like superglue on your fingers. In bed around midnight, Fat White Dog refused to allow my legs passage to the bottom 4 feet of bed, relenting to run out the dog door and bark at the wind.

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The guilty party gets sniffed.

At 4am the scent of unwashed musk compelled me to turn on the light. Laying across the wire to my small heating unit was the remains of a bird—and the feathers were everywhere.

You’d think an epic battle of that magnitude would be what awakened me, but noooo….it had to be the smell.

Following the carnage of bird feathers, it lead across all those bills and papers I was planning on going through in the morning, over my keyboard and onto the ½ of the desk that’s a cat bed.

Why would any creature other than a vulture think this “gift” would make me feel better? After 2 seconds of thoughtful consideration, I doubt it made the bird feel better, either.

It was time to suck it up and grab the Odoban.

First thing—get rid of the ravaged bird carcass. Not another cardinal! Are male cardinals the worlds dumbest birds?

I’m a cat person, not a bird person. My sister is an avid birder. If you’ve ever been in a car with one of these people it’s, “Bird!” (brakes) “Bird!” (brakes)… Try explaining that to your chiropractor when you get treated for whiplash.  To top that off, I lived in the San Francisco area for a few years and the seagulls are everywhere. The first lesson you learn is to keep your mouth closed if you’re going to look up. The stench around the Marina could gag you.  The last thing I wanted to do was clean up bird parts 3 feet from my bed.

Have you ever tried to clean up bird feathers? They fly around like dust bunnies on jet packs. The only way to get rid of them is by vacuum. It was like a poem Dr. Seuss might have written—if he’d been a sick bastard:

On the floor
Out the door
Over bills
Up your nose
In the air
In your hair
On your mouse
In your mouth…

So there I am, vacuuming bird feathers at 4:15 am and holding the bills down so they don’t get sucked up with bird remains. Had I not planned to pay bills on-line, some unlucky paper pusher would be wondering why there were dark, stinky streaks on them.

Ready to slather the floor in Odoban, Dingo Mutt prances through the slime and over my pillow.

I’m not about to ask if this day could get any worse.

Pillow case and cat bedding are thrown in the washer along with several small rugs I was going to clean when there was enough of that type of stuff to sanitize.

I pass 20 pound coon cat, sitting next to the sink. He nuzzles my face, so now my cheeks smell like dead bird, too. I can’t yell at him, he wouldn’t know why.

The clothes are on the rinse cycle, the mouse pad is washed and dried, and the dogs have taken over my bed. I’ll worry about the papers on my desk later.

Time for breakfast. Scrambled eggs sound good.

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