Pippin and I just spent the last hour or so hemming my new pants. I say “Pippin and I” because while I was splitting my attention between hemming and the Daily Show, Pippin was paying attention to the hemming with every breath, every whisker, all four paws, and both pupils. As the thread mysteriously disappeared from his view with every stitch, his pupils would widen until they completely obliterated his golden irises, his breath would catch in his throat, his paws would twitch, and his whiskers would move another millimeter forward.

Most of the time he was able to restrain himself from actually interfering with the task, but a couple of times it got to be too much and his paws would leap forward or his mouth would somehow end up surrounding the thread.

This evening confirms that there is a household task more interesting than Making The Bed. Until today Making The Bed was the best game ever. Now I know that Hemming is the bestest, most amazingest game in the whole wide world.

Now he’s completely exhausted from his labors, but the pants are fully hemmed so he needn’t worry about missing anything.

There’s been quite the heat wave here this summer, but the last couple of weeks have just been summer-ish. It gets up to the mid- to upper-eighties, it rains or it doesn’t (mostly it doesn’t), and it’s cooling down nicely at night. But today it only got up to the low 70s. It was sunny, 70-ish, breezy, and beautiful. My cat is in heaven. Cooler weather means the reappearance of his favorite decor: blankets.

This morning I had a little throw blanket out because it was in the 50s. I wasn’t actually cool, but I do love to have a blanket on, so I didn’t have to work too hard to convince myself that I’d be even more comfortable if I got out a blanket. Pippin immediately jumped up and snuggled in. You could just see him thinking that this is how life is supposed to be. This is how we spend our time for all 10 months of Minnesota winter. I put a blanket on; Pippin curls up in warm and cuddly hammock.

Well, tonight I don’t feel like having a blanket on, but Pippin is industriously digging in the cast-off blanket. He knows that there’s got to be a way to make that hammock, he’s just not quite sure how it’s done, so he’ll keep digging. What he’d give for opposable thumbs.

I got home from work a little early this evening so that I could give Pippin some cuddling and play time before stuffing him into his carrier and taking him to the vet for his annual check up. Poor guy.

He was purring so hard I could hear him from across the room after only 10 minutes of attention… and then came the carrier. He was a little faked out for a bit there because every once in a while I put him in there to sit outside with me on the porch, which he enjoys. But as soon as the carrier started carrying him toward the car, his voice changed from expectant to worried. I didn’t really mean to walk that way, did I? Surely we weren’t getting into that car? Why are we opening the car door? … and that’s when the cries for help started. He didn’t care which of our neighbors came to his rescue as long as one of them did, and soon!

We got to the vet’s office without incident, but as soon as we opened the door and Pippin smelled that waiting room, the cries changed yet again into rage-infused panic. But this was nothing compared to the cat screams I heard when they took him away and weighed him. Screams, followed by crashes, a few thuds, and the poor assistant’s voice sounding more and more strained as she tried to coax him into a relative state of calm.

It didn’t work. She got back into the room clutching him to her chest. His fur was completely awry, and he’d apparently release his anal glands because he stank. His ears were flat on his head and his eyes were dilated to their fullest. Goodness he was MAD (and all this over a weighing… the two shots were yet to come). And he immediately proceeded to leap out of the assistant’s arms and hide under the table.

The assistant left (a little too gratefully, I might add) and just before the door clicked shut she assured me the doctor would be with us shortly. I got down on the floor and stroked his head and crooned to him in the gentlest, calmest voice. “Don’t worry, buddy, the worst is not over yet…” Good thing he doesn’t speak English.

The doctor came in and managed to calm him even further by disguising her full-body examination as a full-body massage. She’s good! She ended up by massaging his head and neck just the way he likes while uncapping the first vaccination one-handed. Pippin wasn’t quite buying all this calm and lulling massaging. He was flattened on the table and staring at me in what could only be interpreted as a silent death threat.

But the vaccination went in and was followed by the second with barely a twitch from the traumatized cat. But once that was done and I opened the carrier door, he made a bee-line for that carrier. He knew what was good for him!

And now he’s slunk under the bed looking quite a bit worse for the wear. (The doctor said he might be lethargic after these vaccines, but he seems so much more miserable than lethargic.)

Poor guy.