Steamed

I'm miffed... at Mother Nature.

The unseasonable weather we've had all bloody year, with a brutal winter last winter, cool and soggy spring that lasted until the end of August, the three weeks of blazing hot sunny summer we got in September and the extended warm and sunny fall we've been enjoying right up to the present (which will continue until well into December, if I have my way) has wreaked havoc on the environment and us lowly humans in many ways. I won't go into any of them except the one that has affected me directly!

FLEAS!!!!!

Yes, you heard me right... fleas! Of all things! I have always kept everyone well groomed, manicured and clean. For crying in the sink, no animal in my house has had a flea problem in over 20 years! Until now... and the weather is to blame.

It would appear that the hot weather in September led to a flea infestation in the cute little bunnies that inhabit this little corner of the universe. Actually, the rabbits are an infestation in and of themselves. There are so many it is ridiculous! But they are cute and harmless and I don't have a garden that they can destroy, so who cares.

Except... now I do! Because they are the bearers of the fleas. And the bunnies runneth through my yard on a whim. They flit under the fences, hang out under the deck, congregate in the grass, depositing pellets absolutely everywhere (but that seems to counteract the dog pee so the lawn actually looks pretty good).

All of which is well and good, until the little buggers also deposit fleas in the grass, which my dog then gives a ride into the house.

The end of October, I took Lila in to the vet's to be spayed. She was six months old on the 27th, so for her birthday, she got her girlie parts removed. Not that she needed them, and she certainly hasn't missed them.

The vet tech gives me a call that afternoon to tell me that the surgery went well and Lila is fine but...

Now, I don't like hearing that word when it comes to any of my animals, because it usually means very big bucks (recall "That Damn Cat" and the heat duct episode?), which are in very short supply at the moment. The 'but' this time was fleas. Lila has fleas.

I am dumbfounded! All three of the cats are house cats - they don't go outside... ever! And Lila, being a baby, has only ever been outside - twice - in a carrier going from house to vehicle to vet and back again. She's never even set foot on soil in her life!

So where the hell did the fleas come from??? The only one of the four (three cats, one dog) who was scratching and itching was BB, the old man, and he'd been doing that for years. I had noticed that he'd really been going to town on himself and I was having to medicate some of the areas he was scratching raw, but I just figured it was something a 15 1/2 year old cat would do. Especially one that had always been a bit of an overzealous groomer.

They sprayed Lila, as well as spayed her. She came home with a naked belly and a bottle of flea spray . Which I promptly used on everyone, dog included. Once a week. But man! it stinks! And poor Pips spits all over the place and foams at the mouth and is in obvious distress when I use it on her.

So I decided to change tactics. I poured some of the flea spray into the pet shampoo bottle and gave all three cats a bath tonight. The dog is wearing a flea collar and I can't bathe her by myself. (You try keeping 100 lbs of dog in the tub with one hand while trying to scrub away at that ginormous body with the other... it just ain't possible.)

Needless to say, the cats are safely ensconced in the spare bedroom with a space heater going so they can dry out and groom in warmth. I don't need three soggy cats on the livingroom furniture or my bed...

But I am sure you can figure out for yourselves that they are none too pleased with me...

That stuff tastes like shit... or something...

GAK!! It's even between my toes...

Water in my ear... water in my ear... gotta geddit out... gotta geddit out...

I mean... REALLY... how could you???

(licklicklicklicklicklick)

What the hell just happened???