I am not at all afraid of my cat.

My cat tried to kill me. But I'm sure I had it coming.

It all started when I mocked my cat's ass on Twitter. Izzy the cat is—well, she's become a big girl. She rapidly morphed from an adorable teacup-sized kitten to a hulking mass who causes the house to shake when she jumps off a chair. Here is what she was:

And here's Izzy now!

She actually looks relatively slender here, due no doubt to her slimming black hue. She's way more of a moose than you can tell from the picture. In real life, she causes people to exclaim in surprise when they see her. She's not small.

I don't even know how she fits on this windowsill.

I know that this is partly our fault. Or at least it's our fault for not addressing the issue as soon as we noticed her rapid expansion. It occurred, as these things do, after she was spayed. When she figured there was no reason to keep up her girlish figure. She let herself go, and we let her do it.

Look, now her back-fat is causing her to slip:

So lately it seems that she is too heavy to clean herself. Specifically, she cannot reach her butt. And this is disgusting. I even tried cleaning her myself—out of love, yes, but mostly disgust—but the fur is all matted, and now there's no getting it out. It's clear that we need to take her to the vet and get the whole cat-butt problem worked out. She's also apparently incapable of cleaning her back, now, and let's face it, it's really hard to pet her when she's like this. Our love, apparently, is conditional, and the condition is "must not have pooplets stuck to ass when you rub our legs for a pet."

Oh wait, I just found a picture in which her enormous girth is revealed.

NOW YOU SEE. Quick, look away—I can't be sure what prolonged viewing of her Rasputin-like gaze would do to your brains.

I feel bad for her, but that didn't stop me from writing a Twitter about her ass. And not a few minutes later, I walked into the kitchen, and Izzy dashed in front of the doorway, causing me to fly across the room, landing on both wrists and one knee. I had to lie there for a while. Henry came in and offered to kiss my knee, but I demurred. Over the next few days, my knee turned all kinds of colors. My parts hurt. But it could have been much worse.

I have never almost been killed by a cat before, and it's a humbling experience. I can only conclude that Izzy can read, and that she's following me on Twitter. She's probably reading my blog. So I just want to say here that 1) my cat is beautiful, no matter what condition her ass is in, and 2) I was wrong to publicly mock her. Oh, and 3) I am sure that if we take her to the vet it will be so she can be admired, and not to have her hindquarters shaved and a tasteless diet food prescribed. In conclusion, my cat is beautiful. A big, beautiful beast.

If I don't post in a couple of days, you'll know that she didn't accept my apology.

Addendum. And pictures!

I think I made my son sound more obnoxious than I meant to, in yesterday's post. The whole "OF COURSE I" whatever is such a put-on that I find it really amusing. He uses this voice that's not quite his, a sort of a mock-yell, and he quickly reverts to his charming self. It's sort of our schtick, that I ask the questions I'm not supposed to ask and in return he's indignant. In general, I've made it a goal of mine to not complain about my son in this venue—it just doesn't feel fair to him anymore, now that he's growing up (despite my best efforts) and not a baby with the typical baby issues. So. Okay!

On Monday Henry was sick-ish—just unwell enough to spike a fever right before school started, but then well enough to spend the next three hours demanding playground time. I denied him the playground, because I am a Cruel Woman who does not want him to have Fun on the days he is Afflicted with a Malady, but it was a beautiful day and I got stir-crazy so I suggested taking the dog for a walk.

Henry agreed, and took the camera. He took many photos that look just like this one:

But then I suggested he take a picture of Charlie, and he really got some good shots, if I do say so myself.

I like this extreme close-up of Charlie blissed out on whatever godawful substance he located on this tree. .5 seconds later, he peed on it.

Then Henry gave me the camera, and I watched him and Charlie running amok in the park.

Doesn't he look sick?

I would have been more upset about the lost half-day of freedom if my son wasn't such good company. (Most of the time.) Not that I was unhappy to see him off to school the next day. Sorry, kid, but mama's got to have her writing time, else she goes crazy. Thank you for understanding.

Here is where I am living now. Forward my mail, please.

Utah is innard-dessicatingly dry, and Scott could never find work here, and my family would weep forever if we were to move here, and also all our stuff is in New Jersey. Nonetheless, I cannot leave Utah, ever. Because Utah has this.

This is my two-year-old niece, whom I want to eat whole. Perhaps on a baguette, with some horseradish sauce to offset the sweetness. I haven't seen her in a year. Now she's talking and toddling and asking me how I'm doing and whether I like apple juice and I AM NEVER LEAVING.

Scott and Henry are not yet aware of my plans for us to remain here forever, but I suspect they won't put up too much of a fight.

I mean, come ON. Tell me you could walk away from THAT.

Just your average Tuesday.

I walked Henry to school today and walked most of the way back home before realizing that I had a wooden hanger hanging from the belt on the back of my coat.  A large, wooden hanger. 

I'm telling you this to illustrate 1) how much of a dork I am and 2) how mentally and physically worn out I still am from yesterday's shoot. I have no idea why I should be this tired, because most of my day yesterday was spent sitting around.  It was too much excitement for me, I guess. I am even more delicate than I believed.  Or my humours are out of whack. A bloodletting is in order!

So! Yesterday was the photo shoot for Wondertime, as I mentioned previously.  Present were Tim and Liz, the lovely and kind art directors from Wondertime, as well as Asger and Lloyd, the infinitely patient photographer and his charming assistant. Henry, Scott, and I were outfitted and posed and fed snacks. And we had so much fun. Draining, life-sapping fun. Here are the photos. If they don't make sense to you, well, you'll have to wait for the May issue of Wondertime to come out. Maybe you should subscribe!  That's an idea I spontaneously had right now. (Please note: I am not receiving kickbacks from Wondertime.)  (Unfortunately.)

<

Here's Henry, getting notes on what his motivation should be. "You're Darth Vader, coming out of the shower." How sweet does he look here? It's kind of killing me. Of course you can't hear him whining about the unbearable weight of the light saber, and the fact that the mask was choking him TO DEATH.

"What are you doing in the bathroom, son?"
"I'M TURNING TO THE DARK SIDE, MOTHER."

Henry was amazing, actually. The mask was heavy, the light saber was heavy, the shirt was chafing him, the fog from the fog machine smelled funny, and it was hard to hear everyone's direction over the sound effects coming from the light saber, but my baby posed for longer than I ever could have anticipated. 

On the other hand, he got to play with incredibly cool light sabers. They're worlds away from the crappy telescoping plastic kind we own. It must be horrible, having us as his parents.

Scott worked until 2:30 a.m. that morning, so he could spend his day pretending to be Luke Skywalker. Did he do it for me? I like to think so.

We tried to include Charlie in a shot or two, but he was being a prima donna about it—only letting us shoot his right profile because that's his signature look, etc. He didn't make the cut. Sorry, dog.

Henry declined the use of the mask for his Ultimate Battle with Obi Wan, so Liz gave him the option of giant movie-star sunglasses and a headband. It doesn't sound like it would work, but it worked well enough. Bonus: Henry didn't throw himself to the ground in mortal agony.

"Can you be a dear and get me a glass of sparkling water? With a little lemon juice? Not a wedge of lemon, dear, I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY LEMON, just sort of a lemon essence. Wait a minute, is this pulp? I see? That's it, you're fired."

Henry kept asking Scott, "When are you going to fall down and die?" Not for a few years, son, so meanwhile you and your Oedipal struggle best hush up.

I contemplated uploading this to Finslippy yesterday and asking, "Is this a bad sign?" Ha, ha! It's just a fog machine in my oven. DON'T PANIC.

The photographer kept saying that he wanted to make me look "elegant," which I thought was a lovely sentiment, considering that I was wearing cinnamon buns on my head and a pom-pommed bathrobe from Target.

When the shoot was over (seven hours, my friends! SEVEN) Tim and Liz gave Henry not one, but TWO of the light sabers. Was he excited? A LITTLE BIT. I'm still amazed that we got him to sleep, or eat, or stop trying to amputate our limbs for more than two minutes.

So that's our story! Aaaand now I'm going back to bed. Wake me when the issue comes out. Thank you.