Juniper, my lovely, sweet, Maine Coon cat, hates the vet.

He hates the vet with the furious passion of a thousand suns. He hates the smell of disinfectant, the way that the vet holds him, the smells of a thousand cats and dogs that have passed through in various states of health. He definitely hates being caged. He expresses his fear and hatred by keeping up a near-constant growling the entire time he's in there with highlights of hissing and spitting when anyone comes too close. In a nearly 13-pound feline who looks bigger because of all of his fur, this is quite intimidating.

Unfortunately, he's been having trouble with urinary tract infections again, so he went into the vet for the day so she could get a urine sample from him. He was all right if noisy during the intake exam, clinging to me when I picked him up and growling at everything. This was a clear request of "Don't leave me alone here, Mom!" but he did end up having to stay the day.

Well, they did manage to get a urine sample from him, but in the process of peeing he also pooped all over himself. I picked him up from the vet on Monday night with Chris in tow, took him home, and let him out in the bathroom to inspect him. His entire hind end was coated in malodorus ickiness, and everything he touched stank. He pretty obviously wasn't going to be able to get himself cleaned up. He was unhappy and upset and wouldn't let me touch him, so I left him alone to calm down while I ate dinner and prepared for the next phase of the evening: Washing The Cat.

After dinner, I pulled back my hair and pushed up my sleeves. It was time. I jumped into the bathroom with towels and shampoo, quickly cleaned out the tub, ran a couple of inches of warm water, and placed the cat in the tub.

He quickly informed me that there must be some mistake and attempted to leave. I restrained him, starting to rinse his butt in the process. This was repeated a couple of more times until he accepted the fact that he was standing in a couple of inches of water and if he just stood still this would all be over much more quickly.

So scrubbing happened. Much scrubbing. Much wishing for a handheld showerhead happened, too, but more scrubbing. And then it was time for soap, and butt-washing, which was an indignity that Juniper protested in his squeaky way. And then it was time for rinsing and standing under the faucet for a few seconds while everything got rinsed away. And more scrubbing and washing of places that had been missed, like tail-ends and shoulders and ruffs.

And then it was over, and I let him out of the tub and dried him off with towels and let him out of the bathroom. And then it was time for Dinner, and after eating the Indignity of Medication.

Fortunately, this is the one cat who has no dignity and therefore after a brief period of sulking he's sitting on Chris' feet behind me, looking tired and bedraggled but not actively unhappy. On the balance, being washed isn't as bad as the Evil Dr. Tracy, in Juniper's mind. At least Washing happens at home, you know? And afterwards there are cuddles.

And the next day, his fur was shiny, soft, and generally far more well-groomed than he usually looks. I think someone just got himself signed up for monthly baths. I'm sure he's going to be thrilled about that.

He's pretty much over the UTI at this point, and i'm going to be buying one of those water bowls that recirculate water in hopes that he'll drink more and hopefully not have any more infections. I hope it works.

I am almost over my poetry hiatus, I think.

I've had words occur to me that almost sound like poetry. Misheard lyrics and the way that the nature preserve near my house is coming alive with the calls of red-winged blackbirds are making me think in line lengths and stanza breaks. I'm going to wait till it becomes an actual itch, an actual need. Soon, i think.

I'm still not so sure about exposing myself to other people's poetry right yet. I'm a lot more forgiving of bad verse on the part of other people if mine is going well; during a blocking episode I become intolerant of awful poetry. Too much of it I read or listen to and go, "Wow. That sucked. That sucked a lot. There's not even a good poem hiding inside of the shit, that's how much it sucked."

Chris told me that it isn't my job to save the world from bad poets. But it is. It is my mission in life to locate bad poets and either make them into good poets or STOP THEM FROM WRITING. Because there *are* people who honestly shouldn't write poetry, just like I shouldn't sing. There isn't any shame in not having any talent at something, just in persisting to do things you have no talent for and, worse, inflicting the results of your activities on the world at large.

When I was a freshman in college, I auditioned for one of the choirs. I didn't think I was hot stuff but I thought I was pretty decent, and I loved singing even though appreciating music was beyond me.

The choir director, after listening to my audition, took me aside and told me very gently that I have no voice and there weren't any choirs at the school I was good enough for. He suggested that if I really wanted to sing I should go into musical theater, where the voice parts generally aren't as challenging.

Yeah, my pride stung after that, but it was good to know after having been passed from the "real" choir at my high school into the junior girl's choir (I was the only senior who had been in choir for the three previous years in the girl's choir) that it was because I genuinely can't sing worth a damn. It helps to know that it's not my fault; years of thyroid disease have scarred my vocal cords and my CAPD makes making music quite the challenge. And I took the hint and no longer sing in public except when there are a bunch of people singing to cover my buzzsaw of a voice.

If you have no talent for something, don't do it. Or if you do, don't show it to anyone. Find something you're good at and show *that* off.

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