#picocat

[robustcornhusk]

my housemate, eating goldfish, talking to the cat:

“You don’t want these, Pico. They’re only fish shaped. ... These are only an abstraction.”

[pixiejens]

My little IP - Picocat.  Here are some iPhone Wallpapers of him :)  I will have my picocat.com website updated soon!

[pixiejens]

more picocat™ iphone wallpapers -- also; picocat.com is now live!

picocat is ©jennifer bailey all rights reserved

[robustcornhusk]

[robustcornhusk]

half-formed thought that other people have, for suresies, expanded on:

this morning we had to take pico to the vet for his tooth surgery followup. it was a pretty quick visit; they just needed to take a look at his gums to be sure he’d healed up nicely, and he had.

it’s a busy vet’s office, lots of animals in and out. pico was alert, cautious, wary, not happy, but not in a lot of distress: not yowling, hissing, aggressive, cowering. he also didn’t give us any trouble going into the carrier.

cohuman was mildly (mildly!) distressed by pico’s unhappiness: we’re making him feel bad! this is not good! i feel bad that we are making pico feel bad!

my reaction ... wasn’t? didn’t exist? i mean i wasn’t at all pleased that the cat was having an unpleasant hour, but he needed to get his mouth looked at, and that’s that. taking him to the vet in the first place was how we learned he had messed up teeth, and getting those taken out resulted in a distinct increase in life conditions for pico. 

i think this is one of the aspects of empathy that to some extent i lack: feeling bad just because someone around me that i care about feels bad. in this sort of case, at least, it’s not a problem.

[robustcornhusk]

bothering the cat after he got surged

[robustcornhusk]

status: nervous about my cat getting toof surgery tomorrow. 

interestingly, i have no fear about him being put under for a bit, recovery, etc. my fear is more “what if he doesn’t actually have the toof problem”, “what if the people at the vet’s office judge us for spending money on him” (!??!), “what if they judge us for not having done more diligence beforehand, this all seems so sudden! he went in for a vet visit and then to get bloodwork and now they’re going to operate on him?”, “what if he does have the toof problem but it’s not why he’s biting us at night (it’s just that he’s a cat and sometimes cats bite people) and cohuman is upset when the night-biting continues”, “what if we bring him in and they reschedule it or otherwise don’t actually do the surgery tomorrow” ...

meanwhile cohuman is real worried about the actual surgery, like a reasonable worried person would be. 

(i was also REAL WORRIED when i had chest surgery and then hysto, that for whatever reason, i would go in and they wouldn’t cut me up. and today i went in for an interview and my fear was not “it will be awkward and unpleasant” but rather “what if i wasn’t actually supposed to be here”.)

[robustcornhusk]

Signed a new lease! Moving in a month.

The landlords live in the building, so Pico is demoted from Emotional Support Animal to just a normal pet. We had to sign a pet agreement; it’s the same one we signed in our current place (where it doesn’t actually apply to Pico; it says none of it applies to emotional support animals).

long boring story about my parents being Somewhat Bad when i was younger

Housemate, facetiously: dang, it says we can only bring pico and we can’t get a snake. I really wanted a snake.

“You say that as a joke, but I really wanted a snake when I was younger. I begged my parents for one, but they counter-offered with a cat, if I learned to ride a bike.”

the story, roughly: when like ~6, they attempted to teach me to ride a bike. the place they decided to do this was our very long concrete-and-oyster-shell back driveway. i would have none of it because holy shit, ow, oyster shells hurt to fall on. so for a few years, until i was 9 or so, when talking to other adults and me: “You knew how to ride a bike at [small me]’s age, right? Isn’t it ridiculous that they don’t know how to ride a bike? How embarrassing.”

anyway at 9, they were like “we’ll get you a cat if you learn to ride a bike!”

okay, i do want a cat

so on family beach vacation, they put a big ol’ beach cruiser out for me on the sand, i get on... and immediately take off down the shoreline. because of course? why not? falling on sand is fine and won’t hurt. (also like, probably three more years of existing gave me better coordination n’at)

they are grumbly after for years: you were sandbagging us! 

but I did get a cat, which was great.

The story came out because my housemate seemed interested: “how did my Hella Bikes housemate get into bikes? What do you mean they were afraid of bikes as a child? Weird.”

but i realized over the course of telling the story, because of housemate’s facial expressions: oh, my parents are in a bad light. wait, they’re in a bad light of their own making. Do you mean that most parents don’t shame their children like that? Oh. Hmm.

like i remember being frustrated as a small human because! oh my god! it’s not a big deal! it’s not like i can go anywhere by bike? we live in the suburbs and there are hella cars? it’s like you just want me to be able to do some arbitrary thing? can we stop now!

(indeed, when i was older, i was like “Is it cool if I bike like 5 miles to this place?” “ABSOLUTELY NOT, YOU’LL BE KILLED.”)

and like, i would get if they were frustrated the once, but ... repeatedly? that’s weird. i don’t know that it did harm to me per se, but ... it’s not reflecting well on their judgment.