Friday, October 15, 2010

And sometimes...there's a puddle of Cat Pee

Today was one of those days.

It all started with a puddle of cat pee. That puddle of cat pee taught me a lesson. A lesson that I'm going to share with you. Because YOU are one of my lucky readers. You may be my only reader. So listen up.

It started with my husband waking up and heading to work at 6:45. Since it's my day off, I hoped that I had some more time to sleep before the Sweet Baboo woke up. (Last week he was getting back teeth and he was waking up at 5:50am, crying bloody murder, and then refusing to go back to sleep.) This particular morning he slept until 7:20 or so, which was good, but he woke up crying, which was bad. He usually wakes up with contented babbling, which means I have time to go downstairs, let the dogs out, fix my coffee, and basically do things that are easier to do with two hands. However, if he's crying, I just go downstairs, let the dogs out, grab his morning bottle (he takes cups during the day, but he's not a morning person and is too grouchy to deal with them in the morning- which as a non-morning person myself, I totally get) and take it upstairs for him.

Well, looking back, he was probably my first indication of how this day was going to go- because by the time I got his bottle...he had stopped crying and started sounding a lot more content. Hmmm. Ok. He doesn't EVER do that. He's either crying until you get him, or happy, or happy and then crying if you don't get him in a timely enough manner (which, isn't saying that he's impatient, its saying that I'm really slow). He's rarely, I dare say never, crying to happy again with no outside intervention.

Well ok, that was good. Taking that as a good sign and a welcome reprieve, I took the 'happy time' to make coffee, straighten up downstairs, and get dressed. I even put make up on. I function much better for the rest of the day if I at least get my hair and face presentable first thing in the morning. I don't know why. It makes the rest of the day much less of an ordeal. I don't know. I'm weird.

So anyhow, I was actually up, productive, and dressed by 8:30, which was so awesome to me. Plus after feeling most of the week like Bloaty MacFatpants, I was happy to find that I felt good in my clothes.

I'm going to fast forward a bit, since I feel I'm losing you over the mundane details of my morning, and as you may be my only reader, I don't wish to lose you.  Stay with me, man! Stay with me! 

Ok, so I had gotten the Baboo up, we were both sitting downstairs watching The Cat in the Hat. I with my coffee and laptop and he with his carrot muffin and banana.

That's when I smelled it.

Cat pee.

I tried to ignore it, to tell myself that my nose was making it up. Now, telling myself that my nose is making it up isn't totally off base, I have a Super Spidey sense of smell and when you pair that with overwhelming paranoia over having the House That Smells Like Pets, you get someone who frequently smells phantom pet odors.

This, alas, was no phantom.

Apparently I had left the basement door closed last night (which I am SO careful about leaving open for her) and poor Kitty had no where to do her thang. So she chose the carpet. Right in front of the couch.  Argh.

So I cleaned it up, went about my biz and then, right as I was about to leave the house, I saw another, much bigger puddle on the living room chair. Double Argh. (Please note, I was not arghing over poor kitty. I was 100% arghing over me forgetting to leave the door open for her.)

As I cleaned up the stinky puddle, it threatened to become The Thing That Wrecked The Day, which was utterly unnecessary. I mean, I had been given extra Happy Baby Time that I didn't think I was going to get at 7am, I was dressed (no small feat), I thought I looked relatively attractive, I was wearing my NEW super duper fun argyle hoodie, and I was on my way to have lunch with a favorite cousin. That does not a Sucky Day make. However, because I Am Who I Am, I was about to make it a sucky day over some cat pee.

But then I learned a lesson.

A Lesson From Cat Pee.

The lesson I learned is that there is always a puddle of cat pee some place if you look for it. Or smell for it (which I often do, because I'm That Guy). Its just how life goes. There might even be TWO puddles (which as it turned out today, there was). But, if you look in other directions, there are so many other things that are NOT cat pee and that are so much more worthy to base the quality of one's day on. (Yes, sentence ending with a preposition. Sue me.)

Things like:

A kid that makes you smile.
A beautiful fall day.
The nice cat that made the puddle who's been a good companion for 8 years.
The nice dogs that also make puddles but who have been good companions and sources of smiles for 9 and 8 years.
Having a house to keep us warm and dry.
Millions of other things that may not make our whole day, but that make up moments of it, over and and over and over.

As I'm rereading this, it is sounding really trite and cliche, but I'm not trying to be. I realize these things have been said a million times in a million different ways, and my lesson is not a new one; but how often do we actually put the lesson into practice? How often do we let the cat pee wreck all, or at least part, or our day?  Cat pee, in the grand scheme of this life, is not one of those things that matter. Not even a little. I constantly make it matter. Like when I am tired at the end of the day and have more still to do and then I go to put a dirty dish in the dishwasher and...gasp...its full! Of clean dishes! That have to be put away! Before I can put this dirty dish in there! OH NOOOOOOO!

Yup. That's usually how it goes for me. I'm trying to not be that way. I'm trying to be the kind of person that says "Oh, ok, the dishes are clean. Good. Clean dishes." How hard is that? Not very I guess, but it sure is hard for me!

I don't know if I'll ever be the "Good. Clean dishes." kind of person completely. I think there always might be an "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" before the "Good. Clean dishes." but I'm working on it. I think as long as I get to the "Good. Clean dishes." part eventually- before it ruins my day, that I'll be doing ok.

So. That was my lesson learned from Cat Pee. That there will always be puddles of cat pee in any given day, but that you just clean it up as best you can, flip the cushion over, and move on with the more happy aspects of daily living; which, much like cat pee, can be found if you look for them.


In other words...

Always Look On the Non-Cat Pee Side of Life.

The End.


2 comments:

  1. I think this is very good advice! I will carry it with me day to day! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love it! (not cat pee - the well told story!)

    ReplyDelete