Just like last time, I am finding it challenging to write a post that doesn’t look bad next to a Dead Cat post. In fact, I LOOKED UP what I did last time because I was hoping it would be an idea I could use again. But no: last time I wrote MORE about the dead cat, and then I wrote about my mother-in-law. Ack. She’s coming in less than two weeks, and I don’t want to talk about it this time.

Oh, how about a little Tidying Update? I got rid of all the rest of my dolls. Remember I had something like eighteen of them plus tons of clothes, and I went through and got rid of about half of it, and this time I went through and got rid of all the rest, keeping aside only a few outfits for Elizabeth’s doll. I tried to keep a selection with high play-value: one snow outfit, one swim suit, one set of pajamas, one hospital johnny, several pretty dresses, several basic play outfits. The dolls and outfits I got rid of are going to one of my mom’s friends who arranges to give dolls to kids who are in bad situations (in a shelter for abused women/children, lost all their things to a fire, etc.).

This was one of my most massive declutters, so it’s too bad all that stuff was just in the basement: it does free up a ton of basement storage, but it doesn’t make the living area look different/better. It was four large Rubbermaid bins, plus a three-drawered unit. Now it fits in one small Sterilite bin (except for the doll). There’s a little space left in the bin, so I’m thinking “bin-full” will be our doll clothing limit: if the bin is full and we want another doll outfit, we have to get rid of something first.

I should have posed this so it looked more impressive, rather than stacking the bins (only three of them) in a small-looking pile. Well, anyway, those are three of the four Rubbermaid bins and the three-drawer unit in the background, showing the former Doll Territory; and in the foreground, the one doll (Elizabeth’s—not one of mine) and her small bin of clothes.

I had a decluttering DREAM where I was throwing out a bunch of candles and feeling happy about it, so then when I got up I DID throw away some candles. But I got muddled because I do want SOME candles in case of power outage, but the ones that would be best for that (contained in jars) are scented, and scented is not so nice hour after hour. But does this mean I should keep the unscented one shaped like a rabbit? How about the unscented one shaped like a pumpkin? Maybe I should buy candles specifically for a power outage and get rid of all the others? Tidy People, advise!

I’m sorry to say I have more sad cat news.

On Friday evening, I was heading upstairs after tucking the kids in, and our cat Louis (YES, I am giving a CAT a pseudonym, and I realize that’s a little paranoid, but dudes, I write frankly about my mother-in-law here) (his real name is 01iver) was curled up on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, which is highly unusual but he looked comfy so whatever. I paused to pet him, and he stood up to get harder pettings but he wasn’t standing on one of his back legs. I carried him up the stairs to get a closer look and saw he had a bunch of scrapes and bites. I sighed, because he is TOO OLD to keep getting in cat fights, but he does it like once a week.

I tried to clean the two little matted/bloody spots on his leg, but he didn’t like the look of the sink so I gave up. We settled him into the shoebox he likes in the computer room and he seemed fine—purring and squeezing his eyes and going to sleep.

In the morning, he was still there—and he ALWAYS sleeps on our bed, with in fact annoying persistence, so that was weird, but you know cats: weird. Paul picked him up and he mrowwwwwwwwwed so Paul put him down again, and we could see he still wouldn’t put weight on his leg.

I felt like a dork calling the vet on a Saturday morning (their urgent-care hours) for what was probably going to be “Uh huh, yes, this cat’s diagnosis is ‘owies’ and ‘too old for this crap’,” but…well, since Georgie, I’ve been a little more skittish about the cats.

And here I would like to make a long story shorter by saying that Louis’s leg was shattered. Shattered. The vet thinks he was probably hit by a car. She gave him a huge dose of painkillers right away. And then she told me my options, and for a 15-year-old cat there was really only one good option, and yet there were officially other options and it feels bad to say, “No, I don’t want to spend the $3,000—let’s just have him die instead.” But that is what I did. And then I brought him home and buried him in the back yard next to where Georgie is buried.

I was less upset this time. Last time I was a bit of a basket case, I think because it was all totally new and it gave me a Brush With Mortality along the lines of “OMG WE ARE !!!ALL!!! GOING TO DIE AND ROT AND THIS CANNOT BE PREVENTED!!!” whereas this time it was more like, “I remember where I left the shovel, and this time I will change into junky shoes first, and shoot I forgot it was pretty rooty over here but I guess I’ll persevere so he can be next to Georgie.”

Also, this time it was not TWILIGHT and POURING RAIN, which eased the melodrama.

I do feel awful that he spent an entire night with a broken leg. I would almost go so far as to say I feel guilty about it, but I think guilt is an inappropriate emotion when wrongs have not been intentionally committed—and in fact, we tried to do RIGHT. I moved the leg and he didn’t protest, and I carried him around and he was purring, so my tests to establish whether this was an Emergency or not came back negative. Even the next day he seemed okay: I stuffed him into the cat carrier (oh, WINCE!) and he didn’t fight it more than usual, and I pulled him out of the cat carrier (oh, WINCE WINCE WINCE!!) and he didn’t protest. He seemed so okay, I felt like a dumbhead taking him to the vet.

But the vet tech just LOOKED at him and said, “Uh…oh. I want to warn you right now, that leg doesn’t look good.” So SHE knew right away, and I don’t like it when something is obvious to someone else and so I end up feeling like I look neglectful/oblivious at best. It reminds me of when I brought Georgie in for a routine annual check-up and the vet immediately said, “…Does he always breathe like this?” and I didn’t know what she was talking about, and it turned out he had congestive heart failure.

Well, whatever: I wish he hadn’t spent a whole night with a broken leg.

I have two questions—no, three questions.

The first question is: How did I manage to buy such uncomfortable shoes?

The second question is: Seriously, did I try them on someone else’s feet or what?

And the third question is for the Tidy among you. It involves towel storage.

I have some photos to accompany this question, and I feel a little nervous because I will be showing you some of My Mess. The problem is that if I label my messiness as Bad, I’m also labeling everyone messy as or messier than me as Bad. Like, you know when a size 8 friend is talking about how very fat she is? And if you’re a size 14, you’re thinking, “If she thinks SHE’S fat, what must she think of ME?” It’s all very well to say she’s talking about herself and not other people, but what she’s done is drawn her line, and now you know what side of her line you stand on.

People don’t always INTEND to draw a line, they may be making a self-deprecating remark to decrease judgment and alleviate self-conscious anxiety. It’s just that their self-deprecating remark also deprecates a whole group of other people who fall into their category and GOSH I do think that’s something to be avoided.

Where was I? Oh, yes: so this is why I’m NOT going to make any self-consciousness-alleviating remarks about the photos. Even though I am feeling self-conscious about them.

What I need advice on is a Towel System. I used to keep towels on a shelf in the bathroom closet. Which is the perfect place for towels. The problem is, it’s also the perfect place for a cat to seek refuge from children. I used to have a Cat Towel that I spread out over the pile of towels for fur-deflection, but then the towel would fall off, or the cat would knock over the pile of towels, or Paul would remove the cat towel to take a towel for himself and would neglect to replace the cat towel afterward. (I’m not criticizing him AT ALL—I’m very grateful he sometimes gets his own towel just as if he were a fully grown adult!)

The other problem is that the shelf is now too small to hold all our towels (SEVEN PEOPLE).

So anyway, here’s a photo of the shelf that used to have towels on it. Now it has a towel-lined box for the cat, but the cat knows what’s what and never sleeps there anymore. He’s waiting for us to put the REAL towels back.

And here is the temporary witness relocation location for the towels: the top shelf of one of the kids’ closets. I can’t quite reach, so I have to half-fling them up there. And when I take a towel down, other towels come flopping down with it. It is frustrating, but at least the cat can’t get up there.

And I don’t even KNOW what to do with washcloths and handtowels. Even when I have a good place to keep towels, it frustrates me that washcloths/handtowels don’t fold into shapes that fit neatly with folded bathtowels. Flinging them up on the shelf didn’t work AT ALL, so now I keep them, um, on top of our bedroom bureau.

So, what to do with the towels? I’ve tried NOTHIN’ and I’m all outta ideas.

The available locations are:

• The shelf in the bathroom closet where they used to live, but with some sort of cat deflection system. Also, that shelf doesn’t have room for all our towels (SEVEN PEOPLE), but maybe I could free a second shelf?

• In the bathroom vanity. This might keep the cat away (though he can pick doors open if he finds out the towels are in there), and also I could put the vanity stuff on the former towel shelf. But how to fold the towels? And I don’t think they’d all fit. But again, second bathroom soon.

• On a lower shelf of the kids’ closet, with other kid-closet stuff moved to the less-accessible shelf. Then we wouldn’t be able to get a fresh towel if the kids were asleep, but that’s a relatively minor issue.

• Some other location.

Halp. Tell me how to tidy the towels, and where to do the tidying.

MY, haven’t I been a lovely mother this morning! Some highlights:

1. When child asked a routine question, clutched sides of head and said “URRRRRRG!!! EVERYONE! STOP! ASKING! ME! QUESTIONS!”

2. At peak of busyness/frustration, when older two boys presented boring old million-times-repeated bicker (“He called me stupid” “Well he hit me!”), said “Shut up, both of you.” Nice language. Nice diplomacy.

3. Claimed would throw away anything found on the floor, since floor-residence clearly meant no one wanted it. Nice irrational bluff.

4. Made general declaration of martyred righteousness, along the lines of “Why do I have to do all the work around here?” Nice adolescent example.

5. In the middle of busy before-school routine, couldn’t tolerate mildew-speckled shower ceiling one! more! second! and started scrubbing at it with bleach wipes, then got frustrated with children for needing before-school assistance when I was clearly! busy! Nice priorities.

6. Asked series of questions I already knew the answers to, starting with “So you lost your lunch box,” passing through “Your BRAND-NEW lunch box,” and ending with “Less than a week after you got it.” Nice shaming.

Well! Cleaning report: shower ceiling, which has had speckles of mildew for years as I’ve whined “But I can’t REACH it,” has a significantly reduced mildew population. I used a—wait for it—STEP STOOL. I know! I too was amazed that such a product could be applied to this situation!

You are going to feel a lot less sorry for me when you hear that one of the things in the mail pile was this care package from Shelly of Notthedaddy:

The way it happened was this: Shelly of Notthedaddy sent a care package to Shelly of Scenic Overlook, and the package included a book I’d been wanting to read, and I said so in a comment on Scenic Overlook Shelly’s post about the package, and Notthedaddy Shelly was all, “Oh hai! I am your fairy godmother!” and a package arrived in the mail for me. So now I’m thinking of trying that all OVER the place. “I’ve been wanting to drive that car,” I’ll say to you, or, “I’ve been wanting to try that Godiva chocolate,” and you’ll just hand it over!

This has put me in a care package mood. Plus, I’m trying to declutter, and I see no reason I couldn’t “declutter” the gift closet a little. So let’s have a care package. Leave me a comment that starts “I’ve been wanting…” and I’ll pick a winner on Friday night (the 18th). I am afraid you have to be in the U.S. (or APO/FPO) for this: it is SO EXPENSIVE to ship a car full of Godiva a box of clutter overseas.

I saw this for the first time this morning and assumed it must have happened during the night—like, a cat got trapped in the room or there was an earthquake or something. “OMG, what happened???,” I said. “Oh, Henry pulled those down,” Paul said. “…When?,” I asked. “Saturday, I think,” Paul replied. “…,” I said.

Mail, including things such as PAUL’S MAGAZINES. I’d had no idea how vital my “putting them on his desk” role was to the household.

Before I left, I emptied all the trash cans.

Before I left, I did laundry like a madwoman (I’m assuming that’s what madwomen do? Lots of laundry?) so that there would be NO NEED to do any. Paul was spontaneously moved to do some anyway. So far today I’ve found William’s sleeping shorts in Edward’s shirt drawer, William’s shorts and jeans both crammed into his jeans drawer so that it can’t close (shorts drawer is one drawer up and has plenty of room in it), and a little stack of mixed shirts, socks, and underwear resting comfortably in William’s shorts drawer.

Paul SNIPPED OFF the pull-cord to this lamp (one of the reasons I BOUGHT the lamp), “because the kids kept messing with it.” WT?????????????????????????????????

I’m flying tomorrow to go see my niece, and I am just about to lose my mind in a whirlwind of happy travel stress. It’s the GOOD kind, where there’s Lots! To! Do! but it’s all happy stuff. Packing my People magazines. Putting pecans and apples in baggies. Tucking the empty water bottle in the little net pocket. (Oh, are you looking for a whole post about what I’m bringing in my carry-on? You are so in luck!) Making sure my cell phone is charged so I can Twitter my Riveting Travel Updates (last time I made this trip, I informed everyone that I was on! the! plane!—you don’t want to miss that kind of breaking news). Doing some laundry with the feeling of preparing the house for a Little House blizzard instead of with the usual feeling of trying to shovel during a snowstorm.

I’ll be back on Tuesday, but I might be able to tear my eyes away from my niece long enough to send an update from Nieceville.

Right after I wrote about the watch this morning, I decided I MUST BUY IT and I went rushing off to Target. The watch was gone. Then I came home and read the comments, and I am NOT AT ALL bothered that almost everyone dislikes the pretty, pretty watch, and this definitely does NOT feed into my anxious fantasies that if we were to meet in person you’d be all, “OMG, she is a FASHION DISASTER! I expected so much more from her carefully-posed-and-angled publicity shots in which she has done her hair and is NOT wearing an orange watch!”

(Maybe the watch is cuter in person?)

Anyway, I have a new quandary. Rob wants to join Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts or whatever. I asked him why he wants to join, and he said he wants to toast marshmallows and learn to survive in the wilderness, and I was thinking maybe Cub Scouts would not be ONLY that.

Also, it seems to me that in our area, such groups are High! Parental! Participation! Pressure! and I am NOT INTERESTED AT ALL.

So here is what I am wondering:

1. What is a typical Cub Scouts meeting like? Toasting marshmallows the whole time?

2. Is there indeed an expectation of parental participation, with grousing from the other parents about how “It’s always the same parents who help and the same ones who don’t”—as if the other parents could not possibly be spending their time helping with other things the scout parents aren’t interested in (and grousing “It’s always the same parents who help and the same ones who don’t”)?

3. Do you know any Cub Scouts or former Cub Scouts, and if so, tell me everything you know, from uniform prices to badges to how often the meetings are to what the WHOLE CONCEPT of Cub Scouts is.

I saw this Casio watch at 75% off at Target yesterday (Amazon.com’s original price is inflated, because Target’s original price was $59-something and their clearance price was $14-something), and I DIDN’T BUY IT. Now I am kicking myself. What was WRONG with me? I was all, “I can’t read the display, whine whine!” but surely I could have LEARNED to read it? And it’s cute! And I need a watch! And it was 75% off! And it matches my new bathroom!

I’m wondering if I should drive back to Target today, more than an hour round-trip with three small children, on the off-chance that the watch will still be there. (Are you about to suggest that I call the store and have them check? THEN YOU ARE NEW HERE.)