Like the exposed bone of a cat's tail...

That's not a metaphor - I now know what the exposed bone of a cat's tail clicking against a cabinet door sounds like.

More on that later!

Lots of noise in the world right now. No, that's wrong, the world is actually very quiet since most people aren't leaving home. My home sits in an air traffic lane, and we've heard one incoming flight the past hour... Anyway, if the world sounds like anything at the moment, it's smartphone keyboard clicks generating text posts on social media, like the tick tick tick of a cat's exposed tail bone against a cabinet door...

Parents are being forced to spend time with their children for the first time in forever while they watch Frozen 2 on a loop. Armchair experts are eager to tell the rest of us why we should or should not worry and how we are either over or under reacting. The general population is discovering what it's like to disinfect a house - something we've had to do since the birth of our son (welcome to the party everyone!). My personal favorite dynamic at the moment are those who pretend nothing is happening and what are we all talking about anyway(?).

Apparently no-one can agree that anyone might be right one way or another or between the one or the other.

My last writing on this site was in 2017. The mojo didn't die, but I've been busy ya'll. Honestly I noticed around the time of my last post that I had become a bit over-saturated with the inflow of opined writings from various public figures in my social media feeds and decided there't not much of a point to contributing to the noise. One person is a monologue, and three makes for nice conversation, but a thousand is just static.

Oh right, our cat lost a 3 inch piece of his tail last night.

I'm home on pre-Coronavirus-planned time off to enjoy Spring Break with Ashley and the kids. Our theme park outings have been replaced with activities around the house and a hike in a conservation park tomorrow, but we're enjoying the break from reality.

So I hopped in the shower yesterday to wash the smell of spent 2-cycle mix exhaust (Manly, I know), and decided to take a moment to shave my head while I was at it. I usually start with the neck and sideburns at the sink, and then move to the shower to blindly shave the remainder of my head. No mirror necessary. I have done this enough that the mental map of my head is enough and once I get to that point I do not require visual reference. It's a ritual and I enjoy it.

So I got about three good strips shaved and was rinsing the razor when my son frantically knocked on my bathroom door and told me the family needed my help urgently. So out I came in my work pants and a partially shaven head. The family was frantic. Apparently Ashtin walked out through the rear french doors to our patio and closed the door behind him. A portion of our cat KJ's tail somehow made it's way into the opening and was neatly de-gloved at about the 3 inch mark.

NOTE: My wife will exhibit a gag reflex when she reads the preceding sentence. Hello dear, have a drink of water.

UPDATE: I read this out loud to Ashley and she visibly gagged, then reached for a drink of water when I said the word "de-gloved".

So there's me, soaking wet, partially shaven, hearing the damage report from the family and observing the cat calmly wagging the exposed portion of his literal tail bone.

#SPRINGBREAK, right guys!?

The cat needed emergency attention, but first, priorities. So I lathered back up and quickly finished my head in the sink while Ashley and the kids got the cat sorted in the pet carrier. No way was I going out in public looking like that cat and I had some kind of shared industrial accident.

Our usual vet, which provides emergency pet services closes on Wednesday and most other vets either closed at 5pm or had shuttered temporarily due to the impending pandemic. We were able to find another vet a few miles away and I took him there. While filling out paperwork, KJ wanted to snuggle. So I held him against my side with his nubby busted tail slapping against me (probably on purpose, he's kind of a jerk) until he got curious and jumped down from the exam table. No harm, right? He sniffed out the room and made his way over to the sink cabinet, nuzzled it for a scratch, and began wagging the injured portion of his tail against the cabinet door. The exposed bone made an audible clicking sound against the wood and gave me the willies.

Okay buddy, come back up here with me.

Pictured: See? He's a bit of a jerk.

Got the paperwork done and went home around 8pm. The vet took good care of him and ended up amputating a 3 inch portion of the tail, unable to re-glove the de-gloved portion of tail I had brought in a ziplock baggie.

They called at around 1:30am to let me know he was done and I could come pick him up.

This post is largely pointless, but I hope it entertains you for a minute. Sometimes a distraction is a good thing, and I'm happy to take your mind off of the very real threat of the global pandemic that has affected every human on earth in one way or another. I'm sure the guys on the ISS will be spraying their re-supply loads with Lysol at this point.

I watched another rocket take off today, just like I did the last time I wrote. Isn't it amazing? People, living in space, watching from SPACE while we discover new ways to overreact, under-react, cure, die, isolate, write about cat's, etc. When they return to earth, they will return to a world of people now feeling as vulnerable to infection as my family and I have been for as long as I can remember. Let's see where this thing goes, but let's do it together. Maybe I'll write more about the weightier things in this post at some point in the future, or maybe I won't. Like I said earlier in this post - there are plenty of opinions out there - and it's all we can do sometimes to develop our own thoughts in the midst of the static. Do what you can to think independently, and enjoy my tales of tails and other disasters while you do.

Love and Peace,
Austin