Vomit

I had six boxes carefully packed and ready to ship sitting on the floor of my spacious 10 sq ft office when Lenny jumped up from his carpeted cat perch and upchucked the equivalent of 5 cans of fancy feast (tuna & shrimp) all over the place.

So here's the thing: cardboard? Not the ideal surface for the cat to puke on. For one thing, it gets super soggy if you attempt to clean it with liquids. For another, it kind of soaks the smell in--like a big brown sponge--so that even if the vomit only hit the corner of a box, the whole 16 inches of it will start to smell as well as whatever is inside of it.

It's kind of like that Cat in the Hat book when he comes back and the snow goes pink, and the more they try to clean it up the more it spreads. The tiny spot in the bathtub, on mother's dress, becomes a whole back yard of pink snow. That was me and the cat vomit.

It even managed to find its way deep inside one of my boots that I had taken off in a Mr. Rogers kind of mood today--thinking they would be safe while I walked around in my sneaks. Now one of my boots smells like the Fulton Street Fish Market. Strangely enough, I think the other one does too.

And here's another thing: I kind of felt that this was oddly karmactic anyway. Not that anyone spiritually deserves to have a cat wretch, gag and projectile vomit all over every square inch of their personal space. But this has been the kind of week where lots of cathartic upchucking has been happening in my realm--even writing this, I have a hard time with the bitter taste that remains in my own mouth.

And so begins the process of cleaning up the stink. To do it properly, I will need to empty the room of practically everything and then scour it multiple times -going back over and over again areas where something lingers. Everything that was packed and planned will need to be unpacked and repacked.

When we first had children, Kip and I divided bodily fluids. He is the poop and vomit guy--I am the go to girl for pee and blood. I should have negotiated a better deal.