We would trim it ourselves, but the one time my husband tried to do it on his own, he practically chopped her paw off and she bled all over the floor. It was early morning, I was asleep (all of his bad decisions happen when I'm not around to nag him away from making them) and he decided it was time to try it out. When she cried and blood spurted out of her foot, he woke me up for help. Groggy, I stumbled downstairs to blood splatter all over the floor and my mom, sitting at the kitchen table reading a grocery store circular as if she wasn't sitting in the middle of a trauma scene. Truffles was still bleeding a lot, and my poor husband was really starting to freak out. I think he envisioned her bleeding out on our kitchen floor and us holding her limp, lifeless body with asymmetrical toe nails. So I took the same first-aid steps I take with any injury/illness, human or otherwise: I googled it. This led to dipping her paw in a bowl of flour (or cornstarch, or tapioca starch, or gluten free baking mix - whatever powder you have on hand) because it acts as a natural styptic and it's ok if she licks it, which she did. She didn't really limp afterwards, either. Not so bad. My husband and I have a new joke about him falling down the stairs and breaking his leg so that the bone sticks out and while he passes out from the pain, I google treatment and he wakes up with vacuum cleaner parts strapped to his leg as a makeshift splint. "Sorry babe, co-pays at the hospital are ridiculous!"
As of this weekend, we're in our new apartment in Philly and in our neighborhood is a place called The Pampered Pooch. Now that the smoke has cleared, we can think about these things. The move was stressful. Packing sucked, my scooter didn't fit in the truck when it was all loaded, so I had to wait for a tow truck at the last minute to take it to a safe house (my dad's backyard - let me know if you need anything stored). The drive down to Philly was rough, with Truffles and a bunch of cats. We're fostering my mom's cat Olly, who is a big fat loudmouth, and he cried through half of the three and a half hour drive until my husband finally threatened to drown the two fattest cats in the sink. I guess Olly understood because he shut up. When the movers arrived with the truck, my husband was out buying pounds and pounds of kitty litter so he missed their struggle to squeeze the truck into murder alley, where our doorway is located. They turned into the perpendicular alley to try to get to our door and crashed into a table of diners at an outdoor cafe. The umbrella was wedged in between the truck and the wall, but nobody was hurt. The poor driver was shaking, but the restaurant manager was very kind and comforting. She didn't ask me to pick up anyone's tab, thank god. Most of our belongings have at least one chip, lots of scratches and dents or missing pieces. They worked really hard, though.
Today is day 1 of being alone in the apartment and everywhere I turn there's a cat. Truffles has diarrhea and I've been nauseous and cramping and I've narrowed it down to Philly water. According to the NRDC website, it's got high levels of contamination from sewage, industrial waste and there is lots of runoff. I had to go buy a few jugs of Poland Spring after Truffles hopped into a potted plant on the sidewalk and acted like a hot chocolate machine. She's also peed in the apartment twice, which is infuriating. I'd like to go off water entirely and just drink wine, but Pennsylvania has some insane and backwards drinking laws and it's practically impossible to buy a bottle. Thin ice, Philly. THIN ICE.
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