Cat hair drama.

The heat wave finally broke and we had a beautiful, breezy, sunny day. I was more relieved for the cats than for myself, especially the older one — she’s over fifteen and doesn’t deal with extreme heat very well.

Normally, on the first really hot day of the season I give Briana her annual bath, a process that I can’t really describe as “fun“, but one she usually tolerates without using either teeth or claws and with only the occasional growl or yowl. She also lets me use the blow dryer on her without flinching once we’re done, possibly because she’s used to seeing me use it each morning on myself.

But I was busy both mornings during the worst of the heat, and by the time I came home each day I didn’t feel like dealing with wet cat and the aftermath thereof. But a bath would have eased her suffering and I still feel bad I had to put off giving her that relief.

Of course, Isabel couldn’t care less about missing a bath, heat wave notwithstanding. She fights like a tigress when I bathe her — and she’s strong; it’s all I can do to keep her in the sink when she sees what she’s in for. Whoever said that domestic animals have no long-term memory have never tried bathing a cat. You’d think I was trying to do her grievious bodily harm instead of making her look pretty. And of course, after it’s all over and I’m kneeling on the bathroom floor, surrounded by wet towels and covered in wet cat hair, she runs down to the cellar and rolls in the first cobwebby corner she can find. Ugh.