Vet

 I had to take Jimmy to the vet this week.

About two weeks ago, he jumped onto my mom's lap and immediately starting meowing and hissing in pain. He tucked his leg up and scampered off. We thought it might be a fluke, but my mom saw him get hurt a few more times when jumping up, and I saw it once. Clearly, something was wrong, so we had to take him in.

The last time I tried to take Jimmy to the vet, it did not go well. When I tried to put him in the kennel, he refused to get in, and then he hid from me for more than an hour, so I ended up missing the appointment. That was just for a checkup, so I figured that taking him to the vet just for a checkup was worse than not getting a checkup at all.

So this time around, I made the appointment, but I was super nervous about getting him into the kennel. He hates to be picked up or held, so it wasn't even an option to just hold him while I took him to the vet.

When the time came to take him, he was sitting on a chair in the spare bedroom. So we brought in the crate into the room and tipped it so the door was facing up. I picked him up and tried to place him into the kennel. He put his paws on the outside so that I couldn't place him inside. My mom helped, and it was still a challenge to get him in. Phew! We finally got him in and took him to the car; I drove while my mom sat with him in the backseat. He was making the saddest meows.

While I was driving, my sort-of boss who is a mission president called me, so I talked to him on Bluetooth. I am so awkward on the phone as it is, but when there's a meowing cat in the backseat, and my mom is listening to a Zoom meeting, and I'm driving, and I have to slow down for the school zone, I was very easily distracted and had a hard time hearing. And I always feel so bad using my boss's time, since mission presidents have so little of it.

Well, we made it to the vet. I'm always amazed at how easily vets and techs can handle animals. Jimmy has a strained leg muscle. They recommended that we give him antibiotics, but I knew that wouldn't work out, so they just gave him an extra-strong shot instead. We brought him back home, and he was meowing during the car ride, but his meowing wasn't as sad as at first.

He's not supposed to jump on the furniture, but he still has jumped up twice that we know of. He has certainly been less active, which is exactly as it should be, since his leg needs to heal.

For most of the time we have had him, it has been his morning ritual when he hears that I am awake to jump on my bed and sit on me. He has only done that once since he hurt his leg, and he hasn't done it at all since the vet appointment (though he did jump on my bed once). I hope that soon he will be back to normal and he will get his daily dose of affection.

I do adore him, but it puzzles me that I do and that I spent a vet bill on him. The vet bill was more than he cost. Cats are really expendable, and there's so many more out there waiting to be adopted. But we grow attached to individual ones.

This week I had to go back to This Is the Place to get a uniform and to practice driving the train. Since COVID has changed everything at the park, I will be spending a majority of May driving the train rather than doing what I'm used to. I am nervous that I will have tourists' safety in my hands. But it's pretty easy to drive.

I have mostly successfully adjusted my schedule so that I have time to work and to do homework. I don't know how daylight savings time will affect that, because I certainly don't want to sacrifice sleep. DST is so dumb. I love light in the evening as much as anyone, possibly even more than most. But if I want to take advantage of the light, it should be up to me, not to force everyone to do it. This morning, my phone automatically went ahead an hour, then went back an hour, then went ahead again. It's just such a deeply flawed system.

But I am very excited for springlike weather. Last I looked, there was a tiny spot of snow in the yard—like, less than an inch across. It for sure will be gone by the end of the day. And my guideline is that when all the snow is gone from the yard, I can start hitting the trails again! Hooray! Then I will actually look forward to running instead of it being an obligation. And then I can work off all the green desserts I have been/will be eating.