A Bit of a Cat Problem

I wade through cats when leaving the house towards work in the mornings. Cats waist high, fifty felines deep; it's a bit of a problem. Thanks to the generous daily donations of food and water by our next door neighbors the local tabby population is expanding rapidly and will likely soon blot out the sun. With cats in such tonnage also comes kitty waste, and that's also becoming something of a problem. For my roommate at least. Although I am not so fond of our not dog friends I do not terribly mind their presence all too much. Laura, on the other hand, seems to have a far more sensitive nose and far less patience. Generally speaking she's a fairly calm and collected person, but under the guidance of her parents who visited recently she has begun a war of attrition aimed at ending the scourge that is stupid, skittish, feral cats.

The solution, initially, consisted mostly of bleach. Lots of cleanser to cleanse the urine smell and burn the lungs of any animal lingering too long on the porch. Our front door briefly no longer smelled of tom cat tinkle but instead like a very heavily chlorinated pool. This was only the opening volley, however, in what was to be a bleach, moth ball, and ground black pepper triple offensive, and the very next day I arrived home from work to find a generous scattering of little white spheres throughout the front yard planters. It kind of looked like it had recently hailed had it hailed only quarter inch sized balls of ice, but the pungent smell of ammonia replaced the chlorinated pool smell making it obvious it was the moth balls. Is it working? I am not sure; I have been headed to work later the last few days and generally speaking the cats scatter to go about their cat business shortly after sunrise, but I believe the Gallos are stockpiling mustard gas just in case.

Unrelated to the current arms race, I took the USMLE Step 3 yesterday and the day before. That's all I got to say about that. If there's any secret police more feared than the HIPAA brown shirts its the Federation of State Medical Boards Stasi, and I fear I have already said to much.

Doubly unrelated, I bought myself a new mountain bike with my economic stimulus check. A 2008 Specialized Rockhopper! Yeah. Awesome. Basically it's a bike, and it's blue. The rest is all kind of muddled. There are apparently about 2100 different mountain bikes produced with varying ill-defined features, and I am pretty sure I purchased the Rockhopper mostly because I just subconsciously thought the name was outstanding. Anyways, consider the economy stimulated! I've done my part Mr. President!