Yesterday, I got a phone call from Ned and when I said, “Hello?” he didn’t say anything. This led me to immediately believe he was choking on something, which if you think about it makes no sense. Why would you call someone, particularly someone who lives 10 minutes away, if you were choking?
Finally he spoke. He’d been choked UP, see.
For months, maybe even a year now, Ned has been feeding this stray cat. Actually, he’s been feeding three stray cats, but this one has been his clear favorite. He calls her The Shy Cat, and he’d mentioned to me how she seems to be getting thinner and thinner. Two or three times he’s managed to lure her to his vestibule, which is not a euphemism, but then she leaves when she sees Syd and Nancy.
Anyway, she was so thin yesterday that he MADE her come inside and her breathing seemed labored. Ned was all emo about it and that is why he called me, as apparently I am now some sort of cat expert.
See, hoarder and expert are not really the same.
“I think she’s just very old and dying,” weeped Ned.
Anyway, he called his vet at my suggestion, but they were “at lunch” for an absurd amount of time, so he and that poor Shy Cat lived in the kitchen while his regularly scheduled cats craned their necks, appalled. Finally he got in touch, and got an employee who had not met Ned, who has been going there FOREVER, since NedKitty. He spent approximately 90 million hundred dollars on NedKitty in her final months. He hooked her to an IV twice a day. At any rate, that person said, “All we can do is look for a chip. We can’t treat the cat today.”
But when he got there and they saw who it was and his level of emotion, they did treat The Shy Cat.
Turns out she’s not old at ALL. They said 1, but given how long he’s been feeding her, that can’t be accurate. Nevertheless, they got fluids in her and treated her fleas and tested her for the bad cat diseases and she passed all her tests. They said she had a fever, maybe from another cat scratching her, like Ted Nugent.
Ned took her home with an appointment for next week to have her shots. Then he went to Target and got yet another litter box (“I have THREE litter boxes now,” said Ned, to the woman with four cats) and more food and a bed and some toys.
Basically he ended up dropping $340 he hadn’t planned to yesterday.
Meanwhile, I asked people on Facebook of June what he should name this cat, and faithful reader D said, “How about Chelsea? That’s the hotel where Sid Vicious killed Nancy.”

Here’s Chelsea.
“When I went in to check on her, she raised her head but kept her eyes closed,” said Ned. Can you imagine? She’s not had safe sleep in who knows how long.
He reported this morning that she used her litter box!
Anyway, most of you already know this story from my breathless updates yesterday on Faceflaps of June, but for the four of you not on there, like Sadie, there is that story.
Also, when someone else is in the middle of a drama, please gird your loins re the fact that I cannot supply you with photos the minute you want them. First of all, I can’t control whether photos are being taken by others, and second, I’m not going to stop my people to say, “You know how I have a blog? Well, I’m telling your story and they want photo evidence.”
But speaking of photos, remember how I said it was my anniversary of dating Ned and we said we’d always get together on the night of our anniversary of dating?
We didn’t get together the other night. I had to copy edit that magazine, and it ended up going into the evening hours and I had to prioritize work over hanging out with an ex-boyfriend who through the powers of a plague ended up being the one person in my bubble.
However, we had plans to have our anniversary night one night late. I thought the whole new cat thing might put the kibosh on those plans but I don’t know if I have mentioned to you that Ned is a
PIT
BULL
about plans and nothing but death can keep him from them. It is a trait that has always grated on me unless it’s something I really want to do and I know he won’t back out even if he has to carry his one leg that fell off in his Bernie Sanders overcoat pocket.
So he got Chelsea all settled and then he came over. Our plan was to get one of those little splits of Prosecco and drink it in front of the place where we had our first date. Cause you know I won’t go in. You people who just … go in to restaurants and bars and stuff, how do you do it? Aren’t you horrified? In the past year, I’ve gone into the grocery store I think twice. Maybe just once. But I think twice. And I did not linger, let me tell you.
Anyway, what I would have preferred was when Ned went to Target for cat supplies, if he’d gotten the split there and had come to my house prepared. I know they have them. But I also know Ned, and I just KNEW he wouldn’t have done that.
And? He hadn’t. I was pre-annoyed, and rightfully so.
So then we had to go to the grocery store, where I stayed in the car like he wasn’t just gonna bring all the germs back with him. “Hey, get potato chips too” I said as he headed into germs, and we can’t even TALK about my hips anymore. It’s too broad of a subject. I have to get a handle on these hips. And they aren’t sexy Kardashian hips, either. They’re just — ugh.

Here are me and my roots last night, waiting for the champagne and Ruffles. Nothing but the best for me!
You know, I’m tempted to grow the damn white out again. I am so tired of the roots popping up after six hours. I should have stuck with it last year.

Then we drove to the site of our controversial first date. It wasn’t controversial at all; that’s just a line from Say Anything.


Romantic.
“Nine years,” I said to Ned. “Did you think, nine years and one day ago, that we’d still be in touch for this long?”
“I didn’t!” said Ned. “No one ever likes me for nine years.”
“Well, to be fair, I haven’t liked you for nine years, either.”
After that, I thanked him for not raping me in the parking lot nine years and one day ago as I always do. And oh! For the one boy who reads this blog, here’s a stupid picture of Ned’s car. I know you’ve been asking for it.

I’d like everyone to take this time to appreciate my professional disguising of the license plate.
Anyway, that about summed up Anniversary Celebration 2021. After that I had to get home and Ned had to tend to his 14th cat, so until next year.
Hip June