Happy cat...

I have a purring cat in my lap. Gretzky is sleeping soundly, and looking altogether pleased with herself. She's much happier since I clipped her claws on Sunday. She hates having her claws clipped, and while I have an almost fool-proof claw-clipping system (it involves sitting on the cat), she struggles so much that I'm afraid of hurting her —either by cutting too close to the quick, or else that she'll pull out her own claws when I'm halfway through cutting them. Actually, it's not so much that she hates having her claws clipped as she hates having her feet touched or interfered with in any way at all.

Turns out that I should have been paying closer attention to her paws anyway. The other cats keep their claws sharp but manageable on the cat tree, but it appears that Gretzky doesn't. The fact that her claws always get caught in my clothes when I hold her should probably have tipped me off. Anyway, they were terribly long, and one outside claw (not the dew claw, the other side) had grown so long that it had actually curled back on itself into nearly a full circle and had rubbed a callus on the side of her paw pad.

I am a bad, guilt-ridden cat mommy. I was worried that it had actually pierced the pad, but that fear proved unfounded. I managed to get all her claws trimmed properly, and she is now a very, very happy kitty. She's making starfish paws against my leg, another bonus of properly-trimmed claws being no pain when she does it.


In unrelated news I almost forgot about Book Club tonight, but we ended up being only two, and since toughlovemuse hadn't managed to read the book and I read it in November, we ended up chatting instead. I bought waaay too many books, and have already ploughed through the Spiderwick Chronicles, which I then lent to toughlovemuse.

Now my bed calls to me. Last day of training at work tomorrow, and then back to the regular "routine." The month is almost over, and I have plans for a new project in March. Details to follow.