In which a car tire is heavier than I thought it would be.

When I woke up today, I knew there were a few things I needed to get done, and luckily, my enabler lovely assistant, RA, is back in town!

I called her to see what her plans were for the afternoon, and she said she needed to go to W@lmart, and would be over to pick me up in a few minutes! Perfect!

Kim ran to take a shower so she could go with us, but after her shower, she remembered Patsy the cat's vet appointment, and she volunteered to take the cat in while I went with RA to shop and take care of repairing Kim's tire.

Kim got the tire out of the back of her car, and when RA arrived, I picked it up to put it in her trunk, and oh my goodness! Tires are heavy! Who knew? I don't think I've ever lifted one before! And also? They are dirty! So I hauled it over to the trunk of RA's car and hoisted it in, and then got in the car and used some hand-wipes to clean the rubbery filth off of my hands. (There was tire filth on my shirt, too, but it was just a shirt I'd picked up from the floor of my room to put on when I got up, so it was no big deal. It didn't look terrible, and I put it in the laundry when we got home.)

Our first stop was at W@lmart's tire department, where a strange little man took my information and then waddled out to the car to look at the tire. I followed him back in to look up the tire in his, uh, tire book? He said they don't have any of those tires. Okay then.

So we took our tire to F@rm and Fleet, which is where I usually go for tires, not that I've had to do it very often, and they had the tire we needed, so I left it there. They said they'd call when it was ready.

RA and I went back to W@lmart, and we did our shopping, mine for feeding people all week, and hers for traveling snacks, because she and her husband are driving twelve hours to spend the holiday with their daughters, who both live in Kansas now.

Kim called when we were leaving the store, and said the vet gave Patsy a shot for his allergies, and shaved a little more fur away from the ugly bare spot he has licked on his back, above his tail. He told Kim to put Neosporin on the sore spot and to keep him from licking at it.

When I got home, Kim was home, and was just letting the cat out of the carrier. He was not happy, having been submitted to many indignities that morning, and he wanted to lick his bare spot. Kim followed him around, trying to put the ointment on his back, but he just kept licking it off.

Kim got on the internet and found a suggestion for preventing the lickage: you take a baby's t-shirt and put it on the cat upside down - the cat's hind legs through the armholes and his tail through the neckhole, and it covers his back so he can't lick!

It sounded like a good idea, so Kim and I went to K-m@rt, thinking to avoid the crowds, because there are always less people at K-m@rt. Kim talked to her friend Radar on her phone while I combed the racks, looking for the right size t-shirt for a fat, cranky cat. I decided to get him the size for a baby weighing 8-13 lbs, since Patsy is in that weight area too.

When we got home, Kim grabbed the cat and we stuffed him into the upside-down t-shirt. It was pretty funny. He ran off as soon as Kim put him down, and a couple of minutes later, she found the t-shirt, abandoned, on the floor of the dining room. So from this we learn that cats do not like to wear a humiliating piece of clothing, and if you leave them alone, they will eventually lay down on 'their' afghan on the couch and go to sleep. While they are sleeping, they don't lick.

I was so sleepy by that time, that Kim offered to sit on the bed with the laptop and work on her story while I napped. Yay! I love it when people keep me company while I sleep! She worked on her story for over two hours, and when I woke up, she was just finishing up with today's word count. She pulled all of her story parts together into one document tonight, and she's got over 30,000 words! She needs to write about 3,000 words a day until the end of the month to reach 50,000, but she thinks she can do it.

While I was sleeping, Rich took the call from F&F, letting him know the tire was fixed, so he took Kim's car and went to get the new tire put on. So Kim is ready to make the drive to the airport to pick up her friend tomorrow. She's not going to the airport in Chicago, she's only going as far as the airport in Rockford.

We're thawing our turkey in the fridge tonight, so it will be thawed by Thursday. Rachel bought supplies for the pie-making, and I think I've got everything else we need, so it all looks good for the rest of the week. We're ready!