While packing up to leave work yesterday, I got a call from Jen, who asked for an ETA. It turned out that Penn decided to jump on Geneva for no good reason, chomping her on the leg, drawing a frightening amount of blood and scaring the shit out of Jen. She quickly got Geneva bundled up and off to the vet while I returned home to clean up after Penn’s mess.

I should stop here and describe all the occupants in the House Of Cats for everyone to understand (and I’m sure Jen will have things to add here.) We have five:

Sage, A.K.A. Chocolate Love, Chubbo, The Big Man, Barry White. Big, black, and on your lap. Sage is the most mellow of the five, has the best personality, and keeps the others in line (mostly.) Saved from a dumpster in Texas many moons ago, he is the first of Jen’s family.

Geneva, A.K.A. Miss Thing, Pretty Girl. A teeny little barn tabby Jen rescued years ago; a fearless mouser in her prime, she doesn’t see so good any more. She has also become the target of my two teenaged hellions on account of her X chromosome.

Pique, A.K.A. Get Off, Peekaboo, Coaldust, Dr. Zaius. Possibly the dumbest of the five, he avoids all conflict by the sheer force of stupidity. His superhero power is the ability to seek out painful pressure points and full bladders by standing on them for long periods of time. He would probably stare at the sun and blind himself if he was smart enough to look up.

Penn, A.K.A. Mr. Ben, Shitbrain, Shut Up, Penndandy. I picked him up at the ASPCA when he sat in his cage staring at me and meowing repeatedly; I mistook stupidity for intelligence (a fault of mine.) Easily the most aggressive and self-centered of the five, he can be both a well-behaved fop and an insufferable prick at the drop of a hat. Alive only because of his good looks. (ASPCA name: Dandy)

Teller, A.K.A. Get Down, Telleropolis, Stony Ray. Adopted the same day as Penn, he has a quiet personality and big green eyes; he can be sweet and loving but sometimes belligerent as well. (ASPCA name: Raymond)

So, after cleaning up the pool of blood near the radiator, I put food, water, a litter box, and a towel in the front basement room and threw Penn in there for a night of solitary confinement. Because this is an ongoing problem, we are bringing him to the vet for a psych test and a prescription of Little Blue Pills; hopefully his attitude will mellow and peace will reign over our little kingdom for the first time.

Geneva is fine. The vet said that cats generally close right up after being bitten, and that it was a good thing she bled out (cleaning the wound.) We have two weeks of antibiotics and a painkiller to administer, which involves a towel, two people, a bottle of Bactine, and some kitty wrasslin’. She doesn’t understand why life suddenly got worse, but she’s taking it pretty well.

The Internet is slow today, or at least HaloScan is slow, which is bogging my pageloads down. So if’n you tried to leave a comment here and couldn’t, try again later. My peeps with iPods and iTunes should boogie over to Apple.com and download the iTunes 4.5 and the iPod 2.2 updater—it’s not offered in Software Update, so it won’t automatically load for you.