There's not much sadder than the look on a cat's face when she wants to pee but just can't. She'll amble into the litterbox, sit there for minutes at a time, and gingerly step out without having done anything. I first noticed some irregular bathroom habits about a month ago, but I chalked it up to the stress of having Zoe around. When Annie squatted over a discarded pair of my jeans right in front of me and released two tiny droplets of piss, I assumed it was a territorial thing. Turns out it was a cry for help just less blatant than sending me a sheet cake personalized with "Can't piss. Meow."

So the vet prescribed some pills - which we hide in sliced turkey, the first genuine animal meat we've had in the house in quite some time. Not that we're happy about it, just that it was the only sure-fire way to get her to eat the pills. Annie is not the kind of cat that will sit still for the ol' crack the skull back and chuck the pill down the throat trick. Annie loves the turkey, but she's a natural carnivore and that's to be expected.

In other cat-secretion news, Zoe threw up for the first time last night. I'm pretty sure this was her First Ever Vomit, because she was wildly confused about the whole process. First she started dancing back and forth, with a couple of plaintive, worried yowls. It sounded very much like "OMG OMG WTF." Then she parked herself, gave a very sad meow, and vomited. I caught most of it in my cupped hands (to save the carpet). It was primarily barely-chewed cat food.