Today is a traumatic day. Yesterday afternoon Andy left for her big trip. Just as she was getting ready to go, we found Diamond, her black and white cat, with a scabbed and pus-oozing side of the face. Not only that, but the sores smelled horrible! I mean, it was a seriously nauseating smell. Andy still left, but said we'd need to take Diamond into the vet today for antibiotics, in addition to the annual vaccines we needed to get for the cats. (We still have Juno left to do.)

We attempted to put Diamond in the cat carrier this morning. That was after searching the house for it and finally locating it buried in the shed. Snark cleaned the carrier out. We tried to get Diamond to go in several ways: head first, butt first, body wrapped in a towel, carrier on the ground, carrier tilted upright. It didn't work . . . and a few scratches later, plus a pissed-off cat later (and, for that matter, a pissed-off-Snark later), I caught Diamond and stuck him in an empty laundry basket with a towel pressed over the top.

There was a long wait at the vet, and our pissed-off kitty charge meowed the entire time, thoroughly upset, swiping his arms out through the holes of the laundry basket to scratch me and try to somehow get out. Poor guy. It was rough going for all of us.

Now we're all back home. I'm guessing we won't see Diamond for a few days. He took off as soon as we let him out in his yard. If we do see him, he may not consider us friendly anymore. Bad way to start our five-month, cat-sitting, house-sharing adventure. Let's hope it gets better from here on out.