There are a few other happy things going on this week that I could write about - Abby's Spring Concert, the school's spring fair, Berta's trip to help her sister move, and the kids' going to a musical with my mom - but I'm finding it difficult to enjoy any of this fun stuff or even concentrate on work since yesterday afternoon.

Berta noticed that Deimos had escaped the house on Tuesday evening. He has been doing this a lot. He'll sit, waiting for someone to open the door, and spring out, often even darting between your legs. I'm not sure what his obsession with outside is, but when he can't make his escape he'll sit at each door, front and back, and meow for a good long while. But he ran out the front door on Tuesday night when Berta came in from a short shopping trip, and we didn't think to look for him outside before we went to bed.

Wednesday around lunch time, I was headed out to a quick stop at the bank when I found Deimos on the front porch. He was laying there licking himself, and wouldn't get up to come inside. I picked him up and put him in the house, and that's when I saw that he was limping. His back right paw was causing him some discomfort.

I followed him into the house. He climbed up into his cat tree, which took him a lot longer than usual, and he made these pitiful noises while he did it. He curled up and fell asleep there. His back paw would flinch every time it came in contact with anything, and it was pretty clear to me that he was really hurt.

After the kids came home, he left the cat tree and went upstairs, but I think this cost him. He climbed into the cat tree in our bedroom, but the bed was too small and kept bothering his foot, so he eventually climbed back down and hid under our bed. He's been there since last night, and hasn't come out for anything.

The neighbors have been talking about some general cat violence going on in the neighborhood. Their cat came home a few nights ago and couldn't lift his tail anymore. They suspect there's another bully cat in the neighborhood. If so, I hope Deimos gave this other cat wounds in kind. I'd hate to think there was some person who had done something cruel to our cat after finding him roaming free outside, but there are a couple of candidates in my mind that I can't dismiss. I suppose I'll just keep those thoughts to myself for now.

Yesterday I was hoping that this injury was something he could walk off. And while it still might be, I don't think I can let it sit untreated any more. I've never seen Deimos behave like this. It's like all of the vitality has left him. This cat would routinely jump all over the place and make a general nuisance of himself, but in a playful way. He'd come in my office nearly every day with a toy, looking to play. But since last night, he hasn't moved even to drink or eat.

So, assuming Berta hasn't called it in already, I think I'll talk with the vet about seeing him. He's "my" cat, of the two cats, the one that's friendly to me and not Berta or the kids. Not that I don't like Phobos, but he's certainly more Berta's cat than mine. Deimos is too dog-like. I swore I wouldn't get another dog for exactly this reason, and here we are again. These pets are worse than kids -- at least the kids can tell you what hurts and how badly and will sit still for you when you want to examine them. I can only hope that whatever's wrong with Deimos is something that will heal.

Having lived with animals for so long, maybe you would think I would know better. Do you ever walk about the house and encounter - by way of stepping on it - a small, soft, inanimate thing? If you've got pets in your house, you know what I'm getting at. It can be a sock or a kids' toy or even sometimes something harder. But the reaction is the same upon stepping on it: You fall over yourself not to put weight on it.

Why? Because you think it's one of your pet's appendages.

I nearly killed myself yesterday, when I got to the bottom of the basement stairs. I was carrying a carboy full of beer to the basement to ferment. Deimos likes to bat his toys under the basement door, and sometimes they end up tumbling down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I put the ball of my foot down on a small stuffed mouse, had the "Ack! I'm stepping on a cat!" reaction, and nearly dropped the carboy on myself trying not to crush what couldn't possibly be a cat, since I'd taken great pains not to let the cats follow me into the basement.

This kind of thing happens in bed, too. I'll climb across the bed in the dark, ready for sleep, and put my hand on some lump under the sheets. This will cause me to complete freak out about not crushing what usually ends up being a forgotten t-shirt from putting away the laundry, or even just a strange rolling-up of the blankets.

This is not to say my fears are unfounded. While thinking about writing this post this morning, I was cutting bananas for Riley's Cheerios. When I turned to place the bowl on the table, I took a step and crushed something that emitted a distinctive yowl of feline pain. Pretty sure it was Deimos' tail, based on the way he ran off and cast me the evil eye. I'm so not going to sleep soundly tonight, for fear of cat revenge.

So I suspect I won't be giving up this little neurosis any time soon.

Deimos was already clawing at my office window this morning, trying to get at something that he saw outside. This wouldn't normally be a problem, except that he stands in my garden planter and kicks up topsoil all over the floor in his excitement. I hope this is the limit of his craziness this year.

The stinkbugs are starting to appear more frequently, so you know spring is upon us. Sunday is the actual first day of spring, which means free Rita's water ice.

There is a large pile of flammable material out in the "pagan's" fire pit. This usually happens on the season changes, the solstices and equinoxes. I should really amble over there this spring and see what their bonfire is really all about. Maybe make some new friends.

Since Berta took our cats to the vet last week things have not been right around our house.

I guess they got some strange smells of other animals in their snoots while at the vet's office, and it woke them up to the world outside. But the world outside is not really the problem. Since they've gotten home, they've been literally at each others' throats.

At first we just thought maybe they were acting up, but what start out as a single fur-flying catfight turned into a multi-episode, nearly-continuous brawl. There were literally clumps of fur left all over the house, looking like someone just dumped the innards of several vacuum bags in discrete locations around our house.

Obviously, this couldn't stand. The vet was supremely unhelpful. "You have two intact males, and sometimes the smells they pick up outside trigger something in them that causes this behavior. Separate them." Uh, our house is geared for two cats co-habitating, not two cats living in separate spaces.

But that's what it finally came down to. Berta bought another automated litter box. Another food tray. We locked up one cat in the master bedroom/bathroom, and the other gets free roam of the house. Periodically, we switch the two, just so that one cat doesn't feel territorial over either specific area.

Berta bought some books on cat behavior, and it seems like we may have to "re-introduce" the cats to each other. The books say that this could take as long as a month of separation, and even then might not work.

Keeping the cats separated is a pain. They don't like to be separated. They look for each other. They caterwaul when we switch them up. Yet when they get in proximity, bam! Hissing, clawing, tucked-back "airplane" ears, and eventually, a cartoonish cloud of claws, tails, and shifted number-row characters.

So. Today, they're at the vet. I dropped them off this morning. They're having "that procedure" done. They should have tried to get along.

If all goes well, either the hormones will have dropped to the point that this behavior is curtailed, or they'll have enough fear of what happens when they misbehave to never act up again. Who knows what we'll have removed next time, right? Poor kitties.

The kittens have been with us for a couple of weeks now, and we're all adjusting to the changes.

When they first moved in, they lived in the laundry room behind the dryer, where we assume it was warm and out of the way. Eventually, someone turned on the dryer and that was the end of that, but they still venture in there to their electronic litter box (yes, it cleans itself), which has been working quite well for everyone concerned.

As Berta noticed, they would venture out slowly from the laundry room, going only as far as a few feet, then returning to base. Then they'd go a littler farther, then return. They're still a bit shy about leaving the family room, although we've since given them nearly full access to the first and second floors.

My office is usually off-limits because there's just too much delicate stuff in there. I let them visit over the past week and Phobos started to stalk the blinking network traffic light on the back of my PC. He hunkered down in the wires behind the case, and leaped at the LED and the surrounding wires. That came to a quick end, and I ejected the both of them.

Riley and Abby have taken to the kittens quite well. They've both decided which kitten is whose -- Abby's is Phobos and Riley's is Deimos. The kittens don't really see it that way, since they're friendly to both kids.

Riley is now unable to take naps at home during the day in the living room because the kittens make too much noise running around. They're like speedy little elephants, tearing up the carpet racing around the furniture chasing each other and making all sorts of trampling noises in the process. Riley's been taking naps in his room this week, which is actually working out better than usual since he was often unable to nap during the day otherwise, and it's helping him adjust to falling asleep without someone in the room, which has been a problem.

The kittens have already started waiting by the front door for Abby to come home from school. They were a little off yesterday, showing up around 3pm, and decided instead to knock on my office door. But when Abby finally came home, they were excited and ran around the house. Abby spent her afternoon playing with them.

Although she likes to pick them up and otherwise bother them a little too much, the kittens have really taken to Abby. They're still a little afraid of Riley, as well they should be. Sometimes he isn't aware of his strength. But he still likes to play with the kittens with their toys.

For me, Phobos and Deimos are often under foot. They like to congregate around my feet when I'm in the kitchen, which is especially tricky at night when I can't see them and am a bit groggy to be thinking about it. More than once I've accidentally launched a kitty across the hardwood floor. They're resilient though, and come right back to stand around my feet.

The two of them seem to play rough, but they don't bite or claw hard. Sometimes I think they consider me just another cat in the way I play. They like to attack my feet in socks, and I'll drag them around the floor while they bite and claw.

Apart from having to tape up some wires and the heat generated in my office from having to keep the door closed, the kittens are making a nice addition to our family.