If you’ve been avoiding the internet this week (which, understandable given the shitty goings-on of late) and haven’t seen any of the dozen or so posts in which I nothumblebrag about Sunday’s half marathon, I finished in 1:58:36, a 10-minute PR and almost a minute and a half under my goal.

I’ll have a full (and most likely boring and awkward) race report for you probably in a couple days. I feel like I made a particularly horrid face in my finish-line photo and I want to be sure to include that in the report. For now, I’ll just say that I ran hard, went out faster than I thought I should but felt like my body could handle it and it paid off. It’s a new sensation for me. I’d like to elaborate on this more when I am reasonably sure I can not sound like a jackass.

In the meantime, maybe you guys can help me with something: my cat’s urinary tract.

EW. CHANGE CHANNEL, CHANGE CHANNEL.

Sunday morning before the race, Wrigley peed the bed. My husband stumbled into the living room where I was feeding the baby and was like, “uh…I think Wrigley peed the bed.”

(Briefly I wondered, having at midnight, in a moment of desperation after fighting wakefulness for almost two hours, scarfed two Tylenol PMs, if I myself had peed the bed. Then realized I was dry and breathed a sigh of relief.)

We were able to get Wrigley into the vet Monday morning and the vet agreed it was most likely a UTI, but she was unable to get a urine sample from our already-drained-from-pissing-everywhere-but-the-litter-box cat and sent me home with a bag of non-absorbent kitty litter and instructions to make her take a piss in it and then use a plastic syringe to retrieve a sample. Gah.

We set her up in the guest bathroom and after some mild protest, she pretty much slept in there for the next several hours until, around midnight (oh hey, perfect!) when she began banging on the door, splashing her water and food around everywhere and generally letting me know she was not going down without a fight. I felt terrible (and yeah, really fucking tired), and I caved. I let her out and she immediately ran for the laundry room, where she squatted over the normal kitty litter and took an awkwardly long piss.

If we didn’t have another cat, I could just switch out the regular litter for the non-absorbent stuff and sooner or later, she’d be desperate enough to go. But I think being locked in the bathroom is stressing her out and prolonging it even more.

So I called the vet again today and told her my problem and she basically told me to keep trying. If I can’t get a sample on my own and they can’t either, they’ll have to do a procedure where they go in and…well you get the idea.

So kitty is still in the bathroom with an infuriatingly dry litter box. Anyone ever go through this with a pet? Any tips?

MONORAIL TEMPORARILY SHUT DOWN.

Update 12/20/12: Kitty’s doing better! Vet confirmed she has a UTI so she got a steroid and an antibiotic injection and will get another round of antibiotics in two weeks. They didn’t find any crystals so right now we’re in pretty good shape (well, if 11 pounds is considered “good shape”). Thanks for commiserating with me about my cat’s pee pee!