Sleepless Slane

"20, 20, 24 hours to go I wanna be sedated Nothin' to do, nowhere to go-oh I wanna be sedated

Just get me to the airport, put me on a plane Hurry, hurry, hurry before I go insane I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain Oh, no, oh-oh, oh-oh"

-The Ramones

We never get any sleep at the condo, at least when the cats are with us. Last night was worse than usual, our insomnia compounded by something that sounded like a ship's fog horn that shook the walls every hour or so. I'm thinking it may be our air handler getting ready to give up the ghost. Given that our garbage disposal is also hopelessly gummed up, I'm wondering if we can find someone who'll work on both, so we can pay for just one service call.

But back to Dean and Slane.

I have to admit, Dean's not really the problem.

Dean has the generally upbeat and friendly disposition of the mentally handicapped, and seems happy just to have you rub his belly. His only role in the tandem attack on our sleep cycle comes when he crawls onto Peg's chest during the night, purring at about eighty decibels as Peg strokes his neck. Last night I thought to myself "what a lucky cat", then I remembered he's been neutered.

Dean never tries to spread the love by padding over to my side of the bed at 2 a.m., lest he be given an involuntary flight lesson across the room.

Slane, on the other hand, spends a chunk of every evening letting us know he hates the condo, and the only thing that might ease his pain being trapped indoors might be a nice bowl of smelly wet cat food.

Slane is not mentally handicapped. In fact, as I've written before, he's gradually teaching himself English.

"Heh-roh"! "Heh-roh"! He sounds like a bad stereotype from a Charlie Chan movie, trying to greet us over and over. And over.

Peg's work requires a very early alarm most mornings, and so this nightly routine of Slane bursting into song has become a real problem. We thought of leaving the boys at Wyldswood, as in years past, but weren't sure we'd be home this weekend, and Dean would go mad fending for himself for two weeks (with George's help, of course).

So we have a dilemma--they're here with us, Slane hates the condo, hates being trapped inside, and chooses the wee small hours to let us know about his despair.

This, in turn, led the Cat Daddy of the year to propose a solution--we should drug them at bedtime.

[Actually, "Cat Daddy" was the name of my friend and neighbor Ross Locke's Pro Line 19 center console. Ross and I met when I was living on the sailboat at the Watson Bayou Marina and clerking for Johnston, Harris, Gerde & Jelks in 1995. Ross resided in the big houseboat out at the end of the T-dock, having recently been thrown out of his house in the early days of his divorce proceedings. We became social, and soon figured out that his former house was on 8th Circle, a few doors down from mine. He eventually remarried, moved back into the house, and bought that boat for himself in maybe 2000. Unfortunately, Ross owned Flap Jacks, a Lynn Haven breakfast institution, and like most restauranteurs he was way too busy to play on the boat, which sat on a trailer in his driveway growing black mold and ferns. Ross was a very large man, well over 300 pounds, and eventually his ticker fatally let him down when he was maybe fifty. He should've driven that boat when he had the chance].

I digress.

Online research didn't yield many good answers about how to sedate a cat without a prescription. Peg had actually presented the problem over Thanksgiving Dinner to Olivia's sister--in-law, a veterinarian, who suggested gabapentin or benadryl. But how does one dose an eight pound cat, or get gabapentin over the counter?

Sunday found us at the pet supply store on 23rd, posing our dilemma to the nice salesperson who recommended sedative chews. We bought those, along with sedative drops and a "calming" cat treat we'd fed them before, figuring the combination might render them cat zombies for the evening.

Last night was our grand experiment in drugging the little buggers. They were thrilled with an unexpected treat at bedtime, wet food slathered in sleepy drops. Both fell into the land of nod. We optimistically did the same.

Around 2 a.m. I heard the sound of a packet of cat treats hitting the floor, meaning Dean was on the counter swatting them down to Slane for them to share. Then I heard the sound of Dean trying to chew through the plastic, leading me to briefly alight and stow the treats before returning to bed.

But by 3:20 Slane was back, singing the song of his people. I was ready, grabbing my container of cat gummies off the nightstand and striding into the main room to scatter a few on the floor. Dean and Slane dove onto the little pile, and I returned to bed thinking I'd saved the evening.

Alas, I had not. Apparently those sleep chews take a while to kick in, or maybe Slane's too big to be affected, because a little while later the Slane lament started again. I pondered whether to lock him in the laundry room, but hell we were already awake with the whole fog horn problem, and eventually he calmed down and dozed off.

And so it went until the alarm didn't go off, because P woke up fifteen minutes before and jumped into the shower.

I ended up working last night until after seven in a mediation that seemed like it would never end, then engaging in a little unlicensed pastoral care on the phone with a client who was having serious marital issues. All a long way of saying there was no Christmas tree shopping, no decorating, no egg nog, no Johnny Mathis. I felt badly that P had already bought the nog, and was nursing supper along when I finally showed up. Today's schedule is a little more predictable, so maybe we'll finally bring home that tree.