Feed the kitty

After his plumbing repairs (and lung repairs, and eye repairs), Tug seems to be all better. I credit his stress-free lifestyle. (If he only knew about the numberless cats just on the other side of that wall trying to stay alive somehow through this icebox of a Korean winter...)

But he needs special urinary-tract-aid food that can only be bought at vets' offices, and we ran out. So after school today I walked to the new subway stop, took the train to nearby Yangjae Station and walked to a nearby vet's where I had bought his scratching post-- only to find the office wasn't there anymore. So I turned and walked straight into the awful north wind for the mile or so to Gangnam Station. (In this country, nothing good blows in from the north.) I figured to find at least one vet on the way.

And, my friends, it was cold. Holy toeloopin' Moses in the Ice Capades, it was cold. You know when you get a horrible pain-- brain freeze from a lime margarita, labor pains if you're a woman, a basketball in the castanets if you're a guy, somebody pulling your lower lip over your head-- and there just are no words that will convey how it feels? Yeah? That's how cold it was, walking straight into the wind and slip-slidin' away on the ice and snow underfoot.

When I finally got to Gangnam Station and hadn't found a vet, I gave in and decided to take the subway over to Tug's actual vet, even though that would mean another nearly-a-mile walk into the wind when I got there. But thankfully, there was another vet within a block of Seollung Station, and they had a puppy the size of my fist that went crazy for a touch and a kind word, and they had the right cat food.

So it just took two of my six waking post-school hours, four bucks for the fares, 20 bucks for three pounds of cat food, and nearly losing my nose and several cheeks to frostbite, but Tug's got his don't-clog-the-pipes food. He didn't show any signs of appreciating my effort.

If the little booger's not careful, I'm going to hollow him out and make a muff.