D&D and Fat Cats

This morning's blog is brought to you by Dungeons and Dragons and overweight cats. Really, yesterday went by in such a blur that I completely forgot about this blog--we are almost entirely finished with packing everything up and moving it around. There are a few things left that will go in one last trip to storage tomorrow, but that's it. I am incredibly sore as I don't usually do things that require using muscles this much; it's really rubbed in how out-of-shape I've gotten. I should probably fix that one of these days.

So, when it got too dark last night to continue loading boxes onto the sprinter van we borrowed from my Dad's company (the van's about the size of a small-medium UHaul truck) I went straight to bed and crashed. I'm happy to report that I slept well (as opposed to the night before last where stress and tension kept me awake half the night and I only got maybe 2 hours of sleep). So, I'm sitting down at my computer this morning chatting with my husband when I remember that I forgot yesterday's blog. What should I write about now? I could write about exhaustion, lack of sleep, and the craziness of moving, but who wants to read about that, and honestly, I don't really want to write about those things either. So, the topics of D&D and fat cats arose because this afternoon we're playing D&D and our overweight 20-lb cat was trying to curl up on my lap, with only moderate success as he's really too big to fit.

What's awesome about D&D? Well, lots of things. Today's game is going to be particularly great because we're celebrating two birthdays today. Both birthdays are actually tomorrow, but who cares about little details like that. The two birthdays belong to my husband and his roommate for 4 out of 4.5 years in college--honestly how lucky can you be to hook up with a fellow geek and gamer for a college roomie by your second semester there? Every year though at the end of July we try and do something extra fun to celebrate because it's also cool that they're birthdays are on the same day; I think we determined that officially our friend is 2 hours older than my husband, or something like that. We're also going to be in Ravenloft today--one of my most favorite settings ever in the D&D world. Dragonlance is my favorite, but I'll admit it isn't as fun when it comes to playability. Last time we met, we fought off an oncoming horde of zombies from an abandoned mill and discovered a cult that was researching substances to enhance the existing zombies to turn them into super-zombies. We also got arrested and hauled off to jail. XD By the way, I'm playing a Buddhist Monk using rules from the Anime RPG supplement, and it's been fun. One of these days I'll also finish setting up the Team Sidequest website so other people can share in the Anime RPG goodness. I have to say I'm extra excited by today's activities because it doesn't involve packing and moving boxes!

Now, on to the fat cat part of today's blog. Our cat, Badger, is 4.5 years old and weighs 19.6 pounds. Now, he's always been a fairly big cat, and he's also always been a bit of a pig--our first indication that he was going to be a pig was when we first met him as a kitten, he licked left-over cake icing off my fingers (I'd been decorating Luke's birthday cake) and then fell asleep in my arms. So, he's a pig--an affectionate pig, but still a pig. He comes running when you call for him by either Badger or Piggy. However, a year ago we moved to Misenheimer to be near where my husband works at Pfeiffer University, and some time during the move, our cats picked up some fleas. Well, poor Badger had a horrible allergic reaction to the flea bites. He scratched or chewed off all the fur around his neck and tail--classic symptoms of a flea bite allergy. After several months of fighting the fleas, we finally rid our house of them. After the fleas were gone, Badger continued to chew his fur off around his tail, back and on the backs of his legs and stomach area. The vet put him on steroids because at this point the chewing had become a habit. The steroids were to reduce irritation from those areas and help relax him. They also helped him gain weight--at least 5 of his pounds came while he was on the steroids. He's off that now and on kitty Prozac since the steroids weren't helping alleviate the chewing. The Prozac has worked. He's slowly starting to grow fur back now. I'm really hoping he doesn't have to go through this again with the move next week.