I went to bed this morning at around five, intending to sleep until noon, and wake up to take care of a few things. That…didn’t exactly go according to plan.

I think I managed to get to sleep at around six. Then, fifteen minutes later, Zombi made that noise. I’m sure you know the noise, if you’ve ever owned a cat. The ‘I’m in pain. I’m in a lot of pain. I’d really like it to stop now. Oh, the pain I’m in. Why am I in pain?’ noise that’s much, much worse than the ‘You’ve stepped on me. Please don’t do that.’ noise.

Zombi likes to sleep on the pillows with us. That…may not be the safest place in the world for a cat, and that was kinda demonstrated this morning. She’d been sleeping with her left front leg under one of the pillows, and that pillow suddenly became ‘in use’.

So, that was upsetting. I pulled her out from under the pillow, and she took off…then…promptly didn’t move from in front of the bathroom door for a bit. And she kept making the noise every time I tried to touch that leg.

Gremlin was up and downstairs having the first soda of the day by that point, so I picked Zombi up and took her down to him, to have him check and see if anything felt broken. Because she wouldn’t stop making that damn noise. And she was purring — that awful, harsh purr that means ‘something hurts’.

Nothing seemed to be broken. She was limping a bit, hesitant to lay down…but she happily ate treats, drank water, and made it to the litterbox by herself, so I figured she might be okay. Ish. Just a little hurt and scared by being hurt. I set up food and water for her in Gremlin’s office, so she wouldn’t be forced to take the stairs before she was ready, and decided to handle a few things while I was up.

Then, I stayed up until Zombi came upstairs.

When I woke up, I found her curled up next to my head again. She’s getting around fine again. A few hours ago, she climbed up onto the back of the comfy seat here, latched onto my face with her claws, and rammed her head into my neck. I’ve officially declared it a ‘kitteh hug’. I got a good five minutes of that, complete with happy purring.

So…it wasn’t all bad.