Cedar Park, 2016
おはようございます！It’s early in the morning, but I woke up and felt like writing… so I thought I would write a bit about our pet situation.
When our cat Miki 🐱 was still with us, she stayed upstairs and Lani 🐶 stayed downstairs. This arrangement came about because Miki didn’t really like the strange new dog that moved into her house, and also because in the rare times Lani would sneak upstairs, she would make a mess (we found her poo up there a couple times) so we taught the dog not to go upstairs and even put a pet barrier on the stairs. We moved Miki’s litter box and food station upstairs into the bathroom and she became an upstairs cat.
Now that we only have Lani, Koa and Mariko have wanted her to be able to come upstairs and sleep with us in our beds. I’m not a huge fan of this idea. In fact, I’m opposed to allowing her upstairs. I guess I like that upstairs has stayed relatively clean, not only because we don’t eat up there, but there isn’t a lot of pet hair to clean up and the carpets don’t have stains on them. I’d like to keep it that way. Plus, dogs are kind of dirty. Besides the dog smell, they run around outside and are covered with who knows what kind of germs and allergens and I really don’t want her bringing all that onto my bed. And I don’t like cleaning up pee stains from the carpet! I mean, you cannot get it 100% clean, right?
Anyways, last night Koa and Mariko tried to get Lani to sleep in Koa’s room by bringing up her crate (where she usually sleeps). Lani reluctantly hung out in Koa’s room for a while, but left the room at the first chance and spent the night downstairs on the sofa. She’s now almost four years old so I don’t know if she’ll ever really be comfortable upstairs. Maybe I am just being stubborn but I want to keep that separation between upstairs and downstairs space. Still, I’m only one out of four votes in the family so who knows how it’ll play out (For the record, I think Bay is indifferent to having Lani upstairs, although she has pooed in his room before).
In other pet news, Mariko wants another cat and has been going to shelters to look at some. I have to admit that although I loved Miki and miss her, life is a bit simpler now. I don’t have to clean the litter box (which we had to keep upstairs in my bathroom), I don’t have to clean up the messes that cats tend to make on the carpet, there’s no more pet hair all over the bed and carpet, I can keep my closet door open, the air in our bedroom is fresher, and we don’t have to make arrangements for a pet sitter when we go on vacation. This cuts out a lot of clutter from my mind. I guess it’s really my own personal issue… but just this simplifying of my life (albeit under sad circumstances) has improved my stress-level a lot. I’ve found a good balance right now, but I’m worried that adding another pet will tip the balance again to the over-stressed side. 😔
Well, that’s just a bit of what’s on my mind this morning. I hope you have a great Tuesday!
-B 
