A crazy, crazy week almost complicated even more by a burned down house fueled by massive clumps of cat hair

When we got home Monday night, we were pleasantly surprised to find that our oldest cat, Berkeley had survived a week on her own separated from Emerson with only a 20 minute check in from one of our friends. We expected this from her since she is the best cat in the world. On the other hand, our 10-month old kitten, Emerson did not deal with the separation/lack of human contact very well. I've mentioned before that she has had obsessive compulsive tendencies in the past...with pooping, with cleaning the litter box, with cleaning herself, with cleaning around her food, you name it and she's probably obsessive about it. She's a little weird. Anyway, apparently this week her obsessive compulsive trait happened to be licking herself until all hair disappeared. We arrived home to find massive, huge clumps of hair all. over. the. room. Like so much hair we had both hands full when we picked it up. It was enough to probably create a decent sized stuffed animal. Oh, and did I mention that the end of her tail is bare? Yeah, it was bad. So, she's since returned to normal now that her separation anxiety should be gone but from all the licking that we assume she did, whenever she licks now huge clumps of hair continue to fall out. And I see them on the floor and FREAK out because it looks like a giant rat is in my house, seriously.

As we are dealing with this issue, we are simultaneously trying to put back our house so that it is somewhat presentable since my favorite aunt and uncle are in town and Tim's family comes in tomorrow. Last night we tried to unpack, organize, do laundry, do dishes, buy food, and clean up the clumps of cat hair. On top of all of this, since my work schedule is completely whacked out this week (another story entirely), tonight we are getting together with my aunt and uncle, which means the house will continue to be a wreck when Tim's family arrives and there is nothing I can do about it. Which absolutely drives me crazy. Not necessarily because I want it to be clean for them (which I do) but also because I just want it to be clean and uncluttered...for me and for my sanity.

So last night was kind of crazy since I realized that it was the only night we had to get all of the crap done. Tim stopped at the grocery store on the way home and I met him there on my way home while he was in the middle of shopping to prevent the buying of only foods like chips, oreos, ice cream, etc. We got home at approximately 7:30 and realized we were starving. We decided we would be adventurous and make some tomato pasta stuff and put a loaf of bread in the oven. The thought being that while the pasta stuff and bread were cooking, we would be doing laundry, unpacking, and doing all of the other crap. So, we started the pasta and preheatecd the oven. 10 minutes later we smell something burning. The pasta was fine so we figured no big deal...just something on the burner. 10 minutes after that, we open the oven to put the bread in, and are greeted by a huge cloud of smoke and an empty pizza box that we had rashly stuffed in there last week in attempts to clean up our house before we left for KC. We rushed it to the sink and opened all windows to get rid of the fire smell... luckily, our fire alarms are shitty (for lack of a better word that could accurately describe how horrible they are) so they didn't go off.

Needless to say, our night was compounded by this as it was likewise with the massive clumps of hair that continue to appear. Good thing that we don't have a dry heat in our house... I think that Em is trying to shed hair as the basis of a fire just to get back at us for being gone. Now that would make the week somewhat more complex, wouldn't it?