it's been a long weekend. long long long.

friday afternoon, nathan got home from work and i dropped him off at the airport to go visit joanna. i was driving around trying to figure out where i'd like to have dinner, when kerry called and said that we should do dinner together. this was a fine fine idea. we ate at lake street garage, which is one of my favorite "i don't know; where do *you* want to go?" places. good burgers and malts. mmm. anyhow. dinner and conversation, and then i had to head home because i was expecting heidi over for a drinking and bitching session. so there i was, driving down my street towards the house, and i see a small black shape dart out from the other side of the street. i have enough time to think "oh, they (the car in front of me) will have to swerve..." and then it doesn't. and it hits the cat. and the cat is thrown a foot or two, just barely out of the lane of traffic.

i hit my brakes and pulled off to the side of the road and hit my hazard lights so that people would know there was something going on here, and got out to check on it. the cat was flopping around as i got up to it, and i said "hello kitty it's okay kitty it's okay", and it died. i rolled it over, so it was out of the edge of the traffic lane, and cried. and cried and cried and cried.

i called abby, and fortunately she was at home, and she drove the few blocks up to where i was, with a box and some old towels. (it was bad enough that no one loved this cat enough to keep it indoors, even though someone appeared to love it enough to feed it. it was bad enough that the jerk in the car ahead of me didn't even slow down, when that would have kept him from hitting the cat. i was *not* going to leave it on the street to rot.)

while i was waiting, a nice woman in a minivan pulled up behind me to check to see that i was alright. i told her that i was fine and my car was fine but that someone had hit and killed a cat. it was very nice of her to stop and ask.

i also called sig's partner, j, because i figured that if i knew anyone local who would know what to do with a dead cat, she would. i was right.

so, abby got there, and i wrapped the cat in the towels and put it in the box, and then we put it in my car and took it back to the house, to stay on the front porch overnight. abby found some tape so that we could tape the box shut, and a marker so that i could write on the box. i wrote "this is midnight the stray cat who was hit by a car. i named him." on it.

abby and aaron helped me carry my groceries upstairs from the front porch, and then came and sat with me until heidi got there. abby is a hero of the revolution, and aaron is a minor hero of the revolution. (minor only because he did not directly have to deal with any dead cats.)

then the evening started improving; heidi got there and brought a very nice bottle of cheap sweet red wine, and we gossipped about many many people, complained about work, and drank half a bottle of wine each. this was very pleasing. i had to send her home earlier than i'd planned, because after a while my eyes stopped focussing.

the next morning, i took the cat in his box to our vet, who are taking care of disposing of the body. they were very nice.

there was more to the longness of the weekend, but that was the most trying bit, and it's one am and i need to go to bed now.