I was at work (still am); worried, depressed and apparently mean. But the cat is OK and I think Ja is. I was late to work and have a headache, but I'm okay too.

It turned out that the cat was bleeding from his paw. (Actually my first thoughts didn't connect the blood to the cat, but within 3 seconds I saw that some of the blood drops were distinctly paw-shaped (those that were smaller than an old-fashioned silver dollar.) He apparently cut a front paw between the pads, then aggravated the cut by crying and pacing in the foyer (where he protests when he doesn't want us to leave.) I picked him up, and called my boss to let her know I would be late. I examined him, washed the paw gently with warm soapy water on a washcloth, and held him while the bleeding stopped. I looked around for signs of how he got injured, and as I went cleaned up the blood from the carpet, etc. Then I checked a pet book and then called the vet... on their advice, I put Neosporin on his paw (I know, not very natural, but I didn't want to let it seal without killing the germs, and they told me it was safe...) Then I went to work and ran a lint roller over my silk sweater. The cat was acting fairly normally, including playing with his teddy bear on the new bed, by the time I left.

Hopefully the cut won't open back up during the day, and hopefully all that blood washed any glass slivers or whatever out (Clady bleeds real good, uh-huh!) And hopefully my husband will recover from his hurt feelings. Twice in the past week I've said something rather nasty to him, the first time when I was angry, the second time very unintentionally. (Since the cat usually picks up on our moods, I thought at first that *that* was why he was making such a fuss about my leaving for work this morning, so I didn't pay much attention until I saw blood. I feel guilty.)