On mysterious orange cats, the flu and a stalled chapter

The onset was a tickle in one of my tonsils. Hmm, I thought to myself, that's unpleasant. I blamed an errant shard of tortilla chip and kept on with my day. Within hours, I was a snivelling, whining mess. But this time, with a flu! Or maybe it's a cold, I can never remember which is which, no matter how many times I see that ad with all the children singing a jingle about not medicating colds/flus with antibiotics. I know about washing my hands, already, stop singing! Anyways... Despite all the handwashing (and I'm frickin religious about it), I've got something. I blame public transit.

I'm in the process of editing my chapter, and the going is slow. Well, to be accurate, it's stalled. It's spinning its wheels and mud is flying everywhere. I've resolved to edit 5 pages a day and push my deadline back to Sunday evening. I figure my throbbing throat, achey back and sinus unpleasantness buy me a pass until this weekend.

Over lunch I was watching a comforting episode of Buffy, only to be interrupted by the insurance corporation calling to get a statement about the accident I witnessed. Apparently it's my lot in life to be a witness. Actually, I'm okay with that cuz I've got a pretty kick ass photographic memory and like to talk about random things with strangers. Side note to the driver of the grey car who tried to dash across 6 lanes of rush hour traffic against a red light: you might want to get the chequebook out, honey.

While I went over the details of the witnessed crash, A. investigated a noise he'd heard in the other room. When I hung up, he called me over and urged me to get down to the Beast's eye level. I found myself looking at nothing. "Um, hang on a sec, there was an orange cat in here a minute ago", he said. The neighbour cat, whom we call Cheese, had apparently snuck in the house when A. came back from the corner store. We didn't notice until Beast had backed him into a corner in my room. A. had grabbed the Beast and locked him up so we wouldn't have a fight on our hands, but now Cheese was missing. I'd have been tempted to leave Cheese alone until he decided to come out of his hiding place, but he's a pee-er. He's been marking our door on a daily basis, and I wasn't about to let him have free reign over my room. So we searched every nook and cranny, and then expanded the search to the rest of the house. No Cheese. What the hell?

All of a sudden, a low growl resonated through my room. Then another. We followed the angry-Wookie noise and it led us to my dresser. Apparently, Cheese had climbed in an open drawer and lodged himself in the back of the dresser. And really, really didn't want to come out. There was a lot of growling, some scratching, some hissing and the ever present threat of urination, but we managed to get him out of there, using the old "sweater wrapped over the hand" trick. Then he took up position behind the door, cursing us out for daring to dislodge him from his tactical vantage point. Luckily, he was afraid of the door, so pretending to close it on him made him run out of the room. Then it was merely a matter of using the sweater to herd him down the hall, down the stairs, out from behind the bike storage area and out the door, hissing and attacking the sweater all the way. The Beast placidly watched all this from the vantage point of my arms, a subtle tail flick the only indication of interest in the proceedings. I attribute the sense of calm to an overwhelming confidence that he is, indeed, Mr. Dominant in the household. The leader of the failed orange revolution slunk off the porch, pausing only to pee defiantly on the doorframe. Coup d'etat denied.