Fig and Bedbugs

Meet Fig, short for Figaro.

Saturday morning I was browsing the Show Low Craigslist and saw a listing: "Need to board my cat for a month". I called. Nice young couple with kids needed to travel to Ohio in their motorhome, and the cat hates the motorhome. After ascertaining that they would indeed return for the cat before August 6th when I return to Mexico, I agreed to have Fig for a month. I told the nice young man (Joe) that he's doing me a bigger favor than I'm doing him. I was SO lonely without my cat to talk to and care for, but couldn't possibly adopt another pet here and bring it home: Rocky wouldn't like it. And at 14, Rocky shouldn't have to share his people and home with a new cat.

So I have Fig. Can't believe how diametrically different two male gray/white cats can be. Fig is somewhat timid, affectionate, and playful. Rocky's none of those. They do both eat things I wish they wouldn't: Rocky eats mice and lizards, Fig ate my Christmas Cactus the first day I left him to go to work.

So after work, I sat at that table, Fig was laying on the Sunday newspaper pile and reaching up slyly to snag the cactus. I would shout NO! and make a S-S-S-S!!! noise. He'd retreat, then do it again 30 seconds later. FIFTY times we did this. He won, I moved the cactus.

The Bedbugs

I've been getting some sort of bites, without even being outside. Monday I showed them to the doctor where I work, and he said they were bedbug bites. I had the apartment manager arrange with my travel agency to get the exterminator to come check. My rental bed/headboard was absolutely infested with bedbugs. Turns out there's a history with that furniture rental company, something about beds that had been returned from Whiteriver. SO creeped out. When the exterminator sprayed the headboard crevices, bedbugs came running out, like a horror movie.

So Fig and I are in a motel for a week or so, until the extermination treatments are complete AND I get new furniture. I spent the whole day yesterday washing everything (all my clothes and bedding) in hot water and drying in a hot dryer. The motel room doesn't have a kitchenette, just a tiny microwave and fridge, so I'll be eating takeout a lot. And poor Fig is having to cope with more change in such a brief time. He lost his brother a short while back to a freak accident, then his family leaves him, then exterminators invade, and now he's in a motel room with a loud air conditioner and people walking by the window. He's under the bed most of the time.

Fire!

The Wallow Fire is moving both east to New Mexico and west to us. It's maybe 20 miles away as the crow flies. Yesterday I drove to the Ho-Dah Casino, and it was SO smoky that I had to slow down a few times for visibility. Springerville is only 10 miles from the casino.

My Google Map

Some of the patients and staff of our little group of dialysis clinics have been evacuated already, and it says this fire is 0% contained. And supposed to get windier today.

Luckily I have so few possessions with me here in Show Low, it won't take me long to pack up and go wherever they tell me we'll be dialyzing these people.

More to come...