I’m just not having a good year for this. x_x

For those of you who have read the author bio, you know that I have a feline helper minion named Aleksi. He’s been my constant companion for three years and an all around delight.

Until now!

This year, this past weekend, as a birthday gift to me to surprise me when I came home from visiting my parents, he decided that it would be wise to swallow something entirely inedible, not just partially as he sometimes does (for example, feathers off his toys that pass right through but give me a heart attack). No, this time was going to be a real show. A feat of stomach strength. This time he wanted to truly prove what he was made of!

Alas. Whatever it was (I’m not brave enough to dissect the culprit, yet), it unfortunately won the battle and instead he wound up with it blocking his intestines.

Not to be thwarted by a miscalculation, however, he is now using the mishap as a way to demand all of my attention for the next week while he heals from a very expensive birthday gift of emergency surgery. Again, just to prove that he is the king of thoughtful, he also made sure to thwart every attempt the vets made to put an Elizabethan collar on him, finding ever more ingenious ways to remove it until they just stopped bothering, and so now my roommate and I have to take shifts making sure he doesn’t lick his wounds. I occasionally apply a make-shift soft collar that he tolerates, but by and large, he’s going to need babysitting until he mends, and that… kind of gets in the way of comic work. It’s tough enough having to go to work.

But he just wants to make sure he spends the maximum amount of time with his favorite humans, because he just loves us that much.

I suppose this is what I get for not paying him for his “employment” with me.

….

….But no, seriously, I’ve kind of spent the last four days stressed out of my gourd. Haven’t even started the next page when I should be half-way through, because I was too busy making sure he’d recover. I love this little fluffball, even when he bites off more than he should have chewed.

Hopefully next week he’ll be robust enough that I can get back to work here?

Updates for this one pop up from time to time on my Tumblr.

I hope this is the last time this year that something like this happens. Sorry again, guys. You deserve cookies for your patience.