But catsitting can have litterbox cleaning, or if you're lucky, non-litterbox cleaning. So it's downside. It's like, I will dandle your baby, but I won't babysit your baby. I'm very delicate, you know. I could totally break.

okay, brenda made me laugh.

If you're planning on striking out for the prairies and planting your stake in the ground, I think that window has closed.

Damn it. I was almost packed.

(I do not have the spoons to wade into this.)

Hec, if smonster had wanted 'tough love,' she's perfectly capable of asking us to administer it.

Ear and lip, remember?

I believe it's not depression that Hec is unfamiliar with so much as cat vomit. It's not quite the same as if a kid pukes and you leave it. (That would be a true cry for help!) Also, not so much volume. I could get more specific, but not without leaving claims of adult femininity in tatters.

Oh, yes, the midnight joy of the little beast horking somewhere in the house, and by the time you get out of bed, the little beast has rocketed into another part of the house, and you don't know where the gift has been left. And the late-night choice: do I turn on all the lights and try to find it or go back to bed and deal with it when I'm better rested and it's dried to a more manageable consistency--and I'm less likely to do nasty things to the cat. 8 hours later, as you and the cat both stare at the odd thing that's been discovered in the middle of the living room, you can say "How did that come out of you?" and the cat can give you a puzzled look that says, "Aliens."

wrod. Also, ew, But wrod.

I once had to go into a hoarder's house. It's real hard to clear the bar that set for unacceptable levels of cleanliness.

Zenkitty,

can you wrap a narrative around that? Why did you have to go into a hoarder's house?

But catsitting can have litterbox cleaning, or if you're lucky, non-litterbox cleaning.

Is "non-litterbox cleaning" the cleaning of other parts of the house that aren't the litterbox?

Our friend who pet-sits, bless his heart, always sweeps up the mountain of Kato fur at the end of the week, even though we tell him to not bother *if* he's just doing it because he thinks we expect to come home to a non-furry house. Because we are SO used to the horrifying amounts of fur that dog sheds. (However, if he's sweeping it up because *he* can't stand to live with it, well, then I'm just glad we pay him to pet-sit, because that's a lot of damn fur to be sweeping up and/or living with.)

I once had to go into a hoarder's house.

Tommyrot posted a link in Natter yesterday about Dita von Teese; it was an article that described, among other things, how she collects hats (and, in fact, has so many that they have their own ROOM) and collects taxidermied animals. Tim, predictably, loves Dita, so I showed him the article, and when he was done reading it, he said, "I think DIta von Teese has more crap in her house than *I* do!"

I didn't know that was humanly possible.

(Actually, I know we aren't near hoarder classification, but the possibility always freaks me out because I can see it lurking around a corner [behind the oscilloscope and antique egg incubator] if we aren't careful.)