Monday. Very tired.

Having serious cat territorial issues. We've had two cats, male and female littermates, for about two years. Recently introduced a third cat, a female stray, into the mix. For the past week and a half, we've been struggling with midnight cat brawls and other uprisings as we work towards some kind of feline homeostasis.

Friday night we came home late. My husband manages a microbrewery/restaurant and normally works late evenings. I was working a beer tasting for the brewery and chose to wait for my hubby to be done. We crashed at home and while we were sleeping one of the cats peed all over the bed. If I had my guess, I'd say it's my original female, Eno. The stray, Bela, had been sleeping on my chest, and I think Eno took offense to this. The male, Casper, is just generally easy going and, well, dumb--I can't see him masterminding something like the Pee Incident.

The pee soaked the whole way through to the mattress. We stripped the bed, took the down comforter to the cleaners, and treated the mattress with this wonderful stuff called "Nature's Miracle". It took the pee stain, and more importantly the pee odor right out of the mattress. Only bad part is, you have to soak whatever you're treating, and it usually takes 24 hours to dry completely. While it was drying, I shut the bedroom door to prevent invading kitties from other protestations.

So we were futon bound.

Saturday both the hubby and I were working at the brewery--a part-time gig for me-- so we both had late nights again. When we came home there were no messes, and the cats were all hanging out casually together in the living room. Ah, a victory for the humans!

We were home pretty much all of Sunday, doing pee laundry and generally recuperating from the weekend. My hubby made the now dry bed and we reopened the bedroom to all feline visitors. That evening we went out to a local pub to watch the Dolphins/Broncos game. We came back around midnight and saw that the cats were hanging out casually again in the living room. Had we finally rounded the corner on the difficult journey to Cat Camraderie?

Nope. One of them took a big dump in the middle of our bed, soaking the comforter, sheets, mattress pad, and mattress. I have no idea who did it this time. We had been treating Bela for cold symptoms with antibiotics, which seemed be be giving her the runs. On the other hand, Eno, seeing how easily we rebounded from the Pee Incident, may have thought to leave a larger, browner, and stinkier message for us to consider. Again, Casper, we don't think is a suspect. But maybe he's fooling us all by just playing dumb. Hmmm.

I am told that this is a "normal" way for cats to express anger or resentment, and I understand our two spoiled kitties are probably put out by the edition of Bela, who they most likely view as a threat to their reign. Crapping on my bed, however, will not be tolerated. "Nature's Miracle" lived up to it's name again, but unfortunately we were futon bound Sunday night while we waited for the mattress to dry. Cat pooping and futon sleeping do not make for a well rested, productive worker on Monday morning.

So now we're trying to figure out the best solution for this mess (pun intended). While I'm not completely opposed to giving up Bela--we've found a couple sympathizers at work who've agreed to take her if things don't get better--I really don't want her to go. She's a beautiful, affectionate cat. Plus if we get rid of Bela, isn't that admitting defeat to Eno and Casper? Regardless of what they imagine, they do not rule my household. I don't want them to assuming they can pull off these covert cat-bomb raids when other new editions--of the human kind--eventually make their way into our home.

We're hoping the vet can help us out. For the time being, the bedroom is definintely off limits to kitties.