I came home from work one day to find one of my jewelry boxes on the floor and its contents in the litter box, which sat on the floor not even a foot away. My cats have a strange sense of humor. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see what dust-up evolved to cause this little accident.

It seems to be a metaphor for my life right now. I guess I'm exaggerating, but sometimes it feels like it's true. On the 16th of October, Mom went in for an angiogram. But it turned into double bypass surgery. And before they were done, it ended up being quadruple bypass surgery. Since Mom is going to be 85 at the end of November and I live the closest to her, I had to drop everything, including my Catnip Chronicles column, to go take care of her. Mom's house in Connecticut is only about two-and-a-half hours away. But sometimes it can seem like it's as far away as California.

I am not one of those people who carries their laptop around like they do their wallet. In fact, I don't even have a laptop. Up in the sticks of northern Connecticut, they don't believe in computers. In fact, I don't think they even know what they are up there.

It was kind of nice not having to deal with the real life responsibilities of work and other obligations during Mom's surgery and recuperation. But heaven knows I had a big one to replace it. And being the cat person I am (read that: crazy), I ended up bringing a litter of sick kittens with me to nurse when I wasn't by Mom's bedside.

On the day of Mom's surgery, after I was assured she had gone through it well and was still sedated, I raced the kittens off to a local vet. They had been on antibiotics for upper respiratory infections, but were not responding well to them. This is when I learned how to make a "kitten burrito" as well as "steamed kittens." Yum!

I watched in awe as the vet rolled up each kitten in a towel that would prevent them from ripping her hands to ribbons while applying terramycin to their schmutz-infested eyes. Why had I never even thought of this?

The other thing I learned was how to correctly apply the terramycin. I had always squirted a small dab onto my finger and smeared it over each closed eye that the kitten had wisely sought to shield from said ointment. I learned that the correct way to apply it is to open the eye, place the tube as close to the eyeball as possible, and squeeze some of the stuff right onto the eye itself. This is not an easy task when you only own two hands. But it seemed to be the better way to apply this stuff, as their eyes suddenly began to get better.

I also learned that letting the shower run nice and hot for awhile with the kittens in the bathroom is good to loosen up all that stuff that's caked on their innards. So, every morning before visiting Mom, I'd haul them into the bathroom and steam them until they were well done.

I am happy to say that, as of this writing, Mom is doing well for someone her age. After finally getting out of the hospital, she is now in rehab and due to be released the day after Thanksgiving. Yeah, she's one of those people. She survived the Great Depression (and she's never let me forget it), a difficult marriage and three bratty kids. She's very resilient. There's only one thing wrong with my mother: she doesn't like cats. If she saw this column right now, she'd say that's not true. She just doesn't want any cats in her house. Well, what she doesn't know won't hurt her, now, will it?

It turns out that the kittens and everybody else is mostly doing well. Physically, that is. I am finally coming to realize that having 11 of my own adult cats and 14 kittens that I'm trying to get into shelters or adopted out is inappropriate for a one-bedroom condo. This realization comes on the tail end of my upstairs neighbor's complaint of an "animal smell." As a result, I am miserable.

For one thing, it's a humiliating experience to have someone tell you that you stink. And I have far too much on my plate right now to have to be dealing with this. But, even though I am as poor as an alley cat, I have spent $500 on a high-tech air purifier. She's not happy yet. I am awaiting delivery of two exhaust fans (over $100) and cannot wait until she rejects these also. Truth be told, I have a feeling that she's never going to be happy.

Although she's been extremely nice about the whole thing (she has every right to call the department of health), I suspect she may be slightly crazy. She said she smells something in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. I smelled something mildewy, but no cat smells. She said she smells something in her bedroom closet. I smelled moth balls, but no cat smells.

I know that I am not the cleanest person in the world and cat smells do escape. But my thinking is that she may be angry with her landlord and taking it out on me, to some extent. She has an almost 20-year-old carpet in her apartment that has absorbed who knows what that her landlord refuses to replace, so this may be part of the problem. I hope.

In the meantime, we've decided that maybe we need to paint. Maybe the smell is in the walls? Sounds ludicrous, but I'll try anything to appease her. So, I've been looking up paint and primer that a friend told me about that actually seals in odors on the walls.

All this aside, however, I know that, at some point, I am going to have to move. If I am to continue my work with cats, I need to be neighbor-free. I prefer the company of animals anyway. Believe me, I never meant to have this many cats in my apartment. This summer was particularly overpopulated with kitten births.

I know you think I'm nuts and may not believe me, but I did tell myself I wasn't going to take some of these guys into my home. But in one case, it turned out that the kittens' eyes were caked in discharge and in danger of becoming very ill. None of my cat-friendly friends had room for them. On another occasion, a friend had promised to take some kittens that had been left with security guards at an apartment complex. She never returned my call once I had the kittens in my possession.

All of this just highlights the chronic dilemma faced by cat rescuers. If we don't have room to take them in, they risk dying a slow, painful death. If we bring them in, our neighbors complain. Our finances dwindle. Depending upon the number of cats in the home, the stress level is increased, both on the cats and the humans. I feel like we're simply putting tiny Band-Aids on life-threatening injuries. Because as long as people keep abandoning their pets or letting them reproduce, we are fighting a losing battle.

Debbie Graham lives in Flushing, New York, where she is slave to ten+ cats. When she is not tending to them, or her feral colonies, or her foster cats, she is writing, sailing, drawing, or watching Humphrey Bogart movies. She supports her cats by working as an Administrative Assistant.