Pets in Peculiar Places

This is Samantha. She was our dog, well actually Julie's dog, for over 15 years. We got her in Fairbanks, took her back to California with us where she lived in Stockton, Campbell, Stockton again, and San Francisco. Sam was a most patient and loving dog and I still miss her.

Here she is, in Fairbanks, sitting on top of her dog house and looking in the window. She was an outside dog; when winter came I bought a couple of bales of hay and packed them around her house, and she was fine.

Sam gave birth to two litters of puppies in that dog house and traveled in it from Alaska to California*. When we arrived at the San Francisco airport she had been in her crate for over eight hours. Mama and Daddy had come to the airport to pick us up, and when we let Sam out Mama took her leash while Daddy and I went to get the rest of the luggage. Before we had managed three steps that poor dog squatted down in the middle of the floor and created a lake. Daddy grabbed me and pulled me away while poor Mama was just humiliated.

And here we have Missy resting in my scarves. As you can see, I have a number of lovely silk scarves, but I forget to wear them if I don't see them. So, I set up this system of keeping them in sight, along with a few necklaces and broaches, which I also forget to wear if they are closed away.

Missy, being only 4 1/2 pounds, didn't create any problem when she slept in the basket of larger shawls and knitted hats. If this picture was in color, you would see that the scarves are deep, rich, jewel tones and Missy is a fine neutral gray.

And here we have Merry when he was much smaller than he is now, taking a nap in the paper tray of my printer while I work on the computer. Notice that I have put a book** under the tray to keep him from breaking it. He has long outgrown such a place, and I now have to keep the paper tray closed unless I am actually printing something. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our pets.***

As you look out the window, you can see the dark green house across the street and, behind it, the gray apartment house. I'm not certain what season this was; whatever season, it was foggy.

And here we have Pippin coming out of the pot drawer of the stove. This picture is from the same roll as the one of Merry above. I'm glad Pippin has grown tired of this -- washing all of the pots and pans every time he got in there got kind of old.


* When we lived in Fairbanks, by the time her puppies were born, they had all found homes. When we moved to California, knowing that it can take more than just letting your beautiful and well behaved dog be obviously pregnant in the front yard to find homes for pups, I had her neutered.

** British English from A to Zed by Norman S. Schur, as it happens.

*** I think I've become more indulgent as the years go by. Sam slept outside at -58; I propped the paper tray for Merry.

Missy Changes Her Ways

Here is a story that I wrote for Maya in 1999, about Missy.


Now for years and years Missy had a routine for the morning. The first thing that would happen, Granny would wake up from dreaming about Maya, and while she was thinking about Maya, she would get dressed and go downstairs and fix breakfast. Missy would follow along, talking to Granny and being with her wherever she went. After breakfast, Granny would leave for work, and Missy would go out (unless it was raining very hard, and sometimes even then) and check out her territory. She would climb up the mountain and check on all the trees and squirrels and flowers and birds on the mountainside. She would go down the mountain and check on all the cats and dogs who were out that early in the morning. She would clamber over the rooftop and look at the sky. When she was finished, she would go back inside the bedroom window and hang out for the rest of the day, until Granny came home from work.

But, one year something happened way out in the South Pacific Ocean that affected how Missy lived way up in Alaska. There was a weather pattern called El Niño. El Niño made lots of wind (which Maya liked a lot, and thought her Mama had caused) and lots of rain and floods some places and droughts other places. What El Niño did in Juneau was make the winter of 1997/98 very warm. It was so warm that the insects, the mosquitos and no-see-ums, didn't die that winter like they usually do. No, they laid low and waited for summer. And come summer, the new crop of insects were hatched, and last year's crop was coming out of hibernation, and there were twice as many little biters flying around as usual. With twice as many little biters flying around, they flew in Granny's bedroom window during the night and bit her arms and hands and neck. Itchy little bites. Granny would scratch, and then she would bleed. Ugh. Granny's arms were beginning to look just awful, covered with scabs and scratches and bug bites. So, Granny got a screen for her bedroom window, to keep the no-see-ums out. It worked wonderfully. Granny's arms began to look much better.

But, what do you know, a screen that can keep a no-see-um out, can really keep a cat out. Now, Missy couldn't come back in the bedroom window. Granny tried to tell her that, the first day after she put the screen in. "I wouldn't go out just now, if I were you," Granny said to Missy when she went to work, "you can't get back in the window." But, Missy doesn't speak as much English as that, so she didn't understand. She went out and up the mountain anyway. Luckily it was a bright and sunny day, and there was shade on the mountainside to stay cool in, because when she went to the bedroom window to go back inside, she couldn't do it. Oh, poor Missy. She had to wait on the mountainside until Granny got home from work. When Granny climbed the outside stairs, there was Missy waiting for her and talking all about her day and her wait. "Meow, meow, meow," Missy said. "I know," said Granny, "that's what I was trying to tell you this morning."

So, now Missy has had to change her ways. Now, she can't go out when Granny leaves for work if she wants to come in before Granny comes home from work. So now, if it isn't raining when Granny and Missy get up in the morning, Missy immediately goes to the upstairs door so that Granny can let her out onto the roof of the living room. While Granny is brushing her teeth and getting dressed and making her bed, Missy is climbing the mountain and greeting the birds and squirrels, making sure the trees and flowers are still where they belong. When Granny goes downstairs and fixes and eats her breakfast, Missy has gone down the mountain and is saying hello to all of the dogs and cats who are out. And when Granny goes out the front door, Missy comes running and goes in the door. Of course, if it is raining when Missy and Granny get up, Missy hears the rain on the roof and doesn't go to the upstairs door. But, as soon as Granny goes downstairs to make her breakfast, Missy goes to the front door and meows. Then Granny comes to the door and opens it for her. Missy sticks her little nose out the door, sees that it is raining downstairs as well, sniffs in disgust, and goes back to the living room. But, every little once in a while, when it has rained for days and days, Granny opens the door on the rain and Missy shakes her head, sighs, and thinks "Cabin fever. I have cabin fever. Rain or no rain, here I go." Then, out she goes, for a quick check of her territory. And when Granny opens the door to leave for work, there is Missy, wet and bedraggled, but unbowed, waiting to come back in.

So, Maya can easily see, that although the world is a very big place, it is also a very small place. El Niño, which is in the South Pacific, made the weather change in the Pacific Northwest. That made no-see-ums lay low through the winter, so that there were twice as many little biters around come summer. And that caused Granny to put a screen in her bedroom window, which caused Missy to change her ways. So, Maya can see, how hot the water is in the South Pacific can affect the habits of a very small cat in Juneau, Alaska.

Friday Cat Blogging IXThe First Annual Cat Flinging Day1994

When I first moved to Juneau, I lived in the Mendenhall Valley, in a three bedroom trailer. I came up shortly after my friend, Linda McKinney, had moved back to Alaska from California, and the plan was that she would come up and find a job and a place, I would follow, and then Richard and Kathy would get married and follow me. Then, one by one, we found our own places. Linda found an apartment in the Valley, Richard and Kathy and I found places downtown.

Linda had two cats, Ebony and Heinekin, and I had Missy. Richard didn't rescue Hobbes until we were living in town. That first winter, while we were all in the trailer, we had a fairly heavy snowfall. And so, Richard and Missy happened to celebrate the First Annual Cat Flinging Day.

Richard still flings his cats (Hobbes and Abby [short for Abcdefghijklmnopqrestuvwxyz {as sung by Big Bird and pronounced Ab kuh def ghi jeckle monokqur stew ix is}]) into the snow, but Missy was only flung the once and the Hooligans have never been flung. It's not a sport I go in for, but the pictures are rather amusing.

Click on pictures for detail.

The Night The Bookcase Fell On Missy

One April morning in 1995, at about 5 a.m., I was roused from a deep sleep by a resounding THUMP CRASH TUMBLE rattle, rattle, ding. I staggered out of bed, naturally leaving my glasses behind, and headed in the direction this odd Reveille had come from, where I discovered that the brick and board bookshelves that normally live under the built in bookcase were tumbled on the floor, along with the books (my entire science fiction collection) that they had housed. With no idea as to what could have caused this, I decided that Missy must have tried to climb them and pulled them over. How I thought a five pound cat could pull over bookshelves that had never been even the smallest bit wobbly (I've been building brick and board wonders since 1960 and I have never had one be anything but stable) I don't know. Well, it was 5 a.m. I was without the ability to see or think clearly.


Anyway, I decided, still in this sleep deprived fog, that since I couldn't see or hear Missy, her little body must be buried under the books. In digging for her, I had piled books on the worktable and was now carrying them into the bedroom and piling them on my dresser, when Missy came quietly back in the open (and now screen-free) window. Not being anybody's fool, she had decided that some large animal, possibly the mother of the bear cub she had been making friends with lately, had broken in and she went out. I suppose that she saw me up and about, even carrying armloads of books, and decided it was safe to return.

Knowing that Missy had not pulled the shelves over, I went out on the living room roof looking for what had happened. It turned out that a boulder the size of a basketball had rolled down the hillside, smacking into the wall right behind the shelves, leaving this evidence on the outside. On the inside, as you can see in the top photo, the plaster had cracked and one of the electrical face plates had been knocked across the room. Additionally, as you see in the middle picture, a couple of boards and a few bricks had been broken. Ah, good old kinetic energy.

Samantha's Garden

Once upon a way back, so far ago as the 80s, Maya's Mama was a young girl named Julie, and her Uncle Richard was a young teenager called Richard, and her Granny was known as Mom. This, of course, was before Maya was born, or they would all have their current (and real) names. At the time of this story, they were living in a small duplex in Stockton, just the three of them and Julie's dog Samantha (usually called Sam) and Richard's cat named Sheba, and two tanks of fish, and whatever gerbil or hamster Julie had at the moment.

In the very small back yard, right outside the sliding glass doors, there was a concrete patio, and then a strip of earth with cedar chips, maybe two feet wide, and then the back fence. Beside the patio was a large square of yard with cedar chips and a tree in the middle, and that was all. Nothing usually grew in the strip of earth, except weeds. So, since Mom liked to have a neat yard, she would pull those weeds right out of there.

Well, one day she was out there pulling weeds, and there in the cedar chips by the fence was a little plant that looked and smelled like a baby tomato plant. Since Mom didn't know of anything that looks and smells like a baby tomato plant except a baby tomato plant, she didn't pull it up. Instead, she started to water it. Well, it grew and grew, and sure enough, it was a tomato plant. Pretty soon it was very big and since there was a fence behind it, it could only grow out over the patio. It got so big that pretty soon the weight on one side pulled it over and it laid down on the concrete and soaked up the heat and the summer sun and got bigger and bigger and bigger. Then it began to be covered with little yellow tomato flowers, and then some of the flowers fell off and the cherry tomatoes came. More and more yellow flowers, more and more cherry tomatoes! Why, there were so many tomatoes that Mom was picking 20 or 30 a day, every day, all summer long! What wonderful salads they had! They could just eat a handful of tomatoes any time they wanted. And they did. Mom would say, "I wonder why this tomato plant decided to grow here. I never planted it. Where did it come from?" Julie and Richard always said they didn't know either, and there was never any reason to doubt that.

One day, Richard asked Mom, "If I tell you where the tomato plant came from, will you promise not to be mad?" And Mom said, "How could I be mad? This plant has given us so many wonderful tomatoes!" So, Richard confessed. One day he had been sitting in the living room and eating cherry tomatoes (that Mom had bought at the grocery store) and Samantha had been whimpering in the back yard to be let in, and he had become irritated with her and thrown a cherry tomato at her. That tomato had bounced on the back fence, and smashed apart, and fallen into the cedar chips. When it smashed on the fence, all the seeds inside were released. Well, when Mom heard that, she wasn't angry at all, even though Richard had broken two rules: not to waste food and not to throw things at Sam.

Another time Sam was instrumental in growing food in that same strip of cedar chips. It so happened that Sam loved apples. When Julie would eat an apple, she would feed the core to Sam and Sam would gobble it all up. Well, in apple cores are apple seeds. And dogs don't digest apple seeds. And food that isn't digested comes out in poop. So, one day a year or so after the tomato plant had come and gone, Sam made some poop right in that same strip of cedar chips and she deposited some apple seeds. And then a lovely pippin apple tree grew there, and it grew beautiful apple blossoms and delightful little pippin apples.

So, there were two plants that grew in the strip of cedar chips, and both of them provided food for Mom and Julie and Richard. And both of them were an accident. And both of them were because Sam spent so much time in the back yard. But, in one way they were different — the apple tree was because Julie loved Sam, and the tomato plant was because Richard was irritated with her.

Cat Adventures

I was lucky this morning. First of all that cats don't know how to sneak. And then that the Care-A-Van was a few minutes late to pick me up. Since that meant that I was still home when the odd noise came from the kitchen and I discovered that the Hooligans had managed to open the cupboard with the potato chips and were making advances on the bag. I was able to remove their new toy, fasten the cupboard, and wrap a rubber band around the fastener (the old one had broken, which was why they managed to get it open).

Because if I had been gone when it happened, I would have come home to find that they had eaten most of the bag, thrown up from too much salt, and left chip crumbs from one end of the house to the other.

In A Nutshell follows.

Friday Cat Blogging VIBrothers Are to Play With

What could be more delightful than a pair of siblings who hang out with each other?






And play with each other?





And obviously care?

In A Nutshell follows.

Captive*

Soft as silk and black as sin,
What a cuddly mood he's in.
He curls his little kitten self
On Granny's ample bosom shelf.
He purrs and then he purrs some more,
Contentment oozing every pore.
She smiles at him, reduced to "ahhs"
As he wraps her heart around his paws.

*Another poem from the Hooligans' kittenhood.

Because It's There

As Merry gets a little older,
Merry gets a whole lot bolder.
And now he really wants to know
Just how high that he can go.
From stove to frig to cupboard top
Up and up, he'll never stop.
Suddenly, a worried frown —
He's ten feet up. Can he get down?
Piteous mews to call for Granny,
To save him crashing on his fanny.
Granny's only five foot two —
What does he think she can do?
Although the path is very steep
That silly kitten has to leap.
Carefully, now brace and look,
Retrace the path that up he took.
Granny coached him through the muddle,
And afterwards they had a cuddle

This was written when the Hooligans were about six months old.

Friday Cat Blogging V

Clues in Sound
Merry and Pippin and I live in a two story apartment. The kitchen and living room are on the lower floor (the second floor of the building) and the bedroom, bath, and book room on the upper.

Here in Juneau we have a local access channel called CHCH (the channel channel) which plays classical music without any commercials or other speech and trains the camera out over the Gatineau Channel. In the evening, if I'm reading, I have CHCH on and when I turn it off, the Hooligans know that I am going to be going upstairs soon.

One thing I learned from Richard is that if you feed a cat the minute you get up, that cat will start waking you up to be fed and that will get earlier and earlier. So, I feed them downstairs.

Since we live in Alaska, the sun is up at night in the summer and not until long after I've left for work in the winter. No clue for Hooligans from the daylight.

The trick, for them, is to know when I've gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom or to clear my sinuses so that my CPAP won't make me feel like I'm being smothered and when I've gotten up to go downstairs. Doesn't do any good to meow at me if I'm going back to bed.

They have learned that if they can hear the CPAP, I'm going back to bed even if I'm currently sitting at the computer while my sinuses clear. If they hear the electric toothbrush, I'm going to get dressed and go downstairs next.

So, when I woke up in the middle of the night with a nasty taste in my mouth and brushed my teeth, but the CPAP was still on, it confused them.

Gaslighting the Cat

When I was in college, my mother had a part Siamese cat named Tamarama. Forrest used to pick Tamarama up, hold her in his arms on her back like a baby, look deeply into her eyes and intone, "Kaiser Foil is quilted, Kaiser Foil is quilted," and she would become hypnotised. She would lie quietly on her back until he put her down -- for however long he wanted to hold her.

Years later, when Julie and Richard were in high school, we had a dog, Samantha, a Siamese cat, Sheba, another cat, Evenrude, various hamsters, and about 45 tropical fish. Julie discovered that she could sit and make a peculiar caterwauling sound with her mouth not moving but open and Sheba would stand on her chest and look into her mouth (putting her little face right inside) to see what on earth was making that noise. Because this was so funny, Julie did it a lot. Until the day that Sheba decided she had amused Julie as much as she was going to and, instead of looking in Julie's mouth, marched over and scratched Samantha's nose.

Limburger Cheese

My father loved limburger cheese. My mother hates the way it smells like dirty socks. As a child, it was always my goal to prove to my father that I loved him more than my mother did. (Yes, Sigmund, there is an Electra.)

In order to prove that I loved him more, since Mama wouldn't even allow him to bring limburger into the trailer, I learned to eat it and like it. Of course, part of the reason that I could even attempt this is that I don't have a very good sense of smell. Nor, apparently, taste.

Just last week there was a story in the local paper about how the more taste buds you have, the stronger/hotter/more bitter foods taste to you. People like this are called picky eaters and are generally skinny. It isn't very healthy because it leads to deficiencies, since these super tasters find most vegetables bitter tasting. On the other hand, are people like me. Not so many taste buds, not such a sharp sense of taste. Love hot. Love bitter. Love sour. Lover pungent. Because these foods give us some sensation of taste. We aren't skinny. We don't lack vital nutrients.

So, I wasn't really proving that I loved my father more than my mother did. Just that I had fewer taste buds. But, science aside, it served me well. I felt quite puffed up in my own esteem about it, and for a four year-old, that is what really counts.

Neither Julie nor Richard can stand the way limburger smells, so I learned to enclose it in a glass jar when I put it in the refrigerator and to eat it when they weren't home. Years later I discovered that Missy (my small, gray cat for 18 1/2 years) loved it. Missy wouldn't eat any other people food. You could eat salmon or crab or prawns or chicken in front of her and she wouldn't seem to notice. So, imagine my surprise the day I spread some limburger on a cracker and she came running downstairs and nabbed it out of my fingers as I was putting it into my mouth! I soon learned that if I wanted to eat limburger with Missy in the house, I needed to give her some on a saucer. She was much faster than I was, and that first time was the only time I managed to get it anywhere near my mouth before she nabbed it.

Friday Cat Blogging

Brothers at Play

Merry and Pippin are best friends, and have been since they were small kittens. Here they are exploring the wonderful world of bubbles. Every cat owner should have bubble soap -- watching them bat the bubble and see it disappear is delightful. Once they have become blase about that, blowing the bubble full of smoke is a new variation. When they hit the bubble, the smoke hangs in the air for a few seconds, which they are not expecting. I haven't done that with a cat in over 30 years, since I stopped smoking.


They also loved the rocking chair when they were small. These days they are so big that it isn't as much fun, but in the early days they climbed the back and batted each other through the bentwood and peaked at each other through the caning.




This wonderful blue ring was a gift to the Hooligans from Maya. It provides hours of entertainment. When they stop playing with it, I put it away for a few months and then when it comes out again it is, once again, novel. They don't forget it, but they do become interested in it again.



In this picture the laser light is crossing the ceiling. Merry is tracking it, Pippin has lost sight of it and is searching for it. The light on the wall is a night light, which my apartment is full of due to the long, dark, winter nights.







Here they are playing with a shoe string that Merry has carried to the top of the scratching post. All of these pictures were taken before the Kitty Condo was purchased.










And here they have pulled the shoestring down to the bottom of the scratching post. Soon Merry carried it back up again, and the play started all over.

Needless to say, these two always sleep soundly.

Hobbes, Take Two

Yesterday I wrote about when Richard found Hobbes, then a very small kitten, huddling in the pouring rain and crying for rescue. When Richard picked him up, dried him off, and tucked him into the front of his jacket, Hobbes cuddled and purred.

Yesterday morning I was thinking about that and it hit me all over again. Hobbes cuddled and purred. That means he was used to human contact -- a feral kitten would have run away from Richard, and even if he had been caught, would never have cuddled -- he would have spit and fought. So, if he wasn't feral, that means he hadn't wandered off from his mother. He had been thrown away, to live or die as luck would have it. To be carried off by an eagle or torn apart by dogs or run over or, considering the weather that day, to catch pneumonia or even drown. At the very best, if no one had found him and taken him in, to starve. One minute, part of a litter, cared for by a loving mother; the next, out in the rain to make it on his own however he might.

Because someone was too lazy or too cheap to get their cat fixed. Probably thought having just one litter would be good for her or that seeing kittens born would be good for their children or maybe just liked having kittens around for a while. And then, they couldn't find homes for all of them, and Hobbes was thrown out into the rain.

I think that when you have a pet, you have responsibilities. One of those is to deal with the issue of reproduction. You have a few honorable choices: get the animal fixed (either sex), find homes for the young, keep your animal completely away from others of its species, or raise the young you can't find homes for yourself. I can't think of any others.

Allowing your tomcat to roam is not one of the choices, which someone certainly did in Hobbes's case. Allowing your cat to have kittens and then abandoning one or more of them is not one of the choices, which someone else certainly did in Hobbes's case.

It's not that I am pure here. I once, in my younger and less aware days, had a fluffy white tomcat who impregnated half the neighborhood and I was proud of all the fluffy white kittens I saw in the surrounding blocks. I've had females who I allowed to have kittens. But I only had to take a kitten to the pound once and be told that they would put it to sleep to convince me that I would get that kitten fixed, take it home, try harder to find it a home, and get its mother fixed.

But, throwing a kitten out in the rain is in a whole different class. It is cruel. It is heartless. If a person will treat a helpless animal, the offspring of the cat who curls up in their lap and purrs, like that, how do they treat people? For, we are consistent in these matters. Psychologists know that the first step to child abuse is animal abuse. That the distance between being callous to kittens and being callous to children is very short.

And, if we are allowing the cat to have kittens for the good of the children, what are we teaching the children? That life is cheap? That loving, trusting, feeling animals can be mistreated with impunity?

Hobbes

Richard was walking to work one morning in July. It was 5:30, and because it was summer in Alaska, it was light out. Granny can't say the sun was out, because actually the sky was full of clouds and the rain was coming down in bucketfuls. Richard was very glad that he had such good rain gear, and that his boots were waterproof, because the rain was pelting down, and the wind was blowing, and it was altogether a day when you wouldn't want to be caught out without warm, dry clothes. Richard hadn't had breakfast yet, and so he decided he would stop at the store on his way and pick up something to eat. Because he wasn't going directly to work, he was walking down a path that he doesn't usually walk down. He was leaning into the wind, and holding his hands in his pockets, and in general working pretty hard to keep as warm and dry as he could.

Because it was so very early in the morning, Richard didn't see anyone else walking. Only an occasional car passed him as he walked. Because it was raining so hard, Richard didn't even hear any birds singing. And then, he did hear a sound. A small, sad, lonely, frightened sound. "Miu. Miu. Miu." Richard knew that sound. It was the sound of a very young kitten. It was the sound of a very lonely and unhappy kitten. So Richard started looking carefully around -- where was the kitten who was making that tiny little sound? There it was --— huddled against the side of a building, trying to get dry and warm. It was the most bedraggled little cat Richard had ever seen. Wet. Cold. Miserable. Unhappy. Lonely. Scared. Hungry. Tired. All alone. Richard picked up the kitten, and dried it off as best he could, and he could see that this was a very young little cat, all orange stripes, with a very sweet little face. "Well," said Richard, "what are you doing out in the rain all by yourself? Where is your Mama? Where do you belong?" And the little cat said, "Miu." So, Richard knew that the little cat didn't know where its Mama was. It was lost and alone and wet and scared.

"Well," said Richard, "I can't leave you out here. You need to be warm and dry and fed." So Richard tucked the little kitten into his jacket to keep dry and warm. Oh, the kitten loved that! The rain couldn't get on him, and being between Richard's warm chest and jacket made him feel warm as toast, and the sound of Richard's heart beating "lubba, lubba, lubba" was very comforting indeed. The kitten was dry and warm and safe. There was a person holding him. Now, the kitten liked the way things had changed, and he wanted to make sure that Richard knew he liked it, so he purred, and purred, and purred just a loudly as he could. And when the kitten purred, Richard knew that he liked being where he was and Richard also really liked the sound of that purr just for itself.

"So, I hope you know that I can't take you into any stores," said Richard, "I hope you appreciate the fact that I am skipping breakfast in order to rescue you." And the kitten did indeed appreciate it. So, Richard took the kitten to work with him, and when it was late enough that Kathy would be awake, Richard called her and asked her to bring the cat carrier and come and take the kitten home. It was very lucky that Kathy was car sitting for a friend at that time, so she didn't have to take the kitten home in a cab. When Kathy came to get the kitten, she and Richard decided to name it Hobbes, after their very favorite tiger.

Later, Kathy took Hobbes to the vet so he could be fixed and get his shots and to make certain he was healthy. This was very important, because Kathy and Richard already had a cat, Abby, and they didn't want Hobbes to make Abby sick. The vet said that Hobbes might have a disease, and they would have to run another, very expensive test. Until they got the results of that test, Hobbes shouldn't be near Abby. So Richard and Kathy took Hobbes home and kept him in the bathroom with the doors closed. They went into the bathroom often to play with him and love him. When the vet called to say that the test was negative and Hobbes didn't have the disease Kathy let him out of the bathroom and he made friends with Abby. But, to this day, he loves to go into the bathroom whenever Kathy or Richard go in. He thinks it is his special place to be loved.

And today Hobbes is a very big cat indeed. He loves to chase the laser light, and beg for treats, and tease Abby. He likes to sit in the front window and watch the crows on the electric wires. He loves to sit in the side window and watch Kathy work in the garden. He loves to chase string. When Richard is working on his computer, Hobbes loves to sit on his lap and purr and purr and purr. Hobbes wants Richard and Kathy to always know that he is so glad to live with them and be loved by them and he is very grateful not to be out in the rain, all wet and cold and afraid. Oh, it is nice to be dry and warm and loved and safe.

Carousin'

Some nights those cats just have a ball
As they go ripping down the hall
And round the room and down the stair
To cupboard tops, just everywhere!




Then Pippin leaps, that silly soul,
Into the condo's top most hole.
And in and out he twines himself,
While Merry sits on the bottom shelf.





He's up! He's down! He's out! He's in!
And peeking back with silly grin!
Then fling themselves into a heap
Of pure exhaustion, and so to sleep.

Friday Critter Blogging

Once upon a time, Julie and Richard and I lived in Fairbanks in a log house with moose antlers over the front door. Since Horney Hall seemed a bit much for the name of a house with children, we called it Antler Manor. If you look carefully, you can see the antlers as well as the newly turned earth of our vegetable garden. This house had originally been a one room cabin, belonging to a lady of the night, and had grown, one room at a time over the decades. Sadly, it is no longer there, having been purchased and torn down to create a parking lot for the church next door.

(I don't know -- to tear down an ex-house of ill repute for a church parking lot just seems wrong to me.)
At various times we shared Antler Manor with other people, and we always shared it with critters. The first acquired was Julie's dog, Samantha, who was half Labrador and half Saint Bernard. Sam was an eternally patient dog, allowing all of these other animals to climb on and sit on her. Also, she allowed Julie to garb her in long dresses and to crawl right into her dog house and watch her puppies being born. Such a wonderful dog, I will miss her forever.

Then came my cat, The Grey Mouser, and Richard's cat, Fafhrd the Barbarian. They were good at climbing the family Christmas trees and knocking them over, so that we had to run guy wires to the curtain rods to secure them. Also, they once cornered a Saint Bernard named Thor who was trying to catch the parrot and scratched his nose until he backed off and Julie and Richard were able to wrestle him outdoors.

Then Richard got a rabbit, which he named Playboy. (Don't talk to me about this, it wasn't my idea.) Playboy, like all of the beasts, ran free about the house, returning to his cage to use the bathroom.





The final addition to our home zoo was Grandma, an Amazonian parrot. Initially, he (he came to us with that gender and that name and there you are) belonged to Julie, but she gave him to me for Christmas, and so he was mine. He loved to grab onto a walnut (in shell) and be lifted into the air by his beak. He was a most affectionate bird, flying about the house and landing on my shoulder to have his neck scratched. I was always amazed, when I felt how very thin his neck was, that he was so trusting. I could easily have killed him, but he offered his little neck to me and never considered that he was in any danger. The way animals trust us will never cease to amaze me.


Although this picture is kind of fuzzy because they were both in motion, you can see that Fafhrd and Grandma were good friends. Fafhrd used to curl up against the cage on the outside, and Grandma would snuggle up on the inside, and they would be fur to feathers, and both purr.

The one time we needed another person in the house with a camera, was a Sunday morning when the kids had crawled in bed with me to read. Suddenly I realized that, starting left to right, was Richard (ten at the time), Fafhrd, me, Mouser, Julie (eight), with Playboy and Samantha curled up on our feet and Grandma perched on my knee.

If critters can get along, why can't people?

P. S. I'm home.

Friday Cat Blogging

The Hooligans and Their Kitty Kondo Condo
What an unfortunate name the manufacturer gave this piece of cat furniture. Being a bit of a language purist (when I change a word it is for my desired effect, not some ignorant sounding stupidity imposed on me by an advertising person!), I simply refuse to use it. Here we have Pippin, otherwise called Sweetie and "you soft black devil" or "Oh, NO you don't" curled up in his Cuties box. Both cats love curling up in slightly confining spaces and this box is a great favorite. At the moment I think it is under my desk, having been pushed there by Merry. Come December, I will need to buy another box of clementines so that they each have a box. (They did at one time, but my cleaning help threw one away thinking it was garbage.) See what pretty eyes Pippin has. What with him being black, that's about the only facial feature you can see when I take his picture from the front.

Here is Pippin getting some exercise. I drilled holes in the bottom of the "tiger ledge" and screwed in hooks to hang things from. I rotate various items onto these hooks and the Hooligans have a playground that they don't get bored with. Notice the wonderful sisal wrap around the scratching post -- actually I found this when I was in the pet store looking for a taller sisal post, because as you can see my boys had outgrown the scratching post a friend had given them when they were little kittens. The shop didn't have a taller sisal post and we couldn't find one in their catalogue, but there was this wonderful thing, and other than its silly name, I have been perfectly satisfied with it. Anyway, it allows for stretching and claw sharpening.

And here we have Merry getting ready to spring at the toy. Merry is also called Sweet Face and "Will you move your ass so I can feed you?" and "Bite my foot one more time and I'm throwing you out on the mountain and changing your name to Bear Bait!" That last is the name I am calling him even as I write this.

Merry is the larger of the two -- he was an ounce larger when I got them and now weighs two pounds more than Pippin. He is taller and has bigger bones. Pippin is the smarter of the two (as measured by being able to figure out how to get into more places I thought were secure [which is why all my cupboards have child proof catches on them and I store a box of Raisin Bran in the oven] and make more messes) and, because of being just that much smaller, can jump higher. Merry was the first to get up onto the tops of my kitchen cupboards, where he got stuck and had to be helped down. Pippin wasn't big enough for about six weeks after that, and although he had to be helped down the first time, he goes up and down at will now. Merry hasn't been back up.

Both, as with all of the tomcats I've ever known, are very affectionate. They love to cuddle with me and with each other. When they were very little, they would both curl up on my breast and the purring was very loud and comforting. They make a good team, tackling things together. My favorite time they did that, they were about eight weeks old and I was tying the bow in my draw string jeans while they climbed my pants' legs, batting at the strings. It is moments like that when I wish there was someone around with a camera, because it was very funny.

I got them about a month after Missy died. The apartment had become too lonely without her, and their antics, particularly when they were in the jumping-flea stage, made me laugh so much they reduced my blood pressure. I named them for Tolkein characters, and other than the fact that people hear Mary instead of Merry and think he is a girl, they are perfect names for them. Pippin is, as was his namesake, always into things and curious about things best left alone and Merry has a sunny disposition and gets into less trouble.