Woman in the Middle

Being a mother means taking the good with the not so good. That was brought home on my most memorable Mother’s Day.  We got together that day with our friends Bill and Sue. The guys and our combined three daughters were going to spend the afternoon playing Dungeons and Dragons while Sue and I got to go shopping. Fun! On the way home Sue and I picked up a bucket of chicken for dinner. It was, as I remember, a very nice day. The kids and the guys had a great time and Sue and I got some girl time. The moms didn’t have to cook, either!

Everything was fine until the middle of the night, when Youngest Daughter started throwing up.  Nothing brings home the reality of motherhood than a sick child. I just had to laugh, as Hubby and I dealt with the situation.  What and end to Mother’s Day!

This year Youngest made me a nice breakfast. She appears to be just fine, LOL! But, in a tradition of slightly weird Mother’s Day happenings, right after breakfast, Blackie spit out a tooth. Not unexpected at his advanced age, but not what the girls had planned for after breakfast entertainment!

And so another memorable Mother’s Day begins!

I truly believe every woman is a mother, as every woman I know nurtures others and so I wish every woman a Happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for all you do to help others, and especially the next generation, along the path of life.

Hey, Mom, do you want to see where I lost my tooth?

I thought the mockingbird situation was over, but a new couple seem to have moved in to the yard and are driving me nuts!

Mockingbirds are really amazing birds. The way they aggressively protect their nests is remarkable. To see a hawk flying into a tree to desperately get away from a little mockingbird dive bombing it from behind is a site to behold.   But, as much as a mockingbird is named for its ability to mimic other sounds, they are not the most pleasant sounding birds. Their normal call is more of a sharp rasp than a “tweet.”

Believe me, I know this because, as I type this, Nox is sitting on the window seat a few feet from me, looking out the window and the mockingbird couple who took up recent residence are not happy abut this. They are flirting and flying just feet from the window, not understanding that Nox is behind glass and not any threat to them. Nox is having a great time watching this extra special version of Kitty TV.

Later: It is now an hour later. Lumos finally discovered the great program on Kitty TV and jumped up to watch. It is cute as can be, except for the constant “rasp rasp” of the mockingbird trying to lure out the cats to be driven away.

Here they are, mesmerized by the show. One of the mockingbirds is barely visible, above Lumos, to the left of the middle window frame, standing right on top of the bush. 

I felt sorry for the birds at that point, so I closed the shutters so they can’t see the cats anymore. Lumos jumped down, having had his fill of the highly entertaining mockingbird show, but Nox was not willing to turn off the TV. He kept dating back and forth from shutter to shutter to see the show, and now has manged to pull back one shutter to see the birds again. Mean while, the “rasp rasp” continues….

When I look at Cloud, the stay cat I feed, I see a mess of a cat, a pet, a domesticated animal. I have to remind myself that in reality he is as wild as the squirrel you manage to feed from your hand, or the raccoons that come into my yard. Cats are just not far from a wild state at any given time, and Cloud has definitely reverted to being a wild thing. But, I can’t help but see something that shouldn’t be wild when I look at him. So, when we saw that he had been in quite the fight and seemed to be a little under the weather, I decided to give him some antibiotics, I happened to have some that had been prescribed to Blackie that we hadn’t actually used.

Now, of course, the second I decided to do this, Cloud began looking like he felt better. However, given his general state of nastiness, I decided a course of antibiotics might not be a bad idea and might prevent abscesses from forming after his fight. Now, Cloud is a street cat and as a street cat I am sure he has tasted some pretty putrid things like dead animals and gutter water. But, apparently, nothing like that compares to the taste of cat food mixed with antibiotics. Two licks and he just sat there for a while, licking his lips and trying to figure out what that weird and horrible taste was. Sigh.

So I bought some tuna and mixed the antibiotic laced cat food with the tuna. Now that was apparently too good to pass up! I am now on day 2 of Operation Get Some Antibiotics into a Cat That Isn’t Even Mine.  I know, you are shaking your head and saying to yourself, “He is yours now, Kim.”  But, you need to understand, he isn’t any body’s cat right now. Cloud belongs to his own bad self. Maybe, with time, he might become a little bit ours, But he will have to decide that himself. Meanwhile, I just try to make his life a little better. Hopefully I am.

Long haired white cats that are mostly deaf are just not meant to be wild animals.

There is something new in the house. Lumos is one of those cats who would rather drink from a dripping faucet than a water bowl any day. The preferred faucet is the one in the front bathroom. That meant any time one of my daughters went into that bathroom for any reason – straighten hair, put on makeup, brush teeth, use the toilet…- an orange tabby cat was right there with them, ready to lick the drips off the faucet.  He would rush in there so fast he was usually there before they could clear the door, in the way, and ready to be annoying. To try and combat this problem, we bought one of those cat drinking fountains with water that runs constantly. We set it up on a counter in the garage. This is Lumos getting his first look at the newfangled device.

The girls talked Hubby and I into going to the Lego Batman movie. Youngest Daughter explained that any time anything blew up, it was just an explosion of Lego bricks, nothing traumatic, so it was “my kind of movie”. I decided she was right,, and agreed to go. It was a cute movie and I enjoyed it. However, it is sad that of all the movies that have come out in the last year, the only one Hubby and I went to see was the Lego movie!

It is official. Cloud is a boy. Eldest and I were watching him stroll through the back yard the other day. We have a bar with tall chairs on the far side of the yard. Cloud was going along, rubbing each chair with his chin. Then, he stopped, wiggled his tail in a tell tale way, and kept on going. Sigh. No good deed goes unpunished!

Speaking of cats spraying,  a friend told me a story about her brother. He has an old tomcat in his neighborhood that likes to spray the tires of his car. He got tired of that and got a cat trap from the city where he lives. He put the trap out with cat food, but that didn’t catch much. He replaced it with tuna and caught his own cat three or four times before finally catching the tomcat. He took it to the vet to be fixed, and the cat was so wild it had to be given a sedative just to get it out of the cage. The cat got fixed and was returned to his regular stomping ground. I hope that helps with the spaying problem, but, even if it doesn’t, at least that old tom won’t be contributing to the kitten population anymore.

I hope you have a great weekend, free of any unfortunate spray!!!

Eighteen is a magical age. That is when you go from being a kid to being an adult, legally able to sign contracts, buy cigarettes, vote, and get tattoos.  Well, today Blackie turns 18!

While he has mentioned being bummed he missed out on being able to vote in the historic November election, he is otherwise keeping his adult bucket list to himself.  I am thinking he may be planning on getting a tattoo, but wants to surprise us.

Blackie seems content living at home, so I don’t think we have to worry about him renting his own place or anything like that. He also enjoys us driving him around and,  like so many kids his age, he isn’t in any rush to get his own driver’s license, so I don’t think we have to worry about him signing a loan for a car.

I have made it very clear to him that I will not tolerate any cigarette smoking around my house.  So, unless he just wants to rebel and SHOW ME, I don’t think that is in the works, either. He always has seemed to be pretty frugal with his money, so I don’t think he would be interested in an expensive habit like cigarettes anyway.

It just so happens that Blackie shares a birthday with Kurt Cobain. Blackie has always thought that was pretty cool. If you believe in reincarnation,  perhaps it would be fitting if Kurt came back as a black cat, especially one that had a pretty mellow life, to make up for Kurt’s oh so crazy life.  They both share a history of gastrointestinal issues, which is purely coincidental, I am sure.

To celebrate, Blackie had some roast beef and a little gravy on his dinner. We also bought ice cream and ate some, just so he could lick the bowls when we were done, because that is one of his favorite things in all the world to do. Happy Birthday, old man! So glad you are an adult now!

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I started volunteering at a local cat rescue recently. For someone who is becoming a cat lady (apparently any way…it creeps up on you) this is a way to get lots of cat time in without having to go get a cattery permit for my home. Most of the cats are sweeties, and the ones that want to be left alone just stay away. It all works out quite well.

Eldest Daughter has been my partner in crime  in this new volunteer effort. She takes photos while I write down info about the individual cats. I then write up little descriptions about each adoptable cat that can be put on their website. I bought a special notebook so I can write down all my cat information in one place. When I say “special” I just mean a separate notebook bought specifically for that purpose. It wasn’t expensive or fancy.

Eldest and I  went to the rescue yesterday. We try to go every Friday. I needed more info on a few of the cats we had visited previously. I somehow hadn’t managed to get everything I needed on the previous visit. We went back into room 5, where the cats live who we needed more info on. Every room there has a few cats that are not adoptable, due to being feral when they came in. They do fine, but just aren’t people cats. On our previous visit, we noted room 5 had a small orange tabby that wanted nothing to do with us. A person who works there told us it had some skin issues that were very hard to treat as the cat was very hard to catch. They were trying, but not having much luck treating little Punky (they give each cat a name).

Well, this time, as we walked around, finding he cats we needed more info on, little Punky came up and rubbed against us and let us pet her. I didn’t think anything about it until I looked down and realized it was the kitty who was not catch-able two weeks before. I asked it they would like us to put medicine on her, since she seemed to like us, and they were happy to let us do that. I put my notebook and pen on the shelf that runs around the room, about chest high. Eldest sat on the floor to treat Punky. I decided to go over to the elderly cat room and give them a little attention while she did that.

I was over petting old cats when all of a sudden I heard her say, very loudly, “Oh no!” I could tell by the tone of her voice that whatever Eldest was commenting on was not a tragedy. So I started back to ask her what was happening. “Oh No”was right. My notebook ended up in a big bowl of water!

I made the mistake of leaving it, my pen, and the sheets with the cats names and photos on it on the shelf. Laying nearby on the same shelf, looking all innocent, was Dagwood, a big orange tabby cat. He decided to engage in some scientific experiments concerning gravity, according to Eldest. First he nudged a list with the cat names and photos off the shelf, and carefully observed the results. Then he nudged my pen off the shelf, and again observed the results, Finally, it was my notebook. Eldest was on the floor, and by the time she realized that the next item to experience gravity was going to go in the water bowl, it was too late.   Down went  the notebook and once again Dagwood observed the results. Eldest fished it out right away and it is still usable, if a little wrinkled. I scolded Dagwood and then gave him a head scratch.

This is an absolutely horrible photo of Dagwood, but it is the only one I have. He is much better looking than this. Poor guy was born with some eyelid issues and has cat herpes, which make his eyes run. FYI, almost all cats have been exposed to cat herpes, and it has nothing to do with human herpes. He should be named Newton, for his interest in how gravity affects things!

I know people who have to keep the toilet paper away from their pets. Both dogs and cats can decide they love the stuff. We have never had that problem. Really, other than his health, Blackie has been pretty maintenance free. Honey certainly never cared about TP. Up to now, the kittens have never cared about it either. But now someone (and we think we know who) has discovered the joys of attacking a giant roll of toilet paper. I came home from a morning meeting today and discovered this in the front bathroom.

The roll had already been taken off the holder and set on the back of the toilet because someone was sitting on the closed seat and shredding the paper in the holder. As you can see, it seems to be also fun to knock the roll to the floor and shred it there.

BTW, the cup on the floor is there because someone of the feline persuasion knocked it to the floor. We aren’t that messy.

(We think it is Lumos doing the shredding, although we have never caught anyone actually doing the deed. He loves to be in that bathroom. Guess you spend enough time somewhere, you eventually have to find new activities to do there.)

We took a circa 1960 mid-century modern style chair we inherited from Mom in Law’s house out to be reupholstered at the beginning of August. Hubby and I picked it up a week before vacation. It went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

What you can’t see is that the foam on the chair was completely deteriorated. It had to be stripped down to the bare bones and have new foam added even before it could get its new fabric covering.  It was a little pricey and we could have gotten a new chair for less. But we couldn’t have gotten a chair like this for less.  It is a classic, well built, and mid-century cool!

Within two minutes of arriving back in the living room, Lumos had to check it out, as you can see from the photo. Within 10 minutes, the first sound of scratching was heard. Needless to say, the chair is now covered in strategically placed clear packing tape and I am getting a sore throat from yelling at lurking cats, desperate to get a little claw sharpening done on their new scratching post chair.

We have scratching posts (five of them!) all over the house. They do at least 80% of their scratching on them. But that other 20% can do damage. Sigh. Dratted cats! I still love them, but not enough to let them ruin my brand new reupholstery job!

I am happy to report that Blackie the cat is doing better. Why is a mystery, but, to some extent, we don’t question his renewed vigor, we just accept it for what it is.

First off, Blackie is eating much better. He has gained a little weight, just how much we don’t know, but enough that he finally has a little heft to him again when we pick him up.  We haven’t had to give him the infamous eating pills at all for a few weeks. Of course, it means I am constantly having to give him food, as he still doesn’t like dry food left out and wants the wet food flavors to be changed up on a regular basis, but, such is life.

Last night and this morning he really showed he was feeling good. First, in the middle of the night, he burst through the cat door from the garage, ran from one side of the house to the other at breakneck speed, and let loose with a nice loud yowl.  This morning, he was feeling a little more controlled and just bust through the cat door and ran the length of the hall. But still, two runs just a few hours apart. Now that is a cat who feels good!

Another mystery – why is Blackie sleeping on the new vacuum cleaner?