Repurposing Furniture, Cat Style

"Battle Stations!  Robins at 2 o'clock!"

 
Funny, I thought this was going to be a nice new (old) cabinet for me to house my Pfaff 130.  Silly me, I obviously didn't consider what its fully-open configuration was going to mean for the lords and masters of the house.  There will be no more sharing that one, puny kitty shelf for them, thankyouverymuchindeed.

Le Sigh.

You'll notice that Little Grey Kitty and Big Yellow Hallway Monster are together in this photo, taken mere minutes ago.  They have been re-introduced and are getting along just swimmingly.  So far their playdates are all upstairs, since LGK and Electric Mayhem still hate each other.  We may try reintroducing them later this year, after my busy season at work is over with and one of the humans is home with them more.  Or, we may not.  EM is getting older and less tolerant of such nonsense as other kitties in her territory.

In other news, unrelated to cats or sewing - Happy Anniversary to My Amazing Husbandini!!!  You have always been and will always remain my little booboocitos!

10 Feet Tall and Bulletproof ... He Ain't

Have you talked to your kitties about the dangers of 'nip?

Little Grey Kitty decided that since his humans were too busy to attend to his recreational herbage needs this morning, he was going to help himself to the catnip bag. Which would have been fine, except that someone (me) had left the bag on top of a rather unstable CD rack. Down came the bag, along with the rack and about 100 or so CDs. That particular noise got me back up the stairs in a hurry!

Since I was the one who had put the rack there in the first place, and had then made matters worse by leaving the catnip on top of it, it was pretty hard to blame LGK. Especially when he was having a lovely time rolling in the spilled nip and leaping about over his fallen prey. So I decided to leave things as they were while I finished up what I was doing, and headed back downstairs.

You know how people can be classified as a certain kind of drunk? Happy, mean, affectionate, etc.? Well, the same thing applies to nipped-up kitties. And Mr. LGK is a fearless drunk. He can go anywhere and do anything. He can waltz right in to the bedroom where Big Acoustic Kitty lives like he owns the place, he can give all the neighborhood critters a verbal what for, and he can chase Electric Mayhem off from his territory. (Now, this happens with EM at the bottom of the stairs on one side of the screen door and LGK at the top of the stairs on the other, but hey, he knows he's showing her who's boss.)

Cut to about 20-30 minutes later. I'm downstairs in the kitchen and The Amazing Husbandini come in to rustle up some cold medicine. (We're trading a nasty spring cold back and forth between us.) He goes back upstairs, opens the screen door and suddenly I hear, "Escape! Escape! We have an escape!" Mr. LGK had decided that he was not going to be cooped up anymore and was going to invade the downstairs. Mr. Full-of-Himself did real well ... until he hit the other side of the screen door and realized he was actually out.

See ... out means that Big Yellow Hallway Monster (all 20+ pounds of him) comes running over to say hi. And it means that Electric Mayhem realizes that LGK is now in her territory, and gets hissy and growly as only she can. And her hissy fits do not involve backing down from a face-to-face confrontation. And it also means that to escape these things, LGK would have to turn his back on the other cats and try to run back upstairs to safety. And the door is now open! They might follow him into his sanctum sanctorum! Uh-oh. Suddenly the 'nip haze cleared, and panic set in.

As an aside, should I be concerned that my very first instinct was to whip off my shirt? After our last escape, I wanted to make sure that I had some way to cover and wrap a cat should things get hostile, and my sweatshirt seemed to be good for that. So, I'm running through the house in jeans and a bra, trying to chase down the low-slung, puffy grey blur who is careening through the downstairs in a panic and keeping an eye out that EM and BYHM don't get into it as a side benefit.

To sum up, LGK made it back up the stairs to safety while EM and BYHM were bribed with many kitty treats to forget the whole incident ever happened. After much cuddling and tummy-rubbing, LGK calmed down enough to crash in a sunbeam, where he is currently sleeping off his 'nip binge.

Please, talk to your cats about catnip. A 'nip high is not worth having to take an ass-kicking from your sister.

Poor Little Monster

Big Yellow Hallway Monster went off to the vet this morning with all 20 teeth. He came home with only 13.

Other than some residual loopy-ness from the anesthesia and the pain meds, he's doing pretty well - but he has taken up residence in a dark corner of the basement, under the watchful eye of (surprisingly) Miss Electric Mayhem. More details to come.

Yet Another Vet Visit.

The Big Yellow Hallway Monster and I just got home from the vet. Crystals in our urine ... we haz them. (Well, HE has them. As far as we know, I'm fine.) So now BYHM has a new stash of canned food that's just for him, and he's going to get to eat fishy pudding twice a day instead of just once. Gotta thin out all that nastiness in our little urinary tract, dontcha know. We also have a new tube of calming ear goo ... everybody's getting a schmear. (Well, not the Big Acoustic Kitty, because it's not good for diabetics. But everybody else can have some.)

And BYHM has broken a new weight record for our fur-babies ... 18 lbs! That's a full pound heavier than Ziggy was at his peak! (Ziggy still holds the record as the tallest and longest cat we've ever had, though.) So the canned food is a bit of a balancing act ... we need the extra moisture, but we need to make sure we're not overdoing the calories.

In other cat news, Electric Mayhem and Big Acoustic Kitty are doing fine. (knock wood) As a matter of fact BAK's diabetes seems to be in remission right now, so he's trucking along without his insulin shots. The Little Grey Kitteh continues to enjoy his outings from the guest room, as well as his one-on-one time with me in the evenings. With BYHM at the vet, LGK got to spend an extended time out of the guest room this morning ... a little too extended, it turns out. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have, and he and BAK had a little bit of a run-in with some minor aggression and tail-puffing. (I think LGK came around the end of the bed and discovered BAK helping himself to LGK's kibble.) Since every other time they've been around each other, things have been pretty good, I'm chalking it up to too much stimulation and not enough supervision. Bad Kitty Mama!

So, that's that. We did get our act together over the weekend and weed out some unnecessary items and put them up on Craigslist in an attempt to undo some of the damage caused by the recent (and still-to-come) vet bills. No nibbles yet, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

In other news, fall semester started today and I have to go back to work tomorrow. But let's face it ... nobody comes here to read about that stuff. :-)

News. Pull Up A Chair.

Where did the summer go? School starts up again Monday, and I'm not terribly pleased about it. I seem to recall something about getting a little bit of a vacation this summer ... ha! Here it is the middle of August, and I haven't even managed to get to a single baseball game yet. (And since it's painfully obvious that the Rockies aren't heading anywhere near the playoffs this year, time's a'wasting!)

All my grand and glorious plans for my garden fizzled out, too. Funny how working 40 - 50 hours a week at a nursery can make one not terribly interested in spending free time outside working on planting things. I did manage to get a little salsa garden planted, but it looks like the onions are going to be the only real survivors. The tomatoes and peppers both got wiped out by hail, and while the plants themselves are hanging on, they aren't really producing anything. The strawberries I planted were turned into a litterbox for some neighborhood cats. I did get a few other things planted ... one peach tree, three lavenders and three catmints. The peach tree and the lavender were "rescues" from work and the catmint was rescued from a Master Gardener project. Pretty much everything that I actually spent money on is still sitting in its nursery pot on the patio. Pathetic.

And then of course there are the cats. Are you seated comfortably for this next bit? You might want to go get a beverage.

Life on the feline front has been increasingly chaotic around here. For a while, problems seemed to be coming at us from out of nowhere, but reflection has shown that things have been building for quite some time. I'll spare you the long, drawn-out story, but basically it boils down to an increasing unhappiness about the amount of time the humans are spending at home, plus some territorial aggression issues, along with some "social maturity" issues, and one big urinary tract infection to top it all off. Since I started back to work in late March, the relationship between the Little Grey Kitteh and the Big Yellow Hallway Monster has started to show some strain. Throw open the windows and doors in the spring and summer weather and provide the chance for BYHM to come face-to-face (through window glass and screens) with various neighborhood cats and suddenly we're dealing with a cat who not only has some weird sort of abandonment issue, but is now also feeling insecure about all these "new" cats. Redirected aggression and "marking" (yep ... kitty pee on the walls) ensue. Stress levels continue upward. The Electric Mayhem moves from being viewed as something of a plaything to something of a target. She gets cut off from litterbox access and now we have sneak-pees behind the furniture. New litterbox on the main level helps a little, but not enough. Humans make big mistake and move new litterbox into the basement. LGK does not approve of the change - more pee stains on the carpet. Humans blow outrageous sum of money on Nature's Miracle and Feliway. Massive, hardcore three-cat fight triggered by visit from random tabby outside the kitchen door. LGK attacks everybody and will not stop. LGK is relocated to the guest room with his own food, water and litter for a while to calm down. (LGK likes this arrangement so much that he's still not really inclined to come back out.) Situation is discussed, books are consulted, decision is made to re-introduce LGK as if he were a new cat. Vet visit reveals that LGK has a urinary tract infection - LGK is sent home with a week's work of antibiotics, "calming treats" and a syringe full of transdermal goo that is supposed to calm him down. (Humans think that for what they paid the vet, the goo should go in their ears!) Reintroduction process begins, starting with Big Acoustic Kitty ... and nobody seems unduly stressed about anything. Hmm. Observation of the two remaining downstairs kittehs reveals that while the carpet-piddling has ceased, spraying and redirected aggression remain ... turns out that BYHM seems to be the root cause of the problem and that LGK had apparently just reached his limit the day he blew up at everybody. Humans consider what will be involved in getting BYHM to the vet and then separating and reintroducing him to everyone, have a matching set of nervous breakdowns, sell the cats to a wandering band of gypsies, run away from home and join the first cat-free ashram they find.

Not really on that last part, but we're not ruling it out quite yet. Seriously, I have no idea what we're going to do with him. He's a huge love, but the idea of quarantining him for however long and then going through the whole reintroduction process with him and all three of the other cats and retraining him to try and defuse his whole redirected aggression issue is just about more than I can get my head around. And how exactly are we supposed to "eliminate the causes of the aggression"? We've already made the sunroom off-limits after a rather impressive fight a few months ago. We now have freezer paper taped to the sliding glass door in the kitchen so he can't see out. We live in a colonial-style house where all the 1st-floor windows are less than a foot off the floor ... are we supposed to soap them all up for the next 10+ years of his life? The book that is our go-to for cat issues is less than helpful on this. "Discourage" cats from coming around by removing bird feeders and possibly keep a water pistol handy to scare them off. Right.

So. One step at a time, I guess. All I can say is that the vet better send us home with a whole vat of that transdermal goo this time.

If you're wondering about the mama cat and her kittens in the backyard, well, nothing much has happened. The house across the backyard from us is finally occupied again after sitting empty for most of the past year. The new folks have a dog, and I think that has caused the kitties to relocate their home base. We don't see them as often, and we haven't seen all four of them together since right after the last time I posted about them. The kibble I was putting out kept disappearing, but they always seemed to come by in the middle of the night. So ... we haven't completely ruled out doing a TNR on the little family, but I don't know if it will actually be possible now. I feel guilty for not doing more, but I keep telling myself that the energy we have for dealing with cat problems needs to be focused on the four we have indoors with us. Hopefully St. Francis or some other cat-friendly being will take care of mama and her brood.

So that's our life ... how have you been?

Gratuitous Kitty Photos

In order to function properly lately, I've needed to make sure that I get my daily dose of fuzz-therapy. Luckily, I have four very ready sources of same. And because I know that life often hands us all a bit more than we're really comfortable with, here are some photos of "The Horde" to help things along.

First, we have The Big Acoustic Kitty, relaxing in the afternoon sunbeam that comes through the guest bathroom window. Apparently, this is the best late-day sunbeam in the house. He's not terribly pleased about having his photo taken.



Next - to go in order of seniority - is The Electric Mayhem. Her Majesty fussed and fussed and fussed to be let out into the sunroom, regardless of what I told her about it being rather cold and wet that day. But note the fires of evil flickering in her eyes ... I guess when you have your own infernal heat source, a little rain doesn't mean much.



Okay, now, this is just kind of a ridiculous photo. The Big Yellow Hallway Monster loves to flop over onto his back and show the world his tummy. But on this particular day, a roguish sunbeam found its way onto his nether regions, and he was a little confused by the warmth for a bit. Then he napped. But I think the late John Denver wouldn't have objected to our serenading BYHM with "Sunshine on Mah Harbuhls Makes Meh Happee". *



The Leetle Grreeeeyyy Kitty. (You really have to work up a good Peter Lorre accent for it to sound right.) Oh, my ... this boy is one of a kind. In a good way. Aside from the delight he takes in tormenting his older sister, he is the sweetest little love-bug ever. Alas, that grey fur of his doesn't photograph all that well. But this is a pretty good one of Mr. Roquefort in repose.



And, finally ... a little brotherly kitty love. It always starts with a little nose-rubbing...


And then it ends up as something else. Ka-Pow!


*Apologies for the lapse into LOLspeak. It can happen to the best of us.

Quck Updates

Big Acoustic Kitty: Smells better, peeing outside the box much less, but a bit gimpy since they took him off of his arthritis medicine for a while.

Electric Mayhem: Terribly put-upon by those evil newcomer cats.

Thing One: Oy, veh is mir. He's the cat who won't shut up. Ever.

Thing Two: Turning into a real cuddle-bug. Occasionally needs some "alone time", away from Thing One.

School: Busy. Applied for 9 scholarships, but I'm not anticipating that I'll get a single one of them. (Why should my luck change now?) I wish I had a long-lost rich uncle who could kick off and leave me a bunch of tuition money. Heck, he wouldn't even have to be my uncle.

The Garden: The peas and some other assorted cool-weather crops start going in the garden next week! I promised myself that I would take it slow this season and not go nuts with planting things ... yeah, that's not going to happen. I have FIVE varieties of tomato seeds waiting to get started. Five!!!

More later ... I have two midterms, a quiz and a portfolio due this week, as well as a big ol' Master Gardener meeting that I have to go to. I'll post some gratuitous kitty photos after all that's taken care of.

Additional Sogginess

Well, it's now about 5 1/2 hours since my last post, and we've had another "incident". Unfortunately, this time there's no doubt that the culprit is the Big Acoustic Kitty. I got up and discovered that the bathroom mat was all rumpled, and when I went to put it back, it was all wet on one end.

I realize that it's about 4:30 in the morning and I'm tired and I'm stressed and I don't feel very good on top of it all, and these all combine to make this the worst time to consider this situation. However, I am up and I am considering it and I'm not happy. BAK just celebrated his Adoption Day on Friday (11 years since we brought his grumpy self home, yea!) which means he's somewhere in the range of 14 - 16 years old. As I wrote about a few months ago, before all the horrible stuff with Ziggy came along, it's been obvious for a while now that he's moving toward the end of his life. Some days he does really well and I can think that he still has a good piece of time left. Other days, well ... today is not going to be one of those days, apparently.

Obviously the next move is to keep a close eye on him and to call the vet on Monday to bring him in. He's on Metacam for his arthritis** and I know that stuff has a problematic track record when it comes to kidney function, so I'm sure that will be the first thing to investigate. Also, we have a somewhat high-sided litter box that might be giving our little old man some access problems. As I said in the last post, the other kitties - including the Electric Mayhem - have been upstairs more than usual lately, and he might just be upset about that. Too many kitties making free with his box, and all that. A similar situation brought on a bladder infection in the poor guy several years ago, so it might be something as simple as that. There are many avenues to go down before a full-on panic is called for. However, at 4:30 in the morning, full-on panic likes to crowd its way to the front of the line.

If you've ever been here before, you know that the Amazing Husbandini and I are not the type to call "deal-breaker" over this. BAK is our little old man kitty, and he deserves (and will get) a full investigation into this new problem of his, and all necessary steps will be taken to fix things. However, at 4:30 in the morning, thoughts about what on earth we're going to do if it turns out to be unfixable do arise.

Hugs and good thoughts are requested, and I'll keep everyone posted.

**I don't expect this post to suddenly bring throngs of people to the site, but let me try and fend off any potential problems by saying this: Yes, I am aware of the horror stories about cats and Metacam. I have read all the information and I have talked to our vet and precautions have been taken since Day 1. So, unless you have something constructive to share on the subject, please don't send me any messages about how I've signed my cat's death warrant by giving him this medicine. I really don't need that right now.

Introducing ... Well, You Know.

Since most of the people who read this blog are friends, family or folks who found their way here via The Amazing Husbandni's blog, this will not be news to anyone. However, I would be terribly remiss if I didn't immortalize recent events here on KittyChair.

Introducing "Da Boyz":

(No, not the best photo. Don't worry, just keep scrolling.)

These are the two newest members of our little clan, Thing One and Thing Two. (Yes, they'll most likely get better aliases at some point.) They've actually been here with us for just over three weeks, and have done a wonderful job of insinuating themselves into our hearts. They spent nights and a lot of their daytime hours in the "sanctuary room", for the first week or so, but we started gradually introducing them to The Electric Mayhem so that they could expand their territory into the downstairs. Last night we left them down there all night for the first time (the holidays are coming and we need the guest room back, so it had to happen) and as of this morning, everything seems be fine. (Well, relatively...)

There's still quite a bit of hissing and spitting coming from The Electric Mayhem, mostly directed at Thing Two - the DSH with a Russian Blue lurking in his family tree somewhere. T2 is about a year old, and still very kittenish in his behavior sometimes. Other times, he's a very quiet, curious boy who has to investigate everything very thoroughly while staying on the outskirts of the action. That combination is a little unnerving to EM, I think, and is the reason that their relationship still needs some work. She just can't figure him out, so she gets pissy.

Thing One - the handsome DLH buff tabby - is around three years old, and a big love bug. Unlike every other kitty in this house (including Ziggy, if I'm honest), T1 loves to get his tummy rubbed. He's got that "I must be in the middle of whatever it is you're doing" thing going on, but if you can get some fingertips into his tummy fur, he just rolls over and turns into a puddle of kitty-goo. And soft? Oh my goodness...I have never felt such soft kitty fur in my life. He's the more emotionally needy of the two, and I must admit that it gets a little frustrating when I'm trying to get anything done. But, he's the kind of cat you simply cannot stay annoyed with.

T2, in typical grey kitty/Russian Blue fashion, is a little difficult to photograph. T1 is a very photogenic boy, and his section of the data card in the camera is growing daily. However, here is a selection of some of the photos we've been able to get of our new additions:

After one of their downstairs outings, the gate got left open and EM managed to get upstairs. But T2 was on top of the situation.

T1 has not yet grasped the importance of semester projects. I suspect my final grades will reflect this.


The Big Acoustic Kitty is using meditation to cope with the situation. "Focus on the Klibans. Be the Klibans."

Sound the All-Clear!

For those of you who haven't heard, The Electric Mayhem went in to the vet yesterday for her second FIV/FeLV test, and she came up negative once again. So both kitties are in the clear on that front.

As an interesting side note, (well, it was interesting to me, anyway) each of the cats has a distinct preference in radio selections for their trips to the vet. The Big Acoustic Kitty prefers to listen to either the classical or the jazz station in the car. Lately he's been leaning more towards jazz. The Electric Mayhem really prefers to listen to the complaints of another cat in the car with her. (She feeds on their distress - it calms her right down.) However, yesterday it was just the two of us in the car, and after trying classical (an opera selection - I didn't think she needed the encouragement) and jazz and a few of the commercial stations with no success, she settled down as soon as I put the baseball game on. I don't know if it sounded familiar to her from all of her multiple-inning cuddle sessions with the Amazing Husbandini, or if she's just really been following the playoffs this year or what, but that's what did it for her yesterday. Guess we'll have to get her a Colorado Rockies collar now.

Anyway, now that she's gotten her clean bill of health, she's begun agitating for minions. Is this not the face of a cat who needs some?

(Not the greatest quality photo in the world, but it does capture her personality.)

Two Months

We lost Ziggy two months ago today. Some days I can putter along just fine, and some days I just cry all over the kitties. I won't go into a lot of detail, but it's become pretty obvious that all the emotions that had to be set aside for a while in order to get through the move and everything else that has gone on recently are now coming to the surface and need to be dealt with. It's not pretty, but in an odd way it does feel better to finally get them out.

The Electric Mayhem goes in this week for her second FIV/FeLV test. We're pretty confident that she will come up clean again, though we're still keeping our fingers crossed. At that point, we will have to decide whether to adopt again. Even in those last few days we had with Ziggy, we started to talk about adopting another cat, or even a pair of them. After he was gone, and there was such a huge void in our household, we knew that we would adopt again if the follow-up FIV tests would let us. The talk about adopting has been pretty regular over the past two months. So it's not a matter of "if" but of "when". But as the time has drawn closer, I've been feeling more and more uncertain about the whole idea of looking for another cat. This uncertainty is tied directly into where I am in the whole grief process. I won't spell out and dissect just where I am on the Kubler-Ross model (how do you do an umlaut in HTML?), but suffice it to say that I finally realized that my hesitancy to adopt is strictly emotional.

There are plenty of good reasons for us TO adopt: Ziggy was a wonderful, friendly boy who just wanted to be happy and for everyone else to be happy. He would be completely in favor of us adopting again. There are a lot of kitties out there who need homes, and we have plenty of room to take one or two of them in. The Electric Mayhem needs a companion to keep her busy. (Or maybe a minion.) The Amazing Husbandini and I are "cat people" - loving kitties is what we DO.

I've looked online at some of the cats available in our area, and I find that I'm most drawn to big grey/tabby boys - and I don't know if that's a sign that it's not time yet, or if it's just a good sign that I'm drawn to any of them at all. (In my defense, I've always had a huge soft spot for tabbies.) The last thing I want to do is to go into the process looking for Ziggy. I would give a lot to somehow have him come back to us, but I don't want to replace him. That would be unfair to us, and it would certainly be unfair to any potential adoptee kitty.

The Amazing Husbandini (super wonderful intelligent man that he is) has suggested just going to the shelter with no plans to adopt and just seeing how it feels. Not even go in and see if any of the cats "speak" to us, but just go and see how it feels to be in the shelter. That's probably an excellent first step. In my head, I have this image of the shelter where we adopted Ziggy - but the shelter is empty, and all I can see is the absence of Ziggy. Intellectually I know that's not how it will be - the shelter will be full of cats (it's a cage-free facility, though they do have several "cat rooms" along each side of the main space) and people and noise, and there will be a lot to focus on beside the fact that the last time we were there, we were adopting Ziggy.

Well, anyway. As you can tell from the quality of the writing today, I'm going through the messy part of all these emotions. Aside from the vet appointment later this week, I also have a trip coming up later this month to visit the parentals. So there's nothing that needs to be done until the end of the month. We're very tentatively looking at Halloween weekend for our first visit to the shelter. That's three-plus weeks away, which will be even more time to work through all these emotions. We'll see what happens.

(And I'm not discounting the possibility that I might come back from my trip with some new additions. My parents haven't adopted since we lost The 'Tude a few years back, though my mother would really like to. If the local shelters play their cards right, I might find myself hauling some Nebraska kitties back to Colorado with me. It is so very within the realm of possibility.)

Big Acoustic Kitty, Reporting Again

I don't know where to begin. There's no way to break this to anyone gently, so I'm just going to come right out with it. Are you sitting down? Not only did I have to go to the vet yesterday, but ... they shaved me. Down there.

I tried to tell them that I'd already been "fixed" (and what a stupid euphemism that is ... nothing was "broken" to begin with) but they wouldn't listen. They just stuck me in that stupid blue cocoon bag and did it. Not so much as a "by your leave" or anything. Don't they know winter's coming?

Anyway, back to the shaving incident. Oh, and before Mama can report on me, let me just say that yes, I did use the carrier as a litter box. I understand the importance of routine health care and monitoring, but I can't just let them shut me in a little box, put me in the car and drive me somewhere without some kind of formal protest.

In the car, Mama told me that not only was I due for a manicure, but that it was also time for some more bloodwork. Great. Didn't they tap enough out of me last time? It's not that I don't understand the reasons for the testing ... my arthritis medicine sometimes causes kidney problems in cats, and the vet wants to keep a close eye on how I'm doing, and Mama and Papa are worried that I might have contracted the disease that Ziggy had. I get it. But I am a very smart, super-aware kitty. You'd think they might save themselves all of this trouble by just asking me how I'm doing, but oh, no.

As a protest for this last-minute update on what was going on, I refused to get out of my carrier at the vet. Normally I like to get out and stretch my legs, but not this time. I just sat on my wet, stinky towel and sulked.

Now, you might have noticed that nowhere in that conversation with Mama in the car was there any mention of my butt. Not once did she ever indicate that there were any plans to separate me from the fur over my gentleman's bits. Or rather, where my gentleman's bits were previously located.

They took me into the back room at the vet and transferred me into that blue bag they use to do my manicure. They took my blood (which I didn't appreciate) and then did my nails. I snarled and hissed at them, but they dismissed my complaints. Fine, I thought, let's just get this over with so I can go home. But then, THEN ... they opened up the back of the bag. Before I knew it, my tail was being held up in the air, and I heard the buzz of the clippers. I yelled, I kicked ... but it was too late. The next thing I knew, my butt had been buzzed. The insides of my thighs looked like peach fuzz, and my, well, you know ... residual bits ... were almost bald.

They did replace my wet towel with a dry papery pad thing, so at least it was dry on the way home. But I was so embarrassed. They told Mama that they shaved me because I wasn't getting my rear end very clean. I don't buy that excuse for a second. I know that my arthritis is hampering some of my activities, but if anyone had bothered to ask, I might have told them that Mama will sneak up on me with a warm washcloth every so often and scrub me down - down there - when I've had a little problem with the litter box. But again ... nobody consults with me.

When we got home, Mama let me out of the carrier in the kitchen, and stayed close by so I could explore if I wanted to. I hopped up onto the couch and we sat together for a while until I regained my composure. Evil didn't get to see anything, but she kept patrolling back and forth in front of the couch ... she could sense that something was going on. But I waited until she went into the basement to use her little box before I got down and went upstairs. I'm not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing what they did to me.

Although ... I did hear Mama tell Papa that Evil's appointment for her second FIV test is next week. Maybe they'll decide that her butt's a little too fuzzy, too ...

So there's my story. I hope it wasn't too shocking for the more impressionable members of my audience. If anyone needs me, I'll be sitting somewhere with my tail artfully arranged around my backside.

Respectfully Submitted,

The Big Acoustic Kitty

p.s. In case you are wondering, the vet called today with my test results - kidney functions are perfect, and I am FeLV/FIV negative once again.

Big Acoustic Kitty, Reporting.

They've done it to me again. What exactly was wrong with the last place we were living, may I ask? I had a nice sunbeam in my window every morning, a high-up spot with a second water dish, and lots of places to hide that smelled like me.

And I did NOT appreciate that week I had to spend at the vet. (Mama tells me it was less than a day, but what does she know?) Those people didn't even let me have a room of my own - they put me in a room with The Evil One. But, I hissed at her and let her know I wasn't going to take any of her nonsense, and she mostly stayed over in her own carrier. And speaking of carriers, I got even with Mama - usually I have my little "accident" in the carrier on the way to the vet. This time, I saved it until I was in the carrier on the way home. Maybe one of these days Mama and Papa will make the connection - no trip to the vet, no stinkiness.

Okay, that's enough of that. Regardless of the necessity of this move, we're here now, and I'm trying to make the best of the situation. For the first couple of days, I stayed in the bedroom because The Evil One was upstairs, whining and fawning over Papa, as she does. She even tried to come in and colonize the bedroom, but Mama was pretty good about shooing her back out. Give that one an inch, and she'll take a mile. I did come out a couple of times, just to show her that she wasn't intimidating me any (and to steal some of her kibble.) Eventually her food and her nasty litter box went downstairs, and she got shut on her side of the gate, leaving me to properly explore this new place.

There are a whole bunch more rooms up here than in the old house, and just about every one of them is full of boxes. The boxes all smell like the old house, and they are conveniently arranged so that I can climb up and down and get all kinds of different perspectives on the situation. In one of the rooms, I was able to walk along three of the four walls without ever once touching the floor. I'm a mountaineering kind of cat, and that was just pretty cool, let me tell you. (I even climbed high enough in one spot that I was taller than Mama.) Every single room has more than one window, and most of them get morning sunbeams. So far, so good. I'm not very happy with the bathroom, though. There's only one sink, and apparently I'm not going to get my own water glass up on the counter. I look at the counter, then look at Mama, then look back at the counter ... but nothing happens. In the old house, that was the signal for the Mamavator to deliver me to the counter so I could get a drink. I'm going to have to work on that situation.

Yesterday, Mama went downstairs and left the gate open. The Evil One wasn't around, so I just walked myself down the stairs to check out the first floor. Mama came around a few minutes later and found me in the family room. She made quite a fuss over me and told me what a good boy I was to come downstairs like that. (She's kind of a mess sometimes, but I humor her.) I went around and around and around downstairs and checked it all out. My eyes don't work too well anymore, but my ears and nose certainly do. It's a huge house, and there were all kinds of things to investigate. I found the sliding glass door in the kitchen, and I now understand why Evil has been spending so much time down there. Evil wasn't happy that I was in "her" territory, but I ignored her and just kept right on checking things out. (Mama was also playing escort, so that helped.) Just when I thought I'd explored the whole house, Mama opened another door, and there was ANOTHER flight of stairs into a basement! I got about halfway down those stairs, but then decided to leave that for another day. Evil was getting hissy, and I had to hiss back at her to get her to back off. Even then, Mama had to shoo her away so I could get by. But mostly, the basement smelled like wet dog and some other cat. I'm a Super Explorer Kitty, but I'm also well into my 'teens, and even I need to pace myself a bit sometimes.

So right now I'm enjoying the open windows in my upstairs. Evil is downstairs where she belongs, and Mama is going back and forth doing whatever it is she does. Usually in situations like this, I'm getting my picture taken every time I turn around. However, I think Mama and Papa misplaced the camera in the move. I'm sure they'll find it and get my photo up soon. I'm sure I look very handsome on top of all those boxes.

Respectfully Submitted,

The Big Acoustic Kitty

Moving

I'm finding myself worrying about leaving Ziggy behind. I can see and feel him so clearly in every part of this house, and I worry about losing that when we're in the new one. Because of this, a few items originally destined for the charity pile have been reclaimed, due to their importance to our Ziggy. Regardless of the tattered and torn upholstery, the pink 1930s armchair and ottoman will be going with us to the new house - one of my projects for this winter will be to reupholster "Ziggy's Chair" with something that would have looked good against his grey coat.

I'm a firm believer that there is something after this life - though I will not claim any insight into what exactly that "something" is - and I believe that our boy will come with us if he possibly can. It's not him I'm worried about, it's me. The past little bit has been so busy, I haven't dealt with losing Ziggy as I expected to. Not that I haven't mourned and missed him, because I certainly have, but the whole situation has been so different from previous kitty losses that I feel almost like there's something wrong with how I've reacted. I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Ziggy is the fourth kitty I've lost in my life, but his death was very different in many ways. The first two kitties I lost made such an impact on me that I think I've expected every time to feel the same. But those two came at times when my life was in complete upheaval, and when I had absolutely no power over the situation. The third one I lost was less agonizing because he had ceased to be "my" cat by that time. I'd had to leave him behind when I moved away to college, and in a way I'd already done my mourning for him. When he died, he'd spent the last 10 of his 15 years as Mom and Dad's cat, not mine. (Which is not to say that when I got my mom's e-mail about it I didn't leave work and go cry my eyes out in my car for an hour. Because I did.)

More about that later. In other, somewhat happier news, someone else is as ready for the move as he'll ever be:


This will make the fourth house move we've done with The Big Acoustic Kitty, and he's getting be an old hand (paw?) at it. He's not happy about it, but he's taking it in stride.

And for those of you wondering how he's getting along, he's on an every-other-day regimen of a liquid arthritis medicine that seems to be helping him quite a bit. He's been investigating all of the boxes and wandering around quite a bit more lately. I think we will have to up him to an every day dose at some point, but for now this seems to be working well.

The Electric Mayhem has resisted being photographed in something so pedestrian as a plain brown moving box. I'll get some photos of her up after she's settled into her new domain.

Tabby Tummy!

For the first time in a long, long time, there is a safe-to-pet kitty tummy in the house. Bonus, it's a tabby striped tummy! (squee!) We have discovered that Mr. TBD - we're almost settled on an alias - not only likes to have his tummy rubbed, but also has no problem with getting his paws fondled. On Day Two, we actually managed to trim his claws! The only difficulty we ran into was that he tends to want to rub his muzzle on your hands while you're doing the clipping...could have been hazardous if there hadn't been two of us.

He's off for his first visit to the family vet tomorrow morning...he needs his rabies shot, and he's got a nasty cold that he can't seem to shake. He has green and yellow gooey things coming out of his nose and eyes that just aren't good. And since the face-to-face introductions can't proceed while he's got this contagious nastiness, he's off to get some antibiotics or something.

So far Big Acoustic Kitty has continued to be wary, but there's really only been one hissing incident under the door. BAK does tend to scuttle towards safety whenever he feels like he might be out of his depth, but the curiosity continues to bring him back to check out the weird new cat smells/sounds.

(Aside: BAK is objecting to my use of the word "scuttle". Too bad. A more accurate description doesn't exist.)

The Electric Mayhem knows that something is afoot (apaw?) but so far hasn't started throwing herself at the kitty gate and demanding access to the upstairs. Considering her personality, we're considering this a good sign.

So there's tonight's update. More news when it happens.