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.

Don't Panic - Find Your Towel.

I didn't mean to set off a cat-related panic yesterday. The trip to the vet went well, and it turns out that the Big Acoustic Kitty's hips seem to be fine, but there is a slight "thickening" in his knees - most likely arthritis of some variety. So he's on a one -week course of anti-inflammatories, and if they do a good job for him, we will probably put him on a permanent low-dosage regimen of them. It. Whatever.

After yesterday's post, I turned my attention to packing. This led me to open up the closet in the guest room and start shuffling things about. The next thing I knew, Mr. BAK was smack dab in the middle of the boxes and bags, clambering about like there was nothing at all wrong with his joints or his vision. He's our little tank.