Category Archives: cats

Fur-Babies and the Other Kind

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Lots of people refer to their pets as “fur-babies.” Other people think it’s disrespectful to human babies and their parents. I’m here to weigh in on the debate about which kind of baby is better.

I’ve had cats for many years. I almost never refer to them as fur-babies.

I do treat them like babies, however. I babble baby talk at them. I cradle them in my arms like babies (if they let me). I give them cutesie nicknames (like ToTo BooBoo). I’ve never had to bottle-feed a kitten, but you’d better believe I would. And I’ve even zerberted a cat whose belly had been shaved. It made a “foof” noise. (Autocorrect wanted to change “zerberted” to “perverted.” It has a point. But I digress.)

When I married, all I could offer my in-laws were grand-kittens and grand-puppies. It wasn’t that we couldn’t have human babies. We just never did. (Fortunately, Dan’s brother took care of that duty, and his kids have supplied assorted great-grands, four of whom are even close enough to visit Mom Reily. She has cats, too. I don’t know if she calls them fur-babies. But I digress again.)

One thing that people who do call their cats (and maybe their dogs) fur-babies do is dress them up in precious little outfits. I can’t approve of it. I’m with cat guru Jackson Galaxy on that issue. Maybe at Halloween, just for the day, but forget about little Easter outfits. Cats are not known for appreciating bonnets. I think they’re almost guaranteed to shred them, and there goes your investment. Dogs may be more accommodating, but they just look goofy (or Goofy).

Many comparisons can be made between baby types. Both kinds have their own little personalities, play adorably, and are great to cuddle. Both human babies and fur-babies are endlessly distracting and good for some laughs.

It takes a couple of years to potty-train a human baby and get them to eat people-food. Kittens come practically litter-trained and are able to eat kitten-food as soon as they’re old enough to leave their mama. (They can also eat people-food, though it’s not advisable. But I’ve had cats that have eaten and enjoyed pumpkin, corn, bread (one would tear open a loaf of bread and eat a couple of slices, making croutons of the rest), doughnuts, and chocolate bars (yes, yes, I know, those are bad for pets, but Anjou suffered no ill effects.) But I digress some more.)

Fur-babies are superior to human babies because you don’t have to save for their college or worry about them boosting cars or getting into any drugs other than catnip. Throughout their lives, it’s possible to pick them up and hold them (unless we’re talking St. Bernards).

Human babies are superior to fur-babies because, after a certain amount of time, they can talk and tell you what’s causing them distress. (Until then, they equal fur-babies in yowling and howling.) They do cool things like graduate from high school and college and get married. (Both fur-babies and human babies are eventually capable of producing offspring, of course. I don’t know of any trap-neuter-release strategies for human babies. That would just be wrong. But I digress yet again.)

I must admit to preferring fur-babies. But human babies are superior to fur-babies in one major regard—you can expect them to live a good long time (barring unfortunate circumstances, of course). You’re lucky if your fur-babies live 20 years—most don’t make it that long.

If you have fur-babies, you must prepare yourself for losing a being that you love dearly. I won’t say that you love them as much as you’d love a human baby, but their loss does leave a hole in your heart that even another fur-baby can’t totally fill. You may swear that you’ll never get another one, but somehow you always do, even knowing that that fur-baby’s life is limited too. They’re addictive that way.

We put ourselves through it again and again for the love of fur-babies. Their lives may be limited, but love and sorrow balance out in some equation that’s emotional, not mathematical. Love never is.

The Joy of Napping

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Dibujo de una nia en la cama preparada para dormir, es de noche, se est tapando con una manta mientras sonrie

Robert Fulghum tells us that he learned everything he needed to know in kindergarten. I can’t go all the way with him on #1—Share everything—especially when it comes to Facebook, but I’m a solid believer in #12—Take a nap every afternoon. (Well, and #9—Flush.)

I love naps—the sensual pleasure of snuggling into my bed in a cozy little nest of pillows, sheets, and blankets; the quiet purr of the fan and the cat who perches on my hip; the knowledge that, for a time, I can let go of the cares of the day; the promise of renewed spirit and energy; the satisfaction of turning off my phone.

Two of the best ways that I know of improving my mood are having a meal and taking a nap. The one often follows closely on the other, a phenomenon I am told is called “postprandial torpor.” (I’ve often wished I could call in sick to work and claim that affliction. Or “rhinotillexomania.” They sound so serious. But if anyone at your workplace knows Latin, you’re busted. (Which they actually did at one place I worked.) But I digress.)

Naps, however, are part of the reason that I can no longer work regular hours in a regular office. I find that bosses get upset if you take the phrase “break room” too literally. In the past, I’ve contemplated keeping a sleeping bag under my desk, but that would never work. Let’s face it—I snore. Prodigiously. Someone would be sure to notice, and object. (When I was traveling with my mother, she used to beg me to let her get to sleep before I nodded off. But I digress again.)

Fortunately, I work at home, so breaks and naps are entirely my own choice, except in case of deadlines. The transition from desk chair to bed is easy. I’m usually already wearing my jammies, and the commute is just up the stairs. (I can’t nap on the couch. It’s too uncomfortable. I used to be able to nap face-down on an airline tray table. This was useful because the flight attendant, seeing me, would think I was dead and leave me alone for the rest of the flight for fear of alarming the other passengers. But I digress yet again.)

Unfortunately, I’m not able to take “cat naps”—a misnomer if I ever heard one. My cats sleep on average 18 hours a day, and invariably right where a human wants to walk or sit. One of my cats even snores—daintily, but audibly. And no, it’s not a purr. (We’ve been thinking of getting a tiny CPAP machine for her, but we think she’d object to the mask. And cats have unpleasant ways of making their objections known. If you have a cat, you know what I mean. But I digress some more.)

Short, 20-minute naps do me no good. They don’t refresh me at all. In fact, they leave me more muddle-headed than ever. But the real reason I can’t take short naps is that it often takes me 20 minutes or more, usually of reading, to fall asleep. Since that’s the case, it’s hardly worth sleeping less than an hour or two.

But some of the time, even two hours of napping doesn’t do the job. Hence I have invented the Mega-Nap, of at least four hours. Mega-Napping doesn’t usually interfere with my nighttime sleep, either. On one memorable occasion, I Mega-Napped for a good six hours, and woke at 9:30 p.m., just in time to go back to bed and sleep for another 10 hours, giving the cats a run for their snoozes. I also suffer from Nap Attacks, when I hit the wall—hard— and simply must nap, collapse into a heap, or bite someone’s head off. Napping is usually the wisest choice.

With apologies to Robert Fulghum, I do see one glaring difference between kindergarten naps and grown-up naps. Children resist them and resent them and get cranky when they have to take one. Adults seek them and savor them and get cranky if they can’t have one.

Chatty Catty

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Yes, I’m one of those crazy ladies who talks to my cats. The thing is, some of them talk back. They’re not often communications that I can understand, but I don’t care. It’s like having the TV on in the background while I write. It’s part of the ambient sound of the house.

(Once one of my cats did communicate something recognizable to me via brain waves. Dushenka was sitting on the arm of the sofa looking at me, and I swear I could hear her thought: “I need a drink of water.” When I checked it out, her water dish, which she couldn’t see from the sofa, was indeed empty. It was a psychic communication, adorable and yet a little creepy. But I digress.)

We had a cat named Shaker who taught a parakeet to speak cat. Shaker went around all day saying r-row (rhymes with now). We’d have little conversations with her. (“Shaker, what’s a kitty say?” “R-row.” “Yes, that’s right.”) Well, Ralphie the parakeet (named after Ralph Waldo Emerson), after hearing all this r-rowing many times a day, began saying it too. (We tried to teach him to say “Pretty bird,” but he only ever picked up the “bird” part. He started saying “Shaker-bird.” He was one confused little guy. But I digress again.)

Some of our cats stuck to the stereotypical “meow,” but they put their own spin on it. Julia, for example, had a little meow that was decidedly bitchy. Her personality wasn’t a bit bitchy, but her meow sure was. Her littermate Laurel had a silent meow, perhaps in self-defense. She would simply open her mouth with her lips forming the word “meow,” but no sound came out. (Do cats have lips, anyway? I’m not sure. Siri claims they do.) Louise would make a darling little sigh when I held her in my arms. I melted every time she did that.

I loved silent Laurel, of course, but I longed for another talkative cat. I went to the shelter and told the helper, “I want a talker.” All the aides looked at each other and then simultaneously pointed at one particular cage. (The kitty in the cage was named Precious Bob. That would never do. We renamed him Jasper. But I digress some more.) Jasper would wait until we were in bed at night, then come bounding up on the bed and meow both incessantly and insistently. We didn’t know what he was saying—just that it seemed terribly important to him. We would ask him what it was all about. “What’s that you say, Jasper? Timmy fell down the well? And Grandpa fell in after him? And all the rescuers sent to get them out fell in too? And then a plane crashed into the well? And caught fire?”

Our present cat, Toby, doesn’t bug us for food (mostly, that is), but when we say the magic words, “Toby, do you want to EAT?” he says mm-weep. He makes other cute noises like mm-wow and mm-woo, but mm-weep is saved for breakfast and dinner. He occasionally snores. (We briefly considered whether he needed a little kitty CPAP, but then we considered trying to put one on him and rapidly changed our minds. But I digress some more.)

But that’s just how our cats communicate with us. There’s also the ways we communicate with them. These vary from babytalk that makes us sound like babbling idiots: “Toto-boo-boo, does you want your noms? Num, num, num—om-nom” to pleading: “Toby, get off my lap. I need to pee” or “Move! You’re standing on my boob. You weigh like a brick!” It doesn’t matter. He ignores both babble and pleading. Just like a cat.

Cat Songs

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My husband and I have some silly traditions, some of which I’ve mentioned in the blog. There was naked cooking with Julia Child impressions, for instance. And we make up little nonsense songs. Well, Dan makes up most of them, mostly about me. (My nickname, which no one else may use, is Bunny, so they often have titles like “When Bunny Comes Driving Home Again.” They’re silly, as mentioned, but infinitely better than the NSFW song an ex-boyfriend once wrote describing my physical charms. But I digress.)

But this post is about cat songs. Not songs the cats sing, of course — their repertoire is pretty limited. Not songs about cats either (“Year of the Cat,” “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Stray Cat Strut,” “Honky Cat,” “Nashville Cats”). No, these are songs that we’ve made up about cats we’ve owned over the years.

Shaker’s song was really more of a poem or a chant than a song. It went:

Shaker in the park

Shaker in the pool

Shaker for dessert

Shaker after school.

Shake, shake, Shaker puddin’

Puddin’, puddin’, Shaker puddin’.

(Shaker was a very dignified tuxedo cat. She didn’t approve.)

The song will make no sense unless you remember a product from the 60s and its jingle (indeed, it doesn’t really make any sense at all, whether you remember it or not). The product was called Shake-a-Pudding. It was a brown plastic cup with a lighter brown plastic lid. If you put milk in the cup and added powder, then shook vigorously, hoping the top didn’t come off, what you got was something that at least resembled pudding. An interactive dessert. At the time, we thought it was neat-o.

Toby also has a song based somewhat on a commercial. It goes like this:

His name was Toby.

He used a Flowbee.

Obviously, this requires some explanation. First of all, it’s sung to the tune of Bary Manilow’s “Copacabana.” So far, so good. The Flowbee mentioned in the second line was one of those products you used to see on after-midnight infomercials from companies like Popeil or Ronco. Exercise equipment. Beauty products. That sort of thing.

Technically, I suppose you could call the Flowbee a beauty product. It was an attachment that you put on the end of your vacuum cleaner hose. It would make your hair stand on end so you could lop an inch or two off the end. I think it was mostly used on children who were too young to know any better and was responsible for the infamous bowl cut. It’s described by the company (yes, you can still buy them) as a “Vacuum Haircut System.” Need I tell you that we’ve never used one on ourselves, much less on Toby?

Louise had a song of a sort, or at least one line of one:

Every little breeze seems to whisper: LOUISE!

Naturally, the name was shouted.

Julia, the most beautiful cat in the world (she told me so) had a whole verse. Obviously, it was ttto “Julia” by John Lennon, which was written about his mother. Our Julia’s version went:

Julia, pinky nose

Pretty fur, naughty lips.

So I sing my song of love for Julia.

(No, I don’t know how the “naughty lips” part got in there. Cats barely have lips at all, and I don’t know how they could be naughty. That’s just the way the song went. So sue me. But I digress again.)

Dushenka had a tune that should be familiar to TV cartoon aficionados:

Shenka-Shenka-Doo

Where are you?

On your little kitty adventure.

Laurel’s song was melancholy.

Pooska-wooska-pooska

Pooska-wooska-pie

Pooska-wooska-pooska

It’s Laurel’s lullaby.

I even sang it at her funeral.

Of course, all the songs are doggerel (catterel?) and make us seem like idiots. But the cats don’t care. They’re used to us talking like idiots. (Does Toby want his noms? Pet, pet, pet, the incredible pettable pet. Mama loves kitty. Does kitty love mama? Ribbit.)

The Mystic Rules of Life

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I don’t have a corner on wisdom. Indeed, I barely have a corner on learning, around the corner and down the dusty path from wisdom.

I have, however, lived mumble-murfle years, and in that time, I have learned a thing or two. Maybe three, tops. Nonetheless, I have formulated what I like to call The Mystic Rules of Life. (Actually, I didn’t so much formulate them as accumulate them. I can’t claim that any of them had their origin with me. I sort of found them under the bed, communing with the dust bunnies, and claimed them for my own. But I digress.)

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here they are.

Everything should come with too much cheese. The corollary to this is that there is no such thing as too much cheese. My husband and I are the sort who, when we’re in an Italian restaurant and a server with a Parmesan cheese grater shows up and says, “Tell me when” reply, “Just crank that thing until your arm falls off.”

This rule applies to our own cooking. I’ve known us to use Parmesan, Asiago, and five cheese Italian blend in the same recipe. (Yes, I know cheese is binding. We have prunes for dessert. Or prunes and Metamucil. But I digress again.) Speaking of five cheese blend, that’s my favorite kind of pizza, although I also like pepperoni and mushrooms. I never get it, though, as Dan insists on all the meats and veggies the crust will hold. Five cheeses would probably cause catastrophic structural failure.

(By the way, this mystic rule applies to gravy, too. With mashed potatoes, not pizza. Pizza with gravy would be messy as well as unappealing. Until someone invents a mashed potato pizza, that is. I suppose this is another digression.)

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. You may not get permission if you ask first. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get forgiveness after you do whatever-it-is, and that means the whatever-it-is will be an even bigger deal. But, as Kris Kristofferson noted, “I’d rather be sorry for something I’ve done than for something that I didn’t do.” (It’s amazing how often Kris is right about things. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” “The going up was worth the coming down.” “Jesus was a Capricorn.” “Everybody’s got to have somebody to look down on.” “If you don’t like Hank Williams, you can kiss my ass.” (A musical digression.))

Pee first. No matter what the next thing is, pee first. Going to bed? Pee first. Running an errand? Pee first. Seeing a movie? Pee first. Taking a shower? Pee first. Walking the dog? Pee first. It’s always best to pee before you commit yourself to any other action. You may end up in a place where peeing is difficult or, worse, impossible. Or one where you simply don’t want to pee. I have those dreams all the time where I’m looking for a bathroom but can’t find one, or at least not one I can use. It’s disgustingly filthy, has no doors, or is just a pipe in the floor without even an outhouse around it. (I usually wake up having to pee, but (so far) I haven’t woken up to find that I’ve wet the bed. I suppose that’s one circumstance when it isn’t better to pee first. Get out of bed? Pee after. But I digress some more.)

Gravity is not our friend. Sure, gravity keeps us firmly attached to the Earth. But when you consider the many ways gravity makes us fall down, it becomes more of a hindrance than a help. And I’ve experienced most of them. This Mystic Rule only applies on Earth, however. If you can make it to the moon, the gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth. That’s a lot more friendly. (Speaking of friendly, author Mary Roach once said, “Gravitation is the lust of the cosmos.” I have nothing against lust, but really, gravitation is the vacuum cleaner of the cosmos. Last digression for this week.)

You’d think that as I get older and (supposedly) wiser, I’d encounter more Mystic Rules of Life, but I haven’t found any lately. Guess I should look under the bed again, but I suspect that the dust bunnies (or, more likely by now, dust gorillas) have rules of their own that don’t apply to people.

Sir Boinks-a-Lot

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All our cats have nicknames. Some more than one.

Louise was The Queen of Everything.

Garcia was Mr. Underfoot.

Dushenka is Ms. Crazy Eyes.

(Everyone was Baby-Cat except Louise. Other memorable cats have been Matches (Badness, Checkers), Chelsea (Chips), Shaker (What-a-Pie), Maggie (Gelfling, Gertzie-Girl), Laurel (Keet), Joliet (The Silly Pet), and Bijou (Angel Kitty). But I digress.)

Then there was Django. (He was named after guitarist Django Reinhardt. I figured if Dan could have a cat named after a guitarist, so could I. But I digress again.) A robust gray-and-white male, he was the one we called Sir Boinks-a-Lot.

Would you like to guess how he got his name? Hint: It wasn’t because he boinked a lot.

No, he just tried to boink a lot.

Gender didn’t matter. He would go after either boy-cats or girl-cats – neither with any degree of success. He was neutered. His intended didn’t even have to be another cat. Or even animate. We once caught him trying to mount a feather duster.

But the escapade that earned him his nickname was when he tried to have carnal knowledge of my husband’s elbow. Never mind that there was no orifice. Sir Boinks-a-Lot was determined to make one. He kept drilling and drilling, but he never struck pussy (so to speak).

Dan’s theory was that when he worked on his computer, his forearm resembled the shape of an aroused female cat. His hand and wrist were the head, his arm the body, and his raised elbow the…er…target zone. Or it could be that Django was near-sighted with no sense of smell.

My theory was just that he was a horny bastard. (Django, I mean. We will not discuss how pets come to resemble their owners. But I digress yet again.)

He was also camera shy, which is why there’s a stand-in for him here, but then again, who wants their sexual peculiarities displayed all over the Internet? No, wait. Don’t answer that.

Alas, Sir Boinks-a-Lot is no longer with us, though he proved as determined about fighting cancer as he was about finding someone or something that welcomed his advances. We still miss him terribly.

I think even Dan’s elbow misses him a little. Although it’s tough to tell with an elbow.

The Bird Who Spoke Cat

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My husband and I were strolling through the mall after having a lovely fish dinner with a glass of wine. Well, a couple of glasses, really. We ended up at a Woolworth’s, which back then you could find in a mall. (Woolworth’s is what was known as a five-and-ten-cent store. Kind of like a Dollar Store that mated with a Target store, only cheaper, though nothing there actually cost five or ten cents. Except maybe candy. But I digress.) Once we were there, we browsed our way to the pet department, which five-and-dimes had back then. Mostly fish, turtles, and birds.

We stopped in front of the parakeet cage and gazed admiringly at the tiny flock. “Let’s get one,” Dan said.

“You’re forgetting that we have four cats,” I replied. “A parakeet would hardly be a snack for them.”

“We’ll hang its cage from a hook in the ceiling.” There was at that time no hook. Dan loves even the tiniest home improvement projects.

“I want the blue one,” I said. “I’ve always wanted a blue parakeet. We could name him ‘Blue Boy.'”

“He could be a she. How would we know?”

“If he talks, he’s a boy,” I said confidently. “Mostly the males talk.” (I wasn’t totally sure about this, but I was betting on the fact that Dan didn’t know either.)

“I’d rather get the yellow one.”

“Blue.”

“Yellow.”

“Blue. How are we going to decide?”

Then we made one of our famous deals.

“Let me pick the bird, and you can name him,” said Dan.

“Anything I want?” I asked.

“Anything? Even J. Alfred Prufrock?”

“Yes. Even that.” (Well, really, we were pretty sloshed. I don’t recommend buying a pet while drunk, but this turned out okay. But I digress again.)

So J. Alfred came home with us and lived safely in his cage near the ceiling. One of the cats, Maggie, made an ambitious climb up the drapes after him, but couldn’t figure out how to get from drape to cage and had to be rescued.

We tried to teach the bird to talk. “Hi. I’m Alfie,” we’d repeat to him. “Alfie-bird.”

We were also talking to the cats. Not that we expected them to repeat what we said, but we had interesting conversations nonetheless.

“Shaker, what’s a kitty do?” (Shaker was another of the four cats.)

“R-roww.”

“Yes, that’s right.” (We weren’t always drunk. Sometimes we were just silly. Still are.)

Eventually, Alfie started talking. But bird of very little brain that he was, he got a little mixed up. First, he changed his name.

“Ralphie-bird,” he said. “Hi. I’m Ralphie.”

What could we do at that point? We changed his name to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh, no.

Pretty soon he was saying, “Shaker-bird” and “R-roww.” 

Great. We had a parakeet with an identity crisis. And a cat that was hearing voices from above. From her natural prey, no less. (I was going to write that Ralphie also said, “Here, kitty, kitty,” but he didn’t. Also, it’s a very old, very bad joke. But I digress some more.)

I could just imagine the little conversations Ralphie and Shaker could have.

Ralphie: “R-roww.”

Shaker: “R-roww.”

Ralphie: “R-roww.”

Shaker: “R-roww.”

Pointless, boring conversations, but what can you expect from animals that will never master sign language like gorillas do? Sometimes Dan and I don’t do much better when it comes to conversation. After all, we were the ones who had pointless dialogues with the cat for the parakeet to overhear.

Come to think of it, I don’t really know if their conversations were pointless. They may have been plotting against us. But the cat was cool and never said a mumblin’ word. (H/t Hoyt Axton.)

Terms of Endearment

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“What’s for dinner, Ler?”

“I don’t know, Doodle. See what’s in the freezer.”

Conversations like those are what keep our marriage strong.

Back when my husband and I were dating, we had a reputation for inspiring a need for insulin in everyone around us. To say we were sickening would be an understatement. We addressed each other with a plethora of cutesie names and endearments. I don’t remember if we ever actually said “kissy-lamb,” but you get the idea. “Sugar,” “Sweetheart,” “Darling,” and other standards were definitely within our repertoire.

Since we’ve been married, not so much. I suppose it’s because no one can keep up that level of goo and drivel for too long. Oh, we still call each other by affectionate names, but they’re more likely to be odd ones.

First, I must admit that, aside from that dating phase, I never had a lot of experience with terms of endearment. My father’s favorite thing to call my mother was “Old Squaw,” which would now be objectionable for any number of reasons. My mother never objected to it, though, so I don’t see why anyone else should get a vote.

Dan and I started out along the same lines. One of his favorite names for me was “Old Boot.” (No, I have no idea of how that started. I suppose it sort of made some kind of sense at the time. And I didn’t mind, so again with the no one else getting a vote. But I digress.)

Over time, our endearments got even stranger. We took to calling each other “Doodle,” “Cake,” “Bug,” and “Ler” (no, I have no idea what that means either). Dan calls me “Rabbit,” “Bunny,” and sometimes “Rabbi.” (“Where’s the Torah, Rabbi?” he’ll say. We also have a scrap of dialogue that goes like this: “Friend.” “Thing.” “Friendly Thing.” And yes, I sometimes do say, “Thank you, Thing.” But I digress. Again.)

We mostly skip old standards like “Honey,” except in compounds: “Honey-Lover,” or “My Own Sweet Honey-Lover,” which is still pretty icky, now that I think about it.

Recently, we tried out “Bae” and “Boo.” (I’m Bae. He’s Boo.) But I’m not sure it will ever really catch on with us. It must be out of date anyway, now that we’re saying it. Along those lines, one endearment I don’t like is “Baby.” It raises my hackles. I’m not a baby. Of course, it’s different when combined with something else – “Baby-Bunny,” “Baby-Cake,” “Baby-Bug.” Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you.

The truth is, I’m really bad at terms of endearment, other than the occasional “Honey” and the silly ones. I prefer to call Dan “Dan.” (And for some reason, he can call me “Jannie,” but I can’t call him “Danny.” I think he’s afraid I’ll burst into a chorus of “Oh, Danny Boy,” although I sing like a bird. An off-key bird. I do, however, occasionally call him “Fuzzer-Bear.” But I digress yet again.)

Of course, we do know people that stick with the sticky, as it were. One couple of our acquaintance call each other “Wifey” and “Hubby,” though they’ve been married for quite a number of years.

Just don’t get me started on the terms of endearment we have for our cats. Toto-boo-boo-baby (Toby) is a bit icky even for me, though I have been heard to say it. Toby doesn’t mind, and I don’t see why anyone else gets a vote.

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Chill Out, Kitty!

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My husband’s big orange-striped cat, Matches, was so chill that Dan once put the creature into an empty birdcage and hung it from the ceiling. Amazingly, the cat voiced no objections. He just looked around calmly from his unique new vantage point.

Not many cats are that agreeable about being put in a cage – especially when it signals a trip to the vet. Even the cardboard boxes that pass as pet carriers are useless. Just try to put a cat in one and you have a (Your State’s Name Here) Chainsaw Massacre. And cardboard carriers aren’t designed to stand up to a massacre.

We had a black-and-white cat named Shaker, who started with one fang hooked into an air hole in the cardboard carrier and demolished the entire thing until it was a pile of Shredded Wheat. We had to drive the rest of the way to the vet with one revved-up, pissed-off cat. For later visits, we just let her sit on my lap while we drove and while sitting in the waiting room. While we waited, Shaker hopped off my lap and made a break for it. She waddled (she was chubby, okay?) as fast as her little white feet would carry her toward the door. She just hadn’t counted on it being glass. She bonked her head against it and while she was stunned, I scooped her up.

Another cat, Julia, was okay with going to the vet. It was what they did to her there that she objected to. The vet tried to demonstrate to us the proper way to give a cat a pill or liquid medicine. Julia went into her act. She demonstrated her own little invention – projectile drooling. Soon the exam room was dappled with gooey patches of sticky saliva. And so were we, when we tried it at home.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that her cat, known as Mrs. Bompstample (I may have spelled that wrong), had been voted the second-worst cat at their vet’s office. And that was despite Mrs. B. being sedated before she came. I don’t even want to contemplate what the worst cat was like. There was a note on its cage that said, “Do not open!” which probably made it difficult to treat the cat. (Personally, I think most vets coat their hands with a Valium salve that is absorbed through the animals’ fur, which is why vets don’t shake hands with pet owners. Although maybe they should in some cases. But I digress.)

We’ve never had a cat that needed Valium to go to the vet, though we have had cats be naughty. One jumped off the examining table and holed up between it and the wall. We had to get down on our hands and knees to coax her out (something we couldn’t do now). Well, and Drooly Julie can’t strictly be said to have been on her best behavior. Django once scratched my face and various other cats have bitten me. Once it was so bad that I had to ask the vet to treat me too.

Matches, of course, was so chill at the vet that he should have worn shades. He loved riding in the car and never had to be put in a box. Maybe that was why he was so cool.

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I Tried Not to Love Her

cats, etc., family, health, pets, , , ,

Dushenka came to us as a stray. She hung around the neighborhood for about a week, with my husband trying to coax her closer. Then she disappeared for a week. One day, though, she came trotting through our garden and up to our door. She had chosen us as her family.

It turned out that her former family lived just a couple of streets away from us, which we found out because the vet discovered that she had a microchip. (We also found out that her original name was Carmen, which isn’t a bad name for a cat, but we had already started calling her Dushenka because we couldn’t keep calling her Li’l Bit. “Dushenka” is Russian and means “little soul.” But I digress.)

I tried not to love her. I really did. We had recently lost our darling cat Julia, another little calico, and Dushenka reminded me so much of her. I just felt I wasn’t ready to give my heart to another one yet. But there Dushenka was with her little pinky nose, her smudgy chin, her crazy eyes, her super-long white whiskers, her floofy white belly, and her gorgeous, silky calico fur.

I began to suspect that I was falling in love when a neighbor (not Dushenka’s former owners – they never responded to us) lost their cat, also a calico, and came to inquire about the one we’d found. I found myself quizzing them closely about what their cat looked like. He said she was female. Check. I asked if she had a dark smudge under her chin. What were her eyes like? Then I brought Dushenka out for him to look at, and he said that she wasn’t his. I began to suspect she was ours (or we were hers) and that I was in love with her.

It turned out she is different enough from Julia that I was able to think of them as individuals. Dushenka has shorter fur than Julia did. Julia had a distinctive, bitchy meow. (She wasn’t actually bitchy. She just sounded that way.) Dushenka almost never meows, but she has a strong purr. And she snores. Daintily, but she snores.

She has acquired nicknames. (Baby Cat. Pretty Grrl. (Occasionally Naughty Grrl when she goes walkabout.) The Incredible Pettable Pet. Ms. Muss (rhymes with puss). Shenka-doo. (I may or may not have once called her Shenka-Doodle-Doo.) She even has her own song (“Shenka-Shenka-Doo, where are you? On your little kitty adventure!” ttto the Scooby-Doo theme song.) But I digress. Again. At length.)

I’m not sure exactly how old Dushenka is because she came to us fully grown, though still youthful. Now she seems more like a little old lady, or at least on her way past middle age. Lately, she’s been in poor health. She just can’t seem to pee. She eats and drinks just fine, but nothing comes out the other end. Several vet visits later, it seems – no big surprise here – to be a problem with her kidneys. I hesitate to say how much we’ve spent, what with the weekend emergency vet visit, the blood tests, and the x-rays.

We’re giving her subcutaneous (subQ) fluids, a process we learned how to do over the years with other cats. It involves immobilizing the cat – no easy matter – and sticking a needle under the skin between her shoulder blades. (That’s always my job. Dan can’t bear to do it). We have a bag of fluids and a drip set and let about 150 ml run in. The fluid occupies the space between skin and flesh and makes her look lumpy and weird until it gradually absorbs. Repeat the next day. The idea is to flush out her kidneys. The process exhausts us and Dushenka, too. Afterward, Dushenka has a little snack for her nerves and then we all go have a lie-down. These are the things we do for the little soul we love.

Every so often we look at Dushenka and say, “Who could not love this cat?” Other than the people who had her originally, I don’t know. I couldn’t not love her. I tried.

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