100 Days

There's a Stargate SG-1 episode by that name, when O'Neill is stranded on a planet after the stargate is buried in an explosion. Based on the movie character, you would expect him to commit suicide, and he considers it. But a widow explains that after she lost her husband, she wanted to die at first, but slowly, by the 100th day, she was ready to at least try to live again.

Since December, I haven't seen much of the cats. We came together for meals, yes, and playtime, but afterwards, each went to a separate corner of the house and slept or stared out a window or did whatever they were doing when they weren't fighting over me. My narrow bed contained only me.

I thought this is what it will be like now. These aren't my snugglers. These aren't my people-oriented furbabies. Those are gone. We're going to share space in this house until, you know, The End.

In the last 10 days or so, the cats have returned to old patterns. Skamper has resumed sleeping in my lap during the day (he just joined me at the computer and is lying between my arms as I type). Skuttle is torn between GloveLove and being stand-offish. Miss Kitty is chasing anyone who will run.

I counted. Today is the 110th day since Simon journeyed to Aslan's Country. They must have been watching that episode with me and decided we've mourned long enough. Time to resume at least trying to live again.

I hear you, kiddos. Begin next chapter.

Push button. Receive bacon.

Playtime

One of the good changes in the Turtle household is the resumption of playtime.

I am not physically capable of recording playtime while playing. You'll just have to watch Cole and Marmalade on Youtube and imagine my trio instead.

It was nearly impossible to play with seven animals at one time. Little Brother attacked anyone who got too excited. Sweetie stampeded over anyone who got between her and the laser light. Following a swinging string could land you in the middle of a fight, and that's a hard con to forget. Miss Kitty tended to hog the toy.

Three cats manage to respect each other's space. Miss Kitty gets the first couple of minutes of frantic running to calm her down. Skuttle has finally remembered how much fun string is to chase (she doesn't care for the laser). Skamper takes a while to warm up, but he is by far the best catcher.

Skamper has learned when I say "no teeth," he's to drop the string. I lost too many strings to his one-chomp equals one-severing ability. He confines himself to claws.

Skuttle likes to grab the string and walk off with it. Since it's attached to me, that's never successful, but she does try. She likes chasing a thing she can catch, so I'm careful to let her catch it every so often.

Miss Kitty has no boundaries until she's tired, and she has jumped on her siblings' catches just to prove she's involved. That's when I say, "If you want to play, you have to let go." She's not as language smart as her brother.

While I'm typing, Skamper has found his tiny jingle wand and is throwing it around the living room. Of course, my phone is ten feet away. Sorry.

Hey, I got to my phone without too much disruption. 

Group playtime happens around 7 PM, but they've started playing individually, too. Now that they sleep upstairs, I've heard them playing quietly in the middle of the night. Well, as quietly as a tiny jingle bell can be. At least Miss Kitty no longer hunts closet gremlins at 2:33 AM. I've found my sleep doesn't matter to me as much anymore, as long as the kids are happy and healthy.

I hope you're happy and healthy today, too. Here's another video to help with that.

Applaud the jellyfish.

Aslan's Country

I knew Simon was unwell. I didn't realize how much of our lives were Simon-focused this year.

The house is quiet, but it is a peaceful quiet (except when Skamper is flexing his new Chief Noodlehead muscles). No vulturing. No crying for food that won't be eaten. No open door escape attempts. No multiple nightly feedings. No straining to hear the warning growls that presage a dangerous cat fight. No charting of food that stays down and food that doesn't.

We had a good last day. I'm grateful we gave him anesthetic before the last shot. While we waited for the anesthetic to take effect, the vet asked, "isn't this the one you always have a story about?" Yes. Yes, he is. Even his last visit was a story. His nerves kept firing for a while, and my vet said he could have been the one in a thousand cats that has a seizure had he not been asleep. It would have been just like him to cause trouble, so I'm glad we didn't have to go through that.

It occurred to me that Simon and I are much like Reepicheep and Lucy. I've always wanted to cuddle with him, but his natural dignity and independence simply wouldn't allow it. He's a warrior who protects the weak and puts the bully in his place. Perhaps his exploration of every opening was a lifelong search for the door to Aslan's country.

I see him there, vulturing at the gate, inspecting the newcomers and pointing the way inward and upward. Chatting up the ladies and sizing up the gentlemen as he waits for his friends to arrive.

Good journey, Little Brother. See you on the other side.

My Simon

One thing Timmi taught me is just because I can doesn't mean I should. Yes, Ian Malcolm taught me that about cloning dinosaurs, but Timmi taught me that about cats.

I kept Timmi with me far longer than I should have because I couldn't let her go. She never complained, and I couldn't have chosen differently at the time, but I will choose differently now.

Simon will not get better. We might squeeze out another month or two, but I can tell he's not comfortable. I don't know that it's extreme pain (it's hard to tell with cats) but it's bothering him.

We'll say good-bye today. Mom is going with us because, as she says, "I was there the first time. I'll be there the last time."

I wish I had solid biblical evidence that I will see him again. I have inferences, and a hope that I will, but the truth is, I don't know for sure. It bothers me a lot. I am choosing to believe that God has bigger plans for all of us in our new Heaven and new Earth, and those plans include my fur friends.

As My Dear Friend once assured me, "It's Heaven. Of course it's big enough."

I will imagine Simon jumping through green fields of soft grass, chasing things that can't die when he catches them - Tribble the rabbit, the now flying fish Ferghani Shen Tsu, Merry, Pippin and Fatty Bolger, ferrets Loki, Freya, Oden-Thor, Rafiki, Tasselhoff and Tandy, and maybe even little Flutterby the moth; meeting Sugar and Timmi, Shawn, Ceaser, Snuffy, Tasha, Tamaran, and Sassy Sasha, and Kneesa, Sera and Wicket; reuniting with Hachiko, Jasper and Mica; sharing stories about how I've grown up, and how much I miss them all and look forward to seeing them again. I'm sure if he could, Simon would break something in the mansion Jesus is preparing for me, just to remind me I'm not all that.

Oh, I will miss my Little Brother. He brought me back to life twelve years ago. I haven't always appreciated how he did it, but he did it. I'm so sorry for all the times I've yelled, and misunderstood, and ignored. I'm so glad for the times we cuddled, and for your silly growly meow, and for The Paw in my cereal, even when you don't eat cereal, Noodlehead. I'm glad we had those sunny times in The Swamp.

I will never know anyone else like you, heart-brother. You earned many names but you will always be my Simon.

The Names of Simon: Chunky Monkey

For most of his life, Simon has been my Chunky Monkey.

Simon is what vets call "a competitive eater." This means he will eat everything in the bowl, puke it up, and eat it again. He used to race the dog whenever that horrific uk-ka uk-ka uk-ka noise started elsewhere.

Aside: I do not allow anyone to eat puke if I am there to stop it. Ick, and beyond ick.

Even though he rarely ate Human Food (touching and tasting with The Paw didn't count), he roamed the house searching for any morsel of dog or cat food that might have been overlooked. It's possible all his interest in open doors might stem from looking for the next meal.

One terrifying time, he slipped out the back door to chase a stray tom. They raced around the neighbor's house, and the stray darted through the space between the privacy gate and the main fence. Simon tried to follow and did one of those cartoon blubber-bounce-backs (think Mr. Incredible in the rocket tube). I thank God for it; it was the only way I would have caught him. He was big, but fast.

Three or four years ago he topped out at 19 lbs. This on a 13 lb frame. The dieting began in earnest. The hardest part was Hungry Simon was even more vicious than Fat Simon. Balancing between what was healthy for him and what was healthy for the household was almost more than I could handle.

As the weight came off, he resumed some obnoxious behavior I'd forgotten. Jumping on top of the fridge when there wasn't room. Chasing the others off the catwalks. Nearly jumping into the electric skillet. Jumping anywhere, really.

Which is why his weight loss was so flummoxing. I'd always expected diabetes to kill Simon, not intestinal cancer.

My Chunky Monkey will finish his race at 9.3 pounds. He's never looked better. I've never been sorrier.

The Names of Simon: Uncle Simon

The crying has stopped for the moment. It may be the top of the grief wave or dehydration, but I'll take it.

Since his diagnosis, Simon has been feeling better, which means he's behaving like a royal jackass. Rather than go to bed last night, he vultured me until I gave him food he didn't want, fell into and toppled the trash can trying to get to dog food he can't have, tipped over a box that hadn't been in that space before, and tried to pick a fight with Caleb.

I'm grateful for this. Such antics make it easier to say good-bye. The date is set.

I woke after midnight to him hogging the bed. I only got it back after I fed him.

I had two dogs when Simon came to us: Hachiko, my Akita dog-nephew, and Jasper, known to some of you through Star of Justice. Simon was fostered with three German shepherds and he loved my dogs. He was not their uncle.

He did not turn Toffee into a normal cat, but he did get along with her. They often slept close to each other, and occasionally cuddled. He was not her uncle.

When I took in the feral kids, Skuttle and Skamper, Simon took Skuttle under his paw immediately and began teaching her every rotten trick he knew. He became Uncle Simon.

Skamper is a Mama's Boy, so it worked out.

When Simon fell behind the fridge and was too fat to either jump or squeeze out, Skuttle followed him down and stayed with him until I finally figured out where two cats could hide in my house for 40 MINUTES OF SEARCHING. I wish I'd had a phone for that pic of Simon's eye looking at me through the half inch gap between the fridge and the wall.

Skuttle learned that houseguests aren't scary because Uncle Simon never ran from them. Skuttle learned that one paw could sneak cereal out of the bowl before the Scary Hooman noticed and moved the bowl. When brother Skamper annoyed either girl, Uncle Simon came to the rescue and made him behave.

I'm frankly worried about the Turtle Household with Skamper in charge.

Simon watches out for Miss Kitty, too, and she is the only cat that can play with him. He is a perfect gentlemen with the girls, but he a real a$$ to the boys. Caleb takes the brunt because he and Simon are both bush cats and Caleb doesn't jump out of the way like Skamper does (Skamper is a tree cat). Before he got sick, we had a fur-flying fight every two to four weeks. There's a reason lion prides have one boy and a bunch of girls.

I used to get angry at Simon for fighting with the boys. Until I realized he was doing what Dad did for Mom in the old days by letting me know the Turtle Household was closed to new cat members. We had enough. He was absolutely right, and I have thanked him many times for being so sensible. Six cats are too many for one tiny house.

I wish he wasn't leaving us so soon, but I hope that his absence will alleviate some tension. I desperately hope Skuttle will adjust to his absence. I hope even more fervently she will not take his place as the Master of Jackassery of the family.

A Tale of Two Cats, part Two

I adopted Simon from the Petsmart Adoption Program. He had been a resident of a more rural animal shelter and a foster mom enrolled him in the program to save his life. Momma Turtle met him first, and pointed him out to me.

I didn't want another cat. Timmi's death had eviscerated me, and I had no desire to love anything else with fur. Since Toffee had a screw loose, I had no concerns about getting attached to her. However, there was a possibility that hanging with a more normal cat might level Toffee out, and this big black weirdo had been sitting there so long, waiting. I adopted Simon.

It was touch-and-go the first month. More than once I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

He was stand-offish. Timmi had literally been in my lap every time I sat down. Simon sat one piece of furniture away, at my eye level, and stared at me. We call it "vulturing." Sometimes this is what he wanted to do. Sometimes he wanted my attention, and if I didn't figure out the difference, he knocked pictures off the wall to explain it.

At 2 AM, he became a cuddle-whore. I've heard men are like that.

He has never met a door he didn't try to go through, or a space he didn't try to fill. More than once he spent the day in a closet I didn't realize he'd snuck into while I pulled out a coat, shirt or pair of pants. Once he almost got sealed into the bathtub while the plumber was working on it. Did you know bathtubs are hollow? Thank God for that.

He liked Hide and Seek. I would realize he wasn't staring at me or coming out for food and drop everything to search my 823 square foot house for a fifteen pound black cat who refused to help by calling back to me. More than once I feared he'd somehow snuck outside while the door was closed and locked and my back was turned. He'd be staring at me from on top of something or under something, laughing, I'm sure.

These kinds of exasperating shenanigans earned him the name Little Brother. Like the little brother who follows you around and breaks your toys and irritates the snot out of you until he falls asleep and then looks like an angel so you don't kill him.

This also led to the Simon Alvin Theodore! I would yell when he knocked something off the counter to get my attention. That was eventually shortened to Simon Theodore, which is more lyrical.

The best part is he helped me live through losing Timmi. I stopped crying every night because Simon was there to be ridiculous and exasperating and hilarious and impossible. Simon touched a different part of my heart, a part that didn't hurt. He was my little brother, not my baby, and he had needs, too. Needs involving play and eating and generally making a nuisance of himself.

Simon has been losing weight since summer, and the vet has finally found evidence of a tumor in his intestines. He's lost a pound in the last two weeks, so his time with me is short. Very, very soon, we will close this chapter together, and wait impatiently for our reunion in the sequel.

I dug his grave this last weekend, because I could feel him slipping away, and the ground will freeze soon. I wish I'd been wrong.

A Tale of Two Cats

I intend to blog about Simon Theodore, aka Little Brother, aka Uncle Simon, aka The Paw, but before I tell you about him, I have to tell you about the First Cat of the Turtle Household.

Once upon a time, the Turtle had only one cat. Her name was Timmi, and she would tolerate no competition.

Some of you may be wondering about Sugar, but she was a fursibling, not a furbaby.

Timmi came from the vet, and originally from the VA. She had been adopted as a kitten from a lady who died shortly thereafter, and the family intended to have her put down. Nice family. She stayed at the vet's for 3 months before I adopted her at six months old. Yeah, real nice family. Her one redeeming feature was a long, fluffy tail.

I am a sucker for a fluffy tail. Timmi lived before smart phones, so I have very few pictures of her. She wasn't terribly photogenic anyway. I drew a lovely one and finished it in marker. This is what her soul looked like.

I hear Big Brother laughing at me.

Timmi was a snuggler. She wanted to be carried around like a baby, and she slept in my lap whenever I sat down. Much of Star of Justice was written with Timmi in my lap.

Timmi was a sickly cat. Around seven years old she got sick enough to stop eating, seriously enough that the liver got involved and I resorted to a feeding tube until she recovered. She used up all nine of her lives before she was done, and I am convinced that on one occasion God miraculously healed her.

Eventually, her colon stopped working, and there was nothing more to be done. Somewhere around the age of thirteen, Timmi took the Long Step and broke my heart. I think this happened in late 2004, early 2005. I'd have to check my records and I don't really want to.

I had been mourning her sickness and dreading her passing for years. I had no idea how hard it would be to lose her for real until it happened.

A house with one needy cat became a house with no cat at all. I came home every night and wept for hours, pretty much every time I sat down and she wasn't there.

Mom needed to break up her two stray Siamese sisters, so Toffee came to live with me (after an unsuccessful re-homing attempt with a former neighbor). Although Toffee was needy, she was no Timmi, and the crying continued. For months.

Then, in July 2005, came Simon.

The Prayer Cat

This is Toffee. She's 16 (or so). She was a bully in her younger days, although she's become the victim as she has aged in a house with five other cats. She chews her food, and her jaw makes startlingly loud grinding noises while she does. She loves to be petted, her meow sounds like nails on chalkboard, and she wets outside the litter box when she's upset. I try very hard not to upset her.

She is wired wrong in the head. Her eyes don't work quite right, although that doesn't stop her from climbing The Heights. She's the cat who fell on me and my burrito one lunch hour last year. The scars are still visible on my right hand.

Like all animals that aren't wired quite right in the head, she has enjoyed remarkable health. No tartar, no diseases. She even missed out on the flea epidemic of 2007.

A week ago, she stopped eating.

Well, not stopped, exactly, but her volume fell to maybe 20 nuggets a day, 5 per meal. Cats, unlike dogs, will not eat when they get hungry enough. If they stop eating, they don't start again, their livers shut down, and they die. It's a mess.

I had a can of wet food left over from someone else's momentary freak out, and she ate it. I had that conversation with myself that no one thinks I have: the "am I willing to do X or is X too crazy/not worth it?" argument usually had between spouses.  I drew my line and got more wet food. Being a cat, she stopped eating it as soon as I got a two-week supply.

I learned she will eat it - as long as I sit right beside her and pet her the entire time. This morning was 40 minutes to eat a third of a can. To maintain her weight, she needs a can and a half a day.

This is ridiculous. I cannot spend an hour and a half each day coaxing a 16 year old, ashamed-to-admit-not-my-favorite-cat to eat. I have been less than patient the last couple of days while I again had that "am I willing to do X?" argument with myself with new parameters. It's not like I just have to be in the room (the separate room closed off from the five other protesters living in this house who also want the new food stuff). I literally have to sit quietly next to her while she licks the bowl clean, petting her when she slows or gets restless.

However, the one other thing I can do during those times is pray. I can pet while I pray, and I certainly have an hour and a half's worth of things to pray about lately.

We go to see the vet Saturday to make sure there isn't a medical reason for this. I suspect it's the stress of too many houseguests too close together that threw her off, and I should be grateful she's not wetting outside the litter box.

I can't do this forever, but I can do it for a while. Long enough to see if she'll pull out on her own or is just ready to take The Long Step.

Just call her The Prayer Cat.

Push button. Receive bacon.

Cats and Litter Boxes

When you wake up at 3:38 thanks to a full moon, and check FB on your phone app, and see that a Friend posted something meant to be funny that instead triggered your uptight-over-zealous-cat-mommy gland, you don't comment on the post and ruin the joke. That's rude. You write a blog post to relieve your angst.

Here it is.

If a cat pees outside its litter box, either 1) the cat is sick, or 2) something in the environment is causing severe stress for the cat and needs to be addressed.

Cats are generally fastidious creatures who prefer cleanliness more than you do. This is why they burrow into clean laundry, sprawl on freshly opened newspapers, and plant themselves in sanitizing sunlight. It only takes one or two tries to litterbox train a kitten, and if they miss, it's because they were too far away when they realized they had to go or they couldn't manage to get into the box.

Make sure the cat isn't sick. Cats generally don't drink enough water, so urinary infections can happen, requiring antibiotics. It could also be a sign of kidney failure, and that means the death of the cat, and you should treat them with respect until their last breath, you callous scum. Keep lots of clean, fresh water available in different sized bowls at various heights in the house (and NEVER put food and water next to the litter box. Would YOU like to eat where you crap?). I always use glass bowls because some cats can get "black acne" from plastic. I use wide bowls, brandy snifters, fish bowls and plant cache pots. I like the shapes and all of my six cats seem to like drinking in different ways.

The easiest solution for most peeing issues is to add a litter box to another area of the house. Older cats, like older people, have to go NOW, and they may not make it if the box is stashed away in the basement or a door gets closed accidentally. It's also nice when you clean the box regularly. If you're having trouble getting all the clumps out, imagine how hard it is for the cat to cover its business. A smelly box is generally an overflowing box. The general rule of thumb is one box per cat, plus one. This is because some cats will guard the litter box and not let other cats use it. Where would you go if a bully blocked the bathroom?

Cats are sensitive to their environments, and when a cat gets upset, peeing can be the first sign. New people or pets in the house, a change in schedule, a change in litter or food: just about anything can cause anxiety depending on your cat. Do some research and find a way to help the cat adapt. My Cat From Hell offers a lot of advice on this subject (I can't watch much of it because I want to beat most of those owners to death for being selfish morons).

Use your brain before you start screaming. Cats, like people, don't come right out and tell you what their problem is. They expect you to figure it out. A good cat parent does, and fixes the problem rather than the blame. A bad cat parent takes the cat to the shelter to die, or kicks it outside to die. I hope all bad cat parents burn in Hell, but I admit I am not rational on the subject of cat care.

Applaud the jellyfish.