Update

When life seems dull and boring, make a list. Postings to domtran have been MIA in the past few weeks because there has not been much to say. Wrong, wrong....

--New kitten in the family (see Mitzi's Journal)

--Joe College Grad coming to Mpls today for an interview with a Mpls charter school on Monday. They paid for his ticket, so they must be interested

--OLGS slipped on the ice and tore three tendons. Surgery, bed rest, heavy drugs and a leg immobilizer. He's on the mend, but can't drive, can't cut his toenails, and can't even start PT for another two weeks. He's teaching his classes online, with some students trying to take advantage of the situation

--Joe College got picked up for driving his new car with bad tail lights. He now only drives it during the day (rather than have the lights fixed. I agree with him)

--Geese and ducks appearing on the Mississippi flyway


--Potholes appearing everywhere. Mud season is approaching

--Hungarian-speaking Transylvanians come to town, allowing OLGS to practice his language skills. One young man looks amazingly like Joe College grad -- throwbacks everywhere.
--

Sping flowers in Minnesota

A lovely spring day in flyover land. Tulips are up, as are many weeds. I feared that the daffodils were not coming, but they are reluctantly peeking up and, for a few, out. I must have planted them too deep.

As a tribute to the weeds, OLGS and I were out in the gardens this morning. Mitzi the cat was frolicking about, chasing blowing leaves and generally making a fool of herself. The neighbor cat, her spittin' image, was also out, trying to throw his weight around by playing alpha male. The problem: she is twice his size. You go girl!

Daffodil Society of MN

Mitzi the cat

Mitzi is turning out to be a highly satisfactory cat. However, she looks like a gray striped basketball with a tail. Another negative: her claws have grown back, and she now scratches. She hasn't learned that when she rolls on her back and displays her substantial white tummy, it's an invitation to humans to rub the soft fur.

She had a brief excursion outside yesterday. The floor guy propped the door open when he was bringing in the wood and equipment. She slipped out, but didn't get far. She was waylaid by the enticing smell of the neighborhood tom cats, who have apparently baptized the doors with their scent.

New cat

We broke down and got another cat. Being catless for four months was hard. Our new feline is unlike her predecessors. She is round, gray and quiet. She is also affectionate. That is a nice change from the aloof princess that Judy the cat became.

We got her--her name is Mitzi--at the humane society. I strongly recommend them. They paid for her to get checked by the vet, cut her nails, gave her tests for feline leukemia and cleaned up a head cold. The boys love her.

Ghost cats

Even though they've been gone for several months, I keep seeing black cats. A pouring rainstorm brings the fleeting thought: I've got to get them inside. A pair of jeans tossed on the white bedspread in a dark room brings irritation: She's sleeping on the bed again. A marauding tom cat in the middle of the night makes me worry about the big tom: Hope he's close to the house. An old coupon for cat food reminds me: Gotta stock up.

Their elusive presence is surprising. But, even in their elderly, sick, last days, they were out of sight as much as front and center. They were not ever-present. In short, they were independent cats. These nano-second reminders are the way it was when they were alive. They would suddenly appear after an absence spent under the bed or across the street. They would pretend that we were the center of their world for those few moments it took them to convince us to feed them. Then they would disappear again.

So even though they don't personally appear any more, our minds are conditioned to have them pop up unexpectedly. That's the cat way.

Catless after all these years

Judy the cat died on Thursday evening. She had been off-feed for two days, but continued to drink water. Her head congestion was worse. Then she apparently had a stroke, as her back legs didn't work for a half day before her death. While we were watching TV in the evening, she came down, or fell down, the stairs, cried a few times, and died within ten minutes. OLGS (and I must admit, I, too) was touched by the thought that she wanted to be with us in her last moments.

It's amazing how still a dead body is. The notion that people are not dead, but only sleeping until the last judgment, must have been developed by someone who hadn't seen many or any dead bodies.

We are now catless for the first time in more than 30 years. It will be a while before we can replace them. Judy was a mighty huntress, even in her later years, although her victims got smaller and smaller. She seemed to specialize in baby rabbits. It was awful.

She was also amazingly sociable. At her last event, the neighborhood cookout on Labor Day, she sat in front of the grill, oblivious to the 25 people milling around. She was clearly waiting for something meaty to fall to the ground; she was very patient. We finally had to move her out of the line of traffic. She loved parties and being the center of attention.

She was a smart, smart cat. She had us eating out of the palm of her paw. We fed her shrimp, sour cream, and other tidbits. The boys loved her, especially Joe College Grad. He spent several hours patting and grooming her the day before she died. She went to the great catfood factory in the sky with an excellent fur coat.

Elegy for a tom cat

Tom the cat died yesterday. The heat, his advanced age, and his off-the-charts hyperthyroidism got the better of him. His last few days were miserable. He now rests under a huge white impatiens plant in the flower bed where he spent most of his last summer days and nights, curled up on the wood chips in the shade.

He was a noble beast, huge in his prime, with a lion's big head and powerful shoulders. In his youth he was impetuous, taking on fights that always left him with wounds in his flanks, which some might see as evidence of cowardice, but that I saw as proof of his innate common sense. When he was outnumbered or outgunned, he ran.

He was never a great hunter, leaving that chore, as do his big cat cousins, to his sister. He guarded the perimeter of our house, fending off marauding visitors from across the street in endless stare-downs and with an inch-by-inch plan of attack that wore them down. At times he was more like a dog, wanting to be with people, following them around and begging for love. And he was more accepting than his sister when we took in a stray during a -30 degree spell one January. He was happy to ignore the interloper as long as the gravy train was still running in his direction. Until his last months, when his voice failed him, he had a loud croak that sounded like a cross between a Siamese and a crow. It was unmistakable.

He was a great cat who gave us 16 years of cat loyalty. In a species not known for this, at least among dog lovers, that's really something.

Cat food, or there's something wrong with this picture

Judy the cat has made a remarkable comeback. It may be that she's getting her meds on a regular basis. But I think it's the shrimp. OLGS buys her the cheap frozen shrimp, chops it up, and squirts a dose of medicine on top. She laps it up. But think about it. Thousands of teenage girls in Bangladesh or similar spots labor over these tidbits. They never dream that the the little luxuries they're preparing will become the lifeblood of an elderly black cat in flyover land.

Cat tails

My excuse for not posting for a week is the sick cat. She was a mess last week, and I got OLGS to take her to the vet, where expensive bloodwork revealed what we already knew. Her thyroid is out of whack, and we haven't been giving her the medication that regulates it. OLGS hates to upset her, and giving her medication upsets her. So he doesn't.

But the vet implied, not very subtly, that if we weren't going to follow doctors orders, we might as well put her down. So for the past week, I've turned into a screaming banshee on the subject of cat meds. I will not let OLGS shirk his duty, which is to hold her down while I shoot the stuff into her mouth. And she is better. Input equals output....

Elderly cat, part deux

Got a vet who says that as long as we're willing to pump kitty antibiotics into her, Judy the Cat will live. So, we're on the job. Every month for a week, we fill her full of bug-crushing meds, then watch her gradually slide down hill until the next month, when we start the routine again. Sounds brutal, but she actually seems a lot better. But giving her the antibiotics, especially when she's in suspicious mode and won't eat anything, is a two-person job. Even with her reduced weight and strength, she fights. So, OLGS holds her down on the kitchen counter, strategically positioned on top of the Star-Tribune sports pages, and keeps those deadly front paws in a manly grip. I load up the syringe, pry open her jaws, and shoot the stuff into her mouth. A successful encounter is when only half of it dribbles onto the pix of the latest Vikings scandal. There are better ways, but this works for us. I hope it works for her.

Elderly cat

What to do about a very old cat who won't eat? She appears congested, and seems to have difficulty picking up food in her mouth. We've taken her to the vet, and she has responded to antibiotic shots and liquid. But once the meds have worn off, she's back to the frail, skinny, ratty coat look.

She is very picky. She likes grilled organic chicken, cut up very fine, and crummy cheddar cheese (the orange kind), also cut up fine. She drinks evaporated milk. She spurns cheap tuna, except she drinks the liquid when you first open the can. Even very expensive canned cat food, such as Iams, does not appear to be on her approved diet. She no longer likes milk or cream.

But she still goes outside, hunkering down under the car even on the hottest days. It's probably safe there.

Why do we let her suffer? I don't know if she is suffering. And, I promised Joe College Grad that I would try to keep her alive until he gets home, which will be this week. Maybe he'll have the magic touch. At least he can take her to the vet for another shot of antibiotics.

Carpets and cats

Yesterday we rented the Rug Doctor to do the carpet in the master bedroom and associated stairs. Whoever thought that pale gray carpet was a good idea should definitely get checked out out at the nearest facility. And I confess it was I--I thought pale gray would be still masculine enough appeal to OLGS (Oldest Living Graduate Student) and pick up some subtle very pale blue in the curtains at the same time. I was wrong on at least one count--OLGS doesn't care about the carpet color. And since the rest of the decor is pretty haphazard, the alleged match to the curtains is insignificant in the scheme of things.

So I made a bad decorating decision. But at least one constituency in the household likes the pale gray carpet, and that's the cats. Specifically, they like to throw up on it. Rather than using the multicolored patterns of the living room Orientals, where the stains would blend in, they choose the pale gray as the best place to toss their little cookies. So, the vast expanse of carpet in our bedroom was covered with mysterious little irregular spots that would disappear for a few days if treated with grocery- store stain remover and then reappear.

The Rug Doctor worked fine. We'll see how long it takes for the stains to re-emerge, whether because of the cats or the lack of power in the Doctor's vibrating brushes.

Cat Tails

Have you noticed that most black cats really aren’t? Take mine, for example. In the summer their coarse black fur thins out, and what’s left is a luscious soft chocolate that is especially visible when they sun themselves. And, being proud mixed breed alley cats, they have their tiger ancestors' stripes that show when they stretch out on the driveway to catch a few rays. But another Minnesota winter is on its way, and the coats of my feline friends will soon morph into solid black—no chocolate, no stripes.