Awesome!
Mews: Why do cats have 9 lives #infographic
Cute, as well as chock full of #StuffINeverKnew 😊
Tips & Tricks: Make your Cats happy with these Tips
Excellent helpful tips. =^..^=
Writer’s Block
So I know, I’ve been bad lately. I do apologize, it’s just that there is so much I need to be doing, and somehow, I am having a difficult time finding the impetus to get started. Plus I have this huge block sitting on my desk – yes, you guessed it – writer’s block!
Okay, I am kidding, there is no block on my desk. But my world is kind of crazy right now. I am trying to get my home ready to go on the market – and when you are not physically what you once were (me, in a nutshell), accomplishing household repairs, and other necessary evils can be difficult. In fact, sometimes it just seems so overwhelming that I just do nothing. By the way, did I mention that I have ADHD? One of the characteristics of ADHD for me is the tendency to procrastinate myself into oblivion, and the inability to start. Simply start…
Then Monday a good friend of mine made the trip from Lincoln, Nebraska to my home (about 170 miles one way), and the sole purpose of her visit was to help me with “rat killing” in the garage. Now…before everyone thinks, “Oh my God, she should call an exterminator!” Let me reassure you…rat killing is the phrase I use for sorting STUFF. Junk, getting rid of junk. There were NO rats injured, or even seen, in the process of the work we did the other day. But we DID manage to almost completely fill the dumpster the city dropped off here last Thursday! Yup…we were quite successful at lighting a fire under me. 🙂
The reason I mention this on this particular blog is because I have two cats, as everyone is probably well aware of by now. Moogy likes almost anyone. In fact, she will insert herself onto someone’s lap like a leech, or if they are not sitting, rub all over their legs, demanding that they notice how beautiful and purrfect she is. True story. Tinker, on the other hand, is a cat of a different color. Tinker adopted me (or at least my food) almost exactly 6 years ago. He was a starving feral kitten, and willing to learn to be “domesticated” in exchange for a steady chance at the food bowl. But…Tinker almost never takes to strangers. Even when my daughter comes, and she is a true cat lover, Tinker takes hours and hours to acknowledge that she is back in town…and he LIKES her. So imagine my surprise when less than ten minutes of Karen’s arrival Monday evening, Tinker not only came out to say hello, but he actually got close enough to be petted! FACT! I was gobsmacked, let me tell you. I think it is safe to say that my cats have adopted Karen. In fact, I am so thankful for her help with my garage – and so pleased that my cats love her.
I did not get any photos of Tinker with Karen, but I did manage to get a good one of Moogy, sitting quite comfortably on Karen’s lap as if she owned it!
Moogy enjoying Karen’s lap
My apologies…
So I haven’t written a blog post in quite a while, and I feel badly about that. Stress from dealing with my own health concerns, as well as my precious Moogy and her problems has kept me from doing much of anything.
It turns out that I am the “lucky” mom to a cat with IBD, otherwise known as irritable bowel disease. When Moogy was hospitalized in June, she was full of infection from the problem being so long-standing. After weeks on antibiotics, and eating prescription ID dry food, as well as Science Diet canned food, Moogy began vomiting again only a couple of weeks after the antibiotics stopped. Then the vomiting became much more frequent again – and finally, last weekend, she was running a fever and listless. At the time, I could see no way around it – I am poor – well, lived off a fixed income that is mostly broken anyway – and do not have the money to drive her to a vet hospital that has the facilities to do a CT scan on a pet. Nor could I pay for the scan. Bottom line, I had pretty much decided that I would have to have her euthanized, because I did not want her to continue to go downhill.
Monday morning I called and made an appointment to have her put down. I was devastated. After going and having my own CT scan on Monday (as I said, dealing with issues of my own), I came home seriously stressed. The strangest thing happened. Moogy was no longer acting listless, and maybe thirty minutes after I arrived home, she was even playing! I’m thinking maybe she is on life 2 or 3 of 9. I just don’t know. Anyway, I called the vet’s office 10 minutes before they closed and changed the appointment to an examination.
The decision reached by the vet and myself was to remove her from canned food entirely. I asked about probiotics (at the suggestion of a friend who has worked as a vet tech), and the vet said it couldn’t hurt. So…
Since Monday, Moogy and her fur-brother Tinker have had NO wet food. Now as my previously mentioned friend calls it, kitty crack (wet food) is highly addictive. Needless to say, Moogy and Tinker are not very pleased with me. If I walk out to the kitchen, they follow me, thinking they are going to get their kitty crack. When I even stand up from my seat, they are there, meowing, thinking they are going to get fed. Earlier today, when I went to make my morning coffee, the two of them stood in front of the placemat their food sits on, and glared at me, reproachfully, as if to say, “Mom, why ARE you starving us?”
So, I am wondering, does anyone know how long it will take for them to get over this fixation? LOL
On a happier note, Moogy has had more energy, and been much more loving the last four days – but then, come to think of it, so has Tinker. Maybe they are still trying to convince me to break down and open a can? 😉
What the cats don’t realize is that yesterday I exchanged 25 cans of Science Diet Tuna with Gravy for 80 lbs of Tidy Cat Clumping Litter – and we have no more kitty crack in the house! Hopefully Moogy will still love me enough to do this after a few more days:
Sandy’s babies, or how I became a Grand-Queen!
First I should probably explain the title. Since intact female cats are called “Queens,” when my baby girl Sandy had kittens, I went around bragging to everyone that I was now a “Grand-Queen!” Yes, I really was just that proud of the babies!
The day before the babies were born, my daughter and her roommate had shown up at my house to spend the night. The next day they were driving up to Disneyland. My daughter, bless her, asked (pleaded, whined, and cajoled) to borrow my camera for the trip. Of course I said yes, what kind of mom would I be if I said no? Of course, this meant that when the babies were born, I had no way of taking pictures of them. Sigh…
Early the next morning my camera (and the girls) left to drive the 90 minutes north to Disneyland. I puttered around the house, making sure it was clean, as it had gone on the market the day before. At one point, as I walked by Sandy, she reached out and bit me, hard, on the back of my calf. Hmm…Sandy had never bitten me before – although my son had told me that as a tiny kitten she used to bite his friends when they messed with her. I got to thinking about it, and thought, “she MUST be in labor.” So I put the queening box in a corner of the living room, and covered it with a blanket, to give her privacy.
Less than an hour later, I heard a squeak, and so had to sneak a look. Sure enough, there was a brand new baby in there – and oh my – she was gorgeous. It was my Moogy…first born, with a beautiful wide brown stripe down the center of her back – like a brown skunk stripe! I sent a text to my daughter telling her Sandy was having her babies. Of course, throughout the rest of the day there were many text messages and calls back and forth! After Moogy, within an hour, there was another little girl kitten, with a similar brown stripe, but it ended at her shoulders, and then there was a sideways stripe on her shoulders. That was the little girl my daughter eventually named Chaos. A while later, there was another kitten, this one with spots/stripes, or stripes/spots (depending upon your perspective, I guess), and that was the little boy my daughter named Orion. You see, my daughter had wanted one of the kittens, and I informed her she could not take ONE, she must have TWO to be fair to the kittens. 😉 (sneaky aren’t I?)
Another hour passed, and another, and there were no more kittens. So Sandy had three beautiful babies, born May 16, 2007. The earliest photo I have of them is from the next day. I’m not sure if this is the earliest of them, it could be two days later. Silly me, I forgot to label them by age those first few days. Don’t judge – I was too head-over-tail in love with them to think straight! ❤
From Left to Right: Orion, Chaos, and Moogy
Sandy was completely in love with her babies…so much so that she refused to leave their sides for a full sixteen hours after they were born! She did not leave the box for food, water, nothing. I couldn’t even entice her out of the box with her favorite food. Nope, those were her babies, and dang nabbit, she was staying put!
For the remainder of the time the kittens were small enough to remain in the box, every time Sandy came back to the box from eating, or pottying, she had this adorable chirp/meow – a sound I have never heard from another cat. It was as though she were saying, “Babies, mommy is back!” Sandy was such a good mom.
When the kittens were not quite two weeks old, the realtor had me leave so he could show the house one day. Apparently Sandy did not care for that (remember her box and babies were down in the living room), because that night, while I was asleep, I heard my mirrored glass closet door slide open. I didn’t think anything of it – probably thought I dreamed it. The next morning, as I stood in the kitchen making coffee, Sandy comes sauntering in from the hallway. “Good morning Sandy!” I said…then I thought, “huh? Hallway?” I went and looked, and sure enough, no babies in the box! At that moment I remembered the closet door, so I went upstairs to look. The closet door was open only a few inches, maybe 4″, so I opened the door. As I did, little Orion stood up on all four legs, puffed up his tail as big as it would go and hissed at me! It was so darn adorable, he was protecting his sisters! ❤
This is a 3 week old Orion!
At that point I realized I needed to find a way to keep the kittens in my bedroom, rather than downstairs, so I purchased a large airline kennel, and took the door off for them. Sandy never tried to hide them in the closet again! 🙂
So there is the beginning of the story of how I became the proudest Grand-Queen who ever was! My next post I will write more about the babies, and the lengths I went to in order to keep them happy, healthy, and contained! LOL
=^..^=
Book Review: My Best Little Buddy
Katzenworld, A friend of the Crazy Cat Lady, has written a review of a book that sounds amazing! Not only that, purchases of the book help fund animal rescue. Please read the review, and if you’d like good books, consider purchasing this one. =^..^=
Continuing the Saga of Sandy
As promised, there is more to the story of Sandy, my beautiful Siamese girl. So here goes…
One of the most amazing things about Sandy was that she was scrappy as any prize fighter; and also a great hunter. I had always heard that Siamese make lousy hunters, but apparently Sandy never read that book. When we still lived in California, she often brought me home little lizards, usually still alive, and all too often, those lizards were missing their tails. I know she did it because she loved me, but I will be honest, I did not enjoy finding lizards everywhere – not one bit! Yes, I will admit, I’m not a fan of that particular member of the animal kingdom. 😉
Sandy was also quite the fighter in other ways. A neighbor of mine in California once witnessed Sandy fighting with a raccoon, and the raccoon backed down and ran away with its tail between its legs (figuratively of course!). 🙂
After the babies were born; when they were almost four months old, Sandy proved just how brave she was. I had sold my townhouse, and it was my final night in the place. We were finishing up last minute packing when a neighbor who had never bothered to come by before showed up at the door, and instead of knocking, he simply walked in. He had a HUGE dog with him – and Sandy saw them before anyone else did. Now her kittens were already almost as big as she was…but to Sandy, they were still babies. She attacked that dog, fur flying, claws out, hissing and yowling at the top of her lungs. The neighbor, who turned out to be a drunk jerk, threatened me with the vet bill for the wee, tiny scratch the dog got on its nose, but I just laughed. He was an ass, and Sandy was not going to let that dog come anywhere near her babies.
Once I moved to Nebraska, I was determined to have Sandy be an indoor cat. But Sandy was having none of that, and became quite skilled at slipping out the door the moment you opened it. She wouldn’t even be in the same room when you got to the door, but she was there and gone in a flash, time after time. One day when she came home, she brought me a live shrew. I was most definitely not amused. LOL She really was determined to catch one of the squirrels who abound here – and would go crazy trying to catch one. One morning when I left for work, Sandy had managed to get outside, and so I had to leave her out. That evening, when I got home, I could hear her crying, but couldn’t find her. Silly Sandy, she must have been chasing a squirrel in the cedar tree beside my house, and somehow ended up on the roof, with no way to get back down! 😀 That one required my son, who was living with me at the time, climbing up the extension ladder and bringing her down. With my fear of heights, had I been alone, she probably would have stayed there. (Kidding – I would have found a way – honest!)
Remember the story of Sandy getting stuck in a garage in California when she was small? Well, although she learned her lesson well in California, after I moved here to Nebraska, she pulled the same stunt again. My son and I both came home from work one day when she had been outside all day again, and although we could hear Sandy, we couldn’t find her. I finally got a close enough listen to her to realize she had somehow gotten locked in my next-door neighbor’s garage. Now I should add this neighbor is a true hoarder. Her garage is the stuff nightmares are made of…and it’s easy to figure out she would have no idea that she locked the cat in there – you can barely see beyond the doorway! Anyway, fortunately for Sandy, the door wasn’t locked, and we were able to open it and release her. 😉
Sandy’s love of hunting extended to inside the house as well. When she couldn’t get outside, Sandy would hunt in my basement, and she would bring me socks, small towels, and other items of clothing she dug out of the laundry or from God only knows where. She would chirp and meow around the item, all the way upstairs, and then she would dump the item on the living room floor, proceeding to “kill” it with her back feet. I had many items of clothing destroyed by my girl, I will be honest. The record number of items on one day was 19 pieces! Yes, Sandy was a scrappy little hunter girl, that’s for sure. 🙂
In my next blog post, I will write about Sandy and her babies. Until then, I hope everyone has an amazing Caturday! =^..^=
Taken in Nebraska!
Meet Sandy – or How a Confirmed Dog Person Became the Crazy Cat Lady!
In June of 2006, my 18 year old son moved in with me in San Diego after finishing high school. Prior to that he had been living with his dad and stepmom, and then after he turned 18, he spent a few months living in an apartment on his own. I was thrilled that he was going to be living with me, and then I found out about Sandy. Sandy was probably 12 weeks old when he moved in with me – a bossy little Siamese girl with glorious aqua colored eyes – but…She.Was.Boss. Now I need to admit here and now that I have had cats off and on throughout most of my life. And I do love cats – but was always more of a dog person. When Stephen and Sandy moved in with me, I was concerned how Sandy would get along with my 29 lb. French bulldog, Rusty. After all, Rusty didn’t know a cat from lunch…and Sandy was not used to dogs.
The adventure began when I flew to Las Vegas to help Stephen move. Because he was not old enough, I had to rent the U-haul for his belongings. Two of his friends were coming along for the move, and we got everyone and everything loaded up, when all of a sudden, Stephen insisted that Sandy had to ride with Rachel and me in the U-haul, because there was not enough room in Spencer’s car. Hmm…no carrier, 350-ish miles, with a kitten. Naturally I agreed, because, after all, what choice did I have? 🙂
We decided to stop roughly halfway for gas, and something to eat. And don’t you know – Sandy slipped right on out the door of the U-haul and had all four of us chasing her madly, and she ran and hid, laughing at us in her feline way. Finally, captured again, I told Stephen he had to take her in the other car. That lasted for maybe 20 miles, when the two of them flagged us down and claimed Sandy was getting under the pedals, and it simply was not safe. So yes, I took her back in the U-haul. We did manage to make it to San Diego without any further incidents. Thank goodness. I was most unhappy, listening to a baby Siamese howl most of the way home, I promise you.
The first week in San Diego, Sandy was kept locked in Stephen’s room. Eventually though, being the slippery, conniving little wench that she was, she got out and came downstairs. The first meeting with Rusty did not go well. He wanted to play nice, but she immediately slapped him across the face and glared at him. So much for being friends. From that day forward, Rusty was seriously cowed by this little bit of cat.
This picture gives you an idea who was top “dog” in that house! In the game of cat vs dog, the cat came out on top. 🙂 I do believe that Sandy was glad about one thing with Rusty though – his dog door. Once she discovered it, there was no keeping her inside. She was off, exploring the complex where my townhouse was, probably half of every day. If one of us decided to walk down to just outside the complex to visit the neighborhood liquor/convenience store, Sandy followed as if she was a dog. In fact, I think she believed she was a dog – and while I can’t speak for Rusty, I’m convinced he thought she was Satan incarnate. LOL
Once during the months Stephen still lived with me, Sandy went missing. Oh it was awful. We searched high and low for her, and finally I made up lost cat fliers that we posted everywhere. Stephen was inconsolable, convinced she had run afoul of one of the coyotes that were plentiful in that area, or that someone had stolen her. While walking the complex, calling for her, a day after she went missing, Stephen heard a cat meowing pitifully from inside someone’s garage. He went up, knocked on the door, and the woman said, “I don’t have a cat!” But she went down, and sure enough, she heard it too. She opened the garage, and out streaked Sandy, who then proceeded to jump right into Stephen’s arms. She was covered in motor oil. We figured out that when the owner of the garage came home the day before, Sandy must have gone exploring, and gotten locked into the garage. For a long time after that, Sandy would never come further than the doorway to MY garage. 😉
Four months later, after being unable to find a job in San Diego, Stephen moved back to Las Vegas, and left Sandy with me. Now in those days, I was financially strapped. There was always month left at the end of my money. I didn’t have the money to have Sandy spayed, and as cats will, she went into heat. As she grew bigger and bigger, I decided that having her hop over my patio fence was unhealthy for her, so I created a “Sandy door” for her to easily leave the patio.
Perhaps the point at which I truly became the crazy cat lady – because I couldn’t have a pregnant Sandy jumping over the fence! 🙂
Yes, by this point, I truly turned into the Crazy Cat Lady – make no mistake about it!
One final photo for this post – that is Sandy, the day before the kittens were born, in the lower right corner of the photo.
Sandy, the day before the babies were born.
In my next post, I will continue the story of Sandy, the Siamese girl who turned this dog-lover into a Crazy Cat Lady! =^..^=
One of those times…
I have decided to re-blog my Blissfully Single posts that are about the cat here. I hope you enjoy.
Voice of the Crazy Cat Lady 