I’ve always been a risk-adverse kind of person, some might say fearful. Afraid of making a mistake, of being wrong. Afraid of falling. Afraid of the dark, of getting lost, of being left behind. Some of that changed when I experimented with drugs in the late 70s, early 80s. I found my inner extrovert and risk-taker, and, frankly, she almost killed me.
For over three decades now I live with someone is who somewhat risk-adverse. He was enough of a risk-taker when he was young(er) to join the Navy and fly on planes searching for Russian submarines, to join the Peace Corps and work with an Amazonian people that had once been known as headhunters. But when it came to work, housing, and finances, he always chose the long, slow steady path of reasonable choices. Frankly, he saved my life.
For his birthday last week, we went on a hike. A slow, ambling kind of hike where he would pause to sweep for insects that he would later photograph, and I would pause to get on my knees and take photographs.
It was a chilly, green day. Lots and lots of green with few red and yellow leaves here and there.
My reward for this long ambling walk (besides the simple joy of being on a long ambling walk) was several fully bloomed yellow lupine just waiting for me to come along.
Same stalk, just a different angle.
One part of our walk took us to an open windy field. Looking up at the sky, I remarked to my husband that if I didn’t know I was in Florida, I would have thought I was in the central part of New York state.
It was one of those walks that you really enjoy while you’re walking but enjoy even more once you’re home, warm and cozy with your four-legged furry friends. Especially this little guy.
It’s not the best picture of him. Actually it’s a still from a video I took of him playing. Raji is in training for the Kitty Olympics. He’s a leaper and he loves running into things.
At this time, Raji and our indoor fickle felines have not formally met. A couple of times I kept the door to the garage open long enough for a few furtive glances, but nothing more than that. Baby steps. We don’t expect any of them to become fast friends. Tolerance and safe passage from one room to another is all we ask.
Perhaps if we try to integrate them on a warm, sunny day, Junior will be too blissed out to care.
Thank you for reading! Stay safe and well and please enjoy this petite green bouquet.
Wow. I’m in the single digits now. Pretty soon our cats will have to start earning their food. Our newest unexpected bundle of joy has been doing that. We’ve developed a routine whereby he allows us to pet him for about 30 seconds before he’s fed. He earns that canned stinky cat food with some subtle kneading of the rug and discreet purring while we pet him. Best of all, he hasn’t punished us for forcing him into a pet taxi so we could take him to our vet. He was one unhappy, terrified boy but I have no doubt the vet and technicians cooed over him … as we often do.
And he plays. Oh, goodness, can that boy play! He’s definitely entertainment I would pay to see. Here are some photos of him in action.
As you can see from three of these photos, he moves fast and he likes to jump. He likes to run into things.
He’s just adorable.
I’m pretty sure our other three know something’s going on in the garage, but they’re not talking. Our temperatures are getting cooler, and they’re more interested in finding a free lap than acknowledging a potential intruder.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I’m grateful to have had a few days off. Friday we went on a slow walk through the Timberlane Ravine and, for a while, went our separate ways. My husband was hunting for bugs. I was hunting for photo opportunities.
It was late morning and the light was warm and magical.
The trees and their roots seem to take on human form, like legs intertwined or a woman stretching.
As usual, I looked for tiny things whether it be a little lizard or tiny funqi.
And flowers. I have to have flowers even if it means getting down on my arthritic knees.
The image on the right is one of those lucky moments. To get that photo, I had to position my iPhone on the ground, snap the photo and hope for the best. It had started to rain lightly as we were leaving, but I didn’t know until I cropped the photo that I captured a few raindrops on the lovely, delicate flower.
I hope you all have a wonderful week. Until next time, play well and play often.
The “R” bomb meaning retirement, resignation. Gee, those words really sound kind of depressing, like I’m resigning myself to retiring into oblivion. But that’s not how I see it. I might retreat further into my bubble when I retire, but my bubble needs some serious attention.
I read recently that people who work from home find that their homes are messier, not cleaner, because of it. Think about it. When you work from home, you use your kitchen, your bathroom, all your rooms more, creating more messes. During the work week, I might do a load or two of laundry in-between meetings but I can’t do any real housework during my work day. I also notice my home’s grittiness and dustiness more since I’m here all the time.
My first day of retirement, I will sleep because I’ll need energy for my second day of retirement when the cleaning starts. I’ve warned my husband. Then, a week later, I’ll be spending more time writing and taking photos. I want to do more of this:
I don’t know what kind of plant this is. No doubt some kind of wetlands, marsh-type plant since it lives on the border of a stormwater facility. But I love doing this: taking photos and then playing with the images, trying to get an insect’s point of view. [Speaking of insects, check out a short documentary on two entomologists–Charlie and Lois O’Brien–called “Love Bugs.” It’s available on PBS.]
Below is a different plant, but no less fascinating.
I’m still undecided about when to spill the beans, to share that I’ll be moving on soon. I’m taking it one day at a time because there’s still a lot going on in my little corner of employment. I worry about people being angry at me or disappointed in me. It’s not that I don’t care about my co-workers or the work we do. It’s because I care that I took on more responsibility back in May.
My introverted, highly sensitive self is just tired, worn out, burned out, stressed. But that’s not what I want to say when I drop the “R” bomb. No, I must be honest. I’ve been given an ultimatum.
My husband said he’d leave me for an older woman if I don’t retire.
Meanwhile, Raji seems to be adapting to his confines. I can’t quite say his home because I really don’t want him living in the garage permanently. Even if he has his own outdoor playpen.
Sometimes he’ll sit just outside the pen, taking stock of the surroundings. My husband put a bird feeder near the pen so he can be entertained by birds and squirrels. Raji often sits up on his hind legs. I think he might have a bit of meerkat in him. He’s also started kneading the very soft and fluffy cushions on the shelves.
Raji still plays approach-avoidance games with us. If he’s hungry, he’ll come as close as he needs to get food. He’ll eat dry food from my hand if that’s his only choice. I have to be careful though. A couple of times he almost bit off a chunk of my palm. When we feed him wet food, he might tolerate his forehead being stroked. But as soon as he’s done eating, he backs away (sometimes literally) and keeps his distance.
And yet …
He’s playful. He has a favorite wand toy. The wand has a long ribbon of colorful fleece attached and Raji will leap over and under boxes and buckets to get to it. I gave him one of my husband’s old socks stuffed with catnip and he rolls around with that, rubbing it over his face. He’s also taken ownership of a purple yoga towel of mine, curling up on it with the catnip sock.
He makes direct eye contact with us, and “talks” quite a bit. He seems calm and settled for the most part. Saturday I worked out in the garage for about an hour, something I hadn’t done since we brought him in. He curled up on a fluffy cat bed and watched me.
It might be the weather–it’s gotten a bit warmer the last few days–but he’s also spending more time in the pen. So we are hopeful. Next Saturday we’ll take him to our favorite vet for a physical. I expect our progress will take several steps back after that.
To all my friends in the U.S., may you have a wonderful holiday. Don’t overindulge or you might wind up like these two (ha, ha, ha).
First, let me talk about flowers. As some of you know, I’ve developed an interest in photography, an interest I hope to indulge a lot more in about 11 weeks. Macro-photography fascinates me, and a few weeks ago I bought flowering plants to challenge my photographic skills. Following are photos of an Purple Aster, bought before it started to bloom. These photos were taken over four days.
It’s fun watching flowers bloom on your own back deck, trying to find the right light and the right moment. During the work week, that isn’t as easy as I’d like, even though I do work from home. Blame it on meetings.
And now, a Raji update:
For those of you who missed the excitement of my last post, you can read it here. In the week since I wrote that post, we managed to get Raji confined to our garage. Poor little guy had hurt his right front leg jumping down from the roof of our shed. We didn’t want him gallivanting around, making it worse so we coaxed him in with food (of course!) one evening and shut the cat door.
Oh, was he pissed about that! I had never heard a cat complain so much. He has quite the repertoire as well. Not just the usual meows for Raji, but howls, trills, pips and peeps. And he kept us busy playing hide-and-seek, except he was the one always hiding. One of his favorite hiding places is our canoe which hangs against a wall. Watching him climb boxes and books and then slip into the gap is much like watching a kid climbing the stairs to his room, loudly complaining the whole way.
We had arranged to take him to our vet, but the appointment was a few days off. We were worried about his leg, the fact that we were expecting heavy rain, and the lack of sunshine and fresh air in the garage. So more or less spontaneously, we took him up to a spay/neuter clinic and got his pom-poms snipped. He also got his rabies and distemper shots, tested for HIV and feline leukemia (both negative), and his claws clipped. His leg wasn’t swollen and the clinic vet said the pain meds would probably help with that. After we brought him home, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with us.
Then our worries changed to whether he would eat (and through eating, take his pain medication), whether he would use the litter box, or whether he would just curl up in the canoe and die.
Happily, within 24 hours, his appetite was back and he had peed in the litter box. I’m sure you can imagine my delight when, another day later, I found an impressive pile of poop in the box too. And so we go. He has a great appetite, and the more I study him, the younger I think he is, perhaps not yet a year old. He still does not like us to touch him, but he tolerates our furtive pets and strokes while he eats. Although he insists on social distancing, he’s become comfortable enough with us to groom and play while we watch like doting parents.
We want to keep him confined at least until he sees our favorite vet at the end of this month. Because of his apparent youth, however, I’m loath to release him to the wilds of our neighborhood … ever. To make his current confinement tolerable (at least to our conscience), we bought him a playpen and fastened it to the side entrance into our garage.
We have this luxurious penthouse set up so when the side door is opened, he can go in and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine while still being held prisoner. No surprise that he has a lot of complaints about this.
Raji has inspected every possible flaw in this setup, searching for any gap big enough to squeeze through, and giving us a piece of his mind while he does it. We’ve bolted, strapped, and twist-tied the pen in place, and secured wood panels where a kitty’s head might stick through. We were not only afraid of Raji getting away, but of him getting stuck. So this is a daytime playpen, to be used only when we are up and about and available to check on him frequently.
I guess you could say the adventure has begun in earnest now. The slow, thoughtful and patient process of getting Raji used to us, comfortable with us, and then (fingers crossed) integrated into the household.
For now our three indoor kids are in denial. They do hear Raji chattering away in the garage, but pretend not to. Their ears, however, give them away. In the meantime, Junior still claims my sandals.
Thank you for reading! If the news is getting you down, find a good distraction, like adopting a semi-feral stray cat. Believe me, it helps :)
I’m continuing my countdown in perhaps a more upbeat tone that I had when I started. The next 70-some days will be rough for this country, no doubt. I’m no Pollyanna, but I can be optimistic. I’m old enough to know that staying calm, being patient, and holding on to hope can see me (us) through all kinds of hell. Forgive me for the tired cliche, but the light at the end of the tunnel has gotten brighter. For the first time in a long time, I feel that my country and I might actually be going in the same direction.
But you’re wondering about this new man in my life, aren’t you? Well, he’s not an adult, more like a teenager. But, oh, is he handsome!
This is Raji, an orange tabby that has been hanging out in my neighborhood the last couple of months. We originally thought he belonged to a family a couple of houses up from us. They have an orange cat but, after doing a bit of math, I realized their cat would be a lot older than this youngster drinking out of our water fountain. At first he’d run away if we approached him, but over time, he got used to us.
Finally, my husband put some food out by the water fountain. He was starving, so hungry that he tolerated my husband’s presence although he didn’t want to be touched.
In times like these, I turned to my neighbors across the street. They know everything about the hood. They used to have dogs that they would walk around the hood and, according to M, dog people always talk to each other when they’re out and about. They no longer have dogs. They now have a cat that used to live with someone else but decided she liked these two ladies better so she (the cat) adopted them (my neighbors). That’s usually how it works.
I texted M about the orange tabby and learned that he had frequented their backyard too. They had named him Raji, which M said means “hope.” They could tell me who he did not belong to. We all agreed he was likely homeless. I reached out to the hood and beyond through the NextDoor app and received a lot of supportive comments but no one stepping forward to say, “Hey, that’s my boy!”
My husband and I mobilized at that point because it was getting cold (well, cold for Florida). I outfitted a pet taxi with fleecy blankets and stationed it on the back deck where he sometimes appeared. He had also made appearances in our garage if we had the side door or garage door open, so we set up a feeding station there, with some soft bedding.
Raji was a very hungry cat and it took little coaxing to get him into our garage for his meals. Although he was skittish around us (“you can look, but don’t touch”), I hand-fed him treats a couple of times, stopping only because he mistook my fingers for food once too often. Our neighbors brought over some food that their cat didn’t like.
And now here we are.
To say my husband and I are smitten by this handsome fellow is an understatement. Just look at that tail! We expect he’s quite young. His teeth look very white and sharp compared to our old geezers.
He hasn’t been neutered. He’s packing a pair of pom-poms large enough for cheerleading. But he’s sweet. Our boy kitty–Junior–sometimes goes into a frenzy when Raji is on the back deck, howling like the Werewolf of London. Raji doesn’t pay him any mind, just sits and looks around at the birds and any other bright shiny object. [While Raji’s presence annoys the birds and squirrels that visit our yard, thankfully he’s an awful hunter.]
So next steps are to set up an appointment with our vet so Raji can be poked, prodded and scanned for a chip. We plan to “trap” Raji in our garage (i.e., close the cat door) and entice him into a pet taxi with food. We already know this works … heh, heh, heh.
I didn’t want another cat. We have three indoor, one of whom is now nicknamed Million-Dollar Maxine as her vet bills continue to climb. They are a huge responsibility, and they have created a rhythm in our lives that I don’t want to ruin. My husband calls them “anchor kitties” because we can’t do much traveling as long as they’re with us. And Raji will be a difficult experience because of Junior.
Junior can be a bully and has already demonstrated that he does not care for this interloper. He picks on Maxine and Wendy when he’s feeling hungry or just plain feisty. But he’s my boy and all I can do is tell him that over and over …. as well as let him sleep on my sandals.
But Raji has decided that he likes us enough to hang out after he’s had a meal. He could just leave but he doesn’t. He hangs out with us, sometimes playing with the catnip-stuffed sock I made for him. He’s making himself at home in our garage and in our hearts. It’s been 7 1/2 years since we last took in a kitty–Wendy. I guess it’s time :)
This is Junior’s reaction to the idea of a new cat in the household.
Well, I can’t quit just yet. For those who read my post last week (click here if you need a refresher), let me assure you that all is now well in the Bailey & Brown household. Still, it was a rough week. Now, here are the reasons why I have to keep my day job (for now).
Reason #1: Wendy
What? Who? Me? Whadda I do?
Reason #2: Maxine
“Why should I lie in a fancy fleece bed when there’s a purrfectly good box here?”
Reason #3: Junior
“In solidarity with the girls, I went on a hunger strike too. Plus I wanted a new safe place to eat.”
La Historia de los Tres Gatos
A week ago Thursday, Wendy got the ball rolling with a diagnosis of bladder stones. She hadn’t been showing any symptoms of blockage or pain. No, she was just in for her annual physical when the results her urinalysis suggested something was amiss. We left with a case of prescription cat food and a long waiting period for the stones to (hopefully) dissolve on their own.
The following Friday, Wendy decided she didn’t like the new food and went on strike. She refused to eat anything. Given that she was overweight, we figured she could fast for awhile and eventually get hungry enough to start eating again. By Sunday, not only did she continue to refuse any food, but it was obvious that the smell of cat food nauseated her.
That refusal resulted in a trip to to the vet on Monday afternoon. Our mistake was in giving her the prescription food right away and not transitioning her by mixing a bit with her regular food over time. Over the weekend she had lost two pounds.
A crash diet is not good for people or animals, so my husband brought home an assortment of prescription foods (dry and wet) for tummy troubles along with a few doses of Cerenia, anti-nausea medication. Wendy took to the dry food right away, but still turned away from wet food, even her old favorites. In desperation, I bought an assortment of “gourmet” cat foods that came in pouches: shredded chicken in broth; chicken and tuna bisque.
While all this was going on with Wendy, by that same Sunday, Maxine and Junior also decided to go on a hunger strike.
Imagine: Three cats all refusing to eat!
Thank goodness my husband is retired and could keep an eye on the kids. Even though Wendy had gone off her food two days before the other two, we suspected there was some common reason all three were now off it.
Heat
That week the heat index in Tallahassee was well into the three digits with high humidity. Up until Monday evening, the kids had free access to the back porch during the day. We had been marveling at how all three couldn’t wait to go out onto the porch only to drape themselves on the chairs and table like Dali’s kitties. When my husband ushered them in for a break late Monday afternoon, he noticed that Maxine was wobbly, like she was drunk.
He promptly locked the cat door to the porch. No salir!
Our cats love heat. They’re southern kitties and when temps dip below 90 degrees, they act like the ice age is settling in, burrowing into blankets and seeking out our body heat.
But, in hindsight, the heat this weekend was way past the boundaries of what they should be exposed to. So my husband kept them in, and they didn’t complain. Maxine found a nice box to curl up in, Wendy decided to settle in on my bed, and Junior played sentry on a desk in our living room.
Still, they didn’t eat anything but the dry food and only nibbles at that. Wendy, though, was getting better. After a couple of days on Cerenia, she started to eat her dry food with gusto. A call to the vet, and by Thursday evening, all three were taking Cerenia.
At this point in my writing (Sunday afternoon), they are finally back to eating wet food. We’re being cautious though, trying small portions of different over-the-counter varieties. Today, for the first time, I mixed a little of prescription food in with some Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals beef pate and crossed my fingers.
They licked their bowls clean. Can you say “Hallelujah”? (And I don’t mean “Hello Julia“!)
So what’s all this got to do with my day job?
Well, just this week:
Two vet visits.
Prescription food for Wendy to (hopefully) dissolve the bladder stones.
Possible surgery if Wendy’s bladder stones don’t dissolve.
Teeth-cleaning for Wendy once the bladder stones dissolve or she has surgery.
Three weeks of antibiotics for Maxine because she has E. Coli in her urine again (oh, did I ever tell you that I now have to wipe her butt after she does #2 because the vet suspects poor hygiene?)
Prescription food for Maxine because she also is in early stages of kidney disease.
Not on this list is the teeth cleaning (and removal) that Maxine had last month, and the removal of Junior’s last few remaining teeth earlier this year.
Am I complaining? Nope.
Times like this we are reminded not to take our furred babies for granted. I never felt so much joy as when they gobbled down their wet food today.
This week my husband and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We had plans to go out of town for a couple of days, to enjoy a getaway in a favorite place, to bike a favorite trail, and to eat out at a favorite restaurant.
We canceled.
At the time we decided to cancel, the kids were getting better but we were still on edge about them. We also decided, that after going through such a rough time, we just wanted to be with them.
Pray, tell me, what “sacrifices” have you made for your furred babies?
I know some people think we’re crazy, but then, we are crazy about our kids.
If you recall, last week I posted a story, or rather, memoir, of a young woman wondering whether to send a letter. If you missed it, you can read it here. I’ll wait.
Twenty-five years ago, on August 21, the letter writer and the presumed letter recipient married in a small town in California. (more…)
I didn’t know there was such a event as World Cat Day, but thanks to Interesting Literature, now I do know and I also know some more facts about writers and cats. Read on and enjoy!
It’s World Cat Day! The purr-fect opportunity (sorry – we couldn’t resist) to share 10 of our favourite writer-related facts about cats.
Ernest Hemingway had over 30 pet cats, with names including Alley Cat, Crazy Christian, Ecstasy, F. Puss, Fats, Furhouse, Skunk, Thruster, and Willy. Many of them had six toes; to this day, such cats are often known as ‘Hemingway cats’.
James Joyce wrote two stories for children, both about cats: ‘The Cat and the Devil’ and ‘The Cats of Copenhagen’. You can see some of the rare illustrations for ‘The Cat and the Devil’ here.
French writer Colette started her working day by picking the fleas off her cat.
One of Daniel Defoe’s early business ventures was the harvesting of musk which he extracted from the anal glands of cats. Perhaps unsurprisingly (and thankfully for the cats involved), this venture failed.
Luisa back in the day when she ruled the household
Born: ??/??/1992 or 1993
Rescued: 08/26/1996
Died: 05/05/2014
In August 1996, we rescued Luisa from a local park, popular with runners and students, and adjacent to a student housing complex. She liked to hang out on the roof of the restrooms. My husband had fallen in love with her a few weeks earlier and fretted that she might have been abandoned. We resolved to at least take her to a vet and post notices in the hope that her “owners” would come for her. No one came forward to claim her, so she came home with us.
And lived with us for almost 18 years. In all that time, she seemed to be the healthiest of the bunch, outliving Rascal, Smokey, Joshua, Elodea, and Mikey, and not showing any evidence of the chronic illnesses that they had all been afflicted with in their later years. We had one scare in December 2011 when she developed fatty liver disease. We had had to euthanize Mikey just two months before and neither of us felt emotionally strong enough to go through that again. Fortunately, medication resolved the disease and soon she was eating and drinking and being as contrary as her usual tortie self.
This time ’round though, the big C knocked her down. Although we tried medication, nothing could stop the progression of the disease. These past several weeks have been a hellish roller-coaster ride with us getting hopeful every time she would raise her head and purr and chirp at us, alternating with painful dread of her imminent death when she started to refuse food and eventually only drank if we brought water to her.
Timing is everything, but it’s never perfect in this situation. Either you euthanize them when there is still a shred of quality of life within them, and forever wonder if it was too soon and inhumane. Or you put it off until they are simply a shell of a living creature, breathing hard, almost unable to move, and forever flog yourself for waiting one day too long.
In Luisa’s case, we feel we put it off too long. Yet we are grateful she died at home and we were with her.
We gave her all the love and care and comfort in our power. We loved her and will miss her deeply.
Now, I’m venturing outside my comfort zone here, especially since I didn’t bother to apply makeup or straighten my hair. OMG, you’ll be seeing the REAL me!! Don’t say I didn’t warn you ;)
Marie at 1 Write Way 