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.
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 ;)
This week has been quite the emotional roller coaster, with my husband and I having a few teary-eyed discussions about our oldest cat, Luisa. I’m happy to say that right now she is stable and seems to be regaining some of her old spunk and energy.
Luisa nodding off.
Okay, she’s not looking too spunky here, but this is the first morning in a week that she’s felt well enough to walk all the way from the back of the house to the front, climb up on the couch (with a little help from moi), and then take a nap in front of the window. And I have the pleasure of giving her a cocktail of drugs twice a day: her usual methimazole (for hyperthyroidism) and Pepcid (for her tummy; I don’t know that it helps but they say it doesn’t hurt); in addition, an anti-nausea pill once a day; appetite stimulant every three days; a liquid medication for colitis; and a food supplement similar to Activa. Fortunately, Luisa is very good about taking pills and even having a syringe of cold liquid splashed at the back of her throat. We are not assuming that she’s out of danger yet. I mean, she’s at least 20 (my husband argues that she’s closer to 22) and her body is shutting down. We’re just trying to slow the process and make her comfortable. And right now, our efforts are paying off :)
With Luisa as my distraction, I’ve fallen very behind in writing and blogging and commenting. Fortunately, this morning I came across this post from CommuniCATE Resources for Writers: Don’t “Write” Yourself Off: I Don’t Care How Old You Are! Indeed, I needed to read this! One of the (many) struggles I have with my writing is my age: Will I someday be too old to publish a FIRST novel? Is time running out for me? If you ever have any of these thoughts, read Cate’s blog post.
And if you feel that sometimes the world is too full of bad news and bad people, there’s a new blog that you’ll want to visit and perhaps even contribute to: Good People Doing Great Things. This is the brain-child of Margaret Jean Langstaff, a wonderful writer and blogger that you may already know through her blog, The Langstaff Retort. For Good People Doing Great Things, Margaret wants “to hear your stories and experiences, events and acts of spontaneous kindness that you have witnessed or initiated yourself.” She is looking for guest bloggers, columnists, advisors, people who understand the importance of compassion in our humanity, as well as anyone with WP expertise who would be willing volunteer their time to make the new blog visually engaging.
Almost finally, Interesting Literature had two very interesting posts last week: one about 19th century inmates of insane asylums (click here) and another one on great quotations from women writers (click here). My favorite quote of those listed: ‘Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.’ – Virginia Woolf
Now really finally, for Belinda at Busymindthinking.com …
Dear Reader, you see this lovely specimen of a feline in repose. Reading is hard work, you know, especially of The New Yorker (such long articles!).
Luisa sleeping on a copy of The New Yorker and my husband’s stargazing log.
The girl does love to sleep. And she deserves to sleep as much as she wants because she is at least 20 years old.
Luisa asleep on the porch
What Luisa doesn’t like is going to the vet.
Luisa at the vet’s
Unfortunately, we’ve had to take her in twice in less than a week. Last week, she started throwing up her food. Nothing terribly unusual. She often had these spells of puking up food and then begging for more, and then she would be fine for awhile. But last week was different. The frequency of her throwing up increased until the point where all she could throw up was frothy liquid because there was no longer food in her stomach. And of course this was in the wee hours of the morning. So I laid in bed and told myself that “if she has one more episode, I’m taking her to the emergency vet.” And of course all was quiet after I made that decision, as if she had read my mind.
Of course, I was in denial and, to a degree, I still am. I wanted only for the vet to prescribe over the phone some anti-nausea medicine and an appetite stimulant. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention: Luisa had stopped eating.
So the first visit to the vet involved Luisa getting subcutaneous fluids to hydrate her, an anti-nausea shot, and an antibiotics shot (her white blood cell count was elevated). We took her home and observed her, tried to feed her, watched her every movement. Oh, did I mention that she was also constipated?
By Monday, she had only eaten a spoonful of food that I held in front of her. She would have no more. So back to the vet we went. I saw a different doctor this time, one that I was more comfortable with since she had treated a few of our other cats as well. It’s very simple: we can try a few non-invasive procedures and if they fail, well, there’s euthanasia. We can try invasive procedures and if they fail, well, there’s euthanasia. Luisa is at least 20 years old.
We found her in a local park almost 18 years ago. My husband fell in love with her and as days past and she seemed to always be on the top of the restrooms whenever he came to the park to run, he grew more anxious. There were student apartments nearby so we suspected the usual. When the nighttime temperatures started to fall, my husband grew even more anxious. So one day I drove out to the park, coaxed her off the roof of the restrooms, and cajoled her into a pet taxi, and off to the vet we went. I left behind info on the vet … just in case, but of course, no one ever called. So. She was ours. We named her Luisa because we found her in San Luis Mission Park.
It hasn’t been all roses with Luisa. She is a “crazy tortie.” Until recently, she wouldn’t tolerate being petted. She always wanted to be in the same room with us, but we were to look and not touch. It was hard not to laugh when I would go to pet her and she would hiss and slap my hand.
But in the last couple of years, perhaps you could say now that’s she is in her dotage, she seems to enjoy being petted. In fact, she sleeps with me, often curled up on the inside of my left arm. Or on my pillow where her whiskers tickle my face. She is still with us, as of this writing. We are trying the non-invasive treatments: anti-nausea medicine, appetite stimulant, another round of subcutaneous fluids. But if this regimen fails, we can do no more. We will do no “heroics” for our aging queen. All we want to hear her purr and know that she does not suffer.
So, if I seem to be absent from blogging or distracted when I am here, she is my cause. I don’t want to let her go. Of course, it’s inevitable. She’s not getting any younger, and keeping her beyond her comfort zone would not be fair to her. But right now, she does not seem to be in distress. She still seems alert. But she still won’t eat.
For now, dear Reader, understand that I am rather preoccupied because Luisa is still here and I need every minute with her that I can get. Even if she spends most of those minutes sleeping.
Here is the 24th installment of Ten Top Lists of What Not to Do by Marie Ann Bailey of 1WriteWay at http://1writeway.com and John W. Howell of Fiction Favorites at http://johnwhowell.com. These lists are simu-published on our blogs each Monday. We hope you enjoy.
10. When traveling with a cat by car, do not assume that your cat will not get car sick. Take it for a short spin first. Usually five minutes is long enough to determine if you will need to pull over to the side of the road and empty the pet carrier of the results of a double end evacuation response while keeping kitty contained in the car.
We were on our way back home after a two-day business meeting in another state. We still had about 200 miles to go when we decided to stop at a Wendy’s off I-75 and break for dinner. I was tired and hungry and sat facing away from the windows when one of my coworkers pointed past my shoulder and said “Look!” I turned and my heart sank. A thin cat was slinking along the ledge of a window, rubbing against the concrete dividers, and begging for food. I sighed and looked away, telling myself that she was likely a stray, probably feral, and I should ignore her because I was 200 miles from home and I already have three cats.
And I keep telling my husband that we cannot have any more cats. Even in the best possible environment, they grow old, they get sick, they die. We’ve had to put down four cats in the 20+ years we’ve lived here. Luisa is almost twenty years old, and I dread the day when she’ll start to fail and we’ll have to make “the decision” yet again. Junior and Maxine are not so old, but I can’t imagine life without them.
So I turned away, but this cat continued to walk along all three windowed sides of the fast food place, catching my attention. Finally, I bought a hamburger and my coworker gave me a tray to put it on. I went outside and couldn’t find her. I circled the place twice and was ready to give up. The three of us consulted and I put the tray of cooked meat down around some bushes. We moved toward our van when a car started and the thin, now obviously young, cat came shooting out from under it. She followed me to the tray, rubbing against my legs as we went.
I was able to pick her up. She let me pet her. She wasn’t feral, not at all. She was a young cat, perhaps younger than one year old, and all I could think was that she was lost. I don’t remember what I said next, but whatever it was, it prompted my coworkers to suddenly start brainstorming about how we could get her to my home.
One coworker brought the van around to where the cat was eating; the other went into Wendy’s and got a bunch of paper napkins to line the recycle bin that we had used to transport documents. There was a department store in the next lot, so we drove there and they insisted on looking for a pet taxi. Aside from our luggage, we didn’t have a closed container to put her in, and it was too dangerous to let her roam loose in the van.
While my coworkers were in the store, I called my husband, just to warn him. I’m bringing home a cat. My coworkers are enablers. They want me to call her Wendy.
They came back with a pan of cat litter, a large fleece blanket, a bag of kitty treats, a bottle of water, and a double-bowl dish. As soon as the van started again, she made for the floor. I tried to get her to settle in the recycle bin but she would have none of it. Finally, I loosely wrapped the blanket around her and pulled her to my lap. She laid there, purring, sleeping and stretching for three-and-a-half hours.
So we have a new cat. Her name is Wendy (although my husband likes to call her Wendyz). She had been spayed (yea!) but she had not been chipped. Well, she wasn’t then, but she is now. To her original caretakers: I am sorry you lost your cat. I don’t know of any way to find you since she was found at a fast-food restaurant off a major interstate and she didn’t have a chip. Your loss is our gain. She is beautiful and she is sweet and she is safe and we will do everything to give her a long, happy life.
I know The Association’s song is “Windy” but it still kept popping into my head on that long drive home.
Here is the second installment of Ten Top Lists of What Not To Do by Marie Ann Bailey of 1WriteWay at http://1writeway.com and John W. Howell of Fiction Favorites at http://johnwhowell.com. These lists are simu-published on our blogs each Monday. We hope you enjoy.
10. Do not bring your cat. For one, the interviewer may be allergic to cats. For another, the cat may take that opportunity to gift a massive hairball on the interviewer’s desk.
9. Do not go on a bender the night before. The interviewer may not take kindly to you smelling like a vat of fermenting wine or worse adding a hairball of your own making to the desk.
8. Do not choose this as an opportunity to express your inner punk by sporting a blue Mohawk hair style. With your luck, the interviewer will likely be a former Marine who will want to shave off that blue hair personally with a dull jungle knife.
7. Do not show up wearing your gardening clothes. This may confuse the interviewer as to whether you’re there for the interview or you’re just one of the landscape crew.
6. Do not offer as one of your weaknesses that you are a procrastinator, even if it is true. In response, the interviewer may procrastinate about whether to tell you that you don’t have the job.
5. Do not take the opportunity to go through the interviewer’s desk if you are left alone during the interview. Chances are the interviewer will be back before you know it and accuse you of stealing the change kept hidden in the bottom drawer.
4. Do not tweet during the interview. While you may think tweeting is evidence that you are “hip” to social media, the interviewer may tweet later that you are a social idiot.
3. Do not complain about your ex-spouse or ex-lover or ex-anything during the interview. Such disclosures will only make the interviewer wonder what you will be like as an ex-employee.
2. Do not come to the interview and say “I’ve applied for so many jobs. Which one is this?” Chances are the interviewer will counter with “I’ve had so many job applicants. Who the hell are you?”
1. Do not hug the interviewer at any time before, during or after the interview. At best, the interviewer will simply turn red-faced and throw your resume into the “Do Not Call Back” pile. At worst, the interviewer will sue you for sexual harassment.
I have to pinch myself. Sometimes I feel like I’m dreaming. I am a shy, sensitive introvert: someone who doesn’t make friends easily, someone who feels more comfortable with furry four-legged critters than people. I’m often inclined to think that people have more reason to not like me, than to like me. That’s just part of who I am. But since I’ve been blogging, I’ve been showered with awards from people I have never met. All I’ve done is commented on and liked your posts, followed your blogs, and tried to give support for your writing and other ventures when I can. And in return I get these awards.
Super-Sweet Award
Earlier this week, RunningToHerDreams honored me with the Super Sweet Blogger Award, my second one! And she is herself a super sweet and inspiring person, so please visit her blog.
Then Briana Vedsted created a new award and I’m among the first to be honored!
Now for the Rules:
Post a picture of the award somewhere on your blog.
List five things that make you happy.
Choose 5 people to nominate who have been a virtual shoulder to cry on, checked in on you when they knew things were rough, or has always been there for you.
Comment on their blogs to thank them and let them know you nominated you.
Things that make me happy:
1. My husband (OK, he’s not a thing but he’s the first and last and in-between in my happiness)
2. When any of my cats curl up on my lap
3. Giving hand-knitted gifts to friends
3. Writing
4. Reading
5. This community of bloggers
Briana already gave the award to two of my favorite bloggers, so here a few more of my favorites.
