No words

RIP to my darling grey cat, Jessie, who left us today.



You stole a piece of my heart when you climbed up the side of the cage at the Cat Protection Society to get to me sixteen years ago and you've still got it. The world feels a little emptier today.

May you have sunshine to doze in and mice to chase and every good thing where you are now, little girl.

Contrasts

The grey cat had one of her seizures last night and giving her a cuddle afterwards made me think about my characters and personality types and nature vs nuture.

The grey cat is a rescue kitty. I got her when she was about three months old from the Cat Protection Society. She came from a litter who'd been dumped. So who knows exactly what happened to her as a tiny thing. Whatever it was, it had an impact. She's a wary, cautious cat. She pauses on thresholds and scopes the situation out. You can see her thinking and processing. She'll seek out dark hidden places when she's feeling cranky or threatened (or too annoyed by the orange cat). Her instincts are always on high alert and they run to flight rather than fight (just as well really). She does like people but she's not a lap cat because laps MOVE. She'll occasionally climb into my lap but as soon as I move at ALL, she's out of there. She likes to sit near me on the couch though.

She's not much of a fan of being picked up either. A few seconds and she wants DOWN. The only time she really likes being held is after a seizure, when it seems to calm her. Even then it's only for a few minutes while she recovers, then she's off again. She doesn't like too many people but she has gotten smoochier with people other than me over time. Still, she will hide out when there's strange people in the house or more than four or so at a time. When she goes outside it's to go and sit under the huge lavender bush in my backyard where she can enjoy the outside but is perfectly hidden away from sight. But she's not one of those "people are only good for food" cats. She likes scritchies and pats but she likes them on her terms. She's a leg smoocher. Or she'll stand next to you and stretch up on her hind legs to get pats. And she walks away when she's done.

The orange cat, on the other hand, looooves people. He's a Burmese, so yes, he has the Oriental, I'm more like a dog thing going on but it's still true that he's never met a person (other than small children) that he didn't like. He was a pampered purebred kitten, cosseted from birth. No trauma there. He's never met a lap that shouldn't be his and is perfectly happy to sprawl and sleep anywhere he thinks is comfortable. He demands affection and attention and gets jealous when I'm patting the grey cat and will muscle in. Apart from that he has a pretty relaxed attitude to life and doesn't have instincts that are anywhere near as fine tuned as the grey cat's. When he goes outside, he stalks around yowling and will fall asleep in the middle of the lawn or on a pile of dirt, exposed for all the world to see. Part of that may be that he's just not as smart *g* but also, he didn't go through that crucial young baby period in any sort of danger or with any sort of trauma. He likes to play and gets frustrated that the grey cat runs away from any sort of normal pounce and wrestle cat playing. I've never seen her really try to swipe him or bite him though, which he would do if he was really feeling threatened. So they have a fraught relationship where half the time she's running away to hide from him and half the time they seem to really like each other and will fall asleep together or groom each other.

Part of what makes them so different are just normal temperament differences in feline personalities but I think the kitten thing also plays a significant role.

Right now, these two are a pretty good study for the relationship dynamics in my wip (they're even kind of the right colors). She's wary and dangerous with a not so nice past she doesn't know how to escape or overcome. He's relaxed and relatively normal and somewhat puzzled by her (though, he knows better than to just try and pounce and wrestle her into submission and he's a lot smarter than the orange cat). I'm hoping they'll be able to figure it out and end up curled up together happily, though I think there might be a fair bit of running away with a hiss on her part before we get there. Speaking of which, back to some pages. I was thinking I might go to a movie later but need to earn my treat.

A reiteration to the orange cat and the grey cat

As previously discussed - dead mice = ick and gross and ewww and you'd been fed, you feline fiends.

Headless mice do not make mama happy and you are even more too old to be engaging in such behaviour as you were the first time.

Trust me, I will think more highly of your clever catness without the hunting trophies.

A note to the orange cat and the grey cat

My first point: You are both too OLD to be catching mice. Neither of you missed catching mice for the last seven years or so. One of you has nearly no teeth. The other tends to be scared of shadows. What does this suggest to you? Right, too OLD.

My second point: If you persist in the delusion that you are not too old to be catching mice then the rules are that you either;

(a) Eat the damn thing and give it a decent burial in your digestive tract; OR
(b) Leave the corpse outside somewhere. Preferably in the neighbour's yard under a bush or something where no-one (particularly not me) has to deal with it.

My third point: Any mouse either of you can catch must be pretty near death anyway given that you are both no longer spring kittens as discussed above. This means diseased, old or possibly poisoned. You don't want to be having with any germ-infested, stringy or strychnine-laced mice. You have been warned.

PS Corpsified mice are gross. Don't gross out the person who wields the can opener. Just sayin'.

The morning report

For some reason I have the Lion King in my head this morning. Hakuna Matata and all that. Who knows why?

Anyway, I am back from taking the grey cat to the vet for yet more siphoning of the liquid gold in her veins so we can see how her various exotic diseases are doing. She is not happy about this and is currently hiding behind the bookcase in the spare room glaring at nothing in particular but saving extra ferocious ones for me if I dare to check on her. She'll be fine in a few hours. Especially now she's had breakfast. Cats don't understand fasting. Lots of WTF? and WHERE THE HELL IS BREAKFAST? looks this morning. Followed by a nice dose of "If you put me in a cage I will yell and tell everyone all about it". Note to the grey cat - everyone has a care factor of not much. Except that dog who thought you were interesting (who was v.cute - a maltilier named Mr Darcy, all white with some faint apricotish-coffee coloured patches from the cavalier side, who apparently lives with his sister Lizzie so nice to see Jane Austen alive and well in the suburbs, even if it is a slightly incestuous take on it).

So anyway, that's my morning. I'm about to do some exercise then write. Goal today is 11 pages. Cos I like 11 that's why.

The rest of the day will be housework, a trip to the shops for a new camera battery and other supplies for my trip to NZ (6 more sleeps, almost there), and unfortunately some day job work. At least it's sunny, if chilly.

Hakuna Matata.

Happy Birthday and SHUT UP!

Today is the orange cat's birthday. Australia Day. He's a patriotic cat (though he thinks it's national orange cat day). He's 11. It's a miracle he's made it this far.

I have two cats. The grey cat is a moggy. She's slightly fluffy, exceedingly gorgeous and quite flighty. Apart from being epileptic, which provides the odd moment of drama, she is content to sleep in the wardrobe or under my bed, hawk up the odd hairball, hang out on the back of the couch, smooch me when she's in the mood and occasionally chirp and meow at me if she thinks I'm late with the dinner. Normal cat stuff.

The birthday boy on the other hand is a - well, to put it nicely, NEUROTIC - burmese bought in a moment of something not quite sane. When we bought the grey cat, we bought another moggy kitten who a few months later turned out to have Feline Leukemia and had to be put to sleep (note to the world - sick kittens are BAD). Our logic in seeking a new companion for the grey cat went something like "well, a pedigree cat's mother won't have Feline Leukemia and therefore a pedigree kitten will not be sick and break our hearts all over again. So we asked at our lovely vet whether they had any pedigree breeders on the books who had kittens available and this led us to the orange cat.

When we met him, he was teeny and teeny wailing meows are cute. His mother was very vocal but the breeders said she was on heat (note to self - yeah, right). Every other person I meet who has burmese says "Noisy? No, mine aren't noisy". And I've since heard breeders saying the vocal thing runs in bloodlines. None of which we knew at the time. Which is how we ended up with a NOISY cat. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with him being vocal, it's kind of cute. The problem with the orange cat is that the vocal thing (and he is LOUD like a siamese crossed with a seagull) is combined with an ungodly tendency towards stubbornness. Or stupidity, I've never quite worked it out.

So if he wants something he meows. And keeps meowing. When he's telling you about something he keeps meowing. When he's whinging about something, he keeps meowing. Even when he's happy he sounds whiny. He has no equivalent of the very cute little happy-to-see-you chirping noise that the grey cat makes. And he's getting more stubborn as he gets older. Now that he's getting on a bit and doesn't like jumping the fence when there's a perfectly good human to open the door for him, he sits at the front door and meows to be let in. The other day he sat in the backyard approximately 1.5 metres from his cat door and because he could see me through the glass door, meowed to be let in. I don't think so. He got a glare, a "there's a cat door right there, dummy", and that was that. Now, he's very affectionate, almost doglike in fact. He loves people and wants to be with them. He's gorgeous. He's very sweet when he's quiet and purring but the meowing thing. Oy.

People talk about babies not sleeping through the night. This cat has slept through the night maybe 20 times in the last 11 years. Which means I've slept through the night that many times (and I wonder why I'm often tired : ) ). He doesn't sleep with me because he and the grey cat get territorial and pee on the bed when they're allowed to sleep with me. Plus he has an annoying tendency to want to sleep on your head. They sleep in their own room. Until he wakes up and yells. Usually somewhere around 3-4am. I get up, let him out (I know good kitty mamas don't let cats out at night but I don't live near a busy road, the wildlife consists of sparrows and starlings and magpies plus any bird or critter who doesn't run away when the 11 year old, not-too-bright, arthritic kneed cat stalking them does so while MEOWING loudly deserves to leave the gene pool, and kitty mamas need to sleep) he's goes outside for approximately 3 seconds just to prove he can, then comes in and sleeps on the couch in silence until breakfast time. Just like a man.

If I let him out all night, he'd invariably end up outside my bedroom door meowing at some point so this is our compromise position.

I love him but if they made a feline volume control, I'd be the first to get in line. He's going through a particularly yowly phrase right now, he has them every so often. Maybe he's celebrating his birthday. So orange cat, happy birthday, I love you and give your mum a break!

In other news writing = slow. Just little bits and pieces still. Weight = trending downward. But that was before last night's after work drinks which consisted of alcohol and lots of wedges. Not diet friendly. We foresee salad and exercise over the next few days.