antiqueing
Saturday we had to drive down to the old home town to take care of some banking business with regard to my parent's estate. On the way back we stopped off in the old Czech town of Ennis to pass the time and see if we could find a bite to eat other than fast food.
I remember this town well from the seemingly hundreds of times I drove through it on holiday visits when I was a college student. That was years ago. If I stopped at all then it was more than likely at the Dairy Queen. But I recall that they always had a busy little downtown and they still do.
There are some very nice buildings. We parked in the downtown area and walked a few blocks until we found an attractive old building that had been converted into a restaurant for the benefit apparently of antique shoppers. These kind of places suit me fine. I prefer the lighter fare of soup or a salad to the barbecue or chicken-fried steak and potatoes that you usually find at the cafes along the road in these parts. I admired the old building too, simply decorated in black and tan.
Around the corner we found the kind of antique store that I prefer too, completely disorganized. On top of an old counter there was a loose assortment of Indian arrowheads and I amused myself with them while Tricia searched through the back room. She found a couple oak chairs that we could use in the lake cabin and we made a deal for them.
We brought them home and parked them in the living room temporarily, where Sapphire immediately claimed one for herself.
farewell trudie
It was only two months ago that Trudie came to live with us. She had been my Mom's cat for many years but she seemed to adapt very well to her new home. She liked to sleep on the ledge in the upstairs window where she could keep an eye on comings and goings in the driveway. Or she would sit on the ironing board and watch Tricia at work on the sewing machine.
We noticed she was losing weight. But we thought that was a good thing. When she came downstairs and started staying in a closet we thought maybe she was just exploring. But when Tricia picked her up she acted like she was hurting.
The vet said she had advanced cancer of the liver. She was past helping.
trudie
Trudie is my Mom and Dad's cat. She has been visiting in our house ever since they went to stay with my sister. Trudie has been the easiest cat to get along with that you can imagine. First of all she made the hour and half car trip up here with no more than two brief "meows." We almost forgot she was in the car with us.
Once she was here she did retreat to the closet for a day or two, but then she settled into Tricia's sewing studio like it was her own home. She likes to sit on the ironing board and watch Tricia sew or sit on one of the window seats where she can keep an eye on inside activities and outside goings-on at the same time. She doesn't seem much bothered by the other cats. She hisses at them if they get too close but doesn't move. She is big and she doesn't budge and the other cats seem to have an appreciation of that.
I wish I could say that things were going as well with my Mom and Dad over at my sister's house. Neither of them has been able to get comfortable there and they have done nothing but complain. Glenda is about to go batty trying to make them feel at home. It is starting to be apparent that it is not the perfect solution it appeared to be.
sable
Sable came home from the vet today. He seems to be doing fine. The only problem is that he seems to have the opposite problem now. He can't stop peeing. After all it's what he's been encouraged to do for the last several days.
kitty health
Our kitty Sable is in the hospital with a blocked urinary tract. He didn't show up at our bedroom window as he normally does in the morning and didn't show up for dinner either. Later I found him lying under an abelia bush.
The vet says his blood looks normal which means he hasn't suffered any permanent organ damage. It seems to be something like kidney stones. We will get an updated report on him this afternoon.
more on cats
It's been awhile since I've mentioned my cats and I need to bring you up to date.
Sapphire has lately decided to require that we feed her special treats on the counter next to the kitchen sink. She enjoys having that kind of special privilege which the others are denied. She also has this thing about always needing to be sitting in a higher place than the other cats.
Sam doesn't seem to mind. I find it really interesting the way that cats seem to accept their place in the pecking order, whether it be high or low. Is it the same with humans? Myself I've usually felt that I have to place myself in the role of outsider in order to be comfortable. Otherwise I start trying to challenge the order of things.
For quite some time we have been trying to introduce a new cat into our family. It's the feral black cat who started out seeming so hostile. He has become really friendly and wants to make the transition to being an indoor cat. The others aren't standing for it though. Maybe three is the natural limit.
a cure for cat-typing
Our three cats like to help out with computer tasks. I've mentioned before that Sapphire in particular likes to walk across the keyboard or lay down on top of it. You may have seen some of her typing in the posts on this site. They are the ones with the misspelled words.
Now one of Tricia's friends has come to our rescue by recommending Pawsense, software you can install on your computer that recognizes "cat typing" and shuts off input from the keyboard. It can also be set to make a sound offensive to felines whenever it senses a cat on the keyboard.
she came in through the bathroom window
I woke up early this morning to the sound of a gutteral "merow" coming from the bathroom. I knew that voice and it did not belong to one of our indoor cats. Sure enough the black cat had pushed through the screen in the open bathroom window and was perched on the ledge, announcing his arrival.
I did not see any evidence of other cats, so I quickly scooped him up, closed the window, walked him to the back door and deposited him outside again, while mentally noting that I needed to revisit the issue of window screen repairs. Last month I rescreened several of the windows that had tears in them. Instead of aluminum I used a black plastic that was more "invisible." But this is already the second one that the cat has made his way through. The weak point seems to be that the material is not held as tightly by the spline, either because it is thinner or slippier. Perhaps a thicker spline is the solution.
We have been trying to gradually introduce the black cat into our household with limited success. There are not as many altercations when the indoor cats go outside, but so far the indoor cats have resisted mightily any intrusion into the inner sanctum. He has generally stopped rushing in through the open door at any chance and only comes in when invited. Tricia usually holds him or stays close by whenever she brings him in. It's still open as to whether it's going to work out.
writer blocked
As if I don't have enough problems writing, I am having to do it with my cat lying across my arms. Sapphire would rather be on the keyboard and I would rather she sat on the desk to the side of the laptop. We agree on a compromise in which she lies on the desk between me and the laptop while I reach over her. Every few minutes she butts my arm with her head as if to say "these hands should be petting me." In a few minutes she will rest her head on my wrist effectively pinning it down. Nope, I was optimistic - here it is already. Eventually she will work her lower body over my other arm too.
Sapphire is a breed called a ragdoll and it is an apt name. She is shy around strangers but very needy of attention around Tricia and me. She prefers to be sitting in a lap or being held, and when she is there goes completely limp and passive, as if there is not a bone in her body. That's just fine when I am on the couch watching a movie but not so fine if I am sitting and doing anything else.
I am lucky that she divides her attention between Tricia and me. Tricia has an even harder time because Sapphire wants to sit on the sewing machine and rest her head on her hand as she works the material under the needle. Which puts her dangerously close to that flying needle. Some day she is going to wind up with her ear sewn into a quilt.
Oops, she got up and stretched and now she's going to lie back down on the keyboarfffdhgkll
halloween cat
Here's a picture of the black cat who has adopted us. It's been difficult to get a good shot because she does not like it when I aim the camera at her. And no, we still have not given her a name.
These days I don't get to spend much time in the garden. With the time change and the extra hours I have putting in at the office I am lucky to get home before dark. When I do I like to stroll around and see what's going on, picking a few ripe peppers to bring in to the kitchen. The black cat follows me around. It's her territory now. I've seen her sleeping in the middle of the vegetable garden. I am not sure why that is a good spot. Perhaps the bare earth there is warmer than the grass or the mulched flower beds.
She is still causing havoc in our household. Sapphire is so jealous if she sees her getting the slightest bit of attention. Sapphire throws a fit and then either runs and hides from us or won't leave us alone.
mysterious doings
This morning Tricia called me at work to tell me that the cushion on the chaise lounge out back had been ripped to shreds. This is the chaise lounge which the black cat has been making her own special place recently.
As soon as I had got home in the afternoon I went to investigate. Sure enough the cloth had several big rips and on each side of the lounge were tall piles of shredded foam stuffing. Most of the stuffing in fact was piled up on the patio.
Mysteries like this are never solved. The cats are the only ones who know and they aren't telling. Was she mad at us for some reason and this was her way of getting back? Ripping up her own bed. Could she have been annoyed because it was wet? We have been having light rains here lately. Or could it have been done by a rival annoyed at the attention the upstart is receiving? Maybe the rival cat had marked it for her own and then the black cat tore it up in disgust.
cat photography
I suppose we are going to have to come up with a name for the black cat. Mostly we've just been referring to her as "the black cat" or Blackie. Tricia has sometimes referred to her as "the demon" - actually a reference to a black cat she used to have years ago. So far she really does not have a name of her own, though. Nothing has come to mind yet.
She seems to be rather camera shy. When she saw me with it she ran off and hid behind the garden wall. As soon as I set it on the table inside the back door she showed herself again. Is she suspicious because of the sounds it makes? Does it sound like a weopon perhaps? Or does she believe that taking her picture will steal her soul?
I did get one photo of her earlier, behind the spider lilies.
The other cats are getting used to her and she doesn't pay any attention to them at all. They were all out in the back yard tonight just before sundown. No altercations. Blackie mostly reclined in her chaise lounge and watched everything from afar. That seems to be her favorite place.
the black cat revisited
Early in the Summer I wrote here about a black cat who was terrorizing our yard. It was always getting into fights with our cats when they were outside and a couple of them sustained minor injuries which we assumed were the result of those fights. We ran to their rescue whenever we heard the fights and in the process scared the black cat off. As a result it was frightened of us and kept it's distance.
There was no mystery why it kept coming. Tricia has always put out food for the stray she calls our "garden cat." The black cat was undoubtedly a stray also, even though it seemed to have a pink collar on its neck. Over time the fights decreased and we paid less attention to it. Summers here in August are not very hospitable and we don't spend much time outdoors during that time. As Fall started to come on though, we returned to the garden and started to notice her lurking in the distance, eyeing us warily. In particular, she liked to recline on a chaise lounge near the back of the property from she could survey most of the yard.
Then a few days ago a strange thing happened. Tricia and I were outside talking to each other. We were surveying the changes a neighbor had made to her house and discussing it between ourselves when we heard a cat. We looked in the direction of the cry and saw the black cat watching us from about 50 feet away. Tricia called to her and she slowly walked straight toward us and began rubbing against our legs.
In that moment our relationship suddenly changed. Now every time we set foot outside the black cat is there to greet us. She's waiting when our cars pull in the driveway. Clearly she was once someone's pet. She will even let us pick her up and pet her.
This is actually a more perplexing situation than when she was an interloper that we tolerated at the edges of the garden. She is trying to apply for a position that doesn't exist. We already have three cats officially in the household and we don't have room for another. I'm wondering if we can find another home for her.
more about julie
All of our cats are fairly shy but our tortoise-shell, Julie, takes the cake. I've mentioned before that she never allows anyone other than me to pick her up. When company comes she runs and hides.
This past weekend was especially perilous for her, with a four-year-old occupying the guest room. Here she is hiding in one of those carpet-covered pieces of cat furniture. She just fits inside. Unfortunately the indignity of being “outted” by the flash caused her to give up this apparently secure spot for a better one under the bed. Sorry Julie.
I have no idea if this is true, but I've heard that pets take on personality traits from their owners. There is definitely a part of me that is very shy. When I was a kid I used to hide in my room as much as possible when visitors came to the house.
Our pets are actually less shy when they are outdoors than when they are inside the house. When strangers are in the garden Julie will keep her distance, but she does usually allow herself to be seen. Other times she will get quite close but be under a shrub where she feels protected. Our other cats are the same way. But they will run from any loud noise or big movement.
Tricia and I have also wondered at their behavior toward the dogs that come down the street on leashes. For some they will barely lift their heads from their naps while sitting on the front porch or the sidewalk. Others will definitely put them into full alert mode. It doesn't seem to be the size that makes the difference, but I can't seem to tell what it is.
trudy
Trudy lives with my parents in their home in a small East Texas town. She is fat and lazy and extremely good-natured. She doesn't pay much attention to people unless she wants something, but she doesn't mind sharing space with people either. In fact most of the time she doesn't let the presence of visitors disturb her sleep at all, unless grandkids start to get too noisy and then she just finds herself a quieter room or slips outside for some fresh air. She's very self-confidant and knows just where her place is in the world.
Trudy is short for "intruder." I've forgotten the details of the story actually, but the name has something to do with the way she introduced herself into the household. My parents weren't looking for a pet. In fact they had lost a pet and seemed emphatic that they didn't want another one. But apparently Trudy didn't take no for an answer.
sunshine
Teaser and the Firecat by Cat Stevens
One of the best companions of my childhood was a orange tomcat named Sunshine. I was five years old and we had just moved to a new house when he came calling at the kitchen door. It was Mom who made friends with him and started to feed him I guess, but he allowed my sister and I to play with him. I don’t know how old he was; he could have been a kitten then, but I always remember him as an adult cat.
There was another cat we played with too - a grey cat. My sister favored the grey and I liked Sunshine. One day we took a pair of scissors and cut off the grey cat’s whiskers. You’ll be glad to know we got a scolding for that. I don’t remember the grey cat coming around after that though.
Sunshine was really a feral cat. We didn’t have a lot of money to spare for veterinary bills so he never had shots or a license. I don’t remember him getting to spend much time indoors either. But when I would go outside to play he would come up to me. Thinking about that now it is kind of interesting, because I can’t imagine any of the cats I have now ever coming up to a child. On the contrary they are terrified whenever a child comes into the house.
Evidently Sunshine had a territory and maybe even other homes. At least he wasn’t always in our yard. As I got older I remember seeing him less and less. The last time I remember seeing him was one summer afternoon when I was about fifteen and trying to practice my batting alone by throwing up baseballs and hitting them. He was getting old then and was showing scars from the fights that tomcats inevitably get into. By that time too I had a new favorite, a black and white puppy we named Panda because he looked like a panda bear.
silly cat
Tricia and I saw this cat pillow at an antique mall and it brought a smile. Later she surprised me by presenting it to me as a gift. Now it prowls our living room couch.
Surprisingly none of the other kitties act the least bit territorial about it.
mysteries of cat behavior
Sapphire likes to bring us things in the night. It used to be a set of coasters woven in China perhaps of some basket-like fiber. Every morning we would collect them from the hallway and bedroom and return them to the coffee table in the living room.
Lately it has been pens and pencils from my desk. She makes a low growling sound deep in her throat as she carries them down the hallway and then drops them heavily just inside the entrance to the bedroom. Is she bringing these to me because she thinks I may be needing them?
i was thinking today about ivan
In an earlier life I rented a small duplex in the Montrose section of Houston. My companion during much of this time was a fluffy male cat I called Ivan the Terrible.
My friend Lew left Ivan in my care - permanently, as it turned out - when he set out on another of his long trips. Unfortunately he had liked to tease the kitten by rolling him over on his back and rubbing his stomach, while Ivan tried to bite and kick his hand. A terrible trick to teach a cat, because as it gets stronger the behavior is no longer any fun to anyone and the cat doesn't understand why people get upset when he's trying to play.
We had sidewalks in that neighborhood and Ivan liked to sleep on his back on the one in front of our duplex, where he was a temptation to passersby. I remember one afternoon a stranger rang the doorbell to complain about Ivan's behavior. I offered her a band-aid but it didn't salve her annoyance. I came close to marrying a girl that I met after Ivan hooked her necklace and refused to let go when she stooped over to pet him.
I made a mistake and waited a long time before getting Ivan neutered. As a result he had a lot of tomcat qualities. Not being much of a homebody in those days I just left a window partially open all the time so he could come and go as he pleased. Ivan pretty much ruled that end of our block, chasing off other cats and making himself well-known to many of the humans. When I was home Ivan would follow me around like a dog. At the time I thought that was odd behavior for a cat, although I have since learned better. Actually I can't say that I provided much of a home for him, so the odd thing is that he stuck with me at all.
Ivan went with me when I left Houston to take a job in another city, but he had to become strictly an indoor cat. He didn't adapt well and soon got sick and died.
the black cat
Our garden is being terrorized by a black cat.
I've written about it before in these pages. It's apparently a feral cat who first appeared in the winter, and is now seen in our back garden on almost a daily basis. At first it wore a pink collar but now that has disappeared. According to Tricia that is the type collar that the SPCA puts on their animals, so we theorize that someone in the neighborhood possibly picked it as a pet and then let it escape. Somewhere along the line too it lost part of it's tail.
My wife puts out a dish of food on the back porch for our garden cat. She got left behind by a family who were leasing a house down the road one year and has been settled in our back garden for many years now. Our indoor cats accept her as part of the tribe.
However the garden cat has been in numerous altercations with the black cat and Sam has come in a couple times with bites and scratches too. Consequently we have issues with the black cat and regard it as a trouble-maker. We're contemplating taking some kind of action against it but we don't have a plan yet.
What has me wondering lately though is how this situation came about. We've had other visitors to the garden before - raccoons and possums - who the cats accepted. Why are they hostile toward this one? I see them watching us for cues when the black cat is spotted, so I know that part of the answer is because they feel our hostility. But didn't our feelings originate out of concern for their welfare, after the hostilities had already began?
How did the black cat become demonized into The Evil One instead of being peaceably integrated into the community? Is it something inherent in the nature of the black cat, or is the cat just a victim of our hostility toward it? It is probably hungry and frightened and just trying to make it's way in the world as best it can. Did it all escalate from a bad move in an early encounter?
Julie
Julie, our youngest cat, likes to sleep in the to-be-filed basket on my desk. Sometimes, like now, she watches me with big, unblinking eyes while I type. Other times she looks out the window, where she watches birds and insects in a big abelia bush and can see the street past the lawn through the branches.
She has her rituals. Unless you catch her asleep she will not allow you to pick her up or touch her. But every night at bedtime she jumps into the bed and wants to be petted. She will stay as long as the light is on but the minute it goes out she is gone. She won't drink directly from a bowl. She dips her paw into the water and then licks the paw.
Julie is one of Sapphire's kittens. The other two we found homes for but Julie was always too unique to match with anyone. Living her whole life with her mother has seemed to limit her. She has never quite grown up. She still looks to Sapphire for cues as if she were a kitten and Sapphire makes sure she stays in line.
In the book Tribe of Tiger, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas told a story about a cat who knew her place in the household. Her cat was well down in the cat social order and knew that she was not allowed to become pregnant. When she did against her will, she killed her own kittens rather than break the social rules. Of course Jule is neutered so this could never happen to her; but I can imagine her doing that.
Her fur is thick and of course she hates to be brushed. Our other two both love it but Julie cringes from the brush. She will never scratch you though. No matter how frightened she might become when you are holding her she always keeps the claws retracted. Last year her fur got so matted that we had to take her to the vet to be shaved. She was really embarrased when we brought her home, but her fur was so silky as it grew back in. I think she kind of liked having it short though. This summer she seems to be trying to pull it out herself.
One thing I have wondered about tortoise-shell cats. I have known several and they have all been at the bottom of their respective cat social orders. Is it possible that this could be a personality trait that is inherited along with the coloring?
quiltcat
Meet Silky Sam. Our oldest cat, he lived with Tricia before we merged households. He was injured by a car while still a kitten and found by a co-worker of Tricia's who thought he was Siamese. Tricia was looking for a Siamese and went to see him. Though she knew immediately that he was not, she took him in anyway. He does have pale blue eyes.
When I first got to know Sam he was the timidest cat I had known. He seemed to spend most of the time either in a closet or under the bed. There were two dominating females living with him who kept him in his place.
I wasn't sure what would happen when Sam came to live with my two cats. We gave him his own room upstairs. Well almost his own room. It's Tricia's sewing studio and gets called into service as a guest bedroom on occasion too. It's a big room with wide window ledges. There is also a wide flat table in the middle of the room next to the sewing machine right under a ceiling fan. Sam spends a lot of time there on top of whatever quilt project Tricia happens to be working on. That's her "bug jar" quilt in the picture above. For the longest time Sam had that domain pretty much to himself because Sapphire and Julie didn't like the sound of the sewing machine. Eventually Sapphire's curiousity overcame her fear though and now she and Sam have become rivals for this spot when Tricia is working upstairs.
Sam really came into his own after moving here. Although he is still the number three cat he is accepted by the others and is a lot more outgoing than he was before. It helps that he has his own place to retreat to.
But what is really interesting to me about Sam is his behavior outdoors. He had always been an indoor cat before he came here; whereas my two had always been permitted out in the garden. When we first let Sam out with them he didn't quite know what to do and five years later he still doesn't. But he watches the other cats and copies their behavior. Ever once in a while he will be stalking something in the grass and he will suddenly seem unsure of what it is that he needs to do next and start looking around for cues.
Lately there has been a strange black cat interloping in the garden. Our two females hiss at it but generally keep their distance. Sam though seems to have decided to make a stand against it and we've had to intercede a few times. It's like some remnant of his masculinity is finally asserting itself.
Miss Kitty
When Tricia and I arrived at the B&B in Mineola last weekend we were greeted by Miss Kitty, who ran into our room as soon as the door was opened and jumped onto our bed.
Later, our hosts Bob and Sherry, explained to us that Miss Kitty thinks that our room is her room. On cold nights they let her in to sleep there. She doesn't come into the main house because they have two scotties that live inside and lots of breakable antiques.
Bob and Sherry have been "dog people' most of their lives until Miss Kitty showed up in their yard this winter and adopted them. She is actually just a kitten. Tricia tells me that she is an "m point". She is partly Siamese, with blue eyes and Siamese colorings but her tail has rings and her face has stripes like a tabby. She is frisky like any kitten but is amazingly relaxed around strangers. We felt privileged to share her room with her.
the Tommies
For several months now there have been reports of a loose dog in the neighborhood attacking and killing cats. That's probably what got Tommy.
Tommy was one of a pair of almost identical-looking plain gray short-haired cats who came to live in our back garden. We referred to them collectively as "the Tommies." Actually if you knew them they were not identical. One Tommy was older and seemed to be a little hard of hearing. He was the first to arrive several years ago. The other arrived about six months later. She is smaller and livelier and we call her Thomasina when we refer to her individually. To say Tricia has a weak spot for stray animals would be an understatement. Naturally she started putting food out. In the winter she even built them a shelter out of cardboard boxes with an electric heating pad to keep them warm. One cold winter we were sheltering both Tommies and an injured raccoon on the back porch - but that's a story for another day.
Both of them were probably pets of someone at one time because they were not wild and were apparently neutered. Tommy never would let us touch him but he rarely left our yard. Thomasina will rub against you when you leave food in her bowl by the back door and will even come into the kitchen and eat from the indoor cats food bowl if she gets a chance. She's more adventurous and roams the neighborhood a little but is always at the back door at breakfast and dinner.
When we came outside they watched us warily but didn't run unless we got too close. Our indoor females tolerated them but Sam seemed to enjoy their company. He especially liked to follow Tommy around. I think Tommy was sort of a role model for him since Sam never seems exactly sure how to act like a cat.
One evening they didn't show up, but we were so busy and the weather was so bad that we didn't look for them that much. It wasn't until Saturday morning that I started searching the backyard and calling to see if I could find them. I gave up and went back in but later from the window I saw him lying in the grass. I guess he heard me and tried to get to the back porch for his meal. But he wasn't strong enough to make it. There were nasty bite marks in his underbelly and neck. We found a shady spot under some trees and buried him and put a paving stone over the spot.
It was a couple more days before Thomasina showed back up. She was not injured in any way, just frightened that her security had been threatened. She's not quite as trusting as before and still doesn't seem to spend as much time in the yard, but she's starting to calm down.
ruler of our household
Sapphire is the alpha cat at our home. She is a "ragdoll" with blue eyes.
She is probably about 8 years old. Becky, our neighbors girlfriend, gave her to us. Becky was working at a vets for the summer and someone left Sapphire at the door of the clinic, so she brought her over. She was really shy. She hid in closets and behind the bookcase and less than a week after she arrived, she escaped from the house by pushing through a screen on a window I had left open.
At that time we had a big overgrown lot across the street - almost a full acre - and Sapphire went to live there apparently. It was almost six months later before we saw her in our yard again and we started to make friends using pieces of chicken and turkey as bribes. Finally after weeks she let us touch her. We noticed then that she was pregnant. We worried that she would have her kittens in the wild lot and we would have a whole litter of feral kittens on our hands.
But just about a week before they arrived she decided to follow us into the house. And then one evening she decided to stay in for the night. I put an old towel in the bottom of a cardboard box, set it in the hall closet, and showed it to Sapphire. That night around midnight something woke me from my sleep and I got up to investigate. I looked in the closet and there was Sapphire with the first of her three little kitties.
You would not believe now that Sapphire was ever a feral cat or how difficult it was to get her to let us touch her. She loves to be carried and sit in laps.
