Who sleeps on your computer when you try to use it?

Guess who?

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WHAT??

So?  What do you feed your animals??!

Don't judge until you've had a cat with an overactive thyroid!

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This guy?

Sleeps like the dead.  Unless his stomach is growling he doesn't wake up when someone comes in the room or makes normal household noises. 

Unless of course, it is about 3:00 am.  Then he gets up and wanders the house - yowling.  I've read that it's not unusual for elderly cats to wander at night, to seem confused and to vocalize.  My crabby ol' man cat qualifies as elderly and he's certainly doing those things.  It has been suggested that I open the door and allow him to make the choice.  But how can I punish him if he has kitty-Alzheimer's?


Sigh-h-h.


He's lucky I love him.  Oh well, I've played the caretaker role before ...


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Taking two cats to the vet at the same time is not a good idea if:

a) neither have been there in years


b) neither of them are easy to handle


c) either of them thinks a stranger touching them means they should scream like a toddler being sawed in half


d) either of them reacts to a stethoscope by using the twist, writhe, growl and pee tactic


e) neither of them have been vaccinated or examined in a long enough time that you have to spend the amount equal to (but not more than) a Chevy Volt to pay for the appointment


You're welcome.


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THIS makes torturing my cat a little bit easier.

So crabby old man cat Riley gets thyroid meds in tablet form every day.  Actually it's only a quarter of a tablet, twice a day.  He also gets an oral stool softener twice a day.  I enjoy giving it to him SO much!  Not.  Now Jake needs the same thyroid meds, same amount, same form.  Thank God she doesn't need the stool softener too. I get that stuff on Canada's black market.  Don't want to break the law on a greater scale than I already am.


Riley is easy to give meds too.  He doesn't like it, that he makes clear.  But he knows food will follow so he doesn't fight.  Jake on the other hand is like a Pez dispenser.  I put that pill in her mouth, her head goes back and out pops the pill again, immediately.  It's kind of amazing really that she can do it every. single. time.  Brought her back to the vet today and she has only gained 1 oz since November.  Obviously more of the meds are ending up in the bathroom rug than down her gullet.

Enter the pill shooter.   


I'd never seen one before, much less used one.  But tonight I held Jake by the scruff - which for you non-cat people, reduces many cats to kittens responding to their mother holding them that way, they get calm and hold still.  Anyway, I held her still by the scruff, stuck the pill shooter (with pill inside) into the side of Jakes mouth and shot it!  She looked at me like - what was that??  And then proceeded to eat the food she had been waiting for.  


Oh please please PLEASE let this continue to work.  You really feel like a failure when an itty bitty kitty defeats you every. single. time.


I need my dignity back.
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He HAD a new do!

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Took crabby ol' man Riley cat to the vet for his once weekly "drink".  The technician came and carried him away in his carrier like usual, while I amused myself listening to these crazy cat people obsessing about their cats, pretending I wasn't one of them.  


It wasn't too long before Riley cat was being returned to me in his purple carrier, all watered and ready to go.  Except the tech had a strange look on her face as she approached me, which wasn't usual at all.  She hesitantly asked me, "are you painting your house?"  


Well isn't that the strangest question to get at the cat clinic!  

Cute even with a clean head!

"No, not painting anything ... "


"Well Riley had this stuff all over his head .. "


Oooof!


I realized I should have warned them but I had forgotten.  "OH!  NO!  That was cottage cheese!  He wanted to finish the container of cottage cheese and stuck his head all the way down to the bottom and it kind of slicked back the fur on his head and dried like that."  I went on.  "I kinda thought it was cute, so I didn't wash it off."  


The tech smiled at me, not nearly as amused as I was.  "Well it's washed off now."


Oops. 


It really was cute, though.  Really.


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And then, there’s Riley~

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He's called the crabby old man cat for a reason.  According to the vet Riley is around 17 years old.  Pretty old for a kitty.  He is the only boy out of 4 cats, yet he has a stuffed lamb as a girlfriend.  Don't ask.
 
He's never been one for cuddling, or much of a lap cat.  He has always been more of the stereotypical ‘aloof’ cat, content to ignore the humans in the room unless they can be useful to him.
 

Now, as he's gotten older, he has become my shadow.  When I am sitting, he is sitting next to me, sometimes on me which is unheard of with him.  Used to be he would nip when he decided he was done being petted, now he will sit and purr and keep asking for more with his eyes - forever.


Makes me crazy that this crabby old man shed-machine is on me, all. the. time.  But on the other hand .. how soon will I be wishing he was still here to 'bother' me some more?  So I pet him and baby him and let him sit on me, and laugh when he sits on the back of the couch and head butts my head. 



I mean really, crabby old man cats don't last forever, y'know?


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OMG Cat ~

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I wanna see what HE'S looking at!

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Cat tip #1, 2011

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I should be in bed, yes early, but I'm not.  I am not doing anything productive right now when I could be so I thought I would give you your first cat tip of the year.  I know you were waiting.  


So, you know when you look at your cat and your cat looks back and neither one of you is blinking?  Yeah, you know.  If you want to show your dominance which the cat knows you have anyway because you feed them, stare right at them.  The cat will eventually blink and wow!  You won!  


But more satisfying to me, especially with a cat you don't know, is being the first to blink.  If when you are making eye contact with a cat and you do one of those slow lazy blinks that cats do (or my old friend Norine used to do when she was drunk)  - their eyes will usually narrow a bit, if not go into a full blink themselves.  You have just told them you are not a threat to them.  You are saying "Dude!  Get over yourself, I wouldn't mind being friends.  Or at least I don't want to fight with you Dude, okay?"


Those are the exact words.  And then - you will have taken your first step toward being cool with that cat.  Try it.  Tell me if those aren't the exact words the moment evokes.  


And if you do really good, maybe they'll stick their tongue out at you which means they are saying "I love you so much I want to kiss you!"


Okay I lied about that.  But the slow blinking works.  Really.  


You're very welcome.


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Norah (with an H) wishes you a Merry Christmas!

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My daughter will just have to forgive me . .

... when I open the door and invite my crabby old man cat to take a walk. I sent her the pictures, I will spare you. He pooped in one of my favorite leather flats. I love these shoes. And he pooped AND peed in that shoe. Grrrr ....



Doesn't he look all sweet and innocent? NOT!

I bought new litter boxes recently and I don't like them because they are too small. We've only had them for 2 weeks and I've been keeping them clean, so that's not the problem. BUT - I have ordered some new ginormous boxes along with a "Litter Locker" which is like a diaper pail for litter scooping. I'm all about giving these cats the right place to do their business!

Let's face it, I just get no respect around here.

What's that saying . . ?

Build it . . .

. . . and they will come.

TIRED

SO-o-o-o tired. Like I don’t even want to get up to pee tired. It was an awful no, goofy, it was a bizarre day at work today. I stayed late and still barely got a thing done all day. Can you say VERSION CHANGE?? Yeah. ‘Nuff said about that.

Went to the grocery story on my way home and bought copious amounts of fruit and some vegetables, all things that are good for me. Well, I did sneak in one frozen pizza, a little one. Other than that I gave the cashier fits as he was in training and you know what produce can be like. Poor guy.

I realized I must have crossed some kind of threshold when the young checker called me Ma’am and I didn’t cringe, and I felt compelled to encourage the boy - that he’ll be doing it with his eyes closed in no time. Like a Mom.

By the time I got home and got everybody fed and groceries put away, it was all I could do to wash some cherries and sit down and read a few blogs. With Cherries. But what did I find as I rounded the sofa … puke. Cat puke. Not a lot, THAT was over by my bedroom door. No, this was small but not unobtrusive by any means. It was right across my laptop power cord. You can thank me at any time for not taking a picture for you. I thought about it while I was cussing under my breath and having fantasies of posting this and having people come from far and wide to give my cats better homes where people don’t mind the puke, the pill giving, the hair everywhere and the patting their face while they sleep.

It’s just a fantasy I know. In real life I clean up all the puke and get turned into the ASPCA for thinking bad thoughts about my cats.

An orange jumpsuit doesn’t seem so bad about now.

What evil lurks?

Abby is our evil cat. She was abandoned in an apartment somewhere, my daughter brought her home and did the "PLEASE Mom????" Many promises were made and I agreed to let Dani keep her. But Abby never got along with the other cats and the feeling was mutual. While the other cats are lying around the living room or my bedroom, Abby likes to go here - on top of the china cabinet. Tonight my son was walking past, saw her and said "great, a sniper position." I laughed and said "yeah, her very own clock tower!"




Then I looked up. Um yeah, there IS a clock up there. Maybe she's even more evil than I thought.

Those fleeting thoughts

Do you ever wonder what people think of you? I don't mean obsessively. I don't mean like you seriously worry about it or even care really. But do you have those fleeting thoughts when you are out somewhere and you see someone look at you - and wonder what they are thinking?

I do. And I guess I also form quick opinions as I pass by people I don't know. I might see a woman in what looks to be night-club attire at 10:00 in the morning and think "Oh, inappropriate. I wonder where SHE works!" Or maybe I spot an older man in his slippers shuffling into the drug store and think "Oh I'll bet his wife sent him." Things like that.

It doesn't mean anything, these things aren't consciously thought out they just sort of pop into your mind, little snap judgments you have as you walk by people, forgotten as quickly as you think them.

Mostly I don't care what people think when they see me - I'm sure other people have those odd little thoughts when I walk by too. But there IS one that kind of bothers me.

I frequently stop at my local drug store as it is so close to my house. And sometimes on my way home from work it occurs to me I'm just about out of cat food, so I pull into the parking lot and go in to the store to grab a couple of cans.

I, like most people, have heard the stories about old people eating pet food. And the stories tend to focus on old women. And cat food. So as I stand in line with my tuna pate or turkey and giblets grill - it is inevitable that it will cross my mind - "I hope nobody thinks this is my dinner."

It's NOT. I promise.

Do I choose not to remember?

I know my vet's office staff must think I'm the weirdest pet owner ever. Or maybe the worst pet owner. Although I guess not the worst I mean - I go there, right? But I cannot remember how old my cats are. Riley is my crabby old man cat, but if you ask me how old he is I will say - 13, I don't know, maybe 14 this year.

He's 16. And I have no doubt that the look of surprise on my face was enough to show Dr Judy that I really was surprised. Sixteen???? Dr Judy looked back at the chart. Yeah, he was born in '93. Hmmm.

I know I have talked about this before but it's all tied up with my divorce. The beginning of the divorce (the realizations, revelations, etc) did start in '93. My divorce was final in '95. Somewhere in between there my husband, soon to be ex, moved out and I took my kids and got 2 kittens to bring home.

But the '93 thru '95 space of time I have no clear memory of. I have clear memories of SOME things, but there are so many things I have blocked out and it amazes me every time it smacks me in the face again. Now, all these years later, wouldn't you think that self-protective grip on those memories would have let loose by now? I mean - I have NO feelings about my divorce at all anymore. No anger about what happened between us as a couple, he was a cad but I wasn't a joy to live with either. The only trauma I still feel comes from my anger at the kind of father my ex turned out to be. Not one. That's what kind he has been. Not one.

Anyway, I'm just surprised the time frame still plays hide 'n seek with my brain when I look that direction. So Riley is 16, which according to Dr Judy figures out to 80 years old in cat years. They must be different than dog years. So no wonder Riley is my crabby old man cat! He really IS old! Anyway. The small scratch on his eye is healing well, I will continue to treat it until Wednesday and if it stays looking okay - we're done with this malady. Thank goodness. I don't want Riley to suffer but damn! Going to the vet is expensive!! And .. it always kind of spooks me .. not remembering things from a whole space of time, it gives me a minor brush with senility I really don't like the feel of. Shudder..!

You can just see the thought process..

This is funny even if you're not a cat person!
Click the pic to go there.

Okay, well I know there isn't a big pay-off at the end
but - it made ME laugh out loud.

Where crazy cat ladies tend to congregate.

Took the old man Riley cat to the vet yesterday. Actually it's a cat clinic, no dogs or other types of pets around. Had to get his blood checked for his thyroid meds and bonus ( !!! ) they took some mats off him for me. Actually they got all the mats off him.

I AM a crazy cat lady, I have 4 cats. Although I didn't feel quite so insane for having 4 yesterday, one of the receptionists was talking about her 6, and another lady didn't say how many she had but it sounded like the cats rule her roost. Anyway. Three of my cats do not have mats. None. Riley has them all. Had.

Riley is the only one that doesn't groom well these days, and while the vet said that's a product of age I read somewhere that "unkempt fur" is a common symptom of thyroid problems in cats. So Riley has a couple of excuses but regardless of the reasons - he always has nasty mats which he doesn't like messed with. If I try, or my daughter Dani tries, he growls and rolls and bites and is just all around not happy about the process.

Dani and I shaved him once, from the tail to about the middle of the back, removing the greater part of the mats he had at the time. And I have NO IDEA where those pictures are, but you can bet that was one funny looking cat. He didn't seem to mind when it was all over, even though half of him was all pink and naked. Might have even liked it some.

So where am I going with all this? I think I scammed a grooming out of the cat clinic. Last time I brought Riley they removed a couple of mats when they took him back to take blood, since I was a few weeks late with making the appointment I'm sure they thought I was a terrible pet owner. At that visit the tech told me to make sure I make the next appointment on time and promised to get a few more mats off Riley when I brought him back. Sounded like a bribe to me.

Yesterday when they took him back to take his blood I told the tech who was taking him what the other girl had promised last time. She looked at me with the slightest bit of "that's not what your appointment is for" in her eye, but managed a polite "oh, um - okay."

Later when she brought Riley back out she was carrying what looked like a long haired messy guinea pig or something, but it was actually everything she had removed from my cat. Woo hoo!!! She explained how Riley could benefit from a grooming, they have a girl who comes in on Tuesdays so I might want to make an appointment for him sometime. I said okay and inquired about the price. $46.00. I thought yeah, maybe sometime. After I stop having to have blood work done every month on the damn cat.

When I got home and let Riley out of his carrier I saw just how handsome and well groomed he was! Not a mat left on him! So basically, I got a grooming for free, and I didn't get bit once. I hadn't intended to put anything over on them but I guess I did a little. Oh well, it was worth it - Riley looks great!

I am waiting for the results of the blood work, and the tech said it was good news - Riley has gained 2 ounces. Ounces! The cat has lost pounds and 2 ounces is good?? I've been feeding the cat everything he wants whenever he wants and he's only gained 2 ounces? Holy cow.

After I left though, it was suggested to me that maybe they weighed him after they took all that fur off of him. How much do you think a guinea pig's worth of cat fur weighs? Cause it looked like at least a pound to me!

Remember Simon's cat?

Not sure if I ever posted this or not, but it's been around a lot. I love it, it is SO classic cat. Except the ending of course. I don't think any of my cats have resorted to that yet.

That one is great, and so is this one. Life really does imitate art.

I should change the name.

This is the risk she takes when my daughter comes home from school and does not put her belongings out of the reach of the cats.

To them it's a new opportunity to nest.