Words

"Words--so innocent and powerless as they are,

as standing in a dictionary,

how potent for good and evil they become,

in the hands of one who knows how to combine them!"

--Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Notebooks, 1841-52

Emma Volunteers

Whenever a cat carrier comes out, Emma always appears to volunteer to go inside it. Unlike the other cats, Emma never runs and hides, even when it is her turn to go for a ride to see the veterinarian.

House-keeping

"House-keeping ain't no joke."

--Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1868

Loved and Lost

"'Tis better to have loved and lost

than never to have lost at all."

--Samuel Butler

In His Own Heart

"The search of an investigator for the Unpardonable Sin--he at last finds it in his own heart and practice."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Notebooks, 1841-52

Man

"Man is what he believes."

--Chekhov

Truth Is Beautiful

"Truth is beautiful--without doubt;

but so are lies."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Selfishness

"Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Notebooks, 1837-40

Heat Wave

Instead of a photo of my cat assistant, Ponzo, who has been constantly scampering across the computer keyboard today, I give you one of Rebel, who seems to be enduring the heat wave okay, since he is constantly asking me to let him go outside, but only for a few minutes at a time. Mikey, on the other hand, prefers to stay outside in this dreadful heat, despite her Himalayan coat, although she does come indoors for short visits throughout the day.

I, on the other hand, prefer to stay indoors all the time, drinking iced coffee instead of hot while I watch my favorite talk shows. I was glad to see the return of encore presentations of The Bonnie Hunt Show, even though I viewed most of them when they first aired this past television season; for me, it's the equivalent of sharing a cup of coffee with an old friend.

The Function of Art

"The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of an argument would be incomprehensible."

--Leo Tolstoy

Treasure in Books

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island.... And best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."

--Walt Disney

Watching

"The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods.

An old poet comes at last to watch his moods

as narrowly as a cat does a mouse."

--Henry David Thoreau

Rearranging Prejudices

"A great many people think they are thinking

when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

--William James

Song in Your Heart

--Anonymous

White and Black

Smells

"Smells are the fallen angels of the senses."

--Helen Keller

Mailma'am Mystery Solved

On December 24, 2009, I posted Waiting for Our Mailma'am. Monday through Saturday, Rebel used to enjoy waiting for her approaching vehicle. But then something happened in April. Rebel stopped barking joyfully at the favorite car. Truth is, he stopped barking because he no longer saw his second favorite vehicle. (Needless to say, our car comes first because Rebel loves to go for rides in it.) Rebel still had the UPS vehicle to look forward to every day, but I could tell he really missed seeing our mailma'am drive up and down our mountain road. I figured our mail carrier must have either gotten a different route or another vehicle. Well, today the mystery was solved, when Rebel and I ran into our mailma'am at our mailbox down the road; apparently, she has been driving a new vehicle for several months now. However, until she actually pulls into our driveway, I am afraid Rebel will still be looking for the old car, a ghost of a favorite memory. Of course, there is still the familiar brown UPS truck, but it's just not the same. Rebel loved the familiar sound of the mailma'am's blue car, almost as if he picked up the vehicle's scent coming up the road.

Much Too Important

"Life is much too important a thing to talk seriously about it."

--Oscar Wilde

Humor

"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity."

--James Thurber

The Least of Things

"The least of things with a meaning

is worth more in life

than the greatest of things without it."

--Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 1933

Litterbug

While we were stopped at a red light yesterday, I patted Rebel's back and happened to feel a small lump. Instinctively, with no hesitation and without even looking, I leaned over and pulled out the dog tick attached to Rebel, just as the light changed green. I do not recommend anyone doing this while driving, especially since one needs to be careful to remove the tick's head along with its body. But I have removed more than my share of ticks over the years, and I can do so blindfolded, so to speak. Anyway, with two of my fingers, I found myself holding a live tick which had Rebel's flesh in its mouth. I was not about to hold the tick, with its rapidly moving tiny legs, the six additional miles we had to travel home. So I opened my car window and flung the tick onto the road. I do not condone littering, but this case was an exception--after all, the litter was literally a bug. (Don't mind me, I am having a bout of insomnia this week and, hence, I am attributing this feeble attempt at humor to sleep deprivation.)

Incidentally, Rebel and I had been returning from the vet's office yesterday at the time of the tick incident. Rebel is on antibiotics again. Now it is because of an abscess; Rebel appears to have had an allergic reaction caused by an insect bite--either that or it's an infection due to excessive licking after some minor injury. I, however, am convinced it was a spider bite which caused the allergic reaction. I do not remember the exact day, but I do recall seeing Rebel step into a web with his left front paw in the garage. I also distinctly recall that a shiny black spider disappeared from the web when Rebel jumped into the car in the garage. I did check Rebel's paw afterwards, but I saw no evidence that he had been bitten. That was a number of days ago. And since Rebel has been exhibing no symptoms of any kind which would lead me to think a visit to the vet's office might be warranted, I was truly surprised to see the abscess on Rebel's left front paw yesterday morning. Actually, it looks more like a gigantic water blister between his toes. Okay, even if that particular spider in the garage did not bite him, I still think Rebel was probably bitten by some spider because they abound here in the woods. As for Rebel, he is doing just fine.

Simple Truth

"The truth is too simple:

one must always get there by a complicated route."

--George Sand, letter to Armand Barbes, 1867

A Very Tall, Cool Drink

Even though the cats have four water bowls in the house, Mark Twain always likes to drink out of the water pitcher which I use to fill the bird bath. Perhaps he thinks the water tastes better if it's in a tall container.

Best Friend

It matters absolutely nothing to Mark Twain that Rebel is sleeping on top of his tail. After all, Mark Twain is living happily in the moment, sleeping with his leg on top of his best friend. All is well with the world, as far as my cat is concerned.

Mikey's Caterpillar

This is the most unusual caterpillar I have ever seen. Mikey discovered it on the side of our house. It looks like some sort of hybrid. If it is a new hybrid, then I propose it be named after Mikey. Seriously, it reminds me of a walking stick.

R.I.P.

As soon as I opened the front door yesterday morning, I saw a turkey buzzard having breakfast in our driveway. From where I stood, the bird's breakfast appeared to be either a light-colored cat or an opossum. If Mikey had spent the night outdoors, I would have been frantically running toward the buzzard, since the dead animal's coloring looked like that of a Himalayan cat. But Mikey had just walked out the door with Rebel and me. Naturally, Rebel started barking, which caused the buzzard to fly to the nearest tree, where it stayed, observing us, before moving to a higher limb, and soon afterwards it decided that it would be neither safe nor pleasant to continue dining in our yard with noisy Rebel.

I discovered that nature's undertaker had already started his autopsy, so to speak, on a female opossum, which looked like roadkill in the driveway. Unless somebody had driven down our driveway during the night and had run over the poor creature, I suspect the opossum had been struck on the road and had attempted to make it back to her sleeping quarters under our deck. Another possibility, of course, is that a predator had attacked the opossum, but she had somehow managed to escape before dying.

I do not know whether or not this opossum was the one I had named Eggroll, who had been friends with Ponzo and one of the neighbors' black cats. I had only seen Eggroll as a youngster, playing with Ponzo and the other cat. Well, while Mikey sniffed the opossum's body from a distance of about six inches, I watched the neighbor's black cat sniff and gently touch the body with his nose. Perhaps it was Eggroll; may she rest in peace.

Neither Wealth nor Splendor

"It is neither wealth nor splendor,

but tranquillity and occupation

which give happiness."

--Thomas Jefferson

Godot Stays Outside

My mother visited us for a couple of days last month. With the exception of Ginny, who was hiding under the bed, everybody vacated the bedroom and I shut the door as I always do for our out-of-town guests. Well, getting kicked out of the bedroom did not sit well with some of us. The next morning, I discovered a yellow puddle a few feet from the closed bedroom door. I have no proof (and he knows it), but I suspect it was Mark Twain's doing. A little later, right before we were to leave for town, I asked my mother to wait for me and not go outside; of course, she did not listen, and as she was shooing Mark Twain away from the open door, Godot took the opportunity to run outside. Whether or not Mark Twain and Godot planned this, I do not know. Of course, my mother apologized, saying she had no idea that Godot would come out of nowhere and run outdoors. Making a long story short, Godot was letting me know that he did not appreciate the fact that we did not vote on whether or not we should vacate the bedroom and keep the door shut; after all, Godot likes to sleep on the bed during the daytime. Just to make certain that I got his message, Godot stayed hidden all day, moving from his hiding place under the house to a new spot under the shed when I was not looking. This time he really had me worried, which was his intent all along. Right before bedtime, Mikey directed me to the shed, where I saw Godot's eyes glowing in the dark. Godot and I exchanged a few pleasant words, and I headed back to the house. Moments later, Godot sauntered home. And all was well.

Three's Company

Three's company at our house any time of day or night, since I can usually find three cats sleeping together. The bed is a favorite afternoon nap spot.

Giving the Cat a Hand

Emma inspected the cat carrier I used to take Quentin to see the vet last month. Apparently, this carrier got her seal of approval, since she immediately decided to take a nap in it.

I forgot to mention something in the post about saddle thrombus. When Quentin returned home from seeing our vet, Rebel saw that Quentin was having a hard time trying to jump onto the arm of the sofa, managing to jump up only high enough to hang on with his front paws. Quentin kept trying and trying. Finally, Rebel walked over to Quentin, who was hanging onto the sofa arm by his front paws, deciding to give the cat a push up with his head. I wish I could have videotaped that; it is a moment in time I shall never forget: my dog giving my cat a hand, so to speak.

Independence Day

While looking through the revised fourth edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, I found the following appropriate quote for today:

"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

--'Rough Draft' of the American Declaration of Independence,

in J. P. Boyd et al. Papers of Thomas Jefferson (1950) vol. 1;

cf. Anonymous 10:14

Saddle Thrombus

As usual when I woke up one morning, I was greeted by cats jumping on the bed; only Quentin was not among my usual morning greeters. Turning over in bed, I saw Quentin lying next to me, staring at me, only not really seeing me--it looked as if he were staring beyond me, a deathlike stare which, needless to say, frightened me. He was alive but silent and unresponsive to my touch. I believed he was literally at death's door and that it was too late to do anything, so I started to say my good-byes, but as I started speaking, I changed my good-byes to telling Quentin, who had never been ill a moment in his life, that he could fight whatever this was because he comes from a strong line of feral cats. I do not know whether my words had any influence or whether it was all due to Rebel's jumping on the bed, almost on top of Quentin, which caused Quentin to spring back to life and off the bed. Quentin was moving slowly, and he had a hard time using his hind legs. He had lost the ability to jump up; his hind legs appeared somewhat paralyzed.

Making a long story short, I thought Quentin looked much better before we reached the vet's office. The vet thought it was probably saddle thrombus, which meant that my two-year-old cat had a blocked blood supply to his hind legs. From what I have read about thromboembolism and, in this case, saddle thrombus, the prognosis is terrible. And I quote, it is something of a miracle if a cat recovers from saddle thrombus. This occurred on June 3, 2010, and I was prepared to have this be the summer of taking care of Quentin, the way last summer had been the summer of taking care of Ponzo. But believe it or not, Quentin was miraculously back to his old self three days later, before he even finished taking half of his medicine, which I was able to give him in canned catfood, something he has always refused to eat in the past. Actually, I had noticed a marked improvement in Quentin on day two, when I saw him watching Karma and obviously wishing he could chase her. On day three, he did just that. By day four, there was no sign that anything had been wrong with Quentin.

It has been exactly one month now since Quentin became suddenly and mysteriously ill. He is fine now, but since the condition can recur if it was indeed saddle thrombus, I watch Quentin, our happy, vocal, lively boy, for any signs of the condition.

I did ask the vet if it could have been a widow spider bite, which is usually fatal to small cats, and he did say it was a possibility. I guess I shall never know, but I do know Quentin did not have anything contagious because of the shared food, water, and litterboxes; no one else got sick. I am still inclined to blame a spider.

Emma, Featured Cat of the Month

Emma, the third of Ginny's kittens, was born between 6 and 6:15 pm EST on April 17, 2008. Although I witnessed her birth, at the time it did not dawn on me to look at the time. I was too busy watching the contractions, which looked like ripples along Ginny's body.

Emma reminds me of her aunt, Grey Ghost, because she's got her shade of gray, although Ginny's sister had no white in her coat. In personality, they are also similar because they are not afraid of anything, which I suspect caused Grey Ghost to use her nine lives up rather quickly as a feral cat. Grey Ghost would blend into the mountain fog nicely, and the first few times I saw her, I was not sure if I'd seen a cat or a ghost. I was giving Civil War names to cats at the time--hence, Grey Ghost was appropriate, despite the gender.

As for Emma, who is serene by nature (usually--after all, she is a cat), I have often thought that she could be a living statue used for meditation purposes. She has this calming quality about her. And she is totally calm whenever she gets into serious trouble, which is twice now by my count. When she was a kitten, my visiting friends noticed Emma calmly swinging like a trapeze artist; Emma's hind legs had somehow gotten tangled in the cords of one of the venetian blinds, and she waited patiently, not making a sound, while I extricated her. The second time was fairly recently, when one morning I saw Charlotte peering into one of the heating/air conditioning grates in the dining room and, to my horror, I discovered that Emma was stuck below the grate. For all I know, Emma could have been quietly awaiting rescue for many hours during the night. I was able to pull her out quickly, and Emma was not frightened or hurt in any way. Serene Emma. By the way, Emma had apparently removed one of the grates in the living room floor before making her journey to the dining room. Yes, we were indeed fortunate that she had not gotten stuck midway.

Although Emma is completely obedient with me (almost doglike obedient, which is highly unusual for a cat)--for example, I can put her inside a cat carrier with no problem, even though there is the suspected imminent threat of going to the vet's office--the cat who exudes tranquility can be feisty with the other cats at times. I am chuckling now as I recall Emma helping me catch Karma, who needed to go for a vaccination last month. That is also unusual behavior, since cats tend to hide instead of rounding up another cat to be put inside a cat carrier, whenever they suspect someone's going for a dreaded trip to the vet's office. Yes, sweet Emma has quite an interesting personality.

Ponzo, One Year Later

On July 1, 2009, I pulled an extremely ill feral cat named Ponzo out of "the cats' underground railroad passageway" below my deck. One year later, the FIV-positive cat is doing well as a housecat. He has adjusted to strictly indoor life--not by choice, mind you, since he is in quarantine from cats who roam the outdoors. Indoors, I keep a supervisory eye on him, but when I cannot do so, my assistant resides in the computer room, where he is quite comfortable. Ponzo's best buddy is probably Quentin, but the other boys seem to like him as well. The girls, however, have not expressed much of an interest. Anyway, Ponzo and Emma are the only two cats who are not at all bothered by the vacuum cleaners. (Yes, I have several of those noisy things.) While Ponzo does not express a desire to attack or play with the vacuum cleaners in Emma-like fashion, he is no longer the timid little cat who, at any loud noise, used to run and hide in the drainage ditches along the sides of the road.