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.