As disappointed as Banshee looks in these photos… she’s much, much more disappointed. She’s the most judgemental cat I’ve come across.
May 102020
Apr 232020
Since Fingers the cat died almost two weeks ago, there’s obviously not much to say about her as far as updates. There is, however, possibly something to say Fingers-adjacent. After I took her to the vet for the last time and she didn’t come back with me, my other cats hardly seemed to react. This is not surprising… at the best of times cats are often not very demonstrative, and Fingers was hardly the most social of social butterflies. So there was doubtless some time when the other cats simply assumed that she was off on her own somewhere. But in the past week or so, Buttons has developed a quirk: he goes around the house calling out in the most mournful fashion, and will often run up to me and yell at me, demanding *something.* Exactly what that is, I can’t say, but it’s something new. His “I want attention” and “I want food demands” are well known. I have a suspicion that this *might* be a “bring Fingers back” demand.
Fingers was in the Utah house when Buttons gained entry. In fact, they interacted somewhat while they were still outside cats, if memory serves; it may be that Fingers is an older memory for Buttons than I am. So if any of the cats misses Fingers, it should be Buttons.
Apr 102020
Months of pain for Fingers ended this morning. Her dental issues turned out to be the result of an aggressive cancer, something that the vet could not offer any hope of fixing, only prolonging. So the decision was made to send Fingers on her way.
It would please me to think that Fingers is now wherever Raedthinn is. She had been missing him for nearly two years now; once he died, she never again purred quite as loudly or seemed quite as happy. It would be nice if that situation was now rectified.
Goddamnitsomuch.
Apr 052020
She’s quite good at it. the other cats, not so much.
Mar 122020
Been a lot of rather doom- and’dumbassery-filled posts of late. Because, let’s face it, there’s been a whole lot of doom and dumbassery in the news.
So, here’s something a bit different… a few crappy photos of Speedbump discovering chicken jerky dog treats.
Mar 062020
When the temperature in the house is too low, cats have two options for being warm.
Option 1: for sociable cats, there is the “sharing bodily warmth” method.
Option2: For anti-social cats… “fark you, I got mine.”
Feb 222020
Fingers had surgery yesterday to deal with dental issues. This kinda came out of the blue (the last six months or so have seen a *LOT* of issues that just seem to arrive out of nowhere with little to no leadup, just… BAM). I should have seen it at least a few days earlier; starting about a week ago she became surprisingly friendly with me. She is typically pretty aloof; she was only ever really friendly with Raedthinn, while she sees me as, at best, a somewhat terrifying roommate. But it seems that the old girl was in pain and the only way she had to communicate it was through the appearance of affection.
Those who’ve been around this blog long enough might remember that 11 or so years ago she was badly wounded. It was the sort of damage that, had she been a human, said human would do little more than writhe on the floor and wail incessantly until pumped full of morphine. But Fingers… she just seemed to ignore it and get on with things. So either she’s grown soft in the years since, or she *really* hurt. In any event, I got her in to the vet as soon as I figured out there was a problem (I had about a 1/10 second glance inside her mouth, and had to struggle to get that; it was enough to tell me there was a problem) and they performed some dental work. Two teeth were to be extracted, but apparently they just sorta… fell out. This problem is not new; Koshka also had dental issues that resulted in two teeth just popping right out.
Fingers was unsurprisingly loopy when she came back from the vet. But once the anesthetic wore off, she went right back to ignoring me. Which would seem to be a good sign that the pain is gone.
Best way to pet Fingers is to catch her asleep.
The other cats have reacted to Fingers with complete nonchalance.
Feb 062020
Unless this is some form of CGI sorcery, of course…
Feb 032020
Chinese authorities threaten to kill pet cats and dogs over coronavirus fears
Leave it to a communist bureaucracy to decide that the way to deal with a human virus is to exterminate the rest of the mammalian population.
Jan 252020
Sometime in 2007 or 2008 my neighbors gave me a cat they’d found wandering the streets and in a bad way, her paws all tore up. Tak The Hideous New Girl went with me when I briefly moved from Utah to Maryland and back in 2008, but sometime around 2010 she moved on to a new home, finding a place of comfort with my Mom and, later, Bruce the cat. This morning, after an extended illness, Tak died on the way to the vet.
Some photos from when Tak was a Utah cat, living with Koshka and Raedthinn. All three are gone now, and far, far too soon.
Tak was a good cat.