Anyone want a lovely cat?

I can offer a choice of two. A friend of mine adopted Mabel a year ago. She recently adopted Casper, and it turns out that the two cats do NOT get along. So, one of them needs to be re-housed.

• Cat #1, Mabel, is a seven-year-old black semi-oriental with short plush fur, likely a Birman. She is one of those happy, sturdy, friendly indoor/outdoor cats who likes laps and visiting all the neighbors. She can live with another cat, but needs to be the dominant cat.
• Cat #2, Casper, is a four-year-old mackerel tabby male. He one of those handsome, rangy guys who twines around your legs. Not a lap cat, but would like to be scritched and petted for hours. Casper came from a home where they had just had a baby and moved to a tiny apartment (from a house). He didn't want to be an indoors-only cat, and the new parents didn't have time for him.

Both cats are healthy, have had all their shots and vet stuff, and have perfect manners: They eat anything, use a litter box, and don't scratch furniture or people.

Please let me know if you are interested. I'll deliver anywhere in the Puget Sound region.

Kitty, kitty. . .kitty?

I've been gone for a week, with neighbors and cat sitters coming in to feed the cats breakfast and dinner. This led me to wonder if the tabbies would forget about their annoying habit of waking me up at 5 a.m. for breakfast and an early outing.

Nope.

When I feed the three cats, I still look out the back door to the foot of the stairs where Garibaldi, the tough orange tabby, used to wait for his handouts. He disappeared early in the summer, and I assumed he'd either fallen victim to a coyote or had been captured, neutered, and put up for adoption by a neighbor.

Last night, when I got in from the trip, there was a beautiful orange tabby waiting in Garibaldi's spot at the bottom of the stairs. This cat behaved exactly like Garibaldi, but was so much sleeker and cleaner I can't believe it was the same cat. He got his handout, gobbled it down, and vanished into the night.

The return of the Zombie Flu

I'm still having episodes of exhaustion and aches, so have cancelled yet another weekend's plans. When I have energy, I spend a few hours at my desk, so am able to keep up with all my work projects.

The high point of the day was petting Garibaldi, the semi-feral tomcat. He was sleeping out on the raised deck in the back yard and I went out to talk with him. I usually do this from a distance of about three feet. He runs away if I get any closer.

Today he hissed as I approached, but then rolled onto his back and stretched out as if he wanted his stomach rubbed. So I reached out and rubbed him. He twisted away, then rolled back to be petted, then got up and head-butted my hand, then shrunk away, then came back and lay down again and let me scratch his chin. There was obviously an argument going on between the part of him that wanted to be petted and the part that was frightened. After about three minutes, he stood up and moved away. I went inside and got a can of food and put some into his bowl on the back porch, then went inside and let him eat by himself.

Garibaldi's fur is nice and soft, like Sheba's.

The key to cat sitting

Cat sitting is easy if you've got the key.

If you've lost it — it's just the cat meowing on one side of the door, and you freaking out on the other.

I'm the neighborhood's designated cat sitter. Until yesterday, the panic episode of my pet-sitting career was when the neighbors across the street left town for two weeks, leaving me to care for their cats — and for the mice and fish the husband forgot to tell me about. Fortunately, their six-year-old yelled "Don't forget the fish" as they drove off down the street, and I investigated.

I feed cats, I pill cats, I let cats in and out. I find cats that have been locked overnight in a bedroom when the wind blew the door shut (phew!). I fill water bowls and I scoop litter.

My latest assignment seemed particularly easy because it involved only one cat, a 20-pound feline that lives contentedly indoors. He has an automatic feeding bowl and water dish, so all I needed to do was pet him, give him a few treats, and shovel the litter every few days.

Yesterday I went in, tossed my keys and purse on the coffee table, sat in a chair, and petted the cat for 20 minutes. I gave him two salmon treats, picked up my purse and keys, and realized that while my keys were on the coffee table, the key to the neighbors' house was missing.

"Meow."

I checked the floor, the counters, and the table tops. I checked the cushions of the chair where I'd been sitting. I dumped the contents of my purse on the floor and went though that. I checked the pockets of my jeans.

"Meow."

No key. The phone number for the neighbors' sister was on the information sheet in the kitchen; she was taking over cat care on the weekend, so I knew she had a key and I could, if all else failed, call her.

"Meow."

By now, it was time for me to leave for yoga class, and I decided to latch the front door from the inside, go out the back way, and leave the back door unlocked. Bad idea. This house has a door that automatically locks. I found myself standing on the back porch, locked out, with the sister's phone number on the info sheet in the kitchen.

"Meow," the cat said.

I went off to yoga class, came back late, and put off trying to locate the sister until this morning. After all, the cat had food and water, and was unlikely to die from lack of petting.

Searching old emails, I was able to find an evite from the neighbors, and, looking at the evite RSVPs spotted a name that sounded like it might be the sister's. Fortunately, she has an unusual last name. Using that, I was able to locate her on Linkedin and find out that she works for a small local law firm.

I called the firm. They greeted me in the usual arms-length business style, telling me that the sister was not available. Fortunately, I knew she was out of the office recovering from eye surgery. So I simply told them I was her brother's cat sitter and had locked the keys in the house with the cat. The person on the phone (who turned out to be the head of the firm) cracked up, and a few minutes later the sister called me back, laughing.

Her husband came over this evening to give me their key, and, sure enough, immediately spotted the original key where it had fallen — under the sofa.

"I was sure the cat had eaten it," he said kindly.

Cats and rain

Kaylee, the small tabby, failed to wake me up at 5:30 this morning. I woke up a little before 8 and saw her curled up in the "meatloaf" pose (paws tucked under chest) at the foot of the bed. I realized that she'd seen the rain and had decided that "outdoors" is no longer the wonderful place it has been most of the summer.

Fall is here, and even the cat knows it.

(picture of Kaylee and large sister Zoe in sunnier times)

Meditations on cats, present and past

I've been sick with the flu for much of the past week, and spent a lot of time with our cats. Well, perhaps not much more time than usual, but instead of trying to get them to quit pawing at me and meowing to be let in and out and in and out, I paid attention to them.

Though tiny Kaylee still looks and moves like a kitten, she is beginning to show some signs of common sense. She has also recently become a bit more affectionate. Sitting still for more than a few seconds has always been a problem for her, but now she seems to be able to sit on a lap and have her head scratched for a minute or so. Oddly, in view of this, Kaylee is very good companion when I'm sick. If I run a fever, she is on me like glue. We've had cats like this before, that just "take over" when someone is significantly ill, and then wander off to resume an aloof lifestyle as soon as the owner recovers.

Large-tabby Zoe, who is perfect happy throwing her 13 pounds of fur and apparently un-retractable claws directly across my chest and going immediately to sleep, doesn't seem to differentiate between sick owners and healthy ones. They're all nice to sleep on.

Sheba, whose deafness contributes to her feline self-centeredness, didn't seem particularly concerned that I was sick. She snored right through some particularly miserable episodes.

But I noticed that instead of yowling and knocking things off the furniture to wake me up at the usual time, all three of the cats slept in when I did.

As the weather gets warmer, the tabbies are starting to refuse to come in at night. Sometimes one comes in, and in my sleepy and increasingly inept attempts to capture the one out on the patio, I let the captured one of the pair out again and have to start all over.

I was up quite a bit in the middle of the night this week. One night I found myself in the kitchen with the cats (they were hoping for a handout) and glanced out the glass door at the back garden. Suddenly a big fat raccoon ambled up the back stairs onto the little porch and put its nose against the door. Zoe hissed and whined. The raccoon was unimpressed. I walked over to the door, and it remained unimpressed. I think it was looking past me at the cat food bowls in the kitchen. It's probably going to report to its clan that they should try back in the afternoon when I'm out gardening and tend to eave the door open.

The lawn went unmowed much of the week (until Zorg got into gear on Sunday) and the tabbies were hiding in the long grass like lions, and springing out at each other. Sheba, being bright white, has no illusions about being able to hide in greenery.

This led us to think back on poor Socks, a big long-haired tabby we had at the old house in Wallingford. In Wallingford, we lived next to "the house" on the block — you know, the type of run-down, overgrown place with six cars that you'll find on most older North Seattle streets. The owner of the house (actually, the owner's black sheep son) went months, perhaps years, without mowing. The local cats, possums and raccoons (mice? voles?) had created a network of paths through the back yard. When we put a second floor on our house, we gained an aerial view of the feline Ho Chi Minh Trail and amused ourselves picking out the various cats hiding in the foliage.

One afternoon Zorg looked out the window of the upstairs office and panicked. The lawn had been mowed to a stubble, and what appeared to be the dead body of a cat — Socks — was in the middle of it. He grabbed binoculars and saw it truly was Socks. But when he rushed out the back door and into the neighbor's yard, he realized Socks was alive and perfectly fine — at least physically. Socks was laying out there in the sun because he thought he was still hiding; he was too dim to understand the implications of the grass being gone.

Our hearts "heart" cats

This evening we took over care of the neighbors' terminally ill elderly cat. She's been such a wonderful friendly kitty that we are happy to be her hospice. (The neighbors' daughter is very ill — with asthma, possibly exacerbated by the poor cat — and it's logistically very difficult for them to give the sick cat the attention she needs.)

So Zorg and I are getting back into the caring-for-a-cat-with-cancer mode again: pillows on the floor, heating pads, all types of tempting cat foods at all hours, and compounded medications so as not to torture the poor cat with pills.

But there is some good news. A research paper presented at the International Stroke Conference this week reveals that cat owners are far less likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than people who miss out on the cat-owning experience. (Surprisingly, the study found no similar beneficial effect to dog ownership.)

New year, new calendars

I like a good calendar. That's why I often give calendars for Christmas gifts. There are two types of calendar I like so much that it just isn't the new year until I've posted one above my desk and one in the kitchen. The one above the desk is the Dilbert calendar. Having worked for so many years in massively dysfunctional organizations, I find the Dilbert humor still resonates (and probably always will).

The calendar in the kitchen is the Kliban cat calendar (pictured at right.) I guess I like Kliban cats because all of them are classic tabbies—what my mom used to call "alley cats"—and because they are so entitled.

[Pause while I go into the kitchen to feed the neighbor's cat; yes, the neighbor's cat eats dinner in our kitchen. Long story.]

The Kliban cat on the cover of the calendar looks just like our Zoe—big, good-natured, and a bit goofy.

Zoe has taken to vocalizing quite a bit recently; I'm wondering if it's because the neighbor's cat is a very accomplished meower who "sings" to get our attention, and Zoe is trying to compete.

Cat update

Do you wish you had a cat to pet, but you don't have the time or living arrangements to commit to a longterm feline relationship?

Come pet Jessica. She's the beautiful calico who's boarding with us for a couple of weeks. She's a lap cat, a snuggler, and very friendly. She lives in our TV room, and she's bored.

Two days ago, she started yowling when she was alone, so we let her out to explore the rest of the house. She walked around, seemingly unconcerned about our three wide-eyed cats, and seemed to be having a marvelous time. But last night it apparently occurred to her that it would be even more marvelous if she were the only cat in the house. And she started stalking and chasing the two tabbies. They were fleeing in terror, but Jessie was bounding happily along like a gazelle.

We caught her and put her back in the TV room for the night. This morning she yowled to be let out, but when we let her out, she went after Zoe, our big, rather clueless tabby, like Attila the Hun sweeping across the steppes. (Kaylee, the little tabby, was already hiding somewhere where no one could find her.) It wound up with Zoe cringing in a corner with Jessie flailing away at her. Zoe, whose idea of a really bad time up until then had been having to wait 10 minutes to get in or out the back door, was badly shaken.

I snagged Jessie, spoke to her very sternly, and put her back in the TV room. Interestingly, there was no yowling after that. There hasn't been a peep out of her all day.

But we've agreed that Jessie has lost her roaming privileges. So, if you'd like to visit our little prisoner, let me know.

Car chase scene

It's been a weird week, all the way through. And last night Zorg's PowerMac G5 dropped dead, apparently from a power supply problem. He booked an appointment at the Apple Store for this morning to have it fixed.

Sheba, the deaf white cat, was out in the yard this morning when Zorg was loading the computer into the car. If we're both leaving, we always put her in the house, but I had agreed to take over the supervision of her morning outing when Zorg left.

Sheba saw Zorg's Subaru pull out of the driveway and she began chasing it down the street! Zorg stopped the car, snagged Sheba, and carried her up the stairs and put her in the livingroom. He then drove off, and she rocketed around the first floor for a few minutes like something from the stock car races.

Many years ago, I had an orange cat named Bosco who was as insanely attached to me as Sheba is to Zorg. He went through a phase of chasing my car in the morning when I headed off to work. For a few mornings, I had to just drive off and hope he didn't follow me more than a couple of blocks. Fortunately, he gave up and went home. Sheba has the kind of personality (and physical power) that would allow her to follow a car on residential streets for a mile or so -- not a safe thing for any cat, and definitely not for a deaf one.

I wonder where they think we're going when we drive off?

Misc. notes

I wasn't going to blog about today's rain followed by sun followed by hail followed by bright sun -- until a second hailstorm let loose at 3:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, in a penny-ante version of the San Francisco highway collapse, the south end of the University Bridge has apparently been endangered by a water main break that led to a sinkhole that swallowed up two parked cars. Can you imagine heading back to your car after work and finding it...15 feet underground?

I wanted to note that this week is the kittens' birthday. They are three. Of course, it's not possible to "celebrate" their birthday in any way that would be significant to them because they already get everything they want.

Shock tactics

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Relations with our neighbors got tense this past winter when Sheba darted after their cat and pursued it around the block, cornering it and socking a few times along the circuit.

I had the flu, and was chasing them in my slippers, and had great difficulty catching up with them and prying Sheba off of her victim. I promised my screaming neighbor that we would get a shock collar to train Sheba not to go onto their property. I did research, purchased a collar for training small dogs, but just couldn't bring myself to put it on the little white cat who looks so fragile and dainty when she isn't eviscerating her fellow beasts. The box with the collar sat in our front hallway for months. Fortunately, Sheba, who is nearly four, mellowed out in the interim. When we saw her trespassing we punished her by taking her indoors (a time in, instead of a time out), and she got the message.

Last week, I decided it was time to put the collar (never opened) up for sale on eBay. It was purchased right away and today I shipped it off to the buyer, a woman whose street address is 71 Doberman Lane. That certainly got me thinking, as I bade farewell to the collar at the Post Office. Is Doberman Lane part of a development, with Pit Bull Place, and Corgi Court? Could you live on Doberman Lane and own a couple of toy poodles? Somehow, I doubt it's a route favored by joggers or postal carriers. Come to think of it, the buyer's address also included a box number...