Tag Archives: cats

Evil Kitty…

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This is Tsavo, named for the killer lions of Tsavo (watch GHOST IN THE DARKNESS).  He was bottle-fed by yours truly when his mother abandoned him when he was less than a week old.  He is a spoiled rotten, mercurial tempered lion of a cat…and I sat on him by accident Sunday afternoon.  His response was a quick snap and scratch that left a bleeding line down my arm and what looked like a little nick in the forefinger of my right hand.  He was pissed off at me for an hour and I was heartbroken that I’d accidentally hurt my baby.

Well, he got his revenge.  Monday morning my finger was swollen, a nasty little blister above the formerly innocuous bite mark.  Four hours later there was a line of red running up from the finger on the back of my hand towards my wrist. Having been hospitalized for an infected cat bite before, I hightailed it an urgent care doctor and was told in VERY serious tones I was not to use my hand for two-three days.  Nothing.  Nada.  If I did, I was risking permanent tendon or nerve damage.

Feh.

So for the last two days, I’ve been cradling my injured hand in a sling above my heart, taking Cipro, and relying on the kindness of Dave to feed me, take care of the cats, and do all the housecleaning.  I went to work today (took yesterday off) and pecked emails out with my left hand.  Yesterday I watched half of PRIDE ND PREJUDICE (the mini-series with Colin Firth) and tried not to think of all the writing I had on my plate.  My rapper name would have been Grumpy D.

I probably shouldn’t be typing now, but this is my ONLY typing with my right hand in the last two days and once posted, I’m gonna stop.  I’ll cheat and put up a cute picture for today’s blog challenge post.  Probably a montage of my darling Tsavo…  How can I be mad at a cat who loves books?

Weekly Cute Photo Cop Out Post

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Yeah yeah, like you don’t do it too… This is Taz and Bug Bear (we figure his adult name will be just ‘Bear’ ).  Taz recently lost her littermate, Haggis, with whom she was very close.  His death broke our hearts and left Taz bereft of her playmate.

We weren’t intending to get another kitten, but our friend Maureen rescued this little guy from a shelter when they were going to euthanize him because he had ringworm.  Mo took him in, got rid of the ringworm and we knew she’d get attached and keep him if we didn’t intervene.  Heh.  So our other friends Aldyth and Brad joined us in a new endeavor: It takes a village to raise a kitten.   We agreed to take the little guy (then Gomez) for a few days each so he wouldn’t bond with one particular person.  This way it would be easier for Maureen to find him a home.

Great plan, right?  Except we didn’t plan for him bonding with Taz.

First day he was here she hissed at him and smacked him.  Second day, she hissed, but followed him around like a shadow.  Where he went, so did she.  He was oblivious to hissing, smacking and stalking.  Third day, she was forcibly washing him.  Fourth…well, look at THIS picture.  The caption is simply “Mine!”

Haggis

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It’s been a rough few weeks.  Last Wednesday night, we had to say goodbye to Haggis, our darling eight-month old kitten.   He let us know he was ready to go…and we had our vet come to the house.  He had 24/7 of attention and love from Dave and me from the moment we found out he had FIP; I took him to work with me a couple of days.  He faded out slowly, but even at the end he still purred when he woke up and saw the two of us with him.

I have cried more in the last couple of weeks than should be allowed.   Taz and her little brother, Haggis

His sister, Taz, curled up with him every hour or so.   If she wasn’t grooming him, she was coiled around him in a protective semi-circle.  I spent a lot of time holding the two of them.
We got Haggis’s ashes back from the vet’s this morning.   They came in a little polished pine box, complete with a lock and two little keys.  We put the box in a vampire kitty container from one of Cost Plus’s Halloween collections, courtesy of my brother and sister-in-law.  It was one of my favorite Christmas presents this year and perfect as a resting place for Haggis, who had overlong canines.  I need to take a picture of the vampire kitty and post it.  Just not yet

Grieving is a long process. You can’t rush it.  I’m okay with that.  I’m not okay with people telling me ‘get over it; it’s only a cat, fer crissake.’   Tell that to Taz, who periodically wanders around the house looking for her brother and meowing.   If someone doesn’t relate to those of us who consider our animal companions (that’s the PC term for ‘pets’, in case you were wondering) part of our families, the best thing they can do (both for the sake of the bereaved and their own health) is keep their opinion to themselves.  Seriously.

I hope this is the last post I’ll write for quite a while about grief and loss.  I attended Left Coast Crime in Denver last weekend, am gearing up at a leisurely pace for a book signing tour in May with my new pal and fellow writer Jess Lourey, and have a lot of positive things happening in my life.

But damn, I miss that cat.

Break from posting

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Our little boy is ill. Haggis, the most adorable little cat anyone could have, has dry FIP and will not be with us much longer. It’s been a tough week of vet visits and bad news. We’re spending the weekend taking turns holding him, giving him love and making sure he’s comfy. He’s on prednisone, still eats if we coax him, and purrs when we pet him…but it’s just a matter of time. Both Dave and I are in a weird twilight zone of denial and grief.
Anyway…I’ll be back and will start posting regularly, but right now it’s all about Haggis and seeing him out properly. He will be missed more than I can even begin to imagine right now.  Haggis at 4 months

I’ve got to get through that door…

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I don’t know about you, but when I get home from work, I can’t relax until all the chores that need to be done are completed.  I’m like a shark – if I don’t keep moving, I’ll sink into a sea of apathy and exhaustion.  Nothing will get done.  It doesn’t matter how late I work, how exhausted I am.  10 cats and one dog need feeding, floors need sweeping (10 cats generate a lot of pine litter dust), litter boxes need cleaning…there are usually dishes to be washed, laundry to be folded.  And if I’m REALLY lucky, one of the kids will have upchucked his/her breakfast and there will be cat vomit to be cleaned up.

Sigh.

I’m tired all over again.  Tonight included all of the above, btw.  And let’s not forget the recycle and garbage.

By the time I’m finished with all of these things, I’m wiped.  My brain is mush, my body exhausted and conjuring up creative energy is a challenge.  But part of being a writer is…well…actually WRITING.  Working on something.  Not just resting on my laurels (and my butt) and thinking about writing.   But dang, there are days when I wish I could put corks in my little darlings.   I won’t say which end.  I’m sure you get the idea.

Grumpy Post

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How, you might ask, is it possible for a person to be grumpy when surrounded by purring felines, sipping a glass of good Cabernet Franc, and watching ONCE MORE WITH FEELING?  I mean…the Buffy musical generally cures all ills.  Cats are like Tribbles – holding one is an automatic stress reducer.   But when three cats are vying for lap space with my MacBook, it makes writing very difficult.   “Put ’em down!” you say.

Right.  YOU try it.  I put one down, another takes its place, like army ants.  I am Leningan and the cats are my army ants.  Except they don’t strip my flesh from my bones if they catch me sleeping.  And if you’ve never read the story Leningan and the Ants or seen THE NAKED JUNGLE (with a VERY young Chuck Heston as the lead and Eleanor Parker as his mail order bride wearing a truly amazing brassiere throughout the film), you will be wondering what the hell I’m talking about.   Get thee to Netflix, says I!

But I digress.

I am specifically grumpy because, after a wonderful yoga class tailored to help boost my immune system (people at work have been dropping like flies with influenza), I pinched a nerve my neck and shoulder while shredding some confidential documents at work.   As office manager (or Senior Adminstrative Coordinator, depending on which business card I hand you) I’m in charge of purchasing office supplies.  So when our old wimpy shredder jammed and no amount of coaxing, cleaning or kicking could make it work again, I bought a new one.    I wanted a macho shredder this time around, one that could take at least 15 pages without pause.   I found one in the Quill catalogue advertised to shred multiple layers, CDS…it was even supposed to eat staples!

Sigh.

My macho shredder is a big wimp.

But Spike’s cheekbones…okay, feeling better now… Sing, Spike, sing!   Let me rest in peace indeed…

Sorry.  I do love me my Buffy musical…especially Spike.  Grrrrrrrowwwwwllllffffff!

Back to the shredder.  This supposed Superman of shredders is a total wuss.  Yes, it does eat staples.  But ask it to eat more than 5 pieces of paper at a time and it’s all *cough* *cough*…’it’s too much!  I feel faint!  Give me mah smellin’ salts!’   There’s a huge bag to collect the shredded paper, but the bag only fills a quarter of the way before the machine decides it’s full and stops running.  You can’t hang the bag out of the front in order to make more room because if the door’s open, it won’t run.   Stupid, temperamental piece o’ crap.   And insult to injury, I pinched the nerve while stuffing the shred down into the bag.

I mean, what a dippy way to injure myself.  It’s almost worse than throwing out one’s back while sneezing.  “I hurt myself shredding!”

Although I could let people think I was talking about shredding waves.   Anyone who’s seen me surf would know better.

It’s hard to fight the good fight against flu bugs when you can’t turn your head without pain.  My birthday is Saturday and I don’t want to be sick or in pain.  I’ve got plans, dagnabbit!  I’m going to a Sisters in Crime meeting with Dave ad then we’re going to Rick and Jen’s for a duo birthday celebration (me and Jen, whose birthday was yesterday) involving a lamb dinner cooked by Rick, excellent wine and movies.  We are bringing SKYSCRAPER, a truly craptacular DIEHARD ripoff with Anna Nicole Smith in the Bruce Willis role.   I mean, you don’t get much worse than that.   In my world, that much bad is really really good.

So no flu!  No neck pain!  And no more stupid wimpy shredder!

Ah well.  If I still feel crabby tomorrow night, I’ll put on the ‘Buffy and Spike bring down the house’ episode and play the last 10 minutes over and over again.  I’ll take my cheap thrills where I can get ’em, thank you!

Upcoming Blog Tour

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Yes, that’s right.  I’m actually going to DO this blog book tour I’ve been dropping hints about for the last month!  It’s going to start the Monday of the third week of January.  If I had a calendar nearbye, I’d give you the date.  but I don’t and I have felines lounging on me and can’t get up to check.   Does this make me lazy?  Perhaps.  Or does it make me a good mother?  I prefer to look at it that way.

So I’m gonna be doing interviews and guest posts at…six different blogs, hosted by six diversely talented writers and bloggers.  Still working out the logistics, but we will be having several drawing for free copies of my book, MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon.  If you win, you’ll have to bake your own chocolate chip cookies to eat while reading it, but the book itself will be free.

I will be posting a schedule with the dates and urls of the blogs I’ll be visiting and hope you’ll stop by all of them and check it out!

Kittens are helping me write

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They really do, y’know.  When I’m staring at the screen of my iBook, my mind either blank or cluttered up with the detrious of a day at work, they get on my lap and slowly crawl onto the keyboard.cv                   yhrfp;;;;y

…and they write for me.  I figure yhrfp;;;;;y is fraught with meaning in Kittenese.  And then there’s Foster, my sumo wrestler kitty, my Staypuff Marshmallow boy.  He’s sitting on my right arm and staring at me with slightly crossed blue eyes, ears slightly back as if to ask, ‘What are you trying to accomplish?  I not understand why you are not petting me.’  Foster, btw, sounds like Fat Tony from THE SIMPSONS.

Sigh.  I need to set up some boundaries here…