meet kevin!
January 10, 2012
Kevin would like you all to know that he is very happy to be here. He hadn’t even been here five minutes and he was totally comfortable, getting into stuff, flopping around looking for belly rubs, cleaning himself. . . the only reason it took a whole 5 minutes is because the first 4 were spent in the bathroom with me getting all of the poop washed off him from pooping all over himself in the car (early in the trip, and in switching the towels I got covered in it myself and then he pretty much immediately peed on the new towel anyway and it was fairly miserable but even then he took it mostly in stride) (except for being lifted out of the car on the side of the highway, he hated that). Also while I had him on the floor in a strange new place with a wet rag scrubbing at his fur and poop everywhere and all this right after a scary car ride with strange people, he was purring like crazy as if this was the funnest thing ever. Weirdo.
Kevin likes snuggles, belly rubs, food, tripping people, jumping on the counter, jumping on the table, and especially jumping up onto the piano keys. I’ve now got a whole collection of plastic animals lined up along the keys to prevent him from climbing over from the window seat. Because I hate fun. According to Kevin. He makes up for all of his annoying badassery with enthusiastic cuddling, though, so I think we’re going to keep him.
You guys, I am SO HAPPY to have a cat again.
Posted by jodi on January 10, 2012 at 11.14pm
incentive
December 27, 2011
This kitty showed up at my dad’s farmhouse a few days ago, looking for a sucker to take him in. (It’s well known in the cat community in the area that my dad is that sucker, and I’m convinced that homeless cats on the move have left hobo markings all around the property to let others know, suckers live here. warm fireplace ahoy. plenty of kibble.) BUT the other cats don’t like him so he needs a new home. He’s very chill, incredibly loving and cuddly, likes to be picked up, likes belly rubs. . . basically he likes all the things that I like. We are very compatible, I think.
We have a home repair job we need to do in our house before we can invite any new cats to live with us. It’s a job I could do in a few days if I put my mind to it, but it will be a lot of work. Now the pressure is on.
There is still one more farm neighbour my dad hasn’t spoken to, who might own this cat. If she doesn’t, and if I can get the work done in the basement in time and if Dad and Sherry don’t find him another home before I’m ready, and if, and if, and if. . . then this kitty could be mine.
Posted by jodi on December 27, 2011 at 10.01am
rest
June 9, 2011
Peacefully. Our beloved Cleo.
Posted by jodi on June 9, 2011 at 8.25pm
cleo, winding down
May 30, 2011
Our beloved Cleo has had a rough time of it, medically, the last little while. When we came home from our Georgia vacation in February, we found her in a crisis situation, listless and not eating, lying around with a glazed, miserable expression. The diagnosis was kidney failure, and with a new diet, renal care medicine and subcutaneous fluid injections (which we administer at home) she bounced back to her normal self in less than two weeks (after some very scary days where I had to hold her constantly to try and get her body temperature up and at times it seemed she was barely breathing). She gained a pound on the new regimen and began once again exhibiting her remarkable prowess at the “bite me” game.
Over the May Two Four weekend, I noticed her back legs, which have been stiffening for well over a year now, were giving out on her occasionally, causing her to slide to the floor while walking and then wobble like a drunkard after picking herself up. This time it’s arthritis in her spine, which is only going to get worse over time (her kidneys, on the other hand, are behaving like total rock stars). So she got a cortisone shot to manage any pain, and off we went home again to give her all the love and anything else she asks for and wait for her to give us The Sign.
She’s still getting around okay, just with a slightly smaller range (the photo above was taken through the dining room window screen while she slept on the concrete pad below; normally she’d be halfway across the yard sleeping atop the graves of her predecessors, or at the way back lying on the sun-warmed giant sheet of metal we’re too lazy to take to the dump). For a 20 year old cat she’s remarkably feisty, and while she’s still mostly happy (if somewhat frustrated with the mobility trouble) and taking pleasure in life we’re just going to enjoy her last days and help her up and down the stairs when we need to.
When I watch her drag herself away from her food dish where she’s been half-crouching, half-lying down to eat, Cleo reminds me a bit of this:
(Andrew Wyeth: Christina’s World, tempera on panel, 1948)
Posted by jodi on May 30, 2011 at 5.08pm
up early and very alert
May 19, 2011
Cleo’s all wound up from a night of teenager slumber party madness.
Posted by jodi on May 19, 2011 at 5.51am
it’s a fact.
December 4, 2010
Everybody loves a sleeping kitty.
Posted by jodi on December 4, 2010 at 7.02am
old susie
October 12, 2010
In the spring of 1992 my dad moved to a rickety old falling-down farmhouse (so falling-down, in fact, that after he moved out the house was given over to the local fire department for training practice, as it wasn’t fit for occupancy). There was an old orange cat already living on the property, sixteen years old and never domesticated according to the farmer across the road, the son of the falling-down house’s original occupants. The neighbour said “I castrated that cat myself!” (along with the hogs), and “you’ll never get near that cat” (is it any wonder?). To which my dad replied, “well, I was petting that cat this morning”, because my dad is: a) kind of a smartarse and b) some kind of magic man when it comes to the kitties. In fact my dad is a bona fide crazy cat lady who, since befriending Old Susie, has had anywhere from seven to fourteen cats living with him at any given time (it’s nine right now, I think).
By the first winter Old Susie, the wild cat who had fended for himself for sixteen years, was curling up on a corner of the couch just like a regular house cat, albeit one who was all solid muscle and sharp claws who would slash at your arm if you dared to stop petting. When my dad moved to a new farm the following year, he brought Susie along.
Susie, spring 1994. Shot with the Brownie Hawkeye and Ilford HP-5 Plus film.
This and another (even worse) shot on the same roll are the only pictures of Susie. That little cross-shaped piece of stone by the porch stoop is a broken piece of grave marker that my cousin Chris and I dug out of a rock pile in a creek running behind the site of an old church that used to stand on Highway 4 near my hometown. The dilapidated church had been taken over by Franciscan monks who were fixing it up and living there and I remember when I was in high school we’d occasionally see them in town in their brown cassocks and then there was some kind of conflict with the diocese and the monks left and the church was torn down. I later left that stone in the backyard of a house in London to mark the grave of a kitten that died. You see how easy that is, just dig out the old photos and instantly you turn into an old person with a semicoherent string of boring old tangential stories? It’s like Tony Soprano said: remember-whens are the lowest form of conversation.
I found these negatives, processed but never printed, rolled up and squashed flat with duct tape goo on them, shoved into an old pickled egg jar along with hundreds of cowrie shells salvaged from old shell necklaces, scraps of woven trim that I got from the fire sale after the big fire at Exeter Public School and later used on my first piece of SCA garb, some old guitar strings, a bag of silver jump rings, a bottle of Spotone and a large spool of linen bookbinding thread. It’s a wonder there were still pictures to be found on them at all.
Posted by jodi on October 12, 2010 at 10.55am
a visit
July 25, 2010
Drinking my coffee in the rainy coolness of the porch this morning, I sensed movement beneath my chair and looked down to see a streak of pale gray fur. At first I thought it was Cleo, since she’s slender and pale gray as well, but then I caught sight of her in my periphery, crouching at the top of the porch steps, glaring. And look over here at who was cowering under a chair in the corner of our porch!
An adolescent possum, still small enough to seem cute (everything is “cute” so long as it’s small, right?) but already on the verge of ugly with its long, ratty snout and dangerous claws and that horrible pink-skin wiry tail. I’ve seen baby possums, suckling-age, and they’re truly adorable, like mewling wobbling newborn puppies, their faces still flat and womb-crinkled. But that was in Georgia, and possum families aren’t all that common around here.
We never used to have possums in Ontario at all, not until around ten or fifteen years ago. The first ones came across the border from the States clinging to the bottoms of trucks. That sounds like a story you’d tell kids just to pull one over on them, but it’s true. I always used to imagine a great escape, a daring and adventurous young possum from a foreign land setting out from home, rucksack in hand, to make the dangerous trek to a new life in a new country. I’m sure the truth is more likely that they’re up under a truck for whatever reason and surprised there when the engine starts (like kittens who climb into engines for warmth in winter and wind up getting smooshed in fan belts), then cling to whatever they can for dear life until the truck stops moving and the terrified possum drops to the ground and bolts for safety, suddenly finding itself in Canada. Still, a storybook worthy journey, perhaps.
I gently shooed this little lady off while Claire held Cleo at bay (not that Cleo posed much danger; at 20 years old she knows her limits and might not even remember the hunter she once was). Here’s the wee wet thing, scuttling back out into the rain.
Posted by jodi on July 25, 2010 at 9.26am
we built a porch!
May 25, 2010
Well, most of a porch. It has a foundation and a floor. We can walk out the back door without fear of falling in a hole full of ancient cigarette wrappers and alley cat poop (I raked all that up, too).
It is a lovely porch-floor.
You can lie down on it without getting a splinter or a nail in your arse.
Cranky old lady kitties like it too.
(How sweet is our neighbour’s porch addition with its yellow siding and little aluminum awnings? I love those awnings, and wish we had them on our house).
Coming soon, supports! for the roof! which still potentially could fall down although I believe that it will not. Also, stairs. Sorry, Stacie, no slide. It’s just not in the budget for this year.
Posted by jodi on May 25, 2010 at 3.24pm
squeaky
May 6, 2010
Tonight Claire and I bundled Ms Cleo’s old bones into the tub and gave her a bath. She’s nineteen years old and getting rather creaky, and her hips give her some trouble. I can’t remember the last time I saw her groom herself; was it last summer, or the summer before? At any rate, she’s lost her flexibility and her bones get stiff even from lying down, and she’s no longer grooming. Last week I was sitting on the front porch railing with her in my lap, drinking coffee and idly stroking her head, when I realized that my fingers were coming away with a layer of gray grime on them as if I’d been flipping through dusty sleeves at the used record store for about four hours. Ew.
So we scrubbed the old girl down as best we could without hurting her. Rinsed her off with a sponge and water scooped with a cup so as not to spook her with the loud, splashy tub faucet; the water ran to the drain in dirty streaks just like in Psycho only with less killing. We rubbed her down gently, bundled her into a thick dry towel, and Claire held her close for a very long time to keep her warm as she dried. I don’t think we got her completely clean, but I’m not planning to do this to her again. As it is, she won’t be speaking to me for days.
Posted by jodi on May 6, 2010 at 7.22pm
