Wally

We had to say goodbye to Wally yesterday. 

Over the last several years, he’d gotten grumpier and grumpier, often attacking Eddie (who’s his litter mate). He’d also gotten a lot more feeble, not able to jump directly to our desks or the counter, things he did effortlessly when we first moved into this house in 2013.

The last three months were even worse. He started attacking Annie, randomly and with no provocation on her part other than existing. All the things that used to bring him pleasure no longer did. And then the last three or four nights, he started attacking Stevie.

These attacks were violent, not a small hiss fest with a couple of swats. Twice, Stevie ran in terror down the hall, voiding her bladder the whole way. I think if Wally had caught her, he would have tried to kill her. As it was, in addition to the urine we found tufts of her fur scattered down the hall.

We’d taken him to our vet several times during all this. We were convinced that something had to be really wrong, that he was in extreme pain, something was causing this change. But his health was good for a 14 year old cat: very early signs of kidney disease, the start of cataracts, but nothing else.

After Tuesday night’s attack, we realized we were at a decision point. We didn’t think he could be re-homed, he wasn’t nice to anyone but to the two of us. Plus he puked all the time, had always done that (apparently some cats do and his brother Eddie also pukes a lot), and then there were the aggression issues.

Our vet fully supported us with this. He told us yesterday that some cats just never quite get socialized and that with his aggression issues, we were lucky not to have been bitten ourselves. He pointed out that he and the rest of the vets there all knew Wally, that he had a reputation for violence. And I’ll tell you, those middle of the night attacks were definitely scary because Stevie sleeps up by my head. When Wally came screeching up the bed at her, he didn’t pay attention to my face being in the way.

Because he was always a screaming attacking terror at the vet, he was fully sedated when the vet brought him to us before administering the terminal drug. I realized then that I had not seen Wally that relaxed in years. He was always tense, always on edge, always wary. My heart broke and I knew this was for the best.

Even though the vet assured us Wally wouldn’t know if we were with him when he died, we both needed to be there. And I think somewhere in my Ginger Prince’s heart, he knew and felt our love as we stroked his fur and cried and told him we loved him.

Every night when I go to bed, I sit cross legged and read for a bit. And every night, Wally gets in my lap, and Eddie plasters against my right leg and I give them cheek rubs and say “wiki wiki wiki” (like the DJ sound effect) as I rub their faces. Last night, my lap was empty. 

A Mezcal tasting

Tuesday night, we had a virtual mezcal tasting with The Restaurant at 1900, a restaurant we love (side note, I'm hoping we can still go there what with my shift to veganism). A friend asked me how that worked, so this post is for her.

We chose a pick-up time to get our packages; you have to pick a time, the pick-up person has to be 21 or older and show proper ID. Then we joined the session via Zoom and learned so much about how mezcal is made. 

We've done virtual tastings with this restaurant before, but this was the first time we've done something other than wine. When we saw how big the tasting bottles were, we decided we would share all but the first cocktail and the last bottle (it was a lot smaller, the restaurant's chief sommelier donated it from his own private collection).

Wally insisted on joining us and was lolling around on the counter, until Kent grabbed a cat bed and then he settled down. He stayed there the full two hours, too.

Here's what we had:

We each got one of these little cups to drink the mezcal out of:

And here's everything staged properly (chips are ours, we thought that might help clear our palates between the types of mezcal):

Signs of the times or is 2020 over yet?

I now have a sharps disposal container to hold my used needle from each day's injection.

We have a big assortment of masks.

I think Wally is over this year too. Or maybe I'm projecting. 

Ethereal

One more kitty picture. I hope to have a little time to blog this weekend but meanwhile, I took this photo earlier in the week when the light was falling just so on Wally.

It's been over a decade

Since we could put toilet paper on the holder in a bathroom. Wally has always shredded the roll any time we've tried in the past. He kills those rolls with a mix of biting/fanging them and rabbit kicking them. What can I say, he's determined.

Every now and then, we'd hang a roll to see if things had changed and until now, no they had not. But in August, we tried again and voila!

Windows

When we lost power July 22, of course we also had no AC. We’ve got curtains and/or blinds on the bedroom windows, but by design have never put any in the living room. Our fireplace is flanked by floor to ceiling windows that look out into our (no thanks to us) gorgeous back yard. We love that view and also like the views from the patio door, and the other two more typical windows in that room.

Except we get full sun on the east window and a lot of sun through our west-facing patio door. For those 53 hours, that solar heat was awful. About midday on the first day, I tacked up some beach towels and fabric to block the sun. My make-shift solution worked, even if it was ugly as all get out.

Two weeks ago, we picked up some curtains at IKEA (do we ever shop anywhere else for home goods? No, no we don’t), but only for the patio door and the east window. We’d thought we could leave the other, normal window uncovered but honestly it looked like we forgot something.

Last weekend, we went back and got another pair of curtains, and two matching pillows for the couch. Those pillows hadn’t been there the previous week—and I’m not sure if you can see in this photo, but the flowers and stuff are also embroidered. I think that’s why Wally adores the pillow.

Today, I decided that our kitchen window, the one over our sink, also looked bare. But as with our flanking windows, I didn’t want to obscure the view into the backyard. So I made a simple valance, and now everything looks planned, cohesive and complete.

Mother's Day

My sons gave me this blanket years decades ago for Mother’s Day. I call it the cat blanket because (duh) it's got cats on it, and also because these days, Wally has made it his own. If he’s not in a proper cat bed snoozing away, he’s curled up on this blanket.

And I thought perhaps this photo showed the cat blanket but alas it doesn’t. I’m pretty sure this was the same Mother’s Day I received the blanket; if so, it’s not in the picture. Sorry for the crummy quality—it’s a picture of a picture. Still, it's a fun picture with both kids in it.

Here’s another picture from the same day—again, not the best quality but you can see Tigger, who was a wonderful cat.

Playing around with a new app

Well it's new to me, anyway.

Original photos are on the left, the Prisma versions on the right. Link takes you to the Google Play store, it's also available on iTunes but you'll have to find that stinky link on your own.

We figured it out

Well—Kent did, actually.

Wally’s got a wound on his upper lip on the right side of his face. That’s the same side as where he had the upper canine removed. Since the wound appeared after the tooth removal, we knew they were related but weren’t sure why. We’d seen his upper lip catch on his upper gum in that spot but that didn’t seem like enough contact to create the wound.

Kent's been watching him off and on during the day and realized Wally is catching his upper lip on the point of his lower canine. He’s basically stabbing himself in his lip a little every time that happens.

Since it’s not infected, and it doesn’t appear to be inflamed or particularly bothering him (although it sure bothers me), we haven’t called the vet. We’re continuing to watch it, though. I don’t want anything else to go wrong with our kitties’ health so if it doesn’t show signs of healing in a week or so, we’ll have to decide which of the vet recommendations we’ll use and then endure the pain of taking him to another vet.

Just talk to me

We're changing veterinarians and here's why.

It’s not that the cost for two of the kitties exceeded the estimate for all three by 30% (and meant that one cat—Chloe—didn’t get sedated, have an IV started, have any x-rays or have her teeth cleaned).

It’s not even that Chloe’s procedure wasn’t done. I get it that you don’t know how complicated a procedure will truly be until you’re actually in there doing it. I do appreciate that Wally and Eddie took longer than anticipated.

And it’s (sort of but not fully) not that four teeth were removed (two from each cat), instead of the one we knew about. Again ,I get that things can end up being in worse shape than preliminary exams indicated.

It’s about the utter lack of communication.

I expect to hear if something’s more complicated, going to take longer and going to cost a lot more money as it’s happening. Not at the end of the day when it’s a done deal, and not when I’m told the bill.

I expect that once it’s obvious that all three cats won’t have their procedures done that the one who’s not getting sedation would get at least water and preferably some food too.

She never does this.
She drank for a full three minutes.

We followed directions and picked up the food and water at 9 PM Wednesday night. That means that Chloe, who is 17, was without food or water for over 18 hours. It shouldn’t take a phone call from me asking if she’s had water for veterinary health care providers to think, gosh, she might need water.

And it’s about the lack of partnership. Eddie had one blood test come back in July with a slightly unusual value. We weren’t interested in tracking it down, but Thursday when we picked up the cats, the vet told us she’d run that test. No touching base with us, no “hey remember that one blood value, I’d like to run another test,” nothing.

I want any health care provider (whether for animals or humans) to work with me, tell me what’s going on, what to expect, any alternatives and then let me make an educated decision. It’s clear from our two experiences with this vet that we won’t get a collaborative partnership.

That’s fine. I’m voting with my wallet and my feet (paws?) and looking through the recommendations I got from my friends.

Feeling tense?

Just look at these two snoozing away last night. Really, I could have said today and it would be nearly as accurate. The only difference is that Wally is asleep on our bed instead of in one of the cat beds on our desks.

In this case, Chloe was off camera on the other side of my desk (which is just to the left of Eddie in the green and brown bed) and also asleep.

This morning's snores are making it hard for me to get going.

Oops, they noticed

As part of our “keep kitties well hydrated” process, we split a can of cat food three ways each night and add in about the same amount of canned pumpkin. That way, they all get more moisture and Eddie—our boy who’s had some issues with his behind—also gets fiber. The cats love the pumpkin and we’ve often joked that we could probably just give them pumpkin and they wouldn’t even notice the absence of their normal Gravy Lovers food.

We’d have been wrong.

Last night, Kent groped around in the box of canned food under the sink only to come up empty. He thought there was another, unopened box under the sink but nope—we were completely out. So we figured what the heck, now we’ll find out if they even miss the Gravy Lovers and gave them plain ol’ pumpkin.

They noticed. In fact, they all almost immediately switched bowls probably to see if someone else had the good stuff. And then they all huffed off and left their bowls looking like this:

Kent ran out and got some food. Eddie was very excited, Wally and Chloe couldn't be bothered and had to be carried out but once there, devoured their dinner.

It's freezing here today

We had a little snow last night, maybe two inches, but it's too cold to actually snow much. Our high today is supposed to be 12F but I don't think we're going to make it. Tonight, we drop to 0 so it's time to add extra blankets to the bed.

When it's cold like this, our kitties tend to snooze and snooze. Wally, being as photogenic as he is, gets in some pretty cute poses.

Even Chloe snoozes more, and that's saying something for my sweet old girl. Pay no attention to what appears to be a grumpy face. She's quite happy on top of the blanket throne, and it even goes well with her fur.

Right this second

One cat is snoring on the bed on the left side of my desk, one cat is curled up in the bed on the right side of my desk. And Wally is holding my hand.

Unintended consequences

We bought a second cat bed to go with the cushion on the file cabinet between our desks, and the cat bed that takes up about a third of the real estate on my desk. We hoped that this second bed would provide a third safe, comfy spot for kitties to claim. Right now it’s on the window seat in the office and ultimately it will go on one of the shelves in the built in portion of the window seat.

Eddie claimed it right away, which pleased us—at least until Wally began hissing like crazy at Eddie and only at Eddie. We are perplexed and can only think that the new bed has an odor Wally finds offensive. We think if that’s the case, the odor has transferred to Eddie and now Eddie smells the same. The hissing and growling has been going on since Saturday and it’s taking a toll on poor Eddie. I’m sure it’s not easy for Chloe or really for Wally either, and it’s definitely hard for us.

In other cat news, while all of this hissing drama was going on, the cat that sometimes hangs out on our air conditioner condenser popped up there Saturday night and banged on the office window! Eddie happened to near that spot as was hissing Wally and wow did they get all riled up. I have no idea what the other cat was doing, but yesterday when taking this picture of Eddie in the new bed, I realized that other cat had hit the window hard enough to leave a smeary little paw print.

Our house today

It's cold here in the Midwest and even though the snow was a bust yesterday, it's been looking and feeling  as though it might snow all weekend long. Here's what our cats do when it's cold and gloomy:

Admit it, you're sleepy now.

It's their favorite time of year

Any time we can open windows or doors, the kitties love it. This is from earlier in the week:

More fun with mice

Wally got fascinated with the new mice, so I put a couple of them on the pet bed on my desk. He spent a lot of time biting their tails, not their bodies, which I thought was pretty funny.

They take turns

Mostly they take turns nicely. Sometimes there will be hissing and crying. Today was a hissing/crying kind of day.

P.S. Wally was there first.

That was exhausting

Here's the end result of all of yesterday's hissing:

Yup, he wore himself out. He napped the rest of the day, which isn't his typical pattern.