Tag Archives: cats

An Ode to the Pink and Blue Ball

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Humble ball

Knitted by someone unknown hand

Pink and blue the colors of boys and girls

Traditional and might be outdated

You have been there for every cat we’ve owned

Many of those cats have passed away

Loved and old

Some before their time

Because the world is cruel

Almost all of them have played with you

They chase you around

Getting caught on their claws

You are a constant

And one day you will be torn apart

Or lost

And I will mourn you

But for now

My cat is chasing you around

And I love his little dumbness

Thank you little ball

Addressing the Rumors

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The rumors have been swirling around me and this blog for quite some time. I have to take a step back and address them.

My cats are not spoiled.

Pierre getting ready for a comfy snooze

Just because when Rambler doesn’t want to get off the back of the couch when I make tuna salad, I hold it up for him to drink. They are not spoiled.

Rambler annoyed that someone else is in the house besides the three of us.

Just because I bought a second cat tree so that they could both look out the window doesn’t mean they’re spoiled.

Rambler asking if you come here often

Just because I bought several cat beds that they never use and am thinking about buying them a cat wheel for their exercise. That doesn’t mean they’re spoiled.

In the words of that song from Romeo + Juliet “The Boys! The Boys!”

They’re not spoiled.

UGH… and thank you doesthedogdie.com

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(Spoilers for the End of Oak Street)

Readers, I write to you in a positive snit. An absolute snit. Let me quickly make sure that word isn’t problematic. Okay, I’m back. It’s good.

I just wanted to watch Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor fight dinosaurs. That’s all I wanted. I was there. I was sat. I was ready.

The movie starts and it’s kind of boring in that it’s hyper realistic in the tension between a pair of people that have been married for far too long. Alright, I’m okay with a slow start.

The boy in the family owns a cute dog. Okay, quick check at doesthedogdie.com and I can see that the the dog is fine. Cool, let’s keep going.

The weird flashing lights happen and the beginning of dinosaurs start appearing. The daughter of the family is sitting on the roof reading and she sees a cat run across the street. The cat yowls. Okay, that’s not great but as long as I don’t have to see it, it’s fine. Back to https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ and…

Son of a bitch.

I tell my sister and we get up. We don’t demand our money back, we just leave. Thank you Regal Pass for making the great loss about 53 cents.

I don’t know why movies need to do this. It’s so unnecessary. I’ve been writing for the last twenty-seven years and besides my heroes fighting monsters or like bears in the wild, I’ve never had to have a dog or cat get killed. I just find it so stupid. You can just have them kill a person. Who cares about a person?

That makes me sound like a psychopath and I don’t care. Because I know that while I don’t like seeing people die in video games and thus have mostly been playing Tetris and simulator games lately, for the most parts those are pretty bloodless and simple deaths. A bullet hole appears, a person falls over. I’m not into the Eli Roth Hostel, graphic shit. I hate that too.

I know storytellers should be allowed to tell a story the way they want to but I just don’t like seeing it. I’m writing this as my two cats hang around me and I would set the world aflame if someone did something to them.

I just think that it should be part of the rating with the strong blood violence and drug use warnings.

Despite being in a horrendous, annoyed snit about all of this, I want to thank those that put in the hard work at https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ so that I didn’t have to see something that would upset me.

You can call me a wuss for leaving a movie over this and I don’t care. Stop using that as an intensifier. It sucks.

Cats or Poltergeist

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I came across a great number of things out of place this morning. A controller, two remotes and my wireless adapter. Before when I was living alone, I would think that someone was living inside of my house like the woman in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/31/japan

But the thing is now I know that its cats. I’m sure that they’re doing some dumb shit while I’m gone or asleep. That does make me wonder though how many hauntings go unreported because someone has cats. Of course, according to Joey Comeau of https://asofterworld.com/ there are other reasons:

But anyway, here’s your cat tax of the actual culprits.

My Ma had a theory and I think it’s true

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I recently had to take my new feral, Rambler, to the vet for giardia. He’ll be fine, I got some meds. The thing is that I’m so used to him hissing at me when I come in, I assume that he wants to throw down. He’s been a feral for five years, so I figured he knew how to defend himself. It was rough getting him in the carrier but I got him to the vet without him making any noise.

When I got there, I told him that they were going to have to sedate him. I assumed he was going to go nuts like his brother, Pierre, who is a sweet little boy, normally. But nope, he hissed twice, didn’t even swipe at the vet and then they were able to work on him.

My mother had brought this up a few days ago that she thinks that cats’ personalities switch when they get to the vet. Her tough guy cat, Killer turned into a big baby and was scared. Boo was a sweet cat but used to fight.

So, my readers if you’ve noticed that your cats’ personalities change when they got to the vet. Leave a comment while I leave you with pictures of my boys.

Rambler
Pierre

Cat update

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I didn’t post all week. Let me explain that.

Before I’ve said that I really didn’t want this blog to be only about my cats, which is something that is going to be really hard. They are so cute. I love them so much.

Frequent readers of this blog, might say “But Frank, you’ve only ever talked about one cat, the wonderful Pierre. Who is this mysterious second cat?”

Well, his name is Rambler. He’s about five years old and as of last Friday, he’s a former feral. He’s been living in my bathroom for the last week and I’ve been doing what I did with Pierre, going in every morning and sitting with him for about an hour a day. We’ve moved from hissing at me every time I enter the room to just quietly hiding from me. Progress! I know it’s going to be a long road but I don’t really care. He’s mine and I’m not going to give him up. Here’s a picture of the little man.

Look at him! He ate his first Churu yesterday and I think that he could become a little buddy. I feel the same way that I did about Pierre the first time I saw him. That I immediately loved him. I’m going to start introducing their scent to each other over the next week. I think that he’ll feel better when he’s out of the bathroom and then hopefully he’ll see how Pierre and I interact and he would be more trusting of me. They do know each other, they were friends when they were both ferals. My landlord told me when he was trying to trap them that they would spend their time playing instead of going into the trap.

As for Pierre, he has become a nut over the last few months. He is super cuddly and will hang out with me whenever I’m on the bed. He is so high energy that I’m thinking about buying a cat wheel. Yesterday he knocked over one of my TV trays by wall-running across the front of the couch. We seemed to bond over every blizzard. He would become cuddlier and sweeter. I love him so much. I think that he’ll be excited to have a playmate. I hope that Rambler can keep up and won’t be aggressive towards him.

Here’s the most recent pic of Pierre when I was watching Weapons.

Update on Pierre

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Look at that beautiful boy! So, we’re closing in on me having owned Pierre for three months, which is the tail end of the 3-3-3 method. For those that don’t know it’s:

3 Days to decompress

3 Weeks to learn the routine and settle in

3 Months to feel fully comfortable, bonded and secure

Him being a formal feral, it made me worried that he would never get to know me. We would just be roommates forever and you know that would have been fine. I would keep him safe and he would just be the cat that lived in my house, not a pet. But things have changed since the last time I talked about him.

He’s started hanging out in my room with me. He started rubbing up against my legs when I walked through the house. Because he was willing to touch me, I started reaching down and giving him a pet here and there. He would often zip away from me. But then he started zipping less distance each time. Finally, on Saturday, I gave him a pet and he didn’t move. I pressed my luck and he let me pet him fully. Now, if he’s in the mood, I can pet him and give him scratches. I go by the way he reacts. I don’t force him to be pet. It’s all about consent between the two of us. Such as all things should be.

However, if I sit down somewhere, he won’t let me pet him. I have to be bent at the waist to do so. He also won’t accept churus from me. All in good time.

I love him so much. Not because he lets me pet him just because he exists. He’s sitting near my bed as I write this and I love him so much. My good squeaky boy.

Update on the little man

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It’s been hard to not make this blog solely about this little man. I’m obsessed with him and he’s just kind of middling on me. There are updates.

The main thing that I knew about former feral cats is that you have to take your time with them. I’ve been doing so, every morning, I spend an hour just quietly being in his presence while he sits in his cat tree. I got some churus and put them on a plate to draw him closer to me. I don’t reach out yet because I’m sure that would freak him out. But he is now willing to eat the churu in front of me within inches of me.

I took him to the vet on Monday and I can’t be sure if I told them that he was a feral but I do remember asking for Gabapentin. I had prepared myself for getting him into the carrier by putting on safety goggles, gloves, a hooded sweatshirt and a scarf over my mouth. Turns out I didn’t need all of that as after not feeding him for an extra three hours, he was desperate to get at his food, which was in the carrier. I snuck up on him and closed the door.

I brought him to the vet, he got taken back and I was brought to see him after five minutes. Turns out he was buck wild in the room, running around, hissing and being scared. The vet though was a champ and offered me a later appointment that day where they would sedate him so they could examine him. Turns out he’s in perfect health with good teeth, clean ears, good weight, clean coat, no flea dirt, clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.

That brings me to the other thing that’s happened, in which on Thanksgiving, I came home to find out that he had vomited worms on the carpet. It was gross but beneficial that I was able to tell something was wrong. He has to take a powder in his food for the next few days to clear them. This is the benefit of having a cat that lived in the trash. He will eat anything that I put in front of him. He’s two doses down and hopefully he’ll start shitting worms.

I’ve also bought him a pheromone diffuser and that’s calmed him some, so that feels good.

In conclusion, I think that he has the makings of being a snuggle bunny. I think that the main thing is to have patience and give him time. I revel in the little victories like yesterday where unprompted he hopped on the couch with me. He didn’t stay long but it was still more than he had done in the last thirty days. I love him so much and even if we end up being roommates and not best buds, I’ll love him anyway. He’s my little man and nothing will change that.

Let me introduce him to you all

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It’s been a big weekend. Besides everything Halloween, my book coming out and everything. I also got a cat.

His name is Monsieur Alphonse Pierre LeChat though I have called him “Snuggles”, “my little handsome man”, “Quesadilla”, “Waffles”, “Pretty boy” and a number of other things since I’ve gotten him last Thursday. I have no idea how old he is.

I knew that I wanted to get cats, in fact it was one of the biggest reasons I moved out on my own. I noticed that people were putting out food for these cats. I had thought about going to the pound and getting other cats but charity begins at home people say in a way to avoid doing charity. I couldn’t stand the idea of seeing cold cats outside so I chose to ask my landlord about them.

He’s younger than the other one named Rambler. He came to me having been neutered and thus super high. He spent the first day in his cage in the bathroom. I gave him food and checked up on him. I opened the door that first night and he had emerged from the bathroom to sit on the window sill. When I saw him, he fled into the closet. Never while I was looking. I’ve barely seen him move. He’s basically a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who.

Obviously I haven’t touched him. I get near and he backs away and that’s more distressing than most things out there. I know that I have to give him time and let him come to me.

Still, it’s going better than I thought it would. I thought that he was going to go nuts and destroy my apartment. I thought that he was going to try and get out at every opportunity. Instead, he’s just kind of hidden away and watched. He also hasn’t made any noise, which I think is part of his stray heritage. Why would he need to make noise? I hope that he does start making noises. I hope he has a cute little meow.

No matter what and from the moment I saw I loved him. I’m looking forward to meeting Rambler and having the two of them run around my house. To finish, here’s a bunch more pics of him.

A lil update about my life

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I’ve been nesting lately. I’m looking forward to achieving one of the reasons that I chose to live alone, getting cats. There are two living in the parking lot of my apartment complex and I’m going to work with my landlord to bring them into my home. I have bought litter boxes, food, and dishes. They’re all ready for them. I hope that they aren’t too feral and I can bring them inside.

One of them looks like my childhood cat. I might have become too emotionally involved. I don’t care. There’s no point in living if you’re not willing to throw your heart out there. You can be safe and alone or you can step into the danger of caring and find yourself love.