Resolutions

I really should make a resolution to write something for this puppy at least once a week. It's not that I take my critters for granted, it's just that they are so consistently cute that I don't find myself jonesing to write about it. And when they're naughty . . . well, it's not really nice to talk in public about the rude things your kids do, is it?

Nevertheless . . . here's some pictures to be going on with.

Rhadwen in the red leather chair.

Rhadwen on the dresser.

Llewellyn and Huw exchange schmooz.

Gwenith keeps my ankles warm.

Like adoptive mom, like son.

That's good for now. This'll give me time to decide whether to tell about how this morning I discovered down the basement that the kittehs had pulled the big new bag of cat kibble to the floor and torn it open, and how it's heavier than I'm supposed to lift yet, but I lifted it anyway to put it away safe . . .

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch . . . .

I got home this afternoon after five days in the hospital, where I underwent major surgery.

The post-op instructions are that I am to take it easy-- very easy-- the next four weeks. No driving, lifting, heavy cleaning; limited stair-climbing, stuff like that.

I'm afraid I didn't do such a hot job of obeying all that the past few hours since my return: there was too much to take care of, too much to put away; too much orienting to to for the friend who's going to be with me the next couple of days.

But now I am in bed like a good girl, and my friend has gone home for awhile to take care of business there.

And I'm hoping and wishing she gets back sooner than later, because somewhere in the house, here on the 2nd floor, maybe even in this very bedroom, maybe actually under this very bed, something is putting out a suspiciously pungeant smell.

I have my suspicions about the suspicious smell.

Seems Gwenith and Huw were not spotted at all the past five days by the people who were taking care of my critters. I still haven't seen Gwenith; Huw materialized and ate something an hour or less ago. I wouldn't put it past them-- not one bit-- if they got revenge on me for my absence by Doing Something under the bed.

But I am in no physical condition to look. I have to wait till my poor friend Frieda* gets back and make her poke under there and see.

Children! Children! What are you trying to do to me!!??

Gwenith!!!!

This was once a heart-leaf philodren- dron.

A very valuable and historic heart-leaf philoden- dron, I might add.

It was cultured in the greenhouses of the Kansas City, Missouri, Department of Parks & Recreation, greenhouses that now have not only been closed down but have also been pulled down in the past year† because the stupid current City administration were unwilling to envision a time when there might be enough money to run them again.

It was an Adminstrative Professionals Day gift from my former boss several years ago, when I was serving the public good as a low-paid but hardworking tech in the Parks & Rec Archives. It was a souvenir.

And now, look at it. Or what's left of it.

Gwenith, you see, decided several months ago that she liked nothing better than philodrendron leaves. I was afraid for her because I've heard they're poisonous to cats. But the local Poison Control advisor said don't worry, philodendrons these days are cultivated to have almost none of the harmful compounds they used to. If she was showing no signs of trouble by then, there was no danger to her.

So then I was afraid for my plant.

I tried the old cayenne-pepper-as-repellant trick. But I applied so much I burned the leaves the kitten had left. I didn't give up on it, though. I moved it to a plant pedestal and nursed it back to health. It was putting out tender new growth, when my pink floofy kitteh figured out how to jump up there and nom them off anyway.

That's when I moved it to a shelf in the bedroom. But Gwen still found a way to get at it. By now there were no leaves left, but maybe, maybe, the roots where still good and it would rise again?

So I put an old calendar under the pot where I'd seen her jump up. It's floppy, and when she landed on it, it'd give way under her, she'd tumble off, and she'd learn to let the philodrendron alone, right?

And for a few weeks she did. It didn't grow any new leaves, but she let it alone.

Until this evening. I don't know what possessed her to try again, but she got up there from another angle, ate the smaller of the two remaining shoots, and ejected a quarter of the potting soil onto the shelf and the floor.

Gwenith, you pest! And then you have the cheek to come up on my lap and want to be petted, like nothing was wrong!

I cleaned up the mess and did some rearranging. The philodrendron is now on the third and highest shelf, where I hope it will make a new start.

But if some morning I wake to find my larcenous kitteh all the way up there making her breakfast out of the last, lone, lorn philodendron stem, I won't be at all surprised.

________________________

†I am reliably informed that the KCPR greenhouses have not been razed. Not for lack of intention, but for lack of funds to do the job. Same difference.

Caught Red-Handed!

Or red-pawed . . .

About a half hour ago, Gwenith crept up to the study and slipped under the drafting table and behind the file cabinet. On your way to see if you can finish removing that register grille and go exploring in the ductwork, sweetie girl?

Deterred by the camera flash, she slunk away.

OK, think of something to keep that grille close to the wall . . . all right, this is it for the time being: A box of Biblical Hebrew flashcards wedged in with a log-splitting maul. I can't even budge that!

Scant minutes later, here she is again. O, we wants it, does we, my precious? No, my precious, no indeed! You getses that, you goes falling into the nassty hot Duct of Doom, my precious, yess yess you does! We preventses that, yess we wills!

Fear and Trembling

As readers of my houseblog will know, I've been having issues with my furnace.

I hope I will not have issues to report concerning my ductwork. Kitteh issues.

This is the grille to my study heat supply. It is not supposed to be halfway off like this. It was not like this last time I was up here, Saturday evening or so.


I recognize the work: Huw, or more likely Gwenith. She's the one who goes after loose pieces of plaster on the walls. She's the one who sits under my drafting table and fiddles with the computer leads. She's the one who, as a feral kitten, sloped down under the floorboards of my friend Hannah's* torn-up house and had to be lured out with tuna. Gwenith is secretive and curious and, under all that hair, small and wiry enough to squirm right down this vent, given half the chance.

I don't want to give her a chance. I fetched a screwdriver to make the loose screw secure.

But I can't. There's no hole at the wall to receive it. It's only providing a bit of tension to keep the grille against the duct mouth. No challenge at all to a strong and determined young cat.

Think of something else. I need to think of something else. No, duct-taping the grille to the wall won't do. Never mind what it'd do to the paint or the heat supply-- that floofy kitteh of mine would rip it right off.

Itt Snoezez!!

Kanz it B eetid?

Sumbuddy tored up teh skiiy.

Ai kan jummp doan dere. Wach mii!

Stoopy goggie in teh whey agin. Ai goes bugz mai siszterz.

Well, They Showed ME!

Last night, to conserve the heat, I got the cats in the bedroom and shut the door.

And so we spent the night, till dawn approached and Huw was scratching from the inside to get out and Llewellyn the dog was scratching from the outside to get in.

Sorry, kids, I'll get up and open the door when the clock radio comes on and not a minute sooner.

So in the fullness of time I did. I made my morning ablutions and dressed, and, it being a bit chilly, I started to put on a cardigan I had lying there in the bedroom.

The cardie was cold. Not surprising.

The cardie was wet. What?

The cardie was so wet, it was getting the clothes I had on wet.

It was wet and stinky.

Cat pee!

Somebody can't hold his water overnight! Either that, or somebody's getting revenge for being made to stay in the bedroom all night.

(Huw, I'm looking at you.)

Well, so much for wearing that cardie today. Or the turtleneck I'd put on under it. Got them both out of there, but the bedroom still stunk. And I could not recall where the sweater had been lying when I picked it up.

Awkward.

Stripped the bed. No evidence of cat pee anywhere on it.

Remade the bed. Room still smelled of cat pee.

Decided I was imagining things, till later this afternoon when I checked the throw cushion on a wooden chair that sits in the corner of the bedroom. Yep, there's the stain. And the smell. Cover and cushion, there's more for the laundry! There was a cardboard calendar on top of it. More stink. That's for the outside trash.

I believe-- I hope-- the bedroom has been exorcised. But when it comes to my little spooks (Huw, I'm still looking at you), tonight I guess I'd better leave them a way out.

They obviously showed me.

A Tale of Horror

It's getting close to Halloween. And while I like a good tale of horror as much as the next person, that doesn't mean I appreciate featuring in one in real life.

But for a few minutes this evening, I did.

It was a little after 7:00, and I was cleaning up after a very busy Sunday afternoon. I happened to look into the living room here at the House of the Flying Furballs, and noticed that Rhadwen, my ten-year-old calico, was perched up on the sill of one of the little windows next to the fireplace. The window was open, the screen was up, and she was more outside than in.

"Rhadwen!" I called. "Wennie! Turn around!!"

No reaction.

I walked over and saw that she was hanging head and shoulders over the edge of the outer sill. Trying to make up her mind whether to jump down and explore. That's what I figured it was. It's a fur piece, so to speak, to the ground at that point; she probably was considering whether it would be worth it at her age.

Well, I wasn't going to give her the opportunity to try. I grabbed her by her furry middle and hauled her inside.

Yeeoouwwwwoauwwww!!!!! she didn't appreciate that! She howled at the indignity. Worse for her, the dog was on the scene, playing officious big brother and making sure justice was done.

She didn't claw me: I had hold of her so she couldn't. I gave her a little more food in her dish to soothe her ruffled feelings and to give thanks for not having to go out in the rain to chase her. Then I started back to my sweeping.

But wait a minute. When I'd pulled Rhadwen in through the window, she hadn't turned around and yowled at me. There was something about it that hinted she was irate at something outside.

And a few minutes before, when I'd gone out front to light my jack-o'-lantern for the first time, I'd heard something in my front bushes. I'd dismissed it then as me myself having brushed against them, but now . . .

Aw-oh! Where one cat can sit and perch and stare, two other cats can be through and away. The kittens. Where were the kittens?

"Gwenith! Huw!" I searched all over the house, from middle to top to bottom. No sign of the floofy pale pink tabby or the sleek brown and gray. Not in the box spring in the Kitten Room, not under my bed in the bedroom, not under the table in the study, not under the stairs in the basement. There were no kittens to be found, in litter box or in empty packing box, in dropcloth or ironing basket: my little cats had disappeared.

They're good at disappearing, of course. They'd disappeared all afternoon when I had company over. But now there was a strong possibility they'd apparated themselves right off the premises, through that gaping screenless window.

So out I went, tramping miles and miles through the freezing, merciless rain in the blazing cold night, searching relentlessly for my lost kittehs.

Well, no, actually, it was around 60 degrees outside this evening and I only went round to the side of the house under the living room window. But it was dark and staring to rain.

No sign of my little cats. "Huw! Gwenith!" Huw I hoped would come stalking up to me. Gwenith is more skittish: what would she do if she were spooked? But Rhadwen's behaviour told me they might be-- please, God!-- were out there. "Gwenith! Huw!"

But I found nothing.

I looked in the front border. Nothing.

Maybe it would help if I located a flashlight? Yes, perhaps.

Thus equipped, I tried again. The rain was starting to come down harder. I had to find my kittehs. "Huw!! Gwenith!!" I called. "Gwenith! Huw!"

All of a sudden, under the weeping cherry, a moving gray-striped shadow, a flash of white breast.

"Huw! Baby, come here!"

He wouldn't come. He moved deeper into the vegetation.

I moved closer, made a grab. Missed! "Huw! Please! Come here! Where's your sister?"

He turned tail and ran into the front border. I followed, stepped over the sheet-covered dahlias, and tried to secure him again. His wet body slipped through my grasp and behind the Alberta spruce.

"Huw, please!!"

I came around again, just as he made a break for it to head for the neighbors' spirea. Aaaghh!! Got him! He was slick and wet and squirmy, but I gathered him into my arms and carried him into the house, placing him in the custody of Llewellyn who doubtless gave him what-for for his illicit escapade.

But his littermate was still out there. I had to assume that. Back out into the rain.

"Gwenith! Gwen!" Had she squeezed into the neighbors' yard? She's supple enough. Had she heard the call of the wild and taken off to parts unknown? I combed and recombed the wet bushes on both sides of the little side yard, while in the neighborhood all around me the heedless households were huddled around their televisions, watching whatever it was the Steelers and the Giants were doing to one another. Dismayed, I steeled myself for the possibility that I'd have to go petitioning up and down the street for the neighbors to keep an eye out for my missing cat.

It was time to bring out the big guns: Some fragrant gushiefood in a little dish. Oh, please, please, let a bribe work! It does indoors, when she hides in the attic storage space! Please don't let her be so confused and disoriented she won't come!

One last look in the yard under the guilty window, one last admittance of futility. I set the dish down on the front step near the lighted jack-o'-lantern and hoped she'd be willing to come.

But then, I don't know what it was, something moved me to look in the bushes on that side of the house. I shone my flashlight behind each, and there, behind the boxwood shrub closest to the gate to the back yard, was an tawny oval furry shape, a dry tawny oval furry shape, huddled next to the house, the head invisible, hiding in the foliage.

"Gwenith!"

She didn't budge.

I went and got the food. "Gwenith!"

She still didn't budge.

Here was a reversal, but a happy one. I had just one chance to secure her, and I took it. She squirmed, just a little, but seemed just as glad as not to be rescued and brought inside.

She and her brother got a serving of fragrant gushiefood to reward them for-- well, for being alive and found, and their big sister Rhadwen got some, too, for staring out that open window and clueing me into what was going on.

As to why the living room window was open at all, that's another tale in another blog. But diolch a Dduw! my scary story ended happily.

Very happily, when I think how it's supposed to get below freezing and maybe snow tonight. Thinking of that is a real horror story.

Ai Wantses Itt!

I wish I'd turned on my camera sooner. I wish I'd had more lights on. But for your viewing pleasure, may I present Huw and the Wadded-Up Shopping List.



He heard it land in the wastebasket, ran over, fished and fished and fished, and at last, success!!

Hhahahahahahahahahhaaaa!!!

Renovation Superintendents

Though Gwenith has an important appointment Elsewhere.

Opportunists

It's gotten chilly in southwestern Pennsylvania the past few nights, and suddenly my year-old kittens are showing me how much they love me.

All summer and spring, had immediate evacuation been called for during the night, I wouldn't have had the least idea where to find Gwenith or Huw. Once I'd retire to bed and shut off the light, they'd simply Disappear. Maybe into the fifth dimension-- I'm sure any self-respecting cat can manage a tesseract.

But now the nights are longer and frankly cold. And if Gwenith is not on the bed when I come to it, she joins me soon afterwards. Always right in the middle, usually lying right over or next to my legs. Huw joins her-- and me-- soon thereafter, snuggling in on the other side, and sometime later Rhadwen takes up her usual place by my shoulder.

And I am so bossed about and ruled by these young felines that I daren't-- dassn't!-- do anything to displease them or make them uncomfortable. If Gwenith is in the middle of the bed when I climb in, I simply have to settle for the slender slip of the bed's side, my back exposed to the breezes as the blankets, weighed down by floofy cat, refuse to extend enough to cover me properly. If Gwen and His High Velvetness her brother Huw arrive to hem me in after I have ensconced myself for the night, you can be sure that I will wake up in exactly the same position in the morning, the brown tabby and the pale ginger clamping my legs together like a vise.

Rhadwen at the age of ten is Miss Free and Easy. I could throw her across the room (I wouldn't, of course) and she'd nonchalantly march back to snuggle up to me, or to rummage through my jewelry case, or to swat things off the nightstand. We have an Understanding. ("Rhadwen, stoppit!!!")

But the young ones, I dare not cross or disappoint. After all, on a cold autumn night who could thwart such a precious show of looooooovvve??? The fact that the only central heating that's on right now is me has nothing to do with it.

Yeah, right. Opportunists!

My Mystery Cat

Sometime when I'm feeling more creative I'll think of a caption for this photo of Gwenith. For now, it can speak for itself.

News Flash!

Gwenith has climbed onto my lap three times running just now!

And even let me pet her (a little!)

I think I'm gonna faint.

Helping-- Or Not

I'm doing some renovation work around my house. Llewellyn likes to help. He helps tape down contractor paper to protect the floor.



Huw likes to help, too. He helps unroll the paper.


Rhadwen, too, is a big help. She tested out the picnic bench I dumpster-dove for a couple days ago, thinking it'd make a good low scaffold. She wants to make sure it's study enough for me to stand on.


Gwenith helps by keeping out of the way. Unless I'm on the computer, of course.

On the other hand . . . Llewellyn, the floor paper did not need irrigating! And he did it on purpose! I'd thought I'd leave the paper down to give me an incentive to hurry up and hammer the trim back up and get it refinished, but not now! A stinky floor I do not need.

Momcat?

My Rhadwen may have had her kitty hysterectomy nine and a half years ago, but she knows good maternal behavior when she gets a chance to do it.

Witness her licking Huw the year old kitten into shape:

Yes, I'd say she was getting some long-delayed mothering in . . . except that Huw himself grooms the dog Llewellyn and the dog looks after Gwenith the pink floofy cat and she reciprocates with strops and purrs and Huw liklikliks Rhadwen back. A very harmonious family we've turned out to be! Hurrah, let cheezburgrz rain down on us all!

Nip Head

Last night I was out for a few hours, never imagining I'd come home to--

THIS!!
Oh, Huw! The shame! The agony!

My little stripey cat had overdosed on--

NIP!!!

He'd obviously been rolling in it, luxuriating in it, till he could roll and luxuriate no more!

Oh! Oh! What a sad and dreadful sight! Huw, how could you?!

While I-- I brought it into the house! I never dreamed--!

(Well, I guess it was a good time to change the bed quilt anyway . . . )

Happy Family

When I get up in the morning there's generally a pet convention in the upstairs hall. Llewellyn and Rhadwen leave the bedroom with me and Gwenith and Huw descend or ascend from wherever they've taken up their sleeping quarters.

But I rarely have all four of them there at once.

Yesterday morning, I did. And get out the Victorian greeting cards with the cherubs and the posies, put "Home, Sweet Home" on the Victrolia, and spout whatever sentimental nonsense you might like about Happy Families.

Bekuz it wuz da kyooot!!

Nine-year-old Rhadwen was likliklikking Huw's stripey little head. Fuzzy Gwenith was stropping herself against Llewellyn the goggie and trying to groom his ears.

Are these kids socialized or what?

No, no pictures of this tender domestic scene. I don't sleep with the digital camera, nor yet take it to the loo with me.

But here's what I have from an earlier date . . .

Scare

Early this afternoon I looked out one of the front windows to see how the flower border at the front of the house was doing. I glanced down and "That's strange. There's a window screen lying on one of my delphiniums!"

Sometimes I can be really slow.

Window screen . . . window screen . . . Oh my gosh, there's no screen on the window! The window is wide open! There's no screen on the window, one of the cats must've been lying against it, and pushed it out!

The cats. Where are the cats?

My kittehs are all indoor cats. Safer that way. My former cat, the late, great Didon, lost her life or was stolen when the people I gave her to when I went to England to study theology let her become an indoor-outdoor cat. My previous owners here told me there was a guy on a neighboring block who habitually shot roaming cats with a BB gun. I've seen too many pathetic and bloody kitty carcasses on the roads. No, apart from allowing Rhadwen some occasional R & R in the fenced backyard, my kittehs stay indoors.

But the front window was wide open, with the screen outside.

Ok, don't panic. Maybe they haven't gotten far.

I came outside, and thank God, there was Rhadwen lying casually on the walk that runs by the side of the house, sunning herself. She wasn't going anywhere, so I went to retrieve the screen.

It'd smashed and decapitated the poor delphinium. From the damage, I'd say it wasn't just the screen, but the weight of a calico cat landing on it, too. And the damaged parts looked pretty wilted. How long would that take . . . ? How long would Gwenith and Huw have had to escape, if escape they had?

Happily, Rhadwen was ready to come in, and followed me through the door needing no persuasion.

I tried to put the screen back in the slot. Couldn't make it go. Looked at another window to see if I had it right. Still couldn't figure out how to put it in. Thought about how I hate those windows anyway and wish I could afford to get new ones.

Realized I was thinking slowly again. Idiot! Just shut the darn window and go look for the kittens!

Right. Assume best case-- still in the house.

No kittens on the first floor.

No kittens on the second floor. Looked under both beds, in the closet, everywhere.

No kittens up in the third floor study. That leaves the basement.

Came down from the third floor, and saw Huw walking into my bedroom. Where'd he come from?

I don't care. He's accounted for.

Downstairs, heading for the cellar to look for Gwen. But whew! there she was, stropping herself on the chairs in the dining room.

All cats present! And one dog, who'd been helping me look!

Gelobt sei Gott!

The window is still shut, the screen leaning against the wall below it. Nice to know that the first impulse of all my critters was not to bolt for it. Now I remember it, that screen has come loose before, and I'm taking no chances with it again.

Asking for It, Part 1

Huw is nothing if not adventurous. He's first in every clean litter box, he's tried out the piano--repeatedly--, and he stands on his hind legs at the back door, gazing longingly into the garden he's not allowed to go into.

Couple nights ago, I had drawn my bath after a hot day working outside. I was still at the sink, brushing my teeth or something, when Huw stalked in, eager to see what was going on. He stood up and leaned over the edge of the tub. And stared.

Watter. Tihs iz teh fass-- fassin-- neet!

A paw went in. Splash! Again. Splash.

I kept doing what I was doing. Behind my back, my brown tabby was apparently thinking:

Ai haz a thurstee. Awl tish watter-- want!

Splash!!!

I turned--to see his front paws in the water in the tub and his haunches just barely, precariously, gripping the rim!

O noes! Do nawt want!

I reached in for the rescue, but too late! Huw was in the drink and going for a brief and unwanted swim.

Ai mint tuh doo taht, he says as he licked himself dry thereafter. Mah poyz, let me show u it.

Sumer Is Icumen In

You want signs of summer? Here are the signs of summer around my house:

First we have calico cat on the half shell:

What was that? Water? What does Rhadwen need with water?

Me? No, of course I wash my hands in the bathtub!

Always being careful, of course, not to slop one brown tabby. Huw enjoys basking in a tub bottom as cool as he is.

Open windows are a summer attraction as Gwenith displays her blonde sophistication to an admiring world.

And for Llewellyn? For him, summer means birds, and squirrels, and all manner of wildlife to point at and chase. Lhude squawk cuccu!