I win!

Ever since I became a cat owner, I have not been able to have flowers around my house. I really like to have a cheerful boquet of flowers on a table top or counter, but whenever I do, curious cats always manage to get up when I'm not looking for a sniff. They don't stop with a sniff - then they have a nibble and before I know it, my beautiful flowers are not very beautiful anymore. Petals fall off, greenery disappears. Not only that, I'm not really sure what plants are safe for a cat to eat, so I worry about them

Well, I found this tiny vase at a local street fair a few weeks ago. I thought it was a rather ingenious solution to my problem. Last time I checked, my cats were not able to scale a refrigerator!

What I want for my birthday

One of these.

Life

Life ticks on. Here's what we've been doing lately:
1. Running a kitty hospice: Phoebe's blood work was not much improved last week. We stopped the pills and are only doing treatments that do not bother her. A steroid compound that is rubbed on her ear twice a day we hope will increase her appetite and may help the liver failure a little. Also subcutaneous fluids to keep her hydrated - she doesn't seem to mind them much at all. She's been staying the night over at my mom's house so she gets a break from Joey and has constant access to any food that she might eat. We bring her back home during the day. It's a real up and down thing emotionally. She's a bit more like herself, but still skinny. Some days she eats pretty well and then others doesn't eat much.
2. I've been home sick from work: I started getting sick with a cold Thursday at work and by evening was really coughing and called in sick for Friday. By Friday PM, it had turned into bronchitis, so I called Denis at work and had him bring me home a prescription for antibiotics. Today is day three and I'm starting to breathe better now.
3. Watching Ace of Cakes with my mom while I go visit Phoebe. It made me crave cake, so I baked a banana cake from scratch and made real buttercream frosting (the kind with egg whites, cooked sugar and real butter).
4. Denis worked two extra days for a coworker - Friday and Sunday. Now he has just today off. It's a really strange week for him.
5. Playing an Amazing Race geography game - you get more points the closer on the map to an exact town in the world that you click. At the end of the game they calculate a "traveler IQ". My first try was an IQ of 73. I finally made it all the way through the game and got an IQ of 116!

That's about it. It's cloudy and dark around here today.

Thanksgiving

Denis and I went to the house of a family from our church on Thursday. They annually invite several people and this is the first time that Denis and I have both been able to attend. It was really fun - visiting with folks that we knew and some that we had just met, eating wonderful food very little of which I had to prepare.

I have so many blessings to be thankful for this year. I'm so thankful for my husband, he is a faithful, kind and gentle man and I'm honored that he's in love with me. I'm thankful for my health and the well-being of all our extended family. I'm so thankful for this job that I really enjoy. We also have a new praise - Denis has accepted an on call position in the occupational health department of our health care system. We hope that will turn into a part time position that will be less stressful for him than the ER where he works now. I'm thankful that we have a strong church body that we belong to and have some good friends in.

All of these blessings come from the hand of the great God of the universe. He has blessed me with these insignificant material things in addition to the greatest gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful that I can trust in His loving care for me.

I have been feeling pretty down since Phoebe got sick. This is really good for me to "count my blessings". Phoebe's hanging in there, not really getting worse or better. I made an appointment for Tuesday to have her bloodwork repeated. We will have a difficult decision to make based on the results.

Today I made a turkey for the first time all on my own. My mom is in Ohio visiting my brother. Since we went to someone else's Thanksgiving, I missed having left-over turkey, stuffing and gravy. So I bought a turkey on Friday. I'm not good a price comparison, so I hope that I got a good price... It came out really good. I'm pretty proud of myself... :o)

Worried

Here is what has been occupying my thoughts and time lately. My precious kitty Phoebe is sick. We noticed about 3 weeks ago that she was getting pretty thin and at her annual physical one week ago today that was confirmed. She had lost 6 lbs in the last year and was 1 lb underweight. Lab tests and an ultrasound showed some low grade liver failure possibly caused by a gallbladder infection and anemia. We started a two week course of antibiotics which is almost halfway through now, as well as vitamins and a gallbladder medicine.

The trouble is that there is no noticeable improvement in Phoebe after a week of treatment. She still is eating very little and is not her usual self at all. As you may remember, Phoebe has always been the very social cat, generally following me around all day to be in the same room and watch what I'm doing. In the last week, she has been withdrawing, hiding much of the day. The more I try to get her to eat, the more she pulls away. It's been very sad. I have to force those vitamins down her twice a day and I give her one pill in the AM and the other in the PM. I've been trying to consolidate the bad stuff and not bug her too much the rest of the time so that she won't withdraw even more.

On the positive side, she does still want to cuddle with me at times, particularly at night. She still grooms herself from time to time and she's still interested in going outside. As long as there is hope that she will improve with this, than I'm willing to continue, but i don't want to distress her if it's not going to make her better. We'll know more next week when we repeat the blood work. We made an appt. to take her in today and see if another boost with subcuatneous fluids might help.

One Week

Okay, it's been 7 days since I posted anything on my blog. Seems like it's been even longer... Here's a quick update on what's going on around here:

I worked an extra day on Monday doing another chart review for my work project. It's going a bit slow this time around, but it is interesting. At this rate, it will take another couple of extra days to get it done.

My brother is in town for a week. He flew in from Ohio on Wednesday and is staying in our lovely guest room! My mom's best friends from Yakima, WA are also in town and staying at her house. So the last two nights, we've had dinner all together here where there is more room to sit around a table (than at my mom's house). Tomorrow, we will go to the United Methodist Church to here my brother present his mission work in Nicaragua and preach. After church, Denis, Jim and I are going to the coast. We won't have to hurry back since we are all late night people.

I took Joey to the vet today for a follow up visit. He got his second round of shots and a de-worming pill. He should be good for a year now unless we notice any problems. The official verdict is that he is still small for his age, but he is growing nicely now. Phoebe and Monica seem to be a little under the weather, so I'm keeping an eye on them. They will each get two de-worming pills in the next day or so (really looking forward to that.... NOT), just to be sure that those nasty creatures don't just make the rounds between the three of them. We are also going to be vigilant on kitchen cleanliness to be sure they aren't getting any food stuffs besides their prescribed stuff.

So that's it. You're up to date. I'll probably still be a bit absent the next few days with family in town.

Cats, etc.

Well, there have been changes in the cat dynamics around here. Monica has now fully accepted Joey. She grooms him and lets him snuggle with her. He has tried to play with her, but she won't participate. She very rarely hisses at him and it's when he tries to play.

Phoebe is still a bit miffed with him. He keeps trying to make friends with her, approaching her and following her around. Sometimes she allows it and will sniff him and be in close proximity. Other times she will hiss and smack him or growl. She's acting kind of like Monica did in the first couple of days where you can't predict what her response will be at any given time. But I think she's softening.

In other news, the rental house is almost ready to be rented. The contracted work is done and Denis is just finishing up odds and ends. My mom and I have done some cleaning. We'll have to get all our fix-it stuff out of there. We also have to go to the property management office and sign our contract so that they can advertise it and get some people in there. It's looking really good, but it has definitely been a lot of work for my honey. It'll be nice to get it off our plates.

Right now I'm feeling really tired and air-headed because I took an antihistamine. Denis and I have allergies that go on year round. I usually take a Claritin in the morning which helps a bit. But my nose is often plugged up in the evening. Denis has a fancy-shmancy nasal spray that has really been helping his allergies since he started taking it. I'm thinking of seeing if I can get me some of that stuff. Since my cold two weeks ago, my nose has been a constant source of grief. anyway, I've been taking a stronger antihistamine hoping that my nose won't be so stuffy at night. Sorry, I'm rambling... Tracy signing off.

Joey update

Well, there is some news to report on the cat dynamics going on here. Joey is semi-feral still, so one of the things we have noticed is that he will tend to hide on us if we are not playing with him or actively petting him. Part of that is the cat tension in the house - he knows he's not welcomed. Last evening, we finally made in-roads on bonding with him. We spent the evening watching TV and Joey stayed with us. He tried to go under the couch once, but I stopped him. He cuddled right next to each of us. And today, when he sees me, he comes running (for protection?)

On the cat front, Monica softened up a bit more last night. She did a bit of sniffing, approaching him to do so. He approached her a couple of times and only was hissed at intermittently. The kicker was that at one point, Monica joined us on the couch - not at the opposite end from Joey, but right in front of him. then she laid down, back to him and "ignored" him. Today, he's tried to play with Monica a couple of times, but she'll have none of that.

Phoebe has been still at it with the growling, hissing and swatting, but at a closer proximity. I set him up on the windowsill by my desk(one of her favorite spots to watch birdies out the window). It is a nice long windowsill and I put him far away from her usual spot. But she came right over growling and hissing. He was mesmerized by the birds - there were a bunch of them today - and ignored her. Soon she got distracted by the birds. Watching them got the best of her and distracted from hissing at Joey. Every once in a while, she'd remember him, look his way and growl. then he made the mistake of trying to cross her path and got swatted.

I took Chariman Mao's (a cat...) advice and gave both Phoebe and Joey a treat. Phoebe really likes his kitten food, but we put it up out of her reach when his carrier door is open. I had just removed it because she came over to eat it. She got mad and hissed at Joey. So I got it back down and gave her one piece at a time, right near him. I gave him one which he ate. Phoebe got three pieces. The second one I put in front of Joey, she stole (touching him, mind you, fur to fur!) with no growl. A bit later, there was a semi-civil exchange that sounded more like a meow than a growl. She thoroughly explored the carrier where he's been sleeping.

anyway, I'm probably boring you to tears. But this is what I think about most of my waking hours right now. Joey is really thin. I can feel his little ribs, spine and his hip bones. He's been eating really well, so I'm sure he'll gain weight before too long.

Could this be Joey Tribiani?

So here's the story... Denis has a coworker who is into the whole cat rescue thing. She has so many cats that she won't tell us how many she has so we won't think she's crazy. Anyway, she heard about this kitten who was wild, out in the country with his cat family. A friend of her's captured a lot of them to have them spayed and neutered. So this little guy was going to be returned to his wild setting, except he decided that he didn't want to be wild anymore. Denis' coworker is looking for a home for him so that he won't wind up as "cougar bait". They are out of options as her usual contact don't have room for him. She told Denis about him and asked if we would take him.

I heard about this over the weekend while I was on my way to Portland. I said, "I don't want another cat!" I wasn't really keen on upsetting the happy little duo that we have in our household. Phoebe and Monica have been so great and easy because they have just always been together. There are no fights for dominance, they already have it worked out. (Monica is the boss, in case you're curious...) I have never done a kitten before. I don't know how they will react, how to go about introducing them, reinforce litter box training, etc, etc.

I got home from the weekend and much to my surprise, Denis was really interested in taking the kitten. So we brought him home for a "trial run" on Monday afternoon. He spent most of that evening in the carrier we set up for him. The first introduction didn't go over too well. Today, we have let him out about half of the day. And there seems to be some improvement in relations. Phoebe definitely does NOT like him - she hisses and growls at him and cuts a wide path around him. Monica seems curious, but her response to his advances varies. She has sniffed him, ignored him and hissed at him.

Any hints or experiences would be welcomed. He's really cute and at this point, I think Denis is pretty smitten. I'm pretty sure he's staying unless Phoebe continues to be this distraught by his presence. She seems to be mellowing a bit about it though.

We're calling him Joey - we liked that better than Chandler or Ross.

How to give pill to a cat

Phoebe has kitty irritable bowel disease. Don't ask me why, but it causes vomitting in cats. The treatment is anti-inflammatory pills (prednisone). We generally go through a nightly pill-taking ritual which is a three step process:



Step one: grab your cat and position her so you have access to the mouth end. Have husband get a pill out of the bottle.



Step two: pry open cat's mouth and throw the pill in (preferably towards the back of the throat, or it will be too easy for her to retrieve it with her tongue and spit it out). Hold mouth partially shut with your hand so that her tongue range of motion is limited. If the tongue is thrusting forward, the mouth is open too far.

Step three: once a swallowing motion is detected (generally followed by lip smacking), give praise and reward with some scratching under the chin before releasing.

What you can learn from a cat.

I have been assisting my cats, Phoebe and Monica, in maintaining their blog. In the process, I ran across a "cat blog help center" run by Skeezix the Cat. Has anyone noticed that my links indicate whose blog has a new post on it now? I learned how to do that (well, Phoebe learned how) on Skeezix's help center. It's a very cool service called "blogrolling". You can get to it by clicking the "powered by blogrolling" link under my list. Set up a free account, make your link list, set your preferences, get your code and put it in your blog. Viola! It took a bit of work, but it's so handy to know which of my friends has a new post to read.

Networking

Not to be outdone, Phoebe and Monica have started their own blog.

Too Fluffy

Phoebe and Monica had their annual check up with the vet. and they both passed with flying colors, except for one little thing. They are both fat! Monica needs to lose 1.5 lbs and Phoebe 1 lb. So today started their diet. I have never had to ration cat food before and I'm not really looking forward to it. But for now it is to be 1/2 cup each in the morning and evening.

Silly Cats!

Meet Phoebe and Monica. They share our house with us and keep us entertained most days. Read about some of their escapades in a previous post.

Monica has decided that fresh water is the best and you get it right out of the tap! When she follows me into the bathroom and jumps into the tub, the message is clear. "I will have a drink now, thank you." Since she has some early kidney disease and is supposed to drink extra water, I indulge her.



Phoebe is the social butterfly. She always wants to be around the action. If company comes, Phoebe is sure to stay around to see what will happen. She often follows me around the house to whatever room I am in. Here she is "helping" me with the laundry. (her job is to decorate it with lovely soft fur).


There is great competition for the coveted spot on my desktop when I am there. Denis' desk does not have so much lovely room, and he does not appreciate cats sitting atop his computer keyboard. So my desk is the happening place. Most days there is a restless shifting and jockeying for position. But every once in a while, both manage to squeeze into the alloted cat space.

The world according to Phoebe and Monica

A few months after my house was built and I was living here, it occurred to me that my cats "own" this house more than I do. Really, they spend way more time here than either my husband or I. We are both gone for a good part of most days, but they are here 24/7.

I am one of those owners who keeps my cats indoors. I know this is controversial, but they do say that indoor cats live longer than outdoor ones. Also, we do live on a very busy street and our neighbors have dogs. The most outdoors we want them to have is on our screened porch, where they are seen in the picture, plotting their escape. Monica (she is the bigger, lighter colored one) is secretly quite content with this arrangement. The few times she has gotten the notion to go out the front door, she has never wandered far. And she puts up no fight when we pick her up and scold her. Phoebe is a different story.

Phoebe is always plotting her next escape attempt. (Sometimes we find scraps of paper with elaborate diagrams of the house with telltale catfood crumbs attached.) The two of them were rescued as kittens from a life of homelessness, but Phoebe has never forgotten those wild days of her youth. She thinks that she knows the ways of the world and can take care of herself. Anyway, from time to time Phoebe does manage to get outside and it is always a prolonged, laborious process to get her back inside. She is very skilled at maintaining a distance of about 10 feet while slowly exploring all of the yard and occasionally venturing close to the fence with the gaping hole in it.

But we know that she really doesn't want all that freedom. How do we know this? From two different incidents. The first one happened almost two years ago. We let the cats on the screened porch not realizing that the door wasn't latched. After a while, we discovered Monica meowing and glancing worriedly at her sister in the neighbor's yard. Phoebe had climbed the chainlink fence and was now panicking, unable to figure out how to get back. Denis eventually had to climb over and lift her back over. She was very grateful at the time. The second incident occurred this past summer. Phoebe got out and played her usual game of "catch me if you can". But this time she actually did go through the hole in the neighbor's fence to do some exploring. She was gone for about 5 minutes and then came racing back through the fence and hid under a bush. We may never know what trauma occurred out there and she's not talking. Unfortunately, we are pretty sure that she will not remember that she really wants to stay inside.