July 31, 2002

Cats take no prisoners

I did the unthinkable. I left the apartment for EIGHT. WHOLE. HOURS.

I had a good time, and I'm not sorry. I did it because I wanted to, and I feel good about it.

But judging from the approximately 30 claw marks I received in the 10 minutes after I got back to the apartment, I am the WORST. HELPER MONKEY. EVER.

July 31, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:43 PM

July 27, 2002

Into the sink with you

My kitten woke me after about six hours sleep this morning. It really wasn't enough, so I lay down late morning to catch up. Soon I was awake again, the victim of a pouncing kitten. I covered my face, but it was no use, and I went into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, to make scrambled eggs.

I was clumsier than usual and dropped the egg carton partly opened. Two eggs were cracked and one broke wide open. I was able to salvage the cracked eggs for my meal, but before I could wet a paper towel, the kitten was all over the the egg that had spilled onto the floor. He was very excited.

I then realized he was very messy, too, with egg -- white and yolk -- all over his paw pads and even his belly. So I scooped him up, got some warm water running in the kitchen sink, and gave him a thorough rinse. I suffered not a single bite or scratch, although he did squirm at being held dangling by only one monkey hand; he's more than a handful nowadays.

I wrapped him in a towel and blotted him. He rapidly got to work grooming his wet fur, and seemed perfectly calm and happy. He remained on the towel for a moment after I left him to his own devices but soon trotted over to my desk and hopped in my lap to finish his drying up. I gave him a little rub on the head, and he purred.

I think this goes beyond "no hard feelings." When I took my own bath later, under somewhat less urgent circumstances, he cried piteously the entire time, watching me through the French door. You know, I'm starting to wonder if he just plain wants to play in the water.

July 27, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:41 PM

July 26, 2002

It will turn into a cat

A friend of mine, on hearing I had a new kitten, said I'd be sorry, because "it will turn into a cat." I remember cats. They sleep almost continuously. Mmm, sleep.

I don't understand kitten people. I am lucky in this respect because "kitten" is such a fleeting state. Or seems fleeting when you are not actively being used as a scratching post, climbing structure, and banking surface. I agonized about the 30 or 50 little claw marks I'd gotten as my perky new arrival bounced off me all afternoon, and another friend said, "By Christmastime, all this will be a happy memory as he snoozes beneath the tree." That will be the best present ever.

I am still enchanted with this kitten, though. Contrary to belief in some quarters, I am not a masochist. A large part of my increasing affection for the little tulku is that every day, he becomes a little more adult, a little more sedate, a little more weighty. The fuzziness of his kittenhood is gone, and his ears are no longer enormous tents. His tail has lengthened. He is still full of beans, but he is no longer a pure energy being.

He is showing some of that cat deviousness that amuses me so much. In the vet's office, they gave him a pill coated in Cheez Whiz, and he happily gulped it right down. "Wow," the vet tech said, "I've never seen a cat fall for that trick before." I thought it was adorable that my kitten was as stupid as a dog, but I find it more amusing that for the follow-up dose, he's refused to eat the canned food I ground it up and mixed it in with.

He may just prefer crunchies to canned food; I won't complain if he does, although he needs that pill, dammit, so the wet food stays in the bowl until he eats it. He's a well-behaved cat -- he's never missed the litterbox, and he uses the designated scratching post preferentially. He's a sweet cat -- he definitely prefers to sleep on or near me, and he visits me constantly, not just at meal or play times. He's most certainly a cat -- as I sleep, he completely displaces my head from my own pillow, and when I wake he is curled in the middle of it, like a wedding ring being presented at the altar.

I am changing, too, my first flush of infatuation still strong but giving way to some capacity, however embryonic, to concentrate on other things. At dinner today, a friend remarked that I didn't seem quite so obsessed. I no longer feel compelled to post every single halfway decent picture of him, now holding out for the really good or really unusual ones. I look at him and think less, "how darling!" and more, "how beautiful."

He is not grown up yet. He still bounces, and now the claws are large and mature enough that they require trimming. He is still wide-eyed most of the time, even if the flash from the camera makes his eyes look more like languorous slits. He is not sleeping quite enough for my taste. But I'm in no hurry. During this time, he is becoming the companion I plan to share the next decade with, at least. It is a time to establish the few boundaries he'll have and to enjoy his transformation from small to big, young to old, feral to domestic.

July 26, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:40 PM

I Will Never Surrender

Even though it seems ever present, and follows me wherever I may go to, I shall not flag or fail. I shall go on to the end, I shall fight in the kitchen, I shall fight in the bedroom and in the bathroom. I shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the sun, I shall defend myself, whatever the cost may be. I shall fight it on the table, I shall fight it on the comforter, I shall fight it under the bed and in the closet, I shall fight it in the monkey's lap; I shall never surrender.

"Even though it seems ever present, and follows me wherever I may go to, I shall not flag or fail. I shall go on to the end, I shall fight in the kitchen, I shall fight in the bedroom and in the bathroom. I shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the sun, I shall defend myself, whatever the cost may be. I shall fight it on the table, I shall fight it on the comforter, I shall fight it under the bed and in the closet, I shall fight it in the monkey's lap; I shall never surrender."

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Posted by caitlin at 12:00 PM

July 25, 2002

July 25, 2002

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Posted by caitlin at 03:00 PM

July 25, 2002

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Posted by caitlin at 01:00 PM

July 24, 2002

The Bath

Oh, I am beautiful, certainly, but beauty must be tended. There, mmm, and there. Yes, that's it. And don't forget the tail, oh yes, the tail. Yes, Yes, I AM beautiful.

"Oh, I am beautiful, certainly, but beauty must be tended. There, mmm, and there. Yes, that's it. And don't forget the tail, oh yes, the tail. Yes, Yes, I am beautiful."

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Posted by caitlin at 12:00 PM

July 24, 2002

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Posted by caitlin at 12:00 PM

July 23, 2002

On selling a digital camera to a person with a new kitten

"You're creating a monster, you know."
"I created many before you, too."

July 23, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:38 PM

The Bag Sequence

A young kitten is lured into a bag, which holds him more securely the more he struggles. Still, he manages to come across a tape dispenser - near the bag but not within it. Will he drag this gentle piece of desk equipment into his crinkly prison? Or will his love for the tape dispenser give him the strength to escape the bag's fluttery clutches?

A young kitten is lured into a bag, which holds him more securely the more he struggles. Still, he manages to come across a tape dispenser - near the bag but not within it. Will he drag this gentle piece of desk equipment into his crinkly prison? Or will his love for the tape dispenser give him the strength to escape the bag's fluttery clutches?

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Posted by caitlin at 12:00 PM

July 23, 2002

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Posted by caitlin at 11:15 AM

July 23, 2002

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Posted by caitlin at 10:45 AM

July 20, 2002

Conversation

"My finger is completely healed, by the way. I think the antibiotics were the right way to go. It really looked a lot worse the next day. It's fine now."
"Oh good, I'm glad to hear that."
"I kept the kitten."
"What? Is that why you were handling a kitten?"
"Yes. I kept him."
"Now that strikes me as a classic Caitlin move. This animal hurts you, and you keep it in your home."

July 20, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:36 PM

July 19, 2002

Curiosity

I gave in. My kitten's piteous whining while I was in the bath was more than I could take, so I closed the closets up tight and let him run around in the front hallway during my bath. He wasn't interested in the front hallway. He was interested in the bathroom. In fact, in the bathtub. Which was full of water. And me.

Every cat owner has the experience of noticing a cat do something precarious and ... waiting. I think the perfect example of this was shown on America's Funniest Home Videos. Some cat was striding back and forth along the back of a couch, waving his tail around. Past a candle. The owner sat there patiently with his video camera on, awaiting the inevitable. I'm not saying it's funny when a cat's on fire -- the cat was fine but for some singeing on that swooshy tail.

Cats have good balance and coordination, and they are expert fallers. It's true that they always land on their feet, as long as they have a critical distance within which to right themselves. Cats are famously more likely to survive a fall of a dozen stories than two -- something about the way they process their position as they fall. They flip right over when they fall from a table or a counter, though, at least as adults.

Kittens, like all juveniles, are often at their cutest when they are falling over. They throw caution to the wind in pursuit of the bait at the end of the kitty fishing line. They land right on their bums when they lose their balance and tumble off your lap. They capsize while they are just sitting there, washing their back feet. So it's pretty unrealistic to expect a fascinated kitten to keep its balance on the edge of an enameled tub.

He did a great job for a while, walking back and forth, a look of abject horror on his face (whether at the sight of all that water or the hideous naked monkey sitting in it, we may never know). He reached out several times, a tentative paw tapping the surface of the water. He wasn't totally incompetent -- he fell backward, onto the bath mat, several times.

Even if he were the most exquisitely controlled Siamese in all the world, I would still be wary of a set of 20 claws flirting with roiling terror in proximity to my fragile skin. As he made the most uncertain part of his journey, at the end of the tub, I scrunched at the opposite end, not wanting to play a game of "keep pushing the kitten away" but also wanting very much to have a buffer zone in case he did slip.

And slip he did, backward of course, as he balanced on a narrow bit of enamel between two perfectly kitten-sized flat spots at the corners of the tub. I was ready, and I plucked him out, curling him up to protect myself from his claws, and stepping out of the tub to grab a towel to wrap him up. He was trembling and crying, and I figured that this was a valuable lesson.

My hair was still shampooed, so I got back in the tub to rinse it. Apparently the lesson was not valuable enough, because guess who was on the edge of the tub within seconds. I'm not sure what the logic was for him, if any. Maybe all that running up and down my surfboard (which has a terrycloth cover, great for traction) has turned him into Crazy Sports Kitty, and he is addicted to danger.

I let the water out, and he followed the dropping level and noisy drain with interest. I will need to wash him (in clean water, no shampoo) once a month for my allergies, and I figured that if he wasn't frightened, I should take advantage of it. When the water level was down to a couple of inches, I picked him up and placed him gently on the floor of the tub. He was not enthusiastic but not overtly frightened. He jumped out, but soon after he jumped back in again.

Cats aren't accustomed to being soaking wet, and kittens are vulnerable to cold. I wrapped him in a towel again and helped him while he dried himself off. Those of you who have washed cats know that they are often squirmy when soaked and would usually prefer to hide somewhere while they go over their fur. The kitten sat in my lap, reasonably calm if not actually purring, while he tended to his paws and his tummy and I blotted his back and sides.

He's cheerful now. I held him until he was completely dry, my tea steeping an extra hour while he snoozed in a small sphere in my lap. He followed me into the kitchen when I finally got my tea, and then trotted back out with me and hopped back into my lap. No hard feelings, and it looks like the monthly clean-water wash will work. But I think I'll let him cry the next time I draw myself a bath.

July 19, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:34 PM

July 18, 2002

Growing up

My new pet is transforming from kitten to miniature adult. He still has the stiff-legged gait of the juvenile, but his tail seems to be lengthening before my eyes, and his head is taking on its mature shape. He's also sleeping more, and I have been permitted to sleep through the night all week long.

He becomes more like wumpus by the day, now choosing to sleep under the covers and following me around the apartment. He cries when I'm not sitting somewhere where he can visit me, perhaps even trap me by curling up in my lap. He likes to be on top of some things sometimes -- perched on my shoulder or surveying the apartment from on top of the bookcases -- but he's a snuggled-into-things cat.

The front hallway of the apartment is forbidden to him. I wanted to keep him out of my closets while he's still in the "claw his way up everything" phase. The bathroom opens off that hallway, too, so whenever I take a bath, he is on the other side of a French door from me. He sees where I've disappeared to, and he cries continuously. I know he doesn't do this when I leave the apartment, only when just on the other side of that door, or in the kitchen preparing something.

Very briefly, every day, he'll curl up behind some books in one of the bookcases. He used to disappear for hours, but now such forays are brief, and he naps with me in the afternoon. He seems to have a distinct preference for sleeping on me or at least right next to me.

I wonder what this means for my romantic prospects. I know how I am with a kitty, close, affectionate, constantly fondling. That's not necessarily a distancing thing, although my status as a never-married woman in my mid-30s gives it a poignancy that it lacked when I was 20.

When I was in college, I spent some time with a boy from one of my English classes shortly after I got the wumpus. His name was Tres, well, his label was Tres. His name was something like Wallace Breckinridge Forsythe, III. Thus Tres.

I can't remember his name, only his label. (He's lucky I remember that. I'm hopeless with names.) He was a small, pretty blond with an easy smile and razor wit. I thought we were just friends, but it turns out those were dates. I still have that problem.

One afternoon, he'd come to my apartment with me. I can't imagine what he was expecting, which is a very silly thing to say, because I know full well. He sat beside me on my bed -- as a (adult-)lifelong dweller in studio apartments, this particular intimacy has been forced often. I had my cat in my lap and had quite automatically hugged and kissed him.

Wumpus was the most tolerant cat on the planet, and he sat there like a rag doll, purring noisily. I laughed and turned to Tres and said, "I wonder if he likes being kissed." Tres said, "He must. I bet it feels soft." And he leaned over to kiss me.

I dodged him, probably interposing a startled wumpus between us. Even at the time, I saw that I had invited Tres's attempt, however unconsciously. I felt bad, anxious. I knew I wouldn't see him again, that he hadn't been the friendly companion I'd thought but had been Interested and would melt away now that his interest was so clearly not reciprocated. My surprise was sincere. He dressed so beautifully and had such fine taste (at 21) that it never occurred to me that he liked girls.

I don't remember what happened after that. That single moment, when he speculated on the softness of my kiss, is one of my most vivid memories, thrown into sharp relief by a complete absence of recollection as to where we had been or what happened afterward. I have a general sense that darkness and rain were involved, so this was late Fall or early Winter quarter, probably December.

This kitten is unlikely to see such misunderstandings. The experiments and poses of youth are for the most part in my past, and while I am still occasionally startled to find out that I'm on a date (as far as the other party is concerned), I establish that on neutral ground rather than on the edge of my bed. Today my huggings and snugglings of my stripy little friend are more likely to be a playful promise of ape behaviors to come. Once my feline gets past the "claw his way over every surface" phase, that is.

July 18, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:31 PM

July 11, 2002

Cherished by those who know it

It's been years since I had a kitten in the house, probably a decade since I had a very young one. I had forgotten what their energy levels are like and how abruptly they make quantum leaps. I was completely unprepared for the kitten's anxiety at being newly separated from littermates, but fortunately that passed quickly.

The bonding has gone well. Today he's relaxed and friendly, purring easily and visiting me frequently as he tears around the apartment. He's starting to sleep on my bed during the rare occasions when he deigns to sleep at the same time as I do.

I had trouble coming up with a name. I flirted with names before I picked him up; the morning after I got him I found I was drawing a blank. Nothing seemed to fit.

When we recognize a tulku our chief objective is to have someone who can serve the dharma, and possesses a spiritual education and sound character. How would you like it if someone is pronounced as authentic and merely placed on the throne? -- The Panchen Lama in 1989

I still miss The Wabash Cannonball. It would be absurd for me not to. He was a devoted and supernaturally wonderful cat, bonded tightly to me by the trauma of the illness he suffered -- and recovered from -- shortly after I got him. That illness changed him. It didn't just require that he get used to some residual weakness after partial paralysis; his total dependence during his convalescence changed our interaction completely. He was almost entirely my creature after that, in need of my protection, yes, but appearing even to seek it actively.

As much as I want to recapture at least some of that, I still have misgivings about the completeness of Wabash's dependence and, even more so, about how much I enjoyed having him as a pet. I used to joke that he was the perfect companion, because he was brain damaged, castrated, and confined to my apartment. Ha ha only serious?

The City of New Orleans was obviously Miss Right Then rather than Miss Right, but I don't think people who enjoy cats in the first place can really choose when a cat comes into their lives. Cats appear when they need you, not necessarily when you need them. The decision needs to be made fairly quickly or makes itself.

Reincarnated tulkus all have special identifications on their bodies. They are able to recognize religious articles they have used in previous lives. -- Grand Master Sheng-yen Lu

I visited my friends to see this candidate kitten after dark on Independence eve. Newly brought into the house from his mother's nest outside, he was frightened, like his siblings, but quieter. He was not enthusiastic about the cat carrier, but he was quiet in the car. He made a perfunctory circuit around the apartment on being released.

My first thought on seeing him was that his markings are perfect. Over the last week, they have struck me as increasingly beautiful. Mind you, I've selected cats for beauty alone in the past and been punished for it, so I try to think of it as a gift rather than assign significance to it. The real test is the bonding.

It's going well, rapidly. His anxiety seemed to be completely gone within about 36 hours of arriving in my apartment, which he almost immediately (and correctly) identified as belonging to him, contents and all. And then he started doing wumpus things.

It started with the whistle I used to call Wabash. The City of New Orleans never cared for it much, but wumpus went nuts for it. The new kitty never fails to investigate it, even if he's been napping, to trot over and peek at me, his head at the optimal angle for the emission of cuterons. He sits on my cluttered desk for much of the day, although he doesn't seem intrigued by the clutter. Except the salt shaker. He loves it. Just like wumpus did. Then he did the most wumpus-like thing of all: he pulled off my glasses. Later, he did it again.

The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games. -- T.S. Eliot

He became The Streamlined Cannonball, the successor to The Wabash Cannonball. I had never seriously considered this name, perhaps because the wumpus already held the namespace, fuzzily speaking. The idea of finding another wumpus was unreal to me after 10 years of Wabash's perfect charms followed by three years of their significant amplification in my memory by the disappointment of The City of New Orleans.

To name a thing is to know it. Names connect things, like family names. People have children to carry on their names. People choose names for their children that they hope their children will grow into. Adam cemented his dominion over the animals when he gave them their names.

I called the veterinarian to make his first appointment. He needs a distemper shot before he can get fixed. He needs a checkup just in general. That's when I realized, for the first time, that there's a chance that he's not healthy. There's a chance that he has leukemia or FIV. I experienced fear about his future, anxiety about his health, for the first time since I considered taking him.

A name changes a thing, makes it real. It awakens you to the possibility that it, like all things, is fleeting, perhaps more fleeting than you can stand to think about.

July 11, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:29 PM

July 10, 2002

At the vet

2 lbs 14 oz at about 9 wks The Lotus Bun weighed 2 lbs 14 oz at estimated age 9 wks.
Posted by caitlin at 04:24 PM

July 09, 2002

The Streamlined Cannonball

Today I took a couple dozen pictures and gave him a name. Now I can take him to the vet without stammering when they ask. He is familiar and new and just what I hoped he'd be.

July 9, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:26 PM

July 08, 2002

Bee-stung by love

"Love," says Andreas Capellanus, "is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex." A somewhat limited view, but applicable here. He goes on to say that love (amor) gets its name from the word for hook (amus), which means "to capture" or "to be captured." Also regrettably literally applicable.

Oh, slight detail. I'm allergic to cats. It happened too late to be of any use to me; I'd already had cats in my life for 20 years when I acquired this allergy. I finally went to the allergist after the abrupt onset of allergy symptoms so severe it was difficult to work. He did skin testing for all the usual suspects: dust, dogs, cats, and an assortment of pollens and molds.

My cat spot swelled up twice as fast and twice as big as the histamine control.

"Well, there's no mystery here," Dr. Minotti announced.
I nodded solemnly.
"So tell me. Where does your cat sleep?"
"On my pillow!"
"Oh! I didn't want to hear that!"

The allergist told me it would quite possibly "evolve away" by my mid-30s, but that hasn't happened yet.

As I am quite itchily aware today. All day long, my kitten has been in the throes of what can only be termed irrational exuberance, which has involved clawing his way up my legs more than once. He means it in a nice way. Nevertheless, the results of those 30 or so impromptu scratch tests came back instantly: still allergic to cats.

July 8, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:25 PM

July 06, 2002

Charming the monkey

7/4: first purr while being held by monkey
7/5: first spontaneous use of monkey as jungle gym
7/6: first spontaneous use of monkey as mattress

July 6, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:22 PM

July 05, 2002

Recognition of the tulku

One of their foster cats had just had her litter.

"Do you want a kitten?" he asked.
"Yes and no," I replied.
"It's up to you," he said. But he didn't hesitate to show me pictures.

It's one thing to say you're not ready for a pet, that having pets is sketchy, that you at least need some time to recuperate from the last one. It's been five months, and I've cleansed my apartment -- the way I should have done four years ago. And this isn't just "getting a kitten," it's taking in a kitten that might not get adopted from the shelter, no matter how cute he is.

I have been developing an ethical discomfort with having a pet. People get pets for what they get from pets: attention and dependence. I am no exception, and I have a high standard for that kind of gratification of narcissism: I want my cat to be downright cuddly and affectionate. Ethically, it is simpler to have a dog. Dogs have become explicitly the creatures of humans, especially in the bizarre variety of their shapes and sizes. They do work for people, and their natural inclination is hierarchical. Dogs, like some prison inmates, are simply happier when they are under the firm direction of someone else.

I have a medium-term plan to raise a dog or two, and I think I would like border collies. I am, after all, a cat person, and a reserved dog that's neurotically focused on its own agenda seems like a good match. I want to do this in a place where I have room to give the dog work to do, and plenty of time of time to teach its jobs to it. I am a problem solver, inspired by horror stories of anxious border collies retrieving paperclips and scraps of paper and bringing them, one by one, to their owners, or penning the family's children into a corner of the back yard. I think, "What a satisfying expression of understanding, commitment, and balance to raise a border collie to be happy and well-behaved."

Except that I am a cat person and an urban dweller, besides. Cats are the only sensible choice for the time being, in spite of my ethical distress about imprisoning an animal whose behaviors are focused on the outside world. That said, I can't really know what cats think or want, so my discomfort ultimately has more to do with what it means to create dependence in another in exchange for affection.

I was "lucky" with my last two cats: one had a spinal-cord injury, the other a metabolic disorder. They required protection. Still, I don't have very much trouble justifying keeping a healthy cat inside. My mother says she feels sorry for tigers in the zoo, because they pace so compulsively in pens thousands of times smaller than their natural ranges. She feels no such sympathy for lions, she says, who seem to be thrilled to wake up occasionally and be fed. I suspect domestic cats are more like lions than tigers.

The vast majority of homeless cats are not wild, even if they are resourceful. They are the result of dumping tinged with the idea that it will be "educational" for the kids to see Sprinkles go through the experience of pregnancy and kitten birth. Sprinkles's fate is sealed by men who are reluctant to get their animals' scrotums emptied. While this social anxiety deserves some compassion, it's rough to see it projected onto animals.

For whatever reasons -- control, inattention, misguided notions about sanctity or education -- we as a society create this population of animals. We have a responsibility to house them as we can. Even PETA's public face acknowledges that pet ownership simply is. (And for all of its hostility toward restraint of animals, PETA explicitly advocates making all cats indoor cats.)

I just happened to have a carrier in the car when I visited Bill and Jen to examine the candidate kitten. This time I held out for what I was looking for when I ended up with The City of New Orleans: a friendly young male with regular tabby markings and no blotches of white. I held him, and he was clearly frightened at first, but he adapted quickly. Soon enough, he was snoozing in my arms, looking for all the world like he owned me.

The drive home was no fun for him, huddled in the corner of the carrier, silent but wakeful. I put the carrier on the bed while I set up the cat box and put out food, water, and a little processed milk. I showed him the food, water, and box and then held him for a while. A little trembly at first, within moments he was purring, eyes squeezed shut.

The morning of the first day was not as quiet. There was a great deal of mewling as he realized his siblings were all absent. During the day, there was also a great deal of hiding, including a determination to remain behind the oven in spite of extreme hunger. An attempt on my part to lure him out with fingers dipped in milk prompted a prescription for antibiotics. (I've never had a cat bite me so hard he broke through my fingernail before.) He was just crazed with hunger, as he demonstrated when I got an iota of sense in my head and stuck a ladle full of milk back there instead of my hand.

By night it was much quieter, at least inside the apartment. The fireworks didn't seem to phase the new arrival. Now he only crawls into little hide-y holes to explore and nap, and he's eating regularly and being in all ways a gratifying animal companion. He's even made scrambling into my lap a regular part of his circuit around the apartment.

Maybe I'll end up with another wumpus after all.

July 5, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 12:18 PM

The Visa bill tells a story

7/3: a variety of cat-care products
7/4: a disposable camera
7/5: antibiotics

July 5, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 11:58 AM

July 04, 2002

Angry cats and the women who love them

At the beginning of February, about a week after I gave up The City of New Orleans, I wrote this email to a friend.

I had an extended dream last night about committing "assisted" suicide. For some reason, I had to have others involved. The first attempt was execution style.

Someone was trying to behead me -- and failing repeatedly. I know the guy -- he's a bike mechanic who recently tuned up the bike I built, and my last contact with him was him calling me and saying he could give me some tips about things I should set up differently, if I wanted.

We agreed that it just wasn't working, and he offered to get me a sedative. Incidentally, the method was having me kneel over a wood-chopping block, and he was using a small hand ax. I don't remember any pain, but there was an awful lot of blood.

I don't remember how the dream segued, but then I was at some kind of company picnic, and I was taking sedatives in food (notably ice cream). The sedatives were to put me to sleep, and then someone was going to give me a lethal injection (this is the way cats are euthanized).

I guess I feel really really guilty.

The City of New Orleans was a nice enough cat, in many way a rather wonderful cat, but she was labile and unpredictable. Cats bite when they are overstimulated, but her biting was abrupt and often had no apparent trigger at all. She was a cat who would walk up to you and bite you.

Her flashes of hostility didn't make it any easier to give her up. When I finally made the decision, after three years of patient exploration and deep guilt and shame, I was met with a surprising lack of sympathy. In retrospect, I suppose it is not all that surprising, but people treated me as if giving her up (or putting her down) was my first response to a cat that probably bit me for a good reason. It hurts to feel like your hard work has been trivialized, even when you know that the trivializer sees evidence for her assumptions regularly.

The people I spoke to in the last week I had The City of New Orleans were volunteers in cat-rescue of one kind or another, either in formal organizations or amateurs. They all had one thing in common: none of them believed that The City of New Orleans's biting behavior was substantially dangerous. The woman who finally picked her up made it very clear to me on the telephone that she thought I was an inherently bad person who was frankly ignorant of cat behavior. I'd be interested to know whether her opinion changed after she'd had The City of New Orleans for a few days.

The City of New Orleans was a profoundly needy cat. She was a dedicated cuddler who would jump into any curvature of human's body that looked sufficiently lap-like. She purred almost continuously while being held, and she nuzzled and kneaded. Then very suddenly she'd snap at hands or face. She drew blood from me many times, and while I never became ill as a result of a bite from her, it was clear to me that I could not keep her, and that it would be hard to find someone who wanted to.

Sometimes poorly socialized cats can find a new life as barn cats, but even if I knew of a local place to bring her, she would not have thrived in an outdoor environment. She'd been declawed by previous owners (she was seven years old when I got her at the shelter, and who knows how many owners she'd had). She also had a metabolic disorder. She required medical food, otherwise she developed painful crystals in her urine, which became blood-tinged.

I had high hopes that the identification and treatment of her metabolic disorder would improve her behavior or even resolve her problems. It didn't. There was no good way to know how long she'd been ill, and I know I might not be able to snap out of it if I'd been in pain regularly for an extended period of my adult life. I often wonder what her previous owner was like, whether she was punished for behavior that had started as a cry for help but escalated into retaliation.

I had a lot of sympathy for her but a finite capacity for taking on her unhappiness. In addition to biting, she was destructive, and every time I left the house, whether for an hour or a week, I knew it was quite likely that I'd come back to some kind of damage. She turned my apartment into a place where I did not want to be.

I had written to the same friend the previous week about the same general subject.

I slept wretchedly last night -- and I didn't even watch the state of the union address!

I dreamed about wumpus. I had just given up [The City of New Orleans], and he appeared to me, reproachful. He looked the way he did right before I had him put down, only he wasn't wearing any bandages. His stitches had dissolved away, but his wounds were resting in place, rather than the skin hanging open (as it had in real life). I petted him and he stared at me with lifeless eyes.

I used to wonder if I was so in love with him that I couldn't form a relationship with a person. Now I realize that by getting [The City of New Orleans] immediately, I never really grieved him.

I couldn't go back to sleep.

I wonder if I have grieved enough. I go back and forth. I think, I couldn't deal with City-of-New-Orleans magnitude stress again, and maybe that means I'm not recovered enough to take on the responsibility of a pet. Or maybe it just means I have a healthy sense of proportion about how much effort one should be willing to make.

July 4, 2002

Posted by caitlin at 11:57 AM

July 03, 2002

July 3, 2002

7/3/2002 tulku1.jpg
Photo by Bill Coderre
Posted by caitlin at 12:00 PM