The cats are always helpful when we’re cleaning things. Here Artemis is inspecting my t-shirt drawer.
In the next one, I almost caught her whaling the crap out of Apollo. Pow! Right in the kisser.
Category: Pets
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Happy Caturday (On Sunday)
Everybody needs some cat pictures. If you don’t follow me on twitter, make sure you check out Meowbify for some crazy cat image replacement fun.
For once, the cats stood still reasonably well for portraiture.
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More Cat Pics
I know everyone has been waiting for more images of the cats.
I would have more, but these are not photogenic cats, yet. They will not stand still! They will learn, soon.
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Cat Day 3
Artemis is starting exhibit her personality and it turns out we may have named her appropriately. She’s still a bit shy, though.
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Cats Day 2
With Apollo and Artemis making themselves at home in our bedroom, things are just a bit different than they were a couple days ago. We’ve got two fuzzy creatures running about, finding all sorts of things to knock over and pull on. We were a bit spoiled with Psyche because she was an older cat, well past her “play with everything” stage. Aside from occasionally clawing the couch, Psyche was a sedate feline. She hardly ever made any kind of mess.
Now we have kittens. Kittens are designed for making messes. I think we’re going to have to go through the house once more and ensure all cat-accessible surfaces are cleaned of breakable-upon-falling objects.
They were a bit more social last evening, but only a bit. It had only been 24 hours, though, so I’m not exactly worried. During the night, they both were on the bed with us at least a couple of times; mostly, it seems, to reenact Pearl Harbor by assaulting our feet. Good job, cats. Those feet might be up to something, you know.
As I mentioned yesterday there is a distinctly new smell in the bedroom, what with the kitty litter in the bathroom (and the door open so they can access it) and their cat food dishes in the bedroom. I’m looking forward to getting them socialized enough that we can let them out into the rest of the house, and put their kitty litter back in the guest bathroom.
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Meet Apollo
Apollo is a twelve week old kitten who has already started to evince an outgoing nature. He took his time last night getting out of the cat carrier, but since then he’s been the one bounding around the room and exploring all things cat-sized.
For now, we’re keeping both him and his sister, Artemis, in our master bedroom suite. We’ve got their next to our windows and their litter box is in the bathroom. Unfortunately, as I discovered last night about 3:00 AM, these kittens have some seriously stinky bowel movements. We’ll get them comfortable with this room and then let them out into the rest of the house at which point we’ll move the litter box back into the other bathroom.
Apollo matches our comforter quite well, doesn’t he?
Artemis is still very shy and skittish. She’s been occupying the space either beneath the bed, or beneath our dressers. Until she becomes a bit more comfortable, I’m afraid no images will be forthcoming.
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New Family
Say hello to Artemis and Apollo! They arrived at our home less than half an hour ago.
Apollo was the most outgoing at the Vet, but he was not the first one to emerge from the carrier.
Better pictures when we get better light. I don’t want to shock them with the flash.
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Psyche Cat: 1998 – 2011
We chose to put Psyche to sleep this morning. Her kidneys had failed and the likelihood of them coming back in time to clean her system of the built up poisons was small. The choices were to take her home and let her die there, transfer her to the emergency veterinary hospital where she would more than likely die alone and amongst strangers, or to administer the euthanasia drugs while she was laying in our arms and still had some comfort and care. She died just before noon.
Psyche came into our home while we were living in Lubbock, TX. It was 2000 and this long-haired gray cat kept hanging out by our back door. Our neighbors told us the previous tenants had been feeding this cat, so we kept up the tradition. After a while, despite my insistence that we were not going to adopt this cat (we already had an adopted cat, Cassandra, you see), I opened the door and she just walked inside, neat as you please.
And never left.
Psyche was the ultimate indoor cat. She occasionally showed some interest in what was going on outside, but never really wanted to leave the house. She was Jenn’s companion through her dissertation work and kept me company when I was sleeping on the couch. She was a tough-as-nails feline who would demand rough rough rough scritches and then bite you when she liked it. She was soft and fuzzy and loved us both. We’re going to miss her terribly.
We buried Psyche on the front hill of our house, where the previous owners had also laid some pets to rest. Psyche deserved to be placed there as this was more her house than ours, by virtue of total time spent inside it.
We both cried a lot this morning and I’m already catching things out of the corner of my eye that I immediately think is her, before remembering that she’s gone. All that’s left now is to clean up her litter boxes, vacuum up the seventy or so pounds of fur that she’s left around the house, and remember what a wonderful companion our kitty cat was.
All of the images of Psyche on flickr are here.
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Things you See in the ER
Last night, we had to spend some time in the veterinary emergency room. Our cat was exhibiting some distressing symptoms. Verdict is: Who knows. Maybe a stroke. Maybe a seizure (although apparently cats don’t get seizures like people do, the convulsions are symptomatic of something else, instead). Maybe a dislocated clot that caused her excessive pain. Maybe a brain tumor. No idea. We know it wasn’t hypertension because, despite the amount of noise she was making during the blood pressure test, she had perfectly normal pressure. Hopefully this is a one time thing, but we’ll watch her carefully for the next few weeks.
But, that’s not what this post is about. We were in the ER last night about 1:30 AM when two big, burly guys come rolling in carrying their huntin’ dawgs. They were dressed in mudders and other clothing that indicated that they had just come from the hunt. Their dogs had both been bitten by a snake or snakes. They were justifiably concerned.
My question: What were these guys hunting at night? With dogs? One of the dogs had a radio collar of some sort on. I imagine it was a tracker? I am excessively curious what they were doing. And, what self respecting snake is awake at night to bite those dogs?
Curiouser and curiouser.
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Dross & Nuggets
This image is clear proof that if you take enough shots with your 2Mpx camera, eventually something will come out that is worthy of being blown up to 8×10.
This is our lovely, freaky, hairy cat named Psyche (seye’-kee). She is named for the Greek Goddess of the mind, continuing our tradition of adorning pets with Greek Mythological names. Unfortunately, she has taken the name and applied it directly to its derived word, “psychotic.” She is, without a doubt, a freak.Also, she is very hairy and loves to share that hair with us, and the carpet, and the couch, and regularly condenses it into a nice tidy bundle and then vomits it back onto some flat surface in the house. I’ll never have a long-haired cat again.
Don’t get me wrong, I love our cat. But she’s a freak.
