My two black kitties Onyx & Ebony, otherwise known as the Dark Duo, are brother & sister who randomly wrestle & cuddle as you’d expect of siblings. They also assist each other in getting into grand mischief…boy can they be creative! Their most recent exploits will display first, but you can keep scrolling to continue reading the archives of The Continuing Adventures of Ebony & Onyx!
Uploaded camera photos into the iPad and posted successfully! Now the laptop can stay at home for my Orlando trip! Not sure if I’ll be as loquacious as my other travels only having the iPad onscreen keyboard though… 
For more details about the giant gingerbread house, see BrittaBlvd.com. 
Happy Holidays!
Knowing Ebony’s fetish for jingle bells, stealing them and losing them under furniture, these silver glitter jingle bell spiders aren’t coming anywhere near my house! Haha…
Onyx was quite comfy tonight! I never thought I’d have a kitty who could stretch as far as my long legs!
Server issues are still plaguing gallery, hence the lack of recent posts since the projects need photos…but I risked another server crash to post a single image to wish everyone Happy Holidays!
All of us at Brittahytta posing with the new fireplace mantel!
Wishing everyone a happy holiday season & a fantastic 2010!
I know that Onyx likes avocado, but are you kidding me?!?
I came into the kitchen & saw this…he had pulled the whole bag of avocados off the counter onto the floor, and had already eaten through the woven plastic bag and THROUGH THE SKINS of two avocados! Sheesh! I hope he didn’t eat too much of the rind!
This does not bode well for me being gone as of Friday, let alone gone all day at work! This was their safe room, and now just as of tonight Onyx has figured out how to open the door! I’m seriously thinking of buying a round doorknob & replacing the lever style before I leave for Christmas!
Ebony & Onyx should be full grown by now since they are now 6 months old, and Onyx is so big I sure hope he is! They are still as cute as can be, and still plenty rambunctious. I heard a bang-crash in the kitchen a few weeks ago, and it was a cookie tin that was stored above the top kitchen cabinets, inches from the ceiling, now on the floor, with Onyx running away down the hall. They are definitely not staying out by themselves all day without me there to check on them! I wonder if I’ll ever be able to feel they would be safe? Even when I’m in & out of the house doing projects, they do things like unroll an entire new roll of paper towels in the kitchen. They were able to bite through a bag of miniature chocolate candy rocks last weekend that I thought was safely put away, and it didn’t look like many were eaten, but Onyx had some diarrhea later poor thing. At least he made it to the litter box! I’m glad it wasn’t worse since I know chocolate is bad for kitties. Ebony probably didn’t like them since she was okay, however you can see below that Onyx is much more gastronomically adventurous than she is! I have also had to take the CatGenie apart several times now since random toys or strings get stuck and don’t allow it to drain properly. I can’t figure out where the kitties find all this assortment of string! I know long strings are bad for cats to eat since they can tangle in their digestive tracts, so I hope they’re just dropping toys into the litter box instead of being processed through the kitties, and I’m on the lookout now taking any long strings away. I am more afraid of them hurting themselves by doing something like that or breaking something that might hurt them than worried for my stuff’s sake. Things have been broken already of course, but thankfully nothing expensive or sentimental…yet? I’m trying to be better about not leaving anything important or dangerous where kitties can find them, but I’m obviously still learning.
I think Onyx understands that he’s too heavy now to try sitting on my neck anymore, but Ebony still tries. She always wants on my lap, more than Onyx now, and if I’m sitting back enough, she’d rather climb up & sit on my chest. I guess my “pillows” are comfier than my lap? I still have mornings when I wake up with a kitty trapping my shoulder & neck, but Onyx seems to favor my legs now, so I’m trapped on both ends! Isn’t it awful to have to disturb kitties to get out of bed for work? I already have a hard time getting up in the morning, so I don’t need extra disincentive! Ebony is another story, but I also haven’t seen Onyx climb anymore, either my curtains or my bathrobe on the hook behind the door. Perhaps the night I came home and found my bedroom curtain rod on the floor was Onyx’s last attempt? Ebony seems to relish her vertical exercise, and my bathrobes and curtains are both showing the strain with claw marks & loose threads everywhere. I have bought matching replacement curtains for later if she ever stops climbing! I think they need a tall cat tree, but I need to do research on the best buy & best format. The ones I saw at PetSmart weren’t my preferred design for the $150 they cost. Something tall enough like up to the ceiling could go by the same bedroom window, then maybe that would be enough to make the curtain climbing not as attractive.
Cyd & I made a quick stop at BevMo last month, and I happened across this Schwartze Katte Riesling – in a black cat bottle! I had to buy two of course. Cyd was making fun of me buying two, sarcastically saying “of course the cats will know if you only bought one” but I said “_I_ would know I only bought one, and that’s what matters.” One is still unopened, and it’s drinkable but not a $10 riesling in my opinion. At least the bottle is worth it. I couldn’t get Onyx to pose, but Ebony cooperated nicely.
Ebony & Schwartze Katte Riesling
‘inappropriate urination’ progress
‘Inappropriate urination’ was the technical term the vet used on Ebony’s chart for our checkup last month. Since Ebony was still peeing on the bed sometimes even though she was still using the litter box, I wanted to be sure she wasn’t trying to show me a physical problem, even though it was normal color & barely any odor. Since they both needed a checkup anyway, we all went to the vet right by my house, highly recommended by Nathania. Very nice office and very nice vet. The kitties were both very well behaved! Onyx only has issues when the car is moving, otherwise they are both content to be in the carrier. They sniffed the exam room thoroughly but not in fear. They checked out fine, then Ebony needed a urine sample, which has to be done by needle. When the vet came back with her, she had high praise for Ebony! “I couldn’t find her bladder by feel since it wasn’t full enough, so I had to use the ultrasound. Ebony just sat back with her legs open showing her tummy and was such a good girl!” Even if she pees in the wrong place sometimes, I can be proud she cooperated with the vet. The urinalysis came back the next day all clear, so the vet suggested enzyme treatment like I’d already been doing and maybe adding pheromone spray to calm her in case it was stress or confusion. I kept covering the bed in plastic as soon as I got up in the morning, and only taking if off when we went to bed at night. I would test each weekend when I was home to see if Ebony would have a successful day without peeing on the bed. Alas she kept peeing unless the plastic was there, sometimes right before bed which was a real pain when I just wanted to sleep!
I have now retired that down comforter to outside use only, since I’m sure even with multiple washings & multiple enzyme treatments each wash (my gallon of enzyme is already almost gone!), there is still some odor she can detect even though I can’t, since I had seen her pawing at a place she peed on but after two washings later. Even with a different comforter and my sheets & mattress pad that had been copiously washed and treated multiple times with enzyme, after all day of being good, she peed right where I sleep this past Saturday evening – argh! At least she missed the comforter & the bedspread this time. I got out a different cheapo mattress pad plus my old sheets, both that she had never peed on, and doused everything with pheromone spray that I finally bought last week. So far so good, since Sunday through now still no accidents. I’m using the spray instead of the diffuser since the bathroom is right off the bedroom, and I don’t want her confused if the diffused pheromones reach as far as the bathroom. I’ve sprayed the bed several times, and a couple spots on the floor that had pee issues have also been sprayed, plus I try to keep leaving toys there, which is a technique suggested in the cat behaviorist book I have. Let’s hope this is a long-term solution! Too bad that means the bright teal sheets I finally found can never be used again, since I only found them just that one week in October on clearance at Target and have never seen them anywhere again. C’est la vie!
Onyx is a garbage disposal!
Onyx is a garbage disposal! He will eat just about anything! They are both always so excited when I give them something new to taste, Onyx scarfs his down, and Ebony tastes hers and usually spits it out. Then she looks at Onyx obviously enjoying his, so she has to go investigate what he has, since he couldn’t possibly have the same icky thing she had! The funniest example of this so far is the Case of the Grooved Avocado.
I used half an avocado for my salad for dinner, but didn’t put away the other half and left it on the counter cleanly cut, throwing the pit away. I had shooed various kitties off the counter over the course of the evening but hadn’t seen what they were up to. Hmm…this avocado had a clean cut shape when I left it there, but now it had grooves and was a nice consistent curve! Well, I suspected it was Onyx since he’s the cheese & cashew lover so far, with Ebony turning her nose up at those herself, but I cut it in half to give them both a chance. Yep, Onyx went to town scarfing every last bite he could, and Ebony kept sniffing, looking at Onyx, going to sniff his avocado like “if he likes it it must be something different than I have”, several times over. She really didn’t like it since she did the little paw scratch like she’d rather bury it! I was laughing out loud watching Onyx eat! I’ll bet his coat will stay nice & shiny this way!
Diet progress
I feel so bad that I have hungry kitties all the time now instead of letting them eat when they want to, but the vet said they were already getting overweight and so many health issues like diabetes are caused by obesity, so it’s better to never get fat than to try to lose it later. Sounds familiar of course. She said the kitties will figure it out between them, so just give them no more than 1/2 cup each total for the day. I’ve been feeding them 1/4 cup morning & night, as close to 12 hours apart as I can, but I think Onyx is being a bully. Ebony has lost her Buddha belly now and she’s not skinny but I can feel her ribs and not see them, which is proper weight range for cats, but Onyx is heavier than ever and I can’t feel his ribs yet. He is a big boy now, bigger than Kylie ever was, but how can he not be losing weight when, even if he ate all of Ebony’s food, which is not happening when I watch, that’s still less food than he was eating when the food was available all day long…? No, they are not getting treats very often. Just some avocado rind licking when I happen to have it, and maybe a tiny scrap here & there, definitely not every day. Ebony did like the tiny scraps of smoked salmon I gave them and I let them lick the empty bag, but I don’t buy that very often. Same with the empty crab cans from making crab puffs, it doesn’t happen very often but they each had their own empty can to lick so they enjoyed those. I do need to find some more treats that Ebony likes, since I feel bad that she gets left out only because she doesn’t happen to like the same things that Onyx likes. She seems so disappointed when Onyx scarfs down a treat that she doesn’t like, even though I give some to both of them at the same time, just in case she changed her mind. Neither of them liked the lettuce I gave them when they begged in the kitchen, so I guess there are some things even Onyx doesn’t like.
Where did the kitty go?
Ebony & Onyx are often fascinated by the TV or the computer but this one takes the cake. While I was trying to edit my kitten video clips in iMovie, Onyx came over to investigate, was intently watching himself and Ebony play on the screen, tried to bat at the toy moving on the screen, then he kept jumping around behind the laptop screen to find out where the rest of the toy went…then one of the clips was of them jumping in & out of boxes, and when the on-screen Onyx ran off screen to the left, Onyx jumped left to attack the kitty, but there was nothing there in the real world! He looked so confused! Hahaha!
Onyx’s turn…
Tuesday night I decided to have another bath since I was still a little sore from my weekend yardwork. Both kitties are still intently fascinated by the water, but Ebony hasn’t been jumping up on the edge of the tub since her fall in December, so maybe she learned her lesson. Onyx however wants to jump on the edge and go across to the far corner against the wall. He does this before I can stop him, so this time instead trying to lift an uncooperative cat with wet hands and risk getting scratched, I was trying to coax him to go across & back down to the floor. Well, I was starting to turn around, then I felt a claw in my back & heard a splash, as I pulled as far back as I could so I wouldn’t be scratched worse! Somehow he kept his face dry, but his back half was absolutely soaked! He didn’t even shake, but started creeping into my bedroom, leaving giant puddles behind him, then I grabbed a towel to try drying him off a bit. Poor kitty! He started licking himself dry, not bothered too much anymore, then I heard some playing going on in the corner I couldn’t see. I went over to look and he was chasing his tail around in circles! He hasn’t done that before, and he seemed to be mystified by this fun new toy. I thought maybe since his normally fluffy squirrel tail was now so skinny since it was drenched, maybe he didn’t recognize it as his own tail! Either that or it was just a fun game. Ebony was watching him chase his tail, so she would pounce across the room to get in on the game, but then seemed disappointed it was only his tail.
Fresh air & a view! See how much larger Onyx is than Ebony?
I’ve been ruthless about editing the kitty videos down to what I think are actually funny enough short segments to watch, but I think they need some music. Hopefully next week I can post those. Until then, you can check out the new photos in Ebony & Onyx’s photo album for your dose of cuteness.
Now that I finally have 4 days and over 100 miles of driving fine in the Briata again – the transmission fluid was low, so they think it was an air bubble in the fluid since no leaks they could find – I realize it’s been awhile for kitty updates. Ebony & Onyx are still as cute as can be, growing larger every day, and getting more adventurous about jumping, including booting up the kitchen iMac! They have started it up so many times now that I honestly think they’ve figured out if they step in the right place, the screen lights up & starts moving & making noise! They are certainly fascinated enough by my laptop and even the TV. Anything that moves is fair game of course, whether real or onscreen. Even the hammers inside the piano have been attacked while I’m playing! I have been trying to discourage improper behaviors with a loud, long, low-pitched NOOO which at least gets their attention at the time. Since last night & Sunday night it was a game of “who can jump on the counter first?” they will definitely not yet be allowed free rein in the house while I’m gone at work!
Not all these below are adventures specific to the kittens, but I wouldn’t have the CatGenie if I didn’t have Ebony & Onyx, so you can read them all if you’d like. There are also more kitty photos starting on page 13 of their gallery album. This one is from when I pulled out a kitchen drawer to reorganize it, and they climbed in to nap on the extra towels and black cat potholders.
Can you find all three black cats?
Onyx is unafraid of spinning
I have witnessed twice so far that Onyx has decided he can’t wait 5-10 more minutes for the CatGenie to finish the drying cycle, so if it looks clean & dry enough, he climbs in while the bowl is still rotating. Obviously the CatGenie “eyes” dont stop anything when an object enters the bowl mid-cycle, only before a cycle starts. I was ready to stop the cycle if Onyx got in trouble but he was fine, did his thing, walking backwards against the direction of rotation until he had enough room, jumped out of the way since the scooper is down when it’s drying, then looked a bit upset that he couldn’t bury his mess properly. I consoled him & told him it was okay, then laughed pretty hard that he even tried! This last time I saw him do this, he cleverly realized that if he stood on the bowl edge that does not rotate, he can still aim into the bowl as it spins. Too bad I haven’t been able to get video footage, since this is a pretty funny sight to see!
CatGenie error beeping is annoying & sometimes unnecessary?
The CatGenie can get a clog in the line but clear it by itself and finish the cycle just fine. Unfortunately when it does that, it beeps 3 times every second until a human presses the correct button, which sometimes means several hours until I get home from work! Thank goodness my kitties seem unfazed by the beeping, since I have seen them get in & use it while still beeping while I looked up the instructions, plus they don’t act annoyed by it. I think the blinking error light without beeping should be sufficient if it cleared its own clog. I’m expecting clogging to happen since cat hair cannot be ground up by the impeller, so for longer-haired cats, it can build up clogs more often. The basic recommendation is to take the CatGenie apart to clean thoroughly once a year, but for longer-haired cats they say it might need to be twice a year or more. We’ll see…
My CatGenie is now ‘blind’
Since the documentation is not detailed about how the CatGenie “eye” sensors work (yes, the official booklet calls them CatGenie “eyes”!), I thought that they detected motion, so the sink drainpipe being next to them shouldn’t be an issue. Also I thought the manual cycle would still check the “eyes” first, so when I was running manual cycles with the CatGenie in place inside the cabinet I thought all would be well. Alas, I couldn’t set it for automatic since the “eyes” see any obstruction, moving or not, so the drainpipe was always in the way. For Christmas I had to set the CatGenie on the bathroom floor again so it would go automatically while I was gone. Since I also learned from Onyx’s using while in motion escapades that the sensors didn’t do a heck of a lot, plus my cats didn’t seem to be bothered that it moves, I decided to try to defeat the “eyes”. I searched online & found discussion forums, but nothing about defeating the sensors. I tried mirrors on the drainpipe, but since the drain is so close to the processor unit, I’m sure the infrared is just bouncing off the unit and still thinks it’s too close so is an obstruction. So, moving on to more intrusive measures, I bought myself a long-shaft philips-head screwdriver to open the processor unit, which unfortunately doesn’t open completely without disconnecting other wires. Thankfully the only one that got disconnected as I was opening it was labeled on the circuit board “water valve” so I knew it was supposed to be plugged in! I looked for the connections from the “eyes” to the circuit board, which luckily was easily traceable & just a plug, and fairly easily accessible at the top, but since my hands couldn’t get inside, I had to use needlenose pliers to gently pull out the plug and leave it hanging nearby. If I ever move the box to a new location or if I ever need warranty service, I can plug the sensors back in on the circuit board and I’m sure it’ll work as designed. Since there wasn’t enough slack in the water valve wire and it kept twisting, I couldn’t plug it back in without the case almost closed, and it was farther down inside, so I had to use a long thin fondue fork to guide it, then press it back in. I put everything back together in place, and voila – now I have auto cycle running every day at 10:30am & 10:30pm!…unless it has an error – see above & below…
Random peeing is still to be expected from kittens I guess?
Onyx peed on a tasseled blanket in the corner but at least not on the floor, and it washed just fine. Unfortunately I didn’t find that until it had dried so unknown as to why. Last Thursday morning Ebony peed on my down comforter on my bed, I caught her scratching at it while it was fresh, which got washed twice with bleach, OxyClean & detergent, then Saturday morning she peed on my shiny black boots while I was in the bathroom – thank goodness the water-resistant ones, so I was able to carry them carefully to the shower to clean them and douse them with the anti-cat pee enzyme I have. I’ve never had a male cat before so I didn’t know this in advance, but Onyx’s accidents definitely smell different than Ebony’s, which is how I can tell who was at fault! 
I hope Ebony was just upset that I was leaving in the morning. Either that or she wants more litter in the box, which is on its way from Amazon as we speak. They used so many more granules than I expected over Christmas that I was behind in my ordering.
Ebony fell in the toilet again, this time much worse!
Both cats are fascinated by running water in the sink when I’m getting ready in the morning, so they jump on the closed toilet up to the back of the toilet, then over to the sink. They will even jump up to the sink just to see what’s going on, or stare at the sink in hopes the water will eventually start moving. This can get a bit annoying, but it’s been okay so far, and it’s really hard to discourage that behavior when I have clean wet hands while putting in my contact lenses, or a toothbrush in my mouth so can’t say NOOO, so I’ll just deal with it & think it’s cute. This is why all the toilet lids are always shut…however, there are times when I must use the toilet for its intended purpose. Being a lady, this requires the additional step of wiping before I flush. This past Friday morning I didn’t think I was taking that long, but Ebony was faster than me, since before I could react she jumped on the toilet seat to try to get up in her normal path, but she slipped and fell into the toilet before I could flush! Eeeww! Thankfully she is big enough now that only her hind legs & tail fell in, but I was a blur as I turned around and lifted her up by her armpits, put her inside the shower and shut the shower door behind her. I was not going to have her running around my bedroom in that state! I quickly wiped up the mess & myself which wasn’t as bad as it could have been, then opened the shower door to see spots everywhere from Ebony trying to shake off. Double eeww! I cleaned her off thoroughly with a soaking wet washcloth, and she was very good at letting me hold her hanging in that awkward position with one hand as the other was wiping everywhere I could. Either she was thankful or maybe still in shock? Thankfully I was still in my pajamas not work clothes yet, but I was really late for my chiropractor appointment that morning, and I left with a load of laundry going from the morning mess. Needless to say I’m blocking the jump path with my free arm while I’m finishing my business from now on!
Latest CatGenie mess
Just last night I got home from rehearsal to hear a new beep pattern…uhoh! I knew about the 3 beeps, but this was one beep, and it definitely hadn’t cleaned the box and was stopped in mid-cycle, but at least no standing water in the bowl which would have been worse. Looking up the instructions that means something is wrong with the water sensor or it has a clog. I tried the “shake out the clog” trick but that wasn’t enough to get it restarted. The scooper was down with plenty of mess in the box, so that was delightful to disassemble, especially with both curious kitties “helping!” As I took it apart & cleaned off the worst, with as much mess going down the toilet as proper, I saw the impeller had a big chunk stuck in it, plus there was not only cat hair but a really long plastic string wrapped around the impeller shaft. The red rubber washer had also come off so that might have been an issue, or it might have fallen off when I pulled out the impeller unit. I didn’t do the thorough cleaning since that would require the waste line being unhooked from how I have it going behind the cabinet, but the entire impeller unit is now nigh spotless from the scalding shower tap, and that seems to have resolved it for now. Hopefully that will stop the clog beeping for awhile too. I’m also very glad it decided to do this now, BEFORE I leave on Sunday for my week-long work trip! I’d hate to have a catsitter deal with that mess!
Ebony & Onyx both must have had growthspurts when I was away for Christmas, since not only did they eat more food in 7 days than they had in 2 weeks for a month previous, but they were definitely larger when I got home! Ebony has been catching up to Onyx, even though she is still smaller. She has quite the round belly though! Onyx had already started looking like a teenager before I left, but Ebony looks more like a grown up cat now than a kitten. I missed them a lot, but they don’t seem to have forgotten me, and they’ve let me sleep in three mornings now, so I guess they’ve forgiven me for being gone so long. I’m back to work tomorrow so no more sleeping in for me anyway.
When we were having an afternoon of Christmas baking & fudge-making, Kaelyn brought a sparkly aqua scarf to give to the kitties. They played with it a little that day, but since I left so soon I didn’t have the chance until now to play with them with it…boy do they like that! Extra bonus for me that it matches their collars! They have also discovered for some reason the fringe on the decorative blankets must be tasty, since they look like they’re eating spaghetti when they’re chewing on them…heehee…
I’m guessing I’ve had the first kitten-induced casualty though, since I had heard a big THUNK the night I came home and let them out to play, but I didn’t notice anything was missing until the next day. My Deadly Nightshade canister that Jen gave me had been knocked down behind the fridge, cracking the lid into several pieces. I pulled out the fridge & rescued the pieces plus all the utensils that had been living in the canister, and yesterday I spent awhile with Super Glue getting the lid back together. It’s not pretty but if that’s the worst they do I’ll be surprised & very lucky.
Ebony loves the sparkly scarf…
..and so does Onyx. They take turns very well!
Ebony, the blanket fringe is NOT spaghetti!
Now Onyx thinks it’s spaghetti too!!
Of course there are even more cute photos starting here.
Now since it’s a nice sunny day, I’ll be taking a long walk to a friend’s house this afternoon to get myself some New Years luck by eating homemade black-eyed peas, greens & cornbread! The dieting will start tomorrow instead since I’ve unfortunately gained almost 10 lbs since Halloween…ugh…
Happy Holidays from Ebony, Onyx & Britta!!
The KittenCam is working, but either we had an earthquake to shake it, or the kittens pulled the power cord enough to knock it sideways, so you can’t see the scratching post anymore and your neck gets sore trying to watch…haha!
I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas today!
Finally time to post from I-5 driving through Oregon in my parents’ new RV, ~100 miles south of Portland, still on our way to Seattle for family Christmas. My parents have a Verizon aircard USB modem that works okay but not super-fancy. I did try to set up a local Airport network from my MacBookPro so we could all share the connection, but I must not be doing something right since they could all join the network I made but not get online through it, so instead we just pass around the USB modem and take turns being online. My dad has become addicted to the Internet since he reitred in October…he gets the dirtiest jokes I’ve ever seen from his friends! haha…
A typical morning for me now – kitties everywhere! Challenging to use the sink & get my makeup on!
Giant thanks to Cyd who is checking on the kittens every day for me while I’m away. I hope they don’t forget me! I even set up the wifi webcam in my bedroom to be able to check on my kitties, which worked the first night, so my parents & I got to see them cuddling together comfy on the down comforter, but by Friday afternoon it had stopped working. I suspect the kitties stepped on the power switch on the power strip or were wild enough to unplug the webcam power…oh well! The ride is too bumpy for any detailed Photoshop work, so I still have yet to do my Christmas e-card with my kitties. That will be done when we’ve stopped so I can still send it out by Christmas Eve.
Last night as we were in the RV campground outside Roseburg, OR, my mom & I played Scrabble. I stayed about 20 points ahead the entire game, getting lucky with being able to put down 2 letters for 15 points several times, but she was able to use up all her letters before me so she caught up a little. Final score has been forgotten but was something like 261 to 250? This is the first game I’ve ever played where only a single letter was left! Check out the board!
Final Scrabble board – a Peterson family milestone to have only one letter left!
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!
UPDATE 10:30pm: the KittenCam is now working again! Thanks Cyd! 
Britta with the Head Elf & Santa
Last week the same day The Choral Project sang at Google HQ plus free lunch was the annual face painting by Britta at my company party, with my silly Ms Santa miniskirt outfit that I hear was inspected by the guys in the crowd while I ran up to claim my raffle prize…haha! Then yardwork in the chilly sun, two evening parties, a nice homemade Sunday luncheon, The Golden Compass, and 5 hours standing over a warm stove making 12 dozen krumkake was my weekend. Add to that my furnace stopped working late Saturday night, so I was actually appreciating the warm stove in my cold house! Thankfully I was right on the renewal date of my home warranty that I’ve now paid for year 3 up through next December, so what would have been a $400 emergency service to replace the gas valve was a $55 fee for me…plus the renewal fee of $456 of course, but if something else breaks I’ll be ahead. My water heater drain valve seems to be leaking a little but still working so far, so you never know what might happen!
Kittens comfy on their Christmas stockings
More kitten tales of course…
The kitties don’t seem traumatized by their surgeries on Tuesday, so that’s all good. They have both doubled their weight in one month to over 4 lbs each now, but Ebony has quite a round belly and she’s only a few ounces behind Onyx even though he’s so much larger overall. I’m guessing their surgery was first thing in the morning since they were so rambunctious when I picked them up in the afternoon – not groggy in the least! How do you convince kittens NOT to play? They were wrestling so hard at home I was afraid the glue stitches might pop on Ebony, but they’re all fine, even though they weren’t quite as coordinated as usual, which led to a lot of confused kitty faces over the evening as normal jumps up to chairs and things met with slips and falls. Since they were too curious about all my fudge containers that were clean & greased, I had to confine them to the much safer bedroom while I spent the entire evening making all my special holiday fudge. I decided to reward myself with a nice warm bath, so I ran the water with the door closed since I knew Ebony would have to watch the water run, and I was afraid in her clutzy state she might fall in. So far so good, then I got in the bath & closed the shower doors, but then I heard one getting into something I thought might be dangerous. I peeked out the door, and Ebony jumped right into the corner of the tub, but Onyx jumped up right behind her and pushed her into the tub! I was able to catch her fall with my bare shoulder so only her front half got soaked, not her incision, but my poor girl looked like a drowned rat! She is even tinier with no fluffy fur! She didn’t seem to mind much and started cleaning herself. I set up the space heater so she could dry off in the warm air, but she liked it up on the bed on the down comforter better. Onyx was only a little wet on one side, but they both dried with more of a punk spiky look until I brushed them before bedtime. This is the second time Ebony has been drenched, the first time accidentally jumping into a thankfully-clean toilet right under my mother’s nose, and somehow with her fascination with water I do not think it will be the last!
Onyx is not without his quirks. This past week he has a new game in the early mornings, when I would really like just a little more sleep. He already likes sleeping on my neck, or on top of my head on the pillow, which is nice & cuddly when my mouth & nose can avoid the fur, but then as soon as I stir at all, he starts snorting his nose in my ear, which could be a little cute if it was gentle, but this is wet snorting…and soon after the snorting, he starts sucking intently on my earlobe, really latching on hard, including kneading my face with his paws! Honey, you’re not gonna get any breakfast from that! Lots of kitten stuff is very cute, but I have to tell you that is pretty darn gross and definitely not the way I’d like to wake up in the morning!
Both kittens run across the laptop keyboard if I forget to close it, so several emails have accidentally been deleted and random characters typed, but only tonight has something legible occurred…this is from Ebony:
mn000000000000000000
That appeared on my scratch file to do list while I was trying to do dishes after baking about 6 dozen snowflake sugar cookies, so maybe she’s trying to tell me to stop working & sit down to give her a lap? Seeing that while I’ve been typing this she has indeed settled on my lap, I think I’m right… Now Onyx is not to be outdone, since he’s pawing at my animated LJ icon on the screen!
Amongst more kitty cuteness of course, coming up next we have our Choral Project concerts this weekend with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, including my holiday party after the Saturday night concert, which is why the frantic baking this week between the evening concert rehearsals. That’s what I get for attending 3 events last weekend instead of staying home doing party prep, but they were fun, and since I have until Saturday vs. Friday, somehow I think I can get more done…we’ll see! After that I’m off work until the New Year, including Christmas in Seattle with family. I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday season!
…and his name is Onyx! 
Last Wednesday my parents’ neighbor came by to see the kittens, and she has experience with puppies & kittens and how difficult it can be to tell the difference when they’re young…lo & behold Onyx had little extra “parts” appearing that were not there when I took him home the week earlier! He was as smooth underneath as Ebony back then! Well, there’s a surprise! Onyx still works as a boy name at least, but I feel bad about calling him “little girl” for a whole week, plus the rhinestone collar he’s wearing. He’s growing faster than Ebony and he was larger in the first place, but that also explains the size difference and his more rowdy tendencies, including climbing straight up the flagstone gossamer walls Monday night! He is still the Purr Machine you can hear across the room, and he’s still more cuddly than Ebony, even though Ebony has her very sweet moments, often concerning licking my hair or staring intently into my eyes, and usually follows suit with the cuddling once Onyx settles in.
New photos are here! If I ever get the chance to edit, I’ve taken about 2 hours of funny video per my mom’s request to save their kittenhood for posterity, so I might post those on YouTube later.
Photo shoot attempt with silly paper cars from Mel’s Diner as Onyx attacks Ebony from below
P.S. Tivo status is that everything is working now with the replacement unit except it can’t negotiate the phone call regardless of any forum post ideas I have tried. Next step I guess is to see if I can use the ethernet cable and make the daily schedule call via my home network…which would require running a cable from my living room to my office which is no small hassle right now. I think I’ll be thankful the writers strike is taking new shows off the air for awhile! heh…
I’ve tried edit more before posting cute kitty photos, so here’s *only* 35 more since Thursday evening…including kitty toys on tile their first night in the main house, my first lap cuddles on Friday night, both kitties contently listening to me play the piano Saturday night, and even Ebony walking along the keys, standing on the low register (for artistic effect?) before she continued along the keyboard! The first I heard her play was the highest “F, A, A” on her climb up to the top, but she doesn’t stay long enough for any soundfiles though…darn!
Ahhh…first kitty cuddles…even if it was mostly on my neck!
Ebony “plays” the VISIBLE piano
Ebony, Onyx & I will be driving later tonight to my parents’ house, where except for the traditional BBQ turkey that is my dad’s job, I will be doing the cooking this year, since my mom finally came home from the hospital on Sunday after her heart procedure last Tuesday, but she isn’t allowed to lift anything for awhile yet.
I am thankful for family & friends who supported me through a bad October, having a much better November, with new loving & fun kitties who allow me to enjoy my fond memories of Kylie without getting so sad that she’s now gone, my whiplash almost gone, my Briata staying fixed, and my mom doing well after surgery! Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
It’s even funnier knowing this is Ebony, named after the traditional wood for black piano keys…
Happy Friday!
Yeah I took over a hundred photos since yesterday afternoon, but I only posted 68! hehe…that’s why they’re in a gallery album so no one is forced to look at all of the photos…but they are SOOO cute!
The Humane Society called yesterday morning saying the kitties have a cold so were not allowed to have surgery, so they are on antibiotics for their sniffles, then once they’re well, hopefully a month or so, they can come back for their free surgery. If the antibiotics aren’t working within the 14 day grace period, I take them back to the post-adoption clinic for free. Ebony doesn’t seem to have any symptoms but Onyx is the one who is sneezing & has goopy eyes a bit. Thankfully they are agreeable to the syringe in the mouth method, so I was able to give them their medicine last night & this morning just fine. The cold isn’t slowing Onyx down at all which is good! They warned me that kittens with sniffles can’t smell their food so might not eat enough to recover properly, but I convinced Onyx to eat once I figured out if they wanted to share dishes or not (they do NOT!), so that’s all good too. They both even used the fancy litter box last night, and I ran its washing cycle this morning with the door shut, and that worked fine too. So far so good!
Even though I can tell them apart it is much easier with different collars on them. I bought an aqua collar and darker teal collar, both happened to have rhinestones, so that’s how I’m not playing favorites. How could I have one be teal & the other be a lesser favorite color like purple? Ebony has the aqua collar since it’s leather, but Onyx got the darker teal “unshreddable” one, since she seems much more rambunctious. I had to poke 3 extra holes in Ebony’s collar and it’s still big, but they will grow into them. They have been microchipped which I need to register online for a fee, but I got them ID tags for their collars already too. I had missed the little kitty collar jingle so much around my house!
I had to wait almost an hour for their medication before we could leave the Humane Society, but co-workers wanted to see them before I took them home, so they had fun playing in one of the cubes for awhile and fun ribbon dangled for them while everyone said “awww!” The ride home was horrible traffic, so mostly slow, and Ebony was quiet & calm as can be, but Onyx was telling me all about it the entire way! I haven’t heard her meow since we’ve been out of the car, but she definitely has a voice when she wants to use it! I haven’t heard Ebony meow at all yet. We’ll see how they grow up, since I like to talk to my kitties and for them to talk back to me. Maybe if I meow enough to them they’ll start talking more.
We barely got home before the altos arrived for sectional, and first & foremost before singing was meeting the kitties! I am keeping them in my bedroom with attached bathroom for now while they get used to my house. Ruth took some photos of me with my new kitties (thanks Ruth!), and they were fine amusing themselves while we were singing with the piano in the other room. Hopefully the early exposure will make them musical kitties!
After the altos left, I gave them their medication & fed them, then I watched them play for awhile, laughing the whole time. Even my mirrored closet doors were fun, since they kept thinking there were more kitties out of the corners of their eyes! Since I haven’t been storing anything under my bed, it’s a whole other playground for chasing each other & wrestling since they’re just the right height right now, but I couldn’t get any photos of that. Of course they had found the pile of unread magazines under my bed, so I started trying to sort the pile while they were playing, hence the paper mess on the floor in some of the photos. The scratching post with the cubbyholes was the absolute favorite though…all the cubbyholes got tested by each cat throughout the evening, and the game for several house and continuing this morning is “attack the kitty in the cubbyhole” complete with flying leaps and scrambles up the side, trading places who is actually in the cubbyhole. I wish I was small enough to join in, but I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with watching & laughing…
Onyx was pooped by 11:30 and found the comfy bed I had made for Kylie years ago that I had put in a new basket to be bigger for them. Ebony was calming down in a cubbyhole, then I saw the gleam in her eyes looking at Onyx like she was thinking “Hey, that looks much comfier!” She jumped down & snuggled in with Onyx, and they were there for the night, never waking me up all night. I had to get up early today for a crack-of-dawn meeting, so my alarm woke all of us up, and they were playing immediately. We’ll see what happens when I want to try to sleep in! I would like them to cuddle with me but I might have to convince them of that. Since they were already sleeping so comfortably before I was ready for bed myself, I couldn’t disturb them from such a peaceful first night in their new home.
For all you I Can Has Cheezburger & LOLcat fans, here’s my best shot so far, but I have no idea for a caption…go to it!
Since all the bathroom prep work got done this weekend as planned, plus my online Humane Society research resulted in that I’d probably not be able to take kitties home the same day anyway, I decided to go look today at lunchtime at the Peninsula Humane Society. My co-worker volunteers there and last week had found the most adorable litter of black kittens on the website. With my completed application in hand, I went looking. I saw 4 from the same litter, 2 boys & 2 girls, in the same cage, with one rambunctious boy having his own party while two were snuggled together so tightly I coudln’t even see what they looked like, let alone if they were girls or boys. I chose the two girls’ info tags and waited about 20 minutes for them to bring them to a room for me. Adorable! Not only had they just woken out of a comfy sleep, but it took them a minute to get used to the room, but then the larger one was immediately into everything with a spirit threatening to outgrow the room. The smaller one who seemed more gentle was just biding her time, since I saw the gleam in her eye watching the other one until she finally pounced across the room! I was laughing aloud they were having so much fun playing with each other! I was able to pick each one up individually and cuddle each to my chest and they didn’t fight, so that’s good too. Full of spirit and curiosity but still gentle enough to cuddle is exactly what I want in my life! I was thinking over the weekend of names for matching black kitties, so I was prepared with names I liked, but I had to meet them before deciding. Ebony is definitely the slightly smaller one who so far seems more graceful, but still full of spirit and mischief. Onyx is bold for sure. I think the names suit them but have enough dignity for when they grow up.
So let me introduce to you Ebony & Onyx! They are 2 month old sisters, medium hair black cats with beautiful pumpkin orange eyes! They will be spayed on Wednesday at the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo then I will take them home that evening. I can’t wait! Now I have to go around kittyproofing my house better before they come home! Just my purse on the floor got attacked immediately by Onyx so no more of that for awhile!
Of course these will never replace Kylie…they are just the next generation…
Thank you so much to everyone for all your nice words. It is very helpful to know I have such kind & supportive friends. Our conductor called as soon as he heard about Kylie, saying he understands if I couldn’t make choir rehearsal, which made me very thankful, since all the sympathy would have had me bawling worse, and if we sang anything remotely sad I would have lost it entirely. My work team sent a giant bouquet of lilies with a sympathy card which was very sweet but made me cry again, then Nathania & Kevin left a beautiful cheery-colored bouquet with a nice card on my porch too. I spent my evening doing laundry, cleaning all the rugs and cushions Kylie used, reorganizing leftover food that was still good, and cleaning the fancy litter box thoroughly, so it all will be out of my sight for awhile to let me grieve, but all clean for a new kitty eventually. Yesterday when I’d walk past the uneaten food from Sunday night I’d just start crying again so it took me awhile to get the gumption to clean it up so I wouldn’t react like that anymore. I keep thinking I hear her cries for help still in another room, like ghost meows. My plan was to get all kitty stuff cleaned & put away, then watch Chuck & Heroes to get my mind off the day’s events so I could sleep, but I wasn’t letting myself until I finished cleaning the litter box, and that was the hardest since that was the last thing, and it required taking it apart and unhooking from the water supply. By the time I started watching Chuck, eating a couple pumpkin pasties & leftover pastry brie for dinner with a big glass of homemade cider, I fell asleep halfway through the show so I just went to bed around 1am. I slept well thank goodness but my eyes are still puffy. A couple emails this morning had me crying a bit again, and now my boss just wanted details of what happened so my eyes were leaking by the end again, but at least not the racking sobs of yesterday.
I’ve been feeling guilty about trying to celebrate Halloween, but today I’ve decided I’m going to try to enjoy it because I know Kylie appreciated & loved my quirks along with me. It was always obvious to everyone that I was her favorite person. The last several years she was even participating in the parties by being social and cooperating with the holiday costumes, so I think she would approve of me celebrating my favorite holiday. If I didn’t like Halloween so much I wouldn’t have been wanting a black cat in the first place, then my roommate wouldn’t have told me he saw a black stray cat on Memorial Day 1996, so I have always considered Halloween “our” holiday and Kylie was my favorite Halloween accessory. I am wearing my new black cat earrings today in her honor, but I’m still not sure if I’ll wear my whole devil costume to work tomorrow. Maybe resurrecting the Webmistress outfit is another option since I haven’t worn it many years now. We’ll see how I feel & how early I can get up in the morning.
Thanks again everyone.
Requiem for Kylie
I just got back from putting Kylie to sleep. I am a blubbering wreck. I have never had to make that kind of decision before, and I always thought that I would rather she just died on her own than for me to have to make that decision, but seeing her so miserable yesterday and getting worse and worse, I could not bear to see her suffer any more than she has already.
This has all happened so fast, not even 2 weeks! At least that means she wasn’t suffering long, and really only miserable for 3 days, since for the week after her eye she was okay. Hindsight is always 20/20 of course. As of Friday afternoon I had hope for just the thyroid issue, which would explain voracious thirst and possibly high pressure on the eye, but she had only been drooling a few hours, and she was still attempting to eat, making a giant drooly mess of both her water dish and food dish, so I kept cleaning her water dish to give her fresh water, not realizing until late Sunday that the 2 liter reservoirs of water in the kitchen and my bathroom have only gone down 1/2″ since Friday night, and she’s been trying to drink every 15-30 minutes, so obviously no water was actually getting into her. She stopped trying to eat her dry food Saturday morning which could have been just being finicky, but after the party was over she didn’t even try the dry food. I tried giving her some wet food Sunday night and she eagerly licked at it, but never finished and just got it all over her face, chin & front paws as another drooly mess. I didn’t realize until last night the coughing she was doing when trying to drink is that she can’t swallow. I didn’t realize until Sunday afternoon that she hadn’t used the litter box in over 24 hours. I was clinging to my hope that it was something treatable and not looking for more problems or connecting the dots. Saturday night was as bad for meowing, drooling and cuddling attempts as Friday night, which meant 2 nights of no sleep for me but at least that meant she was still jumping up onto the bed. Sunday morning she started having trouble walking, like her back hips were sore. Throughout the day she kept gingerly walking around with an arched back, looking for somewhere comfortable, trying every water source she could find like the shower, and even the open toilet by hanging into it from the seat, like maybe different water would work better. She kept wanting to lay outstretched on the tile, or on the carpet, and she would moan and meow for help, breaking my heart each time. If she did hide somewhere and stop meowing, then I would get paranoid and go searching for her, wondering if I would just find her dead. Yesterday I was already a wreck, but today is worse.
Last night Kylie did not even attempt to cuddle, which means I got some sleep, but I woke up in terror that maybe lack of meowing meant something worse. I heard her in the litter box when I woke up so I went to watch. It looked like she was trying to pee but nothing was happening, and she gave up without burying anything. When I talked to my mom yesterday afternoon she recommended I write up all the symptoms and she’d send them to our family vet who is also a close church friend, which I did. I really wish I could find a vet like that around here. He emailed me back with some hope about the thyroid but to check the eye first, but he ended with it could be a tumor causing it all, which is what I had actually already worried about over a week ago when it was just sneezing & eye pressure. Hearing her moan, seeing her so listless, not grooming at all, drool matting her chin & front paws, was horrible to watch and not being able to do anything for her, and through the evening she kept seeming more listless and miserable. She didn’t even want to be held or cuddled last night. I was beginning to let myself put everything together that I don’t think she’s going to make it and her body was just shutting down, so I called my mom this morning, she had talked to the family vet again last night, and since Kylie had gotten so much worse so fast, he was recommending to end her suffering, thinking it was most likely a brain tumor causing the sneezing, eye pressure and now lack of ability to swallow. Unless there was some magic treatment, which I doubted, I was afraid I might come home from work and find her dead, and my mom told me she agreed with our family vet just to end it so she’s not suffering any longer. I called my vet again which is just Banfield at PetSmart, told them she has gotten so much worse since Friday, not swallowing anything and no litter box use so I was afraid this could be the end, and they said I could come in right away at 9am. That vet said Kylie was really dehydrated, they weighed her twice since she’d lost a whole pound in a week (10lbs to 9lbs), but even though I was saying I can’t bear to see her suffering, that vet called & got me an emergency appointment at the specialist office I was originally going to call first thing this morning if it was still just thyroid. I drove straight over, finally got into a room. Kylie was so miserable she wasn’t even doing her nervous panting during car rides and vet visits, nor was she fighting when picked up or taken out of the carrier. After explaining everything and saying I wanted to stop her suffering, that vet recommended keeping her overnight in ICU, possibly 2 nights, rehydrating her, then doing ultrasound & other poking and prodding, then once they investigated I would have an informed decision. I had no faith anything they found could be remedied since she was an old cat, old enough for things to just stop working, and the thought of her last days being in a scary hospital away from me, being poked & prodded & more miserable, I just couldn’t bear and I told them so. I said if she could understand we were trying to help her that would be one thing, but since she can’t I couldn’t bear the thought of her thinking I deserted her & left her in a scary place when she was already so miserable. If she was a younger cat, not the estimated 14, maybe even 16 years old, perhaps I would have agreed to that $2000, but I really believe her body was done, and since she wasn’t dying quickly and was so obviously miserable, I couldn’t subject her to more misery.
The extra irony is that my dad is coming this weekend to help me install my new master bathroom vanity cabinet that I specifically ordered to fit the fancy new CatGenie self-washing litter box that Kylie was finally happy with. We will still install the cabinet, granite top, faucet and new valves and drain, but it will be very bittersweet that the original reason is not around anymore. I hope to get another kitty eventually, so hopefully I can train that kitty to use the fancy litter box too. Right now it’s just another extra kick in the head in this really crappy month. I knew I was going to jinx myself if I asked what else could go wrong this month…and there are still 2 days left, so I won’t say it again.
Kylie had a good long life, with no problems until now, not even any fleas. She had the loudest purr you could hear across the room that often interfered with movie nights, the largest vocabulary complete with multiple inflections, and the most personality I’d ever seen in a cat, very sweet when she wanted to be, but mischevious enough to keep life interesting. I am very glad I had such good company in my life for 11 and a half years. I miss her so much already.
I put this all here so I hope I don’t have to talk about it again, so please don’t ask or I will never stop crying. Thank you.
The vet called back & said the bloodwork from last week was fine, no diabetes or other issue, except for high thyroid levels, which would explain the excessive drinking and pressure in the eyes. To confirm they needed more blood, and then I’ll need to go to a specialist next week. I took Kylie in for another blood sample as soon as I was off the phone with the vet, and thankfully she didn’t yowl so that must have been better than last week. That is all I can possibly do for her today, since they wouldn’t prescribe anything for her until the next blood test results are back.
Since there’s nothing else I can really do for her now except give her cuddles, which is difficult when she wants to hide away from the light, I will keep her comfy and safely away from party guests tomorrow, then get her to the specialist ASAP next week. There are 3 treatments: lifelong medication, surgical removal of the thyroid (riskier since intrustive surgery), and best chance is radio-iodine chemotherapy, which is a week stay at the hospital then she’d be fine. The chemo only works in some cats, though, so the specialist has to determine if she’s a good candidate. At least I know there are treatments, and we are well on the way to knowing what it is & how to fix it. It’s still a little hard to be as enthused about the party as usual, but I have done all I can do for her today, which is really the best I can do for her right now.
Melanie was vacuuming for me while I was at the vet, which was even better for keeping Kylie calm since she hates that, and Kael was helping with Batato Chips too. Their afternoon timing was impeccable for keeping party prep going while I zoomed over to the vet. I am VERY thankful for helpers this year!
Back to party prep now…thanks for the good thoughts for Kylie…
I’m waiting for the vet I saw last week to call me back. I think her “good” eye is less able to dilate as of around midnight, and she was washing both eyes so much last night her front paws & head were all scraggly. At least she’s giving the washing a rest as of this morning. Now today she’s been drinking water for about a minute straight about every half hour and is just letting it hang out of her mouth. That is not normal. My poor kitty…
The party will still happen, just might be less & less I get done before tomorrow night… 
Yesterday she was fine, but this morning Kylie’s right eye was fully dilated & non-responsive to any light. I can’t tell if she can see out of it since her other eye is thankfully fine. The rest of her face was okay, ears, whiskers & such, and she can walk fine, but who knows if something worse could be wrong with her, so after I got to work after the chiropractor, I called the vet but the only appointment they had was today at 1pm or wait until Monday. So that meant I basically turned around to drive home & am now working from home the rest of the afternoon…thank goodness again for a nice boss! She said “Isn’t this enough stuff going wrong for you yet?” I agreed…
Kylie has also been sneezing with what sounds like nasal congestion for about a month now, not getting better but not getting worse, so I asked them about that. I also think she might be drinking more water, but I don’t think her weight has significantly changed. Hard to tell about the water since in previous places her water dish wasn’t as visible to me every night. She has never had any major problems in the 11.5 years I’ve had her, but she has had her basic checkup & shots every December. An interesting cottonball dropping & throwing test to see which eye was responding was kinda funny, even Kylie was intrigued at the beginning, but was inconclusive. Her weight was pretty much the same as last checkup, but they recommended bloodwork & urine sample, liquid antibiotics by syringe into the mouth for the congestion (yeah right!), and wanted to check her eyes thoroughly, so they took her into the back and wouldn’t let me with her. Boy that was heartbreaking to listen to her, knowing that was her meow and that she was in pain, and that I wasn’t there to comfort her… They weren’t able to get the urine sample by needle they were hoping for, so we’ll wait on that and only try again if the bloodwork comes back with something warranting further testing. Even the same fluoroscein testing for any corneal abrasions that I get from my eye dr every year, but all was clear for that, plus no foreign objects in the eye.
What they did find was the pressure in the bad eye is through the roof, which is glaucoma. The pressure in the good eye is completely normal, but without knowing the cause of the glaucoma, we don’t know if it’ll spread to the other eye. It could be caused by a trauma, which I have no other evidence of that anything happened to her yesterday, some other underlying cause, or an infection, so they’ve prescribed an ointment for me to smear on her eye twice daily to see if that helps. If no progress, depending on the bloodwork too, they need to refer me to a specialist for anything further on the glaucoma. Just under $400 later, we left, and I’ve given her the first attempt at the oral antibiotics, got most of it down but with a big fight, so she’s under my bed now, with no way I can try the eye ointment until later. I has asked if I could put the antibiotics in her wet food, and that’s okay as long as she eats it all at once. I think that’s going to be the better plan or I’ll just have a kitty who hates me.
I just want my kitty to be comfy & happy. I’ve been a wreck today trying to figure out what I might have done wrong to cause this, which I know is silly because she’s at least 13 years old, so things are bound to happen, but I also don’t like being reminded that she won’t be around forever. All that plus having to hear her meow in pain at the top of her lungs through the door & down the hall had me demolishing a tissue, trying to hide from anyone seeing silly me crying. *sigh*
For those of you who don’t know, because of her unrelenting tendencies to eliminate order wherever possible, knocking over CDs, pulling books out of bookshelves, clearing tables on a whim, for years I have nicknamed Kylie the Kitty “the Force of Entropy Embodied.” Last night, Kylie decided to bat my iPod off the table, where it landed smack on the tile floor. I tried turning it on, heard a nasty pop from inside, then horrible ugly grinding noises. Its disk is now dead and I have no iPod, let alone a pretty hand-painted teal 3G one that works with the accessories I have. ARGH! This is the most expensive thing she’s ever broken…and don’t even try to tell me “get an iPhone”…I’m not in the mood, thanks…
Now I’ll try to move on from how steam was coming out of my ears last night & have a better day…hope you all do too!
10 years ago this weekend was when my roommate found a black cat with green eyes meowing loudly & hiding from the rain in the parking lot near our apartment in Sacramento. My pet rat Gypsy had died a few months before, and my roommate knew I wanted a black cat with green eyes, so we both went back, armed with towels & deli meat in the drizzle. I coaxed her out from some bushes, picked her up in the towel & carried her across the street back to the apartment, getting gouged on my neck in the process – she still doesn’t like being held! She had no tags or collar & we never saw any lost cat signs around the area. She tried sleeping on top of my head that first night – the only time she’s ever done that. She did have to stay at my parents’ house for a year while I lived in San Jose & then in the UK, but otherwise, Kylie the Kitty has been my longest live-in relationship.
I refuse to believe that she could be 12 or 13, or even 15, since she is still plenty spritely as she tears around the house, getting into everything just on principle. I call her Entropy Embodied, since that seems to be her calling…knocking down orderly piles of CDs, pulling books off bookshelves, tearing any & all paper to shreds, just because. She still talks more than any cat I’ve ever met, but I still don’t speak Cat fluently…you think I’d have caught on by now!
Kylie does have her own web page that is sadly out of date, so here are some more recent photos of her behind the link. No gray hairs yet, except for her one white whisker she has always had…
Halloween 2003 – Perfect Halloween Accessory Eating Grass in the Graveyard
Christmas 2003 – Who is this guy with the beard? Get me outta here!
Kylie in the garden at Lockwood – 2004
Halloween 2004 – How could you make me wear this?!?
Christmas 2004 – You know I don’t like being held – I’d much rather try eating the tree!
Kylie in her Cave of Covers – 2005
Halloween 2005 – The latest fashion rage – Velvet Spider Tutu!
Halloween 2005 – Not stupid costumes again… *sigh*
Christmas 2005 – First my annual shots, then this weird guy in red & white – can’t we just go home?
Kylie the Kitty had quite a weekend, and I feel really badly about it. My parents had to put their 18-year-old cat Shady and 15-year-old black lab Jente to sleep in early January, leaving the 13-year-old sweet teddy-bear mutt Cody & the still-puppy-wild 6-year-old yellow lab Tule as the only animals. My mom would like to get another cat, but since we know Tule is such a wild one, my mom requested I bring Kylie when I visited this past weekend as a “test” since at least we knew Kylie can hold her own against other animals from her various growling and pouncing performances when she lived there for a year in 1997.
Well, Tule was even worse than we ever expected! She had been wild but okay with Shady, but Shady was there first when Tule was a puppy. Since Kylie was an “intruder” and a cat, Tule wouldn’t shut up barking, which she usually doesn’t do, nor would she leave poor Kylie alone! I drove up Friday night, shutting Kylie with her litter box, bed, food & water in the utility room which was her “safe place” from when she lived there, then I heard my mom in the morning talking to Kylie before the dogs came in from the garage. What I heard next was the worst barking & hissing racket I have ever heard, with my mom yelling, since Tule ran right in to the utility room, lunged at Kylie trying to bite her, and bit my mom’s arm as she tried to stop this mess! I ran out immediately to comfort Kylie, and my mom shut Tule in their bedroom while my mom got the shock collar and remote for Tule. Yes, this dog is so badly behaved even after copious training that the obedience expert recommended the shock collar!
I took Kylie out to the couch and had her sitting on my lap as calmly as possible, then seemingly prepared with the shock collar, my mom let Tule out of the bedroom. I had a good hold of Kylie on my lap, thinking I could protect her, but Tule ran into the room, lunged at Kylie on my lap, with mouth open so wide like she was trying to bite off Kylie’s whole head! My mom had to crank up the power on the shocks to get Tule to pay attention at all! Needless to say, Kylie took off for her hiding spot behind the washing machine, deeply gouging my left inner thigh and right hand, plus getting a scratch in near Tule’s eye on her way. It took quite awhile for my thigh to stop bleeding until I could put antibacterial cream on it. I’ve never had bruising from a scratch before, and it still hurts!
Ah, but the story does not end there! After a frantic search throughout the house when Kylie had hidden underneath one of the beds, we left Kylie in the utility room where she felt safe for the afternoon, then the dogs were fed & in the garage before we went out to dinner, so we shut the bedroom doors so Kylie could have the entire house at her disposal. When we drove back from dinner, we saw her sitting in the kitchen window, so that was good. She had run back to the utility room before we got inside, and we were able to have her on laps out in the living room for the evening, but she never was relaxed enough to purr.
Since the evening had gone well enough, we decided to let her have the whole house again while we were at church and brunch Sunday morning. Unfortunately my mom forgot and left their bedroom door open. We got back home, searched the entire house for a good half hour, never finding Kylie anywhere, and we knew she could not have left the house by herself. Since the beds & closets were empty of kitties, we suspected that maybe she was somehow inside the massive headboard-bookcase unit in my parents’ bedroom. Often if I call her frantically enough when she’s hiding, Kylie will eventually meow back, giving herself away, but this wasn’t working this time, so we used the last resort of knowing Tule would be able to sniff her out. With shock collar back on and supervised by all humans available, we let Tule in the house, so she sniffed everywhere, ending up at the furniture we suspected. Frantic dog sniffing brought out the Kylie growl that only appears around other animals, so we knew she was indeed there…but how the heck were we going to get her out???
We hoped that maybe with the dogs safely outside, Kylie would eventually come out on her own, saving us the trouble of disassembly, but 6 HOURS later that had still not happened, so my mom started cleaning off the shelves, vacuuming everything (which still didn’t flush Kylie out and she HATES vacuums!), etc, then my dad & I started taking the unit apart. We got the one tower bookcase off the side so we could actually peek behind the headboard portion with a flashlight, and there she was, finally meowing back at me when she saw my face. I went to the other side, and my dad poked her with the duster pole until she came around the corner and I picked her up…whew! She stayed behind the washing machine for the rest of the afternoon until we left for the 3-hour drive back in the nasty pouring down rain. Between the dust behind the washing machine and the dust behind the headboard, poor solid-black Kylie looked very gray! Boy does she need a bath!
To add insult to injury, on the drive back, only 10 minutes from home, poor Kylie had to throw up, conveniently in her carrier box on the towel, so I could remove the towel to carry her into the house. As soon as I had the car unloaded, she was purring already, obviously glad to be home, and thankfully not blaming me for such a horribly stressful weekend!
|
© Britta Blvd. All rights reserved. All text, photos, graphics, artwork and other original material on Britta.com & Britta Blvd are copyrighted and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without prior written consent. |
Powered by WordPress The Aesthete theme by vatuma.com |
on www.EerieElegance.com