10:35 PM
Animals Freaking out the cat

I moved a little furniture around in the living room and I have apparently freaked Tommy out something awful! He kept walking around and meowing loudly like he couldn't find me.

I think I sparked an anxiety attack for him because he was abandoned when his owners moved out of the fourplex behind me and he was probably afraid that I'm moving and leaving him behind. So I just petted him alot and told him I would never abandon him and gave him some more food.

He's calmed down, now he's just freaked out by the fact that I'm sitting on his side of the couch. I keep pointing out that there's all this room over there but he just crams himself in this tiny patch of space next to me. Which really isn't a bad thing, I love to snuggle!

12:00 PM
Animals Sam 1993-2004

He was special, he had all these little eccentricities - he was asymmetrical, he had all black whiskers except over one eye where he had all black except for one white one. And he had a white stripe down his chin but it was off to one side and squiggled down his neck to his white tuxedo front. He had four white paws, except on his right front paw, he had a black triangle on top just inside the white area. And he had no tail, none at all but he'd manage to raise a little tuft of fur on his butt when I scratched down his back. He was terribly ticklish on his stomach, he'd stretch out on his back, showing off his tummy and inviting you to pet it but he'd kill you if you so much as breathed on it.

And he liked to bang the top of his head on hard things, he'd get all purry and walk under chairs so he could bonk his head on the crossbars and he liked to be petted and scratched right between his eyebrows just above his nose, he'd purr like mad and his inner eyelids would come out because he loved it so much. He was always bright and playful, he loved to get inside plastic bags and peek out and I'd scratch the outside of the bag and he'd roll all around trying to catch the sound.

He'd torture lizards for hours, he killed rats and he once brought a live bird in the house. He loved the window box on the front of the house because it was hidden enough by the shrubbery that no-one could see him until they got right up to the front door but he could see everything thru the shrubbery. When I was working 8 to 5 every day, he'd meet me on the sidewalk when I came home and race me to the front door, stopping to sharpen his claws on the tree.

He ate catnip, all my other cats just like to roll around in it, slobber all over their catnip toys and rub it on themselves but he actually ate it and I figured out it helped with fur balls so I gave him some about once a month. He loved tuna cat food and he adored fried chicken, I always had to share my fried chicken with him, I'd cut up the meat in little pieces and give it to him while I ate mine so he wouldn't bug me so much.

He could wake Katie out of a sound sleep just by staring at her, anywhere she was sleeping was always the best spot in the house he figured so he'd go over near her and sit down and stare at her. His ears were up, he never growled or made a sound, he'd just stare. She'd wake up, hiss at him, turn around, hiss some more, try to ignore him and eventually give up and go somewhere else. He'd curl up in her spot and be sound asleep in seconds.

He was born at my aunt's in Arkansas, she met me halfway and when I drove home with him the next day, he slept almost the entire five hour trip in my lap. After I moved to a house where he could go outside, he'd spend every night outside most of the year, he loved the summer, baked himself in the sun whenever he could but he hated cold, the minute it got below about 50 degrees, he'd sleep next to me at night, as close as he could get and curl up in a tight little ball. And during the winter when I had the space heaters on, he'd sleep directly in front of them for hours on end.

He was happy and healthy all his life but he started having trouble breathing a couple days ago so I took him into the vet yesterday. I thought it was just a respiratory infection but an x-ray showed he had a tumor in his lungs, blocking them almost entirely and so we put him to sleep.

I've turned off comments on this entry because I just want people to read about who Sam was and then go hug whatever you love, cats, dogs, birds, fish, rats, snakes, family, friends cause that's what's important.

(Clicking on his picture will take you to more pics of Sam and Katie too.)

08:22 AM
Animals Up with the freaking birds

Why am I up at this ungodly hour, you ask? (at least, I am asking) I've actually been mostly awake since about 5:45, there's nothing like the sound of a strange cat's meow inside your house in the middle of the night to get the adrenaline going.

Backstory: neighborhood cat been hanging around my house for a week or so, making yowly noises like a female in heat or a male in season (I think it's female, but not entirely sure), it has a collar with tags and a bell and it's well fed so it's not a stray, keeps trying to get friendly with my cats (one male, one female, both fixed many years ago), I keep shooing it away and it keeps coming back. I have a kitty door in the screen of a window in the living room and I leave the window open at night so Sam can go in and out as he pleases (and thus doesn't wake me up every night at 4 or 5 am with a very accurate impression of fingernails on a blackboard, using his claws on a mirror).

As you've figured out by now, the neighborhood cat found the kitty door last night and invited itself into my house and started meowing for attention. Woke me up out of a dead sleep, I chased after it, luckily the cat went straight back out and I slammed the window shut behind it.

Then, of course, Sam needed to go out (since he's gotten used to going outside, he will not use the catbox and he is extremely persistent when he wants to go out :)) about an hour later, so I let him out. Thirty minutes later, I hear cats screaming at each other, I go to the door and call Sam, all I get is stupid bothersome neighborhood cat, I get back in bed, but keep hearing cats fighting every so often, so I give up and get up. I wander around outside calling Sam, I open the living room window (but keep an eye out for neighborhood cat, of course). Sam finally turned up about ten minutes ago, no blood or scratches that I can see, I gave him the tuna cat food, his favorite and he's giving himself a bath now and I feel better knowing he's okay, I just wish he'd beaten the crap out of the neighborhood cat and chased it away! Dug out my squirt bottle, I guess I'll start squirting neighborhood cat with water every time I see it.

03:24 PM
Animals Yowza!

Holy Cow!

Here I was sitting on the couch reading email and the cat's laying on the ottoman looking out the window, he gets up quietly and goes out the kitty door in the screen, but I don't think anything of it. A few minutes later he comes back in carrying a large grey/brown thing in his mouth which I think briefly is a rat (he does kill rats outside) but then realize it's one of the lovely rock pigeons which are all over the place here, pretty birds that cooo like doves, brown/gray like concrete and practically invisible on the sidewalk but stupid too. He carries it to the kitchen and puts it down next to his plate where it sits very still but I can see it's alive. I fling open the front door (closest to the kitchen), grab some plastic grocery bags and the bird eyes me as I carefully cover it with the bags, pick it up and carry it out the door where, just as I am setting it down in the grass, it erupts into a flurry of feathers and flies off as I duck away.

Sam (the cat) comes out the front door looking for his play toy (the bird) and is rather upset to find it gone. He's got feather fluff all over him and there's bits of feathers and fluff in a path from the living room window to the kitchen.

I have no idea what I would have done if that bird had started flying in the house! I've been so happy with the kitty door in the window the last couple weeks, no waking up in the middle of the night to let Sam out but eek, birds! He's never killed birds before, just rats which he kills promptly and lizards which he teases and torments to pieces but never birds. He doesn't climb and most of the birds are smart enough to see him or Katie coming. But this fall, the rock pigeons have been all over the main house yard outside my living room and he's been watching them out there but it never occurred to me he'd try to get one.

Phewww! Well, that got my adrenaline going.

10:24 AM
Animals Throw the cat out the window!

Arrggghhhh! The cat is annoying me to no end this morning! Starting at about 4 am, she woke me up repeatedly, stomping across my pillow, insisting I sleep in an uncomfortable position so she could sleep in the crook of my arm (while I'm laying on my stomach) and then after I got up, she wants out, then she wants in, then she wants out, then she wants in and then she wants out again!!!! And she's using her REALLY annoying nerve-grating whiny meow to tell me so. I refuse to let her out again so she's dashing around the living room, all over the couch around me and meowing.

So I grabbed her and got my revenge, I held her and kissed her head over and over and over again! She hates that. I think I'll do it again.

11:52 AM
Animals· Internet· Weather It's a glorious day!

In spite of various problems and hassles last night and this morning, the cat starting to barf on the bed in the middle of the night (nothing else wakes one up quite so quickly as that! and it's amazing how fast my leg comes out to boot said cat off the bed :)), the slight headache I've got, the hassles with Mozilla Mail (love the browser, not so fond of the mail part), DNS problems with Yahoogroups on a domain for someone I host, it's really quite a gorgeous day. Sunny but nice and windy! I love wind almost as much as rain and I love the sound of it in the trees outside my open window. The cats are sleeping peacefully around me and it's about 70 degrees, not cold, not hot, just right!

12:53 PM
Animals Proclivities

The cat insists on sleeping right in front of the speakers on the coffee table. I don't mind her sleeping on the coffee table, but I was thinking of listening to some music and it'll wake her up rather rudely.

Then again, she did wake me up rather rudely meowing in my ear at 8:30 this morning only to come out in the living room and fall asleep...

What goes around, comes around.

04:15 PM
Animals Allergies

Katie is allergic to growing stuff outside so every six to eight weeks from spring to fall, we take a trip to the vet for her allergy shot. She complains bitterly, makes a huge fuss about getting in the carrier and then of course won't come out at all once we get there! But she loves coming home again, wanders around, makes me open the door so she can look out...

Now she lies sleeping on the coffee table, all stretched out and comfortable.