Wishful thinking: Never give up

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tabitha enthusiastically greeting a new "friend"

So if at first you don't succeed...

One for the Cat vs Dog People: Keeping Tabs

I'm not a cat person. I prefer dogs.

Cats are too aloof for me.

Dogs, on the other hand, are joyous pleasers. I love and really appreciate a doggy's bliss in the simple things - I have been known to laugh myself to tears (quickly) at the image of a dog with its head out a car window. Why, Pepper herself has been the source of amusement at one time or another in this house when she's partaken in a journey in the car. Steve and I worked out many years ago that Pep's speed limit for external-head travel is about 58km/h, for this is the speed - test after test - that she would retract her little red pointy-eared head and concede defeat.

So it was that I accepted with not a little surprise the affection bestowed on me by our adopted cat.

Miss Tabitha.

Tabbez

A skitzy, belligerent (giving Jazz a run for her money), expectant and over-affectionate puss if ever I knew one. This cat has Velcro-ed herself to me. She meaows and bays and mews for me if I go to the toilet and she can't see me. If I go to bed to watch TV, she comes and sits ON MY CHEST. The cat cannot get close enough to me. And only me.

For a non-cat person, this has come as rather a distasteful shock.

But after 19 months now of having her around and getting used to her, I have to say.... she is a gem. Don't tell her I told you. She is here to stay, most definitely. It's as if we always had her. Not that she will ever, could ever, take the place of Steve's first cat, Rusty, though. Now HE was an awesome, none-like-him cat. He has appeared to me in dreams - even recently - like some big sphynx-like, larger than life, living, breathing statue. What a beauty he was.

I still prefer my clunky, dufus doggies, yes. But this cat has wormed her way into my cat-free heart.

That reminds me: Note to self - must worm cat.

Business as usual

The cat tried to climb the security screen door and got stuck half way up - she may still be there, I still hear maowing. SHUDDUUUUUP.

Pepper is as stinky as ever and now farting loudly at my feet. I can't get away from her. She needs to be right at my side because she gets a bit disoriented/freaked out about where I've gone if she can't see me (we find her asleep in the strangest rooms when she's gone in there to try and find someone and, I dunno, has another attack of the old lady tireds)

And Jazz is being her usual belligerent self.

The LGBB isn't taking a breath when she talks at me and speaks single sentences that are five minutes long. Each.

I had a nice big fight with Steve last night. Over housework.


Yes. All is still facing Sunny Side Up in our Animal House.

Playing favourites

I know you're not supposed to. I've read people's confessions saying they do, sometimes. And last night was our turn.

I asked Steve, "Who's your favourite? Out of our animals, I mean?" We looked at each other resignedly, sighed and said simultaneously, "It has to be Jazz." And then we laughed uncontrollably over what we'd just done before patting Jazz and congratulating her for beating her two unworthy opponents.

We had weighed up instantly in our minds the pro's and con's of each of our beloved pets and then chosen the least annoying one - "the most independent", Jazz was voted. And we laughed because we had actually had to hesitate even to choose her.

Let's look at their stats a moment, shall we:

• Pepper has on average 1-2 elderly incontinent puddle accidents a day. She must be chaperoned around the house due to this, and also the fact that you must ensure she doesn't slip anywhere as she has terribly unstable legs not made easier by her claws that can't grasp the floorboards. She's had a bit of a larynx problem for years now which, in her old slow age, has meant that we now have to watch the tv at least 10 levels above what we used to (this is no exaggeration). She farts constantly - not one long, continuous one, I mean just pops every few minutes. She barks to salute the morning on first rising when she gets up to relieve herself, usually just before 6am daily - a dog that uses her bark as a sonar wave, I'm sure of it, so that she can gauge whether she's going to slowly stagger into that big mass (the house) in front of her and barks to judge the distance between herself and the house. She has dementia, is totally deaf and is completely in her own, retired world.

• Tabitha is .... I have no words. She's a nice natured cat and all but she's a lunatic. And a killer. The recently purchase cat bib that's supposed to stop her killing birds, if not hunting them, apparently still allows her to catch rodents - not an altogether bad thing ("and let that be a lesson to the rest of you residing under our house") until she brings the dead things home and plays hacky sack with them on the front porch, flinging them in the air and not caring that they are landing in our shoes. One day, I shudder to think what I will find if she doesn't cart all her kill away after maiming it on the front verandah balustrades. Ugh. And she pesters. This cat nags and nags and nags and bloody nags some more, even if you fed her five minutes ago. She's constantly darting ahead of you and across your path if you look to be walking up or down the hall anytime soon, which is where the laundry (her bedroom) is. And that's another thing: the cat litter tray. Can't stand them. Will never get used to them.

And that leaves Jazz. The crazy six year-old 30kg puppy with a tail the strength of a kangaroo and at just the right height to sweep all the pieces off the Junior Monopoly board game you'd left paused to grab a bite of lunch. Just the right height to swipe glasses and cups, plates and papers off any coffee, side, end or kiddy table she walks past. And if she doesn't knock them off with sheer force, the wind her tail creates makes sure they find the floor with the updraft created. She's boundy, expectant, pushes herself ahead of everyone in the family just to "win" and causes us exorbitant amounts of money on vet bills when she eats stupid things she shouldn't or causes damage to property that has to be replaced..... But she's our pick.

Do you have a favourite in the family? G'arn, you can tell me! It'll be our little secret.

Time to pick on the cat

There's no better time like the present to be distracted a little by dogs dressed up as humans. But first, a recap on this past week for what an incredibly emotionally draining one it has been for many Australians:

• Two of our own blog community are burying and celebrating the lives of their dear loved ones today and my heart goes out to them - Lori from RRSAHM and Lulu from Unperfect Life, both of whom have surely felt the bottom of their worlds fall out this week.

• The floods in Queensland are receding but not after annihilating our Sunshine State. And now, Victoria is being hammered by heavy rains and flooding has already begun to cause damage. I hope no more lives are lost. Not this week.

Victoria is under there somewhere... at least 50% of the state experiencing rains again today

• And in the middle of all this outpouring and shock, much closer to home yesterday we shouldered our personal memories as we quietly celebrated the 7th anniversary of our firstborn baby girl, Ellanor, who entered the world what feels like almost a lifetime ago. It was a strange mix of emotions.

So now, I admit it, I'm in need of a bit of a shaking off of this heaviness, just for a moment. 

Click away now if you don't want to join in, but I've got to do something drastic. It involves a story of a cat, too many dead birds, a daughter who's discovered dogs behaving like humans and me displaying my obsessive compulsive tendencies by finding her more and more vids of exactly that just so I can soak up her infectious belly laughs.

-----------------------

After months of dreading coming home to find what had been left on the doorstep by our cat who, going by the condition of her prey, is some kind of crazy ave lobotomist, I decided it was high time to do something about this cat of ours. She has lost two collars, three bells and my patience for her.

I discussed with Steve whether we should just get her a massive bell, but decided that would look ridiculous. We also floated the notion that perhaps the birds in this area are just a bit slow off the mark, or perhaps simply dumb or inquisitive - maybe they think the bell means dinner, we wondered. Well... I suppose it does in a way. In a ... not alive for them in a few seconds kind of way. But it didn't help us find any answers on how to stop our cat being so darn bird-unfriendly. She needs something bigger than a big bell to stop her, I said. She needs a... a doorbell! 

Rather than call me unhelpful, Steve considered the possibility of attaching a doorbell to the cat's body, one that was wired to permanently "ding-dong", thereby alert any of the dumb slow birds to get out of her away.

Instead, though, I took MacGyver's biggest fan to the nearest pet store and together, we weighed up the options. None of the cat collars looked to have adequate... bell-ringage. We knew with this wily one we would need, like, the Notre Dame of bells. And they just don't make them like that.

However..... then we discovered this! The cat bib!

And doesn't this cat look proud  (img: catgoods.com)

Made from wetsuit fabric, supposedly your cat can groom, walk, pounce, run and generally still be the happy-go-lucky nagger to be let in/out, whinger for food when it's just eaten puddytat it always was. Just without the killing of the birds bit.

So we tried it on Tabby. And she's hated us more for it ever since. In fact, mostly she's been sitting sulking on the front doormat. Surrounded by tufts of leftovers (you know, feathers, a bit of matted plumage, some entrails, etc.), she has just huffed there. With her fetching purple cat bib to keep her company. Yeah, yeah, sucks to be her and all that. Steve is concerned she'll get beaten up by the neighbourhood cats for being a dork. Too bad, I say.

When we looked out the window a bit later, Tabitha had gone. Hooray! we said to each other. Perhaps she is going to be okay with it after all. We had both been wondering what she would be thinking of the bib and why we were being so cruel to her. I entertained the image of our vindictive little pussy cat going around the gardens with her bib hoiked around behind her neck, pretending to be a superhero and using it as a cape as she went right on hunting and catching and killing. But when I asked Steve if he'd seen any villains lately that looked suspiciously like a black cat with a score to settle, he said he hadn't.

To be honest, we half expected to see Tabby step deliberately up to the kitchen window with a knife, a fork and a dead bird and a look that said, "This is much more civilised" as she used her bib as a proper napkin.

None of that happened. Instead, this morning I got a message of another kind. A laundry floor strewn with cat vomit. So that's what she thinks of her cat bib.

And as for the dogs dressed as humans?  This is funny AND educational:






This post is dedicated to Lori today. The FYBF blog hop is currently being guest hosted by Kristin at Wanderlustlust...

A letter of complaint

It has come to my attention that our 'young' dog, Jazz - aka all the names under the sun - is most displeased at the slinky black creature who now resides in our laundry.

For almost two months, we kept Tabitha a secret from the dogs. Pepper was easy. She's as deaf as a post. But Jazz? Razor sharp of tail and senses? She knew something was afoot. She'd hear the bell on Tabby's collar and you could actually see, at those moments, something in her brain zero in on the noise to try and identify it. Jazz had never come across a cat before Tabby. She doesn't know what to do with them. But she tried and tried to understand that tinkly noise. And she'd hear it, inside or on the other side of the garage door, freeze and then look absolutely crestfallen as she realised she didn't know what it was. She'd come and bounce off us (yes.... literally... the dog ricochet's off people, verandah posts, fences, she's not fussed, and given that she is around 26kg of muscle, it's no wonder we call her The Horse) as if to say, "Did you HEAR that?? I hear bells! Oh pleeeease, tell me you hear bells!" It's quite delicious fun to know it was tormenting her. About time something did.

So now, the cat has met the dogs. She doesn't care to meet them again, but she isn't above letting them know she lives here. In fact, she taunts them about it. Little biatch. And Jazz isn't going to go down about it quietly.

Look what I found tucked in to her collar this morning:

Dear Doggy Tribunal,

My name is Jazz The Horse Shithead Mrs Whippy Clydesdale The Bloody Dog. Yuh. I think that's it.

Listen, I don't complain much. I mean, I know I bark if I don't get my way. Oh, and I always get a last bark in if I'm told off and I'm not in agreeance. But apart from that.... and barging my way inside when I'm not allowed, and whipping my kangaroo-power tail into people's legs and into Peppy's eyes that makes her squint and wince and sometimes fall over, and ok maybe I steal Peppy's food when she's not looking - she's so easy these days - and I'm generally a, a... what was it? "Good for nothing layabout", yeh, that was it. And ok, if I get distracted while I'm drinking, sometimes I slobber water all over people (because I just can't help putting my face on their legs, it's just a thing I do), and my favourite game is getting a toy or a ball and pretending I can't find it under the bushes and digging a hole the size of a car to get it out when it's right on top the whole time (oh BOY that is such a fun game)..... But apart from all that as well, I would like to think I deserve better treatment than I am receiving.

See, my life was pretty carefree. I could assume the top dog position as long as Peppy was distracted. The older she gets the better I have it. But then... that thing. That black slinking, tinkling, green-eyed thing arrived. SHE gets to sleep inside. SHE gets to go on their beds. SHE sits at the window narrowing her eyes at me. And frankly.... I do-woh-woh-woh-WON'T like it. She treats me like I'm beneath her. I know! Me! Jazz The Horse Shithead Mrs Whippy Clydesdale The Bloody Dog!

I want it to go back to how it used to be. I want to know that there's only one other creature in this house getting any food, any possible left overs, any attention. I can't handle another pretty young thing coming in and stealing my self-imagined thunder.

If you can just make her vanish, so that I don't have to fight the urge to charge at her or sit and bark belligerently at the window (that always gets me in trouble and I always forget I'm not allowed and then it takes even longer for me to be allowed inside again), I would really wag you to death.

Waggily yours,

Jazz The Horse Shithead Mrs Whippy Clydesdale The Bloody Dog

 And wouldn't you know, Pepper had one all drafted up too! Hers was a bit scrunched up and I'm pretty sure she's finished but doesn't know it.

Deeyah... Uh.... Dear..... (note to self: check what that bloody dog had on hers)

I'm writing to complain about the ..... oooooh! Butterfly!

Where was I? Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.

What? Oh. Was I barking? Oh. What?

Where's the water bowl? Ow, my face hurts, ow, my face hurts, ow, why does my face..... oh that's better, she's moved away and stopped wagging.

Belch. I'm tired.

Snooooooooooooooooore.

I hate to break it to them, but not only is the cat staying, we appear to have acquired another look-alike Tabby. Identical to her, this is a sort of more muttley-looking fella. He just started turning up about three weeks ago. Yesterday, I almost let him inside. Not on purpose, mind. I just honestly almost mistook him for her. I thought it was odd that I couldn't see "Tabby's" collar or tags. And when I walked to the door in front of him - he'd full-on lined himself up at the security screen and was peering in - I said to him, "You're not Tabby!" I think my fists on hips stance scared him. His eyes widened and he darted off the porch in a puff of dust like a cartoon cat. I think I even heard him say "SCRAM!" as he fled.

I think he's a stray, unfortunately (for the local wildlife). But he seems to think this is a lovely place to take a kip and he loves to sun himself on the top of our water tank and take long cool drinks from our frog pond. Er.... help yourself, buddy!?

Now to break it to the dogs.....


It's Flog Yo Blog Friday! Where all the cool kids list their blogs:

Time for a change

Things are going to be different around here. I'm sick of the smooching, the idle laziness of your ways, the incessant fawning for my attention.


Tabitha. I'm talking to YOU, you lazy-arse moggy. Listen up. And get off our bed, while you're at it.


This morning, when you went darting over to the wall, you had my attention. You had me at 'pounce'. I thought you had spied a mouse - for that is your sole purpose in my life... to keep the mice out of sight, if not out of the house completely - because you went flying over there like a leaf on the wind. You even, you little ratbag, darted your paws under the adjacent cabinet for good measure. I wonder, were you thinking, "She thinks I'm useful, I've got her riiiiight where I want her" while you were doing that?


It was all a ruse, wasn't it? There was nothing there. Surely, a mouse would have been seen scurrying from under that cabinet, no mouse is that dumb that he wouldn't try to make a run for it somewhere else. So, as you had me hooked into your little web of intrigue, I moved the cabinet (lucky for you it's on wheels) and let you get in further. And you lurched again. And then you grabbed whatever it was you'd been hunting - obscuring it with your fat boof head - and did the death-shake when you had it in your mouth.


I applaud you, o Tabitha. You reeeeally had me going.


When I stepped around to face your front, what did you have in your mouth? I knew it wasn't a mouse. I heard no bones crunching, saw no tail, identified no squeaks. An insect perhaps, I thought. Oh goody. She's saved us from an earwig.


Nope. Not even an insect. This prey didn't even have legs.


I ask you, Tabby, are you THAT starved that you are now chasing tumble weeds of dust and dog hair around the house? Granted, it shouldn't have been there and I fail to see how an entire hay-bail sized ball of hair and junk can still be freeballing around my kitchen, given that my chosen partner in life swears blind he vacuumed on the weekend (I even saw him doing it, but I didn't see any furniture being moved..... oh yes, that's right, apparently dust doesn't form under couches). But I digress.


You had a honking great matt of dust in your gob. I admit it, I felt a pang of guilt. Apparently, when you meowed at me, at me, at me, at me, AT ME, for the previous fifteen minutes and I ignored you and shooed you away, I thought you were joking around. I thought you were telling me about your dream. Or the errands you have to run today. I never once thought you could possibly be asking for food.


So. I caved. Got the can out of the fridge and spooned you a morsel. RRREEEEOWWEEEEOWEEE! you said appreciatively. Thanks for that. At least I get some acknowledgement.


NEXT time, though, go catch your own dinner. Earn your keep, fatty Tabby. Things are set to change round 'ere. No more Mrs Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner In A Can. (yeah, right, who am I kidding? Don't hold your breath, anyone... this is an I'll-do-as-I-please cat we're talking about here)



Happy blog-flogging Friday, all!

New posts

I have had a very intriguing and enlightened 48 hours. I am needing a lot of time and space to properly write about it, but I certainly will. Hold me to it. (No, seriously... this time, I promise I will...) This is a biggy, though, I'm talking the discovery of the need to heal and pardon past family patterns (so far, I have been presented with the connections to look at the past three generations prior to mine - and when I say "given", I mean, they've bloody well shown up and indicated exactly what I need to do! I even got smacked in the back of the head yesterday).

SO. As I said. Big, enlightening stuff. If you count being clocked over the noggin "enlightening", that is.

In the meantime, there are new posts at both my other blogs. For those interested, we are currently under the influence of ROSE energy. The information about this is on the Earth Healing blog.

I also burst a vein (am assuming it's a small, trivial thing...) last night and had to keep it iced and compressed for several hours. I think I did well to only have it swell as big/small as it did and this morning it looks like a casual minor bruise. Last night, the swelling was over an area the size of my hand and it hurt to blazers. I would like to credit not only my very limited first aid skills, but also the homoeopathic remedy I took (it was a shaky start, largely due to my fluctuating emotions I see clearly now - a wondrous thing, that hindsight - but God, how I very much humbly appreciate my homoeopath being on call, even at 8pm on a Friday night).

It actually looks quite pissy in this photo. Oh, look, and there's Bloody Cat! Right there. All the time. Just try getting a snap without her smooching like a slippery eel between my legs. After all, my legs are now her legs.

Apparently.

Tabbarse

Well, I will just get right down to it and admit....

The "new" cat is a royal PITA.

I have never been quite this annoyed by a living creature before. Unless you count Jazz in her hey-day. Hmmm. Actually, yes. It's possibly a tie. To put it this way, our plumber was here last week (ooops.... sorry, was that rubbing it in, Steve(tropolis)?) and he asked - when Jazz bounced in and ricocheted back out, Tigger-style - how old our bag of beans was. I told him Jazz is coming up six in October. He looked sympathetic and said simply, "Well.... she's not likely to change now is she?" and I said, regrettably, no, I didn't think so. And we both watched her in silence as she attempted to impale herself by slamming into a fence post while playing fetch. With herself. I guess that's one good thing about Jazz: she has learned to make her own fun.

That darn cat, though, she just will NOT leave me alooooooone. So much so, the poor thing's name is now Tabbarse. Or Tabberzarse. It gives a slight satisfaction to be cursing while saying her name. If I sit down with a book (or print-outs - I'm usually reading and editing my own work), she comes and sits right in front of me and smooches her cheeks on the spine of the book. Or the pen I'm holding. Non-stop. If I wave her away and say 'NO!', it seems to encourage her all the more. And her cold little nose runs along my finger as I'm pointing her in the direction she should piss off move aside. As soon as I move, she is at my feet. Whatever room I am in, you can guarantee you will find the cat, perched on the closest high point adjacent to my head or where I'm sitting.

So now, not only do I have a four year-old who still is not keen on making her own arrangements with regards to playing (and the longest she has EVER gone is about 30-40 minutes playing on her own, in another room ohmygodohmygod it was so exciting!!!) and two dogs that fawn at every door and window to just catch a glimpse of me during the day, I have a crazy cat insistent on helping the others to drive me to within a millimetre of SAHMadness.
Tabby's meaowing for me begins at dawn and, while I used to be able to let her out for a play and she'd go and amuse herself outdoors until the afternoon, she has now decided that's not nearly as fun as standing at the front door and running her paws vertically on the security door. She makes it bang like an irate neighbour who's come to complain about the loud music (not... that that's ever happened... but I can just imagine it would sound like this).

If I succumb and let the cat in, she then meaows incessantly and gets under my feet, satisfied only when I feed her. Only thing is, she is overweight as it is and the vet has told me that she is not to have dry food ("Doesn't need it", he said, neither of us realising he had sentenced me to an endless run of putting up with a demanding cat who thinks her tummy is constantly empty, no matter if she just ate ten minutes ago). So she gets a can a day. Now, you try telling old droopy-tum and she'll just blink, shrug (her care factor about such matters is zero) and just meaow at you until YOUR ears bleed. And this is not to even mention the witching hour, that goes on for something like three hours, right after the LGBB has gone to bed. Tabby gets the spooks up and does flat-out sprints up and down the house. Not being a dainty slip of a thing, she hulks up and down on the floorboards sounding for all the world like a subwoofer kicking in with the bass during a helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now.

All of this being said, I have long since learned to look on such things as points of highlighting for me. There is something about her incredibly annoying insistence on being noticed - by me, in particular, for she doesn't go near Steve or Lolly but will actually try and be as close to me as she can at all times of the day and night (until bedtime, when she seems happy to retreat to her own bed) - that has really made me sit up and take notice. So she's doing her job well. A little too ruddy well, but nonetheless, I'm seeking to understand just why she's grating on me so. And she is going to continue to be the pain in my rear end until I work it out, just tipping quietly.

So I was on the phone to one of my teachers last week and I was talking to her about something I'm nutting out at the moment, to do with a certain pattern of energy that I have noticed (in a class setting) getting me all riled up and yet I say nothing and in fact am feeling a bit stifled. I know it's something I will keep coming up against - it will just be the same thing, different person, time after time and so far, there have been three people I have had to deal with this over so I know it's something for me to look into further - and I am working on figuring it out. I've also gotten into a bit of a rut with making time to seek my own guidance on things. I've become avoidant about doing any energetic work and I have been enjoying alcohol a bit lately (a great escapism tactic if ever there was one). Anyway, right when she was giving me some clues on where/how to start working this out, I had the dog (who represents loyalty) outside trying to bite and lung at the cat (which serves to highlight the imbalances in your life) through the window. We had to laugh, because it was virtually what we had been talking about - I have to work out where my loyalty is placed at the moment, especially in relation to what I am putting in to my intuitive senses and keeping myself balanced. If I don't, I run the risk of burning out/getting ill again, which was my pattern all last year.

I'll get around to it. I still haven't properly worked it through. I'm so gosh-darn tired this week, having not fully recovered from the other night when I had less than four hours' sleep (UGH.... don't ask.... but it involved a toddler's wet bed and being woken at 12.30am right at the end of my first 90-minute sleep cycle, so I then stayed awake until well after 5am).

If you are so inclined, and you have a cat gnawing at your energy (or otherwise making its presence obvious - more than usual), I recommend checking out the animal wisdom for Cat. I have just posted it on my Earth Healing blog. It is fascinating.

Do you have annoying animals at your house? Pets who haven't grown up? Pooches who think they're people? Cats who won't stop crying? If you do, you have my sincere condolences.

Panning for gold

When the foul, biting, stinging stench of cat piss hits my nose as soon as I enter the laundry, I know it's time to clear out the kitty litter tray.

I don gloves, face mask, a plastic bag and the pooper-scooper (shaped like a cat with a square-cleft lip and holding it by its tail-handle). Okay, so maybe not the mask. I'm naw tha' bright to think of that.

I get down in a position that's part sprinter on the blocks / part fight-or-flight reflex ready. And in I go. Digging around with this little slot-bottomed shovel, breathing shallowly into my nose with such little breaths that only the top teensy portion of my lung function is utilised, I go as fast - but as painstakingly - as I can without working up too much of a sweat because that will just create the need for deeper intake into the nose/lungs. And when that inevitably does happen, because it's taking so bloody long to snag and bag every bit of offending cat excrement, the threat of breathing in that awful odour gives way to the need to... stay upright and not pass out through self-induced asphyxiation.

Tabitha uses a cat litter that is sand-like in texture. It clumps when exposed to any moisture/faecal matter, as illustrated hygienically on the box by sparkling-fresh blue droplets that are meant to represent the disgusting, battery-eating acid that is my cat's (everyone's cat/s') pee. I fall for it. I buy the box every time. It's meant to last "monnnnnnths and months", says the woman at the counter of the pet/farm produce store. Whacko! I say. Bonus for me that I won't have to fork out another $25 anytime soon. I feel like I should just line the cat's tray with $5 notes and be done with it. It'd be cheaper and I could just strain it off our nation's plastic-coated money. But with a guarantee like that - lasts for monnnnnnnths - I take the box home.

Well. We're only three months in. I am almost out of this magical ever-lasting piss-soaking medium. I don't know if it's my cat or my pedantic cleaning of her tray that is causing the level to go down so fast. I mean, I do what the instructions say: I take a scoop, shake it, pan for turd-gold and let the small cat litter particles sieve back in to the tray, tip the remaining cat craps in the rubbish bag. Step and repeat. When I come across clumps (of pee), in the bag they go as well. Except..... I think she's a *hushed tones, uttered behind a coy hand* heavy wetter. I don't mean to embarrass her, but the dear is not the most gentile cat I've ever come across.

Case in point:

• She is a guts-guzzler. She would eat and eat and eat if I let her and is already overweight - somehow - even though I only give her the prescribed can a day (and no dry food, not since this debacle)
• She nuzzles her face so far into her food while she's devouring it that, if she turns and looks at you when she's mid-dinner, her entire face is covered in slobbery cat meal. Like a toddler gnawing at a vegemite sandwich.
• She talks while she's eating. With her mouth full, no less. It's actually deliciously cute. If she hears anyone come in, she has to greet them, stuffing her face or no.
• She belches. She actually, audibly burps in appreciation after a meal.
• She's also been overheard to let fluffy off the chain as she jumps up to perch on the back of chairs/couches around the place. Have you EVER in your life heard a cat fart?? I ask you...
• Her *aherm* aim in the tray is not so great. She's a bit daft when it comes to perching over the porcelain (or in her case, the plastic lip) - I have come in to find bits dangling down the outside. And those are the days, if you were a fly on the wall (a very, very happy fly in the presence of all that shit), you would see me wail to the heavens, "Why do you hate me so?" with a sob.

So the cat is a bit too free with her flotsam. I think you get the picture.

Now cue me, pint-sized scooper in hand, watery eyes, screaming lungs, trying to dig out only the most used bits of this kitty litter. At the bottom of the tray, it's literally the consistency of wet sand at the point where the thinnest part of the waves slide up the beach and get absorbed in to the ground. You know that reeeeally sodden, really hard to dig part? The part that, if you skimped a bit too much on the beach utensils and bought a flimsy set of diggers and buckets, will shatter your spade into shards of brittle plastic if you try to dig even the uppermost layer off and into the bucket. And it's so very leaden with moisture (cat-piss moisture, in my case) that it will also make the bucket break in your fingers when you try to lift it to overturn it to make the turrets on top of your masterpiece.

Given that the bottom of the tray also has, above it, the loosened particles, I have to be very careful how I go about this business because, on more than one heavy-handed exasperating occasion, I have rushed it, gone in for the dig too deep and flicked the loose stuff, sending a spray of soggy cat wee bits all over the laundry floor. Joy! More cleaning for moi.

I have said it to Steve and I shall maintain......


Hell hath no fury like the cat litter tray.

The cottonwoods are whispering

When I couldn't get to sleep, when the monsters were close, when the room was too dark, when I hadn't had enough attention for the day.... my mother used to stay (or return) by my bedside and stroke my hair and sing to me.

In her true inimitable style, she sang pitch perfect and, if she got a bung note (usually as a result from trying to sing softly, so not able to properly hold the tune), she'd do over. Something I noticed at the time but didn't mind, being 6 or 7 as I was. But something I now remember and empathize with her, realising how strict she was on herself to be perfect. She didn't have to strive so hard. She was already perfect to me, 'faults' and all.

Her two standards - songs of the time, I suppose - were Tammy (sung by Debbie Reynolds, from the movie) and something about having a "Penny In My Pocket, gonna find a love that's true" (though I don't know its name). And I adored them both. My mother sang them so dreamily, caught up in the romanticism of them as much as she was trying to woo me into slumber and sounding for all the world like she was drifting off on a cloud herself.

Added to the charm of "Tammy" being sung to me to lull me to sleep, was the fact that we had a cat called Tammy when I was very little. She was bitten by a snake when I was three and died, most tragically for my tiny comprehension, peacefully under our car after going there to lay down and quit. I was inconsolable for ages and "Tammy" subsequently made me cry for a number of years.

I can't quite imagine I would get the same effect if I sang a Miley Cirus or Britney Spears standard to the LGBB. So I have stayed with a variation on Tammy, replacing that name with the name of our cat: Tabby.

And boy, has Lolly fallen for it!

In Tammy, she is singing about a boy (of course), true to 1950's Hollywood form. In my version, we are singing about Tabby being in love. Granted, it could possibly seem a little strange to be singing about wishing for the attentions of a cat, who herself appears to be in love with some other. But Lol seems neither to care nor notice. And it makes the song so sweet, when I hear her singing it around the house during the day absent-mindedly, seeing that it's been imprinted on her impressionable little brain.

Better that than some other gangsta-rap number. Right? You with me?

I hear the cottonwoods whisperin' above,
"Tabby ... Tabby ...
Tabby's in love"
The ole hooty-owl
hooty-hoos to the dove,
"Tabby ... Tabby ...
Tabby's in love".

Does my Tabby feel
What I feel
When she comes near?
My heart beats so joyfully,
You'd think that she could hear.

Wish I knew if she knew
What I'm dreamin' of
Tabby ... Tabby ... Tabby's in love.

Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, you and I know
Tabby ... Tabby ... can't let her go
The breeze from the bayou keeps murmuring low:
"Tabby ... Tabby ...
you love her so".

When the night is warm,
Safe and warm,
I long for her charms
She'd purr like a violin
If she were in my arms.

Wish I knew if she knew
What I'm dreaming of
Tabby ... Tabby ...
Tabby's in love

This is SO my kinda video

Upshot for the Tabster

It's a good old-fashioned UTI. I'm no stranger to urinary tract infections myself. I feel sorry for her!

But with an anti-inflammatory, a shot of antibiotics (really just a precaution, the vet said, as there was no evidence of infection) and more of an idea where I should be heading with her dietary requirements, we're back home and "only" $145 lighter. Steve's old boy, Rusty, used to cost us more than that on a regular basis.....

Thanks to you kindly kitty-cat folk who replied, I was most concerned about her overnight and glad I could get an appointment so quickly today. God, I love our vets here up the street!

Help! Does our cat have her... period?!?

Ummmmmmmmm... Okay. I don't quite know where to start with this, so why don't I just jump in! Tootle-pip.

Tabby the (black) cat just followed me in to the ensuite and jumped into our now disused bath*, sniffed out the plug hole, squatted over it despite my loud protests and flapping in front of her face .... and proceeded to take a pee.

I was so aghast that I left her to her business (forgetting to ask if she wanted me to reach over and get her a square of loo paper, how uncouth of me) and called out to Steve to "come take a look, this is SO weird!"

By the time we got back in the room, Tabby had finished and trotted off to have her dinner like the elegant Lady she is. We peered over the side of the bath and (forgive me for saying, but) fuck me, there was red. As in, blood red. In the urine that hadn't quite made it down the hole - she was a bloody good aim, by the way.

Am I right to be alarmed or perturbed by this? The only reason I had any idea that animals have their period was because Charlotte's Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Elizabeth Taylor, got hers during the dog show. I guess it's a trip to the vet for her, either way, for we can't have an un-sterilised cat. She already looks to have had at least one litter, judging by the tell-tale untoned flab she is carrying that flaps uselessly to and fro when she runs (don't we all...).

But she is also micro-chipped. I was under the impression she couldn't be micro-chipped (or is it registered with the council??) if she wasn't spayed.

So, ummmmm... Help? HOW bizarre! Though, totally, it's just that I'm new to it, having never had any animal at all that isn't sterilised as a young'un - she, apparently, has been visited by Aunt Flo for, oh, about 5-6 years now so no biggie for her, I'd gather.

Either that, or she is not very well at all and needs prompt veterinary attention. Anyone got experience with this?




* the new bathroom in the extension has been finished for some weeks now and is divine, we no longer use the bath in the ensuite and are planning to remove it (it's very old) to make it into a super-deluxe water-tank filled fish pond soon.

Cat Cuisine

A quick one today - in pictures - as I have not one, but two sickies sharing a blanket at either end of the couch. Steve woke with razorblades in his throat (his description, not mine) and poor wee Lol has had us up since 4.30am crying with an ear ache. I plied her with Panadol and she slept with us and between her thrashing and Steve snoring on the other side of the bed, I didn't go back to sleep but instead lay there in that maternal, on-duty state and happy to be on call despite only having finished reading my book at 1am. Why do I always choose to read for hours on nights when I'll be up with a poorly poppet? I have some sort of sixth sense for it.

Anyway. To the pictorial. It's evident from these that not only has our black cat, Tabby, settled in quite nicely, she's making use of her time here by learning how to whip up quick dishes.

Every night now, she comes and sits up at the kitchen bench on one of the stools, watching what I'm doing. Just watching, from my hands to my face. Sometimes, to amuse myself, I start talking to her like Nigella or Jamie. Oh how we laugh, the cat and I. Okay, so just I. She cracks me up, the way she watches me, silently, almost critically, sometimes stopping intently gazing at what my hands are doing in order to study my face. Or stare into the middle distance of the kitchen for no apparent reason, as if she's suddenly tired of my explanation on why I prefer to grate onions instead of finely chop them (the reason for that is, of course, a toddler who "don't like crunchy onions".... ah, I know how to disguise them!)

But it is quite cute, she's like my very own little sisterhood. It reminds me of days past when my grandma would hang about in the kitchen, anyone's kitchen, whomever's home we were in. If we were all gathered someplace as a family, you could always find grandma holding up a conversation with the cook/s, imparting cooking tips and questioning the culinary methods she was seeing in front of her, and a permanently topped-up glass of sherry in hand. Hence the name of that bear of hers, of course, who is now in Lolly's charge.

So, here's my new kitchen-talk buddy / student chef. Sans the sherry.

Diligently watching...


...taste testing...


...getting distracted from her studies...

...playing...

...spellbound by my amaaaazing cooking techniques...

And voilé!

Well, what better name for a Light worker's cat!?

We inherited a cat tonight. Completely out of the blue.

She's the ex-pet of a new acquaintance's husband's cousin... got that?... who moved overseas a month ago. The new home hasn't worked out - and we're not saying this one will yet either, not until next weekend after this trial run is over - so we have taken her in.

Once we get to know her a bit more, I'll introduce her a bit further. But for now, about all there is to know is that she is a 5 or 6 year old black cat named Tabitha. A very fitting name for this household, if you ask me and Lolly! We've been calling her Tabby and realising it sounds utterly ridiculous to be calling a black cat 'Tabby'. So we're trying 'Tabsy' on as well and it's fitting more comfortably for us all so far.

The LGBB is enamoured. She loves cats, as does Steve. When Tabitha was due to arrive (it was literally, "Can you take this cat?" "Ummmm.....ooooo...kay?" "GREAT! I'll bring her round after work, in about an hour!"), Lolly stood out on the porch calling her "TAAAABBEEEE!" like they were already firm friends. And tonight, before she went to bed, she insisted on putting a letter she had written "to Tabby" next to her cat cage in the laundry, "so she knows it's a lovely home here." Lolly's words, not mine. I'm still waiting to see how the dogs are going to appreciate this addition to the hierarchy. It may all be over by this weekend if the kitty litter hits the fan.

I must say, though, that initial impressions are that apparently, this cat needs this family. Or perhaps, this family now requires this particular cat.

I will also be looking up the Cat animal wisdom, you can be sure, and I'll post it here once I dig it out. This all happened so very fast, and truth be told, I'm not really a cat person [what, the two dogs and nary a mention of cats in the five years I've been blogging didn't give that one away already?]. But something about this story made me say Yes before I even thought about it. I find that very often, the easiest decisions to be made (and ultimately, the right ones) happen that way.

Add to this the recollection of a very curious 'vision' of a close friend at the end of last year - that she could see a black cat wandering around a house where I was doing my healing/consulting work from. And.... just a big "hmmmm" from me to that one. Plans are currently in the works to finish off part B of our extension, whereby the garage is built and my home office/consulting room behind it. Yes. That'd be the consulting room I never thought I'd actually see built and had always waved off the suggestion that I'd be doing this anywhere, let alone from home, on a legitimate, formal basis because "there's nowhere for me to set up properly." Ah... aherm. Famous last words.

More later.

Surely I have to try!

The LGBB has recently discovered her love of Hello, Kitty (thanks to her Japanese cousins who drew her likeness every day they were here and now Lolly recognises little Kitty wherever we go).

I have to try and make these for her 3rd birthday! Hey, I've got a little under four months to practice...... wanna dare me to attempt them?! They're so cuuuuuute!

The recipe is here at Bakerella.

The choreography must've taken them aaaages

They're just so damn cute I can't even stand it.



Kittens-Coca Cola Box - The best video clips are here