Tippy Over Tippy

Day 150: "Over" is an essential part of our morning routine. After he's through with his breakfast, Tippy sits beside my chair and waits for me to ask, "Where's my Over? We gotta have Over. Over is the most important part of the day!" Then he jumps onto my lap and expects to be turned sunny-side up, whereupon he "goes boneless" and rests his head on my chest, purring constantly and occasionally looking up at me so we can touch noses. He'll stay that way for five minutes or so before indicating to me that he wants to roll up, pivoting on the heaviest, bulkiest portion of his anatomy until he can stretch out long with his head on my knees. Over is performed several times throughout the day, but seldom for the length of time devoted to it in the morning.

When Skunk was still with us (today is the third anniversary of her demise), my lap was her domain. She only shared it with him on two historical occasions when he managed to squeeze into the space between my legs and the arm of the chair. But only a few days after she left us, my Child asserted his claim and now spends the better part of his day holding his Mama down.

Skunk's Howe

Day 129: The snowdrops are blooming on Skunk's Howe. It has been just shy of three years since our kitty-girl left us, and sometimes I think Tippy misses her as much as I do. I've seen him catch her scent on a favourite toy, on a blanket, and the questioning "Mirrl?" he directs to me as he makes eye contact defies any suggestion of anthropomorphization that might arise. If I could think as he does, I might understand his emotions better, but although I cannot do so, they are as genuine as my own. Humans, prideful and pitiful subjects that we are, cannot even bridge the gap of cultural differences among our own kind. How can we possibly hope to comprehend how another species thinks and emotes? What goes through Tippy's kitty-mind when he remembers Skunk? Would a human recognize the emotion, or would it be entirely alien? We have a long way to go in our evolution before that question can be answered.

Purloined Snowdrops

Day 103: My walk on the Bud Blancher Trail a few days back was multi-purpose. I needed photographic material for posts. I needed to get Out. And I wanted to see if the Snowdrops had come through the ground in my secret spot. I had a cunning plan which involved a small plastic bag and a well-worn trowel, items which have served me in good stead many times over, including previously at my target location. I'm not quite sure who owns the property. At least one of the locals uses it for a post-hunt bone dump, although it seems to be on the boundary of Pack Forest. In any event, the Snowdrops are not native. However they managed to establish up an abandoned and overgrown path is anyone's guess, but apparently they've been there for years. They are quite well entrenched, the bulbs often buried deeply under a layer of heavy gravel which resists my most vigorous efforts to budge it. My previous excavation hasn't diminished the Snowdrop population, and in fact the fruits of my prior labours should be blooming in my front flower bed in the next few weeks. However, on this occasion, I wanted to bring home another small batch to plant on Skunk's grave with the grape hyacinths, daffodils and violets I've put there previously. My old kitty-girl has been gone almost a year now, and both Tippy and I miss her. It occurred to me only a few days ago that she had been with me longer than any other creature except my late husband, and that, only by a few months. I think Snowdrops are a fitting tribute.

My Skunky-Girl

Day 151: She came to me at roughly six weeks old, blue-eyed, tail hairless as a rat's, and scrappy as a few ounces of kitten could possibly be, having defended herself against two cat-killing dachshunds. She had nearly lost a paw in the set-to, but under my care, it healed nicely. She was a funny little thing. I called her a "water-cat." When I showered, she would often get in the tub, take up a position on the drain, perfectly content as the tide rose around her. I took advantage of the fact and introduced her to a regularly-conducted bath protocol, so her fur was always as soft as a bunny's. She also liked to pat the water in her drinking bowl or stand with one hand in it, requiring me to make accommodations for the spills by setting it in a larger bowl. She enjoyed drinking from the bathtub faucet, and before I learned to leave a water dish for her on the tub drain, she'd "sing in the shower" with a voice guaranteed to peel paint to let me know she needed the water to be turned on. When she was a tiny babycat (that's one word, "babycat"), she would crawl under the covers with me, nestle in the crook of my arm, massaging my chest with her front paws until she got sleepy. Then she'd worm her way down to my feet, remaining there for most of the night. In her younger days, we'd play the Stare Game, in which she would lurk behind a piece of furniture, one eye showing, and I would take a position on the floor where I could stare at her through the legs of a chair or around a corner. We'd sit that way for a minute which seemed to expand time, and then slowly and deliberately, I would blink. As if on cue, she'd rush me, galloping across the floor at full speed. Her favourite toys were three stuffies: a little squirrel (we went through several over the early years), a skunk roughly the same size, and a larger wolf. Wolfie was for kneading, and she would spend long minutes working her paws into his soft padding.

Always an indoor kitty, her health was excellent until she turned 7 and contracted an ear infection. She was given medication which destroyed her eardrums and went deaf in a matter of days. I nursed her through what can only be described as a deep depression, but unbeknownst to me or her doctor, other damage had been done to her system and her health continued to decline. Yesterday (March 12), I made the hard decision and laid my beloved kitty-girl to rest here in the only home she ever knew, beneath my big Doug fir.

Taking Turns

Day 124: We're taking turns, Skunk and I. While I'm sitting in the chair, I have the heating pad thrown over my injured shoulder, and when I get up, Skunk takes possession. Sometimes when I get too warm and she's on my lap, I'll lay it across her poor old arthritic hips. We seem to both be benefitting from the application of heat; at least she's been bouncier these last few days. I can't claim to be bouncy, but I'm able to raise my arm without howling. Little old ladies, the two of us, falling apart at the seams, finding comfort in shared warmth and companionship. Aging ain't a sport for wimps.

Christmas Portraits

Day 74: I try to capture my kids' portraits a couple of times a year, but neither of them is particularly fond of the camera, nor are they amused at my antics when I try to get them to look up and open their eyes. My success yesterday was thanks to a Christmas gift, a cute shelf-sitter costumed crow which provided the photographer with a genuine "Watch the birdie!" prop. Waving it around wasn't sufficient; it had to peck Tip in his pudgy ribs to keep him from going back to sleep. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Photographing cats is second in difficult only to herding them. For those of you who haven't made their acquaintance yet, Skunk is my "old lady." She's 16. Tippy (aka Tip, short for Tipperary) is 10.

Quiet Time

Day 18: After a week of ideal hiking weather when I was out almost every day, now the autumn rains have started (a little too earnestly, thank you) and I've returned to my quiet-time projects. Having spun up the remainder of the raw wool, I washed one skein this morning and hung it to dry indoors, but the urge to spin was strong. I had three choices at hand: more grey Gotland (a recent purchase), a beautiful white Corriedale cross roving, or the dyed wool I'd bought at the Puyallup Fair: a blue/purple/black blend and an aqua/blue/purple, four ounces of each. I opted for the colours. I will spin all of each blend separately and then ply them together to maximize the randomness of the colours. The fiber is in "pencil roving," already carded and ready to go.

Birthday Girl

Day 337 (Part B): Bonus post today because she deserves it. Skunk is celebrating her 16th birthday today. The bottom photo was taken the night I brought her home, still blue-eyed and bare-tailed, and her right wrist showing a healing wound inflicted by two kitten-killing dachshunds who tried their damndest to make a meal of her. Even then, she was a scrappy, feisty little thing, and seven years elapsed before she'd sit on my lap. Now, she demands her lap-time, shoving aside whatever project I may have in my hands and taking forever to settle her poor arthritic bones into a reasonably comfortable position. Her health is not good, but we go on, taking each day as it comes, because that's the way it works when you promise someone a "forever home." Happy Birthday, Skunk!

Selfies!

Day 299: Kitty selfies! As you can probably guess from the title of the book, the portraits were hand-felted from Tip's and Skunk's fur. A friend had sent me the book suggestion as a joke, but I took it seriously and ordered it almost immediately. I'm always interested in learning new crafts, and needle-felting was something I'd never tried. Special felting needles with barbed points are used to mingle wool (or cat hair) onto a base fabric or into its own fibers to form a matted fabric similar to the felt you'd purchase in a crafts store. Here, I used a commercial felt square for the background, shaping the cats with the aid of a plastic stencil. Stray hairs always linger around the edges, and these were trimmed away with embroidery scissors to give more defined outlines. I made Tip (the black kitty) first to get a feel for the process and then created Skunk, a more challenging subject because of her colouration. Each kitty took about fifteen minutes to complete. The same technique can be used with wool (sheep, llama, goat, etc.). To protect the felter's lap from inadvertent pokes, felting is done on a thick piece of foam, but mind your fingertips! Warning issued, rest assured that no cats or mamas were damaged in the making of these "self-portraits."

Family

Day 143: Time for spring portraits again, so let me introduce my family to those of you who don't already know them. Skunk (top) is my old grandma-girl. She's 15 and not in the best of health. I've had her since she was a six-week old kitten. She's deaf, very arthritic, scrawny as a rail, and has a number of other geriatric issues which I try to accommodate as best I can. Her care is almost a 24/7 job, as I am sure my own physical needs will be when I reach or pass the equivalent of her years. That's something we all need to consider in our companions.

Tippy (bottom, full name Tipperary, aka Tip) was a shelter kitten, six months old when I brought him home. Also known as the Spaghetti Monster for his penchant for opening the cupboard and creating a pile of jackstraws in which to play, or as the Tickle Monster because he loves to be chased and tickled, he is 9 and bouncy-rowdy when he's awake. He keeps me young, my Boy, wanting me to keep the game going even when I'm ready to retire to my chair.

Perhaps it's the difference in their ages, for although they are both affectionate toward me, my two kids don't interact with each other beyond the occasional approach from Tip which is rebuffed by a snarl and hiss from Skunk. He respects her boundaries most of the time, and if things do get a little out of hand, I have only to say "Tip..." in a menacing voice and he backs off. I'm sure he doesn't understand why she doesn't want to play. When Skunk has possession of my lap, he will not try to shove her out. His tactics are more subtle. He sits on my footstool and transfixes me with that golden-eyed stare, as if to say, "Is it my turn yet?" By bedtime, they're usually both satisfied with the amount of lap-time they've received.

They're all the family I have, these two (well, other than a Little Tree and a big old Boulder in a faraway place). Family is important. I love mine.

A Friend To Lean On

Day 94: Despite having been spayed as a young kitten, Skunk's mothering instincts run strong, particularly in late winter and early spring. Her two favourite stuffy-toys are a spongy-soft wolf cub and the hedgehog she's leaning against here. The wolf cub is not easily transported, although she occasionally drags it a few feet. The hedgehog gets carried from spot to spot until she feels it's properly nested, and she massages it, kneading it with her paws just like I knead a loaf of bread. When she's feeling particularly...um...driven, she "sings" to it, perhaps not feeling quite so motherly as "unfulfilled." The caterwauling which sometimes goes on for hours in the middle of the night is done in a voice which could peel paint. Although she's had the hedgehog for a number of years, she's never discovered its innermost (literally!) secret: velcroed inside its tummy are two little baby hedgies! Skunk, you're a grandma and you don't even know it.

Yarn Holder

Day 33: Knitters use a variety of containment systems for their working yarns. I've seen the thread emerging from a ceramic elephant's trunk, for example, or from a hole in the top of a lidded basket. I've used cardboard boxes, coffee cans, and yes, even a knitter's caddy, but mostly, I just put the skein on the chair beside me if it's being used in a short-term project like socks. My knitting assistant is keeping it from slipping off onto the floor.

Skunk came to me at six weeks old, a feisty little thing who'd fended off two kitten-eating dogs at the cost of nearly losing a paw. Consequently, she wasn't the friendliest of cats, didn't like being touched, wouldn't sit on my lap. When she was seven, she lost her hearing and went into a severe and nearly fatal decline. During her recovery, her personality changed. Now she demands lap-time and will insert herself under whatever project is in my hands, there to sleep until I can no longer resist the urge to get up and move around. As yarn holders go, you can't beat one which also serves as a purring lap-warmer!

Some Days...

Day 9: Ever have one of Those Days when you don't even feel like you should bother shaving? I was awakened some time between 4 and 5 AM by what sounded like a gunshot. It took me a second to realize that the dim light of my digital clock wasn't brightening the bedroom. Yeah, I should have known that was coming. We had a wind-and-rain storm last night, and the power had gone out. It wasn't particularly cold, so I just pulled the covers up over my head and went back to sleep. Our PUD (Public Utility District) is large geographically but serves a significantly smaller number of people proportionately than, say, Tacoma City Light. When the lights go out, they're usually only out for an hour or two. I figured I'd have power again by breakfast time.

I was wrong. When I got up, the house had cooled down substantially. I was going to have to argue with the propane fireplace whether I wanted to or not. It's invariably cranky the first time I light it up each year, and today was no exception. Once I got it to stay lit, I settled into my chair to crochet by headlamp. Ten minutes into a row, the fire sputtered and went out, a new variation on its normal recalcitrance. I struggled with it for twenty minutes but when I couldn't get it to re-light, I decided to let it rest for a bit before trying again. I figured there might have been some water condensation in the line. Eventually, I got it to light and stay on, but at 11 o'clock, I still didn't have power.

I don't usually like to bother PUD Dispatch, but since this was an unusually long outage for us, I thought I'd better call. The dispatcher was surprised by the news. He'd already sent his crews home after a rough night because they'd reported that all repair tickets were completed. He told me he'd have to try to round up "somebody who's home" (remember, this is Sunday), but assured me that I would have my lights back by evening.

At 4, I called again to see if he'd made any progress on finding a repairman. He had, and they'd tried to reach me, but the road between Morton and Elbe was washed out. He was sending a crew the long way around, i.e., through Chehalis, Tenino and Yelm. "They'll be there in a few hours," he said. When the crew finally arrived, it took them all of five minutes to remove the branches from the line and replace the fuse which had blown. The outage had only affected me and my two neighbours, and neither of them had called in. If I had only called Dispatch immediately, I wouldn't have had to spend my day in the gloom.

Birthday Girl

Day 337 (bonus post): Today is Skunk's 15th birthday! She came to me at about six weeks old, a wild little thing who had been born outdoors and stolen from her mother by another barn-cat who was nursing kittens several weeks older. Smaller but much feistier than the other kittens, she withstood an attack by two savage dachshunds which almost cost her a paw. It was a hard beginning, and it took many years before she would consent to being touched, even longer before she would sit on my lap. At seven years old, she developed an ear infection which failed to respond to the standard treatment. A stronger antibiotic administered in her ear canals rendered her deaf. She fell into a deep depression with the sudden and total loss of her hearing, and lost over half her body weight in a matter of days. A different vet gave her subcutaneous fluids and a bad prognosis, but I force-fed her for several weeks and brought her back to moderate health. Since then, she has become very affectionate toward me and often pushes aside my projects to insert herself on my lap. She still has health issues and is developing geriatric problems as well, but she's my good old girl. Happy birthday, Skunk!

How Dare You!

Day 146: Today's interrogative is "How?" as in "How dare you put that camera in my face? You said you were going to take my picture. Are you going to give it back?" I'm convinced that cats regard cameras as soul-stealers. They will NOT look one in the eye if they have any say in the matter, and the simple act of lifting a camera up off a table will cause all heads to turn outward, denying the black box any opportunity of incursion. While not exactly Grumpy-Cat, there will be no smiles forthcoming despite the fact that both Tip and Skunk generally wear cheerful, even amused looks when the camera is hidden away. To add insult to injury, I was compelled to use flash for these portraits, something I normally eschew. None of us was happy with this session!

Merry Christmas!

Day 73: Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings from the residents of Lichenopolis! However you celebrate the holidays, our best wishes will follow you into the coming year.

Cat Day Kids

Day 300 (bonus): Skunk (left) and Tip (right) would like to wish my readers a Happy Cat Day!

CAT Poster

Day 205: You may have to step back from your screen a few paces and dust off your imaginative skills to see it. The photos spell "cat" ... C-A-T. Skunk obliged as my model, asleep during C and A, patiently enduring very close proximity to the camera for T. Even so, it took more than a few attempts because she kept looking away just as I'd snap the shutter. I had hoped to achieve the plural, perhaps enlisting Tip for the task, but both he and Skunk kept wiggling their esses, anxious to be petted or fed.

Snoozy Suzy

Day 85: I once saw a cartoon of two cats sprawled on a couch, in which one says to the other, "I don't know how I can get by on just seventeen and a half hours sleep," and Skunk and Tip are both prime examples of the truth of that assertion. They spend most daylight hours sacked out, and a fair portion of the night as well. If you're a cat owner, you know what I mean: they spend 90 percent their time sleeping, with the occasional wake-break for eating or using the litter box. Cats are professional loafers, no doubt about it.

So here I am, on the third day of a three-month physical fitness challenge which is demanding about three hours a day of aerobic exercise to achieve my goal, and a question which has puzzled me for some time has arisen once again. How, I want to know, does a cat who does nothing but loaf maintain the muscle tone necessary to leap to the top of a counter or chair? What cardiovascular secret is there in a cat's physique which allows it to race like fury around the house for half an hour without getting even marginally short of breath? All you weekend warriors out there...you know how they're always warning you about jackrabbit starts? A cat can go from total inactivity to the equivalent of running a marathon without even a fifteen-second warmup and never risks tearing a muscle or falling over with cramps.

Snoozy Suzy here (Skunk) stays in shape by being lazy. Why doesn't it work that way for me? 

We Are Not Amused

Day 30: No, we are not amused at all. The power went out about 8:45 last night and stayed out until 2:30 while the wind howled outdoors. The house got cold enough that the Sandbags sandbagged me on either side in the bed, which of course doesn't make for the most restful sleep. Lights are back on now, but I'm writing from the library. Internet is down. Land line is down. Cell service is down! Land line and internet are the same company, and their message would indicate that it may be a while before service is restored, but the loss of cell baffles me. Did the tower blow over?

Winter. I used to love it, but the older I get, the harder it is to get through the season, both physically and emotionally. I don't enjoy camping out in my living room as much as I used to, dammit.

Update: A broken fiber-optic cable was apparently at fault, although I'm not sure how that managed to affect cell service. It has been repaired, and I'm back among the connected.