Month: April 2011

You know how sometimes, when you have to make a really tough decision, you’re relieved when the decision gets made, whether it’s right or wrong?  Just knowing that it’s done and that the agony of deliberating over it has finally ended, it leaves you with a feeling of relief.  That’s kind of how I’m feeling right now.

So, the naturopathic Resthyro worked, at least partially.  Mister’s last bloodwork showed that, though he was not quite back to normal, his thyroid levels had improved significantly.  He still hasn’t gained any weight, but up until this week, he hadn’t lost any either.  Our vet was pretty impressed by that. 

Only problem is, now Reggie has taken his stalking of Mister to a whole new level.  Last night I was woken a number of times because Reggie decided to tangle with Mister, and they usually ended up under our bed by the end of the extended tussle.  You try to sleep with a cat fight taking place underneath your bed–it ain’t easy.  And it’s all because of all the animosity we’re creating by giving Mister mush twice daily while the other buddies have to look on, salivating and feeling sorry for themselves.  We’ve created a Sibling Rivalry Monster of near biblical proportions.  Mister thinks the arrangement is just dandy, thank you very much, but the rest of the cats…not so much.  It has become abundantly clear that, while the Resthyro is indeed working, it’s not going to turn out to be an ideal long-term solution in a six cat household. 

So today, after much deliberation, and after finding out that they are actually going to be doing this in Greenville, SC after all, we decided to go ahead and make the appointment to do the radioactive iodine.  It’s through a company called Radiocat (I know, cute, hunh?), and they travel around the country performing this service at select vets across the US.  We originally had Mister set up to go to Marietta, GA, but that’s a full four hours away, and Mister is not a happy traveler.  One and a half hours is much more manageable, and it turns out to be on a really good date, to boot!  We were worried that the Greenville date might interfere with a pre-planned out-of-town trip, but luck smiled on us and the date turned out to be a different one.  I went from feeling absolutely sick about having to do this, to kind of feeling like this might be the right thing to do after all.  It will give the Resthyro a chance to work a little longer, and give us a chance to get Mister “fattened up” a little more.  Poor little guy is down to 9 pounds at this point, and doesn’t really have any more weight to give up.  I was concerned that, since Mister has really only bonded with Sean and me, he might end up going on some kind of misguided hunger strike once he is separated from us for a few days.  Which, incidentally, is the longest he’s ever been away from our house.  Sean thinks Mister is going to treat it like a spa weekend…woo hoo–no Reggie, Elroy or Otto to torture him around the clock!!  I’m not so sure about that.

So, it’s hard.  And it hurts to think that he’s going to be scared out of his wits for four whole days, and he might end up glowing a little (hopefully not).  And that when he gets home, he’s going to have to be sequestered on his own for two weeks with limited Big Buddy time and his Big Buddies scooping his poop in haz-mat suits (hopefully not).  But at least I’ll get my Mister back at the end of it all.  He may not understand what’s going on (who am I kidding…I  barely understand what’s going on), but he will forgive us for this, and he won’t have hyperthyroidism anymore, and we will all be happy.

And that’s all I can really hope for, anyway.  The real question is, how am I going to manage showering and brushing my teeth without his keen supervision? 

I hadn’t even stopped giggling about Wanda’s on-air antics with her fluffy ball when she completely cracked us up again.

This morning, I ate some plain yogurt and offered Wanda (who was still snoozing on the bed) the opportunity to lick the yogurt container.  Wanda loves yogurt.  She will happily lick up the creamy, tart substance as long as you will let her.  Today, she stuck her little head into the container, further and further in, trying to get every last smidgen of yogurt out of the bottom.  When she lifted her head again, the yogurt container came up with it.  She sat there for a second, bewildered at this strange turn of events.  Then she backed slowly away from the yogurt container, which stuck stubbornly to her head, despite her very slow head swings and barely imperceptible backward momentum.  It was not unlike the classic Winnie-the-Poo story about getting his head caught in a honey-pot.  I had to wake Sean up just to witness this, and he woke up giggling.  

It was definitely another Kodak-worthy moment, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to share that one with y’all.

There are some things that are terribly hard to get good footage of–things that usually seem to only appear to one person, or under cover of darkness:  Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Wanda playing with her fluffy ball.  Folks, I am here to tell you that today, at least one of those things has finally been captured on film.  Enjoy:

First we brought you the Buddy Stroller.  And, as if that weren’t enough, now we’ve finally approached (if not gone off entirely) the deep end.  (Actually, Sean argues that we were already there with the Buddy Stroller, and he may have a point there.)  Now, we’ve bought them harnesses, with little retractable leashes to go with them.  

At first, the idea was for Otto and Wanda to have matching plaid harnesses in different colors–Otto’s in green and navy blue, Wanda’s in pink and white.  Otto got the “medium dog” sized (yes, you heard that right), and Wanda got the “small dog” sized.  Only problem is that Wanda is apparently not as small as a small dog (see previous post about why the other buddies shouldn’t have mush all the time), plus she’s made it abundantly clear now that she has no intention of being led around on a leash like a common animal.  Otto on the other hand just saw one word in all these crazy harness shenanigans:  FREEDOM.  Now he can go outside with the Big Buddies without Big Buddy Girl having a conniption (which is rarely any fun for anybody).  

But now, Reggie wanted to go out in the harness, too.  And guess who is also way bigger than a small dog?  And who balks at the concept of having to wear hot pink?  So back we went to the pet store to get Reggie his very own manly red plaid harness in medium.  

And then, this past Saturday, we took the cats out in the back yard with the harnesses.  Otto “got it” right away, purring like crazy to get to hang out with the Big Buddies on the back patio.  Reggie took a little more coaxing.  At first he was afraid to move with the harness on, and kept “commando crawling” whenever he felt the urge to go from thither to yon.  We picked  up some small sticks and started playing with him, which distracted him just enough to be able to relax and enjoy being outside.  I really do think that, with a bit more practice, Reggie is going to be an old hand at this himself.  

And someday, when they’re both really good at it, we’ll be able to take them on walks.  Now if we can just seem to locate the neighborhood Cat Park…

Last night I was awakened out of a deep sleep by someone saying “Hello,” over and over, at regular intervals.  Which I thought was pretty weird, since I was sleeping alone while Sean has been out of town for a few days.  After I woke enough to gather my bearings, I realized that the sound that I thought was “hello” was Otto, snoring like a buzz-saw.  Something about the way he was holding his mouth or the position of his vocal cords was making it sound like he was saying “hello” repeatedly.  There he was tucked into a little ball in between my legs, and “talking” in his sleep.  

Clearly, Otto will find any excuse to talk, because he was the only one of our cats who used to talk while eating when he was a kitten.  (Actually, we can’t say that for sure about two of them, because we didn’t really know them when they were kittens.)  But Otto would sit there as a tiny fluff of grey and white, his big blue eyes half-closed in pleasure, and eat his kibble while saying (in the parlance of the LOL Cats) “nom, nom, nom.”  He’d just keep vocalizing right through dinner, and no matter how much we told him that it is impolite to speak with one’s mouth full (okay, we didn’t really do that), he just kept doing it anyway.  

Sometimes we totally “get” what Otto’s saying to us, and sometimes it is completely perplexing.  Last night as I was sitting on the couch, he jumped up beside me, looked me right in the eye, and started earnestly mrowing at me.  I figured he wanted to play, so I pulled out a couple of their favorite toys from the toy-box and commenced playing.  He ignored it.  I cuddled him.  He ignored that.  I stuck him under the throw blanket on the couch, thinking he wanted to play the pick-at-his-fur-under-the-cover-game.  Nope.  

I think he was just trying to tell me to go fetch Big Buddy, and PRONTO.  Otto was getting mighty tired of this business about his not being here.  I know Otto loves me, but I’ll never be a match for his Big Buddy.  I guess I should just feel thankful that he can talk about it, even in his sleep!

My husband has a radio show on Asheville FM (www.ashevillefm.org) called “Holistic Harmony” in which he interviews a holistic health practitioner most weeks and plays cool, often obscure jazz records and CDs.  This past week his guest was a meditation instructor (and Pandit) who was talking about how we seem to have lost the ability to “just be,” rather than feeling like we have to be doing something all the time.  It was a good show.  (You should check it out.)  

Afterward, Sean made the comment that he loves the fact that our cats (and really, cats in general) have no problem whatsoever with just “being.”  (Actually, Reggie is the exception to that rule.  That cat cannot sit still.  Seriously, I would think he had ants in his pants if he actually had any pants.)  But most cats are completely comfortable with just closing their eyes half-way and smiling at the world, or indulging in a “cat nap,” where they’re resting their eyes and their mind, but still completely aware and alert of everything going on around them.  Wow, that sounds a lot like…meditation.  Yep, cats are natural yogis.  They don’t even have to work at it.  As a matter of fact, not working at it seems to be what allows them to reach their particular brand of present-focused enlightenment.   

Not that they don’t have their stumbling blocks.  Otto is hardly ever content to be on any side of a closed door.  Reggie and Elroy can reach states of near hysteria when the food bowls are showing shiny at the bottom.  But for the most part, they get the Zen thing.  It’s just one more thing that makes me feel lucky to be their friend.  There’s just so much to learn from our little furry Buddhas.