Maz has been giving us a scare this past week when we noticed a decline in activity and slight weight loss combined with a case of the runs. Dehydration = weight loss, evidently.
In his library: "I am a Ferrari, not a Lamborghini".
The good news is he is perking up and is now giving birth to healthy cat turds, after being administered some anti-diarrhea medicine and liquids (tuna-flavored water).
Riiiight. Don't we wish...
Most likely, the weather turning warmer for the next couple days will also help.
The thing is, his metabolism is such that we have to remain on constant alert for any change: another cat may take days longer to exhibit signs of distress, but Maz could crash overnight if the problem is serious.
“Take mah pulse… I know it stinks, idiot, I just buried my leavings! I say, TAKE MAH PULSE!”
In this instance we think the recent change in diet did not sit well with his Formula One car metabolism. As much research as can be done in terms of pet diets, a lot of it is empirical, with forum posts and advice columns taking you down conflicting paths. In other words it’s still kind of an art, especially when the patient can’t talk.
Well, perhaps he can’t talk, but Maz can unfortunately get on the interwebs. After receiving strange e-mails, we had to block payment on bookings he had obviously made for air fare and hotel accommodations in Cuba. He had found a clinic catering to dictators, specializing in eating disorders in the Vedado district of Havana.
Naked bastard… He’s still dropping them outside the box.
The night of Thursday into Friday the 13th, a night of celestial mayhem, turned out to bring Tito and I ever closer…
Storm re-enactment
A storm was moving through the Bay Area, with lightning strikes precise enough to hit not only the Bay bridge but a plane in flight. The plane had to dump fuel and returned safely to the airport.
THUNDERCATS ARE NO GO!!!
At home, as we turned off the computer and prepared to do the same with the TV, I caught something strange from the corner of my eye: a rug shimmying straight for the kitchen. A second look showed Tito hugging the floor and running for a kitchen cupboard to hide in.
Maz, while none too pleased, was comfortably wrapped in a heavy blanket on the bed and didn’t budge. Jenny herself was sitting on the bed with a bit more nervous discomfort than he and watched Tito darting away.
Nightingale Jenny will make it all better...
While I don’t particularly fear that the sky will ever fall, like my ancestors the Gauls, Tito seems to be afraid of it for the both of us. The only spot he considers a refuge is the lower cupboard in the kitchen next to the stove top and behind a crock pot.
This storm kept on moving through, fortunately, and Jenny helped Tito recover with tender grooming and copious amounts of catnip she shared… Tito the Gaul. Wow. We are kin!
I had really been looking forward to watching “Hugo” because Martin Scorsese is one of my favorite directors and his latest film competed directly with “the artist” at the last Academy Awards.
Both films express a passion for movies at a time when much of the public shuns theaters for at-home viewing, like us here at JBoD. I frankly can only think of two films in recent memory which passed the “windshield rule”: “we are what we are“, Terrence Malick’s “the tree of life“, perhaps even Lars Von Trier’s “Melancholia“.
On my daily commute, especially in the summer months, I get to enjoy both sunset and sunrise, a benefit of working nights. And so I got to wonder just how many films are really worth watching on anything larger than a car windscreen. By and large, especially with high definition TV, I feel most movies fail the test.
This just happened. Oh, in the last 40 minutes or so.
Maz: “- Mmmmraw…. Meeeeewe….
Rudha-an: – Unnnh.nnuh. Nno baby, wut time is it..?
Me: – Hrrumph… I’ts… Four thirty. Jesus.
Maz: – Hmmraow. Rrrweee. MRAOW.
Rudha-an: – Not now baby, it’s too – (another body landed on the bed)
Me: – T-Tito what the @#$%? [He takes off]
Rudha-an (as a result of being trampled by Maz): – Would you stop..? Christ almighty. No I’m not going in there. ‘Course I love you too but Jeesus.
Me: – [BONK] Sh*t, who did I kick off the bed..?
Rudha-an: – Musta been Tito.
Me: – No it felt lighter than – [cats are heard romping through the apartment: TROMP-TROMP-TROMP-MMMMMREEEWEEEE!-TAGADA-TAGADA-TAGADA-TSOIN-TSOIN! I dunno… Suddenly one lands next to my feet before taking off at warp speed, claws raking my ankles] AAAGH!!! @#$#^%&!!!!! F*****G $%&*&##@@!!!!!!
Rudha-an: – Told you to cover your feet….
Me: – [for the umpteenth time] THEY GET WARM… Joder!!! [Yeah, ’cause I cuss in other languages too…] Bastards!
Maz: – Rrrrrewweee!!! MmROW!
Me: – Hey f***k you pal. [I grab him and wrap him in the blanket against me. As I grab him his legs stiffen out, kicking every which way, like hypnic jerking, one claw nailing Rudha-an in the arm]
Rudha-an: – DAMMIT!!!! $#@^%&*!!!!
I’m holding on tight to Maz, petting him as he tries to burrow an escape tunnel. He turns and MMMRAOWS in my face. I gotta come up for air: I just smelled the entire Seattle fish market fill my nose. Blech.
Jenny, I can tell from the weight before she even utters a chirrup, leaps on my shoulder, slides and rakes my neck with a claw. The Deguello echoes loud in my head. Flesh wound. I’ll live.
Fierce creature…
From a corner of the room, not sure which, I feel Tito either orchestrating the mayhem or perhaps waiting to come in and save us… Who knows, both things have happened in the past.
Someday these fangs will come for blood…
YES! He jumps next to me and grabs at Jenny who suddenly takes off!
NO! he climbs on my gut and takes a flying leap from there.
We’ve seen worse, but recent days have seen the thermometer dip to about 40 at night and it takes longer for the sun to warm everything up in the morning.
I took this picture a few weeks ago at about 7 a.m.
Looks cold..? It is.
That means more cuddling time for Miss Jenny, Marshal Tito and the f****g fascist depicted in the banner, pardon my French…. It also means more noms for calories and Maz has now taught Jenny to wake mommy up for them. Lots of pawing, standing on hips, face-licks with hellish breath, etc…
Tito is the only one not begging for food anymore…
Weather looks cloudy with a heart of gold
Every so often, I do forget and leave food unattended. Maz never forgets.
Pizza? Why not, s'long as there's no peppers...
Wonder what they dream of… The cat version of “the King and I”? Complete with coo’s and chirrups?
He is mine and I wuvs him and I shall call him my Lake Titicaca
Or maybe they dream of centipede bunnies crapping skittles. Who knows?
Mmmmh... Skittles.
Naturally in the real world, cats would devour the bunnies, resulting in… Well, just watch.
It’s 3:40 a.m. and I’m trying to work up a movie review. The boys are pooped and crashed in their spots on the computer desk: Tito in the basket above and Maz in the doggie bed to the side.
I want to play. Play with me.
Miss Jenny still wants to play and is getting bratty about it. She’s carrying this balled up piece of paper, dropping it in Maz’ bed and steps on him to get a reaction. No dice.
She jumps up to Tito’s lair, almost knocking the desk lamp clipped to the side. I can hear Tito sigh, but he doesn’t budge. Down she comes again, picking up her toy once more.
I keeled it.
She bats it into the space between the TV table and the wall and lunges after it, wedging her front end down there while back-pedaling with her rear.
She farts. Oh God she farted.
She comes up victorious with paper in mouth, I guess. I can’t really tell, my eyes watering and the fumes affecting my inner ear: the image and sound on the TV seem out of sync, because sound travels at a different speed after she ‘alters’ the atmosphere. I put my hands down on the desk to steady myself, Jeez… We need to change her diet progressively, but soon. Much depends on this.
All four of our kittoons here have needed a bit of socializing right from the start. It might seem that Maz Whang didn’t, but his universe was turned upside down when we adopted him, as he’d grown up a full year with Sphynx siblings, and a couple other cats and dog.
To be wrenched from his home was traumatic, and the poor beastie gacked and crapped all over himself in the cat carrier on the way to his new digs.
No camera! No camera!
We had to stop, clean him up and comfort him as best we could before driving on.
Sphynxes are social, but on their own terms, which aren’t always easy to decipher. They really are driven by the two related needs of warmth and sustenance, with much playtime in between.
Just like you test the warmth of a baby bottle prior to feeding, you have to ensure your hands are warm enough before petting Maz or he’ll recoil and dart away in shock and horror. I call this “ghosting” because that’s what his reaction makes me think of. We’ve said he’s been very good for Tito (and vice versa), drawing Tito out of his ‘goth’ period following Boober’s passing.
Strangers at first
Finally, Tito was able to chase and play to his heart’s content with the streaker, losing excess weight in the process, and bonding with, well, an alien. Even Miss Jenny finds Mazuzu irresistible: both want to nom on Maz, who’ll leap straight up a couple feet in the air and maybe growl if a tooth racks his spine. Mmmmh. Baby back ribs…
Love happens
Given Tito and Jenny’s “affection” for shoes, I suspect they enjoy Maz’ gym locker smell when it’s time to give him a bath. That’s usually a signal for us to drag him into the tub, but then they love the new cat smell just as much and are all over him again.
Affection? They have it. Tito tricks us into feeding him and leaves the food for Maz, knowing the alien always needs more. Smart Tito…
Maz grooms both Tito and Jenny when he beds down with either in the basket atop the computer desk, later gacking hairballs and meowing his discontent, but what can you do..? Jenny also grooms both, focusing on Maz’ ears in particular, an unexpected boon for us since Maz and Q-tips don’t mix well.
The mutual grooming society in action
One of the biggest changes is something Maz started and Jenny continues: helping Tito find his voice. Because he never was very vocal at all, this watchful little thing which grew into a big cat. He now trills and coos and meows, although always in the higher pitch of a kitten. And it may be early yet to tell, but I think Jenny’s going to be the same. They both will always sound like kittens.
Tito and Jenny
This may sound like a sign of arrested development but I prefer to think of it as a display of happiness, along with Tito’s joy at being picked up and carried from room to room for a few minutes, purring and discovering a new perspective on his world with wide eyes, rubbing his chin on our cheek as we do so. And Jenny’s happiness at going to sleep hugging my hand to her head, like a pillow.
Our two little feral rescues no longer have to survive on mean streets, they only have to romp and warm each other and their “cousin” from outer space.
It’s love
Love is in the air and scarcely displaced by Maz and Jenny’s farts. It’s all good.
Following “we are what we are“, let’s have a look at another two family films from 2010, of a different sensibility than say, the Disney type…
After receiving accolades from critics everywhere for his peculiar style of crime drama, Takeshi “Beat” Kitano returns to a more conventional and commercial narrative with “outrage“.
And this isn’t a bad thing: his humor is still apparent although he seems more distant than usual towards his characters.
I have a thing for feral cats, and Rudha-an has one for kittens. Feral kittens, therefore, are our favorites. We’ll never know exactly where they came from, what they went through, why they are so scared of shoes, think of nothing but murder, and yet are so hungry for affection.
Each one has a story but they’ll never tell even if they could, we just wonder as they teach us to live in the moment.
This week, here are some of my favorite photos of our pointy eared people, followed by a clip of very funny story telling. About a sloth. Enjoy.
Maz and Jenny in a tender momentTito MagnificoMazuzu: art deco or fascist icon?The Queen of Cool
And now, enjoy this very funny sloth story from Kristen Bell on the “Ellen” show.
