Category: Caturday

Miracles of miracles, Titanescu continues to grace us (occasionally and when the stars are properly aligned) with grooming and purrs. It’s a low sound, somewhat uneven and with breaks in-between, an unfamiliar language to him like broken English.

You can hear it in the evening mostly when ambient noise is low, making  me wonder if he manages to purr now and then throughout the day without us hearing. It’s so quiet you can’t feel it as you pet him. Although truth be told, you have to pet Titanescu very lightly. And only in certain spots. The rest of him is a mine field.

But he does like to rub his cheeks on hands and fingers, even grabbing a hand with a surprisingly strong paw to do so. On a more serious note, we are watching him very closely for potential signs of dementia: the other night, he sat on the table where Rudha-an was working on TARS (her laptop), when without warning, cobra-like, he lunged twice and bit her head. Why? No reason. What movie is playing through his head?

And hey, here’s something else he’s discovered: how to be extra annoying in the morning demanding noms. He’s found a hollow partition next to Rudha-an’s pillow set, and he hits it repeatedly with his (again: surprisingly strong) paw making it sound like someone was pounding at the trailer…
Whatever is going on, that cat has real style. Let the pictures speak for themselves.

Tito is officially on a diet. He’s used to free feeding, so it won’t be easy. Now, I only put a wee bit of dry food in the dish. To be honest, we’re ALL on a diet with less sugar, fat, sodium, and more. In addition, we survived a week long heatwave. Today we woke up to drizzle and cooler temps. It’s humid as all heck, but I don’t mind that as much as the heat. Combined with the heat, I’ve also discovered the downside of bringing home lots of fruits and veggies from the produce market. FRUIT FLIES!. I made a trap with cider vinegar, sugar, and soap and it’s taking care of the problem nicely. When I have a couple more small jars, I’ll make a couple more traps.

My happier news of the week though, is finding out that our friend “B” in Puerto Rico survived hurricane Erika. He and his rescue animals are all safe. I hope they remain that way as the hurricane season isn’t over yet.

Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine

Now for an interesting octopus

Lately, Titanescu has been staking his claim for my lap and attentions more and more firmly. He will not let either Tito or Jenny come near once he’s settled next to me on the bed. It’s a pain at times, but I feel he’s making up for a lifetime of denied affection and confirmed betrayal, having been returned twice after failed adoptions. Wonder what’s it like to be him?

I don’t know, but for some reason, this brought up some thoughts about what it felt like to lose our Burmese, The Boober and our Sphynx, Mazuzu Whang (Kitsy) to disease. That choking, gut-wrenching sorrow without a name. I think there came a time for them when they were ready to go and I know this brought me back, I was going to say ‘reduced’, to childhood with all its uncertainties.

But one thing I know without a doubt: while we use generic terms of affection such as kneading, bunting, head-bonking and cheek rubbing each cat does it in their own personal way. And each one of us knows those subtleties are only shared with one human. For myself, what made me break down saying goodbye wasn’t regret, it was being unable to take away their pain any other way. The Boober’s last days, he was unable to sleep on the bed period, and I tried sleeping on the kitchen floor to get close to him. He would come over and try to settle next to me but then the racking cough would start and he would keep pacing restlessly. He couldn’t purr without starting to cough painfully.
Mazuzu, Kitsy, was continuing to waste away,most of his personality seemingly gone, all his energy spent listlessly trying to keep alive.

After all they gave and showed, all I could do was to pet them on the steel exam table until they stopped breathing. No miracles. But no betrayal either.The comfort may be the certainty they knew they were loved, perhaps it’s not all that bad.

Now here are the pointy eared people

It’s true I like talking about Titanescu’s grumpiness and occasional slap-fest, but I also enjoy our cats’ expressions of affection, which are many.  Tito loves to press against us with his forehead, and I’ve had him settle on my lap many times, kneading his way to sleep.
Often, he’ll want me to stand right next to him at his food bowl, just so his butt contacts my leg as he eats, as though he wants me to look over him when he does.

I also often pick him up and he rubs his cheeks allover my face with a low purr.
Tito has just begun playing fetch again, a sure sign he’s getting more comfortable in the trailer. He is perched on the back of the sofa slow-blinking at me as I type.

Miss Jenny still spends most of her time under the couch, but comes out to greet me when I get home, her tail twitching and her half-closed eyes staring at me.  In the morning, part of her begging routine also includes her rubbing her cheeks against my face and licking my head while purring loudly. I also occasionally get love-bites on the skull.
Without rodents readily available, I sometimes find the odd cat toy she leaves for me on my side of the bed by the pillow. Between Jenny and Tito, we sometimes have “trill-fests”, vocalizing at each other happily.

As to Titan, he’s been displaying his affections more since the move, mostly in the way he welcomes me back from work, rubbing against my legs, raising his head to meet my hand for scritches and rubbing his cheeks against fingers. He’ll also perch on the middle level of the cat tower to get pettings, but ONLY on the top of his head or his cheeks.
Speaking of cheeks, he often pauses before going under covers at night, with his butt inches from my face and his bunny tail raised up to give me the wink. And he doesn’t paw furiously at the blankets any more when he wants under.Now he just stands there patiently, or lightly digs at me. He likes to take hold of an arm or a hand and groom it before going to sleep with his head on it.

My apologies friends. We missed Caturday. It’s a wonder we haven’t had a meltdown. We’ve had a heckuva week. We dealt with dr. appointments and lab vampires with some good news and some not. The not-so-good news isn’t awful. It’s just a PITA and has to be dealt with. In other words, aging sucks. We’re also down to a deadline in regards to our car. The registration expires on the 15 and it won’t pass smog. We went to look at cars and came home with one rather unexpectedly as we weren’t planning to buy that day. In addition, I did NOT manage to get the stupid storage unit emptied. I’ll do that next week. Hopefully they’ll prorate the bill instead of making me pay for the whole month. At least we don’t have the insanity of the city to add to the mess. One good thing. We’ll have some blog posts coming up. 🙂

Soooooo here are the pointy eared people. Miss Jenny wasn’t very cooperative. Titanescu wasn’t either.

Since our week has been hectic, I felt that some peace would be nice. Here is a very beautiful short film by Erik Wernquist. All the places exist in our solar system. The words and voice are from Carl Sagan.

Caturday strikes again and I’m STILL unpacking. I’m also still getting rid of stuff. It’s getting to the point that to bring in one box means unloading and rearranging everything already stowed. I’ll get to the end of it eventually, but it’s a royal PITA. The storage unit will be empty by the end of the month though, or my scream may be audible all the way to Sydney, AU. 🙂

In the meantime, here are the pointy eared people. I decided that they needed to look like paintings this week.

And now for a happy dog

Another Caturday rolls around and while late, I have a post. Our other replacement computer is here and I spent a couple of days wiping the hard drive on the old ones. I decided to go for more than a mere formatting and opted to wipe the drives by having the data overwritten with gibberish instead. It’s much more secure than reformatting or taking a hammer to it. Now they can go to the e-waste facility.

The kitties are still adjusting, but it’s going well. They have recently taken up the sport of fly trapping. We don’t get a lot of flies, but there are more here in the East Bay than in San Francisco. I’m hoping I can keep them out as much as possible though as the pointy eared people will destroy the trailer in their trapping endeavors.

Lucky for me, Tito caught the fly before the other two noticed.

Miss Jenny did something quite interesting…for her. In the evenings, I leave the front door open as there’s a screen door and the fresh air is nice. I was working on the budget when I heard a low growl that got louder and turned into quite a snarl. It was our Miss Jenny. She was in full fluffage mode and pissed off. There may have been a dog or raccoon out there. I didn’t see anything. The only thing she ever used to growl at was people in cherry pickers. Yeah, really. Go figure. Anyhow, she recovered and came over near me to chase her tail, ask for pettings, and purr a lot. No fly trapping for her.

Titanescu was napping near me in the corner. He wasn’t interested in the fly or Miss Jenny’s antics.

Oh, and Michael Flatley, eat your heart out.