Meet Jill- she lives in the wastebasket!

Well, cats just kinda follow their own weird- particularly this one. She's been the one I've had to bail out twice in the 12 weeks I've had her: once being stuck to a glue-board(okay, that was partly my fault, not having thrown it out)and once being "stuck" under the front porch. Not really stuck, but just freaked out and thus rendered inert.

Plus, they like small, enclosed spaces. About a fourth of the time, they're both in there, but it's usually Jill. This shot was taken in a rare moment of non-repose in that usually she's pretty firmly entrenched in the wastebasket, all settled in. Making herself at home.

So this is a little bit like the Beverly Hillbillies converting their pool table to a dining room table, in the "fancy eatin' room". It's no longer a wastebasket(or at least couldn't be with any conscience)but rather Jill's Domain. Cat's basically pick their owners and kinda take it from there as far as their Order of Things. Hopefully she'll let me keep my bed.

Meet the Girls

Cindy(l)and Jill(r)are the two newest inhabitants of the house. They've been here since the evening of July 13, 2009. And they're relatively new inhabitants of the Earth, being now maybe 3 and a half months or so old. Still babes in arms.

This picture was taken right after I got them. They've grown appreciably since then, as you'd imagine, by about a quarter of what they were. Still little, but growing almost before my eyes. They eat like there's no tomorrow, just like young life forms should.

Just like little kids, they provide free entertainment. It's a floor show that goes on much of the day, and night. And just like a parent, you sit and watch the "young'uns", being entertained but all the while making sure nothing gets broken.(Only my patience so far!) And as with kids, you're not unaccustomed to hearing a distant crash and then the sound of scampering feet.

And too, as the first commentator to this new blog said, with kittens as with kids, you have to "batten" the house down. Getting home from work I used to just toss my car and house keys and badge from work on the dining room table, knowing that they'd be sitting right there the next time I needed any or all of them. Now I have to put all those items in a jar on the table and make sure the lid is on there to ensure their presence next time I need them. Otherwise they're kinda wherever...

Their personalities are developing along with their bodies, and they have very distinct ones. Personalities, that is. Cindy, the short-haired cat on the left(and in the Welcome blog below)has the more placid nature. She's calmer, and is more the follower in this dynamic duo. Robin to Jill's Batman. Ethel to her Lucy.

Jill, the longer-haired feline on the right(and the close-up shot in the Welcome blog below), is the more aggresive personality. She's the incendiary. The instigator. The shit-stirrer of the two, and usually finds herself at the heart of the matter. Fecal matter that is. Two examples in the short time I've had these two:

Right before getting the kitties and just prior to Maxine's demise, I had a rat problem. Very brief, Lester(my dog if you haven't read any further in here)ended up getting him, but anyway I had an assortment of glue-boards and traps in the kitchen and dining room. The day before I got my kittens I threw away all the rodent-catching paraphernalia which could prove harmful to kittens- especially the traps of course. I thought I'd gotten them all.

Wrong. There was a glue board I'd had under a lawn mower in the kitchen- the one trap I missed-and the cats had dug it out from underneath. Jill was completely stuck, mired, impaled on it. This was a horrific sight to behold, like something from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, seeing her stuck in that goo like some bizarre mutation that's going to emerge as an automaton from outer space(and then try to convert her sister: "sleep, Cindy- sleeeep. It's goooood.."). I somehow got her extricated from all this mess and then off to the Animal Hospital, where they got off maybe 95% of it.

At this point you can't tell anything like that had ever happened, but she was quite a sight for awhile there. Jill Emergency #2 happened a couple weeks ago, when a friend from work and her daughter came over to see the kittens. After they left, we all three noticed Jill missing. Cindy was running around the house and Lester had me let him out back to search for her. I finally found her under the front porch and was able to get her out. This after an hour of looking, including under that porch.

So that told me maybe this will be a pattern. Just today they were in the bathroom and I heard a PLOOSH! sound and then saw two kittens scurrying from the scene with one of them shaking off the water that'd gotten on her. Gee, which one do you think that was?


It's definitely been an adjustment. As I said, I have to "batten" down the house and close the door when I eat and sleep(and bathe, lest I get another PLOOSH! experience), and in the midst of their play I've been bitten and scratched more times than I want to recall- many band-aids for awhile. But the good outweighs the bad by a long shot. Mainly, we all like each other. Just tonight I was laying on the couch after dinner watching a movie(Secret Life of Bees- pretty good flick)and had both Jill and Cindy lying on me purring away, and I was enjoying both the show and the loving animal companionship and thought to myself, "Huh, my life doesn't really suck that bad".

Maxine(1997-2009)

Maxine is also a charter quadraped in the Roundly household, having shown up on the scene in the summer of '97, courtesy of the same girl who got me Lester. The girl and I went our ways shortly thereafter, so it would seem that Lester marked the beginning of our relationship and Maxine the end.



Ahh, shit happens! But Maxine, like Lester, stayed the course and was with me until her death just this summer. She had kidney and lung problems, both of which seemed to come about all of a sudden. May and June were pretty much a blur of rounds of medications and trips to the Animal Hospital and Animal Emergency Center. Things got a little bit better and then a lot worse, until I had to make the difficult decision to have her euthenized. July 1st is a day I won't forget.



It's something you just have to go through at one point or another with your pets, the fact that they don't live as long as you do. That you have to say goodbye to them. Maxine was a member of the family, having had her for 12 years, so her loss was not taken lightly. I bawled like a baby that evening, and felt the sting of her loss for- well, I still feel the sting of her loss, as it were. Just like losing a person, you don't stop missing them but rather simply get used to it.



But except for a funky May and June of this year, we had 12 good years. I had her de-clawed and fixed during her first year, and the very occasional Vet visit thereafter, but basically no real problems. Between her and me and the dog, we formed a nice intact little unit over the years, pretty much had our routines down. Maxine was there curled up next to me every night when I went to bed and then every morning when I woke up, a purring little bundle of fur to bring me into and out of sleep. My two quadrapeds definitely had their own space(s) within the house. She had her chair in the house and Lester had his, and ne' er the twains met as far as that went. But I'd catch them sitting together on more than a few occasions. They were better friends than they'd let on to be.

She did have some personality characteristics that were all her own. There was a certain coquettish way she'd throw herself on the floor when she wanted to be petted, as if to say, "C'mon, do me baby!" I suppose, all told, she was just your basic cat: feed me, pet me(when I want it), leave me alone. But she was my cat-or, okay, I was her human. I did have a cat before getting Lester and Maxine, but she ran off after about a week, so I can't really count her. Maxine, like Lester, had a bond with me.

I now have two kittens here in the house. They've been here a little over two months at this point and we're all doing just fine. Lester was overjoyed when I brought them home, which made me realize how much he'd been hurting without his feline buddy. It'll take awhile for him to have the kind of rapport he had with Maxine, but they're getting there.

And their rapport with me is something that's growing as well. It won't be exactly like it was with Maxine, them having their own personalities as well(plus there being two of them and all the sibling rivalry that brings forth), but still we have a nice relationship. You don't replace one relationship with another, but you do have to move on in life.

We still miss you, Maxine. Me and Lester both.

No. 1 Dog

Lester is the charter member of my quadraped family, having been here pretty much from the beginning. Well, the beginning of this particular chapter of my life.

The day I closed on my house- March 1st, 1996- sorta begins this chapter of things. For the two years preceding that date, I lived in an apartment complex in which pets were strictly prohibited(even to visit, if you can believe that!), so this marked a new phase of life, one in which I was once again allowed to have four-legged creatures in my life and my home.

So Lester showed up at the beginning of '97, a present from a girl I was seeing at the time. He was so named, by her, because we got him from the east side of town, which is predominantly black(though strangely enough from a white family). Well actually we both agreed on Lester, but it was her idea to give him a "black" name, and she ran through a few before we finally found one we both liked. I did, however, in this same spirit, give him his middle name of Vernell.

And Lester Vernell Schuette-Roundly has been with me now for 12 years. Through thick and thin, I might add. He was not easy to raise as a puppy, puppies being quite destructive with pretty much whatever crosses their path, so I had to leave him outside all day while I was at work- and then often in a doggie-crate when I was home(and there was the time Lester actually shit the crate, but that's another story..). He'd bark quite a bit, much to the chagrin of a neighbor who was home all day and thus got an earful. This neighbor was a bit hard to deal with for awhile in there, but did try to work with me and with Lester as far as alleviating the problem- even going so far as bringing female dogs into my yard to mate with Lester! "I can't figure out why he's so hyper, Rog", my neighbor told me, confused. "He got him some pussy twice!".

So we survived both his puppyhood and our neighbor. The neighbor ended up moving and the destructive puppy stuff(and thus the need to keep him outside)just kinda waned to nothing with the advent of adulthood. Well, getting him fixed may have had something to do with it as well, but basically coming of age, he just settled the hell down. He's a Lab/Spaniel mix, which gives him some natural exciteability he'll never outgrow, but still much more manageable in his maturity.

Not too long after getting Lester, I added a cat to the household, in maybe July of that year. Her name was Maxine. She was maybe six to eight weeks old. Like Lester, she was a keeper, and stayed with me- and Lester of course- until her death in July of this year. Actually she and Lester spent a lot more time together than either pet and I just by sharing the four walls of the house all day. He was sad and worried the whole time she was sick- basically May and June-and particularly down after she was gone.

I didn't let too much time go by as far as that goes. Maxine was euthenized on July 1st, and I brought home Cindy and Jill on July 13th. Lester was overjoyed to have the new life in the house, and wanted to play with them right off the bat but of course they weren't having it. So he was bummed for a brief while, disillusioned as it were, but these dog/cat interactions sometimes take time. I came home from work the next day and things were fine. They'd apparently had a meeting and ironed it all out.

Lester is No 1 Dog for a variety of reasons, but mainly because he's the only dog I've ever had. Mom was a cat person, so that's what we grew up with. Generation upon generations of cats. So Lester is my maiden voyage into the world of canines. And dogs are great. Much more high-maintenance, especially at first, but they do have their wonderful qualities.

His exciteability, as I've said, does flare up from time to time, even though it's much more managed. If there's a dog walking down the street past the house, or if the mailman is on the porch(or for that matter most anybody else with certain exceptions), he's on it like mud on a turtle.

Or if anything gets inside the house. About a week before Maxine's demise, I had a rat problem. Saw him in the kitchen, actually just the tail, scurrying along the wall. Lester later saw him in the dining room and took off after him, on two different occasions that day. A tense two days followed, with traps and glue-boards set at various points, just waiting. Wednesday morning, Lester wanted back into the house from having his breakfast as he does every morning, only this time he had something in his mouth. At first I thought it was a plastic glove but it was our rodent buddy. Deader'n a doornail. Lester marched right into the house with it hanging from either side of his mouth. I think he wanted to show Maxine.

Naturally I praised him to the skies: "Lester, you da man!!" all the while getting Senor Ratone wrapped in paper towels and into the garbage. And out of the house. He was so proud of himself. And I just hope I conveyed how proud I was of him.

No. 1 dog..

Welcome

Welcome to 4 bodies fourteen legs. One dog, two cats and one human. I am the one human in all this, and having the advantage of opposeable thumbs, I'm handling at least most of the typing. At least for now.

Starting this site was a bit like going to the harbor with a pocketful of cash, renting(or perhaps even buying)a boat, and then heading out in it to destinations unknown. I have no idea where- if anywhere- I'm going with it, just that I wanted to have a blog which somehow involved the critters here in the house. But with this blog, we have pulled up the anchor and are heading out of the harbor and into uncharted waters.

So here goes with a blogsite about me and the three other creatures who share my home with me(aww how nice of them to do so!), and our various misadventures. For Lester, Cindy and Jill, hope you enjoy the site.

For that matter, hope I do too..