Portal to the New World

Things have been pretty much business-as-usual with my quadrapeds, over these past couple months. Nothing of any consequence to report. I do have a fairly recent development though, which might prove entertaining.

In my music/computer room upstairs in the house(where I do all this kinda blogging stuff among other things)I've got this funky old window unit air-conditioner. It was given to me years ago by the mother of a girl I was seeing, in exchange for me attending one of her pool parties and sitting around playing my guitar. I felt kinda cheezy in this sorta nebulous role as 'Julie's musician friend who just happened to stop by with his guitar', but what the hell- I got an air-conditioner out of the deal.

And it works just fine, more or less, except that there's a little extra "ventilation" in there, which I patch with a towel or two. Had it nice and snug, until the cats discovered the space. So now it's one towel with a space for them to get their heads through there to see.

They're just fascinated with what they see and hear and feel, and spend many rapt moments with their heads poked through to the 'other world'. As far as that goes, I've tried letting them out back, which they were equally fascinated with but scared of at the same time. Good. As far as worlds go, I'd just as soon keep them in this one.

A Blog for the Dog

Poor Lester. I'm afraid he's being left out in the cold as far as these blogs. I have had to devote some time to his sisters, getting them all fixed and so forth. Hormones were getting out of hand with Cindy, and would've with her sib soon enough.

So this guy here. He doesn't like to be photographed, so I have to sneak up on him to do it. Getting more settled, and just a little disoriented, in his advancing age. Doesn't bark like a wildman at the door anymore(he useta go nuts when the postman would be on the porch, "violating" our house by putting stuff in the mailbox), and sometimes gets a bit confused.

But he's still hanging in there. (His ears must be burning, as he just made an appearance here in the room). And he gets along famously with the felines. They invade each other's space much more than was the case with the cats' predecessor Maxine. A different dynamic, as it were. Not getting any younger,but still hanging in.

Cindy and Jill- back Inaction

This is about a month late, but better late than never. Gotta work on this problem of - how you say- dilatoriness. I'm gonna go for the ten-dollar word here, since I can always change it if it's wrong. Tardiness, lateness. Get more on shhedule, as the Brits might say.

Anyway, after a turbulent July here in the Roundly household, things have settled down with my two felines. They're both fixed, and all the feline histrionics(hissing, bullying, general shitheadedness)have gone completely. It was worse with Cindy coming home to a wacko Jill after being done than Jill coming home to Cindy. Jill is inherently nuttier anyway. So they're back to being my dynamic duo, aka the Investigation Team as they plow the dining room table for anything they can knock to the floor and bat around from there.

Actually it was probably more than a month before things were completely back. There was an iciness with the girls that went on a week or two after both were de-ovaried. But thank goodness everything's back on the track. Animals hate change, and like their routines. And so does their adopted human.

Cindy in Heat

Cindy is the smaller of my two cats(though strangely enough a little heavier), with finer, more delicate features- and thus, if my two felines were human, the more likely to get pregnant first. It almost comes as no surprise that she's been the first one to go into heat.

According to one of the Vets at the place I take my pets, cats will go into heat every three weeks or so for their whole lives. No menopause in there- which would actually be a relief. So I've now had two cats fixed once they started having trouble.

This was a big misconception of mine(no pun intended), that you had to wait until the animal has had a 'heat' episode to have them fixed. Cindy has had this problem for a not-so-good couple of months, and I've been waiting for her sister to follow suit so I could just have them both done at once. But Cindy had a particularly grueling siege just this last week and I just couldn't bear to see her in any more discomfort. So I just had her done.

Shoulda had them both done at once. The re-entry into the household was difficult, with her sister hissing at her and generally being a little shithead(after the surgery, she had the post-surgical smell of alcohol on her, which is anathema to cats ). Sis has since recognized her scent and gives her a conciliatory lick when near. They're not back to being buddies yet but their co-existence is much more amicable on this Sunday evening than it was Friday night. It's gotten a little better very slowly since then.

A rough go for Cindy, being boxed up in the carrier, hauled off and then cut open, then returned to a partly hostile home environment. But she is fixed now, and free from the monthly itch. I'm sure she'll thank me later. But not just now.

Cindy and Jill

Even though I give my pets human names and refer to my two female felines as 'the girls', I try not to anthropomorphize them in our relationship. They're still two cats and a dog, who have fur coats and don't shit in the toilet. Still, if Cindy and Jill were human girls, I can pretty much imagine how it'd go down.

They'd both be cute, and both would have guys lined up to talk to them. Cindy would have the edge there, though, with her finer features. More guys would want to get next to her, and Jill would get pissed off from all of them wanting to talk to her about Cindy. I can just see it. She'd probably be the first of the two to get pregnant- Cindy the cat was the first to go into heat.

And Cindy and Jill the two cats do share some other 'human' traits already. There's a bit of jealousy as far as my attention, so this is something I have to watch with them. So far so good with me and them.

It's been almost a year and we' re still hanging tough. A bit of discord between the two just this weekend, but it seems to be smoothing out. Cindy just got fixed, just this past Thursday, and in getting her home, her new 'scent' didn't hit home with her sister. Lots of hissing and some territorial bullying(the only time I intervened), all of which has disappeared in two days' time. They're not back to being buddies, but it's at least a peaceful co-existence once again.

I've been told by a reliable source that it's a good idea to get Jill fixed as soon as possible, so this is around the corner. Once again, one cat missing for the day, to return to what I hope is this time a more hospitable reception from the other cat. But I understand why it needs to be done. Has to do with their hoarmones and such. So more possible domestic quadraped upheaval.

It'll be nice to get everyone back to normal. That's the nice thing about having pets is that when everything's cool, you get a nice routine going between you and them. A groove. But, one more bump in the road first. One more cat to fix. And then hopefully the pavement will be smooth again. At least for awhile.

Awwwww

In a 4-bodied, fourteen-legged household such as this one, everybody spends time with everybody. Each cat has her time with me as does the dog, and there is of course plenty of cat/cat time as well as of the cat/dog variety-and, I'm happy to say from each cat(at very first, one of them would hiss at him).

But of the various pet/human combinations in here, one I see a fair amount of is these two: Cindy, the little yellow cat; and Lester, the bigger black dog.

In every group, certain alliances just form on their own, certain mutual affinities. This seems to be one of them.

Cool.

I Think My Cats are Demented

Well if not demented, at least they have some serious pretzel logic going on.

Case in point: I have a food dish, a little two-compartment affair they eat out of every day. Right on the floor in the kitchen, along with a water bowl. My dog, Lester, has his meals out on the back porch. When they're all three chowing down, with the dog out back and the cats in the kitchen, everything is cool. Peace on Earth and enough rice for all the people.

The problem here happens when Lester is in the house and the cats are eating. They invariably leave food in their dish which Lester just comes in and eats. He used to jump when I'd catch him eating Maxine's food, but with these two he seems to have no compunction. Maybe his reasoning is from Peanuts's Snoopy: "anything on the floor is legally mine".

So I've tried putting the cat food dish up on a table in the kitchen. The cats are up on it anyway much of the time they're in there, so I figured they'd see the dish with food in it and that would be that.

Maybe normal cats, but not my two. Jill, seeing the dry cat food in her dish, reached in with her paw, scooped the food out of the dish and onto the floor! And from there, jumped off the table and proceeded to eat the food off the floor.

She's figuring that food belongs on the floor, whether in her dish or not. So she's just putting it back in its rightful place. Apparently this makes perfect sense to my cats. And this is why I'm convinced I have insane animals.

Or maybe they are the sane ones.

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PS I see this site now has a follower. Thanks, dude! Glad you enjoy the posts. I'll try to get off my ass and do more.