Grace the Terrible

I've been known to be impulsive, and back in 1994, while in college, while living in University Housing, I decided I wanted a kitten.  I figured if my RA could could get away with having a beagle, I could hide a kitten.

So, my roommate, Rachelle, and I went and picked out a little black furball, without the blessing of any of our parents, because hey, we were ADULTS.

We came home with Grace (so named for Mark Grace, of Chicago Cubs fame, and my dear friend, Amber Grace) and that little black kitten promptly stole my heart.

When I brought her home, I called my mom with the great news.  Mom wasn't as excited as I thought she should be.  Her first question was, "What are you going to do with her for the summer."  Whoops.  Hadn't thought about that.  But my parents were gracious and I took her home for the summer.  And she was a giant pain in the arse.  She yowled every morning as soon as the sun came up.  My bedroom faced east.  It was tragic for me, as I am not a morning person.  I threw things at her.  I yelled at her.  She kept yowling.  My mom said, "If you can't deal with this cat, how are you ever going to deal with kids?"  I threatened to kill her more quietly after that.

We survived that first summer and when I moved back to Millikin, the new RA wasn't quite the rebel the previous one had been and I couldn't chance having her in my apartment.  I had two friends who had a house and multiple cats and they graciously kept Grace for me for a whole school year. I'd go get her and take her with me to visit Jason in Champaign.  She was like a queen riding on the clean laundry.

My senior year, Rachelle and I were able to move into the house and Grace and I got to be together for an entire school year.  I fell asleep every night with her curled up on my chest (and then she'd sneak up and suck on my earlobes.  Totally weird, and she'd do it to anyone she was snuggled with.  You had to protect your earlobes around Grace.)

My favorite Grace story ever was my senior year, living in that old house that probably should have been condemned.  I was doing my homework in my room and I looked up to see Grace stalking a bird that was flying around my room.  Then my brain processed the fact that those weren't bird wings, but bat wings and I involuntarily shuddered as I watched her nimbly leap about 4 feet in the air and snatch that bat right out of midair.  Then she came trotting over to me with the bat, a wing hanging out of each side of her mouth, pleased at punch.  Obviously, I was hidden under my comforter, terrified, but I made her drop it and I went screaming down the stairs for help from my roommates.  We never did find that bat, or see it again.

That same summer, Jason and I got married.  As we were driving back and forth from the suburbs, looking for apartments and jobs, she was lonely, so she lived with my parents and their two cats.  After our honeymoon, we went to mom and dad's to get her and she actually hid from me.  She crawled under the couch and refused to come out.  My mom felt sorry for her and suggested that she just stay with them because she'd gotten used to being with their two cats, Bart and Poupon.  And from that moment on, Grace belonged to my mom.  (If you ask my dad, he'll tell you an entirely different story, but the point is that she ended up with my mom and dad.)  She was my mom's cat for nearly 19 years, until she passed away this morning at the ripe old age of 21 years and three months.

RIP, Grace the Terrible.  May there be lots of cheese in kitty heaven.  As my sister said, "Whoever was ruling in Kitty Heaven just got dethroned."

Chester's First Hair Cut

Remember Chester?



The cat of very little brain?



The one who once tried to play with a candle and got wax all over the place, including on her own face?

Yeah, her.

She's sweet.  She's cute.  She has a lot of fur and a really puffy tail.



This evening, my kids have friends over and Boo and her friend were busy at work, creating all kinds of things out of duct tape.  We were all down in the basement and Chester had been resting quietly, but decided she needed to investigate the closet as soon as she heard me open the door.  I ruined her evening by closing the door before she could get lost deep in the depths, so she had to find something else interesting.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her suddenly take off and noticed something white attached to her tail.  It took a split second for me to survey the scene, process and realize that she had gotten duct tape stuck to her tail.

Crap.

She came flying back into the room and performed a quick STOP, DROP and ROLL to dislodge the offending tape.  Of course, that only made it worse.  She ran a few steps, stopped and tried licking it off.  When that failed, she just took off in a panicked sprint as if she was going to run so fast, it would just fall off.

Knowing the situation was dire, I sent the kids to corner her before she made it any worse.

(I laughed a lot too.)

I knew there was no way were were going to rid her of her duct tape demons without scissors.  And I hoped that it wasn't going to require trimmers.

It's a good thing the dumb cat is so docile.  Between KJ, Boo and I, we managed to hold her still and cut the duct tape out of her tail without anyone bleeding.



I hope she's learned her lesson, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Day One

This crappy rainy weather is doing nothing to improve my mood.  Took Jables to the airport today for the first of 10 flights he has in the next 11 days:  home, Chicago, Tokyo, Manila, Cebu, back to Manila, Beijing, Dalian, Tokyo, Chicago, home.

Yes, I was bummed.  I actually like him.  And I don’t mean the typical, “I love you but I don’t like you.”  I like him and I hate being away from him.  (Gag, barf, puke, I know.)  I was a little weepy as I pulled away, which was super-helpful as I drove through the steady rain.  I was nearly home when I got a call from a strange number.  I decided I had better answer it and it was Jables.  He had left his phone in my car.  I think he just wanted another kiss.  ;)

I got to turn around and drive back to the airport.  Yay!  I gave Jables his phone, got another kiss and drove home where I managed to accomplish these things: 

1.        Made the kids a warm and nutritious breakfast of toaster waffles and Flintstones chewables.

2.       Took a nap.

3.       Dragged the kids to the grocery store and bought them a nutritious meal of Wal-Mart popcorn chicken and potato wedges.  It was a throw-back to the old days when I used to bribe them with that meal.

4.       Put the groceries away.

5.       Took another nap (There was a cat on my lap.  It was mandatory.)

6.       Shuffled the kids to and from their practices.

7.       Spent 30 minutes on the treadmill.

8.       Made a real dinner:  spaghetti, homemade meatballs and salad.  (Actual green food.) 

9.       Watched part of the Grammy’s and had some ice cream with Magic Shell. 

10.   Cleaned up the kitchen and edited some photos.

11.   Bored you with this post.

I think that today was an all-around victory.  Even KJ fell prey to the cat-napping monster. 

Boo was able to resist and get some crocheting done. She wins for most productive day.

 

Evil Genius

Chester. Allegedly a short-haired boy kitten. Turned out to be a long-haired girl kitten. Named for the brilliant cat from the Bunnicula series.

  Look at her. She doesn't look like the sharpest pencil in the box, does she? Maybe only playing with 48 cards. Elevator's not making it to the top floor. You get the idea. We routinely catch her with her tongue hanging out. I look at that face and I think how sweet she is. And how dumb she is. And my heart swells and I just want to hug her and love her and call her my own.

And then 5:30 am comes along and she shows her true colors.

I am a sleeper. I love and cherish my sleep. If I wake up one minute before my alarm goes off, I am completely irritate. I don't get up a single minute before I have to. My love of sleep is part of the reason I only had two kids. Call me a quitter, but it's the truth.

Chester thinks that she should eat at 5:30 am. I think that's bull(you-know-what.) I can normally sleep through anything. I slept through a tornado once.  It went down our street and knocked down the tree in our front yard.  But I can't sleep through my iPad being knocked off of my nightstand.

It all started a few months ago. She would come in and gently paw the plastic bag in the garbage can, making that annoying crinkly sound. I got the better of her. The garbage can now sits on top of my tall dresser. Score one for Shannon. A few days later, I heard her next to me, making this flopping noise that I could not identify. I did NOT want to open my eyes, because once she sees the whites of my eyes, it's game over. I finally figured out that she was picking up the corner of the area rug and letting it flap back down on the hardwood floor. And looking at me expectantly. I'm not sure if she is smart enough to be proud of herself, but that furry little face sure looked smug. 

She has figured out how to make noise in any way she can. She paws at the closet door. There's a shoebox under my bed that she has started eating. If you don't think listening to a cat chew on cardboard (smack, smack) at 5:30 am is annoying, I would be happy to let you cat-sit Chester for a while. Barrettes and bobby pins are a favorite. They make a fun little tinkling noise when they hit the hardwood floor. My glasses make an ever bigger noise when she knocks them off.

Locking her out of the bedroom helps, but then she just goes in and annoys the kids.  I have too much mommy-guilt to let that happen.

The morning that I thought I might kill her was the morning she knocked the iPad off the nightstand. I chased her down the stairs, muttering incoherent threats. She hasn't done that again, but I only think that is because I keep it farther from the edge.

  It hasn't kept her from trying to eat it, though.

Riddle me this, Batman

 I made a mistake earlier.  I lit three yummy apple cider-scented candles to make the house feel warm and cozy.  The mistake wasn't in lighting the candles; the mistake was in forgetting about the kitten.

Chester strikes again.

J walked into the dining room to find two candles burning.  The third had been flipped over on its top with wax sprayed for a good two feet, all over my dining room table.

 Since this is November, the month of Thanksgiving, let's see if I can focus on the positives here

I am thankful that she managed to flip it over upside down and the flame went out.  I shudder to think about what would have happened if that flame had kept burning.

I am thankful that she didn't set herself on fire.  She is a puffy cat, after all, with a big, puffy, feather-duster of  a tail and tufts of hair growing between the pads of her paws.  My first cat, Galileo, got too close to a candle one winter and singed his whiskers.  The smell brought me running and there he was, blinking and confused.  He never got near a candle again.  I'm not sure that Chester is that smart.

I am also thankful that I had some of those handy-dandy Pampered Chef scrapers in the kitchen.  They made quick work of the wax without scraping my table up.  Thank you Pampered Chef. Let me add that it's a good thing it is the winter, so it's cooler in the house.  That allowed the wax to come up off the table much easier.

All in all, it wasn't nearly as much of a disaster as it could have been.  For that I am grateful.  But here's the mystery.  I can't find any wax on her.   You would think that for all that mess that she made, her fur would be covered in wax.   For sure, there has to be some wax on one of her paws, or in all of that tail fur.

There isn't.

Upon closer inspection, which she loved, I found one single drop of wax inside her one ear.  ONE DROP.  She reeks of Apple Cider Yankee Candle, but all I can find is One. Stinking. Drop. Of. Wax. 

How in the world did she manage that?

Learning to get along

Chester has been part of our family for about 10 days now. The introduction of the two cats went much better than I anticipated. We took it slow, over a few days.

At first, there was much hissing (good Lord, cat breath stinks even worse when they hiss.)

Then there were suspicious looks, followed by hissing. But at least it was less hissing.

Then, we moved on to general mistrust and butt-sniffing.

Next, came some not-so-gentle whacks to the head from Einstein. He just needed to remind Chester that this was his house, not Chester's.

Finally, we got to the point, about three days ago, where they were sort-of-playing. We supervised this closely, since Einstein is approximately 7 times Chester's size. There were friendly whacks to the head, hiding and pouncing and more butt-sniffing. I decided it was all going well and left them unsupervised while I got ready for school.

I was alarmed when I heard an unusual noise from Chester. It wasn't pain, it wasn't fear, it was more a cry of indignation. And I found Einstein carrying Chester into the house from the back porch by the scruff.

This is where it stands now. They chase each other and wrestle and play. Einstein tolerates Chester attacking his tail and jumping on his back and kicking him in the face...to a point. Then Einie pins Chester down and bites his scruff. Chester meows a few "Hey! Not fair!" kind of meows and Einstein lets him go and he come right back for more.
The way I figure it, Chester probably deserves what he gets.

But, we are well on our way to friendship. Or at least tolerance.

Have I lost my mind? Short answer: Yes.

Or is the universe aligning against me (with me?) I don't know. I can't decide.

Keebles will be nine years old on Monday. (sniff, sniff) Last Saturday night, J and I were folding laundry, plotting the events of the upcoming week, when out of the blue, he says to me, "What if we let Keebles pick out a kitten for her birthday?"

Hold the press. Let's backtrack. J doesn't dislike the cats, but he doesn't really like them either. He puts up with them because he loves me. And I love the cats. And I had pretty much decided that we would be a one-cat family, because I love J and I don't want him to feel like his feelings don't count. Clear as mud?

Back to folding: I looked at J kind of funny and thought perhaps he was being controlled by aliens. And then I thought about how busy we are. So I said, "No. Besides, I don't even know anyone who has kittens right now." End of story.

I took my kids up to my mom and dad's the next day. We went over to get a tour of the "Taj Garage" that my dad is helping his neighbor build. As we were admiring the garage-that-is-bigger-than-my-house, my dad's neighbor says, "Have you seen the kittens?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. And I remembered what I said to J about not knowing anyone who had kittens. And I had to wonder if this was divine intervention.

Long story short: we are now getting a kitten. He'll be coming home in about 10 days. Keebles has named him "Chester" for the cat in the Bunnicula books. She has been researching how to take care of a kitten. She is thrilled. And I am so proud of KJ because I know he wanted to pick one out too, but to his credit, there was no whining. Einstein is his cat anyway, but that's a story for another day.

So, we will shortly be back to two cats. And it feels good. Thanks, J, for being such a good sport.

Tell me this isn't the face of sheer joy.

Mourning my cat.

Today I had the gut-wrenching task of taking my cat to be put to sleep. Truth be told, it was time. He had been sick for a couple of months. He had been losing weight, with no explanation, and was down to about 6 pounds. He was no longer able to support himself with his hind legs. It was sad, but I was grateful that it was clear what decision needed to be made.
He was part of our family for nearly 14 ½ years. I still remember clearly the day I got him. Jason and I had just gotten married and I wanted a pet. I went to a shelter to choose one. They highly encouraged me to hold the kittens, so I held 5 or 6, but just didn’t connect with any of them. I was about to leave, near tears because I had my heart set on a kitten, when the owner came in with three new kittens. He put them in a cage and walked away. I peeked in and saw two huddled in the back and one at the front just staring at me. I looked at that cat and told the worker, “That’s my cat.” I didn’t bother to hold him. I just knew from the way he looked at me.


Jason and I put some serious thought into naming him. Jason is the one who came up with the name “Galileo.” I was a science teacher, so I liked the science name. And at Jason’s suggestion, he became “Leo,” like a lion.
Leo was rotten as a kitten. Perhaps rotten is an exaggeration, but certainly a trouble-maker. He had this need to attack, capture and then eat his dry food. He would use his paw to pull a piece of dry food out of the bowl. Then, he’d bat it around a bit, pounce on it, and then eat it. It was super cute, until he would knock over the whole damn bowl. CRASH! One afternoon, Jason beat me home from work and Leo had spilled all of his food. Cute, right? Jason cleaned it up, walked away and 3 seconds later heard the CRASH dry food being scattered all over the kitchen. Jason had a serious “talk” with the cat, and I think that may have been life #1 right there.
Our first Christmas was filled with joy, the joy of broken ornaments and destroyed Christmas Trees. We lived in a ground-floor apartment with giant sliding glass doors. The tree was right next to the doors, filled with beautiful, shiny, glass balls. Being dumb, or perhaps overly optimistic, we didn’t think a thing of hanging those shiny glass balls at the bottom of the tree. And then we’d be lying in bed at night, just drifting off to sleep and we’d hear the playful sounds of a kitten batting something around. And then we’d hear the sound of shattering glass as those pretty glass ornaments hit the sliding glass door.
As if breaking pretty glass ornaments wasn’t enough, Leo had to play jungle kitty in the Christmas tree. I would come home from work to find broken ornaments and the cat hiding in the tree, waiting to stalk whatever may come his way. He liked to get about half-way up and perch there, like a leopard, eyes all big. After a few times, he realized that he was in trouble, so as soon as I would get home, he’d launch himself from the tree to go hide. The worst day was when I came home to find him in the tree, minus the tree top (I have NO idea how he managed to knock that off.) I’ll admit, I may have lost my temper. I may have chased him through the apartment with a branch. I may have swatted him with the branch, hoping it would deter him from further tree escapades. It didn’t. Life #2.
During that Christmas season, we discovered that he wasn’t smart enough to avoid candles. We smelled a funky smell and then Leo came trotting over with decidedly shorter whiskers. Life #3.

Leo always seemed to be at the root of terrifying people in their sleep. One night, Jason and I woke from that space between sleep and wakefulness because we heard this terrifying crashing bashing noise. We discovered Leo, tearing through the apartment, with the string of a mylar balloon clenched between his teeth. Another weekend ,when my sister was staying with us, we were awakened by screams of terror. As in, someone-is-about-to-kill-me-with-a-giant-butcher-knife terror. We ran out into the living room to find my sister crouched under the desk, blanket over her head, sobbing in terror. All she could say was, “Spider. Giant Spider.” We never did find any spider. We are pretty sure the culprit was Leo, sitting on the arm of the couch, looking innocently down at her in her sleep, with his whiskers mimicking spider’s legs.
As Leo matured, he calmed down a bit, but was never what I would consider a typical cat. For one thing, he ate the most bizarre things in the world. He was known to steal black olives off of the relish tray at holiday gatherings. He was insane for string cheese. He loved Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos. I know humans who can’t handle the heat of Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos. He would snatch a McDonald’s french fry from your hands in an instant, if you weren’t paying attention. He didn’t like other fast food chains. He was a cat with preferences.
I am not sure that Leo ever understood that he was a cat. For one thing, whenever we sat down at a meal, he joined us at the empty chair.
He’d sit there and watch us eat, unless we were eating something he thought he needed. Then he’d join us on our chairs.
He was also more than willing to be held like a teddy bear.

I slept many a night with my arms wrapped around him. And if I wasn’t holding him, he’d squeeze in tight to me and sleep with his paw across my neck. Jason has a picture of him wrapped up around me one day when I was sick in bed with strep throat. Jason swears he is smiling.
Leo was an awesome cat. He begrudgingly accepted Newton and Einstein into his cat-family. He loved to be around the human family. He loved to bathe his human family. He could be annoyingly persistent in his need to be part of the family. He was under my feet every morning as I packed lunches. Every Christmas Eve, he stole seats so he could see what was going on at the table. Anytime we were heathens and had dinner in front of the TV, he was in someone’s lap. Anytime, I was sitting on the floor, he was next to me.
In fact, I am missing him terribly right now.
He should be wedged between me and my mouse.

He never would lie down on the left side of me.
Always the right, always in the way of my mouse.
I am sad to have lost him.
I know it will get better with time.