Songs from the Little Bird

Well, I got my wish... The first snow I've seen falling from the sky in a year.



Mom's cat Jason has postponed wandering the neighborhood until the groundhogs have thawed.

Samhain decided she waswilling to eat organic chicken and salmon wet food, so Iam no longer quite so panicky.

Lots of it, in fact. So I think the meds were justbothering her tum.

I have ventured out and taken up position on the cliffs above the ocean. Tested old backpacker telescope (works), old camera (doesn't work) with solar filter mylar. Now i and a small army of pigeons have settled down to wait for subset, I'm 3 hours early, but I wanted to make sure I got a spot. Some peope have gathered, but it's not too busy yet. I got here at 2.

Am I crazy? I guess crazy would've been driving to utah for the full annular eclipse, but I couldn't do that without leaving the cat overnight.

from heavenscalyx : 

A friend of mine needs to place her cat in a good home quickly. She's heartbroken, but he has become very aggressive with their baby, and over time, instead of adapting, he's gotten worse.

In her words:
Does anyone within reasonable driving distance [Ed: she said this was, to her, within about 12 hours' drive] of Southern California want Itai? I am serious. I will drive him to you. I will pay for a year's worth of food. You need to not have kids or other cats or small dogs. He is a huge cat: 20 lbs is a guess but he will not get on a scale. He hates the vet and will not go (draws blood from the vet, not worth it), but luckily he is very healthy. He has his claws. He loves to snuggle in bed. He loves to be on your lap most of the time. He is very active and loves to play. He hides from guests. He is very soft. He needs to be brushed frequently. He loves to eat. He is very funny. He lets you pick him up and carry him like a baby when he's in a good mood, and you can use him for a pillow. When he plays, he gets so worked up that he leaps into the air and grabs the door frame with all four legs. He is very vain and clean and loves to have his picture taken. And I know he doesn't have fleas or worms because we just rid him of both.

He is such a great cat and I love him so much and I know that one of you would love him too.

I have seen photos of him -- he's a beautiful cat, and he is hilariously photogenic.

REPLY/ CONTACT INFO HERE
 

Thanks to owlmoose, I have learned that a prominent net-trend-tracking website [***] has declared 9/9/09 a "Day Without Cats on the Internet" day, in which no cat videos, photos, or lolcats are uploaded to the net.

Naturally, a counter-protest is circulating. Here is our contribution.



[***]: Oh, the irony! I just realized the website organizing the internet-wide ban on cat videos and photos is part of AOL, the company that mailed us several landfills' worth of "Free Trial!" plastic CDs over the last 15 years.

I'm glad to see they have their priorities about what constitutes "spam."

This is my old cat, the one that slept on my bed when I was in high school. Dad has been saying she's 20, but I recently found a sketch I did of Galena in '87 when she was full grown.

She's so old. She nearly died last year after her marrow stopped making red blood cells, but managed to hang on with a blood transfusion and expensive shots every few days now that supply an enzyme her kidneys don't make anymore that is needed to trigger RBC production. She's got a few small bumps of skin cancer on her ears, her kidneys don't work so well, she's got nasty arthritis, and she limps from an old injury suffered while fighting off a coyote. She apparently had a stroke a few years back and suddenly went deaf. She can't groom herself very well, so Mom has to brush her.

Yet she still purrs and shows a lively interest in the world for the few hours she's awake. Despite the stiffness and the yowls of pain sometimes when she sits down, she's got a good appetite and she seems content. I've been sitting with her all evening with her paws on me. She remembers me.



I don't think I'll see her again after this winter. But I'm so glad to have a little more time with the old girl. She's had a long, rich life for a cat, fought with Samhain in years past, kept a squirrel tail trophy rack back in Pennsylvania, where she was a champion hunter. She's been around for more than half my life.

And who knows. A year ago, I steeled myself to the fact that I probably wouldn't see her again.

But now it's time to go to bed and give Samhain some human-all-to-myself time. She's been sulking in the dining room all evening.