The Terrible Three?

Milo

See Milo, the last of my elderly gentlemen, who was daft, dysfunctional and, in his later years, deaf.  See his water bowl.  It has sat on that sideboard by the window surrounded by rocks – brought home mostly from Montauk, but some other beaches as well – for more than a decade.  

 In Milo’s decrepitude, I set up a stepstool so he could more easily reach the window and his water bowl until his death in 2010.  Set in my ways, I left it all as he had.

Despite the two small bowls of water I put on their food tray, all three “new” cats prefer Milo’s water bowl.  See old shelf bridging the gap between the sideboard and the windowsill.  See cat bed I have placed on the cool slate for my kitties’ comfort for the past year.

As they say in episodic television, “four days earlier” (that is, Sunday), I was out back raking leaves.  I raked, I swept, I piled, then stuffed them into trash bags.  Essentially I was winterizing during the last weekend I expect to have time for such things.  This week it’s raining, so I’m glad I raked it all up.  Why the delay, you ask, until December?  I like the sound of crunchy autumn leaves underfoot.  I like the sound when it’s not my foot it’s under, thereby alerting me to any presence out back.  Saturday night it was a possum. 

I confess it, I find possums butt ugly. Really, that sickly pale long snout, sluggish body, and a rat’s tail the length of three rats… what was Mother Nature thinking?  Dozing off into a nightmare, that’s what she was doing, no thinking involved.

Anyway, Millie watched him (her?) carefully from inside the screen door.  “Glad you’re inside now, aren’t you?” I asked. She did not respond.  She often ignores me, as did Milo, but he had an excuse.  He was deaf.  Millie’s been a little antsy lately.  She meets me most days when I come in the front door — which I love, don’t get me wrong — but sometimes just a little too close to that opening door.  I’m keeping as watchful an eye on her as she does the possum.

Millie

Back to Sunday:  While I was raking, I heard a clunk.  The sound was unfamiliar enough for me to put the rake aside and walk to the window.  Crikey.  SOMEBODY had knocked over the glass water vase.  Spilled maybe 1/3 of it over the sideboard and bridge-to-the-window, and down below onto the baseboard heater.  Happily the vase was not broken; it was not even cracked.  I yelled anyway.  “What were you THINKing?!”  Although the cats had been watching me work out back, none were around to answer.

Chick and Wilbur

They gallop, my three kitties.  From the bedroom window on the street side, under or over the bed, through the room divider, across the furniture, and onto either the kitchen window perch (remember last week?) or the sideboard, and back.  Sometimes they’re chasing one another; sometimes they’re just galloping for the joy of it.  Sometimes this results in the window perch crashing to the ground.  This time it seemed to have led to SOMEONE knocking over the water vase.  The glass water vase.  Worrisome.

Tuesday morning I got up as dawn filtered in drearily, dragged myself to the kitchen, and stopped at what I saw on the way.

The water vase was on its side again, leaning against the stones.  Water soaked the bridge to the windowsill and the cat bed I’d put there for the silly creatures’ comfort as they keep watch by the window.

I cleared up the mess.  I just adore mornings that start with extra chores before I leave for work, don’t you?  As I refilled the vase that had survived these many years, but might not survive another day, I recalled a story I heard on NPR during Monday’s commute.  It was something about Cup o’Noodles and burns sending people to emergency rooms, all because the base of the Cup o’Noodles container was so much narrower than the top.

This set me to musing….Maybe during my Christmas shopping I’ll find a broad-based bowl (glass preferably, for the play of light through the water; ceramic if necessary; no plastic) that’s almost as tall….

Wednesday morning dawned as dull as Tuesday.  It’s a different day, though, so the water vase was tipped in a different direction.  Although upheld by stones, its peril was apparent.  

Who, me?

Coming home from work Wednesday evening, I was relieved to see the vase in its proper place.  The window perch in the kitchen, however, was upended over the food tray.

Every day is an adventure, courtesy Millie, Wilbur, and Chick.  After a year of ease, are these the terrible two’s?

~ Molly Matera, signing off – I hear a disturbing sound from the other room…again.

Kitchen Window Dramedy

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may recall that when I’m not writing reviews of movies, plays, and other theatre programs, I write about my cats.  Last year around this time I was kitten-proofing my apartment. The woman who’d rescued my kitties (whom we consider their foster mother) surveyed my apartment and pointed to potential downfalls.  I did my research, and aloe and philodendron are not varieties of plants that poison silly kitties who eat things that are bad for them.  So they stayed.  Up high.  Like this.

They get the morning light, they're happy where they are, and the cats ... well the cats.

The philodendron vine has been growing and growing so I tacked it up along the kitchen’s soffit.  Over the last year, it's reached all the way around to the opposite wall.  Pretty, no?

The cats love their window perches.  Wilbur is particularly fond of this one.

Sometimes he’s displaced by his mother.  She likes to sunbathe there too.

It took a year, but the cats — one, or two, or all three — finally decided the hanging plants were going down.

 

In the wee small hours of Wednesday, I was awakened by a clunk and a clutter and it wasn’t Santa Claus.  A bump bump da dump.  Nothing high pitched or sharp, no tinkling or crashing of broken glass or china, and I was tired. So I drowsily decided nothing was broken, muttered something like ‘oh what did you guys do now?’ and went back to sleep.

Wednesday morning I woke congested, but that’s too ordinary of late to stop me.  I stumbled into the kitchen to start the morning routine when what to my wondering eyes did appear but, instead of two brackets and three plants, a mere one, lonely aloe plant.

As you can see from those snapshots above, both Millie and Wilbur favor this window perch.  What you don’t see is that Millie is fascinated by water, and the sink is quite near this perch.  Millie is also fascinated when I slightly overwater the hanging philodendron and the excess drips out the bottom onto her perch.  Months ago I had to cut off the tassles of the hangers to remove their tempting sway; but even that didn’t stop someone Tuesday night.  I don’t know that it was Millie.  It might have been Wilbur.  It could even have been Chick.

Still believing I’d make it to work, I did not take the time to photograph the philodendron in its plastic pot sitting on the floor, much of its dirt scattered around, and the broken shards of clay that had housed the second aloe plant.  Instead I yelled at the cats who were gathering in the kitchen for their breakfast, and bent over to sweep it all up.  My sinuses objected strenuously to this position and I almost keeled over.  After I held onto the counter for a while, I swept up the mess.  Only then did I notice the other mess.

This is everybody’s favorite perch on the other kitchen window.  There are squirrels out there, birds, and a black cat who taunts my cats from the other side of the screen.  This is a nice little jump up for the cats, but jumping no longer suffices.  They like to gallop through the apartment and leap from a dozen feet away.  It’s really cool.  Alas, that perch has been up there a year and it’s tired.  Kaboom, down it came, scattering the cat food below it around the floor.  Good morning.

I cleaned, I fed, I called in to work and went back to bed with drugs for my head and my sinuses — they’re all connected.

The philodendron isn’t dead, but its pretty tendrils have been torn from their little hooks, leaving a lone leaf at one end.  So sad. 

I’ll bring the philodendron back to life, then I'll figure out how to plug the holes in the wall and set up a new bracket.  One hanging plant on just one side of the window is too lonely. 

Sigh.  Life with old farts of cats was easy.  Young energetic cats are another story.  It’s a good thing they’re cute.

~ Molly Matera, signing off.  I’ve got to go see what they’re doing in the other room.

Trauma Day

Tomorrow’s the big day for my darling kittens: Chick (girl) and Wilbur (boy) are getting “fixed.” Glad as I am to have kittens to play with, I’m a firm believer in birth control for our feline and canine populations. There are too many animals in need of homes to allow those we catch to put more unwanted animals out in the streets, alleys, and parks of the city. My kittens were rescued from Forest Park in Queens, along with their mom Millie (already spayed since her rescue).

Nevertheless, theory and practice are disparate parts of the whole. These animals have given me so much pleasure and so many hearty laughs, I’m terrified of any change to them. I know it’s absurd, I didn’t say my reaction was rational. This month they turn six months old, a mere two months since I got them when they were far from tiny yet so little! Wilbur is now long and tall but his meow is short and high pitched – adorable. Chick is still small and doesn’t even attempt to meow – I’ve no idea what that means. The siblings and their mother meet me outside my bedroom door every morning, as interested in the forbidden space as in me. Actually I think it’s the window with southern exposure that really excites them.

Tomorrow, the boy’s procedure will be pretty simple and external, and shouldn’t create any noticeable change to his behavior at six months of age.


The girl’s procedure, however, is invasive, and I’m worried. She’s so little, she’s so cute, she’s so affectionate, she offers her belly for rubbing without hesitation. Her mother does not – OK, Millie the Mama is 2 (ish) and had two litters before her rescue and subsequent spaying, and is not as malleable as her rescued kittens. Of course, she was an adult before she was “domesticated.” Millie is an aloofly affectionate cat. She lies down at my feet in the bathroom, the living room, and chooses to stay in whatever room I’m in. I can pet her back, rub her head, nose, throat, neck, ears to a limited extent. But never the belly.

If this operation (for Chick’s spaying is an operation) is done well, her behavior should be unchanged after a few days of recovery. I’ll bring her home loopy from the anesthesia, I’ll keep her sequestered with me to be sure her brother isn’t too rough with her (which means a litterbox in the bedroom, oh joy). Not that she doesn’t ordinarily give as good as she gets, because she does. He’s already bigger than she is, but she is invariably faster and braver than he. Their affectionate natures are pretty equal and quite physical. Too cute.

I am so far from a strategic thinker that the mere thought of cutting the three of them off from water and food after midnight preparatory to the kittens’ surgery tomorrow is almost devastating. How absurd is that. No wonder I cannot satisfactorily diet.

Fingers crossed for my kitties.

The Kids Are All Right

It’s the 7th day. The kids have settled in: Millie the mama, Chick the sister, and Wilbur the brother have grown accustomed to their new space. I’ve almost grown accustomed to waking up to all the throw rugs tossed around the room. Every day they show me something I need to move if I want it to remain intact.

There was that day when the three of them were racing around the kitchen and I heard a timer start. I caught them all on the counter, and the “timer” sound was the oven they’d turned on. Oh dear. Here you see the pressure sensitive controls of my oven, complete with paw prints.

Here you see the solution -- little lids of little plastic crates from Staples, plus priceless duct tape, of course.

I covered the sink cleaning powder, since they appear to have bounced into it and shot its powder all over. They’ve even knocked over the knife block! Joint effort, or Millie alone?

Millie is getting heavier – it’s as if she doesn’t believe she’ll stay here and continue to be fed. The little ones are hungry in the morning, then they go running around, turning the Bose on and off. I’ve rigged a temporary cover and shifted their path to another side of it.


Spent many hours today clearing up the bedroom to make it more habitable – first the closet, threw out some things, made room for other things in the bedroom that needed a new stash. Anything in bags went into boxes or drawers I could close to keep the cats out. I cleaned, I vacuumed, I stashed. Enough done to allow the cats to come into the bedroom when I’m home, so I no longer have to shut the bedroom door constantly. Right now all 3 are sitting in the bedroom with me. Mama Millie is alternately licking herself and her daughter, except when she decides to fight with Chick. Wilbur is disappearing into the pillows (not the ones I sleep on, they’re covered!).

Now, so long as I’m home, they can enjoy the afternoon light streaming into the bedroom, and run an even longer length of the apartment. There are still things to clear out, still wires to tie up, but we all have the run of the whole apartment now. Frabjous.


Just a tad worried about Millie overeating. Maybe I should rename her “Scarlet,” since she clearly thinks she must ensure that she’ll “never be hungry again.”

~ Molly Matera, signing off, tying up a few loose ends while the kids catnap.