Cat Geometry

Wulf and Orlando love each other dearly. But it's become clear to me that in addition to snuggling up on a chilly afternoon, they are actually solving complicated geometry puzzles. It isn't always clear what the specific problem is:

Or what the rules are:

 Or whether they are working in a temporal dimension:

 Or working in another dimension to produce cloning:

 Sometimes Orlando just doesn't take it seriously enough.

And sometimes Wulf just wins:

Writing Companions

My adorable writing companions, helping me finish up my rather late essay, "Blogging, Time, and Displacement" for Literature Compass. Even the way they sleep is typical of their personalities: precise Orlando and sprawling Wulf.

Rejoice with us, for we have kittens

This has been a plan in the making for a month or two, now. I still feel the presence of dear Mima, and her photo is still attached to my computer screen. I also looked for her when I came home yesterday, after nearly three weeks away. But for a while now the house has seemed to lack a certain something; and yesterday we brought home two wee kittens, just three months old. One is dark brown, whom we have called Orlando, though I am already thinking of her as "the lady Orlando", as in Sally Potter's film. Here she is:

And her brother we have called... well, here's a question: should it be Wulf, Woolf, or Wolf? Which is the least naff? He has a tremendous appetite, so Wolf may be the most appropriate. But should we indulge the medievalism of Wulf? Or the link to Orlando of Woolf? Votes welcome!

And just in case there were any doubt about their utter cuteness....

Life, death, book

How weird is this? Two lovely bloggers on my not-very-long blog feed (Northern Lights and Sorrow at Sills Bend) are having or have been having pregnancy dreams about kittens. Not wanting to bring them down, at all, but these dreams remind me I am so much in a different stage of the life cycle. My boy is growing up; has been offered two days full work next week at the funky grocery store in Brunswick where he did work experience in July; has just finished year 10; and patiently sat through the first half of the third Twilight movie with me last night in a mother-son ironic indulgence. (We'll watch the other half today: it's not too bad, but what I really loved were the long atmospheric scene-setting scenes and the soundtrack of the first.)

And I am still thinking about my poor beloved Mima. Especially when I come home, I still catch myself looking forward to seeing her, and am still liable to a little sob now and then. We talk about building an inside/outside enclosure for the next cat, to protect the birds, frogs and lizards in the garden, but in a rather abstract way. Truly, I'm far from ready. And my own body? Just feeling and looking a little older, at various points, and the various medical staff I've seen over the last few weeks have only confirmed this, with various philosophical and comforting remarks. So that's ok, really.

But the maternal impulse is still there somewhere. My hatchlings are growing up so fast (will take photos today and update later). And now that's it warm, it's possible to sit outside and watch the fish in the sunlight. The other day I saw a couple of inchlings, one dark, one a splotchy shubunkin. And then I saw some more that were half that size. And then I saw some more that were even smaller, no bigger than mosquito wrigglers, but very clearly fish. I've never seen any that small. Does that mean they have just come out into the open earlier than normal? If they all survive, we'll have an overcrowding problem. I love to think, in an earth-motherish way, about the chickens and the fish and the frogs and the birds in the garden, to say nothing of the bats we seeing fly overhead now it's summer.

But I have almost run out of social energy, and to preserve some for next week, which is very busy, I skipped the Vice-Chancellor's lunch and the Academic Board lunch and final meeting, and the Arts Faculty end-of-year party last week. But that's also partly because I am now working like a demon on my book, pulling it together tighter and tighter. It feels like the difference between an elastic going three times loosely around a ponytail, so it drops down; and going four times around, so that it stays firmly in place. This revision process doesn't feel at all like maternal labour; it's more like the physical work of toning muscles, or the core stability of a Pilates class. Finally, it's feeling good.

Learning to Die — a post for Eileen

Thanks to all who posted comments and thoughts on my blogging paralysis.

Today, I return to the blog with the familiar theme of mortality. We've not seen the little old cat Mima for three days now, and I think she has quietly gone away to die. Over the last week she was looking more and more uncomfortable, whether standing, or crouching. I'd not seen her curled up, or sprawling with ease for a very long time. She had had several more fits, and I believe they were starting to affect her synapses, as she'd stand still for a long time, as if trying to remember how to put one foot in front of another to walk. She was having trouble jumping up on to our knees, but still loved to be held and cuddled as always. She was still grooming herself, but was very thin. She'd walk around and around the room in circles; she'd forget to eat; she'd forget she'd eaten; and generally was not really herself. A few days ago I held her close and told her the day might come soon. She seemed, now I look back, to be fading away from herself.

It was probably kidney failure in the end. Or the simple task of moving her old body through the day just became too much for her. She disappeared on Friday night, but turned up again on Saturday. But Sunday morning she was gone again and there has been no sign of her. I imagine she is deep in the garden somewhere or under the house, just quietly crouching, head sinking down until it does not lift again. There was no point calling her, as she is completely deaf. And in any case, it's so clear to me that she has taken herself away.

I'm sad there is no body to bury. But I still see her nestled in the garden when I walk outside: amongst the gardenias; sipping from the fishpond; walking up and down the paths. And I am overwhelmed by the dignity of her going away to die, especially as this was an extremely domesticated cat.

She came to me when she was a mere 8 weeks old, in 1991. From the day I brought her home she was a cuddly, talkative kind of cat, who loved to be held, and to sit on you. She spent many a happy hour on my desk, and in my house in Brunswick used to play a game of getting around the study without touching the floor: bookshelf to desk to cupboard to mantlepiece, etc. When I returned from the supermarket she'd greet me at the front door then thunder down the corridor to the kitchen. This was in the days before the calesi virus, when rabbit was cheap and plentiful, and rabbit liver a Saturday lunchtime treat. When we moved to the shared house in Fitzroy, she was not made welcome by the resident cat, and kind of lived in the front room for a year, until she became the sole resident cat here.

Mima loved a party. I always expected her to disappear, but she'd sprawl on the floor in the middle of a group and accept adulation.

When she was about a year old, she got into a fight, and had a tiny abscess on one ear. I took her to the vet and it began to heal, but the ear seemed to be turning back on itself as the scar tissue tightened. I took her back to the vet, who kept her overnight while he operated, straightening out the ear and stitching it to a piece of x-ray film. A week later we went back. He removed the stitches, and everything looked well, until she shook her head and the tip of her ear fell off. He was very embarrassed; and it was kind of funny, but left her with a damaged ear that looked far worse than the original injury. I have told that story hundreds of times, now, to nearly everyone who's come to my house over the last eighteen years. I've probably just told it for the last time.

When Joel was born, she was completely unimpressed. I remember sitting up in bed, breastfeeding, while she sat on the extreme corner of the bed with her back to us. But Joel's first word was "dat", and after that they became firm friends. They've watched much television together; and she's often been the image on his phone. He gave her her "cheeseballs", her various medications wrapped up in cheese; and a little taste of "breakfast milk" after finishing his cereal. She was part of so many of our little family routines, and we are all missing her very much.

She was the kind of cat who'd come and sit on your chest, and pat your face with her paws, and nuzzle and kiss you, and purr in your ear, telling you her secrets, as my sister said, or lie in your arms and stretch her paws up to your face. She'd always say hello when entering a room; and if you ran into her on the garden path and put your hand down, she would come up on her back feet so as to receive a pat.

None of these photos captures the beauty of this sweet little cat, or her funny little ways. Perhaps she wasn't the prettiest cat; but she was a cat of great character, and a cat who seemed to want to be closely knit into the fabric of our days. The vet said to me a few months ago — and it was at this moment I began my mourning, I think — "She's been at your side a long time, hasn't she?"

Farewell, little Mima, beloved companion.

A scary moment

Now that it's seriously cold, the old cat climbs up on my desk, where I have a little oil heater underneath. Well, she used to jump up onto the desk but it's too high for her arthritic hips; now she jumps on my lap and then climbs on the desk and takes up position between the keyboard and the screen. She doesn't always sprawl or sleep soundly, but rests on her haunches, front feet tucked under, with head sinking slowly down to the desk. But I only have to tap on the keyboard or cough, and she starts, and lifts her head up again. It's as if she sitting in a lecture or a conference, trying very hard to stay awake... I want to tell her to relax, to curl up in the drawer, but I think she needs a more giving surface if she is to sleep. Maybe it's time to put a cushion on the desk...

Now that she's nearly 19, I am taking her to the vet every six months, to top up her various medications (blood pressure, thyroid) and to collect her special renal diet food. She's also now completely deaf, whereas only a year ago you couldn't say "tea" after 4 in the afternoon without inviting her to step ahead of you, leading you to her bowl. Yesterday as she was being weighed (she has dropped down to under 3 kg), the vet said, "She's been at your side for a long time now, hasn't she?"

Mima's one of those cats who likes to cuddle, and as my sister says, to get up close to your ear and tell you all her secrets. She made us laugh one day...

Later...

Would you believe, as I wrote that, the poor darling had some kind of fit. Jumped up as if chasing her tail madly but then twitching and shaking uncontrollably. I put her on the floor and tried to hold her closely as she convulsed. It stopped after a minute or two, and she took another minute before she could stand up and put all her limbs in order. She seems ok, and is walking normally now after a long soothing cuddle, but oh dear: I do wonder if we are adding epilepsy or some such to our list of ailments.

The old cat

Jeffrey has posted here about the death of his old dog; in a meditation that is also about vegetarianism, to which I increasingly aspire.

But this post is about my old cat — nineteen next spring. We had a lovely year together last year, as when I was not gallivanting around the US and Italy, I was home most of the day. We'd take regular breaks and wander around the garden together. These days she's small and thin — a real bag of bones, I'm sorry to say. She has renal disease (special diet); hypertension (medication); thyroid disease (medication); and growing arthritis. She is also pretty much deaf. But she seems content enough. She still grooms herself carefully. She still loves to sit on our laps and be cuddled. She particularly loves to sprawl all over Joel, or around his neck, when he's watching TV. She still talks to us. We give her her medication (with the vet's approval) in tiny clumps of cheese, and after several months, she's still licking her lips in great surprise at the odd taste of the stuff. She spends most of the day outside, nestled in amongst the gardenias, or sprawling on the stones in the sun.

The last few days she has taken to climbing up on the kitchen benches, after years of being trained not to do so. She's there in the morning, looking down at you when you fill up the kettle for morning coffee. She was there tonight, as Joel was doing the dishes. So I brought a chair for her, and she sat on that and watched him clean the kitchen. She weighs almost nothing, and when I pick her up, I can feel the touch of skin and bone, her delicate ribs, the arcs of her spine, the joints in her tail. She is growing old as gracefully as it's possible to do. I hope she has many more days in the sun, and in the gardenias.

Teenage Sparklie Vampire Lolcats

An irresistible re-reading (courtesy Kerryn) ...

http://www.popsuede.com/2009/12/twilight-saga-new-moon-review.html

The Drawing Gene

I do not exaggerate when I say I don't have any visual or design skills. My talents in this area go only so far as experimenting with a larger size of Times New Roman as a header. And even my stick figure drawings are laughable (seriously: they make people LOL). So you can imagine my delight when I realised my son had inherited my partner's talents in this regard, which are not inconsiderable. Here's a drawing Joel did yesterday of the little cat Mima, now approaching her eighteenth birthday.





Long-time readers of this blog may remember the drawing he did of the radiotherapy machine, back in January last year.

And here is another self-portrait, drawn from the digitally enhanced photograph on his computer desktop:



I'm off to the picture framer's tomorrow...

Lolcats for Creative Anachronism

more cat pictures

It's very hard on a cat

... when the builders and their apprentices and their power tools and their compressor and their radios arrive sometimes as early as 7.00, and when there are very few warm and cosy places to sleep in the house during the day. But there are compensations, such as a sunny afternoon on a quiet weekend in a pile of insulation.