Saturday, May 2, 2020

My Crowded Hours


I have a non-fiction book called The Crowded Hours, about a man’s adventurous life in peace and war. When one has cats, one need not enlist in a foreign army and fight in exotic lands to experience diverse and strange events.

Friday evening, I was watching Raleigh. He has been feeling under the weather, for which I have been giving him Mirtazapine, to stimulate his appetite, and Restoralax, to stimulate his bowels; a form of burning the candle at both ends, as it were. Peachy had been constipated a few days before, so I was keeping an eye on his litter-box visits. This time, he came out of the store-room, where the boxes are kept, not having scraped or battered at the interior walls of a litter-box, his habit after having done what nature requires of him. Something was amiss. I was certain of this when he lie down just outside the storeroom, and then lifted his leg several times, as if to clean his bum, but without actually doing so.


It turned out that he had not completed his duty. That is to say, it hadn’t finished its extrusion. Well, well. Picking Raleigh up, I took him to the bathroom, where I had to use a few strong-arm tactics to persuade the recalcitrant little wastrel to make its full appearance. This elicited some cries of dismay from the Peach, but more, I fancy, in alarm than pain. Oddly, the product was not hard, only firm. Why it stranded itself in mid-voyage, I can’t say.

Whatever the cause, I was able to cast away the problems and leave Raleigh surprisingly clean. Afterward, he suffered no ill effects, and today completed the transaction properly. He continues to receive Restoralax, both to soften the business and ease the path.

Josie, on the other hand, had a problem with the opposite end. She threw up her dinner. This happens with her sometimes, depending on how fast and how much she eats. She alerted me to the situation with her usual ‘wah wah wah’ cries. When I reached the bedroom, where she had been lying, she was already stepping down from the bed, on her way to the bathroom. After several years of me carrying or shepherding her to that uncarpeted floor, my Chubs attempts to get there on her own whenever she feels the biliousness come upon her. (I also have cardboard cartons and box lids to slip under her mouth if I have time.)


The Great White regurgitated a suitable amount thrice, which is her normal number of efforts, then returned to the bedroom for a drink of water and another lie-down. I had to run errands, satisfied that Josie was recovering. I was wrong. When I came home, I noted that she had chucked the up twice more – on the bathroom floor. She must have felt the urge come upon her and hurried to where she knew she should go.

So, while it was a busy and perhaps regrettable evening, it was not unadulteratedly bad, and the two subjects of this little essay did their coöperative best to ease both their troubles and my work. I could have done without such actions, but, as one realises as one ages, things could have been far worse. I – and the cats – had a good sleep that night.

Oh, and Renn urinated in the bath-tub.


14 comments:

  1. Oh, Lord, John, you’re truly getting it from both ends. I wish I could say something more encouraging than “been there, cleaned up that.”

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  2. Elderly cats are so much messy trouble, to be sure, But we love them all their lives and take care of them towards The End.

    The love lasts... The years of purrs and laptime and action are worth it...

    You are a good Being for your cats.





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  3. Bless you for your patient nursing of your geriatric roomies.

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  4. Ah! Good old Renn..Bless!x
    It all sounds like the old hospital
    series, 'Emergency Ward Ten'..made
    from 1957 to 1967..a 'Soap Opera' as
    we call them over here, and in B/W..! :).

    Oh! By the way John..Do get to see any TV..
    Besides real life dramas, do you get to see
    any on television..! :o).

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    Replies
    1. I don't have television, though I have a television set (for watching movies). I haven't seen a tv programme in more than a decade.

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  5. They certainly keep you busy!
    The poop reminded me of Flynn. Not because it got stuck, but because he sometimes ate long grass without chewing it properly.
    If I saw him running and keep staring behind I knew exactly what had happened.
    There would be a blade of grass protruding, followed by a string of sausages with the grass embedded through them!
    I would gently ease the grass out ridding him of his unwelcome company. You would have thought I was murdering him the way he would scream the place down as I (very gently) did it.

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  6. Bless you, and they as well. Raleigh's lack of "peristaltic action" must have been puzzling to him as he expressed so well after lifting his leg and letting it drop while he was trying to think of a solution. Josie deserves a medal! If only only Katie would do the same!!! Renn...I can think of worse places. Indeed, I recall Robin, back in the 90's, having done the same as she hated that coarse litter back then and insisted on being let out for bath rooming purposes. When put inside as I was gone from the house for hours...she would just use the tub. You can clean that.

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  7. Sometimes the chores are never done but the sure appreciate the hands-on service!

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  8. Boy, things are never dull at your house! But at least Josie and Renn did their business where it could be easily cleaned up. My Jessica would use the bathtub as a litter box on occasion. I wonder if Renn learned that from her?? :-) Meanwhile, I hope everyone if feeling much better by now!

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  9. Checklist:
    Raleigh: back-end
    Cammie: front-end
    Renn: well, at least the bathtub is easily cleaned!

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  10. Our Rumpy has neurological issues so is not always aware when he is done. This couples with chronic loose stool so several times a week there is a call for clean up in the back aisle. Our Toby also likes the tub but only rarely. Ahh the excitement is spice of life. Feel better kitties

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  11. WAOW ! my mom kudos to you, John
    She got no ideas how you can keep tracks of them.
    I send a ton of purrs to all kitties =^x^=
    Thanks so much to prayers and purrs for me
    Lots of love
    xox

    Puddy Boy

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  12. Your weekend was hoping with clean up duty! And each cat not caring the
    other one had issuses, just you. Keeps you on your toes. Good thing
    was each cat is feeling fine and now clean.

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