This Night's Monolith

It’s difficult to sleep in very hot weather. Add to that the usual problems that cats get up to, and sleepless nights - or, to be more accurate, unrestful nights - may result.

Very early this morning, Josie started throwing up. She normally gives plenty of warning - her heaves will continue for half a minute before they are consummated with the production of upchuck - so I had time not only to get out of bed and make sure she was in the bathroom - she was already - but to put a cat-food box under her to obviate any need to clean up a mess. It was only four o’clock, so I had another hour of sleep remaining, if I could drift off readily enough.

It was not meant to be. One of my outsider-cats, Jessel, had come by for some hard-food and had taken offence at the presence of another outsider-cat, watching him eat. This is one I have seen before, though rarely. A patchy orange and white fellow, whom I’ve named Beaumont, he has not, so far as I know, dined at Café Cosy. And Jessel evidently wanted to keep it that way.

This disagreement over place settings resulted in a wailing match that began behind my apartment, continued down an alley, across a street and back to my apartment, despite my strenuous complaints to a distracted Jessel and his even less mindful rival.

Have you seen 2001: a Space Odyssey? There is a memorable portion of the film, at its start, which depicts very early man’s tribulations when he has no weapons with which to defend himself. The nights are spent in terror of wild animals, and the days are filled with raucous fights between opposing tribes, none of which has the courage to close with its opponents in actual physical combat. This impasse is altered by the arrival of the mysterious and omnipotent monolith, which inspires man to create and destroy. I was reminded of that situation last night: two antagonists, neither of which wanted to risk injury, facing off to see who had the greater courage, or simple endurance.

I suppose, in a very loose adaptation, I was last night’s monolith. But I brought no weapon for one cat or the other. I merely consigned both would-be pugilists to perdition, telling them to come back later, and separately, and they would be served a good meal. I think if 2001’s monolith had taken that tack, mankind’s history would have been kinder. And more filling. I never did get back to sleep.

The Nice and the Noisy

There hasn’t been much to report from the Cosy Apartment lately, except that it is far from cosy. We are experiencing a heat-wave in our part of the world, and humans and cats are trying to keep cool. I am looking forward to autumn; at least its early part, with the crisp mornings, warm days and slightly chilly nights.

But there is activity, at least at Café Cosy. Jessel comes by almost every day. I know that he also visits another apartment, and gets hand-outs from a third now and then, so he isn’t starving. I can now touch him, very lightly, on the ears or the whiskers, and he nervously allows me. He also talks to me, which he has not before; at least, I think it is talking. His language so far consists of high-pitched fearful little cries. I believe it is talking because he makes these sounds while I am not doing anything, so it isn’t in reaction to a movement or to my proximity (and if he were afraid of the latter, he would move away.)

Though he is slender, he isn’t gaunt. His coat is a bit rough but in good shape, except where it has been gouged on his right front shoulder, probably some time ago. He trusts me enough to come down into the ditch to eat his food, and is living sufficiently well to leave some portions when he is full, and to turn his nose up at those servings he doesn’t like. I hope to get to know him better in the days and weeks to come. I will be putting straw back into the virtually unused tubular cat-house come the chilly weather, so he will have a place to stay, if he has no other.

And then we had a return customer at the café a couple of nights ago. You can probably just make out his stripes. I don’t know if he is the same skunk who visited a long time ago; I don’t recall him coming to eat last year. I was glad to see him, and hope he had his fill.

Horace - as I call all my skunk patrons - is neither as noisy nor as messy as the raccoons. On the weekend, the raccoon youngsters came for a midnight supper; they were so clamorous, I had to chase them off - for the first time - just to get some sleep. And all they were doing was eating. They were crunching the hard cat-food thirty feet away outside, and it was still keeping me awake. Their mother, who now comes separately (probably happy for the solitude after her trio of trouble-makers) is less a problem.

As I’ve written before, all are welcome at Café Cosy. I just wish I had more of the polite crowd among my clientele.

Never Too Old to Have Fun

One is never too old to have fun. My old lady, Josie, is sixteen, and doing well (knock on wood). She is not what I would call active, but she gets around just fine. Like the rest of my cats, she is not a big player of games. I am lucky if I interest them in anything for a few minutes a day.

But Josie does like one game. It is a very simple game. The accessories are a stick (specifically, the clear plastic rod of the string-toy) and the cat-tree at the bottom of which Josie likes to lie. I poke the stick through holes in the cat-tree and my Chubs tries to grab or bite it. That’s the game.

 

There are rules, however. The stick must be pushed through the triangular spaces formed by the inclined supports that buttress the central post of the cat-tree. Displaying the stick around them arouses no enthusiasm. The stick may, on occasion, be pushed along the base of the cat-tree. The key element here, I think, is surprise. Josie must be surprised by the stick’s appearance, in order to have fun. As well, it must begin while she is actually lying on the cat-tree’s base; she will not come from anywhere else to participate.

 

Yet she does have fun. She tries to seize the stick in her stubby paws, but can’t attain a purchase on it. She attempts to bite the stick, but her three remaining teeth aren’t really placed for the action. Even so, she finds the process quite entertaining, and is the only one of my beasts to purr through any game. We play, she enjoys herself, and I enjoy seeing her enjoy herself.

It appears that neither of us is too old to have fun.

The Place to Eat When New in Town

As I’ve described before, my little Café Cosy – the feeding station in the concrete ditch outside my apartment’s sliding glass door – has a wide variety of customers. Lately, word seems to have spread among the magpies in the vicinity.

Magpies are not among my favourite species of bird. They strike me as a rather aggressive lot. I’ve seen them chase cats – I recently had to rescue Jessel, from where he had taken refuge under a parked car, by chasing off the magpies that were dive-bombing him – and I know they raid the nests of other birds. On the other hand, they have their purpose in nature, and they are doing what they must to survive and thrive. Besides, if they eat at my restaurant, they are less likely to eat other animals.

Initially, the pies were content to glean the kernels of hard-food I would throw on to the grass for them and other birds. But, being smart creatures, they soon found the source: the hard-food bowl in its little shelter. They have, in effect, moved from the café’s sidewalk tables to inside dining. They also seem to appreciate the water-bowl.

I don’t mind. Autumn will be here in a few weeks, and then the cold and, possibly, snow will make foraging difficult. The food I provide will help whoever wants it to fatten up for the tough times animals face in the dark months. Last night, Jessel came by and had a good meal, followed about an hour later by Sable, who ate two courses, a tin of soft-food with a helping of hard, afterward. The raccoons finished off what food was left, and drank and/or spilled the water.

The staff of Café Cosy was busy yesterday…

Those Old Bones

I have been giving Josie joint-medicine for several weeks now. She receives about two millilitres of it orally on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays (the other days, she receives a dose of Restoralax, to keep her regular.) I think I have seen a concrete improvement in my Chubs.

I have several water-bowls placed about the apartment; in the bedroom alone there are three, because my cats spend so much time in there; certainly, it is Josie’s favourite room. There is a big one by the door, a small one on the ledge under the window, and Cammie’s Bowl in the corner, a couple of inches off the floor. This is the Great White’s preferred source of water.

During her urinary tract infection six weeks ago or so, Josie took to lying on the base of one of the bedroom cat-trees; she evidently found it to her liking since she snoozes there now even though she is fully recovered. Cammie’s Bowl is easily reached from there. Josie also sleeps on the bed but still mostly uses Cammie’s Bowl. To get there from the bed, she merely drops the two feet to the floor.

She could easily use the stairs from the bed, or walk across the desk to the descending platforms of the cat-trees. And she does travel these routes from time to time. But the fact that she repeatedly jumps from the bed to the floor tells me that her sixteen year old bones and joints must be able to withstand the shock of landing. She may have done this priorly, and I hadn’t taken note; that she does it now suggests that her joints and muscles are serving her well, and without pain. Whether this is due to the medicine she is imbibing cannot be known for sure. Then again, I don’t think the medicine can hurt.

So, despite her dislike of receiving it, my Chubs will continue to take her dose. Maybe if she keeps taking it, she’ll soon be spry enough to run away from it…

                                            

The Season of Futility

We usually have a wet introduction to summer here, followed by sunshine, and then sunshine and heat together. The last stage is where we are now. There has been plenty of sunshine, which I don’t mind, except in the evening, when it shines directly into the apartment, which faces west. The cosy apartment then becomes the toasty apartment.

Another effect of the concentrated sunlight is on my cleaning. I like to have a clean home, which isn’t easily achieved with four cats, but I wash and scrub and sweep. Sweeping gives me a feeling of achievement because I see all the cat-hair and dust gathered up from the four corners of the realm and dumped into the garbage. But I’ve learned that one should never sweep in the evening, with the bright summer sun shining directly onto the floors.

Then, every cat-hair, every food particle, every mote of dust is clearly delineated, its lines and form edged with sharpness, and one’s complete inability to collect all of them, the refusal even of that debris already swept to stay put, demonstrates the futility of cleanliness. The movement of a cat, however slight, however undisturbing it may seem, throws up clouds of detritus like those vomited from a volcano. And if a cat should run or jump, the amount of hair it leaves in its wake is enough to weave another carpet to cover the one from which the move was made.

But the sun is moving south. It sinks in the west earlier each evening, and its light grows thinner day by day. Soon, it will be twilight when I clean, the sun hidden from view and its rays no longer outraged by what I cannot sweep up. Soon, I can pretend that my residence is not an allergy’s nightmare, and that my cats are next to Godliness.

Soon, even a big cat’s leap from floor to couch will once more be an innocent display of grace and agility. The season of futility will be over.

Do You Remember Adah?

Some of my readers may recall Adah, a cat I first met on the day of – possibly and no later than the day after – her birth. I won’t reiterate the adventure of finding her, though if anyone wants the details of it, they may read them in the entry for this blog from April 29, 2018. Her life was saved through a collaborative effort, involving myself, another member of the Lethbridge PAW Society, a woman and her son in a town near by (both of whom are now members of the Society) and their cat, the remarkable Miss Mew, who took to Adah (and other orphans) as if the newborn were her own, and nursed her.

For two years, Adah has been living in a loving foster-home, sharing the attention of the humans there with other cats. She gets along with them, but she would really prefer the life of an only-cat, and be spoiled rotten by her person.

At the risk of jinxing the arranging, I can announce that Adah has been chosen for adoption. Though the actual process may not be finalised for some weeks, due to covid-19 restrictions – and this being the reason why I cannot wait to tell everyone the good news – someone has been found who is perfect for the little cat. Adah will be the only feline there.

This will be a wrench for her foster-guardians, who love Adah tremendously. This of course merely means that they are the sort of foster-guardians whom Adah needed. They will be consoled by the knowledge that their little charge will have the sort of home that she deserves, and love and security for the rest of her life.

I will, if permission is granted, publish pictures of Adah in her new life once she settles in. I know a number of readers followed this girlcat’s exploits and will share my delight at this good news.