Gracie

Her story will come later, but here are a couple of pictures. She's not all black--she has white toes (not feet, just toes), a few white whiskers, and a little white spot on her neck, like a clerical collar.

That thing better not make lightning at me.

You made lightning. You may go now.

Should have named her Garbo.

Post-op boy, recovering nicely

Simon the purrito, curled up in Matt's blankets. He can shove his face into things now.

Simon ensuring the accuracy of his biographical blog posts.

You must see his white cravat and little pink nose.

Simon's story, part 1

Simon’s story, part 1

(Sorry I haven’t got the photos for this—we don’t have a scanner.)

We moved into an apartment in the Willamette Valley with our three black cats, Esmerelda, Velvet, and Gracie, in 2000. Soon after we arrived, a feral tabby with a white chin and paws showed up at the back patio door. There were plenty of feral cats around, but she was different. She would sit in the container garden on our back patio, watching us through the sliding glass door. We never saw her arrive; we would sense someone looking at us and she’d be there. We would go out and talk to her, but she would never let us touch her. No matter how long we sat still, no matter what treats we were holding, no matter how contentedly she sat just out of reach and gave us the slow blink of affection, no matter how consistently we fed her, she would not come within arm’s reach. We checked around: she was not anyone’s cat. She had been pregnant but had never been seen with kittens. Probably the raccoons got them, people said. One day, for no reason at all, I called her Tibbs, and the name stuck.

She showed up increasingly pregnant for awhile, disappeared for a couple of weeks, and came back thin and alone. We decided to work on taming her enough to get her trapped and neutered; we put out a cat carrier under a patio chair, leaving her food in it, but she would not go in when we were there and she would not rest there.

In the late summer of 2001, she was pregnant once more. She disappeared for some days in early September and came back without kittens again. We thought she had lost another litter.

One Monday morning in early October, I was heading out to work when I heard a strange rustling in the bushes by the sidewalk. I tiptoed over and looked down. Tibbs was there, nursing a kitten, a heavily striped tabby a few weeks old. She looked up at me.

I said, “Tibbs! Look at you being a good mama. What a beautiful kitten you have. Good kitty.”

I backed off slowly for a few feet and ran back into the apartment. I grabbed Matt, blurting, “Tibbs has the most beautiful kitten I’ve ever seen!” and dragged him out to look. Tibbs never moved. The kitten stopped nursing and blinked up at us. He slung a little white paw over his mother’s neck: MY mama. I saw that the nictitating membrane on his right eye had a little tear in it and didn’t pull down all the way.

I went off to work, a little late. We left some extra food out for the nursing mother.

The next morning, I looked out the sliding door and there she was, dropping the kitten on the doormat. I went to the door and opened it very slowly. Tibbs retreated behind the plant pots. The kitten did not. I picked him up. He mewed in surprise, but didn’t scratch. He snuggled against us. We held him and petted him, then put him back and closed the door softly. Tibbs collected him and went away.

She showed up at the same time every morning that week. She dropped him off, we picked him up, he squalled in alarm at being lifted through the air. I called him Simon Peter because he reminded me of Peter, insisting on walking on water and then panicking. He was still nursing, so we gave him back, hoping to take him in when he was weaned.

On Saturday, I picked tiny Simon up and realized his eyes were gunky, his nose was running, and he was breathing hard. Tibbs looked worse.  We were startled at how quickly they had gone from being slightly unhealthy strays to being very sick. I put food in the carrier, and she walked into it, right in front of me. I put Simon in and closed the door. We called the vet and took her in. A friend went along.

Then everything went wrong. The Saturday substitute vet, whom we had told the cats were feral, opened the carrier and let Tibbs walk out into the room. When Tibbs saw all the people, she panicked. The vet said to let her be. Our friend grabbed Tibbs, who put several deep gashes in her hand (we ended up paying part of her medical bill for the subsequent infection).  The cat tore around the room, screaming and smashing things, clearing shelves, tearing a diploma off the wall. Finally, a burly vet tech wearing leather gloves waded through the broken glass, cornered Tibbs, and scruffed her, tucking her into his elbow. She was panting, a horrible rasping sound. The tech carried her out and the vet followed.

I reached into the carrier. Simon was a wide-eyed handful of fur in the back corner. He was utterly alone and so very small. I pulled him out and held him against my heart, hoping the sound of a heartbeat would comfort him. He clung to me, silent and unmoving.

The vet said Tibbs had pneumonia and was too sick and wild to save. We agreed to euthanize her. I still feel like a traitor for that: she trusted us, and that was how it ended.

We said we wanted to try to save Simon. The vet examined him and took blood for FIV and FLV tests, warning us we might still have to put him down. I took him back and put him over my heart again. They gave us antibiotics. I held him as we paid the bill, as we lugged the empty carrier back to the car, as we drove to Bi-Mart for kitten milk replacer and eyedroppers, as we drove to church. I wore him like a brooch into the confessional. The priest raised an eyebrow and I said, “This is necessary. I’ll explain afterward.” When the priest had absolved me, he said, “Now may I hold the baby?” He got a few minutes to snuggle the kitten against his alb and stole: then I put Simon back on my heart, and he dug into my shirt with his miniscule (but oh so sharp) claws again. 

We took the tiny scrap of fur home and kept him quarantined from the other cats, who were not thrilled about his arrival. We bottle-fed him. He washed me with his tongue. He started to play a little, then more. He decided I was his ape and Matt was his backup ape.

Late in October, I took him back for a recheck and the test results. No FIV, no FLV, just a kitten who was fully recovered from the infection that had killed his mother. The vet (not the sub) smiled when I leaned against the examining table and whispered, “Oh, thank God.”

“Yes, I’ve heard how much you love him,” she said. I picked him up and held him against my heart.

Requiem for a beloved dog

Buddy Gromit Goodwin, 2002?-9/15/2015

For the past two days I’ve been hearing the opening to the service of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer: “The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end.” Buddy had both in the last few hours.

Buddy’s arrival in our life came under the heading of Sometimes God Just Hands You One. We had just bought a house and I was combing Petfinder for dogs when I saw Buddy in our driveway, sniffing noses with Simon the tabby cat. I ran outside to save my cat from a strange dog and ended up protecting the dog from Simon. Buddy just wanted to be friends.

He had a home, but he was a Houdini, and he was looking for female dogs in heat. His owner took him back, but a few days later let us know Buddy had run away again and we could have him if he showed up, which he did. He didn’t run away as much after we got him fixed, but he sometimes gave us the slip and went walkabout, though he always ran to the car when we drove out to find him. He loved the car.

When people asked his breed, we always said he was a North American God-Knows-What. He was a tricolor, black, red, and white with both red and black spots; he had heeler spots and floppy ears; he herded, he pointed, he was smart enough to do the taxes, and he smelled like a Lab. We heard countless theories about what his ancestors might have been, but everyone agreed he was beautiful.

We always said Buddy had a St. Francis vibe: he never stopped befriending other animals. While he loved Lucy the blue heeler, and later Daisy the border collie/heeler mix, his best friend was Sophie, a tortoiseshell cat who slept on the couch with him every night. He insisted we take in a very sick kitten who became Eowyn, our one-eyed warrior princess, but they were not as close because she was aggressive with him. He once tucked a neighbor’s cat under his belly and sneaked it into our kitchen in an attempt to give us yet another cat. He loved all humans except cyclists, but the day I rode up to the car on a bike and took off my helmet, he did a back somersault, apologized profusely, and stopped wanting to eat cyclists. He loved to shake hands, which prompted us to create his favorite song parody, I Wanna Hold Your Paw. When we brought him to the clinic this morning, both vets on duty came out to say goodbye before Dr. Colleen helped him into the next world.

Dogs play in different ways. Buddy’s favorite games were Keep Away, Chase Me, and Neener Neener I’ve Got a Toy and You Haven’t. He would even run to the fence to show his toy to the horse next door, who was never impressed.  Fetching, however, was beneath his considerable dignity. He did a splendid high-speed barrel race around any obstacles in the back yard, provided his humans leapt at him and pretended they were trying to catch him; he did four laps of that the Friday before his death.

Buddy survived mast cell cancer in early 2010. There was no sign of its return until he had a seizure on Sunday, then a series of worse ones on Monday. It was clear from bloodwork that several organs weren’t working right, and his symptoms made it obvious that he had a debilitating brain mass. He seemed to age a month every hour over the last day of his life, going from a vital, happy dog to an old, bewildered, and very shaky one, but he maintained his dignity to the last. His last night was crowded, as he was surrounded by his humans and by Daisy, Sophie, and Simon, all of whom refused to leave him and took turns snuggling him. Buddy met his perfect end on a blanket under a tree outside the vet clinic, where he took the first sedative shot without complaint, put his head down on Janine’s knee, and went peacefully to join Lucy.

Good dog, Buddy Budster. Thank you for coming to us.

Night shift work

10 quarts of Bings, 2 of Rainiers. They all sealed!

Garden update

I love the arch of bleeding-heart stems.

Translucence is a wonderful thing. Backlighting is tricky, but worth it.

 Lewisia is new to our garden. It's a native plant, named after Meriweather Lewis. Lewis and Clark are a very big deal in Oregon history.

 After two years of waiting, this iris showed us its colors.

 The parrot tulip is in a difficult spot, but today, finally, I got it. Doesn't it remind you of Dutch prints?

 Worlds within worlds. Maltese cross, gathering its strength to bloom.

A volunteer yarrow, blooming for the first time this year, showing that it's as bright as its parent.

   I don't usually name plants, but after we planted this little lilac, we went inside and I read the passage in Pratchett's Night Watch in which Sam Vimes meets his younger self. Henceforth, this one will be known as Vimesy and the big one at the opposite corner of the house as Sergeant-At-Arms.

The shapes and colors of iris leaves and buds are so perfect.

Of course, nothing stays perfect thanks to this guy and his ilk. Half an inch long, cute as can be, and already chomping holes in the hollyhock leaves. Here he's practicing camouflage on a yarrow stalk.

Thanks for stopping by!

Spring again

My birthday falls six weeks before the average last frost here, which is also the interval between my birthdate and the date I was expected. I celebrate it by planting seedlings.

73 of them, to be precise. Daisies, both white and Painted Lady pink; Button Box, Cut and Come Again, and Pop Art zinnias; apricot and red hollyhock. They'll be ready to plant on my wouldhavebeen birthday.

I put the red sage and the two superbells in planters so I can keep them from freezing: my pomegranate superbell from last summer is still thriving after a winter indoors. 

The critters have been enjoying the new couch, especially Daisy, who is athletic even in her sleep: