Happy Mother’s Day…mostly.

May 8, 2016 / Wanda / 9 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day world!

Today my family gave me the most wonderful, relaxing morning. They spoiled me with lovely cards, perfect gifts and my husband made breakfast with mimosa’s AND cleaned it all up. I took a leisurely shower and took my time getting ready for my special day.

And then one of the cat’s threw up in my freshly washed hair. I guess she decided I needed to be reminded that I am not a Queen, and just a mother, after all. 😉

Minerva and the Not-So Magic Pee

April 4, 2016 / Wanda / 17 Comments

Meet Minerva. AKA, Minnie for short.

She’s the newest member of our family. A little over a month ago my husband was walking our son to school, and along the way he found this adorable kitten on the sidewalk around the corner from our house. She was dirty, covered in fleas, but very friendly. They stopped to pet her and when she was still sitting there on his way back home, he decided she needed his help. He brought her home and made signs to put up around the neighborhood indicating a lost kitten had been found and gave his contact info so her owner could come and claim her.

In the meantime, he took her to the vet and had her checked out to make sure she was healthy. He had her bathed, flea dipped and had the vet start her kitten shots since we were unsure if she’d had any vet care. The vet estimated her to be about six months old. When he got home I said, “You just spent $200 at the vet on a stray cat. Are you sure you aren’t planning to keep her?”

The truth is that Dan has always been unable to walk away from an animal in need. And I really do love that about his personality. If he can help someone, or save an animal, he will do it. No questions asked. And the other motivating factor is that this kitten likes him. She claimed him from day one for her very own. We have two other cats and Dan rescued them both. Lucy shows a decided preference for our daughter, and Linus prefers me above all others. Dan is tired of cleaning litter boxes and saving the lives of animals who then don’t give a shit about his feelings. He saves them and then they shut him out. But not Minerva. He decided to work from home the day he picked her up off the street and I don’t think she left his lap for several hours while he worked. She loves him and has grown more attached to him over the past several weeks.

It’s been about six weeks now and no one called to claim her. So Dan named her after Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter book series. About two weeks ago, Minnie went into heat. I had forgotten that female kittens could start their heat cycles as early as six months of age, and she’s about 7 1/2 months old now. It’s been years since I’ve had an intact female in the house, and believe me when I say that I now realize why vets and breeders encourage you to spay/neuter your pets as quickly as possible.

She loves to lay in the sink.

The past two weeks have been…..stressful. She yowls at all hours of the day and night. Like, she is literally singing the song of her people. She’s constantly making some kind of noise and she makes these chirpy bird like sounds. I read on the internet that she’s trying to identify and call a mate. I’m thanking God the weather has been cool and we’ve had the windows closed, otherwise my house would be surrounded by male cats. And she’s started scent marking! OMFG! I thought only male cats did that. And our other female, Lucy, who was fixed years ago is not having any of it. She is mad as hell that Minnie is trying to mark over what she considers to be her territory and she is aggressively attacking Minnie at every opportunity. So between the constant sex calls at all hours, trying to prevent this kitten from peeing all over my house, and heading off or breaking up serious, fur flying, claws drawing blood cat fights, my patience is worn thin.

Dan took her to the vet to have her fixed the day after we realized she had started the heat cycle, but they wouldn’t do the procedure until she was finished. So we’ve been living in cat hell for two weeks. And last night it got worse…

Don’t let that sweet face deceive you!

At 3am, I woke up suddenly when I rolled over from my stomach and felt my pajama bottoms were wet on the back of my thigh. I reached down and touched my pants and there was a circle of something wet. And it wasn’t a little wet, but saturated. I smelled it and it was fucking cat pee! I jumped out of bed thinking Minnie had pee’d in the bed. I started frantically feeling around in the dark trying to determine the extent of the damage, but everything was dry. I woke Dan up but he couldn’t find the mess either. Cat pee does not magically appear on your person, so there had to be a spot on the bed, right?

Nope. That little shit pee’d on me while I was sleeping! Dan said, “I think she was trying to mark you as her territory.” And I said, “Well, I am not fucking flattered!”

She gets fixed on Wednesday, and Wednesday can’t come soon enough.

The Cat Who Lived

September 24, 2015 / Wanda / 10 Comments

Lucy has resting bitch face.

Meet Lucy.

Lucy is my daughter Bryn’s cat, and she’s three years old.

My husband, Dan, rescued Lucy as a four week old kitten. He found her abandoned in the parking garage by his office. She was trapped behind a security fence without food or water. He heard her crying, and being the animal lover that he is, he went to investigate. His rescue efforts included contacting security to open the fence and then chasing this scared kitten through the garage and underneath a car to retrieve her. I remember his phone call that day so clearly. He said, “I can’t take her to a shelter. She’s so small. Can I bring her home?”

So, Lucy became a part of our family that day. She was tiny, malnourished and covered in fleas. Dan saved her life and brought her home to us. And that was probably the last time Lucy let Dan love on her.

Lucy is a one person cat, and her person is Bryn. She claimed Bryn for her own, and it has been so for now and all time. They do everything together. Sleep, eat, homework, you name it and Lucy is right there by Bryn’s side. When I wake Bryn up in the morning for school, Lucy helps. She will lick Bryn’s nose, or sometimes she will just lay right across her face when I’m trying to get her up. It’s very sweet to see them together. Best friends.

For all her love and sweetness for Bryn, Lucy is a bad girl. She has a terrible habit of eating things that aren’t food. She especially likes hair rubber bands and tearing up and eating these black foam rubber mats that lay underneath my treadmill. The mat is about an inch thick and protects the hard wood floors from the heavy equipment. Every few weeks I will find a pool of cat vomit with chunks of foam rubber matting or hair ties. I’m always shocked that she manages to puke it all up without hurting herself.

About three weeks ago, Lucy became very sick. Like, projectile vomiting dark green bile from her stomach sick. We were immediately concerned about an obstruction so we took her to the vet. They did abdominal x-rays but didn’t find anything. Everything else was normal, so they treated her for dehydration and sent her home. Three days later she started vomiting again. Back to the vet we go. She wasn’t eating or drinking and it was obvious she was dehydrated again. The vet hospitalized her and did two more rounds of abdominal x-rays over a 24 hour period. The radiologist who reviewed the x-rays observed an area of the her small intestine to be somewhat enlarged and recommended an ultrasound. We transported her to another vet’s office who had the staff and ability to do an ultrasound, as well as emergency surgery if it became necessary.

We were right. She was obstructed. The ultrasound revealed that there was something in her small intestine and other things in her stomach that should not have been there. The vet recommended emergency surgery right away.

Do you want to know what abdominal surgery on a cat costs? It costs about $3,300.00. And this is in addition to the $1,800.00 we already spent at the other vet. What would you do? How do I put a price tag on the life of my daughter’s best friend? How do I say this cat’s life isn’t worth $5,000.00? Those were the choices we were left with because without surgery, her intestine would have ruptured and she would have died.

If I didn’t have the resources, this would be a different post. If Lucy was a fifteen year old cat diagnosed with terminal cancer, this would be a different post. But I did have the resources, and Lucy is a healthy three year old cat with something stuck in her belly. So, after I drank half a bottle of wine and ate a HUGE piece of Coconut Joy cake for dinner to calm myself down, we gave the vet the thumbs up and off to surgery she went!

The vet called us after surgery and told us they removed a piece of the black foam rubber from her small intestine. They also sucked some other debris out of her stomach. When we picked her up, they sent home the offending object, and I was shocked to see it was a piece of foam rubber about two inches long and an inch wide! How she got that down her throat without choking to death is unbelievable!

See that three inch incision on her tummy? Scars are cool.

Lucy is one very lucky little cat. And based on her new loving personality since she’s been home from surgery, I think she knows just how close to death she came.

Meet Lucy. The cat who lived.

Birthday Gifts

August 7, 2015 / Wanda / 5 Comments

A conversation with my son, Bryce. He will be turning five in a few weeks.

Me:   What do you want for your birthday?
Bryce:   A Dj set! (He then starts to imitate scratching records with motion and sound.)
Me:   So you can drop a fresh beat?
Bryce: Yes!
Me:   Where did you learn about DJ turntables and scratching records?
Bryce:   America’s Cutest Cats!

Happy Friday everyone!