What is it about this time of year that gets under my skin so much? It's too cold or the ground's too hard to work outside on garden prep, chickenhouse building, or the (continuous, dammit) home repairs.... It's not really cold enough for me to want to pretend I'm a bear instead of a wolf and hibernate 23/7.... I half-want to clean, organise, declutter things... I half-want to say "Oh the hell with it, I can't keep ahead of the ravenous junque collecteurs I live with"... Part of me wants to yell and holler at the people who for SOME unknown reason cannot put an item back where they got it, even when they are standing 3.2 inches from its proper place....
And don't even talk to me about the animals.... Horrid little beasts! One of them has forgotten what a litterbox is for (Clone). One of them knows quite well what it's for -- kicking the litter and *ahem* stuff out of onto the floor, in a walkway (Lucky). Two of them hate the litterbox anyway, and would rather go outside and DIE than poop in a sanitary plastic tray full of environmentally sound corn-by-product (Nana and Visions). Snowy (Lyn's cockatiel) now screams for no reason -- not just because someone has bothered her -- just to scream. And the sugar gliders are itchy, so we have to run a NON ULTRASONIC humidifier which frankly is noisy as hell. We got a companion dog for Cat (the person) for Yuletide; he looks like what we called a "poi dog" when we lived in Hawaii. Buster's a great kid; he plays with Biddy. It's total comedy, particularly when you consider, Buster at age 3 probably weighs all of 9 pounds (hell, Lucky is heavier!) and then there's Biddy... at 89.2 pounds. So, Buster's on one end of a rope tug, dangling.... From Biddy, who has the other end of the tug in her mouth. They do other cute stuff but that's the bestest.
I mentioned Lucky, above, and it made me think about the whole crew really. Clone, the oldest, was the kitten of Mist, a barn cat given to me when we first moved back to the Ozarks. She's about 17 years old, possibly 19. I can't even remember now because she's been around so long. She's still able to eat, purr, and pee (anywhere but her box) even though it's evident that she's really old now. She can also still catch, and eat, mice. Her silver-grey fur has a slightly brownish tinge now; the vet says that's just age, which is also the reason that her sea-green eyes have faded to a more golden shade now.
Next oldest of the bunch is Snowy, the cockatiel. Small bird, not the huge screaming thing, big difference between a cockaTIEL and a cockatoo, which is what most people think I mean when I mention her. She's white with a yellow crest and pale orange cheek patches; like all her breed she's pretty fastidious about her grooming and her food. Now she's cranky, though, and instead of saying "Ryu" and "Whee!" she mostly communicates in a noise similar to fingernails on a blackboard. She's the last of 3 cage-birds we had; Artie Deco was the first, and Snowy was originally supposed to be his girlfriend, but that didn't really work out for him. There was also Skittles the Lovebird. Everyone says not to have a single lovebird, but that's baloney; Cat raised him from the time he wasn't even fully fledged, and believe me, he never needed a mate. Both Artie and Skittles are gone now; we were told that cockatiels generally live 10 to 12 years, and lovebirds live 10 to 15 years. Both birds far exceeded this projection, as has Snowy, who is still alive and screeching at 17.
So, Clone, then Snowy, then Nanashi. Now, if you know Japanese, you may realise that Nana's name is a pun. Nana was rescued from under the porch of a rundown house on the wrong side, of the wrong side of the tracks. When I hauled him out, he was smaller than your average coffeecup. Hells'Bells, the FLEAS on him, were almost as big AS him, I swear. I bathed him in a Motel Six sink the night I found him, and discovered he was even smaller than I thought. When he finally dried, he was a delicate ball of long ginger fluff. I'd seriously never seen anything so beautiful and so unimaginably soft to the touch. He forgave me for that bath finally... about 3 years ago. Nana is 15 years old, and he's still one of the most beautiful creatures I know. A lot of the time, Lyn refers to him as the Little Lion, and Nana-baby-kitty-kins. (Don't laugh. She's 25 years old; there is no way I'm going to be able to make her stop babytalking to that cat now.) Now for the pun... He's a little bastard, not really by temperment but by actual birth. In the old days a bastard was a "nameless one". Nanashi means -- no-name. Get it? hahaha?
Like most of our animals, Lyn taught Nanashi to drink from straws and eat from forks. Oh. Did I say taught? Well, not really. When Lyn was growing up, and when she'd come home in summers from university, she would sit at her desk, writing programs or drawing, or any of the other things Lyns do... and when she'd have a drink or snack, she'd share with whoever was nearby. I'd sit and watch sometimes, distracted from my own stuff, as Lyn would take a bite of noo-noos, then wind a noo-noo round a chopstick and offer it to Nana. Lyn would take a slurp of tea or soda (she always has loved straws and sippy cups, even as a "grown up"), and then offer the sippy-lid or straw to Nana. She also did this with other dogs and cats as they entered our lives. It was hilarious. Nana would sit on top of her monitor (this was before flatscreens) and Clone would sit on her lap -- or vice versa, but either way, they'd share. Nana also used to LOVE to lean over the top of the telly and watch the screen as Lyn played Sonic or any one of a few dozen other Sega games.
During this time we also had Ren and Milo and Lassie, all of whom are gone now.
Then came Biddy. Lassie had been gone for a few months, and Cat and Lyn decided they couldn't stand ME without a dog, so ... they got me one. My little Biddy black puppy.... You know, that dog now weighs more than Lyn. I think that's hilarious. But there's plenty about Biddy in other places, so on to ....
Visions. Visions the cat is a beautiful shorthaired, goldeneyed, black male. At the moment, he's been outdoors (yes, in below-freezing weather) for over 24 hours, because for some reason, he can't stand being in the house other than to eat. He and I have been arguing for the past month or so about whether or not he needs to be out in this weather. I've given up, frankly. I just hope he has brains enough (he does have) to crawl up into the torn bellywrap of the trailer and sit on the ductwork, and not freeze, and I'm just relieved when he mews imperiously at the door to be let in. If he didn't weigh as much as a small dog, I'd be more worried, I think. Like, crawling under the house or searching the woods, worried. I don't even like cats, really, and I like Visions, but the idiocy has to stop or I'll go nuts.
And then there is Lucky. Last August, Lucky wandered up onto the lanai, screaming. His throat had been torn out, then the wound had abcessed, and.... He was a mess. I've never seen an animal hurt that badly that survived. We brought him in and bathed him -- he was so ill, he LET us. Then I gave him warm chicken broth, every four hours, with vitamins mixed in. I was afraid to give him solid food -- you could count every bone in his body at that point. By the next evening, his fur was already softer and the horrendous wound under his chin and on his throat was granulating. By Monday when I was finally able to get him to the vet (David Edwards, DVM, of Osceola Missouri, is a saint. If there is a heaven, David should be at the highest level of it) Lucky was actually starting to look like a cat. David said he was astonished that he'd lived through the weekend. He cleaned Lucky's chin and throat, shot him full of antibiotics, gave me a liquid antibiotic to squirt down Lucky's throat twice daily... And said he was amazed not only that Lucky was alive at all, but that he'd found the house of the ONE crazy old lady who would take care of him. Yes, there are other houses on this road, though they're few and far between. And yes, I think I know quite well who abandoned this cat to the mercies of the forest. And yes, I am emphatically a "dog girl". But Lucky knew. He saw the lights, he heard and smelled us, and he knew -- he would be safe here.
A year later? wow. Amazing. He's a big, well-muscled, yelloweyed beauty. He's a shorthair, and he's black and white. He looks as if he's wearing a mickeymouse hat because the top of his head and his ears are black. His back is black -- except for a narrow white strip of fur. People keep telling me to get a Sharpie and colour it in, because he looks like a skunk. Hmph. I'm sure you can figure out, from his story, why he's called Lucky. And, although as I said above, I'm not really into cats, I admire the hell out of this cat. It took balls -- and luck -- for him to even be here.
Don't get me wrong, I find cats very valuable for vermin control round the house and farm. And I enjoy watching cats move or hunt, because they're so elegant even when they're... well... not being elegant. But I never really liked them as pets.
This pride, however, is changing my mind.
