Weekend Cat Blogging by Sadie -- It's my 5th Gotmeversary!

Hi Everyone! Thanks for letting me celebrate my 5th Gotmeversary with all of you! We are so happy that we discovered you and will play in the cat blog box every weekend. There are so many beautiful, smart, stylish and FUNNY blogging cats around here! Go visit many of them all rounded up in one place at Dragonheart's blog. Dragonheart is this weekend's cat herding host and has something very special to celebrate too! Because it's such a cool week for me, I want to share my happy story with you.

Five years ago right now when I was not more than six weeks old, I was so over the feral life that I was enduring in the cat commune down by the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs, CO. Of course that was not the life I was born to live, but I knew I had to start life there so my destiny could intersect my Mom's. She was working at a liquor store back then (glug glug) and I knew that on this very day she'd stay a little late to help a group of wild women assemble a mixed case of wine. (My Mom knows a LOT about wine. Practice makes purrfect!) She left work later than usual that day. I executed my plan to perfection, dashing in front of her car like a darting furball flash of lightning as she drove through the alley. A confluence of graces! Mom threw the car in neutral, put on the emergency brake, and was on her feet running to catch me before she even realized what was happening. She knows a kitten in need in her sleep, my Mom, even one traveling at super sonic speed. It took her two tries to reach down into the bush where I was pretending to hide to GOTME. She was surprised that I didn't keep running. I tried to keep up the wild, resistant, feral kitten pretense, but I caved in quickly, allowing her to snag me. I sat on her lap the whole way home, trying to keep up the resistant feral pretense, but I never moved from her lap.

The Angels in Charge of Cat Distribution and Dispensation (ACCDD) sent me to her because:

1) She and my fur siblings had just been through a very scary foreclosure and nothing brings joy and cheer and hope to a life more than a kitten.
2) I look just like Gracie, the founding feline member of our current tribe, who came to Mom in 1991 and left in 2000 due to hyperthyroidism and heart disease. Some say I am Gracie returned.
3) My mom is very patient with feral kittens. She is not very patient with humans, which is kind of funny. (Unless you're a human she is not being patient with. Then not so funny.)
4) My mom is a tiny bit obsessive compulsive and prefers an even number of cats, perfectly balanced between male and female.
5) There is no 5. She has a teeny number fetish and insists that I keep this even.

So, on that fateful day in July of 2002, Mom took me home to the funky, dark, bug-infested, stinky, skanky, slanty-floored, freezing cold, ancient farmhouse my family was renting and immediately gave me a bowl of cream. I was so dehydrated and starving, I sucked it up in seconds. Then I got big diarrhea. I shat all over my behind and promptly got my first, (and only), bath. To this day I insist upon my dollop of cream every morning as she stumbles for her first cup of coffee. (Unrelenting screaming is very effective with Mom.) I spent the next several weeks living under a bed in a guest room. My dawg, Leah, and my big brother, Walter, kept close to me. Leah laid next to the bed all that time, keeping a very close eye on me. I love my dog. Walter taught me how to play when I eventually got brave enough to come out from under the bed. I loved my Walter. He went to Fur Heaven very suddenly two months ago. You can see lots of photos of him on this blog, including a very wonderful Snapfish collage poster we just got in the mail. Losing our Tubbo Walter has been a great tragedy for all of us, most especially Mom and Leah Dawg. Walter raised Leah. That's how it is in our family...the youngest fur takes the new arrival under their loving paw.

We all moved from Colorado to North Carolina at the end of last year and I love my new home. I have 9 lush, forested acres to play on, but I stick close to my home. I sure miss playing outside with Walter, but there are snakes and lizards, birds and bunnies, butterflies and fireflies to play with here. We did not have fireflies in Colorado! Whatthe?? I am not allowed outside after dark so I try to grok them through the windows. Mom can't believe that the heat does not bother me outside but our new fur doctor sold us a furminator. Who knew I was all bottom coat? I try to help my Mom with her mosaic art -- that's me, advising her on a big lazy susan project on MY consulting table -- but since Walter died, she is not so creatively inspired. At least with her mosaics. She seems to want to write a lot, which is why I'm so happy we found all you eloquent cats who blog. Mom still cries almost every day about Walter and thinks her mosaic promotion blog has turned into a fur kid promotion blog. I say: the problem with that is...? I give her free mosaic consultations, talk with her more than ever, and share extra love and attention to try to fill up some of the emptiness in her heart. We all know she loves us in very special and unique ways, but we also all know that Walter was extra-special and uber-unique in her life. If he were still with us, Walter would surely have his own blog today! (And he would certainly be cyber-courting Miss Lilly.)

Mom tried to help all of us after Walter died by consulting pet communicators. She started getting very interested in pet communication and pet reincarnation and did a lot of reading and researching. She had sessions with three women: Leonora to talk to Walter, Lydia Hiby to help Leah, and Cindy Smith for the whole family. That's where I got to talk. I told Cindy Smith to remind my Mom that I am very independent and also very content and happy with both my life and my place in the family. This was a great comfort to my Mom, and she knows it is Truth. Cindy also told my Mom that I would LOVE a new kitten. More Truth. Because I am the youngest, the new kitten will be mine!!!

So the best anniversary present the ACCDDs can give me is a new kitten, hopefully Tubbo Walter returning to us! Mom believes 100% in Fur Fate -- she knows that her four-legged companions always come to her, or wait for her, without her having to look for them (Truth again). We are all keeping a vigil for our next fur family member. Nothing brings joy and cheer and hope to a life more than a kitten.

(PS: Does anyone know if Fat Eric has a girlfriend? He reminds me of my Tubbo Walter, and like my Mom, I get weak in the paws over orange guys. Especially fat, fluffy, frequently-peckish, orange guys.)

What is this Wordless Wednesday of which they speak?

Tubbo Walter always made his dawg laff

Willie & The Awakening

Willie looks pretty good for gonna-be-16-on-New-Year's-Eve-2007, huh?

Life imitates art

Here we have Willie in his dignified posturing, splayed out in front of our favorite painting EVER. Long long time ago, in another lifetime, or at least another galaxy, I came into a wad of cash rather suddenly. (Daddy died.) One of the very first things I did was buy original art from a few women artists that I loved. Of course they all paint animals! This one is by Vicki Ledray Grabicki of Washington state. I first discovered Vicki's work in the gift shop at Nepethe, Big Sur. A greeting card knocked me out! It was a boldly colored image of a Celtic goddess. The back read: "Queen Hanorah and her beloved Sylvester -- goddess of creation, arts and CATS." The red-haired maiden is naked, under a sliver moon, cradling my Willie in her arms.

Vicki and I began a snail mail correspondence and I learned her Sylvester looked a lot like my Willie. I also learned that I was addicted to Vicki's art and sense of spiritual mystery. My collection includes a few of her prints: Shaman Calling Her Allies; Remembering Who She Is; Queen Hanorah -- all images of women and their power animals -- along with this original from her "Cats and Flowers" period. I also own The Awakening, another original you can see above this post, hanging on the fireplace wall behind Willie on his couch.

When I was deciding which of Vicki's originals I could not live without back in 1996 -- I had already selected The Awakening as a must-have -- she sent me a photograph of this brand new, woman-reading-with-cat painting. I gasped...c'est moi! Vicki had no earthly idea what I looked like, so when I sent her a photo of myself with a decent perm, she too gasped. I love meant to be art. And cats, and flowers, and color and creation. All crucial components of what is mystically inspiring to me.

You'd think with all this inspiration flowing I'd get back to the mosaic studio. Manana. Today I have wonky DSL modems to take to the doctor and compounded tapazole for Bianca to refill and health food store shopping to do. Poor Bianca...two vomitting episodes last night between the time I finally fell asleep and midnight. I'm getting closer and closer every day to insisting upon a surgical consult for her. I don't think tapazole is the key, long term, and I don't think the vomiting frequency is fair to her, me, or the carpets.

Palate Cleanser

Elton my brother, you are older than me...

He's 60, I'm, closing in on 50. Time flies regardless of the fun factor. I saw him perform at the Hollywood Bowl when I was in my early teens. He was at the height of his mania. I remember what we both wore.

I can't stand pulling up my blog and seeing the poster of Walter. How am I gonna deal with it in life size form, hanging on my mosaic studio wall? Baby steps, Laura. Plus, I needed a good excuse to post this Elton photo from the Diana Day Debacle. I wrote a long diatribe about how much I hate the 4th of July and chronicled Bianca's third bladder infection in the last nine months necessitating an hour long drive (her screaming all the way) to the emergency clinic in Asheville last Saturday, but it bored me so much I couldn't even edit it.
Whatever.

Still no blood test results. I'm expecting (hoping for is better) a call later this evening. Thursday's sample had "coagulation" issues so we had to go back in Friday afternoon for more torture. Why Bianca couldn't pee in an inappropriate place at some point on Friday is beyond me. She waited until 6:30am Saturday to do it on my comforter, between my legs, ensuring that our vet, and every other vet in western NC, would be off for the holiday. The only good thing about the episode (aside from the fact that it was just another UTI cured by Clavimox), is that I got to drive to REACH in daylight under non-emergency conditions. Should I ever have to make the drive again, god forbid, in a life-threatening panic, I'll have been there once. Not that this guarantees I'll remember the way, since I can't navigate myself out of a paper sack. "Lack of grounding" some could say. "Not fully incarnated" others might offer. Moronic idiot with directions works for me. I pray that if and when this ever occurs I have had no wine that evening. That would be very inconvenient, and frightening, for all concerned. I suppose I could always call the town's cab service. Note to self...

Snapfish Rules (Bottomless well o' grief)

I was just in the bedroom sobbing over Walter again, wondering if it's ever going to get easier. Will I ever string a few days together in which I don't dwell in guilt, regret, grief and despair? I printed out some of my favorite final photos of him (all the years prior are trapped on a dead iMac and a dead iBook for now) so I was shuffling through the images, thinking of how I might frame and display them when I can bear it.

In my inbox was notification from Snapfish that my poster has shipped. I had to get a new HP printer to interface with my new MacBook Pro and along with all that came 20 free prints on Snapfish. I finally got up the energy to upload a ton of my fur fotos last week and order a lot of prints for me and to send to friends and fam. AND, then I saw their collage poster feature. You can guess the rest. I'm going to hang it in my mosaic studio, which happens to have the perfect empty vertical wall space. It also happens to be the room he dragged himself into that horrible morning and the room in which I struggled to get him into the crate. He did not want to go, in more ways than 22.