LOL! Don’t take a photo when Andy shakes his head!
Maybe this will be today’s story….
Hmmm! Sleeping Andy?
Oh no!
Yes…
…it’s another one of Andy tending to his precious. No story there.
Monthly Archives: August 2023
10Aug23: in and out…
He was hungry when he got back from the groomer’s, of course.
Nom! Nom! Nom!
Allez…
…hop!
Nap time. Andy had a very busy day.
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Andy’s groomer verified he was a good kitty at her mobile grooming shop. I always ask and he never is naughty or difficult, unlike his late brother Dougy. His next appointment is in mid-November.
09Aug23: It’s coming on!
Andy was up all night.
He was doing kitty things.
Like walking on sleepng Doug to try to get him up to feed the kitty!
It worked! Fed and purring, it’s time for a cat nap.
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Andy has a grooming session at 3:30 this afternoon. Get ready for a shaved kitty! No, but he will be radically different looking till he regrows his coat.
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My alarm clock – Andy – hops up on my bed when he’s ready for his breakfast. That usually is much earlier than I am ready to get up, of course, so I try to ignore him. He then kneads my pillow, a hair’s breadth away from the top of my head. Purring all the while, he then uses a tactic he knows proves I’m awake: he walks over to where I can reach him with my hand and I “scritch” him.
Having revealed I’m awake, Andy lets me pet and “scritch” him till he hops off the bed to meet me at the cat tree just outside the bedroom door. That is for more “scritches” and pets till he’s had his fill of that and he’s ready for kitty food.
But…first we play the “no mousies” game where I have to open all the kitchen cabinet doors for Andy’s mousie patrol. There never are any, but Andy waits till I assure him that’s because he’s the kitty.
After all this, he’s ready for kitty food. He goes into the front room till I put his plate of kitty food down and call his name with a “Andy! Kitty food…and you’re the kitty!” He comes, then, at a gallop.
It’s a wonder I get anything done!
08Aug23: a mysterious kitty business…
Andy bolted immediately after I tried to pet him.
“Where you headed, Andrew?”
Not my business it seems.
Whoosh! He’s gone…somewhere!
He came back. Time for Greenies.
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I’ve no idea why Andy left the room. When I followed him, his “instructions” were vague.
I think he just wanted to test me out. “Does Doug follow me out here every time and do I always get my way when he does?”
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Seems like this is how it goes these days. After a Greenies famine, a third container arrived yesterday. It’s one I called to stop. Chewy’s help people are very unreliable! The one I talked with supposedly took care of the excessive shipments.
07Aug23: post breakfast clean-up…
Breakfast can be messy for a Persian kitty, so Andy always cleans up.
Pausing to enjoy the moment…
A touch-up still needed? Andy checks it out.
Whew! Time for a proper nap!
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I should take this break in Andy’s day to take a nap, too! I probably won’t, though.
Nano the cat – ?-August 4, 2023
The e-mail wasn’t unexpected because Lavinia kept me up to date on Nano’s condition. Still, the sad news from Oregon came today: Lavinia and Rick Ross report Nano’s fight for life reached a point where nothing could assure he had any quality of life. He was euthanized today after medical care no longer helped his failing body.
Lavinia wrote this last note:
Hi Doug,
Rick wrote a guest story for Katzenworld back in May based on his own recollections of Nano. He doesn’t have the story quite right regarding the time Nano escaped early on and I was up most of the night trying to catch him and get him back inside, which I did about 4:30 AM that day. Nano bit me hard, not scratched me. I had to go to work that day, the hand swelled up and I took myself to the ER that evening. I had to produce a valid rabies certificate, and I was on antibiotics for a good week if not 10 days. You can go ahead and use his story, though. Close enough. I’ve attached one of my favorite photos of him, taken through the window from outside the house. Makes him look other-worldly, which he is indeed now…. Also another photo of Nano from 2015. A bit on the dark side though as I was trying not to use the flash.
https://katzenworld.co.uk/
He had a good quality of life until late June, when he started going off his feed. I took him in to the vet on June 30th for blood work and urinalysis. The vet and I looked back over the last few years of testing, and it seemed like his kidneys finally hit a tipping point. Prescription food, supplements and finally subcutaneous fluids were tried. Too far gone, and his quality of life was not so good the last two weeks. It was time to let him go, peacefully and quickly. He is lying in state right now, and I will take care of burying him this evening.
Thanks again, Doug. I know you understand what we have been through.
Lavinia
It’s never easy to say goodbye to a family pet. They are family. The Rosses took this kitty into their home when he showed up, then he entered their hearts. Hugs and condolences to Lavinia and Rick. Their memorial gardens gained one more soul this evening.
The Cats of Salmon Brook Farm | Salmon Brook Farms (wordpress.com)
05Aug23 “Not here!”
Andy likes to be left alone here.
I see him there and I want to “luv” him!
Anywhere else he likes me to massage his shoulder muscles.
Ick! But not here!
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This is close-up of the cover of a folding mirror shown on “Antiques Road Trip”. The voice over called attention to the putto on the upper right of the cover, but the closed caption wrote it is a “pooto”. Sometime the closed captions are a hoot! For those who didn’t grow up as a naughty-mouthed little boy – I know most of you fit that category or you wouldn’t follow a kitty blog! – a “putto” is Italian for that cherubim in the upper right hand of the photo; a “pooto” (or “poot” more correctly) is a wee fart!
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Growing up in the 1950’s, my friend Terry and I were curious about what appeared to be the rim of a huge bathtub growing out of a neighbor’s vacant lot. My late mother, a life-long swimmer and Red Cross swimming instructor, once told us she swam in that pool as a young woman and that she suffered a bloody noggin driving into it and hitting the bottom. Other than that small detail, we never knew more about it until Terry found this information in an item in the newspaper.
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“The present pool” mentioned above was one now used as the Sallows Military Museum, which also includes the least cold tolerant species of the Sallows Conservatory & Arboretum, which is part of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum.
A replacement city pool now is the site of a tennis court north of the high school and a new pool across from Laing Park replaced that.
The bath house for Big Blue, the newest pool, is named for my mother, Jean R.A. McKenzie Thomas, in recognition of her 60 years of teaching area children and adults to swim. Actually, the only reason to give this little bit of local history in excruciating detail is to recognize that incredible accomplishment of my mother, of whom I am very proud, who spanned the complete history of swimming pools in Alliance.
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Watching “The Third Man” some time ago, another closed caption made me laugh! Here’s what I wrote in the review in this blog at the time:
Andy moved just in time for me to catch a caption error – or was it a caption writer’s joke or way of adding suspense for the caption reading audience?? – where German is translated into… German! Fortunately for me, with my considerably crappy 1st Year College German for help, “passiert” happens to be in the classic line in my Conversational German book’s second lesson: “Wenn es regnet, passiert des meistens”. (“When it rains the most happens.”) I get it. Hee! Hee! I get it!
03Aug23: Andy’s best day!
The UPS guy delivered this box.
It contained some things I ordered for Andy and me.
Before I had the box open, Andy was on top of it. Andy hopped in it before I even emptied it and he couldn’t even be tempted out with the fresh container of Greenies that came in the shipment!
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I ordered one of these on the suggestion by Andy’s kitty friend, Louis Catorse. He kind of tolerates it, though I haven’t given it a complete try yet.
This is the work side of the brush. It’s designed to use of long-haired pets. I may have to hold Andy to use it, but a trial use went a bit better than how he responds to other brushes. There’s a dog version, too.
02Aug23: same thing only different…
Andy stopped by for a little loving and…
…Greenies! In the big container, they look like the bottom one and the top one came out of the smaller container. We are waiting for the shipment of the bigger sized one, due Thursday. I was afraid Andy wouldn’t settle for the smaller size.
Thank goodness! Andy “says” a Greenie is a Greenie, no matter what it looks like!
01Aug23: Andy’s rough day yesterday.
Andy had a grooming appointment for 8:00 AM yesterday.
I caught him by the door and put him in his carrier at 7:30 AM. You never know how long it will take to catch the wee fart, so you catch him when the opportunity occurs, eh?! That’s Andy’s head inside the carrier.
I let Andy out of the carrier at 8:10. By then, I’d found his groomer’s messages explaining why she couldn’t keep the appointment. He was upset but in his sweet, quiet Persian way. You can see it in his eyes.
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By 8:10, I discovered Andy’s groomer had tried to alert me by telephone, a message, and an e-mail that she had a mechanical breakdown in her grooming van, that she had to make an emergency run up to Rapid City to get the repair parts. That is a five hour round trip.
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Andy isn’t free yet. His groomer has some openings this week and next. With better luck, our communications won’t be messed up again and we can work out a new time to groom Andy.
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Andy was a very good boy throughout the carrier incident, meowing softly just once toward the end to let me know he was concerned. I opened the carrier lid a few times to pet Andy and to reassure him he wasn’t abandoned. I enjoyed the fresh air while waiting by the door with Andy.