Comfy Kitties

When we woke up this morning, it was 1 degree outside, so Autumn and Kafka decided to stay in bed all day. I love how Autumn crosses her paws. She has always done this. Kafka, on the other hand, is too fat to cross his paws. Sorry, Kafka, it's true.

No, my cats aren't spoiled...much!

So, Autumn likes to hang out in the bathroom with me while I take my shower in the morning. She plays monorail cat on the side of the tub and licks my face as I'm testing the water temperature.

After my shower, I put body cream on my legs. Lately I've been using one called Skin Milk, which has actual milk in it and smells like milk. Autumn has gotten into the very weird habit of licking the Skin Milk off my legs and is now so demanding (actually, she's always been very bossy) that as soon as I step out of the shower she is standing there going "Meow! Meow! Meow!" and she glares at me until I put the cream on my legs so she can lick it off. I know - who's weirder, me or her? It's a tossup.

I'm almost out of Skin Milk, and grocery day is not until this weekend, so I ran up to the local drugstore to see if they had it. They didn't. So I went to the drugstore by my office at lunchtime yesterday. They didn't have it either. Then, like an idiot, I drove 15 miles to Wal-Mart just to get Skin Milk for a CAT! They don't carry it anymore!! Just my luck. But I ran into a girlfriend in the parking lot and we went and had a couple beers, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip. :-)

I did find Skin Milk on Drugstore.com and bought four jars of it (free shipping for orders over $25), plus I got Upromise credit towards my student loans for my purchase. Yay! So that should last a while and keep Autumn happy. In the meantime, since I only have a teensy bit left, I am only putting Skin Milk on one leg and Eucerin on the other so she can still have some to lick off every day until the new shipment arrives.

Timmy Mau

This is Timmy, the oldest of my 15 cats. Timmy is 13 and was recently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, which, I've learned, is not uncommon in senior cats. The good news is, it's easy to treat with medication. Timmy's been on his meds for about a month now and has already started putting weight back on. He used to weigh about 13 pounds and was down to 8 pounds, but I can't see his ribs anymore so that's a good thing.

At first I thought the weight loss was just a natural result of aging, but it didn't make sense. Timmy was eating as much as ever and spitting up a lot, and he was more vocal than usual. Mau! Mau! Mau! all the time. Dr. Duel recognized the symptoms right away and tested him for thyroid. Thank goodness it was not something worse.

Timmy has been with me since he was about 10 months old. My daughter found him roaming the neighborhood and knew her friend had lost his brown tabby kitten, so she brought him and and called her friend Chris, who came over and said "that's not my cat." So we put a found ad in the paper and asked all the neighbors, to no avail.

When Timmy was younger and spryer (is that a word?), he used to leap from the kitchen counter onto your shoulders and ride around like that. He never used his claws but managed to have a perfect landing and hold on every time. Now he just hangs out in the kitchen, sleeping on the butcher block table or the metal cabinet where I keep the cat food. He sleeps a lot. But he has no problem jumping up, even at his advanced age.

Another quirk of Timmy's is that he has NEVER drunk water from a bowl--it has to come fresh from a faucet. He just sits in the sink and stares at me until I get up and turn the water on to the proper trickle for him. Talk about spoiled! I don't even want to think about how much money has literally gone down the drain because I turned the water on for Timmy's "dinky" and forgot about it until hours later when I came back into the room.

Timmy is still as beautiful as ever, though his eyes are a little glazed and I'm not sure he can see too well anymore. He goes back for a thyroid checkup in a couple weeks, and the vet will decide if we need to adjust his meds. But I'm happy he is doing so well.

It's a 7 Cat Night

It suddenly turned cold in Western Pennsylvania. So cold that all of the cats have decided they need to suck body heat from their mama. I'm not sure why they want to do this, because my bedroom happens to be the coldest room in this 82-year-old house. They could easily sleep in a warmer room. But they don't. Or maybe they're very generously sharing their body heat with poor me.

Good thing I'm not a large person, because as you can see, it's not a large bed; and on a cold night, there will be up to nine little furry bodies smooshed up against every part of me. One on my pillow wrapped around my head, two on either side of me, one curled up behind my knees, one on my feet, and always, little Domino under the covers with my arm around him and his head on my shoulder. No kidding. While I'm reading my book, he climbs up to the spot and stares at me until I lift the covers up for him, then he scooches his little butt down underneath and stretches his two front legs across my shoulder.

I found Domino by the side of the road where someone had abandoned him at 4 weeks of age. Too young to be taken from his mama. I bottle-fed him for a couple weeks, holding him in my arm like a baby. He is now 8 years old and still suckles on the inside of my elbow from time to time. He's such a baby. He will stay there under the covers all night, or at least until I have to get up to pee.

That in itself is a major undertaking. It's 3 a.m. and I'm going, "excuse me, I need to get up, can you move please?" Of course it annoys them immensely and I apologize for disturbing their sleep. But they sure do keep me warm.

Opal, the Tomboy Cat

Hello! This is my first post, so please bear with me. As I write, my little Opal is outside the door of my office begging. She has the sweetest little trill that ends with "me" when she wants something.

I have 15 cats, and they aren't allowed in my office. It's the only "no kitty zone" in my house. I'm a writer and copyeditor, so there is a lot of stuff in here. Too many things to get into, pee on, puke on, well, you get the idea.

But Opie is such a good girl, and she simply adores the basket in the corner next to the peacock feathers. All she wants to do is come in here so she can get in that basket and go to sleep. She doesn't even bother the peacock feathers. My other cats would rip them to shreds. And the basket is the perfect size and shape for little Opie.

Opal is a real tomboy--hence the nickname Opie. She earned the nicknames "Opal Knievel" and "The Flying Wallenda" after jumping from the top of the entertainment center onto the ceiling fan, riding it once around the living room and then sailing over the top of the kitchen cabinets into the kitchen. The fan blade was permanently bent and it never ran right after that, but it was worth it.

Opal and her mama Crystal will chase each other all over the house like kittens. Opal is 7 and I have no idea how old Crystal is. I went to the Humane Society one day looking to foster a mama and litter of kittens, and Cryssie had just been left on the doorstep the night before with four newborn babies. I took them home, and they never went back. My daughter took one male, a short-haired ginger tabby (China), and I adopted the other three kittens--Opal, Reese and Hayley--and Crystal.

Of all my cats, Opal has the sweetest personality. Her brother Reese is a thug, and sister Hayley is the quietest of all of them. Opal hates Reese, though. He is a bully, and every time he walks past her, she hisses, even if he's not even looking at her. They're just like human brothers and sisters.