OK, not really friends, perhaps. But all the cats loved to watch them.

Today Susan unexpectedly lost one of her beautiful fish, a Gold Nugget Pleco, and Madame Houdini, a White Line Gecko. Dang, they were both fine yesterday.

Here’s a picture of Madame Houdini with two of her little gecko friends in happier days (like when she was alive):

She wasn’t called Madame Houdini for nothing. In her most famous escape (documented in the upcoming book Famous Geckos and Where They Hid, soon to be a major motion picture starring Stickon D. Wall and Leggo Mai Gecko), she not only got out of a completely sealed tank, but eluded six cats for three days by pretending to be a wall decoration, and then resisted capture by numerous experienced reptile wranglers. If you don’t believe me, check out these photos.

Madame Houdini could often be found on the back wall of her tank, where she teased the heck out of all the cats, but especially Jennifur, Auri, and Aurum. Jenni sometimes stood up on her hind legs like a meercat to look at her, while Aurum would come out in the middle of the night and stare at her for hours.

We will all miss them both.

Tags: cats, fish, gecko, lizards, pleco

It was just about three weeks ago when I had an interesting experience with Panther. Unfortunately, while Panther managed to stimulate all kinds of terrific creativity, he also somehow managed to somehow put my leg out of joint, as it were.

Well, that was two weeks ago, and I still don’t like to complain, but since then I’ve been able to sit at the computer productively less and less each day. The pain has been increasing, and I was saving my Vicodin pills for serious episodes (i.e. when I screamed). And walking around with a cane all the time was starting to get old…especially in public, when people saw me and assumed I was old. Anyway, my leg started getting numb at random times and then all the time, so I made an appointment to see the doctor, which was today.

Just a few hours before the appointment, I was suddenly seized by a pain that felt like the mother of all cramps in my calf (as opposed to the mother of all calves, which would be a giant cow…but I was ready to have a cow anyway by this time). Somehow I had the presence of mind to check my leg muscles, and there were no knots, cramps, Charley Horses, or anything similar. It was just pure acute unmitigated pain with no apparent cause.

How bad was it? I called upon God, Panther, Jennifur, Susan, all known spiritual entities and beneficent demons, and used several dozen colorful metaphors. I called Susan’s voicemail to tell her I loved her, just in case. I was in very poor shape indeed.

Suddenly it stopped.

Of course, I expected it to start up again at any moment, but I took the opportunity to take a shower, get dressed, eat, and do all those things people do before going to the doctor. I wanted Steven with me just in case the pain struck again while I was driving, so I left as soon as he got home from school.

I was sure the doctor would tell me I had a blood clot in my leg that was about to break loose and kill me, but she decided my problem had all the symptoms of some sort of nerve damage or displacement (my mother always told me I had a lot of nerve). So tomorrow I’m off to get X-rays of my hip and pelvis, which doesn’t worry me because I’ve already had children.

And the kicker: all that jumping around I did with the non-cramp (or was it an anti-cramp?) must have jiggled something back into place, because virtually all the previous pain has been gone since then. Either that, or Panther and Jennifur really did manage to cure me…which wouldn’t surprise me much at this point.

Tags: agony, cane, cats, healing, leg pain, Vicodin

I just now read an article on the Salon website recounting the author’s experience in China, wherein he was offered meat from a dog he had befriended. Whether this was intentional or simply insensitive is not the point, but the timing is impeccable, since it was just yesterday that I posted my own article about the many abuses going on in China.

Since this is a cat lover’s blog, I do ask you to read my article, but feel free to skip the link there talking about China’s death camps for cats and dogs, since the contents were even too distressing for me to read in detail. And the reason for China’s killing dogs and cats is to simply “clean up the cities” before the Olympics, although they claim it’s to “prevent disease”. The Catholic Church tried killing cats in the Middle Ages, and the result was the disease called the Black Death. Unless you believe there are no rats anywhere in China…especially this year!

In any case, I would like you to take away three main points from all this:

• Cheap Chinese goods are no bargain when they support death.
• We should all try to cut down on our purchase of Chinese-made items.
• Boycott the 2008 Summer Olympics. Don’t even watch it on TV.

Tags: animal cruelty, boycott Olympics, cats, China

We always keep our cats indoors. But every year at this time we remind our friends to keep their cats, especially their black cats, indoors for the rest of the month, no matter what.

And we hate to even think about why. Even though many people think it’s just an urban legend, it’s indubitably true: there are emotionally and mentally sick people out there who enjoy doing unspeakable things to cats, especially black ones, and especially at Halloween.

Susan reminded me that we were once sitting in the waiting room of a local veterinarian when a Goth-dressed girl came in and asked the people sitting there if they “wanted to get rid of any cats”. We all stared at her until she left.

It was October 29.

Tags: cats

In the last few weeks, we’ve noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell Nightstar and Panther apart. While it’s true young Nightstar has put on weight, she really wasn’t stocky like Panther. On the other hand, Panther seemed to be shrinking. So off he went to our wonderful local vets.

We were warned that the test results might show anything from diabetes to kidney disease, based on their observation that he had lost 2 pounds in 2 months. We were worried, because he’s our oldest (and first!) cat.

Well, today we found out he has diabetes, and apparently we “caught it” before things got really bad. So we’re learning all sorts of new stuff and learning to give insulin shots (or “jabs” as they call it in England), and Panther is going to have to cut down on soft drinks and candy (only kidding!). And chances are he’ll be able to keep living with us for a long time, as long as we take care of him properly.

If you find yourself having to deal with feline diabetes too, we’ve found some really good resources at VeterinaryPartner.com and FelineDiabetes.com.

Tags: cats, feline diabetes