New Kid on the Hallway

Worth a thousand... oh, you know

Because I don't feel like, oh, working this morning, I thought I'd show you some views from our windows.

I don't remember why I was up at the buttcrack of dawn, but I was, so here are a few very early morning pics (they're pretty crappy because I'm no good at landscapes, but the clouds were so dramatic, I couldn't resist):

 

And then here are a few I just took half an hour ago:  

That last one is a view of our actual neighborhood.

And finally, a gratuitous cat picture:

Stupid/smart Youngest Cat tricks

• When we first moved in here, it took Youngest Cat about twenty minutes to figure out how to get onto the cabinets over the sink, and from there clamber onto the top of the fridge, BEHIND the cabinets on top of the fridge.
      
• He LOVES those little bouncy super balls. He'll chase one all around the apartment for hours. He'll even pick it up in his mouth and bring it to us to throw for him. However, I think they all ultimately end up under the stove or the fridge, as at the moment there are something like 10 bouncy balls that have mysteriously disappeared in our fewer-than-600-square-feet apartment.
     
• Now that I've hung our framed art on the wall, he has rediscovered the joy of getting on a handy piece of furniture, so that he can reach up to the picture, stick his paw behind it, and bang it against the wall.
      
• We have casement windows without screens, so we don't open them all the way - we prefer the window opening to be something less that cat-sized. Eldest Cat and Middle Cat ignore the windows. Youngest Cat? Tries to climb on TOP OF the open casement. So picture a 13-lb orange tabby balancing on the top of an open (i.e. tilted into the room) casement window. Now picture NLLDH having a heart attack.
      
• Youngest Cat has also figured out where the cool air comes from and likes to stand on top of the cooler so the cool air blows up onto his furry belly.
     
• We also have to keep the bathroom door shut, because otherwise Youngest Cat goes in there and knocks the toothpaste into the trash can.
    
• As a good friend from Rural Utopia used to say, it's a good thing he's pretty.

 

A downside to moving

Weirded-out cats.

Eldest Cat and Middle Cat have pretty much adjusted, and their M.O. is to sleep about 95% of the time these days, so they don't seem to be acting any differently. Middle Cat has figured out the new bathtub faucet produces water just like the old one, so she's good; if anything, she's sitting with me a little bit more than usual, but she's fairly zen. And Eldest Cat is not really all that tuned in to what's going on around him anymore anyway, so he's staked a claim on a patch of carpet and he's good.

Youngest Cat, however, is CURIOUS. And wants to EXPLORE. And to climb ALL THE PILES OF BOXES. And to DIG in bags of unpacked packing paper. And he wants to TELL ME all about his adventures - chirp! chirp! chirp! chirp! chirp! (Yes, I know he's a cat, but he makes chirping noises when he's excited or unsettled or both.) And being a cat, NIGHT TIME is the BEST TIME for such activities!! (He wouldn't sleep on the bed all night, but he's curled up beside me on the sofa right now, cleaning himself contentedly. And silently.) And because this was the second night in the new place, I'm not used to its noises, and NLLDH isn't here, I was sleeping pretty lightly to begin with.

I am SO TIRED right now.

Possibly the most TMI post I've ever made

I feel terrible even saying this.

But having a cat who seems to have developed habit of pissing outside of the litter box is taking a lot of the joy out of being a cat owner. (And if you're not interested in cats' toilet habits, I suggest you click away right now!)

I've known a number of people who've had problems with cats who, well, couldn't think inside the box, and when they'd say things like, "I don't know how long I can put up with this - I don't want to get rid of the cat, but this is just intolerable," I'd never say anything, but a little part of me would think, what an awful cat parent! How could they ever want to get rid of their cat for such a reason??

Well, mea culpa, for now I understand your pain. There's no way I'm getting rid of anyone, but I can understand the temptation.

In his declining years, Eldest Cat has occasionally gotten a little confused and used a convenient pile of clothes or towels or bed linens instead of the box - hey, if it's squishy and diggable-in, it'll serve the purpose! But we recognize our complicity in this (the first time it happened was when he spent one afternoon shut in the bedroom by accident), and try not to leave piles of soft things on the floor to tempt him, and it's pretty rare. (It's also not so terrible because - and wow, I can't believe I'm telling you all this - he has amazingly odorless pee. You really have to take a close sniff of something to figure out if he's had an accident on it or not.)

The current problem is different, however, because it happens when someone (okay, Middle Cat) tries to pee right up against the front wall of the box, and misses. (The boys pee at the back of the box, and she pees at the front. Do not ask how I know this.) For the moment, it's a pain in the ass but tolerable, because we have the box in the second bathroom, on the tiled floor, and the clean-up, while annoying as all get out (because we use clumping litter, which gets scattered all over the floor, and funnily enough, clumps when it gets wet! ugh!) is pretty easy. In this way only, though, I'm dreading the move to the new apartment, because the box is going to go in a closet - on the hardwood floor, and cat piss can soak through the boards (or down the cracks in the boards) to take up permanent residence in your floor. So. Not. Good. (Yes, we're going to get a tray to put under the box - I want to get one of those trays you put out for people to shed winter shoes and boots onto, which is supposed to hold all the grit and melting snow and so on. I want to get the BIGGEST one I can find. But I still worry. If any of you have any magic solutions, I'd love to hear them!)

I don't think we can really hold it against Middle Cat (even though she does NOT have amazingly odorless pee), because after all, she is sixteen. She does pretty darn well for her age. Plus, we do have three cats in a relatively small space, sharing one box, which we clean twice a day, but it's not the best arrangement. We never meant to have three cats, but when we got Youngest Cat, we lived in a three-bedroom house with a big basement, where we put two litterboxes, so it worked out just great. I think one cat per bedroom is a decent ratio. Even in Former College City, our really big one-bedroom had room for two litterboxes (in the ginormous bathroom). We just don't have that room here, and we're moving somewhere even SMALLER. (I know, we're brilliant - but it's just so pretty!)

All of these things lead us to consider going cat-less for a while when our current beasts are no longer with us. Eldest Cat is 17 and Middle Cat is 16, so realistically, they won't be around too much longer. (Though I am in denial about this.) Youngest Cat is much younger (nearly 7), but he's feline leukemia positive, so we don't know if he'll live a full cat life or not. Even if he does, since he is FeL+, it'll be hard to get another cat - a kitten would be too susceptible to the disease, and introducing an adult cat is much harder. (Though we might have to try it to give him someone to torment, and to prevent him from destroying the apartment.)

But the idea of not having one of these lovely creatures around is pretty sad, I have to say. As I grow more and more selfish in my old age, the idea of not having to clean a litterbox, medicate a cat twice a day, deal with yucky cat food, or wake up in the middle of the night (or worse, 45 minutes before the alarm) to the importunings of a bored or hungry cat is appealing. But I can say that, now, while Youngest Cat curls up at the other end of the couch, and Middle Cat wanders into the bathroom to sit under the bathtub faucet, waiting for someone to turn it on for her. I'm not sure I could say that when I keep expecting to see furry faces around the hallway corner, only to find no one there.

A post in three parts

Part the first: the habitual Chronicle snark

Morgan Meyer talks about how "The countries that I want to work in don't match those that I want to live in." He wants to live in Luxembourg but has many more academic opportunities in the U.K.

I have loads of sympathy for Meyer - this snark isn't at all directed at him; his column is sensible and to the point - it's more that I'm wondering why the Chronicle published it. Because come on, how on earth is this different from what people have been saying about academia for YEARS? His situation looks different (and exotic) because it involves European countries. But especially given the size of the European countries in question, his concerns aren't any different from those of an American academic who grew up in Chicago but can only find a job in Florida, or vice versa (although I don't think such a column would generate any interest by this point). I suppose it's good not to lose sight of this continuing concern, but really, how does being set in Europe change the nature of the problem?

(It's true that the European university system is different, that there are far fewer European universities, and that, in Meyer's case, not many of them have departments into which his research interests would fit. But I still don't think this is a remotely new problem, or even a very different problem, when you consider that fewer universities = fewer Ph.D.s produced, and that there are plenty of people in the US whose research constrains where they might be employed - for example, ianqui has often mentioned that there are no liberal arts colleges that offer programs in her field.)

Part the second: a random thought I had in the shower

It just struck me how odd it is that we - or at least, I - make such a distinction between "my work" and "teaching." I was thinking about the piles of midterms I'm behind on grading, and the papers that will need to be graded after that, and how I'm just dying - dying! - to have a day or so where I can sit and work on nothing but "my" stuff - reviews I owe, applications I need to submit, maybe even some actual research. There's a sense of resentment, sometimes, about how the teaching stuff can take over my life, and take away time from "my" work (not even my personal life - just my work).

What's a little odd about this, though, is that of course teaching is "my" work as well, and even the midterms and papers are "my" work, in that I came up with the topics and assigned them as part of a whole that I want my students to experience.

Partly this is just that grading is one of the more tedious parts of this profession, so compared to grading, everything looks more appealing (scrub the toilet? why, sure!). I do see teaching as "my" work, and want to excel at it. I just think it's probably revealing that my knee-jerk definition of "my" work is the research stuff, not the rest.

Part the third: gratitude

From me, NLLDH, and Youngest Cat - for all your good wishes. Thank you!! It's amazing how much comments like yours help. It was especially nice to see lurkers delurk to wish him well. And in fact, his bloodwork came back normal and he seems to be responding to the antibiotics, so we're crossing our fingers. (I promise not to liveblog his illness, but I thought you guys might like an update.)

Also, Rebecca asked what his real name is, and if already you know his name IRL you'd probably recognize his picture, so I can't imagine it's going to compromise my tattered veil of anonymity: His name is Pekoe, after orange pekoe tea. More often, however, he is known as Pig, Piggie, Piggins, Pigolas, Pigelovely Pigolicious Pigolightful, Higgins, Sir Guy of Goo (Guy pronounced in the French fashion), and Mr. Love. (In case you needed confirmation of my crazy cat lady status.)

In which I drop any pretense of sophistication and embrace my identity as a sappy cat lady

Youngest Cat hasn't been himself for the last few days; I realized this when I realized he hadn't woken us up between 5 and 6 am since maybe Friday. This was unusual enough to merit notice. And then since Sunday all he'd pretty much done was sleep, not his usual joyful sleep but a more sluggish, comatose doze. And by today his fur was a little rumply, which never happens, because he is a most fastidious groomer (we attribute this to him wanting to distance himself as far as possible from his origins as a barn cat living out in the muck and dirt and cold of the outdoor world).

By noon today we were worried enough that I called the (lovely lovely) vet we see, and it turned out that they had time this afternoon, so (no longer LD)H took him in.

The news is probably not good.

He had a slightly elevated temperature, and he was pretty badly dehydrated, so they gave him fluids (he still has a little jiggly pouch on one shoulder). The vet drew blood for a full analysis, and took X-rays, and is not optimistic. He has a number of what are probably calcifications all throughout his lungs, which may be a sign of infection or may be the leftovers from an earlier bout with respiratory problems (so in theory they could have been there since we found him). More ominously, he has a series of shadows in the bottom of his lungs. It's possible this is just another sign of infection. But it's likely that it's cancer.

Because you see, Youngest Cat is feline leukemia positive. FeLV is kind of like kitty AIDS (in fact, I've heard that research on FeLV contributed to understanding of the AIDS virus) - infection with the virus doesn't kill you, but it compromises the immune system so that you will likely die of another disease, particularly leukemia, lymphoma, or anemia. According to the link above, it's the most common cause of cancer in cats.

We've known since we took Youngest Cat into our home that he was FeLV+, and knew that we'd probably have to face the inevitable sooner rather than later. But he's been so incredibly, offensively healthy - when he's feeling well, he's a complete thug - that we sometimes let ourselves think that we've beaten the odds. Sometimes we've even wondered if perhaps he'd actually got better, if his positive tests were too early in his life to reflect a successful defense against the virus. Of course, we had no evidence for that, and he's had pretty bad gum disease his whole life, which is a classic symptom of FeLV, but it made us feel better.

This may not be the beginning of the end. It may simply be some kind of infection; the vet has put him on antibiotics in case this is so, and given him an appetite stimulant. The fluids have helped him and he's much perkier than he was this morning, and he seems to be eating more. Moreover, each of our other two cats has faced diagnoses of cancer, and each was a false alarm. But we would be deluding ourselves if we assumed he will be fine.

So if you have any good wishes to spare, please send them our way - help us hope that Youngest Cat doesn't have cancer, and help us cope with it if he does. We've always told him to stay with us as long as he can, but not a minute longer. Help us keep that promise to him.

Encounters with the locals

Not mine, however - Youngest Cat's!

Our new apartment looks out onto a little weeny strip of land - well, dirt and scrubby plants, really - and then there's a six-foot fence. LDH had commented that there were cats who roamed that space. Well, yesterday I noticed that Youngest Cat was staring INTENTLY out the window. So I look to see what he's staring at.

Sitting on top of the fence was his doppelganger - another orange cat.

Okay, so the doppelganger doesn't actually look that much like Youngest Cat - the doppelganger is paler in color, with big round eyes and a round face, with little ears, while Youngest Cat is dark orange with almond-shaped eyes and the squarest muzzle you've ever seen. But still. Another orange cat. (And clearly a well-cared for cat - clean, well-fed, all that - definitely someone's pet.)

They sat and gazed intensely at each other for probably 10 minutes, until the doppelganger got bored or intimidated and wandered off.

Later that day, I see Youngest Cat pressed up against the screen again, and look to see the doppelganger sitting on the strip of dirt.

Then this morning, the doppelganger suddenly SHOWS UP ON THE WINDOWSILL! It's such a funny-looking cat, with those big eyes and a general air of anxiety. It stared and stared into the apartment, and I can't decide if it was wistfully longing to join us, or pondering how best to execute a hostile takeover.

Poor Youngest Cat, who'd been sound asleep, woke up and went to the window and started crying at the doppelanger - and Youngest Cat almost never actually meows, he just chirps. Then he jumped on the windowsill (from the inside) and the doppelganger vanished. I can't figure out if Youngest Cat wants to be friends or not - his tail was all fluffed up at this point, but he wasn't hissing or hitting out at the screen. I think it's just baffling him, that there are in fact other creatures like himself, Eldest Cat, and Middle Cat out there in the world.

Funnily enough, neither Eldest nor Middle Cat have noticed the doppelganger at all - it's like he's Youngest Cat's own personal nemesis. Or golem. Or haunt. Or something.

Since it's Friday

I just wanted to comment that every time Youngest Cat walks on the keyboard of my laptop - EVERY time! which is often! - he manages to find a new keyboard command of which I was blissfully unaware, and change something on my computer. This time he got rid of the menu bar and it took me a little while to figure out how to get it back. How the hell does he do it?!?!?

In other breaking news, I officially resigned yesterday. I am so not interesting in being the dead man walking. I'll say more about it when I have some energy, but I'm definitely relieved (and I'm sure my department is, too).

Dear Dean X, New Kid could not finish her grading today...

So, I'm sitting in my armchair with my lapdesk across its arms, computer fired up, all ready to begin working, on essay revisions and grading.

But Youngest Cat has lain down across all my papers and gone to sleep, so I can't read anything to work on it.

I can type, though - hence the blogging.

How's everything with y'all?

For a moment hyperventilation seemed the appropriate response

So, I'm sitting in a chair with my Levenger lap desk across the arms, with my laptop in front of me.

And Youngest Cat wanted attention, so came to sit half on me, half on the lapdesk.

And he fell asleep, and was very cute, so I called LDH to describe this to him.

As soon as I got LDH on the phone, Youngest Cat rolled over to sleep FULLY ON THE LAPTOP. (Sorry, I was pinned by this, or I'd have taken pictures.)

Awww, how cute. How sweet. How silly. What a lovely kitty.

Well.

When I finally turf him from his post of comfort, I find out that HE HAS LOCKED THE COMPUTER. And IT'S NOT TAKING MY PASSWORD AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO UNLOCK IT!

(Thankfully, I finally figured out a way how to restart it, and the whole "locked" bit went away. But for a moment it looked like we were going to turn into a two-cat household...)