My Bud

This past winter was pretty bad by all accounts.  It was one of those weather events that take place every decade.  You know where you have a shit ton of ice and snow for three months of the year and then the next 10, hardly any?   Yeah. That was what this past winter was like.  It reminded me of the last big winter we had.  That was back in 2003.    We got a lot of snow dumped on us.  So much in fact, most of my town pretty much shut down and I was able to walk up the middle of a major roadway to the grocery store in the early evening without encountering a vehicle.

It was February 2003 and also President’s Day Weekend.   I was living in a townhouse with a small patch of yard off my back stoop that ended in a chain link fence.  Beyond the fence was brush.  And In that brush there lived a rabbit, which we named Russell.  I don’t know if it was a boy or girl, but we were pretty sure the same rabbit kept coming to my back door.

We had been feeding Russell for a while and, at one point, were able to feed him/her directly from our hands.  And when the snow hit, we felt bad because we had sort of screwed Russell by feeding him/her.

(I’m going to just keep calling it a him for the sake of this story.  Any objections?  Good.)

So, because Russell had sort of become accustomed to us feeding him, he might have had trouble foraging for himself.   I got a box and some alfalfa hay and set up a little shelter on my back stoop.  I had hoped I would look outside my dining room door and see Russell asleep in the box, snuggled and warm.  But that Friday, when I looked out, I saw something else, a threat.

Instead of Russell, I saw this black and white cat sitting next to the box where some food had been placed for Russell.  Fearing this stray cat would attack Russell, I leaned out the door and tried to shoo it away.   The lanky cat looked up at me and mewed this long mew that seemed rather pathetic.  But I wasn’t about to doom Russell, so I continued to shoo away the cat and eventually, it left.  I went about my day and when my girlfriend came over that night, she looked out the back to see the cat had returned.

“There’s a cat out there!”

“Again?  Dammit, I shooed that thing away this morning.  I don’t want it eating Russell.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!?!?!”

“I shooed it away.”

“Oh my God!  What is wrong with you?  There’s like a foot of snow out there.  The poor thing!”

“Just leave it be, it will go back to its home.”

“I don’t think it has one.  I’m going to go get it.”

“Don’t do that!”

This was the normal routine.  She would see some animal outside roaming around, go get it and then we’d be stuck with a big ass dog or something… actually I would be stuck with it, while we located the owner.  I should mention that I am allergic to cats, by the way.   My eyes puff out, get itchy and watery, and I sneeze.  It’s not fun.  Also, my lease forbid cats unless I paid an extra fee, probably for cleaning.

But off she went, anyways.  I’d hear this exchange of her calling it and it mewing at her go back and forth for a few minutes.   Eventually, she got it to come to the door.  She opened the sliding glass door and waited.  Within a few minutes, the cat just slinked right into my dining room, snow up to its hips.

“Well, now what the hell am I going to do with it?”

“Name him.”

“You do realize I am allergic?  And that I am not allowed to have a cat?”

“So?”

That was it.  That was her argument.  She excused herself and went to the store.  

“I’m just going to get a cheap litter box and some food.  We’ll figure out where he belongs in the morning.”

February 2003

She came back with a litter box, a mini cat tree, food, and treats.   I was livid.   But he looked pathetic.  He appeared to be emaciated and had been in a fight because he had fur missing and some scratches on his neck.   My girlfriend gave him some milk.  We determined it was a him, while Russell was just assumed to be one.  And we gave him some food.  And against better judgment I let the cat stay in my bedroom with the litter box next to my bed.   During the night, I heard him use the litter box and the stench was almost as bad as the sound.  It was like a scene out of Dumb and Dumber.  I could literally see his face in excruciating pain.  He looked like he was actually sweating from the duress. 

In the morning, we took him to the vet.  He was suffering from malnutrition, some cuts, a touch of frostbite, and he was riddled with worms.  Apparently, he had been on his own for a while.  He had now become my responsibility.    It helped that I had an extra day off from work to deal with this, but I still wasn’t happy about it.  I didn’t exactly have a say in the matter.  Still, the bastard was cute and had a lot of personality.  So, I kept him.  Now, I just needed a name.  Drake, Ash, Shadow.  All rejected.  Baxter?  No, too commercial.  I’m an actor and this was a tuxedo cat, so Oscar seemed to be the most appropriate.   

I spent the evenings with him sitting next to me on the couch and when I would go to bed, I would usually close my door.  Thankfully, I moved the litter box to another bedroom, but still, he wanted to be with me.  So, I’d leave the door open and he’d come in and get on the bed.  Then, he’d promptly, walk around my pillow, stepping on me and getting in my face.  He was a real pain in the ass.  Eventually, I figured out that if I sat with him on the couch long enough, he would fall asleep, and then I could sneak upstairs as long as I left the TV on with a timer set.   That way I could get a night’s sleep without his interruptions.   Some days, he figured out my plan and raced me to the steps.

He had some pretty interesting habits.  He would walk up to a toy and promptly stomp on it with his back paw.  He loved sitting on the tile at the bottom of my steps, where it was cool.  He would sit in the window and just chitter at the birds.  He also liked sitting on the arms of my couch with one leg dangling to the side.   He had these huge back legs that were white and resembled those socks you wore up to your knees in the 70s.    We also developed a bit of a rapport with each other.  I would see him in the morning before I’d go to work and would head boop him on my way out the door.  We even came up with a voice with him that was sort of a caricature of a friend’s.   It wasn’t until he came face to face with a dog at the back window that he made this noise that sounded like “Water, Water, Water, Water,” that made me realize that the voice I did was actually spot on as his own.

But he was also ornery.  And my then girlfriend now, at that moment, fiancée made the determination that he needed a playmate.  I needed to get another cat.  So, I adopted another tuxedo cat named Emmy.  Get it.  Oscar and Emmy.  He was never a huge eater but he was a big cat.  I want to say he was part Maine Coon except he was a short hair.   We had to keep Emmy separate from him because she would woof down her dinner and then go after his. 

I outgrew the townhouse and moved into a house with my fiancée and two cats, followed by two more, twins Willow and Lucy. Oscar was a bit of a puss and hid immediately, while Emmy explored.    He was burdened with being the only male cat in the house and even though he asserted his dominance, Emmy never submitted to him.  She was taken from her mother and litter mates too soon and developed an OCD about things like eating.  In fact, at one point, she tried and succeeded in nursing off of Oscar, though he never produced anything except self-shame over the matter.  I always said I had three cats, Emmy, Willow, and Oscar, and Oscar had a cat, Lucy.   Lucy seemed to follow him wherever he went.  If he lied on the couch, she snuggled up on top of him, almost.  If it was dinner time, he’d take his time coming to the kitchen and even wander through, but Lucy would cut him off or go round him up vocally and physically.   When we slept, he would lay on a pillow between us, and then of course, Lucy would come up and get in his face.  He put up with a lot.  For almost ten years he and I just shook our heads at each other over how we lost control of things.   Then again, I never wanted him in the first place.  

 Snuggle buds

After my daughter was born, Oscar started to become a lap cat.  He loved having his ears stroked as he sat on your lap.  He loved it.  He’d purr like an engine then he would shake his head out when you stopped.    Among his growing number of idiosyncrasies, he added busting down the unsecured bathroom door while you were in there, hopping up on the edge of the tub to watch the water droplets roll down the side, and not really eating the shreds or chunks of wet food, but eating the gravy.   He’d even get on the floor and roll on his back, enticing me to join him, only to move just out of reach when I would get down on the floor with him.  Still, every morning when I would go to work, I’d call him up on the piano bench and head boop him as I left.

Waiting for the head boop

Then, in 2012 and 2013, we were beset by fleas thanks to the strays in the neighborhood.  They somehow found their way onto our clothing and then onto our indoor only cats.   We wasted a lot of money on sprays and collars and eventually kicked the cats out of our bedroom at night because we were finding fleas in our bed.

After a while I noticed Oscar was losing weight.  He had always been big, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-14 lbs.   Now, I could feel his breastbone under his neck.  We took him to the vet and learned he had lost considerable weight.  I thought it was due to the stress of the fleas.  Turns out, it wasn’t.   One day, we noticed a pile of cat shit on the carpet.  We didn’t know who to blame, one of the drawbacks of having four cats.    Then, again, another pile.    Soon, we realized it was Oscar.  We also realized there was blood in the stool.   Another trip to the vet solidified my fears.  He had a mass in his stomach and he had lost more weight.

We treated him with metronidazole thinking it was simply a bacterial infection or parasite.  That and steroids should have done the trick, though it was hard to give him the metronidazole because he would instantly drool everywhere.  Two rounds and no change in his condition started to scare me.  They did a sonogram to confirm the mass and did a biopsy that showed no cancer, so the determination was Feline Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD.  He would go, straining to do so, and then vomit from the effort.   He was now 7 lbs.  This once magnificent animal was half the cat he was a year ago.

There isn’t a cure and eventually it will cause him greater discomfort and more weight loss as the tissue builds up preventing the cat from getting nutrients.   Nausea sets in and he even refuses to eat.  This is what I had to look forward to.

So, I kept him on Prednisolone and he would get IV fluids to combat dehydration.   His urine was becoming dark and more pungent from the lack of water in his system.  Some days he would be just fine, playing and ornery. Others, he’d sit, uncomfortably, not laying on his side, like he was prone to do, curled up with his belly out, enticing me to just rub the shit out of it, showing me the shaved patch from his sonogram, a reminder of what was happening.

Last month, I went away for the weekend and I was informed that he simply refused to eat.  When I got him, he looked haggard, his fur not as silky as it used to be and there were cracks in his fur where I could see his skin between it.  Petting him, I could feel his skeleton under the skin.  This once beefy boy was not fragile and clumsy.  He didn’t slink around anymore.  He slipped around the floor with no weight to keep him grounded and solid.

My little girl went to the beach last week, and during our nightly calls, she asked if Oscar was still alive.  I said yes, he was right there next to me, but he was barely there.  He wouldn’t show interest in water or food, only responding to treats with very little success in chewing.  He wasn’t going to the bathroom that I could tell, but I would find brownish red splotches around the floor in the morning.  I was convinced that I wasn’t going to let him starve, so I grabbed a dropper and would take as many teaspoons of wet food gravy and water as I could get in him.   By Wednesday, he was scaring me.   I took him to the vet with the full expectation that I was going to put him down.  I cried most of the way there, cursing all the times I didn’t want him on my lap because I was busy or didn’t want to deal with the allergies.  Per usual, he waited until I was five minutes away to decide to shit in the car, mostly liquid.   

I arrived at the vet’s and took him inside.  He sat next to me, reeking of cat shit, which was now stuck to his tail.  I cleaned him up as best I could, but it was pretty bad.  Then, he started sniffing the air.   On the counter above us was a canister of treats.   I grabbed some and he began woofing them down, two, then three, then four more he ate.  I took him into the room.  5.58 pounds.  But now he was acting like there was nothing wrong with him.   There I was ready to make the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make and he rebounded on me.  It was like he simple needed to go.  I begin to think I should just drive him around every day before feeding him.  They gave him an IV of fluids, a vitamin B and anti-nausea shot.   He showed more life than he had all week. So, we went home. 

I had a night off from tech rehearsal but I was still exhausted.  I would wake up at 5:15am, give him his steroid pill, get a shower, go to work and leave at 4pm.  I would then go directly to my father-in-law’s to take care of his cats because he was also at the beach.   After feeding them, changing their water, and cleaning their litter, I’d go home, change, give Oscar his second pill, make myself a sandwich for dinner and then eat it on my way to the theater.   At 9:45pm, I’d return home, feed my cats, sit for a moment, and then take Oscar into the bathroom with the remaining dish of mostly gravy.  I would struggle to get that and water into him and then clean him up as best I could.  Then I would collapse and sleep for about five hours, ready to do it all again in the morning.

His marked improvement from the vet’s lasted all of 12 hours.  By Friday evening he was back to not eating anything.  In fact, he fought me more with the dropper.   I was worried more about him than ever.  So, I brought basket where he’d been sleeping most of the day into the bedroom and put him on the bed with a towel.  It was hard to get over that smell but I didn’t care.  I could reach out and rub his ears.   At one point, I even saw him cleaning himself.  Maybe, he was coming back from it.  I was at the point where I couldn’t take time off to deal with him in an extreme case.   I was screwed if he needed to go back to the vet, because I had a show on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.   All I wanted, at this point, was for him to make it until Sunday night, when my little girl got home.  I was determined to make sure he was fed and as comfortable as possible until her return.  A week ago, I almost prayed he went in his sleep.  That I could take care of it before she got home and spare her the pain of being here when it happened, but by Friday, I felt as if I wanted a return on my investment in him.  It was selfish, to be sure, but I already felt like I wasn’t giving him all I could and wanted him to hold out a little longer.

I was supposed to go out Saturday night but decided to stay in and look after him.  After all, I didn’t exactly have the energy or money to go out, so a nice quiet evening with him on my lap was in order.    I did my routine and took him to bed, again.  His breathing was raspier, now, and looked to take more effort to do so.  Around 3am, I heard this thump.  I shot up and looked around.  Hopefully, he just wanted a drink and decided to jump down and get one from the dish next to the bed.  I looked under the bed and he was just sitting there, like he normally did.  He acknowledged my presence and I kind of asked if he was OK, not really expecting an answer, but still looking for one.   He appeared to be fine, so I went back to bed. 

About 10 minutes later I heard this awful howl and cry.  I woke up again, and looked around.  I called out to him and then came around the other side and looked under the bed.  He was lying on his side, facing away from me, not moving.   He hadn’t been on his side in months.  I started to panic.  There was a small puddle of barf next to him.  I reached under and grabbed him and never acknowledged my presence.  I picked him up and lay him on the towel.   He was limp.  His eyes were blank.   I screamed out in shock but couldn’t understand why I wasn’t crying.   I just looked at him, calling his name in an empty house.   I leaned my ear to his chest and there was a release.    I’m by no means religious, but it was like I just heard his life leaving his body.   Then, there was nothing.  No beat, no movement, nothing.  He was gone.    

Then I wailed.  I screamed like a child.  I didn’t care.  I just looked at him, there on the bed, gone. 

I gathered him up and swaddled him in the towel, placing him gingerly in the basket.  I couldn’t leave him in here with me.  I wouldn’t be able to sleep.  So, I took him downstairs and placed him in the bathroom that nobody but myself actually uses.   He laid there with his face down into the basket, covered up.  His ears still poking out of the towel.  Those ears, that  I would I rub for hours, were the only thing left that I could look at.   It’s juvenile and silly, but I would bite them gently, at times, tugging just enough to get a purr out of him.  Now, that was gone, too.   All I could do was sleep.  It was the only thing I could do at 3:30am on a Sunday.

At 10:00am I called the vet’s and explained what happened.  They would be open until 12:00.  I still had a show to do.   So, I made that last drive, rubbing his still visible ear the whole way.  I wanted two things back from them.  The basket he slept in and his remains.  ONLY HIS REMAINS.  The towel and pad from inside the basket could be destroyed as far as I was concerned.    In about 7-10 days I’ll get a small oak box.  That’s all there will be. 

In the end, he made the decision I couldn’t.   I don’t know anything about awareness in animals but maybe he didn’t want me to struggle, thinking I made a mistake.  Maybe he didn’t want Bailey to see him go.    Truth is, he was gone a long time ago.  That big beefy boy that would rear up like a bronco against your leg stopped being Oscar at the end of April.    I leave in the morning, still expecting to see him on the bench.  I get a shower every morning, still expecting him to bust down the door.  I still sit there at night, expecting a visitor on my lap, or next to me, curled up like a cute little sonofabitch.

He went from my life, like he came in, all tail and ears.  He was emaciated then and he was at the time he called it for me.   He was an asshole that I loved like a child.  My sidekick, my Chewbacca, my friend, my Oscar.    I didn’t mind the allergies so much the last few years, but I know I didn’t pay him half the attention he deserved.  Life simply got in my way, like he would, walking through the kitchen.  And the others.   Bailey found out after she got home and cried terribly.   On Monday, Lucy, his cat, was wandering around looking for him downstairs, crying out.  At dinner time, she stood outside the kitchen, looking for him to show up.  I even forgot as I got down four bowls and realized what I had done.   Every drive home and every quiet moment is another reminder that he’s gone.  His favorite toys sit on the floor, no longer being stomped or batted around.    I miss him so much.  And he was the perfect cat.  No two ways about.  He was a social creature, always entertaining.  He was magnificent in his look and posture.  He was the height of too muchness.    

And I didn’t even want him.

Oscar
2002-2014

Lions and Tigers and Bears in Ohio

What the hell is going on in Ohio?  Yesterday, the town of Zanesville, OH went into lock down because exotic animals were roaming the town.  There were wolves, a giraffe, and monkeys running amok.  Due to the lateness in the day and uninsured results from tranquilizers, the police force were ordered to shoot the animals if necessary.  Carson Palmer is probably glad he got traded.  Otherwise he might have been put down, too.   Efforts by news media to not quote The Wizard of Oz were strained, at best.  And at the moment, there is still a monkey on the loose.  A monkey that was said to have herpes is out there running around, hanging around bars and trying to pick up loose women.

Jumanji Stampede

Turns out, the owner of the animals was just released from prison about a month ago, his wife left him, he was worried that pending laws were going to force him to have to sell his animals, and he decided that his only recourse was to shoot himself and then unlock all the cages before succumbing to his self inflicted wound.

I smell a conspiracy.

The Army of the 12 Monkeys Did It

Electronic signs on the highway warned people of exotic animals on the loose, don’t stop, stay in your car.  Could you imagine driving through Ohio on business and seeing this?  You would have thought two jackasses hacked the signs like they did in  North Carolina a few years ago.

And let’s think about this guy for a second.   He’s been under scrutiny before because of his animals.  There is a rumor that he was using some of the exotic animals for wild game hunting.  So, he deserved to have the animals taken away from him.  But this was turning out to be a bad country song.  “I just got out of prison, my wife left me, and the 'gubment' is taking away my tiger.  I wish I would die.”  So, fine, go off yourself and leave instructions for the animals to be moved to appropriate facilities.   Don’t shoot yourself and then wreak havoc by letting wild animals loose in suburbia.

And how the hell did the monkey get herpes?!?!?   Better yet, how did they know it had it?

Habitat For Two Manatees

A quick Friday post touting one of many designs you will find on M.A.M.S., the store!

I love me a pun or some wordplay and this one has an interwoven complexity to it. I did some reading up on the Manatee. This lovable marine creature isn’t so much threatened by predators but more by its curiosity and love of shallow waters off the coast. Unfortunately it’s not unheard of to see a manatee with some parts missing. They are hit by boats or caught by propellers on a usual basis tearing their fins and tails. Sometimes the poor things get sliced open causing their organs to spill out. Ok, I have to stop with the gruesome imagery here….that’s just sad.

Anyway, to switch gears, grinding all the way, here is the latest design to hit the Pop Cult Couture section of M.A.M.S. I’ve had a couple people really get a chuckle over this one and my wife, who is the biggest supporter of “My husband is a dork” movement, didn’t roll her eyes at this one.

Can't You Smell That Smell?

I have four cats and to plagiarize Bill Cosby, "The reason I have four cats is because I do not want five." I love them dearly. Now only one of those four cats are actually there because I wanted them to be. The first one, Oscar, was a stray that my wife rescued outside the back door of my townhouse in 2003. Of course, he had to have a friend, so I agreed to adopt another cat. In November, I checked out the local shelters and adopted Emmy as a playmate. Instead of having a playmate to keep Oscar out of trouble, I now had two cats equally capable of mischief and no way to prove which one is guilty.

Then in 2004, I moved into my house, and my wife, again, rescued more animals. This time it was a set of twins from the farmers' market she worked. Enter in Willow and Lucy. Now, Oscar and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that we are the only men in the family since the addition of my daughter in 2007. We have that bond over the television and eating and generally any chance he can get to come get in my face.

Making up the rest of the clan, Emmy is considered the alpha female and dictates when breakfast and dinner is going to be served. Willow is the shy runt who could rip you a new asshole. She seems very timid, but we really don’t trust her. The last cat is Lucy, the sweet docile one who is in love with Oscar and loves to eat. Since Emmy is such a voracious eater, I have to wait until all the cats are present to put the bowls down or Emmy will be done and move onto everyone else’s bowl. Willow just lays on the floor waiting patiently while Lucy worries that Oscar isn't there yet. He's always the last one to the kitchen. The only reason he shows up is because Lucy goes and rounds him up. She’ll walk into a room and cry at him to come to the kitchen. It's hard to believe that her and Willow are sisters. They couldn’t be more opposite. Willow is quiet and calculating, Lucy is loud and sort of dim. I know all of this by observing them over the last four years. I'm like the Jane Goodall of domestic short hairs. Isn’t my life pathetic. Oh, did I mention I am allergic to cats?

That's right. I am allergic to cats. If I get cat hair near my eyes, they swell up to the point where I look like Benecio Del Toro. I treat with a nasal spray but sometimes the side effects are that my nose dries out and bleeds. Oh well. Still, they are family and I wouldn't get rid of them for the world. That is, until last month. I had recently been in Nashville and apart from a week of cat free breathing I never really noticed that I had cats. Sure, the litter boxes are out in the open, but the house never really smelled like cats lived there. Now, there would be those few occasions where Oscar would come down to the litter box carrying a newspaper under his paw and we knew what that meant. Sometimes, his timing couldn't be worse because my wife would be with someone in the next room and he would forget to cover his mess. Actually, I think he refuses. He's such a priss. Other than that, the house is pretty good. It wasn't until I came home from my trip that I noticed the smell.

I usually go through a brief bout with cold and allergies after a trip. Between travelling in an enclosed plane with that recycled air and being run down, my immune system is off guard. Couple that with being re-exposed to cats and I lose a week of good health as soon as I walk in the door. Usually, it clears up within days. Yet, even with the cold, my senses were in perfect working order. In fact, for some reason, I have an acute sense of smell. My wife thinks I’m nuts. I think I have a good chance at a guest shot on Heroes. I can be working around the house and come upstairs to the living room where my wife and my daughter are sitting and as soon as I top the steps, I catch the scent of a dirty diaper. My wife, who has been not more than a foot from the child is oblivious. I, on the other hand, am standing there with watery eyes.

Super Smell aside, I didn’t quite notice the stench that had taken up residence in my basement/family room/man cave. I didn’t really have time to. Before getting on the plane for home, my wife called me to inform me that they were taking her Mother to the hospital. I was pretty much on baby detail while my wife shuttled between work and the hospital. After she was discharged a week later, my wife was in a wedding and we spent all weekend driving all over creation to a rehearsal dinner on the other side of Pittsburgh, dropping the baby off at my folks, and going back to Pittsburgh for the wedding, and then repeating the whole process again. Since I am at work during the week, I miss out on being downstairs until the weekend. I had noticed the smell, but chalked it up to the litter boxes needing changed. After I did that, I still noticed the smell. I couldn’t figure it out. My wife thought I was crazy because she didn’t smell it. Even upstairs, I could smell the smell of cat urine. Dear God! I have cats!

Now, while I knew that there was a smell in the house, my wife didn't believe me until she found the evidence. She reached for a music book that was sitting on the floor up against a filing cabinet next to the piano. The bottom third of the book was warped, discolored, and wet. Besides that, the smell of ammonia nearly knocked her off the piano bench. We now had proof that a cat was peeing on the carpet. We just didn’t have a suspect. My wife immediately blamed the boy, Oscar. I told her I wasn’t convinced but in my house, if you have a Y chromosome, you are guilty until proven partially to blame. Short of making Oscar wear an outfit with yellow P on the front, my wife gave him the cold shoulder. Meanwhile, I spent the evening using our carpet scrubber to get the carpet cleaned in that spot. But anyone who has owned a cat will tell you, that will not fix the problem. As I said, I lost a whole weekend due to the wedding so, we missed the next two or three acts. We still had no real suspect, just my wife’s intuition. It wasn’t until my wife was standing downstairs, attending to some bills, after the hustle and bustle died down that she actually had her suspect nailed. She heard this sound like water hitting fabric and was knew she had her suspect. She had finally caught Oscar, or so she thought. There, underneath her piano with an earnest look on her face was Lucy, the most docile of all four cats, peeing on the carpet.

We couldn’t understand it. Why Lucy? Oscar was an immediate suspect because he is a male. While he is the only boy cat, he’s worse than a woman when it comes to litter box hygiene. He prefers to wait until I clean out the box to use it. He hates getting litter on his paws. Sometimes, it sounds like he’s building an addition in the litter box because of the noise of his paws scratching on the sides. He’ll do this for five minutes. He was also innocent of the accusation and my wife apologized profusely. Now, that we had our cat, we had to solve our problem. We had two spots identified where urine was soaked into the carpet. Soon, two became four as I found another spot right at the corner of our bar as well as a throw pillow upstairs in our living room. Until that point, I had been laying on it at night while we watched our usual 11 O'Clock News, Family Guy, and HGTV shows before bed. That was an easy fix. In the wash it went. The bigger problem was how to get that smell out of the carpet. However, we first needed to understand what was wrong with Lucy.

We took her to the vet and there was no obvious physical reason why she would be going on the carpet. We had to obtain a sample, but with four cats it’s hard to know exactly where and when she’ll go since we both work. The vet seemed to think that it was behavioral and that perhaps Lucy was being bullied and blocked from the litter box by one of the other cats. Immediately, I thought of Emmy. She is the alpha female and has been known to chase the other females and run them down in the hallway. Still, her and Lucy don’t have much beef towards each other. They are both big eaters and overtake Willow and Oscar’s dish when they leave. Here, I was now guilty of accusing a cat before all the evidence was in on the issue. We confined all the cats to the upstairs and kept a litter box within sight. So, we either have it smell like urine downstairs or worse upstairs. Let me tell you I am not happy at all about this situation. Anyway, we kept on eye on the cats habits and noticed that Lucy would still not want to go in the litter box. She seemed afraid. She ended up going right outside of it which gave us our sample. The results came back that there was no conclusive evidence that she had anything wrong with her. In order to deal with this fear we removed the lid to the litter box and she began to use it. At this time, we are now on day three of using the litter box exclusively. Unfortunately, since Oscar is prissy when it comes to the litter he manages to get litter everywhere when he scratches. Another thing I hate because I usually do not wear shoes around the house, socks most of the time, but even still I hate seeing it on the floor.

With Lucy on the road to rehabilitation, I began turning my attention to salvaging the downstairs. My wife has already begun teaching on the road at her students’ homes but we are still confining the cats to the upstairs. By now, a lot of the urine has dried which makes it ten times worse because the crystals are more pungent than the liquid form. I first moved the piano to the garage since it had soaked up some of the urine and now smelled. With that gone, I could concentrate of removing the smell from the carpet, if I could. I began using our carpet steamer in hopes that I could liquefy and suck up the offending particles. Unfortunately, all that did was soak the carpet and allow for mold. I have a dehumidifier running most of the time to help. Since the issue went into the padding and backing, I knew I had to figure out a way to dissolve the particles.

I bought some stuff called Simple Solution which has a money back guarantee. I poured a bunch on the spots and allowed it to soak for 10 minutes then sucked it up. The smell stuck. Then, I did the unmanly thing. I read the directions, fully. I had to allow the solution to soak into the carpet for ten minutes and then use a towel to suck up excess moisture. Then allow the solution to dry on its own. Within 12 hours, the carpet and the entire downstairs smelled ten times better. I thought the battle was won. However, after 24 more hours the smell returned and the spots that had smelled better were now just as bad as they were before. By now, I’ve used almost a gallon of the solution and at $21.99 a pop, I’m not buying more if it won’t work. I’m returning it for a refund.

We’ve both come to the conclusion that we need to replace the carpet. It was something that was always on our radar, but after four years, we never found the time or the extra money to start renovations of our downstairs. We also had originally planned to replace all of the carpet, but now, we’ve decided to put carpet on one side and tile on the other. The garage is our main entrance for us and company so we figured it would be better to have tile that can be cleaned easily if anyone tracks in water or dirt. That way they don’t track it into any new carpet. I also wanted to do a faux hard wood flooring but I’ve been told that moisture, especially cat urine, can destroy it. I just have to convince my wife to get something that is durable and will also be a final solution, meaning neutral in color. Yeah, it may not match the paneling or the rest of the carpet, but the walls are eventually going to be replaced with drywall and the rest of the carpet will be a burgundy color with some ceramic or slate tile in front of the wood burner at the other end of the basement where the carpet will remain.

It’s a lot of work, a lot of money, and a lot of head ache for two people who had hoped to slow down the pace of things after our daughter’s first birthday. With a wedding, a mother in the hospital, and now this right before the holiday season, I don’t see us slowing down anytime soon. Some people have said to me, “Just get rid of the cat.” I know we’re three cats short of the “Crazy Cat …” label but I’ve become attached to them. They are part of the family and I love them just as much as anyone else. I couldn’t bear to put them outside and wonder if they have a warm soft place to sleep or are they getting enough food and shelter, let alone are they safe from other animals or the busy street that runs past our house. Call me a Tree Hugging, Animal Loving, Hippie if you want but that’s how I roll. I slow down for animals on the road, flash the headlights at oncoming drivers, and occasionally honk in areas of deer crossing traffic. While, I do not condone what Lucy did, I can’t help but think that she really has a problem and it’s my job to try and fix it, not just get rid of her. She deserves the same rights as we do as long as she’s not infringing on others. It’s an inconvenience but it’s something that can be fixed, somehow. If anything, my wife isn’t unforgiving about her pissing on the carpet. She just wishes she would have pissed on the couches. She’s been after me for a couple years to get new ones and I haven’t pulled the trigger, yet.

How could you not love this face?

For those of you who love cats in general, go here. I Can Has Cheezburger: LOLCATS
I love this site.

Four of a Kind is a Full House

I've always been an animal lover. But I grew up with dogs. My first pet was a German Shepherd mix named Spider. The reason her name was Spider was that I couldn't say Fido at the age of 4. Still, Spider seemed to fit her. She was black and white and you never knew if she'd come after you. She wasn't exactly the friendliest dog, but she was my pal. We understood each other and she only bit me twice. The first was on my ass as she chased me up the yard when we first got her. The second was after 14 years and near the end of her life. She had become old and cranky and sometimes, you just had to put the food down and leave her in her box until she wanted to come out. She may have been old but she still had all of her teeth.

From the age of 4 until 23 I lived with dogs. I was never a cat person. I was always leery of an animal that made you come see it instead of it coming to see you. Cats always seemed like they were plotting. However, my then girlfriend, now wife, grew up with cats. You could say we were opposites about most things in life. She hates the spotlight and I am an actor, always willing to make a fool of myself. So, when we had a rough snow storm back in 2oo3 over President's day weekend, she and I went toe to toe over an uninvited guest that she rescued from the knee high snow.

For a few days we had been feeding a couple of rabbits that lived right outside the back stoop of my townhouse. One morning I noticed a cat sitting on the stoop. I figured he belonged to someone and shooed him away from the food that the rabbits were eating. I didn't want to find a dead rabbit out there. When I got home, my girlfriend was upset that I shooed him away as he looked emaciated and hungry. She spent the next two hours trying to coax the cat into the house. All the while, he cried and cried. Finally, he walked right into my townhouse. "Great! Now what am I supposed to do?" I said. "Name him." She replied.

At the time I lived alone and I was/am allergic to cats. She made a run to the store to get some food. I figured he could stay the night but I would make an effort to find out who he belonged to the next day. She came back with a litter box, scratch post, toys, and treats. Apparently, she knew more about his living arrangements than I did. Eventually, I gave up and he won me over when he walked up to me on the couch and head butted me. He looked grateful. Of course, I had to name him now and my girlfriend took him to the vet while I was at work. Turned out he was about 6 mths old, had been in a fight and malnourished due to worms. I gave him the first name. She gave him her last name. Oscar Moyer.

Oscar

Now, being a bachelor in a two bedroom townhouse, one would think a single cat would be sufficient. Any one who owns cats knows that you can't just have one. So, by November, my girlfriend convinced me to go get another cat. I checked out the local shelters and ended up at PetSmart. There in this huge cage was a tiny little black and white kitten with a white stripe right up it's face. She made an effort to come to me and definitely wanted my attention. I was done searching. I brought the newest edition home over Thanksgiving weekend, and I now had an Emmy to go along with my Oscar.

Emmy

But, it's funny how life throws you for a loop. It's like how some people can't stop getting tattoos once they start. The next year, I had finally proposed to my girlfriend and we got a house together. At three bedrooms the house wasn't exactly small, yet it filled up pretty quickly. It always seemed like if there is an animal that is lost or in need of help, they know how to find my place. Yeah, I adopted Emmy, but Oscar and about three dogs ended up at my place looking for help. Thankfully, I only kept Oscar. However, the rescue instinct in my fiancee was a still active and in hyper mode.

At the time, she worked at a farmer's market and people tended to just dump off animals thinking that they would have a good life on the farm. What they didn't know was that her boss hated cats. During the summer of 2004, someone had dropped off a pregnant cat who eventually gave birth. I'm not sure what happened to the mother, but I fear that he had something to do with it. One of the kittens also didn't make it as my fiancee said she saw the limp body outside the store one day. Two of the kittens were still alive and hiding out behind the store under storage bins. My fiancee told her boss in no uncertain terms not to harm them. She would take care of them. Unfortunately, she did not share this with me. After, I finally came down off the ceiling, I agreed to help get them with the understanding that we would get them a home that wasn't ours. Through perseverance and successful trapping, we managed to grab both cats and the sisters were reunited on our back porch. But, of course, they needed to be taken to the vet. A hundred and fifty dollars later, my fiancee was reluctant to give them up. We went round and round and I began to get puffy eyed and sneezed, uncontrollably, but eventually lost. Add Willow and Lucy to the mix.

Lucy
(Gray front paws and nose)


Willow
(Orange front paws and nose)

To say that I am now a cat lover would be an understatement. My now wife also understands that we've caught our limit, yet I still find myself putting food out at night for the six or seven stray cats that live on or around our property. But, nothing says love like the fact that you are willing to hold your dirty and wet cat on the side of the road while your wife cleans out a carrier of all manner of waste on a trip to the vet.

Emmy, you see has an OCD. She cleans herself constantly and has little tics like chewing the air when she's hungry, along with anything plastic, which she's allergic. Every year when we get decorations out of the attic, she starts to develop what have been called rodent sores. Usually, some antibiotics and prednisone will clear it up. It just so happened that the last outbreak coincided with her need for updated vaccines and Oscar's regular vet visit. Oscar, for being the moose that he is, is a big baby and hates going to the vet. Usually, we can tell if we're in trouble because he will begin to cry in a certain way that informs you that he just made a mess.

On the way to the vet he crapped in the carrier. The smell must have been overbearing because Emmy threw up all over herself. There I am on the side of a busy road holding this beast for dear life while he gets it all over my shirt. Meanwhile, Emmy is sitting in vomit that we didn't discover until we got to the vet. Again, I'm holding the cat, while my wife cleans the carrier. Add puke to the list of stains on my shirt. On the way home, we hear the cry again, and now we smell urine. I make a turn off the same busy road onto a quieter street so that we can clean the carrier, again. Unfortunately, I took the turn a little fast and Oscar must have been leaning on the carrier because it tipped over and it was like being in a port a john that gets pushed over a hill. Emmy's carrier was directly below him and managed to get some of the splash from the wave. Now, I'm standing on the side of the road again, while Oscar soaks my shirt full of urine.

With all these little inconveniences, you'd think I'd be angry. In the tenth months that I've been a father, I've never had any shirts completely soaked by waste and vomit before. But, all I can remember was just laughing there holding this dripping wet cat while the smell of pee flooded my nose. I love them and would do anything for them. But next time I'm cleaning the carrier.