Suzy Says

Gratuitous kitten photo which has nothing to do with this post.

I wonder if Rita is getting senile, or is possibly protesting the recent arrival of the kittens to her Queendom and is letting me know that she objects.

Lately, she’s taken to peering in the bathroom door and staring at me when I’m in there peeing. When I leave, she leaves. Show’s over. But weird. Who ever heard of a Peeping Rita?

The past couple of days, she has barked in her sleep, waking both of us up. I don’t know who’s more surprised. But I know who has a harder time getting back to sleep, and it ain’t Miz Rita, whose peepers close almost immediately afterwards.

Rita may not be the only senile old lady around here. Twice in the past few days I have left her outside and not noticed until:

1. Rita whined and scratched at the door, which is dog for “Let me in” (sometimes it means “Let me out”, though – you have to take each situation individually;
2. The building dentists knocked loudly at the door. By the time I got to the door, Rita was standing there looking up at me. I thought the old dog had learned a new trick. But no.

I’m almost as good a parent as Britney.

For those who are wondering who the building dentists are, they arrive at a very early hour and then start drilling out the old bricks and filling in new ones, much like dentists do with teeth if you let them. At least dentists don’t make house calls. The BD’s have replaced quite a few century old bricks, including the wall under the stairs which lead to the main building. It was not reassuring to hear them call out from the inside that they hoped the ceiling wouldn’t cave in.

So far, so good.

Update: When I was making dinner last night (pecan-crusted sole with citrus salsa, lemon-herb risotto, and asparagus), there was a frantic pounding on the door. Rita was getting under my feet in the traditional manner when I cook, so I knew it wasn’t her or the building dentists.

It was Charlie, who dashed into the house when I opened the door and ran to the bathroom. I didn’t like to follow him, not being a Peeping Rita kind of girl, but he came racing out with a pail of water, gasping, “Fire!” and sped outside.

Turned out one of the building dentist tarps was on fire right outside my door. Charlie soaked it down, leaving a smoldering pile of plastic and cloth (burning plastic smells really gross) and a freaked out girl. Have no idea how the fire started, but am very glad it’s ended. And if you can’t be rescued by the incendiary Denis Leary, your nice neighbor is the next best thing.

Everything was fine in Rita’s Queendom. She had trained the people pretty well. They didn’t take her out quite as often as she’d like, but with age comes wisdom, so Rita knew that this is what happens when you’ve been living with someone for a while. Other than that, though, she loved her comfortable bed, her routine, and all that attention.

Those days are over.

For some reason, two – two! – obnoxious little furballs have entered the previously peaceful Queendom. They are crazy bananaheads, in Rita’s opinion, and completely unnecessary. For some reason, the people actually seem to like them and coo over them as if they were cute or something. Also, they stink the place up with their food and the results of the food. They don’t go outside, like normal beings.

Honestly!

As if the invasion wasn’t bad enough, that blasted neighbor dog with his obvious Napoleon complex saw fit to attack Rita while she was out for a stroll. She stopped to greet him in the usual polite butt-sniffing way, and he bit her nose! Really hard! There was blood involved. The Girl was horrified and applied gooey stuff to the wound. Rita tried to lick it off, but some of it stayed on, and at least it helped to temporarily mask the kittenstink. Now Rita and the Girl will have matching rakish scars. The Girl is already telling people that Rita had a nose job.

Rita is not amused.

The new kittens, of course, have provided an excellent excuse for shopping. They require many accessories and necessities, so in preparation for their imminent arrival, I decided to go and pick up a few things.

My aversion to public transit being a matter of public knowledge, I took a cab to the store. I gave the driver the intersection I wanted. He unaccountably drove me to the bus station, which is approximately two blocks from my actual destination. When he stopped, I pointed out that he had not in fact arrived at the requested location. He asked, “You no wan’ bus station?” I said no, I didn’t, though I kept the following thoughts to myself:

1. You might want to consider actually taking passengers to the place they asked for; and
2. Do I look like someone who wants to go to the bus station? It’s a horrifying thought. Also, I had no luggage other than a gorgeous handbag I bought in New York in a moment of weakness. I’m insulted all over again on behalf of the bag.

The horror of the bus station insult faded as I entered the store, list in hand, so I felt efficient instead of indulgent. As usual, I noticed several must-haves (and some wanna-haves) while in the course of getting the necessities of kitty life, so by the time I left the store I was burdened down like someone who takes the bus.

On exiting the store, I discovered that there was a mysterious and annoying parade in progress, making traffic worse than usual. I decided to drag my purchases a couple of blocks away – not to the bus station – to the next major street, in the hopes of catching a cab that wouldn’t immediately be trapped in the parade standstill.

You’d think this was a good strategy, but on arriving at Major Street and dropping my packages to rub some feeling back into my hands, the following happened:

1. There were no cabs.
2. A kilt wearing busker set up about three feet from me and started piercing my ears with his bagpipes. I know Queen Victoria was awakened in this manner every day, but I’m not regal enough to stand it. After about five minutes, I was ready to ask him how much he’d take to cease and desist and why on earth he felt the need to inflict the kilt thing on an unsuspecting public.

Instead, I loaded up my packages and fled at a positively queenly pace to the next Major Street, where I collapsed into the first cab I saw. I’m not above being girlishly helpless when it suits me, so I managed to persuade the driver to help carry the packages to my front door. Now, if I could teach Rita to open the door, I’d be all set.

The Great Dog Rescue Adventure led to the Great Cat Conundrum.

I was cautiously backing the giant dog-rescuing car through the slightly creepy (and very narrow) passageway, on my way to return said car to the rental agency, when my neighbor Patricia approached with a little cat in her arms. “Whose cat is that?” I asked. “No-one’s,” she replied. It turns out that the kitty was a stray whom Patricia had finally managed to lure into the house after several weeks. Not only was the cat abandoned (Patricia cut off a very tight flea collar which had clearly been put on the cat when she was much younger), but she was pregnant, too.

Patricia, who is in marketing and knows what she’s doing, placed the adorable feline in my arms. The cat cuddled up to me and licked my nose. Then she looked straight into my eyes with her clear, gold-green eyes.

I melted.

I gave the cat back to Patricia and gave the car back. I kept thinking about that darn cat.

The next day, Patricia asked me to come over for coffee in her back yard. It was wonderful to sit in the sun and sip coffee among her flowers. The little cat jumped up on my lap and made herself at home. She’s about 90% tummy at this point, the rest of her being petite and willowy. Did I mention she’s beautiful?

My concern about adopting this little girl is Rita. Rita’s an old lady and likes her routine. She’s the Queen of Everything and used to lots of attention from her many adoring admirers. She is also an inveterate cat chaser. So I don’t want to take the cat in from the streets, only to have her terrorized in her new home by something that looks to her to be approximately the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I also don’t want to put Rita’s shapely nose out of joint.

To cat or not to cat? That is the question.

Protests and politics, NorCal style:

(Mendocino, California)

(Mendocino, California)

Christmas wreath with a message:

(Elk, California)

Even the cats have opinions (don’t they always?):

(Elk, California)

I wake up slowly in the morning. Very slowly. I put the kettle on, grind the coffee, pour the boiling water onto the perfectly ground perfectly Caffe Trieste mocha java, and take it back to bed to read, drink my coffee, and contemplate the horror of being (technically) awake. Do not talk to me. I do not exist in a pre-caffeinated state. Disturb me at your peril.

This morning, I was happily reading the latest in Lemony Snicket’s delightful Series of Unfortunate Events – I love these books, because they are visually very appealing (important for the shallow among us), charmingly written, and the central characters have lives that are actually worse than mine – when the bulb in my reading lamp, conveniently located behind my left shoulder, suddenly exploded. It not only exploded for no apparent reason, it flew right out of the lamp and apparently vanished.

Not even Caffe Trieste wakes you up faster than that.

I had barely recovered from this unfortunate and shocking event when I heard the distinctive and horrifying sound of one of the Feline Five throwing up. However, when I tried to find the source of the cat creation, it was nowhere to be found. Undoubtedly, I’ll step in it with bare feet in the middle of the night.

Is it too late to change my mind about dogs?

Loyal readers with good memories may recall John’s hurried trip to Petaluma in the middle of June to pick up my mother’s cat while Mom was visiting my sister and brother in the country. At the time, we thought Mom’s visit was just that, a visit, and she would eventually go home and we could return her cat to her.

As usual, we were wrong, and Mom is now permanently living with Megan for what remains of her life, and Mom’s cat is now permanently living with us, making us severely outnumbered by what our friend Mike, with an apt and delightful turn of phrase, calls The Feline Five.

Now, not only is this far too many cats (John & I disagree on the ideal number, which makes it a good thing we didn’t have children, because reaching a compromise on how many would be impossible, if our views on cats are anything to go by. I think the right number of cats is around 2, and he thinks it’s more like 12.), but the original four absolutely hate Twice* and it’s like the Middle East chez nous, with peace between the warring parties approximately as likely in Middle East West as in the original Middle East.

I mean, Twice has lived with us for 4 months and it’s still a non-stop hissing fest. The original four just keep harassing her, chasing her around and hissing and generally being the worst possible hostesses. I feel really bad for Twice, because she is very shy and affectionate and has no claws, unlike all our girls, so her only weapons are hissing and running away. She must feel like a hunted gazelle on one of those nature documentaries.

I don’t understand it, either, because all the other cats get along with each other. They’re always playing together, snuggling together, and sleeping together. They are their own little family. If things get weird, they stick together.

The only time we’ve ever had problems integrating a new cat into the family was when we brought Cleo home, since she was an adult and everyone else came in as kittens and figured out their own pecking order. But Cleo and our late, lamented Jo fought for a good month before things settled down. Eventually, though, they worked it out and all was serene.

But four months and counting? Maybe we should invite Jimmy Carter over and see what he can do.

*All of my mother’s pets, which we have had to re-home or keep ourselves, have retarded names, without exception. Besides Twice, there was a cat named Li’l Bit, and her dogs are Schatzi, Digger, and Bear. Yes, Bear is a very common dog name, but in this case, it stands for Baroness Von Hershee. I’m not kidding. Really. I guess I’m lucky I got named Susan.

You will be relieved to know that all four cats, ranging in age from 10 years old to less than 3, are in good health, and as far as I know there are no additional silver hairs among my resolutely gold ones. Hannah had to have her ears cleaned out (she has chronic ear infections, either due to in-breeding* or being taken from her mother before her immune system was developed) and also has to have her teeth cleaned. As Amber so correctly pointed out, it’s not a cheap undertaking. But we have medical insurance for Hannah, so it will cost about half of the whole price. If your vet offers it, it’s definitely a worthwhile investment. And amazingly, the total bill, though horrifying, was no more than last year. And when I was paying it, a guy came in with a two month old yellow Lab puppy named North who was so cute that it completely took my mind off the dizzying total. Now, that’s cute.

In addition to getting the cats checked out and replenishing their food supply, we took the opportunity of having the first obligation-free Saturday in weeks to run errands and get some things done around the house. John put up the new blinds in the bedroom and living room, in the process revealing that our cleaning lady is perhaps not quite as assiduous in dust removal as previously thought. The Okie-style dust storm which accompanied this revelation caused a full-blown allergy attack for me, and I still sound like I have a cold. However, apartment looks great and just in time for my stepmother’s arrival this week. Hopefully by the time she arrives, my nose will be back to normal.

The other revelation of the weekend was that it’s been so long since I had any free time that when I finally got it, I didn’t know what to do with it. Rather shocking. Good thing I’m all booked up for the next few days.

*Isn’t it odd that this affects both the highest (royalty) and the lowest (backwoods hillbillies)? Our vet knows something about Hannah’s litter and at least one of her littermates was too in-bred to survive. Hannah herself was only a month old when we got her and not expected to make it, either. But she showed us!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that cats dislike water. Rarely, if ever, do you see a cat jumping off the rope swing at the swimming hole, or setting a new record for swimming the Channel, or cluttering up what little beach space is available on the Riviera. The only baths they like to take are sun baths, and they are pretty much unparalleled in their ability to sit in the sun for extended periods of time. Their fur makes them immune to skin cancer and wrinkles, so really, they have no motivation to cut their sun baths short or reduce them to utilitarian sun showers (“I’ll just get my fur warmed up and then get on with day’s business of napping and playing.”). There is no sunscreen for cats.

Despite this well-known distaste for the aquatic, our cats insist on sitting in the still-wet kitchen sink after the dishes have been done, and in sitting/lounging/playing in the bathtub after the water has drained away. Sometimes they are so eager to get in the bathtub that they actually get in it while there is still some water in it, and this does not, for whatever reason, lead to their immediate ejection from the wet surface. They just watch the remaining water go down the drain as if they were watching TV.

I think they must be attracted to the heat retained in the century-old cast iron bath tub, and the heat retained in the considerably younger cast iron kitchen sink. The need for heat must outweigh the distaste for dampness, at least temporarily. I once read that cats were originally desert animals, hence their lust for heat. My sister Megan once had a cat who singed her fur by sitting too close to the space heater. The singed fur smell alerted Megan, who separated cat from heater while cat complained. About being removed from the source of the singe. Our cat Jack routinely sleeps on a part of the stove where the pilot lights make it too hot for me to comfortably rest my hand on for longer than, say, 30 seconds. Amazing.

20 years ago today, I fell in love.

It was the best kind of love, since it was both unexpected and profound. And it still endures.

On this day, 20 years ago, I happened to be visiting my friend Alice when her cat gave birth. Though I knew her cat was expecting kittens, I had never thought about adopting one of them. But for some reason, which I still can’t explain, it was love at first sight when Buddy made his first appearance. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a newborn kitten, but they look very strange indeed, besides being covered with blood and goo, as any newborn animal is. Despite these aesthetic drawbacks, I fell in love with Buddy and never looked back.

Through the next 18 years, he was my constant companion and friend. We grew up together, and he was always there for me. As my father said of his beloved dog Jesse, “We knew each other for 14 years, and he never thought I was wrong.”

Three months before his 18th birthday, Buddy was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. His strong heart wouldn’t give up, though, so we had to get our vet to come to the apartment and release him from his pain. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I realized that I had been there for his first breath and his last, and that was a privilege. I am very lucky to have had such a friend for so long. So on this day, I am especially thankful that he came into my life, and that we had such a wonderful journey together.

We took all four of our cats to the vet today for their annual check-ups. Cleo has to have her teeth cleaned, Hannah has one of her recurring ear infections, and Sophie is on diet food again to lose 2 pounds, but otherwise, they’re all in good health. Jack, who is the naughtiest cat in the entire world, is absoutely perfect. But then, she is the youngest.

I almost had a heart attack when we got the total bill, though. Both Cleo and Sophie are now officially geriatric, so their blood work is a lot more expensive, and the bill was a frightening $750. Eeek!

It seems that we’re the white trash of the vet office, just like we’re the white trash of our apartment building. Dr. M’s patients include one of the best-known newscasters in the Bay Area (who had to give up his cats after his allergies to them caused him to code out not once, but twice, and his wife totally begged him to), and a millionaire who had his dog’s teeth polished so he’d look his best before taking the dog to spend the spring on his yacht in Monaco. I’m not kidding. Whereas we wait until we get our tax return and then take the cats in for their check-ups, and we could only afford to have Sophie’s teeth cleaned last year and Cleo’s this year. But we don’t love our cats any less than the rich folks. In fact, we probably love them more. And they love us back. Check out this picture of Hannah sleeping on my pillow last night.

At the risk of turning this blog into Cats’R’Us, here’s a cat news roundup!

Megan’s kittens (seen here at my place in the city) are adjusting well to their new home in the country. Megan has taken them outside a few times, where they zoom around like freaks, climb trees, and terrify the local wildlife. Harriet, the silver kitten, is still using the litter box inside. She hasn’t figured out yet that the woods is not only her playground, it’s her litter box, too. When they are a little bigger and know their names, Megan will start letting them go outside by themselves.

Often on the weekends, Rufus wakes up early — or rather, gets woken up — by the cats and feeds them, then goes back to bed. When he does this, he leaves me note so I don’t feed them again when I get up. Our cats can be very convincing, and when I’m staggering to the kitchen thinking, “Coffee! Coffee!”, they mill around my feet impeding all movement and explaining earnestly that they haven’t been fed yet that day, or possibly that week. Cleo in particular has Sarah Bernhardt-like qualities of projection and histrionics, and accompanies her performance with reaching up and knocking some of the food on the floor as it approaches her dish. You can’t feed her without that part of the game.

Last week’s note was a poem:

The cats have been fed,

So go back to bed

And hopefully their litterpaws

Won’t step on your head.

This reference is to Miss Jackson, who somehow manages to get litter stuck in her fuzzy little paws and then distributes it in unexpected destinations throughout the house, like inside my shoes (one of Cleo’s favored hiding places for toy mice) or between the sheets, where it can really surprise you.

This week’s note was a hilarious drawing of Rufus feeding the cats while they are wahing loudly and he is yelling “Shuuut uuup!” None of this wakes me up, of course, since I can sleep through earthquakes and Jack’s daily attempts to wake us up to give her breakfast. Jack’s methods are usually running across our heads and slamming the blinds against the window.

So although I missed feeding time at the zoo this morning, the artist’s rendering is the next best thing to being there.

I’m against naps as a rule. They mess up your sleeping patterns, and well, they just seem wrong. But I do occasionally indulge. On Friday, I decided to take a nap, so I put on my bunny pajamas and curled up in my featherbed. As soon as I did, Cleo joined me. She curled up against my chest, purring and keeping an eye out for monsters or anything else that might dare to disturb my sleep. When I woke up an hour later, she was still there, warm and purring, on patrol. I felt so happy and safe. She has never, ever done this with me before, though she often does it with Rufus. It was magic.

And finally, Hannah should have been a ship’s cat in the great days of sail. Every night she sleeps on Rufus like he’s her bunk, and no matter how much he tosses or turns or rolls over, she just goes with the flow and rides it out like nothing ever happened. As soon as he settles down, she does, too. I think her secret fantasy is to be alone with him on a desert island. But she’d probably settle for the high seas, as long as she had him all to herself.

Why doesn’t snoring wake up the person who’s doing the snoring? I mean, it’s right by their ears and you’d think it would be louder there at the epicenter than just in the neighborhood. But it never does as far as I can tell.

And why can I always sleep when the alarm goes off, even if I have been awake for hours at other times during the night? Maybe if I set my alarm for 1 a.m. or something I’ll be able to go back to sleep. I can get to sleep OK, I just can’t stay there.

When Buddy was still alive, he used to sleep on my pillow every night. When I was ready to go to bed, I’d say, “It’s sleep time”, and Buddy would pad majestically into the bedroom and jump up on my pillow. So I’d fall asleep listening to his deep, rumbling purr. If I woke up in the night, I’d just cuddle up to his soft fur and listen to him purring and I’d go right back to sleep.

But Buddy is gone and so is my father. The world has gone crazy, and it’s no wonder I can’t sleep. My world is a mess because of Dad’s sudden death. I hadn’t even begun to cope with that when last Tuesday’s disaster hit, so the entire country and in fact the entire civilized world is now a strange and frightening place. In addition, two of our consultants have quit in the past month and one is on maternity leave, so things are weird and chaotic at work too. No peace to be found anywhere. The really amazing thing is that only last month, in the beginning of August, we were fully staffed at work, the World Trade Center Towers were still standing, and my Dad was going to cricket matches and gardening. All that was swept away forever in the space of a few short weeks.

Here’s my goal for 2002: a completely uneventful year. In particular, I’d like the Reaper to leave me the hell alone for at least one year. He’s been an annoyingly faithful visitor over the past three years, and I think it’s about time he picked on someone else for a change.

This looks to be the second foggy day in a row. Sometimes you can tell that it will be sunny by noon, but not yesterday and not today. Good thing I like the fog. If you don’t like it, get out of the city.

Foggy nights make me feel like I’m in a Bogart movie or a novel by Hammett or Chandler. The streets are slick from the moisture and the fog swirls around the streetlights like ghosts, making them look mysterious. Very film noir.

The fog seems to muffle all the city noises, even the cars speeding down the hill in front of our place and the birds in the tree outside our window. It makes everything seem like a dream — the pastel buildings on the hills misted over, the bay full of what looks like white clouds just sitting on the water and allowing peeks of the famous orange bridge. And of course, the low, deep sound of the fog horns under it all, the bass line of the song.

The hush is all over my apartment, too, except for me typing and Jack the Siamese kitten. She is explaining to me in loud piercing Siamese that she is either bored or lonely or about to throw up, so I better go and see what’s going on.