there's a mouse in the house

is a the blade of a shovel too obvious a grave marker?

i just finished painting the names of the murdered mouse family on a rusty shovel that long ago lost its handle.

Velvet
Benny
Matilda
&
Miracle Mouse Sparky

miracle because he survived the unthinkable. hard to believe that only a week's transpired since all that. it all started over ice cream and laundry. i was in the basement loading up the washer and my sister stopped over asking if i wanted to go get a twist with sprinkles. need you ask? i either left the basement door open or never closed it all the way. usually no big deal, but that night it resulted in mayhem. i came home to find what looked for all the world like the usual puked up grey hairball laying on the kitchen floor (they're never hairballs, by the way, you ever notice? they're hair logs). but it was a baby mouse and it was still alive. an infant so small his eyes weren't even open yet. he had two pin prick wounds on his temple. oh god.

so i held him on my lap and got on Facebook, the great purveyor of advice, and wrote "what do i do!?"

i never imagined that my cats' vet would be on and would respond instantly. it was 9:58 PM and yet she offered to meet me at the Cat Hospital to euthanize the poor baby. i cried the whole way there, racing, for some reason, as if i were saving his life instead of ending it. as i drove the jeep, moon shining down on us, i wondered if a baby mouse could get me out of a speeding ticket. velvet (i named him velvet - him because to me everything's a him until proven otherwise, don't ask me why) was nestled in a pocket of flannel meant to polish jewelry. his little pink winding sheet.

it was quite a scientific affair, euthanizing such a tiny baby. he went into a plastic cup to be anesthetized, the sort you'd put over someone's face. as i waited for dr. R to fill a syringe i lifted it to say a final goodbye and somehow flipped the cup and velvet went flying onto a metal shelf, much to my horror. i wasn't sure he needed killing after that. after we were sufficiently sure he was asleep (or already dead), dr. R made sure with a syringe of euthanasia, telling me that once a friend of hers had an injured mouse put to sleep at the local emergency hospital for the whopping heartless fee of $150. velvet died on the house. and we both returned to our friday evening.

i shouldn't have said it, but i did. "i hope i don't come home to find more." and i did.

but i couldn't call her out again for more mouse euthanasia. there was another one on the kitchen floor, really barely alive. and yet another where i suspected the nest was hidden in the little washing room of the basement. that one was covered in filth as if batted around like a hacky sack. yet when i picked him up he came to wild life, wriggling madly in my fingertips. i felt the need to wash him clean and did so carefully in the bathroom. my god, he was alive. i didn't know what to do with them (benny the weak and sparky the lively). so i turned to Google. surely there is some homemade way to make euthanasia. i looked at my shelves. a cotton ball of alcohol? nail polish remover? how do you kill a mouse? it made me sick to even have to do it. of course you can do it quickly with the drop of a brick or the roll of a tire, but i couldn't. if only they could just go to sleep. and i found it, you could mix white vinegar (i had it) and baking soda (i had that, too) and the resulting gas would end their tiny lives. so i set it all up on the basement floor under a big flipped over tupperware, the babies nestled in my mom's soft brown alaskan winter hat. it was supposed to be over in 20 minutes. an hour later i checked and it was anything but over. they were no less alive. now, what do i do at midnight? i left them in their woolen nest and hoped their mother would find and haul them back home.

they were my first thought in the morning. surely they would be gone or dead. but again, they were neither.

OK, now i owe it to them to save them. so i Googled yet again and read how to save a baby mouse's life. i got artist's paintbrushes and kitten formula and raced back home. they'd already been 12 hours without their mother. but when i got back, benny had died. sparky? he was one miracle mouse. he was squeaking at me and wriggling. i held him - he was no bigger than half my forefinger - and dipped the brush in warmed formula and offered it. i decided he was a very smart mouse. he understood and drank. once he was sated, i warmed a disk in the microwave that would keep him warm and i put the whole operation in an large antique domed brass birdcage where i hoped he'd be safe from the very curious cats. it seemed perfect.

every two hours, the internet told me. i had to feed sparky every two hours. now, i was willing to go to great lengths for this little spunky guy, but all night wasn't one of those things. so i fed him all i could all day long and decided he'd just have to make it through the night or not. of course he did.

at first i expected him to be dead every time i looked into his woolly nest, but he just kept on living and getting stronger, a little bigger, a little squeakier. he knew my fingertips meant food. his eyes never did open in the 4 days of our time together, but he had fine velvety grey fur. these two things told me he was between 10-14 days old.

there are things you never imagine yourself doing in your lifetime. i mean, it never even enters your head. washing a baby mouse's face is one of them. i learned to wash the formula off his face with the wet tip of a Q-tip and then flip it over to the dry side and rub his belly to massage his digestive system into action. it was comical, being proud that a mouse peed and pooped for me. i kept him nice and clean and warm and i'd panic when i misplaced the damn paintbrush. his Esso tiger coffee cup was heated a dozen times a day, his disk nuked for heat, his bedclothes washed.  one night a cat knocked his birdcage off my bureau at 2 AM and i crawled all over my rug begging to find him. so far he'd survived a cat attack, my pathetic attempt to euthanize him, a night on a dank cement floor with his dying brother, no mother (i found her dead too and named her Matilda after the mouse in the video who taught me how to care for him). he survived being knocked to the floor and my bumbling attempts to successfully feed him, sometimes almost drowning him in formula.

on sunday sparky attended a cookout. i had no choice, i couldn't leave him unfed in a house full of murderous cats for hours. so he rode in the footwell of the Jeep under the heat and was easily the most unexpected party guest in history. it was awkward explaining why i was carrying a birdcage; um, yes, it's a baby mouse i'm trying to rescue, but the in-laws took it in stride. they already knew i am a little crazy. or a lot. as sparky slept after a feeding, someone's iced tea glass teetered on the edge of a table and toppled onto him, nearly drowning him. sparky was sure using up his nine lives, if mice have nine lives. the children were fascinated by the party guest and that pleased me. i doubt they will ever forget the day a mouse came to a cookout.

as the days went on, i grew more confident. i announced my endeavors on Facebook and suddenly sparky had a huge following rooting for him between my page and that of my kitten Bug. who knew that so many people would be charmed by a baby mouse? some of them would start their days checking their smart phones to see how sparky was faring. each day i'd say "well, sparky survived another night....". and sparky went to work with me. again, i had no choice. he slept in a box on my desk on monday and i later took him to therapy, where my shrink was enthralled. he gave me a glass terrarium for better mouse protection. sparky was chalking up the 'firsts'. first mouse ever to attend a cookout. to go to work. to go to therapy. he was on a roll.

 the internet told me wild baby mice need immediate care, within 2 hours, in order to survive. and here i'd wasted that time trying to euthanize sparky and benny and then leaving them for their mother to find, not knowing she was already dead too. but sparky was going strong. the stats told me he had a 5-25% chance of survival, but as the days passed i got cocky. my mouse was going to live. i started shopping online for mouse habitats and mouse exercise wheels and worrying that i would save him only to have a cat kill him down the line. but if he lived, would he live one year or several? i'd make him live several! i was, after all, now an expert and so was he. he'd grab the paintbrush and suck and i'd wash his face, rub his belly and clean his butt. the internet warned of the dangers of bloat. bloat could kill. i began to wonder how anyone ever had a second child after going through this kind of thing with a first. so much attention, so much worry, so much time.

sparky rewarded me with so much life. frankie and tad did not care that i was feeding a mouse, they just wanted room in my lap. beanie and big, the great hunters and no doubt reason for sparky's circumstances, sat with huge eyes that transmitted their incomprehension. they give me dead mice for presents, after all. why were they not allowed to murder this one? better still, why was i feeding it? i could tell benie was just beside himself. after all, it was on my lap.

but tuesday was another story. sparky was lethargic. i had to wake him to eat and he was ornery about it. and he smelled funny. i thought maybe i hadn't cleaned him well enough. but his poop was weird too. it wasn't regular mouse poop, it was pale and soft. is this what bloat does? i massaged and massaged his belly. we went to work and i ignored emails to tend to my mouse. someone came to see me and apparently knows me well, because he didn't blink an eye when he found me feeding a mouse with a paintbrush at my computer. i was going to devote my day to making sure he improved but my plans were thwarted by students, new students arriving at the college and not enough staff to help down at the big track and tennis facility where they checked in. so i had to go. at noon i ate pizza and fed sparky in the equipment room. still not eating well, still not squeaking or wriggling like just last night. i had to sit for hours in a steamy airless building waiting on parents and students, sparky in a box at my feet. again, at 2 PM i decided i have priorities, and my mouse was it. we went out back to a picnic table in the cool shade but i was immediately troubled. he was not interested in food and should have been, always was before. i offered the paintbrush, flicked away gnats, rubbed his belly, checked his heating disk. was he too hot or cold? did he have enough air? again, he smelled funny. i begged him, sparky just hang on until i get out of here and i will spend every waking minute on you.

at 4 PM we were allowed to close up shop and i gathered my things. my boss, sucking on a candy, asked what i had in the box. a mouse, i said. "a mouse for a computer?" he asked. um, no a real mouse. "can i see?" a little embarrassed and with some hesitation, i opened the cover wide to show him. "he doesn't look so good," he said.

sparky was dead. i poked gently with a finger to make sure, but i didn't even have to. it was pretty obvious. he was still warm. "i'm going home to cry now", i told them, and walked to the exit holding my mouse box while tears blinded me. my dead sparky. in my Jeep i started crying and bawled all the way home on the back roads. i blamed the students, i blamed Central Check-In and the heat and the airlessness and the fact that i couldn't check on him or feed him as often as i would have otherwise.

what did i do wrong? was the formula too strong? didn't i rub his belly enough? was it because i let him go overnight without a feeding? had i been too over-cofident and not vigilant enough? i laid sparky to rest with his siblings velvet and benny and his mother matilda in the pink flannel in a little tupperware. i guess the fact that i'd never buried them yet showed that i was not overly confident. i saved them so they could all be buried together.

and so they were. under the pear tree beside my bunny gianni. they were protected with a sheet of plastic for a week to keep scavenging predators out (once one dug up and stole my baby bunny). i know it's all the cycle of life, it's nature. i know the odds were stacked against us and i know i did all i could. but all that makes it no easier. i had bonded with that little mouse and as far as he knew, i was his mommy. he was my charge, his life depended on me for 4 days and i failed.  it was tough breaking the news to his eager Facebook fans who were already clamoring for a sparky page all his own. it was pretty amazing to know that other people cried for sparky. my pages filled up with condolences, with tears and hearts and assurances that i'd done all i could, more than most would have.

sparky died on my 'cancer-versary'. four years earlier on august 27th i was diagnosed with breast cancer.  at first when he died i thought what a shitty gift to get on this day. and then i realized, it was a wonderful four day gift to have had him at all. 

i didn't try to save sparky's life for any other reason than i thought i owed it to him after all my cats and i had put him through. i mean, hell, i'd tried to kill him. i wasn't noble. no one except my shrink even knew i'd first tried my hand at homegrown euthanasia. and so that haunts me too. what if i weakened him in those wasted our with that ridiculous gassing? people gave me credit for having such a pure heart and such kindness. they blessed me and declared me an angel. but just like my "About Me" says on this blog, i'm just a person. i don't know how someone else could drop a brick or roll a tire over a baby mouse, i just knew i couldn't. and if i couldn't do that, i couldn't also just let him die a slow death of starvation and dehydration. so that meant only one thing. i had to try.

and sparky rewarded me (and so many others) for those efforts. so vulnerable, so fragile, so tiny. that little spark of life left a huge mouseprint on me and i will never forget those 4 days in august.

The Old Ones

My heart felt like a slab of meat dropped on a butcher's floor when my sister recently looked at my old cat Michael and announced, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Sure, Mikey's 18 years old, he has a right to look rough and the veterinary past with major credentials to back it up. But those words were like putting the kybosh on old Mikey. The last time she said those very same words about Mattie he was dead 3 weeks later. I'm so superstitious you'd think I had Gypsy origins, and hearing that Mikey looks "rough" fills me with dread. She and I share Useless Psychic Events with each other all the time, but I don't want her UPE's suddenly materializing with frightful accuracy on my cats.

Last May I was about to leave for about 5 days for my birthday to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah and Jen was over learning the drill on how to take care of my many cats. Where each one's dish is, who eats in what order, who gets what pill, and a reminder to say hello to Baby who will never venture down from upstairs. Mattie, my yellow dandelion of a cat, shuffled into the kitchen just in case food was involved. That's when Jen declared, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Well, he's old, I countered. Mattie had been limping for years, a sliding shuffle to his gait since toxoplasmosis had attacked his brain, front elbows stuck out from arthritis. He'd never been big on self-grooming since he had a hard time twisting his body around - perhaps from an injury before he adopted Bob & I. All this made him look older than his years, which I presumed to be 15. But could have been more since we would never know how old he was when he wandered into the yard.

Mattie was the appropriate name for him because his long yellow fur was so thick with mats Bob swore he had tumors until I shaved the lumps off. Over the years Mattie also had bouts of asthma that meant he had to live on daily prednisolone for his scarred lungs that worked at only half capacity. Sometimes he'd even had fluid build up in his lung cavity which doctors removed with a needle and tested ad nauseum for fear of lymphoma, heart disease, etc. None of which he had. At long last a heart specialist realized that Mattie's diaphragm was perforated, probably all his life, and some organ had pushed through it. All the more reason Mattie had more difficulty than most cats in breathing. But that precious sunflower of a cat dealt courageously with every physical challenge that came his way, and never took the easy way around, even when we made the house handi-cat accessible.

When Bob died I relied on Mattie's loving, consoling nature more than ever. Bob had nicknamed him Matt Matt the Comfort Cat, and he was exactly that. Mattie would stare at me with huge alien eyes and wait for me to get comfortable so that he could then get comfortable. Usually that was under my left armpit or directly on my chest where he could continue to stare at me. Then that purr, that big rumbling, two-tiered purr, would start up. No mistaking his happiness. If by chance you did miss it, then the strings of drool would clue you in. Always had tissues nearby to mop up the drool. Since Mattie granted me one kiss per day I preferred them to be dry. Mattie lived 18 months after Bob died. He got out of the animal hospital the same night as Bob first went in to the people hospital. He'd had fluid removed again and in retrospect I guess it was miraculous that he lived another 18 months without the fluid recurring. When it did so, it was with a vengeance. One very hot morning about 2 weeks after my return from Utah Mattie kind of jumped toward me on the mattress, an odd move for him. He always moved methodically and slowly. When I turned toward him in surprise I saw that he was open-mouth breathing.

There's no time to wasted with a cat in that condition. I didn't even know cat mouth-to-mouth if he died. I threw him in a cat cage and raced down to the cat hospital in the Jeep, not giving a shit how late I'd be for work. We were sent on to the Emergency Hospital where Mattie stayed for work-ups and fluid removal. He came home, only to have it return again. Unable to sleep one night (sometimes I swear I could sense things) I noticed his sides heaving in and out with difficulty and off we rushed at 1 AM to the Emergency Hospital yet again. Despite the declaration 18 months earlier that Mattie did not have heart failure, the vets wanted to check again and so he was scheduled for an ultrasound. In and out of the hospital so many times, all I remember was a $1200 bill and the feeling that he was worth any amount of money, as long as he lived.

It began on a Thursday. By Wednesday evening the following week the vet somberly told me that they had accidentally pricked Matt's lung while aspirating fluid so now his lung cavity was refilling with both fluid and air. I brought Mattie Fancy Feast because no matter how sick he ever was, he always had an appetite. I brought my camera, feeling that this may be my last night with him (just as I brought my camera inexplicably that last night Bob was alive). Matt was confused. Why was he on a metal table? Why was I taking pictures of him? Why wasn't I taking him home? For such a sick cat he was restless. If I'd been allowed to bring him home he would have punished me when we got there by laying on the floor with his ass facing in my direction. That was his way of telling me I was on his shit list. The shit list never lasted long, though, and I was always back to being his favorite mattress before long. It broke my fucking heart every time I left him at the hospital. Doubly so because I'd only lost Bob, my human soul-mate, 18 months earlier. It was impossible to accept that I could now lose my feline soul-mate.



The morning of Mattie's ultrasound the vet called my cell phone at work and told me to come as fast as possible, Mattie was not going to last long. The same words I'd heard the morning Bob died. The air would not stop bubbling into Mattie's chest and they had him in an oxygen box so he could breathe. On my way I drove madly, running up over curbs, sobbing "Please don't die before I get there. Please wait for me, Matt". And he was alive in his glass oxygenated box when I arrived, but only because they'd saved his life one more time by aspiration before I got there. His big black eyes widened when he saw me, like he thought I was there to save him.

But they'd already saved him so I could be with him when he died.

I had no time to question the vet's decision. Although Matt looked fine (his lungs temporarily able to move freely), I didn't have much time before he'd struggle to breathe, then suffer. I didn't want him to even get as far as a struggle. If he had to die it should be peacefully, in my arms. I wrapped that beloved creature in his favorite pale yellow fleece blanket and held him in the crook of my arm. Cradled. He rested his head on my heart, just as he'd always liked to do. All his life he'd been like a baby, needing to feel my heartbeat. The staff gave us some time alone together and I cried and apologized.

I did everything I could to save you. I am so sorry.

I let the vet know when it was time. When his lungs started expanding more. Before either of us could panic. Before it could be any more traumatic than it already was. She knelt in front of us and Mattie was still, no longer restless like last night, just seemingly content to be in my arms, wrapped in his blanket. If the fluid didn't return, he'd be he same healthy, albeit old, Matt he was just last week. But we knew it was coming and nothing could stop it. So she inserted the needle and injected the concoction of soft, quiet death, then left us alone together again.

Neither of us had moved. I could pretend he was still alive. It was easy. I could pretend that he could still feel my heart beating and that it had simply lulled him to sleep. But I knew the truth and so I wept. I sat so still. He's asleep . . . don't break the spell. The vet padded back in after a while and I nodded. She could take him. I should have let the dream remain, that Mattie had just gone to sleep in my arms, that the pretend was real, he was just alive and asleep. I never should have looked. But I cursed myself with a look as she rose with my baby in her arms and I saw his head limply slide. That broke the spell. He was dead and there was no way I could pretend otherwise. Once I saw that limp head roll the way the living's never do, the spell was over.

My Mattie's spirit lives on in my heart. I like to think he slipped into my heart when he died against its beat. I believe he valiantly lived those 18 months after Bob died because he knew I desperately needed him. I think animals are greater, more mystical beings than we humans, and they can do things we cannot. Except live forever.

I knew he was getting old and decrepit. It's not like I was in denial. But when Jennifer said "he's looking pretty rough" I felt two things: defensive and a fear that she saw something I hadn't recognized. All I know is that within weeks he was dead and those words have haunted me since. If only I'd known, I never would have gone away for even a few days when Mattie only had weeks to live.

Mikey is old. He was here before Mattie and somehow he outlived both Mattie and Bob. He's still Top Cat in the household, but he's 6 pounds less cat than he used to be and had to go to the vet today for a strange new drag in one back leg. Perhaps injured in a fall from my too-tall bed. He blatted like a baby lamb all the way too and from the vet in the W. B. Mason cardboard box I had him in. I was afraid stuffing him in a standard carrier would hurt him more. When he got home and ate in ravenous relief, he then went upstairs to vomit all over my bedroom rug. His eyes are cloudy these days, i'm not sure he can hear much besides a can opening. He's got slow, chronic kidney failure and manageable hyperthroidism. Hell, the old guy isn't going to live forever but his quality of life is still very good even as the equivalent of a hundred year old man. Every night when he settles on my right shoulder I remind myself of this: treasure every moment, tell him I love him all the time, because he could go at any time.

After all, he's looking pretty rough. And I feel like the Grim Reaper follows those words.

i feel sorry for inanimate objects

under cover of twilight at 4:45 P.M. i drove bob's big old green ford F250 to the parking lot of the Bluebonnet Diner (or Blue Vomit as bob liked to call it). my mission was a christmas tree and i had to wait til dark because the inspection sticker on the truck expired back in august (i hope there are no cops reading this). my christmas tree guy has a set schedule and i knew he'd only be there until 5:00. bob and i discovered him years ago and love his variety of many-sized christmas trees for only thirty dollars max. i even brought my stand hoping that maybe he'd help me get the trunk in. this is my 3rd year getting a christmas tree on my own (bob was too sick in '06) so i still have a hard time getting the trunk in the stand. then again, both bob and pop had years of christmas trees under their belts and i seem to recall a lot of swearing by both parties associated with this once a year holiday effort.

i pulled in to the Bluebonnet lot to see jim (that's his name) putting his sign in the back of his pick-up. one lone christmas tree leaned against his wood stand. the only one left. this is one of the saddest christmas sights there is. i can't bear to look at un-bought wreaths and trees on christmas eve, looking so lonely and forlorn. their lives wasted because no one bought them for christmas. so you can imagine what the sight of this little lone tree did to me. you see, i have a problem. i feel sorry for inanimate objects and it would be all i could do not to buy this tree even if it was far too small. apartment size. i thought i'd go something like a six footer this year.

"is this the only tree you have left?" i asked and of course yes was his answer. i stared at the little tree, tormented. oh god, how could i leave it there all alone? if i didn't take it, who would?

as if reading my mind, jim said, "don't worry, if you don't take it, it won't go into the chipper. it was fresh cut yesterday and it will sell when i set up again on friday. i can't have too many small trees. people want them."

thank god. people want them. i didn't have to buy the tree based on fear that no one else would want it. because if that was the case i'd have to get it, even if it was too small to hold more than one string of lights and only a quarter of my ornaments. despite jim's reassurance, however, i felt bad that the poor little tree had spent 6 hours sitting out in the cold, rejected by every person who'd stopped there that day. it would be riding back to ashfield alone in the cold bed of his truck. could i actually let that happen?

i fought my urge to shell out $23 for a too-small tree just so it would have a christmas home tonight. i have to trust in jim that it won't be fodder for his chipper, that someone in northampton will need an apartment-sized tree on friday. if you live here and you need a little tree, please go buy that one. it took all i had to abandon the tiny tree and climb back in my truck, watching jim grab it by its little bark throat and toss it into the bed of his truck.

no, no, no, go home, valerie. wait for the tree you want.

this isn't my first struggle over inanimate objects. in fact, it happens all the time. i feel sorry for pathetic things, for lonely things, for leftover things. one day in a department store with my sister joanne we came upon an easter display. heaps of pastel-colored fuzzy stuffed animals just tossed into a pile, half of thems with their asses in the air, heads buried in the pile. i couldn't stand it. the ones with the faces would get all the attention if i didn't do something about it. they all had to have an equal chance at an easter home. so i stood there and righted every single stuffed duck, chick and bunny. sat them in a happy, smiling pile and left them, hoping my efforts would earn each one a home.

you might wonder how i ever worked at an animal shelter, right? believe me, it was hard. the only way i could do it was to take charge of photographing and writing up every cat for the web. to do so, i spent time with every cat trying to discover something unique about it. some hook by which i could draw someone in. one cross-eyed flame point siamese i compared to barbra streisand. i was not afraid to pull on heart strings and if a cat stayed too long at the shelter and became part of its Lonely Hearts Club i made it a poster and bombarded northampton with pathos. won't you give patches a chance? for months she's watched other cats come and go and wonders why no one ever chooses her... people started to come in to Dakin shelter actually asking for a cat by its description! barbra streisand was popular (again)! that's how i could spend hours there on sundays and manage to leave cat-less. well..... for the most part. we did end up with Mosby because after 6 months he was deemed unadoptable because of his unrelenting fear of people. and we did end up with Big because he was tagged as "vicious" ( of all things) depressed and anorexic. at 20 lbs, 8 yrs old, he romps and stomps happily around the house when he isn't licking me to death. and okay...i did end up with Baby from Best Friends out in Utah because she too was depressed and only (and literally) came out of the closet she hid in when i entered the Kitty Motel to squawk at me in her rusty gate old lady voice.

aside from the unwanted cats i've succumbed to, i have a special favorite and i sleep with it every night. it travels in my backpack with me on vacations and housekeepers set it on my pillows after making my motel room beds. it is my pink stuffed bunny rabbit. it doesn't have a name. that's all it's known by. bob and i happened upon the bunny rabbit in the grocery store shortly after one easter several years ago. a big cardboard box stood by the entrance filled with leftover easter candy and a 50% off sign. splayed alone in this pile of marshmallow chicks and hollow chocolate eggs was the pink bunny rabbit, a sad multi-colored pastel ribbon around its neck. god, it was so pathetic. every other stuffed animal had apparently been sold except him.

i have a lot of guilt associated with easter bunnies. as a child i had a big fawn colored bunny named Bun-Bun that my mother bought me when i was in the hospital. he was so tall and proud and cheery in his day. i destroyed him by sleeping with him for years. eventually he sagged and his metal frame feet stuck me in the ribs. his ears fell off and his head holes had to be sewn closed. he lost one black button eye and all the turgor went out of his neck so that it flopped over. fake fur rubbed off from years spent in the crook of my arm as i slept (yes, even into my teens), Bun-Bun looked like a mangy dog. sometime in my heartless 20's i threw him out. and to this day i wonder, how could i have done that?

so when i saw that pink bunny rabbit i stopped dead in my tracks and bob, knowing what was happening, groaned and picked the rabbit up by one leg and tossed it into the grocery basket. when i protested at such cavelier treatment he leaned over and put the bunny instead into the child seat of the metal basket and so we wheeled our way through the store. people smiling at us, somewhat charmed by our 'baby'. even the check-out lady was delighted and bob had to tell her " she felt sorry for it".

i sleep with it now the same way i slept with Bun-Bun of old. the pink bunny rabbit is a comfort there in the crook of my arm. a gift from bob i can hold close.

the cat whisperer

i almost lost my standing as the Cat Whisperer tonight.

a friend of mine told me yesterday that his house had been over-run with fleas and immediately my skin crawled. although i have not seen a flea in my house of 6 cats, i was taking no chances. i flew to the Cat Hospital after work and purchased a 6-pack of flea killer for kitties. i will have none of those insect vermin invading my house. my Fear stems from childhood. i don't think my parents had any idea about flea control. after all, they had no idea litterboxes existed. when i was about 9, getting ready for school one morning, i pulled on my kneesocks and could literally see the fleas jumping on and off them. That sight is burned unpleasantly into my memory.

so i rounded up the herd one by one and squirted Vectra on the backs of their necks. most of them were easy to catch and treat, although Big (the 20 pounder) was uncannily suspicious when i sweetly sing-songed his name, hanging out of reach under the kitchen table until i tricked him. food is the trick. he's a sucker for food.

but Mosby was the hold-out. Mosby, if you know your civil war history, is named after major mosby, otherwise known as the "grey ghost". alot more appropriate the Mister Kitty, the name he came with from the shelter. Mister Kitty and his sister, Miss Kitty, lost their home when a foolish woman gave up her cats for the sake of a boyfriend. no human, in my opinion, is worth abandoning your pet. but abandon them she did. they were unceremoniously returned at age 3 to the shelter where they'd come from originally. victims of a woman's insecurity and the ultimatum of a selfish boyfriend. Mister and Miss Kitty had been caught in the wild as kittens, right on the cusp of becoming feral. perhaps Mister Kitty never shed his feral kittenhood entirely, or perhaps he was mistreated by The Boyfriend before he came to the shelter. all i know is that he was unreasonably terrified of people, clinging to his sister and never coming out of the shelter of a cat house during the day. since i volunteered at the shelter, i made him my project.

they dubbed me 'the cat whisperer' at the shelter because i was somehow able to bond with even the most antisocial and frightened cats. even the cats with "STAFF ONLY - Vicious" posted in orange on their cages. i had the time to spend with them, the staff did not. and so i was consistently pleased to report back to them that so-and-so was now approachable. it only took patience, quiet tones, and knowing when it was finally OK to pet. i was only attacked once in all my 7 years there, and that was by a cat in the front room who'd been cleared for adoption! i shudder to think what his fate was after that. once they draw blood there's no telling.

on every visit i would try to assuage Mister Kitty's terror, reaching behind his sister to gently pet him after i'd allowed him to sniff my hand. but every time he acted as though he'd never seen me before and i had to start all over again. as i stroked his fur he lay rigid, eyes huge and dilated. because it was a No-Kill shelter he was allowed to live. for six months i visited him, sometimes dismayed by my inability to bring him around. he obviously could not tolerate the constant comings and goings of people and other cats. the shelter tried to offer the two of them together - two for the price of one, convinced he could not survive on his own without the comfort of his sister. one week, to my delight, they were adopted. the next week they were back. rejected.

finally there was talk of euthanasia. there seemed to be no hope for Mister and Miss Kitty. the shelter could not afford to keep them on indefinitely. i pleaded with my husband, please at least come meet Mister Kitty. they're going to kill him. bob relented and accompanied me to the shelter. the siblings were sequestered this time in a large metal cage and Mister Kitty was, as usual, hidden in a box, peering out of a round hole. bob took one look at those eyes, so full of pathos, and said 'oh OK, bring him home, goddammit.' and so with much difficulty we tugged the frightened cat out of his box and stuffed him into a carrier. Miss Kitty was left to fend for herself and was adopted within the week.

all day i sat at work pondering names. what to call him? mouse? he was timid and grey after all. then i hit upon Mosby. when i got home bob announced, "i know what to call him - Mosby!" we'd independently come up with the same name. Mosby lived for several days locked in my computer room alone with food, a litterbox, and only my visits for company. cats respond to this treatment. suddenly you are their only living link in the world and they decide you're not so bad after all. i cried with happiness when Mosby sat beside me on the couch and suddenly trusted me so much he laid on his back, baring his belly. almost smiling. within a week we gave him free range of the house and he was soon adopted by Mattie, the big brother cat of the house, who licked him and bonded. we thought it was a milestone when he allowed us to walk by him and he didn't run. we were astonished when he'd rub up against our legs. years went by and he came around of his own accord. everything had to be on his terms, but that was OK. sometimes i could even catch and hold him and eventually his stiff body would relax and he'd purr.

nowadays Mosby has decided i am safest approached while on the toilet. i don't know how he figured out that i couldn't easily catch him from that seat, but he did. so every morning we have the love ritual on the toilet. sometimes on a chilly morning he will leap onto the couch to head butt me and allows me to pet him. on those mornings my heart swells. he trusts me. i've never shown him any reason not to. but old habits die hard in a cat that once clearly had a hard life. he is still far more comfortable in the company of his fellow cats, still a baby enjoying the head-lickings Big gives him since Mattie died. but i've been his accepted human for 5 years now and i've considered it an honor. bob was too when he was alive. but he plied Mosby with bits of steak from his dinner, so he cheated.

getting Mosby to the vet is a once a year chore i don't relish. tonight i just realized that flea treatment is too. like Big, he suspected something was up when i sing-songed his name and tried to corner him. he was having none of it. plump as he now is, he hurdled upstairs and vanished into the spare bedroom. not a sign of him. i closed the door, certain he was in there, and looked under the bed from all sides. i suddenly realized the fabric of the mattress was hanging like a hammock and staring out at me were those big round terrified eyes. i used my best calm-a-cat voice but something about being that cornered made him turn like i've never seen before. i've heard the plaintive howls, but never before were they accompanied by hissing and spitting. and that's what i now faced. i couldn't really take him seriously. after all he's spent his life as a gentle and timid ghost. but when i reached into his dark hammock i discovered a whole new side of him. as if the feral ghost had risen. he lashed out at me with teeth and claws. i stood my ground, however taken aback, and pulled him out by the scruff of the neck and plunked him on the bed. i might as well have been handling a hellcat. only a blanket over his head stilled him and he realized his battle was lost. i still don't understand why there was a battle. flea treatment squirted onto his neck, i let him go. he just lay there looking at me, hurt and betrayal in his eyes it seemed. then i left the room.

Mosby rushed to the safety of the outdoor cat cage where he lay like a meatloaf in a hay box. he wasn't over the ordeal and i knew i had to regain his confidence. i crept into the cage and used my softest cat whispering voice. it's OK, Mosey, i would never hurt you. i didn't mean to scare you. it's just me, Mose. his ears were back and his nose buried in his paws, obviously hoping i'd get lost. as a hummingbird whirred in the trumpet vines nearby i tenderly stroked between his ears. ran my hand over his back over and over, talking quietly. as his ears relented and came forward i tickled under his chin. then i heard it. the purr. i had won his heart and trust again. we sat there in the big cage and i ignored mosquito bites so that a sudden slap on skin wouldn't set him off again. my half-feral childcat came around and looked up at me, his eyes soft now and almost apologetic. his velvety body relaxed under my hand and after i knew he remembered i am "safe" i carefully took my leave. he watched after me and i told him he was very brave. for years he has associated "very brave" with something good.

pink Hello Kitty bandaids now cover my various bite wounds and an impressive scratch runs down the tender inside of my arm. i have a lot more respect for the grey ghost now and i think it would be best if i practiced more togetherness with him so we don't have a repeat performance of terror and pain in two weeks when he's due for a trip to the vet. perhaps i have neglected the velveteen cat and though i won't lick his head, i will bond more with him in the days to come. i have learned the lesson of Siegfried & Roy. the title of Cat Whisperer is a tenuous one.