Kitty Care

The cats have been playing a game lately, called "don't touch the floor." My guess as to the cause of this is that my vacuum doesn't suck lately. The only thing in a normal day that is supposed to suck, and it doesn't.

I've taken it apart and checked every hose and passage for blockage. There is no blockage. I've taken the belt off and checked it for wear. Though the vacuum's instructions suggest it should be changed once every 12 months, the belt looks good. The filter is the kind you can take off and wash so you can reuse it. I do that every time and don't put it back on until it's dry. The hepa filter seems in good shape.

To be sure, I decide to go to Wal-Hell where I bought the vacuum and find replacement parts for these three things. Can't hurt. Wal-Hell sells the replacement parts for the vacuums they are currently selling. They are not currently selling the model I bought there over 2 years ago. None of the packages say they will work for my model. I'll have to try Sears. I'm not buying another vacuum before exhausting every possibility with this one. No.

In the meantime, I have had to make defensive lines across every counter top and table top surface in the apartment. And I took Mr. Bond's carrier down from the closet and have left it open for him. The reason? If I find my butter dish scattered across the floor and glasses broken because they were pushed off the counter by a kitty butt again, Mr. Bond will be an ex-danger kitty. He's cute. He's lovable. He's not impossible to get mad at.

Another step I have had to take is to reinstate the bath torture. This is as much torture for me as it is for them. This used to be a rare event, mostly because of issues with my back, which become much worse after the fight with each of the cats.

Back in VA, it took 3 grow-ups to bathe one cat. It's not like they hadn't been taking baths their whole lives; I bathed them once a week from the time they were kittens, up until they became too big for me to fight by myself. I'd speak in soft sweet tones, telling them they were good little babies, and cooing at them as much as possible. I'd work quickly so as to diminish the amount of time they spent in the horrible water. I'd fill the sink (and later the tub) with water ahead of time and test it with my elbow, just like for a human baby. Sometimes, there is no way you can bathe a cat without causing horrible trauma. And when the boys grew to full-sized cats, they became too much for me to handle on my own.

Well, here I am, all on my own again and they still need the occasional bath. I have to work myself up to it. I still follow all the same steps with filling up and testing the water ahead of time. I make sure the rinsing bowl, shampoo, and pile of towels are readily available before the cat is ever deposited into the shallow end of the tub (the sink in not an option in our current arrangement). The cat is carried lovingly and tenderly into the bathroom, cooing and petting all the way. The door is closed behind us and an extra push is given to make sure the latch clicks in place. I carefully kneel down on the floor in front of the tub, cradling Mr. Bond and cooing as my joints pop and my muscles begin their protest.

Mr. Bond, aka Danger Kitty, takes great offense at the degrading treatment of being set down with his feet and under-belly standing in water. The fight begins. I continue trying to use calm soothing words and tones. For Mr. Bond, this is somewhat more effective than it will be when Binks faces his turn. Holding Mr. Bond with my left hand, I carefully begin pouring water onto his back and sides with the bowl. The howling would suggest that I am actually drowning the poor fiend. I take the shampoo bottle and squeeze a line down his back, quickly push the cap closed and toss it aside, and begin massaging the shampoo into his fur--back, sides, underbelly and tail. I try to get at least a little on the sores around his neck. The hard part with this is that this medicated shampoo needs time to sit on the skin and fur in order to do its job. Yeah, right.

I try my best to mollify Mr. Bond while continuing to massage the shampoo deeper into his fur. I figure it's the only way I'm going to keep it on him long enough to have its intended effect. Eventually, I think the eternity has finally reached its end (it's probably only been two of the five minutes it should have been), and I reach for the rinsing bowl again. Mr. Bond senses an opportunity to escape and attempts to make good on it. I'm impressed with my own reflexes as I narrowly miss being batted in the head by his read paws as he launches himself from the tub. Quickly, I turn and pick the soapy, sodden fiend up from the floor in front of the door and wrangle him back into the tub where I waste no time in starting to rinse him before he can escape again.

The hard part is finally complete and I hold Mr. Bond still while I reach for the drain plug so I can let as much water out of the tub as Mr. Bond will allow before making another leap. The tub is almost completely drained, and I have managed to get one of the towels draped across my arms, ready to catch him, when I finally release my hold.

Mr. Bond once again takes flight. This time, instead of ducking, I move to catch him with the towel. I am partially successful. The bottom half of his body is wrapped in the towel. The top half is wrapped around my head. I have a cat's belly on my face, and his paws are batting at my ears as he attempts to free his lower half. I wrangle another towel off the toilet seat and manage to wrap it around the cat (around my head) and finally get him off my face.

Spitting fur out of my mouth, blowing it out my nose, and reaching for tissues to rub it from my eyes, I hold Mr. Bond, wrapped in swaddling towels, and is the toilet lid while I dry him as much as he will allow.

One battle down. A major war left to fight. Take the drama and stress of bathing Mr. Bond, add about twice the body mass, and multiply it all by a factor of 10. That's what it's like to bathe Binks. I need to lay down and cry for a while.

I stood on the balcony, telling Yaw goodnight, and looked up through the branches of the oak tree at the masses of puffy white cloud moving through the dark sky.

The air was cooler, at long last. Not much cooler, but at least it wasn't still 85 degrees at 11 p.m. And the humidity was down quite a bit. I wished I had a bottle of wine so I could sit out in my chair and stare at the sky while sipping. Alas, all I had was beer. Not quite the same thing when I'm trying to get those creative juices flowing.

Wine is for thoughtfulness, artistic creation, philosophizing. Beer is for mindless partying or drinking at the neighborhood barbecue.

So I stood a few minutes more, watching the clouds move so a triangular gap opened up, revealing an opposing triangle of stars, twinkling like a mystical pair of eyes and a nose in the middle of the darkness. OK, so maybe I didn't really need the wine...

The sky this afternoon is once again a painter's pallet of cloud formations. I especially liked the look of the leading edge of some anvils on their way towards the area from the West. Sort of like the edges of clam shells, but glowing from within.

I took pictures on my phone and will endeavor to transfer them to my pc to share.

I enjoyed taking pictures of them in the Taco Bell parking lot with hungry people watching me in utter confusion.

Why is she taking pictures of the sky? Are we being invaded? Martha, get your aluminum foil helmet out from under the seat and put it on, quick!

What does it mean when "The Coolest Thing Ever" takes a hiatus?


Does it stop being cool for a while?



My cat is lying in the middle of the floor at my feet, paws sprawled out in all directions, fat white belly spot daring me for all I'm worth to not play the "belly, belly, belly" game on it as I go past for some water.

Darn. The neighbors closed a car door and he moved.