SOPHIA'S FIRST VET EXPERIENCE

sophia 6 weeks old

Thursday morning Sophia went for her first ride to see the doctor. She was remarkably calm, possibly for it being her first time. None of my cats or dogs in the past liked going to the vet. After returning home, Sophia took a nap on top of the cat carrier. Cats in the past would not go near the carrier after a trip to the vet. Sophia felt relaxed, even when a needle stuck her. I suspect whatever was in the shot made her drowsy. An hour or so after we arrived home she slept for two hours. We return in three weeks for first rabies shot. She did not seem to be out of sorts during the visit or after. At home, she was her usual playful self. Stopped at the grocery store on the way back for catfood and a package of carrots for donkeys. Sophia seemed a bit anxious when I returned from the grocery store after sitting in the car alone for twenty minutes. She meowed grown-up cat style when I opened the back door to put groceries on the seat. 

 

kitten in the cat chute

 

This my first car after years of pickups, the back seat amounts to an enclosed pickup bed. I don't haul wood anymore or do anything else that needs a pickup. What I do haul fits easily on the back seat. I even keep a plastic snow shovel in the back seat and a rolled up sleeping bag. I keep the battery charger on the floor in back. The car has some odd electrical leak I can neither find nor predict. I'll go out one morning in winter and the battery will be stone dead. This means calling a neighbor to ask for a jump start or to borrow a charger. Last time it happened, I bought a new charger. It goes with the car now like a jack and a spare tire. Found one that charges the battery in a matter of hours on sale for the same price as one that takes all day and all night. At the moment, the fifty foot orange extension cord lay extended on the ground between house and car, unplugged at both ends, for next time. I hesitate to put it up, expecting it to be needed every time I turn the key to start the car. I keep it coiled in a five-gallon bucket. No matter how carefully I coil the cord, uncoiling it amounts to untying knots in it, over and over, knots within knots. I would never trust a parachute that I packed.

 

Sophia's zebra legs

 

The vet's office sits at the bottom of Twin Oaks Mountain on Hwy 21 at Twin Oaks Gap. The road is a long downhill run in the gap. An air current flows through the gap. Main Street in Sparta is in the channel of air flow through Twin Oaks Gap. Sparta was originally Gap Civil. Another Gap. When the wind is blowing hard, the buildings along Main Street (Hwy 21)  make a canyon. A decade or so ago, the Sparta Revitalization Committee, volunteers, wanted to take out the center turning lane at the stoplight and plant it with ornamental trees. It would take a native maple to withstand the winds that rage through there. They would never plant a native tree. One without a price tag has no value. They were not going to do anything and they have not. Driving to the vet's office in the past with a dog, every dog I had started trembling at the top of the hill at Twin Oaks Gap. The scent of the office traveled up the hill through the gap. Every time, the dog trembled all the way down the long hill to the parking space. Cats of the past cried all the way to the vet and lay in the carrier traumatized all the way home.

 

Sophia's stripes

 

I'm curious to see how Sophia responds second and third times. I'm thinking about making a space to keep the carrier with door open and a cushion inside, make it a familiar, comfortable place. As it is, it takes up space and has no practical value at home. I'll do that. I see other people at the vet with dogs that don't seem to have a problem with the place. Mine always trembled while we sat in the waiting area. The hallway to the examining room takes a turn to the right and a turn to the left in a short space, then a left turn into the door. Nash Williams, the vet at the time, told me that a lot of people going out the door of the examining room turn left when the way out is to the right. He said no dog ever made that mistake. They all turn right. Sophia was curious about what was happening to her. She seemed comfortable with the female vet. Her mother was adopted from their office's ongoing selection of cats needing humans. The vet remembered Sophia's mother. Sophia is in good health, weighs 2.8 pounds, just right for her age. 

 

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

*

 

 

A GOOD DAY TO SHAVE A CAT

caterpillar

by tj worthington 1998

I have fallen in love with Caterpillar all over again. She showed me herself in such a way I was impressed beyond anything I knew she had in her. Took her to have her back and belly shaved. Her fur is so long and thick it knots readily. I've kept at it with scissors and a comb, but it got beyond scissors. I bought some electric shears and they could only cut through very little of it. I told her we had an appointment to have the mess removed from her back and belly. I was afraid to work scissors or shears on her belly, the skin so soft, and sensitive. I wanted to help her, not hurt her. The day before, I told her the next day we'd remove her mess. Time to go, no Caterpillar. I called. She always comes to me when I call. No Caterpillar. I searched and couldn't find her. Eventually, she came walking up the path from the car. She has a spot in some tall grass near where I park that makes a good bed for her with plenty of sunlight. I don't know why she wants to be so close to the road, just a couple feet, with cars whizzing by. This is a new spot for her, so I wasn't aware of it to look there. 

caterpillar would rather be at home

She's not one to feel urgency about time. I see her in my mind's eye hearing me call and thinking about it. She steps up to the food bowl and stares at it for half a minute or so, like she's assessing whether or not she's really hungry. It is the same with the water bowl. She stands and looks at it awhile before she takes a drink. She goes to the door, which is always open for her to come and go, stands and looks for awhile, then steps out. In winter when I open the door to let her out, I hold it open and let her think about it. It's her nature. She's always done that. She was lying there, comfortable, listening to me call her name. I speak her name while holding her, have a little song I sing to her around her name. I gave each of the kittens a song around their names, sang it to them since they were kittens. In their grown years, the song relaxed every one of them to purring. Even today, eighteen years old, singing Caterpillar's song to her relaxes her way down and she's purring right away. Her song goes, 

Caterpillar, pretty baby, 

pretty baby, Caterpillar.

I repeat it over and over. It takes her home right now. 

caterpillar relaxed getting shaved

Caterpillar affirmed my way of raising her, gentleness. I've never hit her, never raised my voice at her, never swept her off a piece of furniture in anger. I allow her to make her own decisions, except when it's time to be stuffed into the cat carrier to go to the vet. As usual, she cried all the way in the car. Mao, Mao, Mao. It gets severely tiresome, so I sang along with her, Mao, Mao, Mao. We had a duet going. She became conscious right away of us saying Mao together. It seemed to take her mind off the crying. It was like braying with Jack. I can now set him to braying by letting out my version of a bray, Oooohhh. This morning at carrot time, I started the bray from inside the house. Jack heard it and was braying full bray before I went out the door. I've started braying to him from inside the house at carrot and grain time, and he's ready. As soon as he hears it, he starts. Making Caterpillar's crying into a song took the edge off it for me and relaxed Caterpillar. I never take charge of her physically against her will, except going in and out of the carrier. 

tammy moxley

I took her to the groomer at Twin Oaks Vet. Walked in the door and saw a table with a couple of rubber nooses hanging from a bar for holding cats that don't want their bodies manipulated. I thought: Nobody is going to put one of them on my baby. I already knew she would not need it. My hands on her keep her calm, assured she is safe. Hands have never hurt her. They have only touched her in loving, nourishing ways, held her. The procedure took two full hours. I wanted to be the one holding her, didn't want somebody holding her by the back of the neck, afraid of her, stretching her face so tight her eyes look like she had three too many facelifts. I will not put my baby through a torture chamber with somebody she does not know forcing her against her will. I never once had to hold Caterpillar down. Several times I'd lift my hands from her and she never moved. I used my hands to comfort, not to control. A few times she looked like she was taking a nap. The second hour she was a little tired of it, but her patience held, with some low growling and one good hiss. I was so impressed with Caterpillar, I didn't know what to make of it. I was impressed with Tammy clipping her, too. She handled my baby with the grace and gentleness of her own baby. Caterpillar came home a happy cat. She peed on the pillow in the carrier on the way home, only because she couldn't hold it any longer. 

caterpillar happy cat

*

CATERPILLAR'S REVERSE MOHAWK

air bellows drive-thru art museum

 

 

Recent news is full of abuse, all kinds of abuse. Haven't had elder-abuse yet, so it's probably next. The nuttiest is the three "black" brothers who kept three white sweet-things locked up and chained in slavery conditions. What's crazy is recognizing that these are just the ones caught. I don't even want to ask how many uncaught. The black man credited with rescuing the three girls by helping one get out, his interviews went "viral" and fun to listen to. He talks straight. He talks so straight the home town tv station interviewer backed away from him and got off air fast when black man said he'd seen a young white girl run into the arms of a black man. He said that told him something wasn't right. The local tv interviewer panicked and started pulling the mic away from him and signed off in a hurry. The taboo subject for tv correctness, the origin and same as "political" correctness, is race. Or maybe it is one step further than that, bypassing denial. A white man with mic from the white world of denial with a black man from the black world where the people can't afford to live their lives in denial. Then MSNBC had the talking head Anderson Cooper interview him again. This time they let him roll. They could edit out whatever they don't want, reduce it to a few sentences the program director approves. I feel like his pop appeal is the truth he speaks. He is not bound by PC, spoke it clear and colorfully. Give the reward money to the girls, he has a regular paycheck, and don't call him a hero.

air bellows drive-thru art museum

Just off the phone with a friend who talks in terms of they, them, people, everybody, nobody, sweeping generalizations, abstractions and slang, punctuating with the occasional, "y'know what I mean?" to which I most often reply, "No." He can change subjects mid sentence and it takes a few more sentences for me to realize he'd switched tracks. Then I say, "Who is they?" Or, "You're not going to get EVERYBODY to do anything but ingest and evacuate. Of course not everybody understands what you understand." In our conversations I ask him at some point why it is necessary for everybody to think like he thinks. I tell him that if everybody did whatever his mass conformity wish may be at any moment, there would be nothing special about it. If everybody smoked reefer, there would be nothing cool about it. Then not smoking reefer would be cool. Missionary zeal about everything that comes up wears me out. One rage was that SCIENCE used to say one thing, now it says another. He wants an apology from SCIENCE for the backward science he got from Jr Hi. I, of fleeting rational mind, felt compelled to point out that SCIENCE, a word misused unto abstraction where it has no meaning but as a word on a spelling test, is a one-step-at-a-time progression. It took the step that was disproven by the next step to get to the present finding, itself another step. I even felt compelled to add that science does not "foresee" anything. The discipline of science is to counter the presumption of foresight. 

air bellows drive-thru art museum

 

 

His social life has been bars since he was old enough to lie about his age to get in. When we talk, I feel like we have a pitcher of beer on the table between us, soakin up the suds and him on a soapbox. It's all right. He is someone I took an interest in when he was a kid, bouncing off the walls, watching television every awake minute possible, mom's luggage carried from husband to husband, then boyfriend to boyfriend, then her own house her mother provided, the basement the teenage boy's room. I paid attention to him when he was a kid, which no one else did. When he spoke to me or wanted to tell me something, I didn't go on doing what I was doing as if not even a gnat flew by. I heard what he had to say. For me, that's just what I do. I've never known how not to listen when somebody talks to me. Now he's in his forties and among my closest friends. Again, just for being good to a kid. I understood the world of his grief and was able to give him some perspective, his situation seen third person, from afar, outside self. I have a feeling it is a past-life association that draws on us, different circumstances this time around, different horoscopes than before, different personalities, different everything, souls the same as before, after a period of cosmic rest for mind and soul.

 

caterpillar lioness behind bars

 

 

Looked at the clock and it was almost 2. I'd wanted to take Caterpillar to the vet to get the knots on her back shaved. This meant getting her in the cat cage to carry her in the car to the vet. She  sang to me all the way, one note, MIAO, over and over all the way to the vet, punctuated by a loud angry yelling it. I sang along with her, using my voice to comfort her, knowing she hates confinement that is not by choice. She can curl up in a small box looking like a nautilus shell and sleep, but when I put her in a big box with a cage door on it, carry her outside the house to the car, put her on the seat, she knows she aint gonna like whatever is next. She knew where we were going, the only place she'd ever been put in the cage and car to be taken to. Erin shaved her back. It's a reverse Mohawk. I wanted her to have her unmatted hair along her sides, legs, belly, neck and tail, allowing her the fur she can get to for grooming. She's not a cat that can twist into a knot to groom her back. Another Maine Coon I once knew had been shaved all over. She hated it, was in a perpetual foul mood until it was about an inch long.

 

the road home

 

 

Caterpillar has not let on like she has any problem with her back shaved. She knows the clippers cut off that old matted hair she really did not like. She acts like she feels better. She's been outside looking at the birds since our return home, happy for a sunny day. She's no longer a bird killer, so they are free and she is free to look at the flying candy bars with memories, knowing the flavor of each one. She twitches her lip, her whiskers wiggle, she squeaks. In her non-violent years she stretches out on the ground like a gray rock and watches. She's too lazy now that she's just turned 16 this week. Her eyes don't look old and she doesn't have any disabilities. She sleeps nearly all the time, which old cats do. I like to keep her fed as much as she likes to eat. At end of day I put leftovers out for the first possum to find it. I like my "peaceable kingdom" with the birds flying free, squirrels running up and down the tree trunks and the lion lying picturesque among the ferns and wild violets, looking to hurt no one, feeling good with that burden of knots lifted from her back.

 

spring in the mountains

   

*

SIAMESE KITTEN FINDING HER HOME

blue point siamese

What a Wednesday morning! By morning I had fallen in love with the kitten that came to my door in the early part of the night crying and desperately hungry. So hungry that when I put down a bowl of wet catfood for her, she gobbled it faster than she could eat it, sounding like she was saying thank you every bite she took, purring loud like a Siamese cat purrs, talking while she was eating, so hungry she was almost beyond eating. Twelve hours later in the morning she ate again with almost the same zeal, not quite so frenzied. In the night I fell in love with the kitten happy to be in the care of a human treating it well and the big old greatgrandma cat hissing and growling. By morning I didn't want to abandon the darling little cat that was five or six weeks old to the indifferent world. But I knew Caterpillar would never accept the kitten in her house. Never. The kitten would have a miserable life, Caterpillar threatening her with hisses and growls. I have peace at home, I told myself, and would be creating distress between the two cats and I would be distressed. The cat would grow up and start eating the birds I've been feeding over the last few years. It was too unnatural a situation to keep the kitten.

I had a hard time taking the kitten to the vet's office in Twin Oaks. I had rationalized it to the point I understood why I had to get the cat to a place to find a home. I was told they have a long waiting list for kittens. I despaired. Taking the kitten home would keep Caterpillar miserable until the kitten was gone. Then the woman at the desk saw the kitten, seeing the Asian beauty in its singularly Siamese form and colors. The kitten's face and eyes were so beautiful it pained me to look at her knowing I had to pass her on. I was just the turning point, the giant to take compassion and feed the wayfaring tiny stranger in this world only a few weeks, a gentle baby without a home, mother gone, all that went before, gone. Seeing the kitten's beauty, she decided to take the kitten. Erin gave kitten a thorough going over, flea spot, wormer, and put her in the cage by the door with a cat maybe a month older that looked at her with eyes that said, Don't come near me. I hated to leave baby with that cat glaring at it, but it was better than Caterpillar growling and hissing. They said somebody would take the kitten before the end of the day. Certainly by tomorrow if not today.

I told myself when whoever it is comes through the door and sees her, I trust it is someone looking to give a good cat a good home. I fell in love with this cat's temperament. It's attention was so immediately responsive, such a good nature, so innocent a soul in so new a body. I held her like I was holding the most precious gem, like the Hope diamond Liz Taylor owned, a soul in a new body lost in a world with coyotes looking for something to eat and a cat-killing dog living nearby. I realized my home was not necessarily a safe place for a kitten to grow up with the canine element as it stands today. I used reason to the best of my ability to convince myself the only responsible decision I can make for the cat's sake is to pass it on to someone looking for a good cat. That cat has a very high intelligence level. I wanted to raise this cat as my friend, but also knew the cat would love me too and then I die and the cat grieves and is given a new home the cat would have a hard time adjusting to. Everything pointed to passing the kitten to someone who will love it now at the beginning of it's life and give it a home. This kitten rewards love with love. It's a snuggler. The first person to hold the kitten will fall in love immediately. The kitten is that kind of precious.

By now I've almost lived through a lifetime. I am now able to see a baby, a soul in a new body as something so precious it can't be named. The same applies with a kitten. I held this little thing and it seemed the most "miraculous" anything has ever felt to me in this life. I've heard babies called miracles all my life, to the point it became meaningless, until I saw miracle in the kitten snuggling into my hands, purring, belly full and happy. The above picture I found googling Siamese cats and going to images. This is the kind of face the kitten has, nearly white fur, brown tail and feet. This looks so much like my little friend I'll let it pass for her. I'd kind of like to know who gets her, but at the same time don't want to know. I'll be wanting to go visit like a parent paying child support. I have voiced my prayers on her behalf with confidence she will have a good life. I don't need to see it, because I already see it. What a powerful emotional experience came from hearing a kitten crying at my door. At times it was painful, but all in all, it was a joyous experience. I'm grateful I'm able to care.

*

CATERPILLAR FRUSTRATED

     caterpillar

Talking with my friend Carole on the phone yesterday morning, I was mentioning Caterpillar's big knot of hair under her tail. It has been a problem for her in the litter box. I was thinking it needs done now, not tomorrow. This was Friday morning. Last day of the week. We got off the phone, I put a pillow in the cat carrier, then picked up Caterpillar to put her in the box. She wasn't going in. She made certain I understood I could not force her inside the box. I never, ever have handled her with force, hands that say I am taking charge of you. I made the mistake of not telling her we would be going to the doctor's office to get that knot of hair taken off her backside. She would have been ok with that. She wouldn't like it, but she has enough experience to know she comes back from the doctor better than she went in. I wasn't thinking and did it the old way, the way I had to do when the cats were younger and could run outside and disappear or hide in some place in the house. If I even pictured in my mind the vet's office, they were gone. At vet time, I had to pick one up by surprise and pop it in the box. They've never liked it. I don't like it either, but when we're out in the network of human society with cars and pavement and unfamiliar territory, a cat belongs secure in a cat carrier.



The moment I stuffed Caterpillar in far enough that I could get the door closed, she started howling. Howling as only Caterpillar can howl. It was a child's temper tantrum. Every breath she made a cat howl, rou-urr, two syllables, sometimes three when she was so frustrated she had to add emphasis. All the way to the vet, at 20 minute drive, Caterpillar howled. I could not comfort her by singing to her. I'd rub her nose, and that settled her for a short time. By the time we made it to the parking lot she'd wound down a little bit and wasn't doing it so relentlessly. I opened her door and pulled the cage out and she started again, louder that ever. She was mad and she was telling the world. I opened the door and carried her in howling and everyone's head jerked around. A woman at the counter said, "That cat is mad." Caterpillar's howling was so exaggerated it was comic, except it made all of us feel for her frustration. She meant business and and there was no two ways about it. She wanted out of that box.



Dr Michelle Tompkins was the one who would do the operation. I told her Caterpillar is not a biter and I'd hold her while she did whatever she did. Caterpillar doesn't like hands back there. I know she won't bite me, and I believed she would be more comfortable with her friend of her whole life she lived with holding her than a stranger. Michelle and I both were surprised at how Caterpillar calmed right down when I put her on the stainless steel table on her belly. I wondered if she'd go bananas over the electric clippers back there, but she seemed to understand what we were doing there, what was happening. She never made another fuss. It took 5 minutes, start to finish. Once she saw what we were doing there, she was happy with it. She made no fuss all the way home. I let her out of the cage in the house and she disappeared. She stayed in a hiding place all day and into the night. She might have been glad to be rid of that knot of hair, but she wasn't happy with me. I acted like we didn't know each other, when we do know each other. I overpowered her with my human will, which I don't like to do. I'd forgotten she's 14 1/2 and doesn't have a lot of resistance in her. I just overwhelmed her without explaining anything and tossed her in a box when she thought she was getting picked up to be held. I pissed her off by bypassing our closeness. We do communicate, and I acted like we don't.



Today she came out and sat on my lap while I watched a documentary about Andy Warhol. I'd picked up a tube of the one-spot flea eradication at the vet's office. I have always had to put it on in the past by surprise. While she was relaxed, I played with the fur on the back of her neck, separating it to get to the skin, then dabbed the tube on her and she acted like nothing happened. Caterpillar has become more vocal now that it's just the two of us. I talk to her in words and she has taken to vocalizing to me in cat language. She'll use her voice to get my attention, something she never did before. I read her tone of voice and she reads my tone of voice. We use eyes too when we talk. It's been 2 years of just us. We've learned from each other how to communicate, and we do pretty well now. When we don't, it's my lapse, not hers. She always took the back seat where my attention was concerned when Tapo and TarBaby were with us. Caterpillar let them get the attention and stayed to herself much of the time. 



Caterpillar was beginning to smell. When I estimated how much more she would smell if I waited all weekend to take her to the vet Monday, it needed doing today. I feel a great deal of love taking one of my friends to the doctor, Twin Oaks Vet has never let me down. I've always had the confidence they could help my friends and they always have. I felt almost as good taking Caterpillar home as I have an idea she felt knowing that knot of fur is gone from her rear end. She didn't know what to do about it, and now it's no longer an issue. That tantrum she threw was the most she has ever vocalized her displeasure. Though I felt for her frustration, I couldn't do anything about it. This is how we go to the doctor with cats. Once she got the picture where she was, I opened the door and spoke to her, asking her to come on out. I spoke to her like I do at home. Before picking her up, I asked if I could pick her up. She stopped and waited for me to lift her. I could talk to her and she responded casually. It seemed like when she saw where she was, she calmed down. She never made another fuss. But she was happy to get home.


 *

CATERPILLAR ON STEROIDS

caterpillar doin all right



Since Caterpillar's brother and sister have gone to be with Jesus, we're alone together getting to know each other in new ways. Her Maine Coon nature could not adjust to having two other cats around. They were a nuisance to her. She stayed in a back room in a secluded corner much of the time. She came to me for petting every 3 or 4 days. TarBaby and Tapo were getting their handling every day. I really never noticed they were in my attention much more than Caterpillar was. She was something of a bitch with the other 2 cats, especially Tapo, the smallest and female, bottom of pecking order. Caterpillar and TarBaby could pounce on her and start a fight at will, which they did, and she couldn't pounce back. It's frustrating at the bottom of the pecking order. Tapo tended to stay away from Caterpillar, actually did not like her. I feel strongly that when TarBaby died and left Tapo, she went soon after, I've become convinced, to get away from Caterpillar.



I have never wondered which one would be the one I'd live with after the others were gone. They were born the same morning, Mother's day 1997, and have lived with me since birth. By the time they were old enough to find homes for, I wasn't even going to take a chance one of my babies might be mistreated somewhere along in its life. The only way I could be assured they would not be mistreated was to keep them here. By then I already loved them so much I couldn't let them go, bottle feeding them for weeks, watching them grow, learn to walk, learn to run. At the beginning they were like 3 bodies with one soul. They began to individuate as their experiences increased and their individual natures came into play one step at a time. I saw them gradually become themselves as cats. Cats tend to be solitary creatures and don't want other cats around. When it came time for them to establish their pecking order, they fought sometimes fiercely.



Their play taught them how to use their claws and teeth in play and at war. Caterpillar became the dominant one right away. Her Maine Coon nature makes her go all out in a fight at the very start. Play with Caterpillar amounted to a serious fight in an instant. She'd go completely outside her mind. Her mind wasn't anywhere near when she fought. Same when she looks at birds through the window. She goes into an unconscious zone, her lips twitch, making her whiskers wiggle up and down, and she makes a squeaking sound several times. TarBaby and Tapo walked as far around Caterpillar as furnitue allowed. They had little to do with her, but to watch her go by out the corner of the eye to see if she's going to suddenly pounce. I always had them eat out of the same bowl. Fed them in a rectangular casserole bowl, a trough, wanting them to eat together because they are family. They never fought at the trough, and rarely growled, unless Caterpillar was in an especially rotten mood.



One day when they were perhaps 3 or 4 years old, I was at the kitchen sink opening a can of tuna for them, their occasional treat. TarBaby and Caterpillar jumped onto the table where I fed them. Aster the dog lived here then and any food at floor level was hers. The 2 cats started walking in a circle, like the yin-yang, one black, one tones of gray, walking around and around, getting more excited as they circled. The sound of the can opener on the can excited them. It put me in a hurry, because I knew about the time TarBaby touched Caterpillar it would be on. TarBaby touched Caterpillar and instantly she had him down on his back boxing him. Instead of fighting back, which TarBaby was quite capable of doing, he let her box his head with her big paws.



They were howling like an outdoor cat fight and Tapo from the other room came running into the kitchen, made a flying squirrel big air leap and landed on Caterpillar's back with all four feet. Caterpillar went into a hissing fit, wiggled out from under Tapo. TarBaby wrestled his way out of there the moment she let go. Caterpillar spun 180 degrees around hissing, in another world. She looked around a moment and shook her head so fast her ears buzzed like hummingbird wings, then looked around getting her bearings on where she was. Tapo stayed on the table laughing. It was the funniest trick I ever saw her pull when it comes to making a cat jump. It seemed to be her way of getting back at Caterpillar for pouncing on her so much. Scaring Caterpillar so bad she lost all sense of what happened, Tapo got away with her jests. Caterpillar didn't seem to have any recollection of what sent her into that zone. The only reason Caterpillar didn't jump straight up was Tapo was on top of her. It was like Caterpillar had no recollection of what just happened. She flipped into another zone and when she came back she was on the table and I was serving yummy tuna.



For a couple weeks after Tapo died, Caterpillar seemed glad she was gone. Then I saw and felt a sorrow come into her that she lived with for a few weeks. I comforted her and she comforted me. We got through losing TarBaby and Tapo together. I began to see after awhile that Caterpillar and I barely know each other. Of course, she knows me inside out, it was I who knew her so little. We didn't know how to communicate. Gradually, we worked out getting our meaning across. I was going to say without language, but I have language and she knows an awful lot of words I use talking with her. Plus, I'm learning she understands what I'm saying when I tell her something in words like talking to somebody who understands. I've learned from several experiences that she understands me now. She has made a connection with my mind we didn't have before. I had that with TarBaby and Tapo. I feel like it's Caterpillar's turn now to communicate with me by however they do it, a kind of telepathy I've come to suspect strongly I've had with all my pets, even before I became aware of it.

Wednesday I took her to the Twin Oaks vet to take care of a skin problem she's had several years. Little scab-like things on her back from the middle of her back to the tail. I figured they had something to do with fleas, but when I kept her flealess they were still there. Dr Thompkins explained to me about steroids, how they've found a steroid shot helps relieve her. Dr found "flea dirt" meaning she does have fleas. Of course. Put some Revolution one spot flea remover on her. While Caterpillar was getting her shot I was thinking how funny it is, now she'll never be able to play pro baseball, ride a bicycle in the tour de France, and they may even write about her in National Enquirer. CATERPILLAR ON STEROIDS. Her career possibilities ruined before they started. She'll have to accept her fate as my cat and go on laying about the house, which she doesn't seem to mind too much. She loves getting all my attention. I'm happy to give it to her. She used to go about with an attitude like she was in charge and no cat better get in her way. That attitude is gone. I've discovered the Caterpillar behind the attitude that was something of a mask, her top of the totem pole face. She has new eyes.  

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VISITING TAPO

tapo

caterpillar

Went to Twin Oaks this afternoon to see Tapo in the dog and cat hospital, coed. She looked miserable. A hose going into her nose that went to the stomach, the hose taped to the top of her head, a clear plastic collar around her head to keep her paws off the hose, all of it very well cared for. She was comfortable as could be on a warm cloth. She was on the 2nd level of the cages, so I stood on my knees and kept both hands on her the whole time I was there, talked to her, sang her song to her, explained this hose in the nose is temporary, that it's for making her well so she can come home.

Julie said the gum around her broken tooth was so infected the tooth came out easily. There was a great deal of whatever is the problem with her not eating. It hurt too much. It explains why she drank only from the right side of her tongue. The bad tooth was on the left side and probably hurt like hell when water touched it. She was in misery. A toothache is the worst kind of pain there is to endure. She's had this pain at least a month. I don't know when she broke her tooth. Because her stomach was so empty, they're giving her a little bit at a time and a bit more and more each time until she's ready to eat enough to sustain herself. Taking the slow way to get her stomach ready for catfood will keep her from throwing up when she tries to eat. They're treating her for the liver issue as well as the tooth. All to the good. I always feel like my friends are in good hands at Twin Oaks. Everyone who works there loves the animals.

Tapo and Caterpillar both need holding and talking to once a day. They don't ask for more than that, but a good session of purring keeps them calm and comfortable the rest of the time. Today I kept both hands on Tapo the whole half hour with her, talking, singing, petting her, telling her she's safe there and soon we'll be going home. I mentioned that Caterpillar missed her, though wasn't sure that was the case. However, Caterpillar has been awfully quiet since Tapo left here. TarBaby gone and never came back, I've an idea if she's wondering if Tapo is gone forever. She smelled Tapo on my hand when I came home. I supposed that would give her assurance Tapo is at least still living.

I have a bit of a feeling that Caterpillar is feeling alone. Whether she liked them or not, the other 2 were her world since she was born. She's alone in the house now, the only cat. I wondered if she would like being the only one, but she doesn't seem to be elated in any way all by herself. She might have been hard for them to get along with, but she didn't know that. She was just her Maine Coon self. It's just that her strike zone reached way beyond theirs. Anywhere near Caterpillar was inside her strike zone when she was in certain moods. I've an idea when Tapo comes home that Caterpillar will be happy to see her and their relationship will smooth out. It smoothed a great deal after TarBaby died. I don't want to lose either one of them before necessary. I sure don't want to lose Tapo over a broken tooth. Everybody says they're old, but they have vitality like they've had all their lives. Tapo only started acting old when she was so weak she could hardly move.

I see Tapo every day to give her the purring time she needs per day. I understand that purring is healing for cats, like laughter is for us. I want her time in the hospital the least traumatic it can be. I know how good it feels to be visited in the hospital and the nursing home. My forebrain tells me it's temporary and I'll go home when cured. Tapo doesn't have the forebrain, so I show her my meaning, that I am not abandoning her. Words are cheap. Actions tell our truth. When I leave one of my friends at Twin Oaks, it's with full trust from 34 years experience with 3 dogs and 5 cats over that time. They know I like to visit my friends when they're in for a stay. I'm grateful to everyone who works there for the care my friends receive in their hands. If I had the money to do it with, for Christmas I'd like to put angels made of lights all over the roof at Twin Oaks vet, a host of them.