Favorite Fun Website for CatGeeks

 http://www.catslikefelix.co.uk/   This is the link for a massively fun website located in the UK.  Purina/Nestle created it.  Check it out.  Felix is a really cute animated cat who walks all across the screenm meows and has lots of ways you can play with him.  So if you are stuck inside an office and miss the sounds of a cat, pull up Felix for a quick cat fix.

Not my cat but found online. Priceless

Gotta love that face

Holding Paws

I am holding paws with a sick cat this morning. Freckles is taking medicine to deal with something he has going on. And he feels pretty punky. We (he and I) are waiting to go in for x-rays and other diagnostic tests to find out just exactly what it is. Thank god for pet insurance. Meanwhile, he seems comforted to have me hold his paw. I am honored by his trust. In sickness and in health...

Old Songs and Vet Visits

Old songs by the Mills Brothers' and vet visits seem lightyears apart, don't they? But their song, You Always Hurt the Ones You Love, seems especially appropriate tonight. http://www.lyricsdownload.com/mills-brothers-you-always-hurt-the-one-you-love-lyrics.html I took the cat for a vet visit yesterday. My shoe loving, dishwasher exploring, semi-feral cat was sick so off to the vet we went. Freckles, the cat, is such a great cat but such a fighter. At least the staff at the hospital knows that it will take 4 attendants, several blanket wraps and much patience to extract information from him. And thankfully they do this testing out of my sight. I become -- well -- tense. I must have mentioned before that I hate needles. But I hate sick cats more. So now we are back home with a bottle of pills and an instruction to call tomorrow to let the vet know how he is doing. Sigh. The last time I had a sick (really sick) animal friend it was my Newfoundland dog who developed intestinal cancer. Fingers crossed, this is not that. I will just keep muttering to myself, "It is just a cat thing. Just a cat thing I have no name for...yet. And it is all going to be ok." Sigh.

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May all beings be blessed.

Caving Cats

The Whole Foods in my area packs groceries into paper bags. No other packaging options. And I just discovered my cats love crawling inside and caving.

Drifting

When I "sit" with one of my cats, I notice the cat stays calmer if I keep my mind clear. The second my attention drifts away, so does the cat. Hmmm.

Nora the Cat (All Props to YouTube)

It is just so sweet how Nora actually listens to the music. Just amazing. It reminds me of the dharma talk our sensei gave today. He talked about listening for the Buddha as we chant the nimbutsu. He was so right. And Nora reminds me of this quality of listening.

On Squirrels and Newfoundlands

This is edited from an old email to an animal rescue friend.
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I just found your great and funny and wise email a whole month after you wrote it. There are no ghosts....just unread emails! ... Years and Years ago, I had a squirrel get into my house and my daughter pointed to the curtain and lisped (she was 4 years old at the time) that there was a squirrel on the curtain. I pooh, poohed only to discover there really was a squirrel making free with the curtain that hung over the fold out couch. Eeeck. So we scared the squirrel who jumped onto the couch and then beat feet into the coils and things inside. I unfolded the couch part way to scare him out. Didn't work because I stopped when I thought of squishing him in there. So I brought in one of the dogs who really scared him and he ran out of the house with me following him with a broom. The neighbors must have smiled.

Water Cooler Stories Cat Style

I wish I could speak 'cat.' My guy has started to knock over the water bowl with its biggish water reservoir. I think it is because he wants to play but it could be a dispute over who is allowed to use it. He is very territorial. He tries to do this with the remaining reservoir but can't because that device is too close to the ground and has too broad a base. So he can't take a swing and push it over in the momentum. I just wish I knew what the cats were talking about at the water cooler to start this water cooler shoving. Until then, I have mops and towels handy to swab up the water. And see about getting this:

Cats adapt and so must I

Where am I today? Home sick. Head hurt too much to even try to drive in to work. I suspect it was a good thing because today was the fixit man's time to repair the damage done by the renters who lived here before me. A case of bored bull dogs meet windows and window frames. Between the migraine and monitoring the repairman, I am exhausted. And now he is gone and I get to put up the curtains again. I am trying to avoid thinking about that by telling myself the paint on the trim still needs to dry. Sigh. And on top of that? The ledge where the cats loved to soak up the sun is gone now. Bigger sigh..... Ah, well.... Cats adapt and so must I.

Rapacious Creditors--Not Who You'd Think

I am beginning to believe the next most rapacious creditor - next to death - are the lobbying groups in America. Last year, I gave to a number of rescue and environmental lobbying organizations. This year, I've had a change of philosophy and plan on giving time instead of bucks. But that doesn't stop the Democratic National Committee and its various clones from calling me after 9 pm on weekends to request aid. It doesn't stop the other environmental lobbying groups from calling either.

Rescue groups are not as well organized although they need the money even more than the dems or the environmentals. So I try to pick up the calls from them. But to avoid the others? I had to stop to think about the best way to do that and finally realized that I don't have to answer.

So now I look at the who is calling information on my phone and if I don't recognize the number or the person I answer and immediately hang up. What would my parents who taught me proper phone manners say? Probably "right on." Until then

Rotten weeks

I am exhausted. It has been a rotten week for deaths, a rotten week for headaches, a rotten week generally. Here in D.C., rotten gets worse when the traffic is bad. And last week, it was bad. So today it was just me, throbbing head and the cats. One day I'll feel better. Until then

Hunting for Serenity

Until then, hunting for serenity is ... attainable ... when I see my cat wrinkle his whiskers in his sleep.

Great Quotes don't always have to be Serious

"How long will it be before I can expect some light, some dinner, and a massage?"
ALL OF WHICH PROVES, ONCE AGAIN, THAT WHILE DOGS HAVE MASTERS, CATS HAVE STAFF!

Cyclones of the Soul

In re-reading my entry for Sunday night, I realize that there was a extratropical cyclonic depression going through the Northern Virginia area where I live. Extratropical Cyclones (also known as Nor'easters) are winter hurricanes and odd things happen during them. Odd things like sudden freezes, sudden thaws, high winds and emotional ups and downs. But the reason I bring up cyclones is the emotional aspect to them. The winds I sat through on Sunday gave me and the cats huge feelings of dread, we just knew something was going to happen. So what to do on those days when dread gets the upper hand, when the wind of change is making the soul's windows shudder? I pray and gather the cats close and jump onto the www.tarot.com website to check my impressions. I probably should have gotten my dowsing stuff out but I was so unclear about what was going on I would have asked really general questions. Sometimes just sitting through dread is the toughest thing to do. Just don't try to do it alone.

Oblivion and Final Journeys

Oblivion. Each of us chooses how to block out senselessness in our lives. I choose to rescue animals and write. Sadly, in avoiding what makes me sad, I avoid people I wanted to get to know better. I should be seeking the grace of their presence to bless my own life.

FivL Cats

Today I helped out at the Friends of Homeless Animals FivL Cat Shelter. www.foha.org I have said it before and I'll say it again, FivL cats are the friendliest felines I have ever met. All they want to do is snuggle into laps. They will even share lapspace with their housemates. FOHA has about 17 cats at any given time who are FivL positive. The shelter is one of the few that believes in rescuing FivL cats. Most vets and shelters will put them down just as soon as they learn they are sick. And that's such a shame.

Taming Feelings? Try Herding Cats.

Here is a photo of the cat that brought me into rescue. Ally Cat. Much of what I do in rescue spills over into my life. And Ally was the match that lit the fire. She radicalized me as much as Katrina and 9/11 did. As I foster and work with animals bringing them back from fear into trust, I realize that direct confrontation doesn't work at all. Of course, this makes sense on a physical level. A cat who is cornered is a formidable opponent. A dog who is cornered is the same. My way of dealing with these animals is just to sit with them. Sit. Not gesture, not read a book in the same room, just sit. And what begins to happen is interesting. The animals start to sit with me. Not face to face but at various angles. I see the more fearful among them settling into quietness out of the corner of my eye. And those small glimpses are flickers of trust starting up inside those critters. I often hear that if you blink slowly at a cat you are showing them love and vice versa.

The cats I have rescued are no where near the slow blinking stage. They pant when they are picked up. They need catnip toys to tussle with to drain off excess fear. But after a time (variable for each) they become slow blinkers. Still independent, still free to walk away, but much more interactive. In fact, I feel sad for people who want to adopt a cat that is immediately interactive because they miss so much of the journey into the life of another soul.

So how does that rescue reaction of patience spill into my own life? It teaches me how to deal with my feelings of sadness, of fear, of pride, of inadequacy. I have a long standing habit of turning feelings into pain because it is easier for me to deal with pain than to deal with feelings. And it is a habit. When I first started working with rescue, I noticed I wasn't hurting as much. I began to develop more patience being able to sit with my own emotional reactions to fear and the others instead of rushing to turn the emotion into physical pain which I can use to run away from people and animals both.

Ringing in the Ears

Tinnitus....http://www.hearinglossweb.com/Medical/Tinnitus/tinnitus.htm#sound

For years I was sure I was losing my hearing. I can't hear conversations when I am in a restaurant because the background noise from other diners' messes with my comprehension. My girls often complain that I don't listen or even when I do "tune" in, I don't hear what they are saying. But I am pretty sure I hear ok. I hear sadness on the phone when I talk with my sister, I hear concern from other family members, I hear the cats mutter to each other as they plan a revolt against me, I hear the crows say thank you to me when I put out their corn. I hear the important things. I just don't hear my daughters' when they mumble about their day or give me driving directions. I finally caved into the peer/parent pressure and went to have my hearing checked. It turns out that my hearing is fine. At least it is for a 55 year old woman. And that's a good thing.

But I have ringing in the ears from all the Excedrin I take during the day to deal with muscle aches. And the ringing is in the same register or key as normal conversation level voices so one noise blanks out the other. I really need to learn to lip read to compensate for this.

On the other hand, I am not so sure that not hearing voices is such a bad thing. I won't ever be burned at the stake like Joan of Arc, I won't ever be committed to a nut house for hearing voices (I may be committed for other things perhaps) and I won't have to be bored by the political debates because I can tune them out.