14 is the mew 72

From vetstreet.com, so that Pekoe gets enough candles every January.

How Old Is My Cat?

We all love easy answers, so after the idea of "dog years" became popular, we started seeing the same methodology applied to cats: Take the lifespan of a cat, compare it to a person, then get your formula, which is why you may frequently hear that 1 cat year equals 4 human years.

You’re ahead of me already, I bet: A 1-year-old cat is far more mature than a 4-year-old child, and a 2-year-old cat is fully mature, which can never be said of a human 8-year-old.

Because cats have less size diversity than dogs do, however, in this case we actually can make the formula work, if we start calculating at a cat's second birthday. The first year takes a cat to late adolescence, and the second into young adulthood. You can then start counting in fours: Figure a 2-year-old cat at 24 "human years." and add four years for every one thereafter, making a 4-year-old cat the equivalent of a 32-year-old person. That makes a 9-year-old cat about 52 in human terms, and 16-year-old cat about 80.

Typical work email

From our receptionist who has had to put up with me for nearly 15 years:

From: [the front desk]
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 3:31 PM
To: Leta
Subject: Boxes in mailroom

My reply:

From: Leta
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 3:43 PM
To: [the front desk]
Subject: RE: Boxes in mailroom

Thank goodness.  I was afraid the kittens wouldn't get here before the weekend.

Can’t believe the vendor forgot the air holes *again.*

Hey, do we have a litter box anywhere around here?

A change to the menu

I took Pekoe into the shop because you're supposed to do that every so often.  And because he'll be 13 in January, thus making him officially an Old Guy Cat.  And because (hmmm ... how to put this delicately ...) I was seeing something in the litter box that looked not as solid as would be considered optimal.

He is generally good tempered, has a good appetite.  He's energetic and uses his litter box.  So I really had nothing to worry about, per se, but again, he's an senior cat* and I would hate to find out that he had something we could fix had I only brought him in in time.


So I got his fabulous cat carrier out of the closet and let him play with it** and took him in to see The Vet.

It turns out that Mr. Elderly Feline has -- depending on who you ask -- either Kidney Failure or Chronic Kidney Disease.  This is not uncommon for geezer cats.  (Which made it not one tiny bit less disconcerting for me to hear.  This guy has been my pal and companion for 12 years and I love him a lot.)  And no matter what you chose to call it, the short answer is that Pekoe has a medical situation that is serious but not acute and will need to be managed.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that "managing" his health situation will not require that I give him a pill every day.  He ... doesn't like pills.

We put him on a "bland diet," which means that instead of the crunchy dry cereal that he is so fond of, I now feed him baby food.  Pureed chicken or beef or turkey with broth.***  I wasn't sure how he'd feel about that because he does love his crunchy dry cereal and usually ignores most meat-based human food, but he loved it. Loved.  It.  You'd have thought I was feeding him chocolate covered donuts.  He greets me at the door, usually with a "Yay, you're home!  I missed you!" kind of attitude.  Now he greets me with "Yay, you're home!  Let's open another of those jars!"

The Vet gave (read = sold) me some new crunchy dry cereal that is made by Hills and is specially formulated for cats with kidney issues (K/D).  I mix some of that into the baby food which slightly reduces his laser-like focus on the baby food because with the cereal mixed in, he fills up faster and doesn't gulp it down like a 7-year old at a birthday party.  So it's more like plain donuts ...

I'll soon be buying K/D wet food from the internet.  (The internet delivers.  The vet does not.)  Soon Pekoe will get something like wet food for breakfast and dry food for dinner or some such and I don't anticipate any transition issues because his approach as a former stray has always been "You're feeding me?  Again today? How cool is that!"

However ... the subcutaneous hydration?  Not sure he's going to be such a fan. Stay tuned for Leta and Pekoe's adventures with needles.


*One chart I saw broke cat ages into four levels:  up to 1 year = kitten; 1 year + = adult; 7 years + = mature; and 11 years + = senior.

** He loves that carrier and treats it like his own personal clubhouse.  I may have to just put him in there every so often and walk him around just for fun so that he doesn't start to think of it as the Theme Park Ride That Only Goes to the Vet.

***Strong recommendation:  Beechnut.  It's the only baby food I found that was, in fact, meat and meat broth instead of meat and corn starch.  Because the vet, for some reason, didn't suggest that I give Pekoe a daily serving or two of corn starch.  He didn't say not to, but even so ...

It runs in the family*

It seems that the cat has a possible theater career ahead of him ...

Some friends and I started a tradition on Facebook called Foto Friday. The rules are pretty simple: take a picture on Friday and post it to your news feed and you're in! No pictures of, or pertaining to, the men's room are acceptable for Foto Friday. Anything else is generally fair game, although our offices do seem to figure in a pretty high percentage of the shots taken.

I wanted to take a non-office Friday Foto and I had a decent idea. I would take a picture of Pekoe and his (by the end of the workday) empty food bowl. So I brought the camera home from work and after the initial writhing through my legs to express his joy at my return, Peek and I headed into the kitchen. I took an establishing shot of the tragically empty bowl:



I then took a nice shot of Pekoe looking mournfully at me while standing next to the tragically empty bowl. The camera told me to change the batteries and shut itself off. Oh, well. Okay. I feed Pekoe and then went to the computer to download the images, but alas! The second shot didn't save because of the low battery.

New batteries were added to the camera and then Pekoe was informed that, as we had lost the original image, we would now need to recreate "Sad Pekoe at the Empty Food Bowl." So, to his obvious confusion, I picked up his food bowl and dumped all but a few crumbs of the contents back into the airtight plastic container that keeps the cat food reasonably fresh and reasonably unavailable to strew all over the kitchen.

I set the bowl down and like a trooper he resumed his previous position and looked up at me on cue.**



Note how he has arranged to show off his lovely green eyes to best effect, to minimize any "devil cat red eye," and yet to very clearly express "What's the with empty bowl? We feed cats here!"

And yet ... the director in me reviewed the shot (if Peek and I had been filming, I would have been "reviewing the dailies" or something like that) and decided that we needed one more take.

Pekoe had already wandered off to sniff and bat at things, two of his major occupations, but when summoned to the set, promptly hit his mark and was ready to go.



As can be clearly noted in the second shot The Artist built on his previous character choices for Starving Cat, adding in layers relating to his previous life as a stray. There is just a hint of the dichotomy between being grateful for being fed every day and fearing dependency on another for his basic needs.

I swear he takes direction better than some far more experienced human actors I've worked with.

All the material we needed was now safely in the can, as it were, so the food was replaced in the bowl and the The Artist was rewarded with a couple of Pounce.***


*Okay, just to clarify, I do not regard myself as Pekoe's "Mom." His staff, maybe, but not his mom. Or any other family member. But the title just seemed more euphonius than "It runs in the human/animal companionate relationship."

**The truly discerning (or truly anal, decide for yourself) will notice that the arragement of food particles lacks continuity from the establishing shot. I was working from memory. I did the best I could.

***Which is about as much as I been paid for theater in the past year, come to think of it.

The power of a name

I keep a couple of laser pointers on hand for my Boss to use during presentations. Whenever I lend him one we have the same conversation as he is testing it about not blinding the accounting staff who work at the opposite end of the hall from me. The other day, however, we were playing the light along that wall and I started joking about seeing if we could make the accountants chase after it as my cat does.

Then I got a great idea.

"We need a kitten!"

"A what?"

"A kitten! If you have a laser pointer, you ought to have a cat around to chase the light dot. We could get a kitten and give it a really cool radar name!"

"There are no really cool radar names."

"Oh yeah? We could name it Swerling."

He thought. "That is a really cool radar name."

"I know!"

And then he thought - for the barest second - that maybe we should get a kitten for the office and name it Swerling. Common sense, tragically, prevailed.

But for that brief moment I nearly got to have a kitten at work solely because I thought up a good name for it.

FAI

I normally suffer from a bit insomnia but now I suffer from the far more pernicious FAI - Feline Assisted Insomnia. I don't always know when to expect a FAI event but they all start out more or less the same: I go to bed and hope to get some sleep. I need to cut that out, clearly, as it must be the cause of my problem.

I read for a bit and just after I've turned out the light and drifted off, Pekoe (the fabulous orange tabby) will find a way to make some kind of noise that I either can't identify or can't ignore. So I wake up and have to deal with stopping him from making that noise and then I'm all awake and alert and can't get back to sleep for quite some time. Considering that he's often in another room when it happens I am impressed at how well he times my nodding off.

A couple of Thursday nights ago, though, he kicked it up a bit. Instead of the usual vaguely annoying* or unidentifiable noises, he made a sound that was all too identifiable - smashing glass. And when you've drifted off a couple of minutes before and then hear smashing glass, you don't think "Hmmmm. I wonder what that was. I guess I'll find out in the morning. NTS: Wear slippers or walk carefully." No, you leap fully alert out of bed thinking "What the hell?!" and wondering 1. what he had managed to smash; 2. how much you will/won't miss that thing; and 3. if the smash was first in a series.

Let's hope that the answer to 3 is "no" because what he managed to smash - which I will only miss until I replace it - is the glass in the front of the china cabinet. From the circumstantial evidence, he was trying to jump from the table (where he's not supposed to be) to the top of the china cabinet (ditto), didn't quite make it, and managed to kick in the glass front to the cabinet. According to my Dad, Mom's parents bought the dining set sometime in the late 30s or early 40s, so that glass is 65 or 70 years old minimum.

It survived several of my grandparents moves, Mom and Dad's moves, and my moves but when a cat is determined that I not sleep, well something has to give.

And so, here for the Peekster, is the first song I've come across that he could have written.


*Like when he plays "small object on the dresser hockey"

I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass - Nick Lowe

l love the sound of breaking glass
Especially when I'm lonely
l need the noises of destruction
When there's nothing new
Oh nothing new, sound of breaking glass

I love the sound of breaking glass
Deep into the night
l love the sound of its condition
Flying all around
Oh all around, sound of breaking glass
Nothing new, sound of breaking glass

Oh all around, sound of breaking glass
Nothin' new, sound of breakin' glass
Safe at last, sound of breaking glass

I love the sound of breaking glass
Deep into the night
I love the work on it can do
Oh a change of mind
Oh change of mind, sound of breaking glass
All around, sound of breaking glass
Nothing new, sound of breaking glass
Breaking glass, sound of breaking glass

Vroom! Cough! Cough!

My old vacuum bit the dust. Or rather, sucked up the dust and then spewed it around the room and into my lungs. The vacuum is an ancient orange Hoover upright that's nearly as old - or maybe older - than I am. Okay, probably not older, but Mom had it for years and years and then I got it.* It worked great and, in fact, the motor still does. But the tubing connecting the machine to the bag is of less stern stuff and finally gave way. Ron, the guy at the vacuum repair place told me that it's not fixable (and that he can't even use it for parts), so I set about looking for a new vacuum.

At first I wanted a bagless one, but Ron told me that they are basically just boat payments for vacuum repair guys and that he doesn't sell them. (Almost all of the vacuums in for repair that day were bagless, as he emphatically pointed out.)

Then he showed me some lovely, quiet, reliable machines in the $200 - $250 range. With HEPA filters and everything. The Lexus of vacuums. They were pretty, too. But I told him that I'm one person, with one cat, in a reasonably small apartment. At which point we moved over to the Hoover Tempo.

Also right before our move to the Hoover was my mentioning that I was only pre-shopping that day because my boyfriend noticed that Consumer Reports did vacuums in the March issue. CR kind of annoys Ron, largely because he is convinced that they have one guy who tests vacuums who is 6'4" and a former linebacker and that 5'0", 100-pound little old ladies don't have the same handling and maneuverability experience as Bruno. All in all, a pretty entertaining rant.

The Tempo is more like the Honda Civic of vacuums, I guess - less flashy, a little louder, a lot less expensive. No HEPA, but good filters that would get most of the allergens. And it's a pretty color blue. And what singer wouldn't want a vacuum called the "tempo"? So I said that I'd be back after I checked what CR had to say (pause while Ron rolls his eyes).

That was Monday. The CR info came in on Wednesday and I went sprinting back to the vacuum store only to find out that all the Tempi were sold out. They would get at least three more the next day, but one of them was already promised to someone else. (The Other-Guy-Who-Isn't-Ron looked puzzled that they were flying out the door so fast. I wasn't surprised at all as the Tempo was the first vacuum on CR's list that was under $300 and got good ratings. It was #6, in fact, and got two "excellents," three "very goods," and two "goods." And it is the only vac in the first ten that costs less than $300.)

Yesterday they got the delivery from Hoover and tagged one for me. I went to collect it after work and Ron assembled it for me, gave me some good maintenance advice, showed me how to change the belt. He then showed me how the belt that arrived in my brand new vac was already a bit stretched out as he was replacing it for me, which is basically the reason why I went to Ron's hole-in-wall vacuum repair instead of a big box store. One of Mom's prejudices is that big box stores are staffed by high school students who don't know and don't care and considering how many parts Ron assembled before he carried the Tempo out to the car for me, I'm really glad that I bought it from him.

I picked up some kind of an upper respiratory thing from the unintentional dust storm in the apartment so I haven't been playing with my new toy yet, but this weekend? This weekend, my darlings, we vacuum!


*According to Mom, by confiscating it. Or maybe her word was "steal."

Sent to my bosses

Today I found this article that I sent to my bosses (Wind farm threat to radar) because radar? That's what we do. And because I like for the people who write my performance reviews to believe that I read the Wall Street Journal in search of work-related content. (Believe and is accurate, as we know, are not always members of the same set.)

I had found the WSJ article because this article on the TerraPass website linked to it (This is a windmill? Really?). And you should check it out just for the picture.

My favorite part of the Journal's article, of course, is this snarky little comment, because there are some days when SLC are all that I have to live for.

Then there are the image problems, from NIMBY campaigns to occasional massacres of migrating birds (though few propose outlawing cats.)

I have actually been to countries (the Netherlands, England) that have working windmills from the Old-ee Days that were intended to grind grains, rather like the mills of the gods (Greece also used windmills back in The Day.)

Nowadays windmills are built to produce clean, renewable power* but when I hear the word "windmill" I'm more likely to think of "ships of the land with their high canvas sails."

Windmills was one of my very favorite of songs that Clam Chowder sang, especially as it is sung to a waltz tune and waltzes are one of the very few dances that I can execute with any kind of grace. It will be in my head for the rest of the day and if you like to hear a couple of verses and the refrain, give me a call.


*And to grind birds exceedingly small, I suppose, the same service that hydro turbines performs for fish. And I support both of these technologies. Nothing is created perfect. Hydro engineers reduced the fish kills with fish ladders. I am sure that the wind engineers can do something similar for the birds. Like building windmills upside down. Improve, don't abandon.


Windmills by Alan Bell

In days gone by, when the world was much younger
Men harnessed the wind to work for mankind
Seamen built tall ships to sail on the ocean
While landsmen built wheels the corn** for to grind

{Refrain}
And around and around and around went the big sail
Turning the shaft and the great wooden wheel
Creaking and groaning, the millstones kept turning
Grinding to flour the good corn from the field

In Flanders and Spain and the lowlands of Holland
And the kingdoms of England and Scotland and Wales
Windmills sprang up all along the wild coastline
Ships of the land with their high canvas sails

{Refrain}

In Lancashire, lads work hard at the good earth
Ploughing and sowing as the seasons declare
Waiting to reap all the rich, golden harvest
While the miller is idle, his mill to repair

{Refrain}

Windmills of wood all blackened by weather
Windmills of stone, glaring white in the sun
Windmills like giants all ready for tilting
Windmills that died in the gales and the sun

**In this context, of course, "corn" means "grain."

When you are away

I stumbled across this on the way of cats via the site for National Blog Posting Month.* And while I'm not so sure that these suggestions necessarily apply to Pekoe, they do seem to apply to me.

Well, mostly. I really have no desire to smell your luggage. None at all.

Of course, I am XX, so I really like wearing clothes belonging to my male friends. Sleeping in a guy's sweatshirt? Bliss. Happy were the days when I could fit into Chort's jeans. Also long gone, alas.

But that last paragraph? About being low maintenance but not no maintenance? That could have been written about me.

When We Are Away

When we have to be away for a while, from a short overnight trip to a long vacation, we might wonder if the cat will miss us.

Yes, they will.

This is where the cat's excellent sense of time and grasp of routine works against them. They know we are supposed to be home, and we are not. Being cats, they are going to think the worst.

Whatever plans we make to take care of their needs while we are gone, we should try to make them as reassured as possible.

Before:

* Talk about the fact that we are going away, but we will be back. This will alert them that a change is coming, and we know about it, and are thinking of them.
* Discuss the changes to the routine that will occur while we are gone. If we are getting a pet sitter, have them come over and be introduced. Involve the cat in the preparations.
* I use visual aids when I'll be away. I let them smell the suitcases and watch me pack. I explain I can't take them with me. When I was away for a week, I held Mr. Bond up to the calendar, and showed him, with his paw, that I'd be gone this day and this day and this day, but This Day, I'd be back.

During:

* If we can, call home and let the cat listen to our voice on the phone. At least they will know we still exist, somewhere. We can leave a message for them on the answering machine.
* Wear an old shirt which we don't wash before we leave. Put it on the cat's favorite sleeping area so we have a presence at home.
* Keep a soft toy in reserve which we have rubbed on our hair and the nape of our neck. Have the caretaker present it to the cat at some point and tell them we'll be home soon.

After:

* The cat may greet us joyously when we reappear. Or, they may not. We might get the turned back so we know they were hurt by our absence. Mr. Bond has been known to keep this up for almost ten minutes.
* A cat like Puffy has a different reaction. He bounces over to get in my lap, and then he remembers I was gone. But I'm here now, so he gets over it quickly.
* Of course we are glad to see them, no matter how they react at first. Let them know we missed them and hated to be away.

Don't be fooled by the cat's low maintenance reputation. This only makes it easy to take care of their physical needs. Their emotional needs are deep and lasting, and not as easy to address, even with a temporary caregiver they know and like. If we do our best to let them know we also missed them while we are away, it gives them a pattern that will reassure them the next time.

We want to come back, and we will.

*I did okay. I posted more than 30 times during November but missed two days, once because my dsl was out. Overall, however, I was pleased as I use NaBloPoMo to apply some external discipline to posting. Otherwise, I would have to send myself e-mails with "Dude. Update." as the subject.

Cats on Broadway

Cats is the longest-running show on Broadway to date. The show romanticizes and shrouds in mystery the lives and habits of America's most popular pet. Yet, even with the lively dancing and popular songs, Cats doesn't seem to capture the true-to-life behavior of our feline companions. Below is a list of what Cats would have to do to more accurately portray the true essence of cats.

Audience members would enter the auditorium only to find their seats had been clawed and covered with fur.

The antagonist in the show would be a giant vacuum cleaner.

Sometimes the cast would perform, but sometimes not -- depending on their mood.

Performers would leap off the stage and run up the aisles at the recorded sound of a can opener in the lobby.

When certain audience members opened their playbills, a cast member would attempt to lay down on it.

In the middle of a performance various cast members would curl up and go to sleep, even in the middle of a song.

For no apparent reason, cast members would randomly run to the lobby, and then back to the stage at top speed. They would then continue as if nothing had happened.

A special audience member would find a headless bird in his/her seat after the intermission.

Snack bar employees would constantly be reprimanding cast members for walking on the counter.

Open the stall door and guess who is drinking from the toilet.

Part of the performance would include the cast climbing and shredding the theater curtains.

The stage would be stained from someone coughing up a hairball and then eating it.

Performers would find sand in the lobby ashtrays and -- well, we don't have to draw a picture here, do we?

The show would need to be stopped several times to allow cast members to "bathe" themselves. Most of the final act would consist of the cast just staring at the audience.

The big finale would feature a giant ball of yarn, feathers on a pole, and stray strands of dental floss.

Theater patrons waiting outside the stage door after performances would get their legs rubbed, if they were lucky.

Cast members would never cash their paychecks, just play with them.


From Flippy's Cat Page via Debbie.

The Pekoe Story, Part I

Here's how it all started. About 5 years ago - or maybe 6 - Debbie sent me the following e-mail because she finds Dave-the-cat-guy's (see all my previous whining about the name "David" elsewhere) writing style humourous and after she shared a few of his missives, I became a fan as well. So one day in March of 2000, I got this one, which, while not as humourous, gets the point across:

For those of you looking for a more permanent feline companion, may we present Mister Kitty? Mr. K is about 14 months old, a neutered male orange tabby, and is, simply, a love. He's one of the few cats I've ever met who actually enjoys being hugged. In fact, if he feels he's not getting enough attention, he will climb up onto a convenient table or countertop, wait for you to pass, and--basically--throw himself on you, purring and rubbing against your face. He's very good with other cats; in fact, he needs at least one other kitty for play and companionship. Mr. K really is one of the two or three most affectionate cats I've ever met (and y'all know that I've known one or two), and he's quite handsome to boot (photo available on request). Again, if you have any interest at all, please let me know.

So I forwarded it to Mollie. I suggested that we foster a cat and she suggested that I just go ahead and adopt "Mr. Kitty." So I wrote to Dave-the-cat-guy:

Hi David -

My name is Leta and I'm a friend of Debbie who forwards to me some of your e-mails about cat rescue [and your comments on "Tosca," which really helped me to understand the opera better when I saw it]. Until recently I was dating someone allergic to cats so I didn't think it would it send a positive message if I got a cat for the house, but he and I are now just Very Good Friends. So I would be very interested in getting more information from you about become a Cat Fosterer. Kind a kitty rental or try-before-you-buy.

Here is the situation at my house: I live in Silver Spring in a medium-sized house with a housemate [Mollie] and her dog [Max]. Max is 13 and doing the arthritic, grouchy-old-guy thing. Because of the arthritis he rarely leaves the first floor of the house, so any cats who wanted to avoid him could do so easily. He has lived with cats before and while he doesn't understand them he's willing to peacefully co-exist. For the next 6 months or so Mollie also provides day care in our house for three little children, two of whom are about 2 1/2 years old and one who will be 2 in June. The children are also pretty much restricted to the first floor but are themselves lively [very lively] and affectionate and used to pets.

I grew up with Siamese cats [still my favorite breed], so I'm well aware of what goes into maintaining cats in the style to which they can very easily become accustomed. I'm also aware that they are pretty useless when it comes time for household chores, unless you consider hissing at the vacuum cleaner and hiding under the sofa to be useful.

Mollie and I have discussed it and we thought that I should talk to you about adopting Mr. Kitty [who can resist the concept of assault friendliness? As Deb can tell you that's my basic M.O., anyway] and about me serving as fosterer for an additional cat. This way Mr. Kitty can have friends to play with - and new and different friends over time - but I don't have to permanently commit to two cats right away. If Mr. Kitty has already found new employment, then we should just talk about me becoming a fosterer.

I went to meet "Mr. Kitty." Dave-the-cat-guy warned me that Pekoe had developed an aversion to Kitty Fairs and might not be Mr. Personality if he suspected that this was another blind date dressed as a casual gathering of humans. But, ha ha!, I'm smarter than that, so I just ignored the cat and chatted with the people. And even though, oddly enough, this is a tactic I am completely unable to deploy around men I find attractive, it worked a treat with the cat. Before long he was climbing up the back of the sofa to get more up close and personal. Within an hour, he was in his cat carrier, his few belongings were packed, and he was on his way to a brand new life.

To be continued..... Stay tuned for exciting scenes from the next episode of "The Pekoe Story!"

Next time on "The Pekoe Story" -- Pekoe hates riding in the car!

No, I'm not taking Pekoe

Tanya and Cathy - two of my co-workers - are participating in a walk for Howard County (Maryland) Spay and Neuter and animal awareness programs. Animal Advocates of Howard County are sponsoring a Walk for Paws on October 8th. They are dog people and I wouldn't be surprised if Tanya took one or both of her German Shepards, which got us contemplating me bringing Pekoe, the fabulous orange tabby:

"Pekoe! Come here! No! Don't kill that little dog. Just becuase he's smaller than you doesn't make him prey." (Fabulous orange tabby that he may be, Pekoe is still a solid 12-pounder and a bit of a thug. When he lived with Blue, Pekoe's ambition was that Blue - who was four times his size and weight - would die blind and soon. Peek still regrets that he didn't make this come to pass. He did, however, terrorize Rusty, Jean's very cute and friendly Dauchshund such that Rusty wouldn't come out from under the wing chair for several days.)

"Pekoe! Come on! It's time for the walk! We're all walking this way, Pekoe. We're walking - now. We're not lying sunning ourselves on the pavement now. Come on, Peek."

"Pekoe - get down. I am not carrying you through this walk. No! Do not hang to me with your claws. Get down and walk."

Yeah, definitely much easier just to pledge $10 and let Tanya and Cathy do the walk.

One seriously delighted cat

Long, long ago Mollie bought Pekoe (the fabulous orange tabby) a cardboard box filled with corrogated cardboard and lighly scented with catnip. He went berserk and spent the rest of the evening licking the box lid and racing up and down the hall and the stairs.

It's gotten pretty beat up in the intervening years and was starting to fall apart, so I stopped at Trader Joe's on Saturday and got him a new one. He recognized it immediately and got so excited that he jumped up on it as I was taking the lid off and began to scratch and lick and roll around like a crazed kitten. And I hadn't even put in the catnip yet. Still haven't.

The best thing is that his new box is a "doublewide" so instead of merely perching on it, he can sprawl out and really be one with his box. Pictures will be posted once I take them. And have them developed. And scan them. But until them, just click on the link and mentally add one blissed out orange tabby.

Cat scratch fever