maybe put the saucer on the kitcen floor to start with? or can they push it under something that way?
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RIP, Des. I do wish I knew which neighbor brought him up to the porch. They were real roses.
Just for non 3-d clarity, that’s Bagheera sitting on top of a box with Des in it.
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I am so sorry you lost a pride member. What a very kind thing for your neighbor to do.
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I keep the Temptations in the fridge, not because they are perishable but because it is a cat-proof container. So the packet of Temptations is in the door.
Just now, I went to get a snack for myself, opened the fridge, and happened to spot one Temptation in the door of the fridge, top shelf. Obviously, it fell off while I was getting a scatter of Temptations out of the bag, and it landed there. Without thinking, I retrieved this sole, singular, solitary Temptation and tossed it into the floor by its lonesome in this house with eight indoor cats.
My thought five seconds later: Self, that was not your best idea of the day.
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Pilgrim is flat out not eating today. Not anything. He just recently had a very thorough workup at the vet, including tests. Heart issue and the thyroid. As he doesn’t seem to be in pain, I’m not going to put him through the stress of a return visit. Will just keep encouraging him. I do have some of the paste stuff.
This is gotcha day for Mystery, who just appeared at the barn cat feeding line one morning some years ago. Instant cat, just add cat food. It was a Mystery.
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I am so sorry about Des, what a kind neighbor. But Bagheera sitting on the box is heartbreaking, we never know really how cats interact…but that suggests he must have had some relationship with Des.
Jingles for Pilgrim!
Update on Pilgrim: He’s unconscious this morning, curled up peacefully. He has never seemed to be in any pain this last day, just drifting away. Just going to sleep at home isn’t a bad way to go, but I’ll miss my tuxedo scientist. He’s the oldest of the indoors, and the vet in his recent workup said that his heart had a “very significant” murmur. That was new, never on any of his previous checkups over the years.
I had just ordered another month of meds a few days ago, which ship in from the outside pharmacy. I called the vet clinic this morning and told them when they come in to just give them to somebody else who has a cat on the same stuff.
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So sorry attrition us catching up to your Pride 
Godspeed, Pilgrim & RIP, Des.
If I see a cat dead on the road, if at all possible, I stop & move the body to the side.
Bad enough seeing one of yours killed, but run over multiple times is too much 
That was a very kind thing your neighbor did 
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Very sorry to hear about Pilgrim.
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Oh, poor Pilgrim. I am so sorry. RIP Pilgrim. You will be missed.
oh that sand in my eye…got to take care of that…
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A few pictures of Pilgrim, the tuxedo scientist. He was a very fun cat to have.
The kitten is Psalm. I was trying to introduce them for a few supervised minutes. She was okay, but she treed him within the first seconds. Given the size differential, I thought this was hilarious.
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Deep rumbling thunder, heaven’s timpani. It reminded me of a cat of former years, Chiam, one of the most gorgeous calicos I have ever seen. Big, bright patches. But Chiam hated thunder. Even before I could hear it, she would bolt under the covers on my bed and huddle there quivering. She became my early storm warning system.
Below is Coda watching out the window and (Chiam) next to me on the bed during a thunderstorm. Also a picture of her out in the open with Tenuto just because she was such a neat-looking cat.
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I get a similar lump under the covers when it thunders. Baler does not like loud noises but is especially terrified of thunder. He hears it, has actually wet himself and runs down the hall on his tummy to hide under the covers. I don’t know why he is so frightened. Poor little thing. I get Chiam. And she is gorgeous!
Nothing wrong with Psalm’s analysis of things. She was just playing with Brio, and he started to get a little rough. That is Brio’s worst fault. He’s the one who reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt, going full tilt at everything, and while he isn’t mean, he is large and vigorous. Sometimes he gets too rough when he really is only trying to play, and the other cats have to run away or, in the case of Solo, make her point with stronger measures. Five minutes later, everybody will be friends again. He is just a more intense player and a larger one than the others. If I had a similar size and energy cat, they could wrestle each other silly to burn off joie de vivre, but I don’t, so once in a while, games dissolve into a minor cat spat.
So Brio and Psalm were playing in the floor, and then he accelerated past her desired play level. She broke off the game, which always annoys Brio; he hates having the game end. He started to chase her, but then, as she looked around, she ran straight in between my legs and parked between my feet, right at the foot pedal.
Brio, following shortly after, stopped about a foot behind my desk chair and just looked at her. The foot pedal is forbidden territory, and he and the rest of the cats know it. I have to have full use of that for work, and they can easily set off the controls themselves. Psalm sat there with a smile on her split light-dark face, and I had to laugh. Nice choice for an escape spot where he would not dare to follow.
Nobody will ever convince me that they can’t think. I’m not equating animals with people, but yes, they can think.
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My Baler and your Brio sound like ideal playmates. Blaer is stuck at that level of social development where he hasn’t learned that nobody wants to be pummeled especially old cats. He is less than half their ages and twice their size and they hate when he is feeling playful as it involves them being leapt on and smushed to the ground and being wrestled quite violently. He isn’t mean just Baby Huey and doesn’t realize (despite their hisses and them fleeing from him) that they aren’t appreciating his efforts at camaraderie.
Poor guys - they just want someone to love them like they want.
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Solo came back to bed this morning at 2:00 a.m.
On Pilgrim’s last day and night, every other cat in the house reacted badly to him. They would hiss and fluff up and leave. That night, not a cat was in the bedroom except him. Normally, I have several scattered all over the bed like purring boulders, with the scatter dependent on the weather. Colder nights, they would snuggle up to me; not so cold, they would be scattered across the whole field of the bed, but definitely there.
Not for Pilgrim’s exit, though. Pilgrim himself wanted on the bed as usual at night and scrambled up the side; he couldn’t jump it. He snuggled up down my left side in “his” spot, but not another cat to be seen.
I’ve washed all the bedding since then, vacuumed the room, moped the adjacent bathroom where Pilgrim always would lie on the floor just off the carpet, another of his spots. And the cats slowly came back, Pharaoh first, Atticus, Psalm, Mystery…
But not Solo. I’ve missed her. She is the one who would, as soon as I got into bed each night, jump straight on top of me in hyperpurr. She would rumble like a freight train for about five minutes, then move over to the other side of the bed.
She is definitely the strongest and spiciest character among the indoor cats. She’s a true former feral, caught from a colony as a youngster and adopted by me from a TNR. Solo is stubborn, opinionated, still will bite at times, and is a very strong personality. She actually reminds me of Mom, which is why I adopted her. I normally don’t go looking for cats from organizations; cats drop out of the trees to find me. But I ran into her picture online on aide shift while looking for something else for a client, and the expression caught me. She reminded me of Mom then and has continued to do so. We have stubborn matches regularly in the house, Solo and I. I win, but she plays an excellent game. And every night, there are those five initial minutes in the dark when she lets me know what she really thinks of me.
But not for the last many nights. She boycotted the bedroom with Pilgrim’s final illness. I have physically brought her back into it, put her on the bed, tried to demonstrate that he’s not here. Nope, she would pin her ears, bite me, and exit with a determined stride.
Last night at 2:00 a.m., she finally came back. She woke me up climbing on top of me, and for many more than five minutes, she purred her hyperpurr. I could have used the sleep, but it’s not a bad way to be woken up.
Hopefully tonight, we can be back to routine.
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