Rascal this morning.
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I love her adventuresome little spirit.
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Well, Pharaoh apparently wants to be vet cat of the month for April. This morning, he was drooling and obviously uncomfortable, which is not standard for him. He was fine, not drooling, etc., yesterday. He’s never been a drooler. He’s very touchy and didn’t want to be examined, but from what I could see on a quick glance in his mouth, he has a tooth that appears to be partly sideways. Given the sudden symptoms this morning from being fine yesterday, I’m assuming that he knocked it somehow or damaged it overnight (fell?). Anyway, something in the mouth is acutely wrong.
I called my vet clinic. They are already full to bursting today but will work him in tomorrow if I take him to surgery drop-off at 8:00. He is eating and drinking, so I’ll took that appointment. I’ll give them canned for today, which everybody else will enjoy, and we’ll see tomorrow what is involved here. Will also give him some pain medicine that I have on hand.
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Memory picture from 2012. Five cats in a thunderstorm. Yes, there are five cats in this picture. I love the personality differences.
Rosalind, Tenuto, Coda, (Chiam), and Cory.
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Call from the vet. Pharaoh had a broken tooth and bruising and inflammation. Anyway, the tooth has been pulled, and he should feel a lot better. She said in general, he could use a cleaning all around at some point, but today when they shoehorned him into the schedule was just dealing with the immediate issue, which I understand. Other than the broken tooth, heart, lung, etc. systems seem strong, and he’s in good shape.
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Pharaoh, who had to get a tooth extraction today, was the last cat I ever took to visit Mom. It had always been Tenuto prior to that trip, but I was going to test out Pharaoh as a possible second cat to alternate with Tenuto and see how he reacted to the trip, the facility, the leash, etc.
He was great, but that wound up being the last trip, as Mom was very in and out of it. When in, she loved it. When out, she was off in another world. For some reason, I knew that I couldn’t stand seeing an eventual day when she wouldn’t react at all to a cat. That of all things would have been too much. I didn’t mind the days she didn’t remember me, but seeing her not remember cats would have hit my limit. So I left it at this one, a 50% positive visit, and never took a live cat with me again.
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Boy, Pharaoh has a voice. He sang all the way to the vet this morning and all the way home tonight. That voice was my first introduction to him. The day the dumped litter turned up at Cat Lady’s the same day American Pharoah won the Belmont to clinch the Triple Crown, I was working, and she was in her chair. The door was open to let a nice summer breeze in. All at once, that voice sounded. It was so sharp that I dropped my broom and came into the living room to identify the cat sounding off, and Cat Lady called out, “What’s wrong, baby?”
Here came Pharaoh wobbling across the floor from the door, heading for the dog bowl. (Cat bowls were on the table where the dog couldn’t reach. The dog bowl was on the floor.) I said to Cat Lady, “There’s a black kitten in the floor.” “A black kitten?” she asked. She had no black kittens. A minute after Pharaoh, here came another, then another. Then I went out on a search of the property and found Satin, the fourth. I’ve always hoped there were just four. But Pharaoh, the runt, was the first through the door and was always the loudest.
I suggested naming one of them Pharaoh in honor of the new Triple Crown winner, though I did insist on correcting the spelling. Cat Lady said Pharaoh was a fine name for a cat but that if I named one, I had to take it. That made perfect sense to me. He stayed with her and his siblings for the first several weeks, though, as she could provide the round-the-clock intensive care that I couldn’t. He was the weakest and took a while to get healthy.
Below is me with Pharaoh a week or so after he turned up. Pictures taken by Cat Lady.
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Hope is feeling better minus the painful tooth.
He was a cute baby - those big ol’ eyes!
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I was pulling grass in the blueberry patch today, cleaning it up for spring. Lots and lots of help.
Rascal was supervising, too, but she was four feet away, not associating with those OTHER cats.
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I sent you a message.
My (?) reading chair in my library. The cat is Pharaoh.
With Rascal in the Wild, Wild Woods. The angle is a bit awkward because I had the phone stuck in a tree, and those don’t just occur anywhere with prop branches wherever I want them. But I love the way it turned out, even if it isn’t “perfect.”
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Rascal in her element. I thank God for this cat. Such a winding story, how we came together, with perfect timing at every turn.
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This morning, after my walk, I went up on the roof briefly. Some things didn’t look quite right from down below. Everything’s fine; the new shingles from the recent repair don’t quite match the old shingles, even though they are the same color and type. The old ones have been in the sun for a few years while the new ones were in a bag.
But anyway, as I was up there nosing around, I looked over, and here came Bagheera walking across the ridge line to me. That startled me. There is, by design, no tree anywhere near the roof on the new house. Even the two sugar maple trees, which flank it precisely, are 35 feet off of each front corner. Nothing overhangs or is close enough to climb, and I’ve never seen a cat on this roof. But here he was, prowling around like he was holding his own inspection.
I had just arrived at the conclusion that he had to have come up my aluminum ladder, as no other means existed, when he decided it was boring up here and turned to go. He walked straight back to the ladder, studied it, and then carefully descended, rung hop by rung hop.
Anybody who says that animals can’t think doesn’t know animals that well. Of course, there are individual variations. Bagheera is quite sharp. But I never would have expected a cat to climb the full length of an aluminum extension ladder, which qualifies as non tree because it can’t be hooked into with claws.
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