When I was a kid I would go to the playground with my friends on Saturdays and swing. During the week at recess we had to be careful and not go too high, but on the weekend there were no teachers to caution us. I would imagine that I was a bird flying high in the air and it felt amazing to go so high. It was daring, exciting, and the fresh air across my face completed the feeling of actually flying. I wonder what a kitten thinks when jumping so high that it is flying through the air. Yahoo looks like a flame in the air, and appears to have more height left to go after the photo was taken. What fun we are having with these two special little lives.
Cats hate water. Well, most cats hate water. Tigers swim, and there is some other breed of house cat that likes to swim - perhaps it is a Turkish Van, but to sum up the issue, cats hate water. They don't just hate it, they think it will make them die, so they avoid any contact with it except to quench thirst. On the other hand, people love baths of many kinds: showers, steam baths, long relaxing baths, Turkish baths, hot tubs, and the list goes on and on. People like to swim, too and that list is even longer. People like to be clean, but I must generalize here because I have encountered a few people in my years who tweak the ability of my odor sensing nerves, though those times are rare. So the quandary between human and cat is how to find a middle ground with the water issue. If one appreciates the freshness of a clean cat and a clean human, then somebody is going to get wet in the process, and if the cat can help it, then it will be the human. I have found a solution to this issue. I just bathe my cats when I take a shower. I put a plastic stool into the shower so they can find some "high ground" and away we go using a shower head with a cord. Cats are wet, human is wet, cats are upset! I find it pretty easy to read the look on Google's face in this photo. Refer to the title above.
Reunion means an array of different things to a lot of different people. For some of us it is filled with pleasant, warm and fuzzy memories and events, for others it is reminders of hell-laden situations. Nonetheless, reunions take place at a fairly regular pace in our lives here on earth. I have a friend I meet with to knit and talk, I sing in a choir that meets twice a week, I embrace my family daily. Sometimes we are torn from situations where we think we will never see someone again, though this is much less common than a century ago. Wednesday Yahoo and Google thought they would never see each other again. They are the only two kittens from a litter. In previous posts I have alluded to their story. It is sad up until now. Their parents are "drop-off" cats from uncaring humans and the kittens are the result of no birth control. Their mother was live-trapped and now lives with some loving humans, Yahoo (girl) and Google (boy) were also live-trapped, sterilized and have been reunited to live out the rest of their lives together in a loving home. They have had an amazing reunion with loving snuggles and kitty kisses. An interesting fact is that approximately 95% of orange (red) tabby cats are male. Of the remaining 5% that are female, most have white somewhere on their bodies. Yahoo is in the tiny minority that has no white and is a dark red. Yahoo is in back, Google is in front. Note the "bracelets" on Yahoo's legs.
I have believed for most of my life that things always work out the way they are supposed to work. Perhaps another way of stating that idea is to say that one can always look for the best in any circumstance.I still worry (probably too much) and get angry or disappointed when things don't seem to be going my way, but like the last leaf on a tree I hang on to my belief. Sometimes I wish I didn't have that belief because it means I won't get my way, but I choose to believe that way anyway. Yesterday that belief was tested beyond all odds. It was a day that appeared to be set up for disaster, but I held on, asked others for prayers and good thoughts and waited out the time until at 5:45 in the evening when I was to find out if Google was going to get to live with his sister and us. Somebody had put a "hold" on him at the last thing the night before when I had taken his sister Yahoo home. It was a series of unfortunate events, but with a great ending and even greater reunion. Yahoo and Google are now for life sister and brother in the same home - our home. Purr!
In the course of one's life many events occur: birth, growth, marriage, homes, children, pets,death. As well, many emotions are felt: happiness, dreariness, love, hate (sometimes), joy, anticipation, grief. To experience death and then life in the same week does not happen often, but to experience two new lives in the same week's span is most uncommon. Last Friday our dear cat Cjazz died, and today I met Yahoo, a sweet little girl kitty. She has a brother, but he didn't get to come with her. After much conversation, it was decided that these two siblings should be together and so tomorrow, Google will come home to live with us and his sister. The clincher in the decision making process was when we were choosing names. I kept finding names that would work for a pair and all of a sudden I thought of the perfect names for cats that live in a computer person's world - Yahoo and Google. My husband loved it. Death, Life; Grief, Joy!
It is so fun to get a kitten or puppy or new baby, or for that matter to see the new flowers bloom in spring. New life is wonderful and so is the process that we live each and every day. But, the reality of life is that it ends and January 20 we had to say goodbye to our long time cat friend Cjazz. I'm sure that as much as the heart delights at the little things that a new kitten does, my heart grieves as I see a toy he played with still on the floor, and see his water dish needing to be put away. I can't let go of these things yet, it is too soon, but there will come a time when he is just a memory in our hearts, a very, very good memory of a profound friendship. Like posts in the past, his picture is there, but he will not be in this one.
My cat, my dear friend for 12 1/2 years now has diabetes. He has been so sick for several months, has lost almost 3 1/2 pounds, but is finally recovering. When we buy or adopt a pet, we don't think of the times in their life when they might become sick. We just think of having a healthy animal that loves us, and we love them too. I am learning that it takes a dedication to keep up with your animal when the diet must be carefully adjusted and when shots must be given twice a day. All that this wonderful cat has given to me is worth every bit of that dedication and more. I am so thankful for his presence in my life. When we adopt or buy an animal it really is for "in sickness and in health". It is a marriage between human and feline, an oath to an animal. Pets are not disposable just because they have an easily treatable problem.
This sweet guy "asks" for his shots. Evidently he knows they make him feel better. As you can see here he is fond of lazing his day away in odd positions.
