I'm sorry, but there's no polite way to say this.

Ariel is a Food Slut. It's not enough for her to get her own private serving of the Good Food. As soon as she gulps that down next to me, she dashes off to the other food bowls to inhale whatever is left. She isn't beyond whacking another cat out of the way either.

I brought out a small treat of tuna-flavored water (from a can of tuna I'd opened for myself). I had some especially set aside for Querida, but Ariel wanted more. I didn't want her to intimidate Querida away from it, so I figured I'd just reach in to pet Ariel and that would drive her off. I didn't figure on the determination of a Food Slut. Rather than let me drive her off, she whacked me several times softly (no claws) without budging. I kept trying to pet her and she finally got tired of it and moved off.

I suppose her upbringing is to blame. She was one of 35 or so cats having to compete for the same food, so I can understand she would be aggressive about it.

Since she's young, she seems to be absorbing the food without putting on excessive weight, though she certainly has filled out. What worries me is what she might turn into if she keeps up these eating patterns as she gets older. Food Slut could equal Big Fat Moggy. I'd had to see her end up ten feet wide like Theseus.

Puck was a frustrated boy. I saw him on the shelves next to the window, growing more and more agitates. I went over to see what was up. Another tabby was perched on the back fence, which is only about 5 feet away. Puck and the tabby were having a stare-off and the other cat's tail was entirely POUFFED OUT. If Puck could have figured out a way to jump right through the glass, I'm sure he would have. He had to content himself with running around on the shelves and lashing his tail vigorously.

We had a young black cat visit the yard this morning. It looked to be maybe 5-6 months old, and quite interested in the birds gathered around the birdfeeder. Then my neighbor's feisty Bengal-mix, Harley, came and chased him off. Harley is large and beautiful, but rather aggressive toward other cats. He lets us scratch his ears and rub his belly, though.

A short time ago, Theseus began crying loudly in some kind of distress. He would throw himself down on his side and cry some more, roll around, cry some more...visions of rushing to an emergency room in Bakersfield swam through my head. Gaaaahhh...

I began to examine him. I knew his butt had gotten bad recently, but this was beyond bad. He's so furry, it's not easy to see what's going on back there, but he was *caked* with crap.

Thus began the Great Theseus Butt-Cleaning Circus and Wrestling Match. I got hold of him around the middle and tried to shave the excess fur and gunk. That lasted a whole two minutes, if that long. The super-duper, heavy-duty, bloody expensive pet shaver I bought was nearly useless. Not even that thing can handle his fur.

Next, I tried cutting off the larger chunks using a special pair of grooming scissors I'd bought at the pet store. Again, totally useless. I chased Theseus down again and tackled the problem with some wet wipes. Got a little bit off that way, but I could only do any of these things in one minute gasps before he was off and away. Fortunately, though he won't hold still, he also is good about letting me catch him.

I abandoned the useless scissors and tried using regular large scissors that I know will cut through fur. I have to be extremely careful, though, because years back when I had another furry cat with a butt problem, Hubble, I accidentally did some serious damage while trying the same thing. This time, I scratched Theseus at the base of his tail, which he loves. He arches up, raises his tail and I went for snipping off as much matted crap as I could while being very careful about where the scissors went. That actually worked the best of all my attempts. I removed the majority of the problem that way.

Then I held him down for one final session with the shaver, to clear off as much more fur as I could from the area. He didn't tolerate that for long. Finally, I used another wet wipe to get him as clean as I could. He's now in decent shape, albeit rather put out about the whole thing.

I can't say I enjoyed it much, either.

I was scanning the cover of my latest book, an educational book (5th grade level) on Watson and Crick and DNA. I had put the book on my desktop scanner and in the middle of the scan, I looked over and there was Ariel perched on top of the scanner. She was investigating the strange sound, I think. This put her within arm's reach of me.

Then she went off and got silly, so of course I had to take pictures.

It was long past time to bring out The Dreaded Sucking Monster. I haven't vacuumed my office since Oct. Why October? That was when we brought Ariel home and I didn't want to traumatize her with the vacuum cleaner until she'd had some time to settle in. I have an ancient, but incredibly tough Kenmore canister that makes a lot of noise. The hose is now 80% made of duct tape, but the durable old thing still works.

At any rate, three months is enough. You can imagine -- if you dare -- the condition of my office after three months of no vacuuming. The dust bunnies had formed civilizations.

So I dragged out the Sucking Monster and slew emergent civilizations. And really, it only took Ariel a few minutes of quiet to reappear, acting no worse for the experience.

All quiet in moggyland, so I thought I'd simply share an oblivous Puck taking advantage of a most put-upon Owl (who moved shortly afterwards).

Puck knocked over my coat rack again. It's an old-fashioned wooden style freestanding coat rack, not entirely steady on its feet to begin with. This time, it crashed into the heater behind my chair and the top piece that contains all the actual coat-holding hooks came off completely. I had to wrestle it back together. I'm sure this will not stop the Lord of Mischief from knocking it over another time when he so pleases.

Ariel got quite indignant with me last night for having the audacity to try and pet her. She threw a flurry of paw-bats in my direction. Never connected with me, but I think she was making a point: "Behold my blinding speed, human! I can whap you twenty times in a single second if I so choose! Back off!"

Diva was in the catbed that Owl wanted to lay down in, so he simply sat on her. Which she naturally complained about before vacating. I almost managed to get a photo of Diva's head sticking out from under Owl's butt, but I wasn't fast enough.

It looks like Ariel might have a small bit of fur missing from her rear end, but of course I can't get close enough or get hold of her to have a good look. Probably from Puck roughhousing with her.

This morning I had to scold Puck because he had Ariel backed up inside the "cave" and was seemingly giving her a hard time. I picked up a couple of cat toys and played with Puck, Ariel, Theseus and Diva for a few minutes.

I went back to work and a short time later, Puck and Ariel were romping around the office. Dashing here and running there, no hassles or disputes. When I was leaving for lunch, I was delighted to see Puck and Ariel on the shelf by the window, and Puck was grooming Ariel. He licked her head, gave her a love bite on the neck, then licked her head some more. I'm hoping that those two will become good play buddies.

Puck was exceedingly interested in something that was happening outside the window. It turned out to be a young tabby that's been hanging around a lot recently, and he had found his way onto the roof of the house immediately behind us. Puck could barely contain himself.

Tribble threw up a lot yesterday. I've been watching him closely every since to see if it was a fluke. So far, he seems to be completely back to normal, but after what happened with Blue, I'm more paranoid.

I had a delightful moment yesterday. I was sitting at my computer when Ariel's head popped up to one side of my desk. Then she jumped onto my desk, explored the additional table area behind my monitor, and finally came and sat on one corner of my desk not far from me. I was careful to not make any moves toward her and to only watch her indirectly, though I did say hello to her. After a couple of moments, she left on her own.

It's a little step, but I was pleased.

I made two attempts to do subQ fluids on Querida today and once again met with utter failure. She is absolutely determined that I will NOT get away with doing this to her. She fights and squirms and the needle pops out and the claws flail and I give up. Even my Vulcan Death Pinch was of no use. We're talking Dervish With Razor Blades here.

On the up side, she's eating and seemingly doing well and I can at least get pills into her.

I heard a raging cat fight outside my office. I ran outside and found that a big orange tabby had driven a brown tabby-tom way up into a tree and had him trapped there. They both ran off in quick order once I appeared on the scene. I've seen both of them around several times since we moved in and am pretty sure they come from the House That Is The Source of All Cats.

This marks Ariel's third month with us. Things remain pretty much the same. She's getting along well with the rest of the Horde. I saw her sniff noses with Querida the other day and I saw her rub up against Tosca and Puck on other occasions, though sometimes Puck tries to play rough with her and she's not ready for that. She'll eat her Good Food only inches away from me, play with us, and let us get close to her, but touching is still verboten.

Her new favorite place is in a cave-like box amidst the upper walkways I created by placing 2x4's between various shelves, and between the shelves and my taller filing cabinet. I put a cushion in the box for her and that's where she sleeps most of the time. The walkways give the cats access to the shelves by the windows, and from there to the tops of other shelves. I'm sure she likes being way up there where she can look down on me. She has a circuitous stealth route to the ground: across one board, jump down to second level of shelves, wind around behind the boxes on that shelf, then jump down to the floor.

To my utter shock, Puck and Owl got into a nasty brawl and Owl was the primary aggressor, even chasing Puck at one point. I had to do much yelling and chasing to break it up. I would never have believed Owl had it in him to fight. It just goes to show that the quietest moggy can surprise you. There was no damage done beyond a few tufts of hair flying.

I have no idea what could have set that off. One guess is that Puck tried to cuddle up next to the heater with Owl, the way Puck used to do with Blue, and Owl for whatever reason got annoyed about it. Maybe Puck accidentally hurt Owl's leg, though Owl certainly wasn't letting his leg interfere with the fight. It's a mystery.

I managed to give Querida most of her fluids today. It went much better this time, but toward the end she suddenly surged out of my grip and that was the end of that.

I gave Blue love and attention today as I tried my best to help him. He ate a few bites of canned food and threw it up five minutes later, then staggered a bit, laid down and panted. I liquefied some food in warm water and used a syringe to feed it to him, just a small amount to see whether he could keep it down. That seemed to work.

Around mid-afternoon, I was warming up the fluids and bracing myself to give them to Blue when Randy came in to say that he had shovelled out the cars and thought we'd be able to get to Bakersfield. Interstate 5 was closed when I'd checked about 15 minutes earlier, but when I checked again, they had finally opened it.

So we quickly got Blue into the car and drove down the hill. Shortly after we started driving, Blue hacked up some blood. I think that's when I knew we had reached the end. I had alerted Dr. K. that we were coming. When we got there, they got us right in.

He immediately took x-rays and gave us the bad news -- aggressive cancer. There was a large primary tumor in his abdomen, possibly on the liver, which had pushed Blue's stomach off to one side. But the worst of it was that it had metastasized into his lungs. His lungs were just black with it. There was no question what to do.

BLUE May 1995 - 7 Jan. 2005 A little girl named the kitten and didn't want me to change the name, so I didn't. He had beautiful blue Siamese eyes mixed with gray tabby markings. I brought him home on the night of a blue moon, further qualifying the name Not the smartest cat in the world, but very sweet and loving. He had a chirping purr, loved catnip and chasing strings. He was a good buddy to Puck and they were often found cuddling up together. He was a good moggy. May he romp forever in fields of catnip filled with fat mice and slow lizards.

The vet from Bakersfield called this morning. Most of Blue's tests came back negative or mostly normal with one big exception, his red blood cell count is dangerously low. There are also indications of possible kidney impairment, though this might also come from the fact that he's not eating and is somewhat dehydrated. Blue didn't eat anything last night as near as I could tell.

The vet wanted a urine test, something he wasn't able to get yesterday. Given how badly Blue is doing, I quickly called my local vet to discuss both Querida's and Blue's situations. She agreed to get them in if I could get there right away. I rushed around putting pills down throats, but the rest of the normal morning routine simply never happened.

Randy helped me carry the two cats out, during which Puck merrily pranced out the door and through the snow so that Randy had to put down Querida and chase Puck. With a bit more ado, I finally got the old 4x4 Subaru down our road and to the vet's where I then spent hours.

My local vet is thorough, which I appreciate. She checked Querida's general condition and was insistent that I need to get the fluids into her.

Then she checked Blue over carefully. We had the B'fld vet fax up the test results and she looked those over while the techs got a urine sample. Blue is doing worse today, in general, with his heart rate up and a hint of a heart murmur. My local vet even called and consulted with an internist because the findings are inconclusive. Their conclusion points to internal bleeding somewhere in the intestines, either from a foreign object that Blue has swallowed, or a condition in which the intestines get twisted or "telescoped" inside themselves, and this would account for the anemia. There are some other possibilities, mainly ruled out because he's only 9 1/2 years old.

We had long discussions. The harsh reality is that I'm badly tapped out financially, so surgery is probably beyond my means. Paying for Owl's leg and all the other vet bills recently has been more than I can absorb. Meanwhile, Blue isn't eating and is going downhill fast.

A tech came in and gave me a long, detailed lesson this time in doing the subcutaneous fluids. She did Querida, then she supervised while I did Blue. I learned a lot from her, and I must make this work, since Blue must have fluids every day, and Querida every other day.

I didn't get home and have lunch until 4 pm. I was understandably miserable. I consulted again with the B'fld vet who came up with one other thing to check that is related to Blue's red blood cells and could help us determine whether we're looking at impending kidney failure or an intestinal blockage. He won't know that until about noon tomorrow. Either way, it doesn't look good.

I have Blue in the Cave, which he's not happy about. He hasn't moved from his bed since he got home, and he's not eating. Damn.

Because the day was so screwed up, I didn't get around to giving out the Good Food this morning, and I only refreshed the water and cleaned the cat boxes for the first time at around 5 pm. Poor Ariel sat by the food bowls, terribly confused because the routine was completely out of whack. Now I must make amends by sticking to the evening routine and handing out the Good Food, as promised.

With Randy's wonderful help, we managed to get 90cc of fluids into Querida's withers. We were supposed to do 125cc, but by the time we got to 90cc she said, "I've had enough!!!" and struggled until the needle drew blood and we gave it up. Tomorrow I call my local vet and ask how critical the fluids are because she's not getting them from us.

Today it was Blue's turn. The local vet is closed on Wednesdays, plus we urgently needed to get into Bakersfield after being trapped for nearly two weeks by the snowstorms. We needed to do banking and major shopping and so forth before the next storm hits. I got a reference for a good vet in B'fld and when I explained the situation to them, they said to get there whenever we could and they'd get him in. I was impressed by their attitude.

Of course, the minute I walked into my office, Blue telepathically detected my intentions and wouldn't let me within ten feet of him. I tried to employ Cunning. I offered him a string to play with. He knew better. I had to slowly follow him around and around the office trying to blank the "catch him" thoughts from my mind until he got himself cornered and I caught him. He's a sweet, timid boy and never gives him any trouble or struggle, so once I had him there was no problem.

We liked this vet tremendously. He was quick, competent, had a great sense of humor, and inspired confidence. We hardly had to wait at all after walking in without a set appointment. And he cost about a third as much as my local vet to do a huge batch of tests. We agreed that whenever possible, we'll be bringing our cats down the hill to this vet. It's a long drive, but we have to come to B'fld fairly often anyway, so we'll just combine errands.

Blue certainly has something wrong, but we had to do lots of blood tests before the vet can pinpoint it. The inner eyelid was up on the right eye, but the left eye was more dilated than the right. Not good. The vet dilated both eyes to look for lesions on the retina that indicate taxoplasmosis. The left eye looked fine, but the right eye had abnormalities. The vet will call tomorrow once he gets the blood test results.

The main thing with Blue tonight is to get him to eat. That was the vet's biggest worry, as cats don't well without eating. Blue got out of the enclosure I put him in last night because I wasn't quite careful enough. Tonight, he gets locked up for his own good so I can get a real sense of whether or not he's eating.

I have't tried getting the subcutaneous fluids into Querida again, but in a little while Randy is coming out to hold her for me and I'll give it one more try. She seems to be doing fine otherwise.

However, Blue is not doing fine. He's been looking and acting poorly for weeks now. I suspect he has a problem with his throat, based on throwing up a lot, not eating well and a swallowing/coughing thing he does. He's lost weight, looks unhappy, and his inner eyelids are coming up.

Things have been complicated by being buried in snow for a week now. The local vet is closed tomorrow, another storm is moving in, leaving me only a narrow window of opportunity to get him to a vet. If we get more snow, even getting to the local vet becomes a problem. That means trying to dig enough snow to get our non-4WD Subaru out of the driveway so we could try taking Blue to a vet in Bakersfield. This may or may not be doable. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

I made two attempts to get the IV fluids into Querida today and both attempts were utter, miserable failures. I'm doing something with inserting the needle into the flappy pouch of skin on her neck/shoulder area (as I was shown) and she cries and I freak out and it all goes to hell. Sigh...I don't think I could ever be a veterinarian.

They gave me two sizes of needles, so tomorrow I may try again using the smaller size.

However, she's eating quite well and drinking water, so the fluids may not be as important as otherwise.

Welcome to 2005! May you have a great year.

It's Querida's arbitrary birthday! I brought her home in May of 1987 when she was about 6 months old, so I've given her Jan. 1st as her arbitrary birthday. So she's 18 years old today, give or take a month.

Querida is doing well so far. It's easy to get pills into her, and she's been showing up entirely on her own to get food. She's not eating as much as I would like, but at least she's eating of her own volition. I'm putting her and her serving of special food inside the Cave and closing the gate so that other cats can't get at it or distract her.

Tomorrow comes the big exercise in doing the IV fluids. I'm not looking forward to that.

Puck has renewed his attacks on my click-clacker frog. I clacked the frog at him several times, but that only made him more intent. He carried it off to the floor. I looked away and looked down again just now, and there was Ariel with the frog instead! She finds it as fascinating as Puck did. She batting it around only a couple of feet away from my chair, which is quite brave of her.

Hah, she left the frog behind and now Diva has leapt upon it. Time to rescue Mr. Frog.

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