Owl the Silent has become talkative. Very, very talkative. As soon as I come into the office in the morning, he's talking at me to let him out of the Cave. He then spends large portions of the day having "discussions" with me about the lack of available food. He doesn't have a standard yowly Siamese voice. It's more a scratchy old-time phonograph record voice.

A few minutes ago he tried making the short jump from a stool onto my desk and failed to make it. Luckily, he fell onto a cushion that I keep right below that spot, but I rushed over anyway and lifted him onto my lap. I think the bad knee still screws him up at times.

Couple of cute photos: Puck and Kate.

Ariel behaved oddly this morning. She wouldn't come over to me for her food, she wouldn't eat the food no matter where I put it, and she didn't go around pigging out on the other bowls of food. She was in some weird, flighty, non-eating mood which is entirely unlike the food slut I've come to know. I'm curious to see how she behaves when I get out the Good Food tonight.

Owl continues to have a strong appetite, so I've been supplementing with an extra feeding around mid-afternoon, at which time I also put out the dry food for the rest of the Horde while Owl is having his canned food inside the Cave. I hope, hope, hope I will see him put some weight on in the near future.

I heard the pre-combat yowling, leapt up from my chair and ran around my desk, but I wasn't fast enough. Puck attacked Knobby and had him upside-down, biting at his throat. Fur was flying.

I broke it up and gave Puck a 15-minute time-out inside the Cave. Knobby was cowering under my desk. I checked him out, but I don't think actual blood was drawn.

Meanwhile, the nightly chorus of "Where is the FOOD?!" is growing more intense. I'm not sure how much longer my sanity can endure this.

Day two of the Moggy Food Confusion Fest. Owl chowed down a large amount of his new food yesterday, but today was more interested in getting out of the Cave to eat what the rest of the Horde had left behind. He's in my lap at the moment, purring away. The rest of the cats are scattered around beaming a telepathic message in unison: "Where's the FOOD?!"

For those who haven't discovered it yet, the Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics has been moved to its new domain at themoggy.com.

The first day of the new food regimen has gone...okay. Owl seemed fine with being in the Cave during the night, though he was glad to get out. By mid-afternoon, the Horde was hungry, restless and on the prowl for food. Owl was searching everywhere. I finally broke down and gave him an extra bit of his food in the Cave, while I put the dry food out for the rest of the moggies. Then put it away again afterwards.

The Horde is peeved and baffled, I think. Mind you, there's a few of them that would benefit from not having a food out all the time. Unfortunately, I have to worry about the old cats who need to keep some weight on.

I'll bet less of the canned food is left behind tonight. I have a hunch they'll lick the bowls clean. ;)

I dropped off Owl at the vet's at 11 am. They were fully booked, so they were going to have to squeeze him in and they asked me to come back at 2. I found a couple of errands to do, had lunch and read the Newsweek I'd brought with me.

I went back at 2, then had to wait quite a while. Finally, I got to see the vet. She showed me the x-rays, going over them in detail.

It's terribly frustrating. We can't find anything wrong with him. He had totally normal blood work, and now he has a totally normal set of x-rays.

I had a long talk with the vet. It seems to come down to main possibilities that are left. The malign possibility is that he has a lymphatic cancer in his intestines. It wouldn't show up on the x-rays. The only way to know for sure would be surgery to do a biopsy. That's beyond what I can afford. Also, if we did the biopsy and it turns out to be cancer, there's nothing to be done about it. He would only have a matter of months left, at best. It seems pointless to me.

The benign possibility is the feline version of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) in which he's having inflammation, maybe caused by a food allergy or who knows what. Given the problem with his skin, this wouldn't surprise me. We're giving him Prednisone for a couple of weeks, and I have to find a way to feed him a special hypo-allergenic food.

This is a huge logistical problem for me. I keep dry food out so that the Horde can free-feed as needed. To keep Owl away from it, I'd have to keep it away from all the cats. I've spent the past hour trying to find a place in my office where I could put the dry food, so that the other cats would reach it, but not Owl.

Forget it. He manages to jump up to or onto any location I try. Plus there's the problem of Querida not being able to reach it either, if I could find a place Owl can't reach. Tribble isn't exactly a powerful jumper these days either.

Basically, the rest of the Horde will have to go without dry food during the day. I'll have to give out the canned food in the morning and put Owl into the Cave by himself to have his special food. Then they'll all have to go without food for the rest of the day. Guess how much fun THAT is going to be. I was gone all day today and I was practically mugged by the moggies because the dry food had been reduced to tiny kibble bits that they won't touch. They couldn't fathom what I was up to putting the food bowls in weird places, and they're taking irritated whacks at one another as they crowd to get at it.

Then I'll have to do a similar routine at night, after which I'll lock Owl inside the Cave for the night and put the dry food out for the rest. That way they can at least free-feed during the night.

I can't figure out what else to do. I discussed with Randy the idea of bringing Owl into the house, but then we're up against Nefreet the Psycho-Bitch who hates any other cat. It would be a miserable situation. Plus Nefreet needs to have access to her dry food, so really, the problem is the same.

This is going to one big fat PITA. I'm hoping like crazy that it's nothing worse than the IBS.

Damn. The vet was swamped all day and wasn't able to get back to me until late this afternoon. I've gotten the kind of news that seems to be good news on the surface, but is bad news underneath.

All of Owl's results, every one of them for all of his functions, came back within normal range. Sugar levels, kidney, liver, thyroid -- okay. They even tested for leukemia and feline AIDS - negative.

Sounds great, but it means we are left with no idea what's wrong and the unpleasant reality that one of the main possibilites that now looms is cancer, a main one being colon cancer.

I'm taking him back tomorrow morning for a cat-o-gram (full body x-ray) to see if we can find obvious masses or other signs to lead toward a diagnosis.

I'm hustling Owl off to the vet today. In addition to getting thinner and thinner, he's had a disturbing amount of blood in his stools in the past couple of days. Wish me luck.

LATER:
Unfortunately, I won't know anything more about Owl's condition until tomorrow afternoon when the blood tests come back. We went for a full panel of tests. His symptoms could mean kidney problems, hyperthyroid, diabetes or any number of things.

I was appalled to discover that he's down to a bit over 10 lbs. He was 16 lbs. when he first came to me! Of course, he was also overweight by a couple of pounds, but 10 lbs. is way, way too low.

He sure doesn't act like a sick cat, though. He was sprightly enough just now about jumping onto my desk to give me a sniff, and then jumping back down again.

Amusing moment -- I brought in the carrier, set it down, opened it to let Owl out and Owl had barely cleared the door before Puck dashed inside and made himself at home.

Our yard has become Tabby Central. This morning we first saw a fluffy, long-haired mop of brown tabby that was lusting after the birds. A bit later, we saw the pretty tabby-tortie kitten I mentioned the other day, following on the heels of an older brother or sister. The kitten was joyously pouncing on insects.

One of my own Tabby Mafia, the Puckster, managed to scoot out the door this afternoon where he spent several deliriously happy moments rolling in the dirt. I wish I could let him out more, poor boy.

I spent many hours on the phone trying to figure out why the wireless connection on my Dell laptop had suddenly decided not to work. One session in the afternoon got me nowhere. I was on with a guy from Dell tech support from 9 pm to 11 pm, and at one point he even conferenced in someone from SBC.

Randy came in to see what was going on, since I'm usually in the house by 10 or so. The cats were mightily upset because they are used to getting their canned food by 9:30ish. At one point, Puck got up on the back of chair, onto my shoulders and mugged me. I'm trying to carry on a coherent conversation with the tech guy with this crazed cat dancing on my head. Randy rescued me.

We had solved half the problem and apparently reached a dead end when a final piece fell into place and we solved it. Good thing, too, since the cats were mounting an armed revolution. Or would that be a pawed revolution?

Puck had to have another time-out in the Cave this morning. He laid into Kate rather nastily. Ariel thought that having Puck in prison was great fun and proceeded to play with him through the gate.

Meanwhile, Ariel will go to great acrobatic lengths to avoid letting me score a petting-touch on her. She nearly did a complete back-flip and went somersaulting from the top of a shelf to the floor rather than let me give her a little scritch under the chin.

Poor Diva. I was pulling on my sweatshirt, flailing my hands around in the process, and accidentally bonked her on the head. She took off like a shot, looking terribly shocked. Then she didn't want to let me get near her to make up. Until I got the treats out, then suddenly all was forgiven. I gave her lots of love to make up for it.

The phone rings. Randy asks me, "Is it your turn or mine?"

"Mine." We hang up. Cryptic, eh?

It's part of the nightly ritual. We take turns giving Nefreet her dollop of canned food for her nightly treat, but sometimes we forget whose turn it is. Right now, he's in the house probably being mercilessly badgered by Nefreet, whose internal clock is gearing up for Treat Time. But alas, she has to wait for me to come inside, and Randy has to endure the feline nagging.

We saw a totally adorable kitten in our yard today. We watched her from the kitchen window. She was maybe 4-5 months old and she was bounding around the yard chasing insects and chattering at the birdies. She was incredibly pretty -- a dark tabby with tortie mixed in.

And no, we are NOT, repeat NOT, going to adopt her. One untouchable Alpha Princess is enough to cope with.

She sure was cute, though.

A few photos for the day: Puck, Owl, Tosca, Diva.

I'm not sure what set it off, but when I opened the door to my office last night, a cat grenade exploded. One cat, moving too fast for me to make out, took off a light-speed, which caused half a dozen other cats to explode off in various directions, hence a cat grenade.

Tribble used to love his chicken-flavored treats and it was easy to sneak a pill into him that way, then he went on strike against them. I bought some salmon-flavored treats and he's once again filled with enthusiasm and taking his pills the easy way. Maybe he just needed a change.

I heard a cat meowing and couldn't identify who it was. I had to look. It was Puck complaining about Theseus hogging the nice spot by the window. I never hear Puck talking! No wonder I didn't recognize it. He's so quiet, you'd think he didn't have a voice.

Tosca is once again playing with Owl's tail. Owl is once again ignoring her for all he's worth. No, now he's reached the Aggrieved State and has stalked off in disgust. It's hard to stalk off gracefully with a bum knee.

Kate's been uncharacteristically grumpy lately. I don't know why, unless it's fallout from Puck bothering her too much, except she doesn't get grumpy with him. I don't think she would dare.

Puck went after Sly and I went after Puck. Puck saw me coming and went, "Uh oh, she looks really mad." He bolted. I chased him around the office a bit. He ducked inside the Cave. I decided a short time-out would be just the thing, so I locked him inside there for about ten minutes. That calmed him down. After I let him out, I played with him for a few minutes to reassure him that I still loved him, even if he is a brat sometimes.

Found on the net -- this is absolutely hysterical!

http://www.tomatonation.com/roombaloo.shtml

Both Querida and Tribble continue to let loose with the occasional piercing yowl. Sometimes they do it while in the catbox, but mostly they do it after leaving the box or for reasons I can't figure out at all.

They both seem to be doing well. Good appetites, plenty of energy. I suddenly realized today, while pilling Querida, that I couldn't hear the usual nasal congestion she's had for years. That's an improvement!

And yet I worry there's still something going on with them. I will keep watch, of course.

I haven't gotten far in clipping Kate's claws. She hates it and fights every inch of the way.

I suspect Ariel is going to be an Alpha Princess, and I think she's learning bad habits from the Puckster. Last night I caught her going after Kate. She even chased Kate, until I walked up behind her and she had to worry about me instead. Then a minute later, I saw her taking a whack at Sly.

She's calmed down a little on being a food slut, though. She's not going after every single particle of the Good Food, though she gets more than her fair share.

I need to trim Kate's front claws. She gets into my lap to knead, which hurts, but the worst part is that when I need to move, she doesn't simply get out of my lap. She has a mindless Kate Panic Moment because her claws get stuck in my pants and pulls loose by force rather than letting go. I now have several holes in this pair of track pants thanks to Kate.

Puck got way too rambunctious about jumping Ariel, who screeched like holy hell about it. I had to chase Puck around the office to get him literally off her tail, then I had Stern Words with him. I must say, it's the most noise I've ever heard out of Ariel.

We had a pretty Siamese stray in the yard. It came, as do all the other strays, from the House That Is The Source of All Cats. I've noticed quite a few full and part-blood Siamese cats around there, along with lots'o'tabbies, etc. The woman is rarely up at this house, but she's been there for the past few days doing some work around the place. Consequently the horde of cats, who use her house for food and shelter, are freaked out by her presence. Which leads to more strays than usual showing up here.

Nefreet has a talent for losing her toys. One minute she's happily tossing a toy around, the next minute it has inexplicably vanished. This leads to two grown adults crawling around on the floor on their hands and knees looking under furniture. I've decided that Nefreet has a Secret Power. She can open teeny-tiny wormholes and knocks the toys into them. Somewhere, on the other side of the galaxy, an alien cat is playing with Nefreet's lost toys.

I'm waiting for the day when the alien cat knocks one of its toys through the wormhole and into our living room.

For some reason, Puck picks on Tosca. He'll wait until she gets into the catbox to do her business, then he glares at her like a troll and stands there ready to jump on her the minute she tries to leave the box. I hauled him away today and distracted him with string so that poor Tosca could finish in peace.

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