Sly was on my desk and I was standing next to him wrestling with something in my hands that I was trying to pry apart. It gave suddenly, my hand went flying and I ended up punching poor old Sly in the snoot. He ran off, then ran around the office sneezing. He gave me the most heartrending looks of betrayal. Now he won't let me near him. I feel terrible!

Opal adores her furry catnip mousie and carries it everywhere. We say, "Where's the mousie?" and she'll bring it to us. She'll bring it to us when she wants us to toss it for her. When we're sitting on the sofa, she'll bring it to us like a trophy. We take the mousie upstairs when we put them into their room for the night and in the morning she'll carry the mousie downstairs with her.

Pippin got hold of her mousie and began running around with it, forcing Opal to chase him around the house. I didn't get to see this. Randy called to tell me about it. He said that if Opal stopped chasing him, Pippin would go up to her and tease her with the mousie until she chased him again! It sounded hysterical.

Pippin has thrown up once since we started giving him the new food. At least, we hope it's only once. In that disgusting way cats have, as soon as Pippin throws up, Opal rushed over to eat it. If he's thrown up other times, we'd never know it. Sigh...

Tribble is doing progressively better on the Baytril. He even got into my lap last night, something he hasn't done for a long time. But I still need to get some weight back onto his bones.

It looks as though Bowie has gotten over his eye injury. That's a lucky thing, since we were completely unable to catch him again. We haven't seen Junior again since I let him go. I think most of the cat food we put out for the ferals goes into the stomachs of my neighbor's cats. They're lovely cats and I like them, but I wish they'd eat at home!

On Monday, Randy and I were preparing to head to Bakersfield to take Pippin and Tribble to the vet. Pippin was bouncing happily around and Randy was having a change of heart about taking him. At which moment, Pippin stopped and threw up. That clinched that.

So off they went, the kitten and the elder. Tribble complained, as always, and that got Pippin going, though Pippin has a softer, more pathetic mew.

The vet is having us try some special easy-digestion food on Pippin. It's the really expensive kind you have to buy at the vet's. It requires a prescription. I'm sorry, but what the hell kind of a scam is that? A prescription for cat food? That is total absurdity and a scam.

At any rate, we haven't caught Pippin throwing up again since we started giving him the special food. Opal has to eat it, too, but that shouldn't be a problem (except for the cost!).

Randy spotted a type of cat on a cat breed poster at the vet's, a Bombay. We looked up the Bombays in our cat breed book at home. The description and look fits Pippin perfectly, right down to the temperament. While it's highly unlikely that he actually is a Bombay, he sure looks like he could have some Bombay in him.

I had to take poor Tribble back because the vet I saw last week wasn't in yesterday and the other vets wouldn't give me Baytril without seeing him. This vet seemed more concerned about some of the kidney readings. She tested his urine and found a lot of white and red blood cells. Not good. We're having an additional test done to look for bacterial infection, but we could also be looking at kidney failure.

He's doing better on the Baytril and ate pretty well today. I'll have to take it a day at a time and see how he goes.

Zoe and Sapphire have decided they both want to dominate my lap. If Zoe is there, Saffy simply lies down on top of her. A kitten layer cake! Then Zoe wriggles out and comes around to lie on her. Then they try it side-by-side, which exceeds the width of my lap and somebody falls off. They'll have to sort this out before they get much bigger.

Shortly after I posted my blog last night, I went to give Tribble his nightly pills and it had become obvious what was wrong with him. He has a raging URI, brought on by the steroids (which suppress the immune system). I suppose it should have occurred to me that he would need anti-biotics like Querida, since he has so many of the same health issues she does.

I didn't give him the steroid, of course, and I immediately started giving him the Baytril I have for Querida. I'll have to get more from the vet, but he was so congested, I knew I had to start treating him immediately. He's doing a little better tonight. Still not eating a lot, but at least he's eating a small amount and sounds like he can breathe again.

Pippin has been throwing up a lot in the past few days. Aside from that, he looks and acts fine, but if he keeps it up, he's going to the vet.

Cat photos: Opal, Pippin, Zoe, Owl, and Sly.

Lolette said she'd take Opal back to the vet today if I wanted to have her stitches looked at. So I took the poor protesting girl over this morning and let Lolette have a look at her. She said Opal was fine, that the little "button" I was seeing is something this vet does so that when the cat is healed and the fur has grown back, it's still possible to feel that she's been fixed without having to search for an obscure scar. Makes sense to me.

Opal talked quite a lot on the trip there and back.

I decided to let Junior go. I think he's mostly feral and that at best he'd be friendly but untouchable like Ariel. I really don't want another Ariel to deal with. I put a small carrier inside his cage and he went right into it. I opened the carrier under the apple tree outside my office. He didn't bolt. He was cautious about coming out and then he slowly, cautiously walked across the yard, talked a couple of times, and went under the front porch. I imagine we'll see him around.

I can stop wasting money buying wasp pheromones to put in the traps. The wasps are insanely crazy about the dry cat food I put out for the ferals, so I'm going to save money and start using that.

I'm terribly worried about Tribble. He doesn't seem to be responding to the steroids and I've been unable to get him to eat canned food. He curled up in a listless ball and didn't show interest in anything. He's so frail and weak that he seems like a dying cat. I mentioned it to Lolette when I was there with Opal and she suggested baby food. I picked up a couple jars on the way home and tried it out on Tribble right away. He loved it! I gave him one spoonful and he ate it. I gave him a second spoonful and he ate it, then a third and part of a fourth. Afterwards he finally drank some water. I was so relieved to see him eat. I'll give him more tonight and hope he continues to show interest in it.

The girls are doing well and hardly seemed bothered by their operations. I'm bothered because Opal seems to have a small bubble of her insides poking between a couple of stitches, but it doesn't seem to bother Opal at all. I'm not sure whether to be concerned about this, or simply let it heal.

We tried to keep Opal and Pippin separate last night so that he wouldn't try to roughouse with her. We locked him in the upstairs room as usual, but he very nearly used a battering ram to bring the door down. He cried. She cried. We gave up.

Sapphire has been commandeering my lap just about every time I'm sitting at the computer. Zoe's been chasing the cursor all day. Jetta is perched on top of the monitor "dusting" it with her tail.

Not much luck with Junior today. When I went to put his bowl of dry food inside the cage, he whacked me hard. Food flew everywhere. He's lashed out at me a couple of times today. My instincts tell me he's too feral and I may as well let him go. I'll give it a little while longer. I think he's extra freaked out right now because I took away his hiding place.

Before the steroids, I had to take food over to Querida wherever she was in order to get her to eat. Now she's at my feet demanding food in the morning. I wish I'd see that change in Tribble, but so far he seems the same.

Yesterday morning, I loaded the car up with moggies. It was quite a ride listening to five-part harmony. Opal, Sapphire and Jetta went to Lolette's to be transported to her vet. Querida and Tribble when to Bakersfield with me to be checked out and some tests done. Querida continues to have a lot of blood in her urine, so much that she's slightly anemic. And poor Tribble is down to a mere 7 lbs. He's lost another 8 ounces in just a couple of months. There is always the possibility he has some kind of cancer that we haven't detected, but I'm reluctant to submit him to the difficulty of a biopsy at his age and in his condition.

The problem is that neither one of them has an easy or obvious illness. Their kidney functions, etc. come out okay. We're down to few options, so they are both going on steroids for a while to see if we can get the probable inflammatory conditions under control. Querida also has to take anti-biotics, though, because of her frequent upper respiratory problems. All I can do now is wait and see whether they improve.

Earlier today, I moved Junior's carrier (with him in it) to a different side of the cage and put in a cat bed that I'd picked up for him. Sure enough, a few minutes later he was out investigating the bed. I quickly removed the carrier and now he has to deal with not having a hidey-hole. He bitched about it quite a lot! He has the oddest voice I've heard on a cat. But now he's settled down and is curled up in his new bed looking reasonably relaxed. My instincts tell me he's too feral to turn him into a member of the Horde, but I'll give it a while longer.

Pippin was confused and bereft without his sister. He spent a lot of time glued to Randy for attention. I think Zoe was likewise confused about her sudden lack of playmates.

I met up with Lolette around 6:30 this evening and brought the three girls home. This time I had three-part serenades. Opal went to sleep on Randy and he refused to move for the longest time rather than disturb her. I locked Saffy and Jetta in the Cave while I had dinner, but I should have known better. When I came into the office, there they were, waiting for me at the door as per usual. Saffy's happily asleep in my lap at the moment. I guess I'll abandon the notion of keeping them inside the Cave tonight and leave them to their own devices.

Junior is getting a tiny bit braver. He's spending some time sitting on top of the carrier instead of hiding, and is daring to eat when I'm in the room. Last night, he even played for a couple of minutes with one of the toys I gave him. To my relief, he's been excellent about using the catbox, too. No accidents.

Lolette and I were speculating how old Junior might be. Anywhere from 8 to 10 months, we figure.

My vet wants a whopping $92 each to spay the female kittens. No way I can afford that, so I'm going to use Lolette's vet. She transports them down and brings them back from L.A., but the four females are still going to cost a couple hundred bucks. Yoicks.

And I'm taking Querida and Tribble to the vet tomorrow. Querida needs a follow-up. We have yet to resolve that ulcer on her mouth. I'm not sure what can be done for Tribble, but I don't like the shape he's in.

Awww, Zoe just brought me her catnip mouse. She looks so cute walking around with a big furry mouse in her mouth. I'm undecided whether to have her fixed tomorrow with the other girls. She's a month younger than them, but still technically old enough. I'm vascillating about it.

One of the errands on the short trip we took was visiting with Randy's sister, Nina, who adopted my Polydactly Princess of Thumbs, Artemis. She's done a wonderful job getting Artemis' weight from a whopping, grossly fat 20 lbs. down to a more reasonable 12.8 lbs. Once again, Artemis seemed to have no memory of who I was. She hid from me and even when Nina brought her out so I could pet her, Artemis acted like I was a stranger. Ah well. Nina and Artemis adore one another and that's all that counts.

Back from the short trip to a bunch of moggies happy to see me.

Junior remained in hiding after I got home. Tonight, I heard a couple of very strange cat meows and was wondering what was wrong with one of the cats. Then I realized the sounds were coming from Junior. He's come out and is sitting on top of the carrier to look around a bit. He'll probably vanish inside if I get up from the desk and come his way, but it's good to see him out of hiding. He has an odd voice, though. Rather hoarse and rachety.

Lolette and I finally managed to coincide our schedules and we had a Shoot'em Up Sunday. All the kittens and nearly all the adult cats received their 4-in-1 shots. The only ones we didn't get, because we ran short on vaccine, were Ariel (who is uncatchable anyway), Knobby and Kate. Lolette hadn't gotten a good look at Theseus before. I hauled him over for his shot. I had told he's built like a tank, absolutely solid, wide and dense, but she was amazed by his bulk all the same. He's a rock-solid Sumo wrestler.

Both Zoe and Saffy are squeezed into my lap. Makes typing a challenge.

Pippin is starting to show a bit too much interest in Opal, Randy says. It's time to get the spaying done!

We caught Bowie Junior yesterday. I took him to Lolette who had him spayed and given shots. When I went to pick him up this morning, she said, "I don't think he's feral." She told me something I had never heard before, that feral cats won't talk to you. Junior was talking up a storm. His voice sounds like a rough rachet at the moment.

When I brought him home, I conveyed that to Randy and we talked about it. We definitely don't want another Ariel situation with a cat we can't touch, but if Lolette is right and he isn't really feral, we might take him in. Consequently, he is now set up in my office inside the big cage, and currently hiding in a small carrier that we put in there for him. He didn't panic or react like a truly wild cat when we transferred him into the cage, either, although Sapphire was a brat and whacked at him through the bars.

It's particularly bad timing, since we have to make a quick trip and are leaving tomorrow, but that will also give him a couple of days to simply settle in. The big test will be whether he'll get over his fear and let us touch him. If so, we'll consider letting him join the Horde. If not...he gets to return to his previous life, albeit with less accessories than he had before. ;)

For the moment, we're calling him BJ (short for Bowie Junior, which was never really supposed to be a serious name).

I noticed something odd dangling from Pippin's mouth this morning. When I investigated, I camea way with a baby tooth in my fingers. Randy was rather perturbed at first. This is his first experience with kittens and I had to explain that they have milk teeth, or baby teeth, which they lose the same way we do.

Tribble worries me. I go out of my way to give him a special portion of the best canned food in the morning and at night, and I often see him eating dry food, but he is downright skeletal under all the fur and seems fragile to me. It's almost as though he's wasting away, and yet we can't seem to find a cause. It looks like another trip to the vet is in order.

Is it in the genes? The two tortie sisters, Opal and Sapphire, have been separated for a couple of months. Opal lives in the house, Sapphire in the office. They have both trained their humans to play fetch.

Opal is more sedate about it. She has her favorite catnip mouse which she brings to Randy or me so we can throw it, but she does this in a genteel manner.

Sapphire waits until I'm sitting on my footstool cleaning the catboxes, then she finds a toy and races over with it. Naturally, I have to throw it so that I can continue with the cleaning. The trouble is, she's so damned fast! No matter how far I throw the toy, she races for it and races back so quickly, I don't have time to finish the next scoop. And I can't ignore her, because she ploughs broadside at full speed into the plastic bag I'm using. She also thinks that the instant I touch the mouse, my fleshly parts are fair game. This is why I have numerous puncture wounds on my left leg and my left hand looks like I've been in a war.

Of the feral cats, it looks like Bowie's eye is slowly getting better, though I can now definitely see a red injury spot in his blue (left) eye. He's too quick and determined not to be caught, so it doesn't look like we'll get the chance to help his healing process.

The young orange and white tabby, Junior, has reappeared after we hadn't seen him for weeks. He's the next one we need to trap.

I'm also researching and thinking about what sort of cheap and easy habitats I could put under the front porch to help this particular group of ferals get through the winter. I've done the trap&neuter thing, and I feed them every day, so I feel some responsibility for getting them through the winter.

For those who might be able to help, here is a site that is coordinating rescuing and adoption of pets from the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

http://disaster.petfinder.com/emergency/

In case I didn't have enough to worry about, I found a scorpion in the cat litter today. I was going mindlessly through the twice-daily routine and as I was scooping there it was, a small brown scorpion in the bottom of the box.

We had many of these when we lived up by Yosemite. It's the first one I've seen down here. I shouldn't be surprised to learn we have them down here, but so far I've mainly seen Black Widows. It might easily have come with us on the move in the dozens of boxes of paper, books, magazines, etc. At any rate, now I have that to worry about.

Opal is such a sweet girl, but in the past couple of days, she's been especially endearing. I think she reads my mind. The other night she was in Randy's lap. I looked at her and thought sadly about no longer having Nefreet to come and curl up in my lap in the evening. Opal immediately got up and came into my lap. Then last night, she came and curled up in my lap in exactly the way Nefreet used to do.

Pippin, meanwhile, has developed a suckling obsession. He constantly wants to suckle on Randy's track pants and leaves behind large drool spots when he does. We're trying to break him of the habit before he gets much older.

I haven't been able to post for several days due to a number of personal crises that fell upon me all at once. Nefreet's death was one of them, of course. I also had my new computer system crash when the hard drive failed and more other crap than I care to mention going wrong with it. I'm still in the process of getting it fully set up and functional.

Over the Labor Day weekend, there was a fire three miles down the road from us. It burned a line of power poles and knocked out the power to our entire area for nearly two days. So I haven't been having a lot of fun, all in all.

So many small things conspire to remind me of Nefreet. Her special food bowl. No longer being greeted by her when I come into the house. Nefreet would follow us upstairs when we put the kittens to bed for the night in the spare room. She would stick her paw under the door, and both we and the kittens would play with her under the door. Opal still goes to the door to look for Nefreet's paw at night. There's her green blanket...she loved being the Lump under the green blanket. The two kittens have become the Bed Moles who burrow under the green blanket. I wonder if they learned it from her?

The three kittens in my office have been absolutely wild lately. They've found their way onto the highest places where they get crazy playing and make heart stopping falls to whatever is below them. None of them has been hurt yet, but I end up jumping out of my chair a lot to make sure.

Saffy has been the Whirling Dervish chasing her tail in the canvas chair.

As I've written previously, I keep hauling the kittens out of the stash of plastic bags I have in a milk crate because I was worried about something happening. Well, it happened. One night just as I was about to leave, a kitten went ZOOOOMING past me with a plastic bag on her tail. I think it was around her neck, but it was billowing and rustling and making demonic demands at her butt as she flew around the room. She was going so fast, I couldn't even determine which one it was, except that I then saw Jetta and Sapphire in her wake going at Warp 10.

I futilely tried to catch up, but Zoe zoomed behind my three filing cabinets and a plan file, where there's a narrow space between those and the wall. Somewhere back there, she finally shook off the Plastic Bag Monster. It took me a while to coax her back out of hiding and she looked quite freaked out.

Saffy learned nothing from this incident and I had to haul her out of the plastic bags yesterday.

The feral cats have returned, their desire for food obviously greater than their fear of us, even after being fixed. I came out the other night and there was Bowie, Smokey Siamese, tortie-girl and tabby-boy. In fact, tortie-girl has managed to get herself caught in the trap twice since we had her fixed!

It may be a coincidence, but Bowie has shown up again after we trapped and relocated the raccoon. His eye is still in bad shape, but he is adamant about avoiding that trap. I truly despair of being able to catch him again.

Some pictures, including one of Zoe that is cute beyond words: Zoe, Ariel, Theseus, Tribble.

Nefreet didn't make it. The vet called this morning to give me the bad news. What it comes down to, tragically, is that we didn't find her in time. The combination of serious injury with the time she was outside exposed to the elments and infecting sources were too much.

During the night, she went downhill fast and became septic (meaning her entire body became infected with toxic microorganisms). Her temperature plummeted. In spite of their best efforts with anti-biotics and keeping her warm, she simply didn't make it.

I am heartbroken. It's hard to write because I'm crying so much. I can only take some small comfort from knowing that I was able to give her some love and she knew I was there when I saw her last, and that she at least was not in pain. But it's not a way I would ever want a beloved friend to die.

I had a special bond with her from the very beginning. It was like this -- you look across a room, you lock eyes with someone you've never seen before, and there is an instantaneous and powerful connection between you.

I saw Nefreet from across my yard one night. We locked eyes, I knelt down, and held out my arms to her. She raced across the yard and literally threw herself into my arms. From that day on, she was my dear girl. She may have become a fractious, cranky psycho-kitty later on, but we always had that bond.

Every night she would climb into my lap. I had to be sitting just so, and she would have to get in my lap, then out, then in, circle around and settle in just so. That was the routine.

She would crack us up with her rocket-butt routine. After she did something nasty in the catbox, she would run at full speed out of the bathroom, through the kitchen and zoom up the stairs like a rocket.

She was with me for 12 years. She was at least 13, possibly older. That's a decent life and it was a good one filled with plenty of love. Maybe not as perfect a life as she demanded, since I didn't get rid of all the other cats, but it was a good one.

She was beautiful, temperamental, intelligent and unique. I will miss her terribly.

Goodbye, Nefreet, my Egyptian princess. May you romp in sunny fields of catnip with all the food you can eat, with slow lizards and fat mice and low-flying birds...and no other cats. It's your heaven and you get to enjoy it by yourself.

I thank everyone for the donations and will set up a proper thank you page today, if I can bear it. There remains a huge vet bill to handle. Donations in memorium of Nefreet will be greatly appreciated.

Before the vet called, I had gone outside to check on the trap I had left set up in the bushes. We've seen no sign at all of Bowie, but we caught an Uninvited Guest -- a big and very pissed off raccoon.

After I dealt with the bad news about Nefreet, we took the raccoon for a drive into the national forest lands and let him go near some water. Sorry, buddy, it's back to the wilderness. No more free cat food for you.

A quick update on Nefreet, since I have to leave for a meeting in L.A very shortly.

We got to bed around 2 am and the emergency vet called just before 8 am to give me her report. She said it could have been worse. The damage just barely missed her urethra and anus and the bite on her side, while large and nasty, didn't go deep, so she doesn't think there's internal organ damage. However, one thigh muscle was completely torn. She pieced it back together, but there's no guarantee that will work. At this stage, it still looks about 50-50 whether the leg can recover or will have to be amputated. Even if we can save the leg, it will certainly never function like a normal leg again.

I drove to B'fld around 10 to do the transfer. I took Nefreet's medical report and x-rays with me to give to my vet. I almost lost it when I saw my poor girl. We put her in the bottom half of the carrier, minus the lid, to transport her. The entire back end of her body is shaved. Numerous stitches from smaller bites, plus bites and scrapes that couldn't be stitched. The major damage and stitching extends from the base of her tail all the way down the back of her left rear leg.

She's in a lot of pain, so she was fairly well tranked up and quiet. I got her over to my regular vet hospital where my favorite vet there had a look at her. Those who are squeamish should skip the next paragraph.

I heard from the initial triage tech at the emergency clinic that Nefreet had some maggots on her when we brought her in Monday night. She was probably lying under that porch for the entire night and a hot day before we found her. While I was waiting for my vet this morning, I saw a maggot squirm out of the sutures. I was seriously grossed out by this and instantly called for the vet. By the time he made it into the room, the maggot had vanished somewhere. He wasn't particularly worried. He said they looked more gross than they were. I'll have to take his word for it. I bothers the hell out of me, though.

He was concerned about something he saw on the x-rays which might indicate some injury to the pelvis, though nothing major and nothing definite. He's equally concerned about how the leg will heal, but mostly he's concerned that she'll be able to pee and poop normally. He'll be watching her closely for a couple of days to see how that goes before we can think about bringing her home.

I want to thank everyone very, very much who have been donating. I don't have time to list names right now, but I will do so. I'm going to set up a Roll of Honor page for all my donors. I should have done that sooner, but it's never too late to let people know how much you appreciate them. Thank you all.

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