I'm worried about a new behavior from Mojo. He's been peeing in the cat beds. I caught him in the act yesterday, scooped him up and deposited him in the litterbox. I had to wash a couple of the beds. I'm hoping it was a temporary aberration. I figure he may be getting hassled in the litterbox or feels insecure. Jetta tends to give him a hard time. I warned her that wasn't a good idea since he'll keep getting bigger and bigger.

Theseus now has a claw gouge on his nose to go along with his scratch, poor guy.

Diva is doing better. She's being good about taking her pills and the hot spots are improving. She's getting over the terrible trauma of the vet visit. ;)

Tuesday I made the quick decision to take Diva to the vet. The night before, she had scratched the hot spot that was healing until it was red and raw again. When I came in the next morning, she'd added a new raw spot above her right eye. I know how bad this can get, so I immediately called the vet and they had an opening in the afternoon. Diva sang pathetic opera to me on the drive. She had a cortisone shot and is on antibiotics to prevent infection from setting into the spots she scratches.

I made another attempt to clean the line of dirt from Mojo's nose, this time using a Q-tip. I dipped it in a 50-50 solution of water and hydrogen peroxide, but you'd think I was attacking him with pure acid from the way he reacted. He was sooooo pissed off with me. I had no luck getting his nose clean and gave up because he was fighting me too much. When I let go of him, he reached out and whacked me a few times to make sure I knew exactly how pissed off he was. Whatever he has on his nose will have to wear off in its own good time. Maybe he's had it tattooed on.

Simon seems to have gotten over the vomiting phase. I haven't seen any signs of it for days. Kate seems to be doing better, too, after she finally horked up a big hairball.

I made the mistake of getting my face too close to Pippin's paws when he was in a wildly playful frame of mind. I have joined Theseus in the Scratched Nose Club. A nice long scratch across the left nostril.

The moggies did a superb job of getting in the way this afternoon as I had to rearrange parts of my office and move a large, heavy, very old computer monitor from my desk to a safe spot elsewhere. The monitor is about 20 years old and being reluctantly retired. It also weighs about 50 friggin' pounds and the last thing I need when I'm staggering through my office with a bulky, heavy, delicate object is to have Tosca casually sprawled in my path, blissfully ignoring her pending doom. Screaming "MOVE!" at the top of my lungs did have the desired result, however.

Blast that Puck, he's harassing Diva again. He's been harassing her all day. He's in One of Those Moods.

Randy came out for a visit with the office Horde. Being as he's so terribly allergic to cats, he can't stay for long. Puck adores Randy and wants to make love to his shoes. Zoe, Saffy, Tosca, Diva and Kate are quick to say hello and strop his legs. Simon and Jetta were more aloof, but allowed as Randy was acceptable in the petting department. Mojo was somewhat afraid, but once Randy played with him a bit and Mojo was able to savage Randy's hand, they could be declared friends. Ariel and Theseus were, typically, in hiding.

Puck slipped past me and out the door this morning. He bounded across they yard and up to Bob, who wasn't prepared for that. Luckily, I was on Puck's furry heels and managed to scoop him up before he could jump Bob.

Somebody stuck rockets up the cats' butts! Saffy, Zoe and Simon are zooming around the office at warp 10, Cap'n! Mojo is watching the insanity from his perch on the lid of my laptop.

Poor old Theseus has a long scratch all the way down the middle of his nose. I wonder who got him?

I've gotten out the Red Firebug (laser pointer) a few times and Mojo loves it as much as the other young moggies. It gets hard trying to give each cat a separate chance to chase it without colliding with one another and starting spats.

The trash bin was knocked over when I cam into the office this morning. I suspect the culprit this time was Mojo, rambunctious youngster that he is.

Kate isn't doing well. She's had diarrhea and she's been throwing up. Given her age (15 1/2), it could be any number of things. I should get her to the vet, but other bills have piled up so I'll have to see how it goes.

Simon is also continuing to throw up periodically, but he seems completely healthy in every other way. I'm reserving judgment on him unless I see more serious signs of something wrong.

Pippin has turned into a hefty boy. We should probably put him on a diet food, but Opal would be stuck eating it, too. And Opal has remained thin, almost too thin. It's a conundrum.

When Nefreet was alive, we had a special catbox for her called a Booda Dome. It's round, purple and has a domed cover. After she died, I cleaned it out thoroughly, put a round cat bed inside it and put it in my office. The cats enjoyed sleeping under the dome.

Then I decided to put it on the front porch and see whether any of the feral cats would use it. After a year of never seeing a cat go near it, I was thinking about bringing it back inside. Last night as I came onto the porch, a pale orange tabby erupted out of it in a panic. This is a new feral we've been seeing lately. We'll need to get him trapped and fixed. At any rate, I'll leave the Booda Dome out there now that I know at least one cat is using it.

It looks like we have another raccoon to trap, too. I've suspected it for about a week, but today I'm pretty sure. The food on the porch was entirely gone, even the tiniest bits of broken down cat food. The plastic container containing extra food had been pulled onto the deck in an attempt to get it open (they failed). And there was the kind of grit and food debris in the water bowl that is characteristic of what a raccoon leaves behind. Watch out, Rocky. We're out to get you!

I just found out that the crazy neighbors who were evicted across the street have now been evicted from the free place someone had given them to live in. Apparently, they're back at the local motel. I wonder what's happened to poor Tom, Gizmo, Salem and Duncan. I know ultimately it's not my problem, but I worry all the same.

I was standing at the kitchen sink when a cat's face tentatively popped up into the window in front of me. Ears came up, then the blue and gold eyes and I realized it was Bowie checking out the inside of the house. He didn't panic and run off when I spoke to him, either. That's the closest I've been to him, albeit separated by a pane of glass.

I gave the moggies some canned food. Mojo is a smart boy. He already knows what it means when I get out the bowls, even though I've only done this maybe twice since he's been here.

About ten minutes later, after that food had been polished off, I caught Mojo going nose-first into the trash bin after the empty cans. I chased him off, but another five minutes later and the bin was knocked over. Naughty kitten!

I can tell that Mojo is a boy because he has a perpetually dirty nose. I don't know what he gets on it (and I think I don't want to know), but it doesn't come off easily with a bit of water and he gets annoyed at having his nose rubbed too hard, understandably. So he has a dirty nose all the time. Not around his nostrils, but on the top of the tip of his cute pink nose.

I haven't caught Simon throwing up for several days now. I'm finding small amounts of vomit here and there, but there's no way to know who's leaving it. He always acts as though he's perfectly healthy. He sure has beautiful, soft fur. It's such a pleasure to pet him.

Diva's sore spot is healing up, but she's terribly skittish. She tends to run away and hide rather than eagerly showing up for treats as she used to. I hope she calms down and returns to normal soon.

Whatever had Mojo down for a day has passed. He's back to his bouncy, bitey self. He is loudly miserable when I locked him up in the Cave for the night, so last night I didn't. It was his first night out and he sure seemed happy about it this morning.

He also spends a lot of time sleeping in my lap during the afternoon. He's a lover-boy.

Naturally, Simon threw up again after I didn't take him to the vet. But he's acting as though he feels just fine. There was more vomit this morning, though I have no way of knowing who it came from.

I'm a little worried about Mojo, too. He's thrown up several times lately and today he seems rather quiet, not his usual exuberant self, plus he gets growly if I play too hard with him. I really hope he's not sick.

Puck had Ariel pinned by the back of the neck until I yelled at him. They were way up out of reach. Zoe has been hassling Diva, which has me quite upset with her. Zoe's been such a darling girl, I didn't expect that from her. Diva's raw spot still looks raw. I've been putting Dermacool on it, something I got for Owl to help him from pulling all the fur off his back. It didn't work for him. I don't know whether it's helping Diva any.

Opal and Pippin apparently decided to have a Litter War last night. When I went upstairs to let them out of their room, there was litter spread everywhere across the floor. Half the box was empty. That took a while to clean up.

Opal has figured out how to open the sliding mirror doors on the closet. If she paws at them just right, they'll slide open enough for her to squeeze inside. Then she climbs up Randy's clothes, much to his dismay. I had to pluck her from the top of the hangars.

We have a new neighbor moving in across from us, in the house vacated by the crazy neighbor with all the cats. She had a huge, spotted Bengal-type cat, but very brown in color, named Harley. Harley, besides being really, really big, is quite a character. He decided to adopt a woman a little further down the street, so when my neighbor moved, Harley stayed. I rarely see him, but yesterday I was out watering the yard as the new man was moving in and I saw him shoosh Harley out of the old house. I called over, told him Harley's name and explained that Harley used to live there. The man said Harley was inside spraying all over! He seemed more bemused than angry, luckily. I guess Harley figures it's still his house.

Mojo remains on the Cute Warpath. He crawls into my lap and purrs. He bites my fingers when I'm trying to type. He attacked my headset and phone, figuring it had to be a toy what with that wire and all.

You know how it is when your car is making a noise so you take it to the garage and the minute you get to the garage, the noise stops? Cats are like that, too. As soon as I made the vet appointment for Simon, he stopped throwing up and started bouncing around full of energy. So he didn't go to the vet yesterday after all.

However, the unfortunate Theseus went. He was most unhappy and told me about it the whole way there. Pathetic meows, they were. He weighed in at 22.3 lbs! Many were the comments by clients and staff alike. I wasn't able to see my favorite vet because he was tied up in surgery. Another vet looked at his mouth. Five years ago this month, Theseus had a growth removed from the left corner of his mouth. I was told it was a benign cyst. Two years later, a new growth appeared there and he's had it ever since. With all the other vet bills, I couldn't afford to deal with it.

This vet doesn't think it's a cyst, nor a tumor. She suspects something called Eosinophilic Syndrome (also known as a "rodent ulcer"). I need to do some research on it, but she's treating it with antibiotics. The only way to know for sure what it is would be to do a biopsy, but that requires an overnight stay and scheduling, so I couldn't do it then. Also, it's unlikely they could remove it with surgery. It's too large and impacts too much of his mouth. That amount of surgery would mess his mouth up pretty badly. The biopsy would help a lot in terms of knowing exactly how to treat it.

If it's some kind of infection, we might be able to clear it up. I hope. Meanwhile, the powerful antibiotics have instantly given Theseus diarrhea. Poor boy.

The little orange guy told me his name. He sat at my feet, looked up at me and clear as anything said, "I got my MOJO working!"

"Mojo?" I said.

He gave me a bright-eyed look to confirm it. Mojo it is. Mojo is now on the main Moggy Horde page and there are some new pictures on the spanking new Mojo page.

He's settled in with a minimum of fuss. Saffy let him chase her around the desk again yesterday. I say she let him because she had no pouffy tail at all and stopped when she'd had enough with no sign of being aggravated. I introduced him today to the ball-in-a-maze. He loved it. That kept him totally occupied for a full ten minutes.

Mojo doesn't lack in confidence. He bounds around the place, chews on my fingers, plays with my hair, licks my ear and purrs instantly when I hold him and pet him. He is truly a spellcaster or a lucky charm. He hates it when I lock him up at night for his own protection. He wails and wails about it.

I'm debating what to do about Simon. He seems all right in every other respect except throwing up every day. I've given him a couple doses of hairball remedy, but I can't tell whether that's made a difference. He might be less energetic than usual, but that wouldn't be unusual if he isn't eating well. He's getting high quality food, which doesn't rule out a food allergy, but makes it less likely. Oh, I give up. I just called the vet's office and I'm taking him in tomorrow. I can't really afford it, but I'd rather rule out that anything more serious is going on.

Diva has a raw sore spot on the back of her neck. I'm worried it's her skin allergy kicking up again. Many years back this got so bad that she scratched huge raw wounds all over the back of her neck and shoulders. The vet tried everything to get it to calm down. I finally had to tie a t-shirt around her to prevent her from continuing to lick it raw. There are still spots on her neck where the fur didn't quite grow back in. I've cleaned it up and put Neosporin on it. Now I'll have to watch it closely to make sure she isn't aggravating it.

Look what the destructo-moggies have done to the cat furniture! That's Zoe lurking.

I got a call from Rhonda, who has the mama cat of orange guy. She was delighted to have me adopt him. She even knew the day he was born: April 24. It turns out that the lovely, long-haired pale calico I mentioned, who has come around here several times, is the mother cat, Sabrina. She's so shy, I assumed she was feral, but she's not.

It's been a busy day for the little orange guy. He desperately wanted out of the cage. I WANT TO GO OUT AND PLAY, he said. I made a quick trip to Lolette's to buy cat food and get his first shot for him. He was excellent about the shot. Then I let him explore the office. Things went quite peaceably. It took him about ten minutes of exploring to bound up onto my desk and make himself at home, biting my fingers and sitting on the mouse.

I still don't quite trust Puck or Simon yet, so I lock orange guy in the Cave when I have to leave for lunch or dinner. He gets very unhappy about that and I'm sure he'll be unhappy about being locked up tonight. Simon is taking an Attitude and Puck is jealous, so I'd rather be cautious.

Orange guy himself is fearless and resilient. Nothing much bothers or intimidates him. He had a brief run-in with Ariel which left them both pouffy-tailed. This evening he even chased Saffy around the office full-tilt! It was hysterical. His tail was all pouffed out and he was so full of himself. Then he gave Jetta a chase. It didn't end in fights or trouble either. In fact, Jetta's following him around now.

He hasn't told me his name yet, but it must be the name of a fearless, red-haired adventurer.

Randy immediately fell in love with the cute little guy, but he thinks I'm crazy to adopt another cat. He's right. Give our precarious finances and the fact that we rent, it's totally nuts of me. And although Randy thinks I'm nuts, he was the one who insisted we stop at the feed store today and buy special kitten food.

After losing our dearly beloved Unicom and Tribble, I've missed having an orange tabby in the Horde. This is not a good reason, I know, but it's the only one I have. He has the cutest marmalade swirls on his sides, as you can see in the photo below.

Randy also insisted I talk to the people who have the mama cat in case they changed their minds about keeping the kittens. It's only a two minute walk, so I went up there this morning. The woman's daughters answered and I asked whether their mother still wanted to find a home for the orange kitten. I got an enthusiastic round of "Yes!" from them. They wrote down my name and number so their mother can call me later. I highly doubt she's done anything like getting shots for the kittens, but I want to find out first.

I gave the orange boy a fishie toy to play with last night and he went bonkers over it. Tossed it all over the place. He isn't so sure about the ping pong ball and has mostly ignored it.

I put the orange boy in my lap this afternoon. He was utterly relaxed and happy. He purred. After a while, he gently ravaged my finger with his baby teeth. What a sweetheart. I hope Simon and he will get along because I think orange boy will make a great playmate for Simon. Speaking of Simon, he's been throwing up every single day for nearly a week. If he doesn't get better over the weekend, he'll be visiting the vet soon.

Because I know you're all dying to see what orange boy looks like, here you go.

marmalade & vanilla boy

The ever adorable Zoe, just 'cause I felt like it.

Randy's been telling me the most adorable stories about Opal. His office being in the house, he's available to Opal and Pippin during the day when I'm out in my office with the rest of the Horde. Part of Opal's regular routine is to get on Randy's lap, knead his stomach, then settle into his left arm for a nap with her head tucked into his armpit. If he's busy or doesn't notice that she's there, she meeps at him and she leaves a mousie at his feet as an offering to show just how sincere she is.

Zoe was a fetching fool yesterday. We had extended sessions of fetch-the-fishie as she bounced onto my desk, dropped it next to my keyboard, then went bounding off to chase it. I have to be careful when I throw it because if she's standing on papers when she launches, the papers go in all directions.

On a less than thrilling note, I received a letter from Animal Control today to tell me, in essence, that they couldn't locate Tondo and have consequently done nothing. This could possibly mean that the dog is gone and that Doug had him put down as he said. At this stage, the only way to know for sure is to get in touch with Doug and I really, really don't feel like doing that because a) if he has done it, he's going to be terribly broken up about it, or b) if he hasn't done it...I'm not sure how to deal with it. I'm healing up fine, but that's only part of the overall issue. I wish it had never happened.

LATER: Uh-oh. I've been a baaaad girl. I've committed kitten. Or maybe. We'll see how Randy reacts when he gets home. Back on July 5th, I mentioned in the Moggyblog that a mama cat had two kittens and was living in the well-fenced yard of a house that no one lives in. They were about ten weeks old then, so they're a bit over four months old now. The woman how owned the mama cat kept saying she was going to find homes for them, or maybe keep the tabby kitten.

As I started my evening walk, I saw the two kittens for the first time in a few weeks, so she obviously didn't get around to finding homes for them. My worry is that they might be growing up feral and not being socialized. The kittens come and go from the yard to the road through a couple of large drainage pipes and they were sitting just outside those pipes as I walked up. By being careful and encouraging, I was able to get close before they scampered inside. I sat down just outside the pipe and waited. The kitten that is white with large marmalade swirls crept up the pipe, dashed out past me, then sat barely out of reach. He didn't look worried. I held out my hand and he sniffed at my finger, then began batting at it. I started playing with him. Pretty soon, he "chased" my fingers closer and I was able to pet him. He's not at all feral, that's for sure. Quite well socialized.

As you may have guessed by now, he came quite close and I was able to pick him up, put him in my lap and pet him some more. He was entirely mellow about this and seemed perfectly content with it. So I stood up and carried him home. He was relaxed, didn't squirm at all, didn't freak out, didn't meow. I brought him into my office and set him up with catbox, food and water inside the Cave. The other cats have been checking him out but there hasn't been a single hiss, growl or meow. I took him out a little while ago and he was again mellow and sweet as anything.

Oops...I think I hear Randy's car. Here comes the fun part.

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