Saffy and Opal were chasing a fly around the house. Saffy chased it up the stairs, made an amazing Kung Fu move, snatched it right out of the air and ate it. I was impressed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KATIE-CAT! Her brother and she came to me when they were tiny two-week old orphans. My nursing queen wasn't happy about having more kittens to feed, so I had to hand-feed them in addiiton to their nursing.

And here she is, 18 years later. She's a loving girl, thinner, feeling frail, but hanging in there.

Peace has been restored. Zoe has calmed down again and there's no sign of fights. She's snoozing in my lap at the moment.

Pippin actually romped last night. He romped and chased a ball around. That's rare for him these days. I hope it's the result of losing a little bit of weight and that we can keep up the progress.

Speaking of Pippin, I missed some birthdays! They're approximate birthdays because the precise ones aren't known. Happy Moggy Birthday to Pippin, Opal, Sapphire and Jetta who are four years old this month!

Things were going so well until last night when Zoe once again began to attack Tosca and drive her into a hiding hole. I had to immediately give Zoe a full dose of the trank to get the situation calmed down. Tosca left a large puddle of pee I had to clean up afterwards, fortunately left on the concrete floor rather than the carpet. I'm deeply disappointed that I haven't been able to modify Zoe's aggression toward Tosca after all this time. I'm going to try giving Zoe half a pill in the morning and a full pill at night in the hope of finding a better balance in the dosage. The sad reality is that I can't keep Zoe on these meds indefinitely. Currently, Tosca's health seems excellent and she could easily live another three or four years or more. I don't think having Zoe on tranks for that amount of time is feasible, nor is it good for her quality of life.

I've also had to move the catbox that I'd put up by the front of my desk to make it more easily accessible to Tosca and Kate during the worst of the problems. The dust from the catbox was becoming dangerous to my computer and other equipment. I've moved it way to the back of my office to a different, but sheltered corner. That seems to be working all right so far, provided I can keep Zoe under control.

Apart from the incident with Saffy, I haven't had signs of problems with Zoe on the half-dose of tranks so far. Tosca seems happy and outgoing, which wouldn't be the case if they were fighting. I'm seeing a few signs of increased aggression in Zoe that I'm trying to nip as they appear. The one bad sign is that Kate is agitated and growly whenever Zoe gets close to her. All I can do is wait and see.

I made one of those terrible errors of judgement, but I have an excuse. It was early in the morning and my brain hadn't woken up yet. I had staggered out of bed and was in the bathroom washing my face when I heard a cat getting ready to hork up a hairball. I rushed out and saw Opal about to throw up on the bed. I grabbed her and made a frantic dash for the bathroom -- too late. Had I left her on the bed, she would have thrown up in a nice neat pile and I could have easily tossed the blanket in the washer. But nooooo...instead I had an arc of splotches across six feet of carpet that I had to painstakingly scrub with spot remover. That'll teach me.

I had to bring the recycling bins out of my office, through the house so they could be left at the curb for pick-up. Unfortunately, I didn't notice that Saffy had cunningly managed to sneak past me and get into the office. More unfortunately, I left immediately for my walk which takes half an hour.

On the very lucky side, Randy didn't go on the walk with me, so he was here when Zoe began to beat the crap out of Saffy. He raced into my office and had a terrible time getting them apart. Then Tosca had to help him find where Saffy was hiding.

By the time I got home, Randy was deeply upset. He said it took him fifteen minutes to get Saffy calmed down again. She appeared fine by the time I saw her. Neither Saffy nor Zoe seem to have any injuries, but I sure hope this discourages Saffy from doing that again. As for Zoe...I'm really thinking I should find her a home where she could be an only cat.

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